It's been a strange ride over at Alganon of late. The game's announcement of a shift to a subscription-free model came out on the heels of David Allen's statements that the game would never go even remotely free-to-play. It seems that it didn't exactly happen on his watch, as Quest Online has just announced Mr. Allen's departure from the company. There's no reason given, although speculation can (and no doubt will) run rampant. Replacing David Allen is Derek Smart, creator of the Battlecruiser 3000AD game series, and something of a contentious figure in the gaming world.
The company continues to push forward that the game's "official" launch is in mid-April, after having retroactively turned the opening in December of last year into a "soft launch." What this means for the game as a whole is still uncertain, although the number of shakeups of late certainly don't suggest that it's been a resounding success thus far. Alganon players should keep their eyes peeled for any news about the game, as a new president usually means that there will be some significant changes in store.
Reader Comments (32)
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 12:34AM (Unverified) said
Perhaps Derek Smark, PhD, will make one of the raid bosses a very angry Coke machine...
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 1:05AM Stormwaltz said
Words can't express the entertainment value of this.
It takes skill and determination to find someone more arrogant and temperamental than David Allen. Bravo, Quest Online. Bravo!
It takes skill and determination to find someone more arrogant and temperamental than David Allen. Bravo, Quest Online. Bravo!
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 2:03AM Jeremy G said
I'm surprised at all of the nay-sayers here. Alganon isn't a bad game. It's just not a game that a majority of people felt they would pay another subscription fee for. I think it will do rather well as a F2P game, and that it is nowhere near as dead as everyone here seems to be making it out to be. I hold out hope that Quest can really do something great with Alganon, and not feed it to the sharks yet. It's always a sad day when an MMO closes down. Just because it may not be your (proverbial your) game, doesn't mean that there aren't a good majority of other people out there really enjoying it. =)
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 2:54AM SkuzBukit said
Will Dave Allen now become an industry pariah, a "reverse Midas" unable to ever secure funding for another project because of his amazing toxic touch?
Find out in next years's episode...
The drama surrounding Alganon is more exciting & entertaining than the game itself willl ever likely be.
Find out in next years's episode...
The drama surrounding Alganon is more exciting & entertaining than the game itself willl ever likely be.
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 8:37AM (Unverified) said
Nope, despite the current economic decline of western civilization, the war on civil liberties, even peak oil and climate change, nothing will stop people throwing money at wow clones of an ever decreasing quality. YAY
Only now you have to mess around with the payment model in order to make your game look really succesful but its a small price to pay I guess
Reply
Only now you have to mess around with the payment model in order to make your game look really succesful but its a small price to pay I guess
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 8:18AM Dread said
Ahhh LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO *deep breath* LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO!!!
Stick a fork in this bitch (Alganon) its done.
This is what happens when you fraudulently ripoff other games....and don't even make an effort to hide it.
Stick a fork in this bitch (Alganon) its done.
This is what happens when you fraudulently ripoff other games....and don't even make an effort to hide it.
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 8:44AM Budukahn said
Derek Smart?
Oh dear. His incomprehensible joke of a game Universal Combat still retains the dubious honour of being the only game I ever returned to a store under the declared reason "Game is utterly rubbish". Fortunate indeed that you could do that at the time at my local software emporium.
Well, I guess it's been over half a decade. Maybe things have improved?
Oh dear. His incomprehensible joke of a game Universal Combat still retains the dubious honour of being the only game I ever returned to a store under the declared reason "Game is utterly rubbish". Fortunate indeed that you could do that at the time at my local software emporium.
Well, I guess it's been over half a decade. Maybe things have improved?
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 10:12AM ir0nw0lf said
Wow, just wow. Derek Smart. Have not heard that name for some time. He's like a STD that flares up, disappears and then reappears after some time LOL. His touch of death is probably no weaker than it was back then. Good luck to them!
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 11:34AM Rihahn said
Interesting.
At first, Mr. Allen pushed the MMO boundary too far - Horizons was simply 'too much' for the technology of the time (it's actually gotten much better in recent years now that the average person has an internet connection that can handle the streaming architecture) and he got burned by it.
Enter Alganon; where no boundaries were pushed at all in, what I figure, were the hopes that another Horizons could be avoided... Unfortunately, photocopying another game with a 10-million plus user base leads to some serious inter-hate.
Everyone deserves three strikes, I hope Mr. Allen's next venture is somewhere between the two extremes.
At first, Mr. Allen pushed the MMO boundary too far - Horizons was simply 'too much' for the technology of the time (it's actually gotten much better in recent years now that the average person has an internet connection that can handle the streaming architecture) and he got burned by it.
Enter Alganon; where no boundaries were pushed at all in, what I figure, were the hopes that another Horizons could be avoided... Unfortunately, photocopying another game with a 10-million plus user base leads to some serious inter-hate.
Everyone deserves three strikes, I hope Mr. Allen's next venture is somewhere between the two extremes.
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 2:34PM Angelworks said
Derek Smart is most renown for his tool "Derek Smart's Desktop Commander" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIn1_9YvGds
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 5:42PM (Unverified) said
ethereal.wolf has nailed it: there's a place for indie MMOs to succeed (remembering that "success" for a small team small budget game does not require anywhere near the subscriber base that a megabudget AAA title does).
But like indie music, indie films, indie comics, etc., the road to success is doing something DIFFERENT, something unusual, taking chances on new ideas and trying to appeal to an unsatisfied niche, while the big budget mainstream stuff plays it safe and aims at the masses.
Making something as derivative as Alganon and expecting even modest success is just madness.
But like indie music, indie films, indie comics, etc., the road to success is doing something DIFFERENT, something unusual, taking chances on new ideas and trying to appeal to an unsatisfied niche, while the big budget mainstream stuff plays it safe and aims at the masses.
Making something as derivative as Alganon and expecting even modest success is just madness.
Posted: Mar 24th 2010 11:09PM (Unverified) said
Unfortunately for the investors in this farce, Derek Smart has pulled a fast one. He touts '14 games released' - when 1/2 of them were rehashes of battlecruiser (bc3k, bc3k gold, bc3k 2.0 etc etc etc) and the rest were utter rubbish that, after failing to find any reasonable audience for, he classifies as 'niche' titles to cover up the fact that he cant program a UI to save his skin.
His legendary lies are legion - as are his detractors. PHD frauds, promises broken, lies told, wiki wars, sockpuppets, anon posting - its all there for the finding.
Go to UrbanDictionary.Com, and look under the name 'Derek Smart' - says it all.
His legendary lies are legion - as are his detractors. PHD frauds, promises broken, lies told, wiki wars, sockpuppets, anon posting - its all there for the finding.
Go to UrbanDictionary.Com, and look under the name 'Derek Smart' - says it all.








