Derek Smart

@ Old Tom

Well, if you are actually looking at both the old and new, then saying that they're not "improved", then you must be looking at it from a pair of foggy and biased pairt of lenses. Regardless, that is your opinion and that's fine.

While they may not be spectacular, they're just fine and certainly better than the original ones created for the game so many years ago. But as they say, to each his own.

These models are 100% all new; not any revisions to pre-existing models.

Art direction is very important in games such as this in that you can't go overboard once you already have pre-existing look 'n feel. For that reason, the new models have to "fit" within the look and feel of the game.

@justpotatoes

This sort of fabrication is the root cause of things that get propagated for no apparent reason.

Fact. Nobody gets flamed. Ever. Go ahead, our forums are free and open, so please post a single thread that shows someone getting flamed. Sure, one man's "firm" post is another man's flame; but I'm not responsible for someone's feelings or lack of reading comprehension skills.

There is a reason that most game forums are lawless, get their threads, posts etc deleted, banned etc. It is NO different from ours - other than we have an absolute ZERO TOLERANCE policy for that sort of thing. Anyone wanting to vent their angst or demonstrate their [false] right to Free Speech is welcome to do it somewhere else. That's why there are rules.

Being civil goes a long way. One can still be upset about something and be able to articulate it in words without being rude and condescending towards others.

The anonymity and inconsequential nature of the net makes it easy for people to do that sort of thing and get away with it. But when an industry figure goes off the reservation, everyone gets to cry foul because then we're in the realms of accountability - and just because everyone knows who we are.

Screw that.

The Alganon forums are civil and we value quality over quantity. So just because someone (like you) posts something (false) like this on a forum, doesn't make it so.

I've been doing this a VERY LONG time and we can spot troublemakers a mile away. We have no desire to tolerate rude behavior by catering to one person while losing ten others. Alganon is a niche game and as most know - and have openly said - has one of the friendliest forums and game community on the Net. We like it that way and it is never - EVER - going to change.

@Elmarolly

Since you're such an angry person, arguing with you is pointless, which is why we're not even going to bother.

But I saw your last post, checked the servers and saw 30 people online. Earlier today, it was more than 50 but at the time, I hadn't seen your silly post above.

http://www.dereksmart.org/bin/alganon_players_10-12-18_7-30pmEST.jpg

Believe what you want, but for someone who doesn't like the game, the community, me etc - you sure spend a lot of time TALKING about it.

Fact is, the numbers I posted are accurate. i have no reason to make stuff up; it is after all a F2P game. So what would be the point of that? Especially given the fact that I run the company and it is 100% investor funded, not a public compay. Fact is, we are fast approaching 100K ACTIVE users (NOT to be confused with user accounts - which could be dupes, not active, in use etc) - as I explained in my dev blog.

Nobody actually cares whether you believe it or not because that would mean we care about what you think and/or believe. We don't.

@ Elmarolly

Between the Alganon forums, here, MMORPG (http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3962210) and pretty much everywhere else, you're painting the perfect picture of why you and your ilk are everything that is wrong with gaming today.

But to each his own; so do carry on.

@ Zuljundwumn

It is about taking responsibility whether things are good, bad or ugly. I never have, don't and never will pass the buck.

Specifically those parts in my blog and interviews were designed to send a clear message about who did what, where and how at QOL and with Alganon. I have a reason for that and if its not obvious, then perhaps I did a terrible job of articulating it. Either that or the reader can't comprehend what exactly it is I am getting at.

As an example, some who are no longer with the company were trying to take credit wherever and whenever for a bunch of things that they neither had a hand in nor was ever involved in. For the most part, that's padding your resume.

To this day, that trend continues. All this despite the fact that the investors who own the company, the team that built the game - and myself who first saw it all from the outside looking in - know otherwise. I think if you read my QOL blog, it will be obvious why I took this stance.

Just before this article went online, I wrote an extensive first dev blog which goes into a lot more detail about where we are with Alganon today. You can check it out here:

http://www.qol.com/blog/?p=233

@Elmarolly

Every forum for every game or media outlet has its share of problems. Those problems are compounded by the fact that there are a lot of anti-social misfits running around loose taking out their angst and disrupting said forums. This is no different from hackers doing what they do just for the heck of it, people who write and spread viruses for kicks, those who engage in direct defamatory and cyberbullying actions for giggles etc.

In short, we can't please everyone.

But what we can do is whatever moderation we deem necessary in order to preserve the integrity of the forums as well as the quality of the conversations that take place there. That is our small corner of the lawless frontier which we have absolute control over.

For every person that complaints about stringent rules, there are maybe two or three who feel that they are being stiffled, wronged etc. Quite frankly, I simply don't care. All over the net, it is widely known that our forums over at 3000AD are one of the most tame and secure gaming forums around. The reason is simple: we don't tolerate crap and the type of gamers that we want to attract and keep, appreciate that stance. So they stick around. It has been that way since day one. So while you and your ilk are crying foul, life goes on, the games get played, discusssed etc.

If anyone wants to take out their angst or excercise their rights to rant, rave and otherwise carry out disruptive behavior, they can take their pennies and go do it somewhere else. We don't care.

Rules and guidelines are constructed for a specific reason. You may not like them but there they are.

The Alganon forums are rife with various complaints, all of which we tackle head on, diffuse and/or engage. If you can't put two comprehensible sentences together or write up an articulate post expressing your problem and opinions without being defamatory, rude or disrespectful, you have no business posting there. So don't. You're not the type of gamer we're looking for. And if you don't leave, you'll just get banned. It's not like anyone is related to my mother's first cousin on her sisters side, so we have to think twice about banning some anonymous and inconsequential tool or we won't get invited to Sunday dinner.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), protects ISPs and forum operators and absolves them of any and all responsiblities related to what people post online. Most take advantage of that and the end result are forums that are no more than a lawless frontier of virtual anarchy. Most of us don't go to those forums and don't care if they exist or not. Some forum operators do moderate their forums. Guess why that is? Yes, because they realize that, for the most part, it only takes one idiot to taint an otherwise decent and informative forum. And if you want to attract a certain group of gamer demographic, there is no point in catering to the lowest common denominator - unless your business model holds anti-social behavior in the highest esteem and thus profitability relies on the power of incessant and infantile noise.

If you think you have the right to exercise your otherwise misplaced Free Speech -and at will - on someone's forum - try this: do it at home and within earshot of your favorite pet, neighbor, the postman or whoever. Or better yet, go post on NeoGaf, the WoW forums or wherever like minded misfits tend to congregate - largely unchecked. Just don't do it on our forums. Understood?

And FYI, the game is F2P - as in Free To Play. You don't need to spend $20 to play it. The auction house and Tribute store have quite a few items that people, believe it or not, are buying. Flooding them with useless items is not part of our gameplan. If you need it, then it is most likely in the store or at a vendor. If someone makes something you don't want, don't cry about it. Go make something you do want.

All of this just goes to show how people will throw anything out there,regardless of whether or not it has any basis in reality or not.

If you don't like the game, don't play it.

If you don't like the community, don't go there.

That's the end of that.

http://bit.ly/cdbbxK

First of all, I didn't accuse anyone of anything - and I certainly didn't say that anyone here didn't have lives. But if the shoe fits, go ahead, wear it - and don't let me stop you.

Reading comprehension is something that is taught at the very early stages of development. Some people basically never did learn it or leave school with the skills to put two coherent sentences together, let alone construct a paragraph that actually makes sense.

And others tend to deliberately take things out of context in order to continue promoting their attack driven agenda.

That said, I stand firm by what I said. Deal with it.

@ Warrior.

First of all, thanks for that particularly wasted effort. You clearly have no clue what you're talking about and if you - ever - worked in PR, you would know that everything you just posted is patently rubbish. To wit: A CEO should go and fact check a PR written by a company hired to do it. You must have been working for PR in an alternate universe or something. Go ahead, give me your name and tell me the PR firm where you worked. Go ahead.

It is always delightful to see people in glass houses throwing stones. Especially at someone who clearly doesn't care for angst driven man-children on the Internet behaving badly.

Attacking people - especially developers and people in authority - for no apparent reason is the real reason why gamers are, primarily, treated as nothing more than a means to a revenue stream and nothing else.

Even the headline for this news bit is quite unprofessional. Stealing is a serious accusation and quite clearly thats not what has happened here .This is yet another example of irresponsible writing passing for journalism in order to push people's buttons, gain hits etc. Buy hey, to each his own - and thanks for the memories. Most people have more than two brain cells and can clearly something like this for what it is.

I don't know wtf you're going on about or what motivates your ire (at least I have an excuse), but wtf does the announcement (in the news you linked to on MMORPG) about the game being released have to do with this discussion?

Of course I knew about the release. But how the hell am I supposed to know if parts of it were either plagiarised, referenced without credit to the source, based on homage or whatever if I didn't compose it? Do we have to now go out and fact check press releases? Seriously?

More importantly, what has this got to do with Google Alerts? You do know how that actually *works*, right? Right? My guess is that you don't. And even if you did, you're trying to claim ignorance in order to continue your net rage ire.

The first I even heard of this issue was when Warcry sent me an RFC which I was greeted to this morning when I opened my email. Then I got one from Massively and others. Most of us with families and jobs, actually have *lives* beyond the Net. So its not like we're no-life-having cretins looking to stir up trouble at every opportunity. So excuse me if I wasn't trolling the net on Saturday when this was first posted.

I am waiting to get an official answer back from the PR firm, but from where I'm sitting, this is a non issue and I'm not throwing anyone under the bus.

Anyone with more than two functioning brain cells can read easily see that the opening commentary is nothing more than a reference.

Even running the original link* through www.copyscape.com doesn't yield anything other than similar phrases being used in both releases.

The reference to "pillars" is a commonly used phrase in various structure driven arenas (e.g. the government). And the bit that preceded my commentary is a single line that the firm chose to use in order to make their point and precede my commentary.

"Traditionally, massively multiplier** online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars – combat, exploration and character progression,”"

Nothing beyond that is remotely the same. Since John Smedley made similar remarks in a talk he gave, go find out who first uttered those words, source it, then go back and accuse anyone else who uses it of plagiarism.

And if you really want to have fun with semantics, go ahead and run "Traditionally, massively multiplayer online games" through Google. Have fun with that.

This is just stupid and why it even made the news is beyond me. But it just goes to show that sites - trying to scrap a few dimes together - will do anything for hits. And since we're the latest flavor of the day, here we are.

You clearly have an axe to grind and have no common sense whatsoever; so arguing with you is going to just be a lesson in futility. So go ahead, have fun. I'm sure you need to validate your otherwise inconsequential [anon] existence.

* http://www.swtor.com/news/article/press-release-001

** sp due to spellchecker