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So Glad I got into Beta - saved me $40 buck
I knew the flags should have gone up when I tried to pre-order Alganon throught here website and got multiple errors. Shortly after I got an email from someone at Quest wanting to help process my order.
The next day I got a Beta Invite.
Well I thought great I can try the game and dont have to pay just yet but still in the back of my mind that I would buy it cause I had been tracking the game for the past year.
The download was slow but smooth. The install went quick. After multiple patches I was ready to play. Here is where the easy stuff ended.
Let me start off by saying I have an uptodate system nothing over the top but pretty much middle of the road. However I can run any game on the market with max setting and no problems. I even run games like Vanguard with little to no issues. I make a living by building and upgrading client and server hardware and I have also spent more than a few years doing help desk support for several companys for hardware and software problems. I am an experienced gamer having tested and played almost every MMO released over the past 10 years. I have been part of some alpha testings and several closed beta test. I have been there for launch days for multiple MMO's both P2P and F2P. Unless a game is completely lacking or unplayable I always try to level at least 1 char to max level on all the games I play so I can get an accurate feel for a game. With that said here is my review of my 2 hours of game time before I uninstalled the game.
You start off by accessing a laggy login screen (how a login screen client side could be laggy still baffles me) in windowed mode (1024x768 res) poped in my u/p and then waited for 3-4 min with a connecting to server message up on the screen. You would expect to see a server select screen come up next but this was bypassed and it went straight to the char select screen. Couple seconds later the client crashes. So I restart and start the process over again. Back to character select and my first thought is "I need a bigger window if I am going to make a char" so I click the Main Menu button, Bam crash to desktop again. So I start it up again thinking well I will just make a char this time. After 2 more client crashes before I can get to the character create screen I am getting a little irritated but thinking I will just work with it. So start making a char.
You have no ability to zoom in on the char face but that doesnt matter cause you cant tell a difference when you change the face. You get about 4-5 hairstyles to pick from and about the same number of hair colors. There is a selection for the char body but you dont notice a change. All the while every click of a button takes about 5 sec to refresh the char model. There are only 2 races and 4 basic classes and a social group.
So I got my char created and typed in a name and hit create. Guess what happened. Yep Crashed.
I reload again and there is my char waiting for me at the char select screen. So I thought great and logged in to the game. Took about 2 min for the game to load and then another 30 sec or so for the NPC's in the starter area to load. First thing I notice is how out of place the characters look the terrain is decent looking but the characters look like something from Horizons. The character models are so clunky and without detail its really a disappointing site. Talked to the first NPC and got my first quest. To talk to the guy standing next to him. Quick xp Im not complaining. The next guy gives me a quest to kill some wolfs. And I notice some wolfs behind them and though wow easy lets get to it.
The combat is laggy at best. Mouse targeting is horrible because mobs just kinda wander around but you dont realize the lag is so bad that you have trouble acually clicking on them. So you tab target and get the wolf closes to you. I ran up to the mob and hit attack. Standing next to the mob I got an Out of range message. So I run around abit and finaly start hitting the mob when I am almost 20yds away. A few PC's ran by or rather lagged by me flashing across the screen. So I am standing here beating on this wolf that is walking around 20 yards away from me and I am just waiting for it to die. Soon enough it does and a corpse flashes at my feet for me to loot. I repeat this and get though the quest and head back to the quest giver. Turn in and get a quest to head to town.
After standing in town for about a min the npc's start poping up. Serious server lag? Packet loss? I thought so to so I check my lag meter on the UI hotbar and I get 80=110 ms ping and 0%/0% packet loss so thats not the issue.
I pick up a few quest and head off to the next area. Then i start getting a new error message. Invalid Allocation something and then the client crashes again.
This time I think well maybe I am just missing something so I run though all the normal things DX update, Video update, Sound update, NIC update, .Net update, Disk cleanup, and a quick defrag. Went ahead and shut down my antivirus and firewall just for added measures thinking I would hit all the bases. I had 1 update for my sound drivers but nothing major.
I log in again and basicly run though all the same issues with no change to speak of. I played to lvl 5 with multiple crashes, mob ghosting, and multiple small bugs so many that if I acually stopped to bug them I would never have gotten lvl 5. I pretty much gave up after this.
For all the people that are not having problem since apparently there are quite a few good luck to you and hope it works out well but of me this game was a complete loss with to many bugs and issues mention. That on top of the fact that it attempts to play and looks almost identical to Warcraft just makes it worse. If I wanted to play a game that looked like Wow I would just play Wow where bugs are few and far between these days.
I checked the beta forums thinking maybe it was just me and found a flood of post from people expressing the same problems that I was having. With little to no feedback on any possible fixes. At this point I will have to pass on this title when it comes out. The game is scheduled to release on the 31st and I personnaly have seen games running smoother in alpha phase of testing. There are tons of F2P games on the market right now that run stable and smoother than Alganon.
So in closing if your looking for a stable cutting edge game Alganon might not before you. If you like the way the game looks I would still give it a few weeks for more of the bugs to be worked out on someone elses dime instead of yours.
Comments
I ran this game at the highest setting and it ran pretty smooth for me. I did experience some lag while targeting. Yes, the login screen lagged and the server booted me twice, but after that, I had no problems logging in.
After all, this is Beta, expect some bugs. This game has not been released yet. As a beta tester, you need to identify issues and report them. Did you see the bottom of the screen? It said that login issues have been noted and they are working on it.
This game is like my 10tgh game as a beta tester, so I expected issues. I am sure most of this will be ironed out prior to release. Have patience, Grasshopper. ;-)
I had no problems running the game (apart for the auto-disconnection from server) but I wonder
why an indie company is trying to remake WoW, I mean they know they can't compete with WoW but still
the game is a copy from WoW. The only new thing is the study system which is a copy from Eve.
When 99% of the posts made about Alganon include negative feedback, what are we supposed to expect from this game? When there is smoke, there is fire. I wonder how do the devs react to all this massively negative feedback? Because i'm sure they read them.Unless they have a serious ace under their sleeve,this game is far from ready to be released. And since they are an indy company and dont have a publisher over their heads to mandate release deadlines, they should release the game when its playable. Otherwise its one more down the drain. Sad....but true.
My brain has 2 sides;Left and right. My left side has nothing right and my right side has nothing left...
How many of you remember when WoW was released? It was basically unplayable. The lag was so bad you could hardly move. Queue times were hours. People were complaining just like they are doing with this game. Everyone was saying it sucked.
What happened? It was fixed and turned out to be one of the best mmorpg's out there.
How many of you remember when WoW was released? It was basically unplayable. The lag was so bad you could hardly move. Queue times were hours. People were complaining just like they are doing with this game. Everyone was saying it sucked.
What happened? It was fixed and turned out to be one of the best mmorpg's out there.
No offense but it was 5 years ago.
Alganon could have launch on 2004 and meet success. But honestly I don't think they stand a chance on 2009
How many of you remember when WoW was released? It was basically unplayable. The lag was so bad you could hardly move. Queue times were hours. People were complaining just like they are doing with this game. Everyone was saying it sucked.
What happened? It was fixed and turned out to be one of the best mmorpg's out there.
You miss the point here, yes WOW got serious server issue at first simply because wow was already a succes and the server was overload, yes it was a mistake by blizzard to not expext this BUT wow was a finish product, with bugs like any other games but still polish enough to play and it had a tons of contents to do.
Alganon has only like 1/5 of the features expected and wors they are a copy and paste from wow and that all. This game is at alpha stage and will be release in what 5 days!! I mean come one i dont want to be bad faith but this game is clearly not ready to be lauched
Yes, it's nice to see people get into beta so they can prescreen the game for themselves instead of trying to actually help make it better for everyone.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I would like to make it better for everyone but there is no time now THEY LAUNCH IT IN 5 DAYS.. Why you all miss the real point here? I dont say this game has no potential, i say is clearly not ready to be lauch.
That's the tradeoff you have for asking players to serve as beta testers. If the game is good, the word of mouth can propel the game to success right out of the gate. If the game is bad, however, the opposite happens.
It's a risk the developers take.
Realize, however, that most folks aren't saying "ditch the game". They're saying "get it right before you release" or "rethink your pricing model for a game that is far from ready". They have the game's future in mind.
I don't agree with you.
Sometimes you get into beta for a game that has interested you and when you begin to play you notice that the game IS what the developpers said it would be. It was the case for instance for League of Legends and I tried to help the developpers.
It's not the case for Alganon, it is supposed to be a UNIQUE fantasy game etc....
You log into the game (after lots of crash and log in issues but that's not the point) to see what ?
Two races : Human and something that looks like a NE in WoW
You create your char, you play and then..... WoW, I mean when the devs said :"Alganon is fun because it is developed by people who know what players think of in terms of having fun." They meaned that they had lot of fun with WoW and they tried to do the same game !
How do you want to help the devs when you see the state of the game less than 1 week before launch : this is a copy pasta of WoW, there's no way we could help them. Instead I think it's important that people who couldn't play until now knows that this game is not worth 40 bucks !
After a patch yesterday the server lag cleared up alot but still many systems are untested. Yesterdays patch also just released the priest skill tree (which most dont even work yet) even starting tiers you are unable to train in.
I love beta testing and I did spend alot ot time posting on there forums and posting bug reports (which the client acually locked up while using there bug screen on one occasion).
Beta servers are suppose to come down sometime today to get ready for the preorder headstart on Thursday but honestly I think they need another 6 months of work just to work out there net traffic and game bugs.
This doesnt even touch on the fact that its an out of date graphic engine in a game world where your competing with games like Vanguard and Aion. At this point even games like Gates of Anderon out perform Alganon hands down with both graphics and game mechanics. I was really looking forward to this game when everything was suppose to be done in house.
If you get a chance to try the game out I really hope you enjoy it. I on the other hand am going to give it 6 months of revamp before I consider it again.
And Beta testers are not there just for bug submits they act as a voice for the upcoming player base. You dont just submit x mob does drop y quest item. You submit class suggestions, feedback, and over all game feel as you come across it.
Alganon as it stands is one of those games that has everything going for it to be a middle of the road MMO. Could it compete with Wow? not a chance. Does it stand out from any other MMO on the market right now? not even close. Is it ready to compete in the mainstream MMO market? Sorry but no. If it was 2001 and Alganon was going to compete with games like SWG, EQ, and DAoC it would right there at the top but its 2009 and bugs or not the game design it self just wont cut it in todays market.
On a side note I was one of those guys sitting in the que for hours when WoW opened up to the public and yes servers crashed left and right and when you did get in lag was horrible bit it wasnt from game design it was from sheer volume of people trying to log in and play. I was also there for over a month prior to launch as a beta tester and the game ran wonderful. By the last week of testing mid level chars were looking for pathing bugs and text errors in npc dialogue.
On a side note why is everyone so comfortable with games that release with bugs? Would you buy a car just because the engine was awesome but the transmission didnt work just because you got a promise from the car maker that they will fix it after you buy it? I always here "well remember when X game came out it had bugs" so what. The MMO market has been flooded with games that get the tag "It has potiential but its just not finished" why is this the norm. If you want to make money and take subs away from high end games then your release product needs to meet and exceed "current" games on the "current" market. Not base your subs off what you might be a year after release when your community pays you to beta test your product.
I honestly think think this is why new games dont offer that great trial account that established games offer. They want your money before they show you what kinda crap you just bought.
That's the tradeoff you have for asking players to serve as beta testers. If the game is good, the word of mouth can propel the game to success right out of the gate. If the game is bad, however, the opposite happens.
It's a risk the developers take.
Realize, however, that most folks aren't saying "ditch the game". They're saying "get it right before you release" or "rethink your pricing model for a game that is far from ready". They have the game's future in mind.
QFT. I have been in the beta and LOVED the game concepts that Alganon advertised on its site. However, it really is not ready for release. It NEEDS more basic technical issues to get resolved, like its client, network stability, etc. Aside from that, the game engine is unstable with not just the "usual" bugs but serious game engine issues (like environment rendering.)
In the beta there were multiple problems with logging in, such as 15 minute waits before the connection timed out etc. All of this was feedbacked to the developers and Alganon team. Those of us who voiced legitmate concerns were often told something equivalent to "we are dedicated to seeing this game succeed and either you are on board with us, or you're not."
That's all well and good. I hope it DOES succeed. But if gamers have anything close to the login and other issues from beta they ARE NOT going to stay when there are too many other games out there that do not have these issues. We've pleaded, please wait for 6 months then this game would be in at least a playable late beta state (not its current alpha state.) For reasons of their own, they are going forward with it anyway.
Good Luck Alganon. I hope you prove us wrong.
As a comparison, Jagex, the makers of Runescape, only just yesterday informally announced on a fansite that the release of their next MMORPG, which was slated for the end of 2009, would be delayed for at least a year. Regardless of your opinions of Runescape, the words of their CEO Mark Gerhard should be of interest in this discussion:
"I believe you only have one chance to get a game right and that’s before you launch it, you only need to look at games like Age of Conan which tried to launch first, fix later and they never recovered from that mistake."
And this is for a company with a fan base of several million players (past and present), existing technology infrastructure and proven business model. They could have gotten away with releasing the product imperfect and tried to perfect it on the fly. Instead, they've learned some lessons.
Hopefully QOL steps back from the brink.
I think they could do with polishing up a bit and fixing the bugs that are around, however, as soon as I am able to (implement eu payment please!), I will be chucking a legendary sub their way.
For me, there is a major lack of new, good pve games lately, and this one piqued my interest when I saw it back in May, been in the beta for a couple of months now, and completely hooked.
Looking forward to running instances and some raids ala vanilla ^^
I think it will appeal to the market who are unhappy with the direction blizz has taken with wow, and want a fun pve game instead of the recent pvp focussed ones.
Quoted for truth. The voice of beta testers reflects the true state of the game. And this game is far from the state of release.Can it improve overtime? Of course. Do we all want it to suceed? Of course we do. i believe none of us likes to see a game die before it is even born. But as consumers we demand finalized products(at least as finalized as an MMO can ever be when it launches) and Alganon is not one of these. The competition in the market is fierce and unforgiving....plus Alganon has nothing innovative. Look at WaR, AoC. Even those games with so much potential and monster publishers behind them (EA, Eidos) die a slow death....how is Alganon going to differentiate and survive? i really wonder....
My brain has 2 sides;Left and right. My left side has nothing right and my right side has nothing left...
What I go for in determining a game is trying it for myself. If there is no free trial, then I never play it. Simple really. Make up your own mind and not let others do it for you.
I was in the closed beta and have decided to buy the game and give it a go. The devs do listen to the players and the community is one of the better ones that I have encountered in a game.
I'm sorry, but the posts on forums don't dictate the out come of a game. It usually the minority that scream the loudest, not the majority. The casual gamer will most likely enjoy this game and the hardcore may not. It's not perfect by any means, but it's playable. I haven't had 95% of the issues that other have had.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
I agree 100 percent with Rhiaden....pretty much the same way as I have with most of what I've seen her say throughout the beta. lol (This is Rhialyn. We Rhia-types just seem to have some sort of ethereal affinity for this game, it seems.)
My biggest draw to Alganon, which I have already pre-ordered, is that the devs WANT to include the players in the shaping of the game. Not only do they WANT to....they're DOING it. I have beta tested a lot of games...MMOs, adventure games, and casual games, for multiple developers, and I have never.....EVER....worked with a dev team that seemed more committed to their player base.
I hear all the "WoW clone" comments, and yes...I see the similarities, such as the UI, some (not all) of the environments, some of the names, etc. However....I also see some things that are, similar to other MMOs, like the offline/online queued training (a bit like EVE) and the deities system (a bit like EQ2), the ingame library (a bit like EVE, but it actually WORKS). And while there are things I really like about all of that, and some things I don't.....what it really boiled down to for ME, when it came time to pre-order or not, was.....
1. Did I respect the developers and trust their integrity in what they were saying, and more importantly....doing?
2. Did I share their VISION? Did I believe in their vision for the direction of the game? (This is a BIG one for me.)
3. What was my experience with patches and responsiveness from the devs during the beta? Was it positive?
4. Was there enough I liked about the game to commit to working with the dev team, and the community, on helping the game improve?
5. What is my sense of the community of people that the game seems to have drawn thus far?
When I mulled over those five points in my mind....the decision was very easy for me to make.
This game is absolutely not going to appeal to a lot of people. I do believe it will be somewhat of a "niche" game, and that it will cater to a select group of people, whom....just so happen....to be around my age group. It's not likely to attract very very young players, or very jaded players, or "professional" (ha) PvP'ers and MMO elitists who have no desire to spend their time giving something of themselves (including time and money) to the betterment of anything that isn't predominantly self-serving in the long run. Yes, I know that sounds harsh, but I have been playing MMOs since UO and have watched the "gamer morality" decline sharply over the past five years. This is not going to be a game for people that want instant gratification at all times and have no desire to be a part of the BUILDING of an MMO and an MMO community to support it.
For me, this was the first beta I participated in that I actually felt like I had a REAL contributing role in the process and progress.
That being said.....
I expect to see a virtual flood of naysayers. But I also expect to happily log into the game every day and see that wonderful core group of people in the community that has already begun to solidify around the vision of the developers. I will immensely enjoy continuing to work with them and the developers, on seeing Alganon evolve into something special in it's own right. And at the age of 46....I don't really care much what someone ELSE thinks about my choices of how and where to spend my money and my game time. I"m far too old to let a 12 year old, a 17 year old, a 25 year old, or even an *insert any random age here* year old...dictate what I should do with MY money and time. And someone else not "liking" my games of choice (and I do play multiple MMOs at any given time)...couldn't really matter to me any less.
So....on with the show, Quest Online! And here's to Alganon! *cheers*
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I'd look at the game more but the beta is only like 5 days and that just isn't enough time to really determine if there is more to this game then just a cheap wow clone...
So like the original poster I'm going to pass on this game.
---
Ethion
Beta has been extended through December 1st.
Girlgeek,
While I can identify with your goals and what you look for in a game, you seem to be advocating folks purchase a game based on faith of what is to come. Most consumers, even if they prefer PvE games with friendly communities like you do, will still approach the purchase of a game like a purchase of anything else: value.
I'm not going to buy a computer because I like the company although they promise to have the software for running my DVD drive and wireless internet card at some point in the future.
And as a note, Alganon is going to implement PvP in some fashion further down the road. They just haven't (1) developed the areas where the two factions will meet and (2) they haven't figured out the mechanics. Or so I've read.
I am not ADVOCATING anything whatsoever. (You might want to go back and re-read my post and notice how many times I wrote the words "for ME" in that post). I am merely stating my OWN opinion on the matter, just like everyone else. I don't believe in evangelizing, so if you FEEL "evangelized," then it's certainly not coming from moi.
For me....I feel the game has value, even in it's present state. That is how I, me, personally, just me, myself, and I....feel.
I'm not a big fan of PvP, so your second paragraph matters to me in no way whatsoever. I can take it or leave it. Having it, or not having it...is not a game breaker for me one way or the other. I can take great delight in PvP, but I have also played many many many games without it, and not missed it one iota. So..."meh" on the PvP part.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
The pvp is that the same abilities will function differently depending on whether you are doing pvp or pve, so no balancing one for the other.
However, their primary focus at launch is PvE and getting that all settled before doing the pvp side.
All Im saying about this game is that they're not ready.. in any way, shape or form. Despite the fact it's in beta, they need a couple of more years before they start advertising preorders. They will have A LOT of unhappy customers, so it's truly best to refund all the orders and take it off shelves until they're ready to do another beta in a couple of years. I've played this game and it's more than just bugs. No offense.
Lol ye the games in bad form but couple of years? i think about 6 months max would be more than enough.