Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
A VERY brief take on Alganon.
Look, I'll be honest here. I only spent short time in beta. So take this with the grain of sale it deserves. But also bear in mind first impressions are important.
I wanna start by saying I'm glad there's a delay. The game needs work...it probably needs a complete overhaul, but we'll get to that. It's nice to see a dev listen and give a game more time. I really, truly hope they make the most of it. I was discouraged to see almost all of the races and starting cities removed from the game, some for wqhat may end up being its entire life! Some of the ideas were interesting and original, and would have worked well.
Alright, on to my issue. And Here it comes, I HATE using this term. I don't think you can understand how much I hate using it. I rail against others for it, but I can't help but have to use it here. Alganon is a WoW clone, possibly the worst there's ever been.
And I don't mean in terms of gameplay. Look,m as MMOs go, there's only so much variety you can have in how a game plays. It doesn't bother me that it's very much the same sword and sorcery, auto-attack with the occasional special tossed in. What bothered me is the graphics.
The player portrait/health bar? WoW's. I don't mean similar..I mean identical. Same shape, same border, everything. The action bar? a stripped-down version of WoW's. Forgiveable. here's another place where you can't expect more than a bar with boxes. But...the skill icons. They're identical. And I don't mean "they're both a picture of a sword," I mean they are many times the exact same icon. I mean sitting them side by side and realizing that it's really the same picture. And that's not all. Many of the textures used in game are, once again, literally from WoW. Not ripoffs, I mean it's the exact item. Like for instance in the Human starting area, there's lamps with fireflies flitting around them. Those are used in Darkshore along the road, as well as some other Night Elf areas in WoW. Some of the buildings in the..heck I forget the name but the Dark Humans...some of the graphics there were direct rips straight out of the Barrens. Even some of the sounds are the same clips! Most of the official screenshots do a good job of hiding it (and frankly the original material they do have is often very nice), but you'll start to see more now that the NDA has lifted.
Please don't mistake this as a flame of the game. I think it has a lot of interesting ideas and high potential. But they won't hold players unless some of the quite-frankly stolen textures are replaced with original items. Now, maybe QO has rights to use those textures...maybe they're public domain. Dunno. DOn't care. If it looks that similar, it's only going to push people away.
Personally, I advise QO to take another year. Yeah the financiers are gonna hate it, but they will hate a failed game more. Please take the time to make this as good a game as it can be.
Comments
I couldn't agree more with your assessment. I also hate using this, but it is a "WoW Clone" in the deepest sense. I realize they try to differentiate with the studies system, but I don't think that's enough to separate it. I applaud an Indy developer for releasing a new MMO, but I think in order for an Indy developer to really make it is to really step out of the box. As much as I hate to say it, Aventurine is a good example of this. They stepped out of the box. They had a rocky start, but are hitting a stride. If you make a game that is so similar to an existing MMO, you had better make sure that it's better. Unfortunately, this title isn't.
I hope they add a lot more content, and try to diversify more during this delay. I am happy, however, that more and more Indy titles are getting released. Now, if they would just try to step out of that box and try something different.
As much as it dissapoints me to say it, from all the feedback i read i came to the conclusion that Alganon is doomed to fail. I dont know if its the fact that its a "WoW clone" (perhaps the worst one), or that it has limited financing due to it being developed by an Indy company, or because creativity was on "vacation" when this game was conceived, or maybe because the competition is so fierce out there, or,or,or,.....The reasons could be many. What i do know is that all those reasons point out to a single outcome (unless something really drastic happens). Failure.
Ok i didnt expect QOL to reinvent the wheel. I can accept the fact that a company wanted to combine the succesfull elements of other games and try to make something out of them. I can even accept the outdated graphics because i always thought that graphics dont really matter when the gameplay is smooth and nice.
The move to delay the release by a month was perceived by many as a good move. Ok its a good move if you view it in a "romantic" way. To me its just a panic move. I dont think that QOL was expecting so much negative feedback about their game. If i were a Dev and read all these, i would be VERY discouraged. Feedback shows that NOTHING works as intended in this game. Every aspect is flawed. And since mmo's are so complex projects by nature, i dont see the Messiah coming in 1 month. To be honest, not even in 1 year. And the devs realized in a single day (the day the NDA was lifted) what they were possibly denying to accept about their creation throughout all this time.
I was thinking of buying this game, but after all that i i'm going to pass. There many other games out there that there are way better. Plus there is WoW itself. As many others have said, why on earth should someone play an exact wow copy thats not even in beta state when he/she can play wow itself? i would really like to see a QOL dev answer that question. Where is the innovation and the differentiation? So far it is only in their heads. And the road to hell is full of good intentions. Customers are not willing to pay for unfinished products! When are mmo devs going to realize that? As much as an ongoing process an mmo development is, we customers have certain expectations and standards. Pay to play yes, pay to test no thanks.
Oh and something else. MMO games are not all about the community. Community plays a major part yes, but you need to have the basic structure, the game to play. Otherwise i cant see why someone has to socialize through Alganon if the game itself is less than half-finished. Not even the most mature and patient community can be retained if a game is in such state. Think about that.
My brain has 2 sides;Left and right. My left side has nothing right and my right side has nothing left...
The delay until December isn't to add any new features that are currently not in the game, it's being used to polish up what they have. Here's a quote taken directly from the beta forums addressing the delay and what it will accomplish:
Give it a year and it might be able to stray away from it's current state, but until all the features are implemented that actually distinguish it from WOW and other WOW-clones, it's rather dry.
This thread: QFT. :-)
I too was in the beta, and I'm absolutely the most easygoing MMO gamer when it comes to giving the benefit of the doubt. I think if this game was in a finished beta state, I would be telling posters to forget their WoW clone talk and just enjoy the game. But, and I want to make sure any new players understand this, it's in an alpha state. You won't get the community on the Alganon forums to admit it, and I don't need to re-list all of the server side issues in this post. But December 1st will most likely be a launch of a game in mid-beta phase. I guess even that would be enough, but $40 plus $15 a month subscription?
I thought the ideas on the Alganon site were outstanding. The in-game Library alone was enough to get my interest. But they needed to craft something that A) was at least somewhat more original in terms of UI than what they have produced and
was MUCH more technically stable than the unplayable alpha state the game is in now.
Yes. Many testers will say "I can play Alganon just fine." But when you have JUST as many who can't even login (15 min wait times) what does that say about readiness for launch?
Hopefully in a year, this game will still be alive, then we can (hopefully) enjoy it's unique features. Until then, I guess it's an individual choice, either you throw down and subscribe, or wait it out.
Good Luck Alganon. In today's MMO climate you will need it...
QFT the OP
I mean this game is pathetically a clone of WoW
The graphics are identical, the UI is identical
I am starting to think that Blizzard is selling the engines to other companies and those companies don't even have the decency to redesign the sample models.........................
There is another game around who is very similar (as in clone) to WoW, so with Alganon will be 2 WoW clones around already.
I agree completely OP.
I was in the open beta as well. When I created my human character and first took a look around, I thought I was in Goldshire forest. I walked around and did maybe two of the quests before I quit and uninstalled the game. The game is FAR too similar to WoW and I think it will doom them to failure if they don't make some serious changes now while there is still time.
They have no chance of beating WoW at their own game. The only chance is to come up with something new and fresh that attracts people to the game. As it stands now, there really isn't anything worth it for anyone who has already played WoW for years. I really don't understand why they would have focused development efforts on making such an obvious copy of another game. It should be painfully obvious to anyone who follows MMORPGs that attempting to clone WoW only ends in failure...
I was going to preorder this game, but reading all the race. class options overwhelmed me... I mean two whole races and four classes made my head spin. How can they offer so many options?
I think this game is fail incarnate, sure there are worse mmo's but many of them don't have the nerve to charge for their crap. Sad thing is I think they could have made something good, there is some talent put in here, but they were either simply too lazy to do their own work or just trying to make a quick buck.
Help support an artist and gamer who has lost his tools to create and play: http://www.gofundme.com/u63nzcgk
I can think of lots of ways to make a quick buck and building an MMOG isn't one of them. This game has apparently been in the making for 4+ years (if I remember correctly) and like any MMOG if they waited until it was done to launch it....well it'd never see the light of day, as these things are never really done.
Furthermore, I like the idea of the community having a chance to shape the game and the direction it grows in. If you wait until it's done that's it.
And in regards to all the jawboning about "to lazy to do their own work" or "copy and paste"....what are you talking about? Sure the concept is the same, but so what it's the most popular genre of game which explains why. And the graphics of Alganon are way better than WoW (IMO), so I certainly wouldn't label them "lazy" or accuse them of "copy and paste".
I think the game has potential...as it's fun to play. We'll see how they do with the future expansion plans they've talked about. If they can continue to grow the game as they plan I think it will be a game worth continuing to play......
....unless of course I'm too lazy!
QoL must pay well for you to stay up this late trying to give them some good publicity. The game is a ripoff, and "waiting" for the game to be finalized has nothing to do with having to wait for all the features to be added. Oh, like an endgame, or all the talents, or PvP, or the promised races and classes but hey... what do I know. I just kind of like my games to be you know in a state of completeness. I guess paying for a beta is cool, then you can buy the expansion in 6 months as well, and maybe they will have the game finished, but probably not.
We aren't calling them on not having extra features but the fact that even the core game dosent work properly, abilities, skills, quests, terrain everything is bugged like no tomrw. Many staples like pvp, instances, dungeons arent even in the game yet. Think about it, they said there gonna take 2 years to get the core of the game ready and AFTER that they would finally add extra features do you really wanna wait like 4 years to have a game worth playing?