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The Press Release!
03/03/10 Quest Online Announces Leadership Change
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Chandler, AZ - (PRWEB) March 10th, 2010 - Quest Online today announced that its board of directors has appointed Derek Smart to lead the company as President upon the departure of Dave Allen.
In his new capacity Derek will oversee the development and the launch of Alganon, an exciting, upcoming fantasy-based MMORPG scheduled for official launch in April. The game has been available in a soft launch form since December 1st, to best test the title in such a competitive MMO arena and to tune the game with feedback from its active player community.
In the coming weeks Derek will oversee several strategic initiatives rolled out to further enhance the game and which will further establish Alganon as a unique player in the MMO landscape.
Alganon will offer a deep, immersive, user-friendly experience that will appeal to both veteran gamers and casual players alike. Quest Online's dedicated team will create a constant stream of new adventures to undertake, lands to explore, and monsters to vanquish. This content will ensure that the game will never be the same from month to month, and will continue to offer new challenges and adventures for years to come.
Game Features:
•Adventure together with thousands of other players simultaneously.
•Journey through an epic world filled with dungeons of different styles and depths.
•Explore two massive continents and their huge capital cities, which serve as major hubs for the races inhabiting them.
•The game will initially offer two races and four classes.
•Encounter hundreds of interactive characters and monsters.
•Learn the continuing story of Alganon by completing a wide variety of challenging quests.
•Practice various trade skills to help locate reagents, make and enhance custom items, acquire wealth through trade with other players, and more.
•A robust guild system with extensive management ability for community managers to establish rewards and ranks to suit their own tastes.
•Locate and engage other players with easy-to-use features and tools.
•Enjoy hundreds of hours of gameplay with new quests, items, and adventures every month.
Derek Smart, brings a distinguished resume of over twenty years of game development and a reputation for getting the job done. During his career he brought to market over a dozen games in several industry recognized brands such as the Battlecruiser 3000AD, Universal Combat and All Aspects video game series. He also servers as the President and lead developer of 3000AD, Inc., a video game development studio based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A vocal advocate for both developer and gamer rights and relationships, he is a very active participant in the industry with vast industry knowledge and experience.
About Quest Online, Inc.
Founded in early 2006, Quest Online, LLC (http://www.qol.com ) is a privately held corporation focused on the creation of next generation online games.
Not a ton of new info but still very, very interesting.
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
Comments
Derek Smart has also addressed the Alganon community. it seems those who paid a full-year sub are going to get a refund- "All paid subscriptions are going to be refunded 100% with the game's official launch and there will be an email address setup for you to request your refund."
I like how he straight up goes and tells everyone how he fired all the three main guys haha.
Good thing they are fully refunding people. Makes this the most clean restart possible for Alganon.
I like how he's being blunt about the truth. I get tired of the stereotypical press releases where companies try to pretend everything is kosher even when the 'ship is sinking' so to speak.
Thread closed, Dereks had his first argument.
Yet, he isn't being blunt about the truth, all he did was say we fired people and blah blah blah... good for them. The game is still a horrid mess and "relaunching" it makes no sense. If he wants to be 100% honest, he should tell us what he plans to do with the game to shift it from WoW ripoff to successful MMO.
I also don't for one minute believe he fired David Allen or anyone else for that matter. He is trying to increase his street cred with the MMO community. David Allen owned part of the company, in fact he was COO of Quest Online. A single person could not "fire" him. What most likely happened was the board of directors asked him to step down. He did, and when he was asked to step down his two friends left. Derek Smart had nothing to do with it. Outside of making a post to try to prove how bad ass he is.
In the end though, the initial concept and vision, though it never came to fruition was still David Allen's. And to appoint Derek Smart to run Alganon is just asking the game to become an even bigger failure then it was before. The guy has as many successful games as David Allen, as big an ego, somehow a greater lack of creativity than Allen, and the ability and desire to piss people off on various Internet Forums. Essentially, he is a preeminent 4-Chan Baby. Not who I would hire to correct a sinking ship.
The only thing left to do now is grab the popcorn, watch the forums, and enjoy the disaster that is Derek Smart.
archive.gamespy.com/articles/june03/dumbestmoments/readers/index2.shtml
www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Derek_Smart
Almighty Dollar 1, MMORPG.com members 0!
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Actually, if you read what he wrote, it's entirely possible for him to fire David Allen. The board of directors put him in charge and made him Allen's superior. This kind of thing can and does happen. Boards of Directors have that power for just this kind of reason, where the guy in charge is a total clown.
With that said, and knowing what little I know about Derek Smart and his games, he probably won't be able to turn things around for Alganon, but I still think he's better qualified to be in charge of a game development project than David Allen. Then again, saying someone is more qualified than David Allen doesn't really mean much. John Romero could probably do a better job than David Allen. Hell, my little sister who doesn't know jack shit about computer games is probably more qualified than David Allen. Though now instead of three months, I'll give the game as long as five months to live.
"I am the weapon that strikes/In the hearts of men I thrive/Feeding their fear with lies/I will devour/I will divide/I am the god of hellfire/inside every man there lives a liar/before their gods they cower/I will divide/I will devour" - "Divide Devour" by Iced Earth
What he wrote is in direct conflict with what the QoL press release says. He says he was already in charge and fired David Allen, the press release says David Allen left and then they put him in charge. I am more likely to believe the press release than a lunatic known for beating up coke machines and posting his PhD creds as legit when he got them from a Degree Mill.
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Well, the guy is a nutcase, but that doesn't mean he's incorrect. Of course the press release is going to say Allen "left". Every press release ever written is a fluff piece to spin something to look positive, or at worst, neutral. No press release is going to say "The board of directors is removing David Allen from his position". When SOE put out the NGE for SWG, they didn't say "The game is hemorrhaging subscribers so we're going to retool everything, regardless of our players' opinions."
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Derek Smart or saying he can fix Alganon; even a fantastic developer would be hard-pressed to salvage this train wreck, and Derek Smart is not a fantastic, or even good developer, from all I've read. However, I'm more inclined to believe this guy than some P.R. piece.
"I am the weapon that strikes/In the hearts of men I thrive/Feeding their fear with lies/I will devour/I will divide/I am the god of hellfire/inside every man there lives a liar/before their gods they cower/I will divide/I will devour" - "Divide Devour" by Iced Earth
You are inclined to believe a guy who constantly lies about having a PhD but can't produce evidence of where it came from and who beat up a coke machine? A guy who according to his own previous remarks:
"Sometimes when I get online, and it's quiet, and I see something that attracts my attention, I'll post just to piss these guys off. That's why I do it. Because I'm in a good mood that day, I go in there and I start trouble."
I don't really trust this guy, but we are all entitled to believe what we want. As I said, most likely David Allen was told to step down and this guy is taking credit just to inflate his e-peen.
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Yeah, that I can buy. I definitely don't believe David Allen "left". Your scenario that the board of directors directly fired Allen and then hired Smart, and Smart is trying to take credit actually is probably the case.
Either way, just when I thought Alganon couldn't get any more ridiculous (and hilarious), this guy shows up. I'm gonna need more popcorn.
"I am the weapon that strikes/In the hearts of men I thrive/Feeding their fear with lies/I will devour/I will divide/I am the god of hellfire/inside every man there lives a liar/before their gods they cower/I will divide/I will devour" - "Divide Devour" by Iced Earth
The Derek Smart Months!
My favorite is that he is baiting David Allen into telling his side of the story... probably so he can threaten to sue him.
Seriously, this guy acts like a 5 year old with how many lawsuits he threatens.
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