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Release?
I was kind of curious to see what the new look of the game and relaunch would be like but it seems like they already missed the april 8th date and the forums have no information on a delay or any news of the relaunch at all. Anyone know what's going on?
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Derek Smart is too busy insulting long-time supporters and bragging about his uberness to launch the game ATM. Please check back when his ego has deflated by about 40000 PSI.
There have been a few posts here and there on the official forums about how they will release it when it's ready. But, as far as anyone has heard, it still sounds like it will be out in April. If I hear anymore, I'll give ya a heads up.
From what I have seen first hand there isn't really anyone left who can fix the issues... they are beating the trees for talent, but anyone who is worth a shit would not touch the company with a ten foot pole, because you have to pay experienced industry people more than 23k a year. The so called team consist mostly of teenagers and twenty something modders... and a couple guys I feel really bad for because they are stuck and desperately looking for new opportunities.
Honestly I have worked with NWN persistent world builders that had more industry experience. The game "may" launch (if Greg Wexler doesn’t decide it's a lost cause) but it won't be any better shape than it was in December.
This sword here at my side dont act the way it should
Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave
Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave
And it howls! it howls like hell!
I still have my hopes it will release in April. But I have my doubts. Heck since closed beta there are still serious bugs in the game to date. And seeing how none of this new content has been tested beyond the offices there. Mind you most days I bet there are more people online there then on the servers. Last night had 25 in total at peak hours from all the servers.
So since the npcs are still hitting behind walls and underground hitting. Never mind the npcs that are "green" to you attacking you when a AOE hits them. All have been said fixed awhile ago are still present. I hate to see what the instances are like.
Hmm, might be like when Plane Of Hate was released and if you sat too close to the wall or did a AOE that the NPC's would come a calling from the upper levels. Oh the fun that was.
Oh well, one can only hope that if the release comes out that the Dev team had time to truly test it.
The best anyone seems to know is the end of April at this point. But given past delays, I'd not be surprised to see it delayed again. If Mr Smart would focus more on Alganon, than posting on various forums, more might get done.
Of course, the ironic thing is that if the game does come out much improved in this little time it'll prove Allen and co right in their claims of having produced a quality framework rather than the "nothing to show" for their time that Smart claims...
Good point. This entire sitaution is filled with perverse incentives. As I understand it, it was one of the majority investors(30%) who demanded that Mr Smart be placed in charge. Given Mr Smarts past history, I leave it up to you as to how he could convince *anyone* who had done their due diligence to place him in such a position of power. Given how much he has been bad mouthing the current infrastructure(technology) perhaps there is another perverse incentive at work? If he and his backers can convince the other investors that its worthless, the others can be bought out for much less money, leaving the technology in the hands of Mr Smart and his backers.
Which means that the current investors just might know that Mr Smart(given his past history) would drive most of the community away. They could kill two birds with one stone that way. One, without its community Alganon is dead in the water(making the property much less valuable, and thus cost less to aquire from the other investors). Two, they could use the loss of that community to terminate Mr Smarts employment, and end up in sole possession of the technology.
On the other hand, Mr Smart might be playing a variation of that himself, so that he ends up in possession of the technology(which he could take off the hands of the investors for much less money than otherwise). Oh what tangled webs... ^^ It will be interesting to see what comes from all of this.
I suppose it's possible that investors ary vying for control. I hadn't really considered that possibility. I pretty much assume that investors are disinterested and clueless about the MMO business. How else would we explain the long line of predictable failures they invest in? And the people responsible for the failures are promoted from one failed game to the next, and the history of failures actually seem to make it easier to find investors. One would think that at some point investors would consider that maybe these people actually aren't competent in their chosen line of work.
Perverse incentives is certainly accurate. Smart is the last person who should be working on Alganon. Not just because of his background and personality, but because he actually has a motive to see it fail. We know from his statements that he was drawn to Alganon to use the tech for his own game. If Alganon fails he can get whatever code he wants cheaply. And even if Alganon does not fail he can use this opportunity to make the code more suitable for his own game on the Alganon investors' dime. That is a pretty obvious conflict of interests and a situation that should have been avoided.
I guess release is all dependent on Mr. Phd but what kind of dissapointed me are the new UI screenshots, is it me or are they pretty much the same thing as before with a different color and being broken apart?
I was also reading up on the comming changes and i don't want to sound rude but its actually turning more into wow if you actually read them, the UI is chaning but other than that all of the wow stuff is still there and mroe is being added...
According to a post earlier today(before he got all angry at me) he wants to aim for an April 25th release, or somewhere near there.
Massively.com said yesterday that it was scheduled for April 28th.
I've also heard May 1st as a date. So it appears to be in that general time frame.
This entire situation is crazy. My guess is it works like this:
1- Establish yourself as a creditable expert on MMO's by attacking Aglanon.
2- Volunteer to step in and help set things right.
3- Alienate all remaining customers.
4- Continue to blame the previous leader's vision and technology.
5- Release a bit of new stuff, but blame the technology for making this hard to do. Credit yourself for what little you did.
6- Wait for investors to cancel project because the core technology is so awful and there aren't any customers.
7- Offer to help the investors recoup some of their losses by buying the code and assets for next to nothing.
8- Use the code and assets to make a new MMO with minimal work, but take all the credit for it.
Just a guess!
Release is tomorrow, the 28th. Mid afternoon!
http://www.alganon.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4825-are-we-there-yet/page__pid__41467__st__0&#entry41467
Sorry for no direct linky. Not sure what's going on atm...
Given Mr Smarts colorful past, thats possible. But we will have to wait and see what develops. The re launch is supposed to be on April 28th some time in the after noon. As always I wish the remaining QoL technical staff all the best. I hope they can pull a rabbit out of the hat, they certainly deserve some luck after all they have been through.
Say what you will about Derek,but so far he has been a stand up guy posted out bluntly and honestly issued refunded to previous subscribers alot of stuff 90% of the big companies would never do.Tabala Rasa,.Auto Assault,Matrix Online all were pieces of crap all shut down by the companies who ran them and all they got was geee you can have 30 free days to play one of our other available crappy games,.
Facts are facts the server stability has improved 10000x from release i am looking forward to tomms patch to see what else has changed,
Yes, facts are facts. One of those facts is that he has almost single handedly damn near destroyed one of Alganons most valuable assets, its community. There was NO excuse for the stream of threats, insults and other antics he subjected the Alganon community to. Some people seem not to have received the memo that players are *customers*. Dave Allen for all his faults(most in the personnel side) never made that type of glaring mistake.
It remains to be seen what can be salvaged from this mess. Its too bad, as Alganon had the potential to be a fun niche game. That is what attracted its community, and what kept most of us there, even with the delays and issues. If that good will could have been built upon, rather than thrown away, the game would have had a much greater chance of some limited success. When all is said and done, I wish the remaining QoL technical staff the very best of luck, as I said, after years of hard work, they deserve more than this.
Will received an email today from Billy Foster about refund on my yearly Subs. It's suppose to take place sometime next week (week of May 2nd - 8th). Lets hope the game doesn't bite the bullet and disappear before then.
I guess it's still a wait and see on the Update. If it's like previous ones the mayhem it creates might be greater then the success and new life it's suppose to instill. Looking forward to see if my fps stay steady instead of dropping from 40 to 12 after only being in the game for a short time (5 to 10 minutes).
Here's hoping that the pig flys, hate it when they get thrown from the helicopters and crash into the pedestrians below.
Just Me,
Tim
If rainbows only come out in the rain then I would like it to rain at least once a day.
Yup community is important and can understand why you may feel that way but in all honesty the game would never have made it into the state it was right now with Dave Allen running the game.I remember buyin this game setting up my sub excited to log on logged in and lagged to death non stop I have a great comp it wasn't the combat lag though I had that like everyone else after playing mmogs for alot of years I have dealt with and adjusted to that in the past it was the fact I had a packet lost of 2k for no reason at all and it seemed to suck up more resources than AOC with graphics turned all the way up,Since Derek took over the game has improved by leaps and bounds.I can now actually log onto the game have 4-5 other programs running just like I can other mmogs Dave Allen would NEVER had gotten the game to this state.
Thats all I really care about is having the game I paid money to play for I dont have to agree with the person running the game.Have to keep in mind he has walked into a mess with alot of angry ppl about this game and he is trying to get it fixed yes he could be abit more tactful and maybe not say some of the things he does but I honestly think its just his nature and he doesn't mean to come off or mean to be as rude as it may seem to be sometimes.
I don't disagree with the game's new vision. I think the UI changes are lackluster and the $20 up front cost is a significant barrier to entry, but otherwise the plan is good. Unfortunately Alaganon has an awful reputation and the caustic approach of DS just makes it worse. A lot of potential customers will do a web search to check out the game and see a lot of negative comments. The $20 charge to play a "free" game will also keep people away. DS is a mixed blessing. His plan with a professional attitude would have done a lot more to help Alganon. For me, DS and his changes don't solve my original issue with Alaganon, which is the game doesn't differentiate itself in any way. It's still a poorly implemented and highly derivative game.