File this one under “oh thank God!” Yesterday brought wonderful news from Derek Smart of Quest Online. The ongoing back and forth lawsuit between Quest Online and David Allen has ended. In a press statement, Quest Online announced:
Quest Online, LLC, today announced that the lawsuit filed in the Maricopa County Superior Court (Case # CV2010-010391) in June 2010 against previous LLC Manager and Alganon creator, David Allen, has been settled with the purchase of Mr. Allen’s equity in the LLC; and that Mr. Allen is no longer associated with Quest Online, LLC.
There isn’t much to be said about the terms of the settlement, other than that Quest Online apparently purchased the rest of Allen’s equity in the company, and that Allen no longer had any association with Quest Online. Now we can finally get back to Alganon, and speaking of Alganon, did you know that the game no longer has a client price?
“Back in June, I decided to put a moratorium on articles dealing with the pending litigation between David Allen and Quest Online, mainly owing to my desire to publish something about Alganon that didn’t have to do with lawsuits or the back and forth blog posting between Derek Smart and David Allen. That being said, I haven’t had much to talk about lately on the title, although I still push to find something new from the indie MMO. A lot of quotes from Derek Smart detailing the events leading up to and following David Allen’s forced departure and the direction he is taking Alganon, but that’s about it.”
I know what you’re thinking: That’s some pretty devilish timing, Omali. You wish for some news to publish about Alganon and BAM! down it comes from the sky. As many of you will remember, Alganon earlier this year dropped its subscription model until the game could fully launch under a free to play model with a cash shop. Up until now, Alganon has required you to purchase a client, one that has been permanently slashed to around $20 on most digital distribution websites.
So Quest Online is making it even easier to get into the game by removing the cost of the client. Starting this Friday (the 13th), you will no longer need a client to play Alganon. If you’ve already purchased the client (like I did), then Quest Online is offering you perks in the form of more character slots, higher ability/level caps, a higher quest limit, and more right off the bat, that players coming into the free-client game will have to pay for access to.
In the newsletter, Quest Online has also announced two new classes (Champion and Reaver) that are redesigned from the soldier class, with more updates being added, and more content on the way.
With literally no barrier to entry, now is the best time it has ever been to get into Alganon.
I don’t think it is a very well kept secret that here on MMO Fallout, I have a huge man-crush on Derek Smart. He makes me laugh, makes me cry, I send him flowers and he sends me restraining orders. We joke around, and we both love MMOs, and at the end of the day isn’t that what love is all about?
As I have pointed out numerous times, Derek Smart is not one to take it, whever it may be, lying down while the internetizens trample all over his beaten corpse. No, at some point Massively picked up on the story of Alganon copying a speech by Bioware, that was actually a speech from 2004 by John Smedley (as we found out.).
And who showed up to the party, but Mr. Smart himself?
OK, the weekend is officially canceled!
I have not yet issued an official statement because, tbh, I don’t have all the facts yet. Being a weekend and all, I don’t expect to know what happened until Monday. I am about to rush off to church, but decided to just post this quickly to let everyone know that this just came to my attention.
I hired a PR firm to handle media relations etc for QOL when I came aboard. They were tasked with that press release.
While I’m certain that there is a reasonable explanation for the similarities in the releases, I simply do not want to speculate but only to say that we are going to investigate this tomorrow.
Next week I will issue an official statement once I have all the facts.
Wait…So the PR firm wrote it all…but reading back, they were quoting you. You can read the press release, you are quoted as saying it. So what you are saying is that your PR firm fabricates quotes in order to make a statement. But I won’t finalize it here, you are on your way to church afterall.
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 http://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.
This was in response to a player linking to the announcement dating back to April. To answer a question early on: Fact checking your press releases would be very nice. Not that it has happened yet, but a misleading press release can result in lost trust between you and your players, and at worst a misleading ad can result in a court reminder that misleading advertising is illegal. Despite another company doing your press releases, your company is still liable for what they say, and if fact checking even comes on the table, you should consider a new PR firm.
“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.”
Stay classy, Mr. Smart. I only have the one functioning brain cell, but as I mentioned previously it wasn’t a reference as much as it was quoting you directly. And you can see that many of the phrases are not mere “similar remarks” but quoted word for word.
And if it makes you feel any better, nothing I do here is “for the hits.” I do it because, like a nurturing mother, I love you and, as one commenter pointed out at this juncture, the fact that Mr. Smart’s comments were rated into the dust just goes to show how the public is taking it.
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 see, so you didn’t call them “no-life cretins” and they could understand that if they weren’t so developmentally delayed. For the record, the CEO doesn’t have to fact check the Press releases, that is something that should be done by someone in the company however. Technically it is your job, just not necessarily directly. And you did check it, at least you approved it. According to your PR firm:
As a CEO he looked it over, approved it, moved it forward. While drafting the quote, I looked for inspiration from other press releases, about MMOs. Yes, sometimes it is easier to write something up by using someone else’s thoughts as examples.
I don’t often talk about legalities, but according to your presumably fired PR guy, you did approve that you said, in quotes, what was lifted from another person and used as your own quote. I might not be a lawyer, but claiming another’s quote as your own would likely fall under the realm of plagiarism, a form of theft. Again, the quotes weren’t just “similar,” many were exact right down to misspelling of “multiplier,” grammar errors, lifted directly from both quotes. But I’m not here to make accusations, so let us move on.
To sum it up, I’m going to go with Warrior’s third option, in his post on Massively:
3. Derek: You need a handler. Appoint someone you trust to counsel you and reign you in. As a CEO, you should not be posting long-winded rants about internal affairs. You should not be bashing your constituents, predecessors, or anyone you fired in public forums. You should not be involved in online shouting matches. While part of the job is to be a punching bag, proactively inviting attacks and controversy is not. There is a proper way to behave as a leader. There is a proper tact that you must take when communicating with stakeholders. Please show restraint and get a grip on your roles in the companies for which you are responsible. You do them a disservice otherwise.
You can find Derek Smart’s comments on the Massively article, here:
Alganon’s been on the live list for as long as I can remember, which dates to around last December when the game “launched.” Of course, what started out as a launch was quickly demoted to a “soft launch,” preceding all of this hubbub between Alganon and a few ex-employees.
But, as those of you who receive Alganon email will know, today marks the day when Alganon officially launches. But a launch isn’t all, players will find a near-gigabyte patch released today, with a whole host of fixes and changes:
Completely new path finding mechanic for mobs. NPCs should no longer go underground.
Overhauled starting areas.
Brand new UI to feel less like an anonymous MMO that sounds like Shmerld of Shmarcraft.
Improved server stability.
A whole host of bug fixes.
As promised by Derek Smart, a few features not intended for release have been removed temporarily, starting with thrown weapons. The improved server stability is a welcome update, and one that had previously baffled me with the high amounts of lag, considering I was the only person within /who range while I played.
MMO Fallout will certainly be watching Alganon to see how this “true release” affects the title. You can pick up the Alganon client for cheap, for the time being at least, and afterwards there is no monthly subscription, although the game does feature a cash shop and a free trial.
Quest Online, developers of Alganon, have issued a press release stating, among other things, the following:
“Since Smart has taken over leadership, the company has reduced overhead and streamlined operations and Alganon has also gained significant exposure in the gaming marketplace.”
I guess you could call it that. So far this year, Alganon has been featured a lot on various MMO websites, most notably not only for the poorly executed launch, but the subsequent firing and public spat between currently-employed Derek Smart and formerly-employed David Allen. While the opinion of Quest Online appears to be no press is bad press, the communities and those few who play Alganon have expressed a dislike for the manner in which Derek Smart chose to have his argument with several ex-employees (in the comments section of a Gamasutra article), and apparently neither did David Allen (who did not partake in the argument) because he responded by firing off a defamation lawsuit.
Quest Online had this to say about the lawsuit:
“Mr. Allen’s allegations are false and without merit. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves in Court and are confident of prevailing in the proceeding.”
Quite straightforward. Defamation isn’t the only charge in the proceeding, but does rely on what is being said to be false. If the information is true, than it can not be defamation. Whether or not Derek Smart can prove its truth will be seen.
Quest Online, developers of Alganon, have issued a press release stating, among other things, the following:
“Since Smart has taken over leadership, the company has reduced overhead and streamlined operations and Alganon has also gained significant exposure in the gaming marketplace.”
I guess you could call it that. So far this year, Alganon has been featured a lot on various MMO websites, most notably not only for the poorly executed launch, but the subsequent firing and public spat between currently-employed Derek Smart and formerly-employed David Allen. While the opinion of Quest Online appears to be no press is bad press, the communities and those few who play Alganon have expressed a dislike for the manner in which Derek Smart chose to have his argument with several ex-employees (in the comments section of a Gamasutra article), and apparently neither did David Allen (who did not partake in the argument) because he responded by firing off a defamation lawsuit.
Quest Online had this to say about the lawsuit:
“Mr. Allen’s allegations are false and without merit. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves in Court and are confident of prevailing in the proceeding.”
Quite straightforward. Defamation isn’t the only charge in the proceeding, but does rely on what is being said to be false. If the information is true, than it can not be defamation. Whether or not Derek Smart can prove its truth will be seen.
“Any one of you in this industry who hires either one of these will get what you pay for. Just don’t bother asking *anyone* at QOL for a reference.”
-Derek Smart, Quest Online, on ex-employees Hue Henry and Jason Blood
I’ve been following Derek Smart for a long time, even before he threw up a bloody coup that ousted David Allen from Quest Online LLC, because the more I read this guy’s text, the more I see a creepy Christian Bale aura around him. I mentioned in an article so fresh I can smell the ink, that Derek Smart took no time after his entrance to publicly slam David Allen and remind everyone that, no, he did not depart on good terms.
Derek Smart can be found commenting and blogging on Gamasutra, and if you click on the link you can read his comments (I have a few snippets here.) and get a good idea to the man’s character. Of course, Smart started off with:
“It was nothing personal nor was it designed to embarass anyone.”
-Derek Smart, Quest Online, on comments made over David Allen
Hopefully I’m not the only one who immediately thought of the, “I’m not racist but…” comment that always ends in racism, because in the link to the comments page I provided, Derek Smart takes absolutely no time pounding ex-employees Hue Henry and Jason Blood into the floor.
Jason (#2) and Hue (#3) were the two others, including David who started this co and ran it straight into the ground. -Derek Smart, Quest Online LLC, on ex-employees Hue Henry, Jason Blood, and David Allen
Not a single one of these three had any meaningful experience developing games, let alone *shipping* a game – any game for that matter – yet, they blew through four years and millions on the most difficult genre to develop for: an MMO
-Derek Smart, Quest Online LLC, on ex-employees Hue Henry, Jason Blood, and David Allen
Now, Derek Smart’s career wasn’t always about insulting ex-employees. In fact, we’re going to jump back a long time ago (ten years) to the days of Usenet, where Derek Smart took the role of insulting his customers and not only getting into frequent, and well publicized, flame wars but encouraging and inciting them. I’ve edited some of the content for profanity, mostly because I just did an article on Fusion Fall today, and there will likely be chillins about.
Typical bull**** from a moron with ***t for brains. While we're
at it, you are so wrapped up in the twisted, warped lies, that
you've taken it further and started inventing your own ***t.
Where on the ****ing box did it say that BC3K had internet play?
What I do with my time, *Rob*, is no concern of yours. Mind
your business and I'll mind mine and until you tell us what
you've done with your time in the past four years, shut the
**** up because I don't remember anyone asking you for an opinion.
I already told UK owners to ditch their version and get the US copies.
I told EVERYONE that the UK version would NOT be complete. I still have
those messages. I even did a press release about it. So assholes go out
and buy the UK version so they can flame and abuse me some more.
**** 'em, it's their Quid. I'm not getting paid anyway so
what have I got to lose? UK owners who genuinely did not know what was
going on, sent me e-mail and I told them to return it and get the US
version.
Granted, this article isn’t completely about Derek Smart, or his microscopic fuse, because a lot of what he says has merit to it:
“You guys got the money, the game wasn’t ready and it ended up being a disaster when launched on Dec 1st. In the end after I was brought in, we ended up tagging it a “soft launch” in order to soften the blow of that disaster you guys created.
Then less than a mointh later, David was demoted. Yet, you guys KEPT ADDING STUFF TO THE GAME INSTEAD OF FINISHING IT. I was asked to take over – in a contract that David signed with the investors to make it happen.
Behind my back and against my authority, instead of FINISHING and FIXING the game, you guys kept ADDING to it. As I type this, the team are still working their way through UNFINISHED stuff that YOU left behind.”
David Allen is not an innocent bird in all of this mess, shockingly attempting to sign off Alganon to another company, as Smart points out:
“The day we found out – quite by accident – that Truegames had a team down in Chandler evaluating the game that David – even though he was told weeks before NOT TO DO IT – was trying to sign to them for pennies on the dolalr (a fire sale designed to cut the investors out and leave them hanging) – was the day I sent Jeff Luhan (who clearly had no idea what he was stepping into) a strongly worded email notifying him that David had no authority to act in that capacity on behalf of QOL and that we had NO interest in giving the game to them. He called his team back immediately. We fired David. An emergency session of the investors was then called.”
“During all this, while he was complaining about not having enough money to operate, he was negotiating a buy out of his remaining shares in a ploy to abandon the team (who worked hard to make this game) and the company. We have all the emails and letters he was passing around the investors in order to get a golden parachute OUT of the company and AHEAD of the Mar 1st disaster he knew was going to come. I put a stop to that when I told the investors not to give him a dime and that the QOL team needed the money a lot more than Dave Allen did. Of course they listened to me.”
“Jason is lucky that QOL hasn’t decided to file a criminal complaint or take legal action. Yet.”
Given Mr. Smart’s pension for saying what is on his mind, coupled with the undoubtable stress of “dealing with the investors, getting the team on track, dealing with the police, the FBI (!), the banks, the attorneys (no less than three law firms to be exact) etc over this farce,” I don’t think you will find many people who are not stressed to the point of breaking.
So here we stand…er, sit. Alganon, for all intent and purpose, has become without a doubt, the biggest MMO soap opera of 2010. When the game does fully launch, all we can do is sit back and hope that the drama is over now that Allen, Blood, and Henry are gone from the company.
But for all that this spat on Gamasutra has done, Smart and Blood may have just as well been standing in a corridor calling each other “doodoo head,” because mud slinging in a public domain almost always results in neither side looking good, following the tirade of unprofessional, immature jabs and gotchas. Perhaps it was in Smart’s best interest to stop at “David Allen was fired,” because I’m not certain if Smart thinks public spats like this make him look edgy and cool, but in the words of the late George Carlin;
“You ain’t cool, you’re chilly. And chilly ain’t never been cool.”
This is MMO Fallout, and I can only apologize to anyone who disliked reading this as much as I disliked writing it.
“Any one of you in this industry who hires either one of these will get what you pay for. Just don’t bother asking *anyone* at QOL for a reference.”
-Derek Smart, Quest Online, on ex-employees Hue Henry and Jason Blood
I’ve been following Derek Smart for a long time, even before he threw up a bloody coup that ousted David Allen from Quest Online LLC, because the more I read this guy’s text, the more I see a creepy Christian Bale aura around him. I mentioned in an article so fresh I can smell the ink, that Derek Smart took no time after his entrance to publicly slam David Allen and remind everyone that, no, he did not depart on good terms.
Derek Smart can be found commenting and blogging on Gamasutra, and if you click on the link you can read his comments (I have a few snippets here.) and get a good idea to the man’s character. Of course, Smart started off with:
“It was nothing personal nor was it designed to embarass anyone.”
-Derek Smart, Quest Online, on comments made over David Allen
Hopefully I’m not the only one who immediately thought of the, “I’m not racist but…” comment that always ends in racism, because in the link to the comments page I provided, Derek Smart takes absolutely no time pounding ex-employees Hue Henry and Jason Blood into the floor.
Jason (#2) and Hue (#3) were the two others, including David who started this co and ran it straight into the ground. -Derek Smart, Quest Online LLC, on ex-employees Hue Henry, Jason Blood, and David Allen
Not a single one of these three had any meaningful experience developing games, let alone *shipping* a game – any game for that matter – yet, they blew through four years and millions on the most difficult genre to develop for: an MMO
-Derek Smart, Quest Online LLC, on ex-employees Hue Henry, Jason Blood, and David Allen
Now, Derek Smart’s career wasn’t always about insulting ex-employees. In fact, we’re going to jump back a long time ago (ten years) to the days of Usenet, where Derek Smart took the role of insulting his customers and not only getting into frequent, and well publicized, flame wars but encouraging and inciting them. I’ve edited some of the content for profanity, mostly because I just did an article on Fusion Fall today, and there will likely be chillins about.
Typical bull**** from a moron with ***t for brains. While we're
at it, you are so wrapped up in the twisted, warped lies, that
you've taken it further and started inventing your own ***t.
Where on the ****ing box did it say that BC3K had internet play?
What I do with my time, *Rob*, is no concern of yours. Mind
your business and I'll mind mine and until you tell us what
you've done with your time in the past four years, shut the
**** up because I don't remember anyone asking you for an opinion.
I already told UK owners to ditch their version and get the US copies.
I told EVERYONE that the UK version would NOT be complete. I still have
those messages. I even did a press release about it. So assholes go out
and buy the UK version so they can flame and abuse me some more.
**** 'em, it's their Quid. I'm not getting paid anyway so
what have I got to lose? UK owners who genuinely did not know what was
going on, sent me e-mail and I told them to return it and get the US
version.
Granted, this article isn’t completely about Derek Smart, or his microscopic fuse, because a lot of what he says has merit to it:
“You guys got the money, the game wasn’t ready and it ended up being a disaster when launched on Dec 1st. In the end after I was brought in, we ended up tagging it a “soft launch” in order to soften the blow of that disaster you guys created.
Then less than a mointh later, David was demoted. Yet, you guys KEPT ADDING STUFF TO THE GAME INSTEAD OF FINISHING IT. I was asked to take over – in a contract that David signed with the investors to make it happen.
Behind my back and against my authority, instead of FINISHING and FIXING the game, you guys kept ADDING to it. As I type this, the team are still working their way through UNFINISHED stuff that YOU left behind.”
David Allen is not an innocent bird in all of this mess, shockingly attempting to sign off Alganon to another company, as Smart points out:
“The day we found out – quite by accident – that Truegames had a team down in Chandler evaluating the game that David – even though he was told weeks before NOT TO DO IT – was trying to sign to them for pennies on the dolalr (a fire sale designed to cut the investors out and leave them hanging) – was the day I sent Jeff Luhan (who clearly had no idea what he was stepping into) a strongly worded email notifying him that David had no authority to act in that capacity on behalf of QOL and that we had NO interest in giving the game to them. He called his team back immediately. We fired David. An emergency session of the investors was then called.”
“During all this, while he was complaining about not having enough money to operate, he was negotiating a buy out of his remaining shares in a ploy to abandon the team (who worked hard to make this game) and the company. We have all the emails and letters he was passing around the investors in order to get a golden parachute OUT of the company and AHEAD of the Mar 1st disaster he knew was going to come. I put a stop to that when I told the investors not to give him a dime and that the QOL team needed the money a lot more than Dave Allen did. Of course they listened to me.”
“Jason is lucky that QOL hasn’t decided to file a criminal complaint or take legal action. Yet.”
Given Mr. Smart’s pension for saying what is on his mind, coupled with the undoubtable stress of “dealing with the investors, getting the team on track, dealing with the police, the FBI (!), the banks, the attorneys (no less than three law firms to be exact) etc over this farce,” I don’t think you will find many people who are not stressed to the point of breaking.
So here we stand…er, sit. Alganon, for all intent and purpose, has become without a doubt, the biggest MMO soap opera of 2010. When the game does fully launch, all we can do is sit back and hope that the drama is over now that Allen, Blood, and Henry are gone from the company.
But for all that this spat on Gamasutra has done, Smart and Blood may have just as well been standing in a corridor calling each other “doodoo head,” because mud slinging in a public domain almost always results in neither side looking good, following the tirade of unprofessional, immature jabs and gotchas. Perhaps it was in Smart’s best interest to stop at “David Allen was fired,” because I’m not certain if Smart thinks public spats like this make him look edgy and cool, but in the words of the late George Carlin;
“You ain’t cool, you’re chilly. And chilly ain’t never been cool.”
This is MMO Fallout, and I can only apologize to anyone who disliked reading this as much as I disliked writing it.
Earlier this week it was announced that David Allen, President and co-founder of Alganon LLC, has departed for unknown reasons. Granted, it didn’t take long for the new President (Derek Smart) to step and in and clarify the situation:
“Dave Allen didn’t ‘depart’. I fired him back in February for insubordination and for acting against the best interests of the company, the LLC investors (who I represent), the game and the team.” -Derek Smart
Unfortunately for Mr. Allen, the public humiliation doesn’t stop there. Smart goes on to mention how Allen was unanimously voted off the board by Alganon LLC investors.
Derek Smart goes on to say that the “soft launch” for Alganon on December 1st was a mistake, one that cost the company money and employees. Smart is looking to take the Quest Online team by the haunches, break their legs, and shackle those broken legs to their desks until they accomplish his goal of major changes to the game, most notably:
Graphics/Style change: Smart wants to remove the idea that Alganon is just a “wow clone.” Smart has asked the team to throw everything out with the trash and get a new look and feel, not to mention a new UI, to give Alganon its own unique face. Derek has essentially confirmed the rumors that Alganon was a WoW clone, criticizing David Allen for focusing on competing with the behemoth on a budget that could never match.
Alganon will remain free to play indefinitely, but with a purchase price (Ala Guild Wars).
Paid subscriptions will be refunded. Quest Online is setting up an email address to deal with that.
Everything that was added to the game before it was complete is being removed, and fixed.
The future of Alganon is still up in the air, spinning around looking for a safe place to land. As of yet, the current plans are to have the official launch on the 8th of April, although further issues may delay that to a later date.
Either way, Alganon is still the best place to go for drama. I guess this makes zero for two for David Allen getting fired from companies he founded. More on Alganon as it stumbles its way towards an April launch.
Hey folks, Derek Smart here.
I just wanted to make a few things crystal clear so that we’re all on the same page because in the coming days a lot of conflicting reports are going to start sprouting up all over the Net, and all will be based on conjecture, speculation and rumor. I don’t want this to be yet another “Artifact Ent” debacle because we all know how that turned out.
1. Dave Allen didn’t “depart”. I fired* him back in February for insubordination and for acting against the best interests of the company, the LLC investors (who I represent), the game and the team.
It goes way beyond that, but you’re only getting the short and subtle version.
Shortly after the investors of the LLC unanimously voted him off the LLC. Leaving his previous partner and co-founder (Greg Wexler, one of the most cheerful and straight up guys you’ll ever meet in your lifetime) and myself to run the company.
So yeah, he has been gone since Feb 22, 2010.
I am not at liberty to go into any further details at this time but only to say that eventually everything we do can and will catch up with us. It is only a matter of time.
Jason Blood and Hue Henry, his friends and the two other primaries who started this, are also gone.
I have no personal relationships with any of these three and the decisions surrounding these events were pure business. Nothing more. Nothing less.
2. The Dec 1st launch of the game should never have happened. It was a mistake that has not only cost the company money but has also cost people their jobs and put an otherwise exceptional product at risk.
As a game developer, I know all too well that if your game is not finished and you release it, thats just asking for trouble. No matter how great the game and technology are, it can and will fail. Especially in this industry climate.
The average gamer is as finnicky as a hummingbird on acid, with a very short attention span and a penchant for being largely unforgiving. In other words, pulling a stunt like that is the death knell for many a game and company.
3. I was brought on board by the majority investors in QOL since late December to “help” David and the team move the game and company forward. He wanted to continue doing his own thing, didn’t recognize my authority (even after I was made President and him demoted to COO) etc. We all just got fed up and the decision came down after he did one last thing that was the final nail.
4. I have been developing games for a very long time; most of them on a budget that is well within the limits of a small indie studio. I don’t and never have catered to the “run of the mill” mass market and that is primarily why I’m still in business long after most are dead, gone and forgotten.
Thus I intend to steer the team and company toward the goal of making Alganon the best that it can be and to help it find its own niche. We don’t want meeelions of gamers, though it would be nice. All we’re interested in are those of you who find value in what the team has built and who actually do like playing the game. You are the future of this game and without you, this is all a waste of time.
5. The team currently in place are stellar. I have worked with a lot of people in my career and I can spot flakes a mile away. These guys live, breath and love this game. They are true professionals previously caught in the middle of a rock and a hard place in terms of being unable to reign in powers that end up making bad decisions for the game and company. At the end of the day – and in this economy – you’d be hard pressed to disagree with the guy who controls your paycheck.
I have changed all that by introducing effective policies and strategies that have a single common goal: to operate as a “team”.
6. As a result of my involvement, quite a bit of changes are coming to QOL and to Alganon. They are too many to list, but here are the highlights:
a) This whole “WoW look-a-like” rubbish, is gone. I’ve essentially asked them to throw it all out and for the artists to come up with the game’s own unique look and feel for for both the web UI as well as the game UI itself.
You don’t go competing with WoW when you don’t have a WoW sized budget or the manpower to match. But thats what David wanted to do and I’ve pretty much tossed it all. The team was unable to actually do this previously due to David wanting it that way, even though they knew it was a terrible decision.
b) We’re also getting rid of the monthly subscriptions. They are currently suspended, but will be gone for good. I put that plan into place since Dec 2009 with a view to making the game “subscription free” but supported via sales (I was the one who had the client price reduced to $19.95 as well btw) of the client as well as micro-transactions. It is not a traditional F2P game, but if thats what we have to do in the long run, then so be it. For now, we’re taking baby steps.
c) 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 already approved the budget to do this. Believe me, nobody likes giving money away, but I felt that it is the right thing to do given the current circumstances and the team valiantly backs me up on this. For me, it is an apology of sorts because the game you paid up to a year for is not the game that you got when you signed up. Though I wasn’t around when it happened, I would still like to apologize for that.
d) EVERYTHING that was added to the game – when it should have been about fixing the game, tweaking it etc – has been disabled/removed on my orders. The team is focused on fixing game bugs, tweaking things etc and a new patch is out either today or later in the week.
The game’s official launch currently scheduled for Apr 8th will only happen if the UI changes and some critical elements and features are in place, tested and profiled. Otherwise we’re not releasing it, but would continue pushing patches for the pre-existing build for you guys to take apart and continue to play SUBSCRIPTION FREE.
There is a LOT more, but I am pressed for time.
The long and short of it is that nobody knows what the future holds for the game or whether or not it can in fact recover from the troubles of the “soft launch” and the stigma associated with its stability, missing features, WoW look-a-likeness etc but we’re going to give it our best shot and with my direction and experience, the team is going to focus on the goals mapped out.
The best part is that a few months from now you will get to look back at Alganon’s Dec 2009 launch and see the changes. We don’t know how long it is going to take for the game to find its footing and gain its own niche, but we’re going to throw every goddamn thing at it.
My community sticks with my games because I’ve always stayed focused on the people who actually buy and play my games. Those are the people who I have catered to. QOL is going to focus on the community that buys and plays Alganon. If you don’t like Alganon the game for what it is and not what you want it to be, fine, don’t play it, don’t come here, go and play something else. No hard feelings.
If you know anything about my industry career in gaming, then you already know that I value the people who keep me doing this. So if you stick with this game, I will take it as far as I can and with everything at my disposal. Having a stellar team makes it that much easier because at the end of the day, a game is bigger than any one person.
And no, Alganon is not going to be QOL’s only game. I will let you dwell on that for a bit, but until then, my lips are sealed. 😉
MMO Fallout 