Alganon Interview with David Allen

By Jeffrey Philipp | November 14, 2009 | | Filed under: Features, Interviews | Tags: Alganon, David Allen, Feature, Hue Henrey, Interview, Quest Online

The MMO Gamer: Rather than dance around the issue, since it will most certainly be commented on by players, I wanted to ask a few things about the similarities between Alganon and World of Warcraft. I don’t mean anything disparaging when I say that, since nearly every game that has come out in the last six years has resembled World of Warcraft in at least several non trivial ways, and any game maker would be insane to not take at least a few hints from the current leader of the pack. That said, many people are not looking for “Just another WoW clone”, and I was wondering what your plans are, and what you are doing to ensure that current and prospective players are aware that this is more than the above clone. Are there any specific audiences you are aiming for that will find your game more attractive to them, or are there any other plans to differentiate your game from World of Warcraft in a different way?

David Allen: Well one big problem is the industry has been flooded with low quality F2P games all trying to ‘take a bite of the WoW pie.’ Most of these games have only one purpose – to make money. The F2P model is popular because it allows lower quality games to make more money. In reality, since WoW, very few quality fantasy-based MMOGs have been released, and those games went out of their way to try and be different from WoW. It’s not uncommon for players who pick up these games find that the features designed to make the game “different,” actually make the game less fun. The designers of these games made a decision to sacrifice “fun” for “different.”

Players aren’t upset there’s a game that resembles WoW. They’re upset that for the past few years they’ve been bombarded and desensitized by a combination of “weak” games and advertising that sells them on the idea that “similar is bad.” When people say a movie that reminds them of their favorite film, but with a different plot, characters and setting, that means they enjoyed the movie. When you have a meal that reminds you of the home cooking you loved as a kid, that is a great thing. However, for the past few years, every MMOG released has spent millions of dollars trying to convince gamers that “fun doesn’t matter; different is what you want,” and for many gamers, this marketing worked.

Being compared to the most successful MMOG of all time is not a bad thing. Players don’t want a WoW clone; they do, however, want a game they have just as much fun playing. They want a vibrant immersive world they want to be a part of. They want a control scheme that feels natural to them. They want a game that is fun to play. Alganon provides all of those things. Unfortunately, doing so makes it easy for players who have had their views shaped by the “similar is bad” marketing of other games to focus on these similar aspects.

Our biggest fans are the players who take the time to view Alganon as its own product, but you have to play the game to do that. Most of the naysayers never played the game; they base their negative comments on assumptions they’ve made from playing other games, or reading forums, or looking at screenshots. They compare these surface elements and make a list of things they find similar. Even when they do enter the game, they do so with the goal of finding similarities. They don’t bother to ask the most important question of all, “is it fun?”

What it comes down to is this: Alganon is a good solid game people can play and enjoy. If you look for similarities, you will find them. Many of the things that are fun in Alganon are also fun in other games. While this turns some people off, those who take the time to look at Alganon as its own product see that this is only part of what makes Alganon great. The players who look beyond the surface quickly end up becoming our biggest fans.

The MMO Gamer: Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to answer a few questions for us.

David Allen: You’re welcome – thanks for the interview!