How did going free-to-play effect the game?

If they were claiming it today, I'd  laugh because they clearly haven't played the game lately. certain the original designer set out to create a WoW clone, but as you all know, that was the  first thing that I put a cease to when I came to QOL. they made  a few changes which re-focused the game by itself strengths,  than trying to position it to compete with WoW or any other game for that matter. In truth, WoW copies features from a bunch of games that came before it. and you would be hard-pressed to discover a fantasy MMO game that didn't draw from WoW and every game that came before. This whole thing about Alganon is merely due to the fact that the original designer did in fact set out to create a game that was a bit  much like WoW. and given WoW's popularity and numbers, when you begin to look at those similarities, that's the first game that comes to mind, not all the others that  much do the same thing.

What would you say to anyone who claims that Alganon is a "WoW-clone?"

From the onset, making the game free-to-play was always my aim because I already knew that was the direction that the MMO industry was going in. So when they could finally accomplish that, it removed the final barrier of entry to the game. That helped boost our numbers  a bit, and we're still growing in leaps and bounds. Yes, the game is truly free-to-play because you don't must buy anything to play it. You do get to a level (30 I believe) where, in order to have an edge, you must purchase some items. But in the event you get to level 30, then it must mean that you're having fun. At which point purchasing an item or five in order to progress isn't such a huge deal. Also, this level cap is not an artificial one. It goes back to how the game was originally designed and is not something that they wanted to mess with at this point in time as that would  open up a whole other can of worms.

How did going free-to-play effect the game? Has it helped much? , you've gone "freemium" -- do you think the game can still truly be called free-to-play?

Leadership, focus and a plan. Having a flag also helps. Seriously though, when I came on board, I took one look at the previous dev plan - and trashed it. From that point onward, I made it clear what our goals were going to be. Those being :

The team has been rolling out patch after patch -- what's the secret to getting a team to buckle down to create fixes?

•finish the game
•fix what's broken and in so doing release patches as often as possible
•implement only features that were fundamental to the game in its current generation
Basically, although I don't do any programming on Alganon, I run the team the same way that I run mine. I work with them to come up with achievable goals and  let them do their jobs without any interference. Then I track those goals regularly to see where things are. If there are issues along the way, they work through them and within the scope of what they're doing. fundamentally, they're not flailing all over the place and being tugged from one thing to the next, implementing (or even removing) things on a whim. There is a plan and they stick to it. All cold ideas go on a list that stays on the backburner.

Alganon basically has a few of the prettiest landscapes,  for its technique requirements -- what do you owe this to?

The music in Alganon is brilliant. How important do you think music and sound design are to generating a more "professional" or "major studio" feel to your indie game?

they out-sourced all of the content for the game and the HeavyWorks guys who worked on them did an excellent job with the terrain landscape.

Be honest -- would you  be under the umbrella of a bigger corporation, or do you enjoy your independent status?

Music is a  important aspect of any creative medium, interactive or non-interactive. I don't think that the quality of the music lends itself to whether or not it makes the "indie" game feel more like a major studio or professional production. it is  part of the asset creation routine, and as such, goes hand in hand with the content. you can have the best music playing in the background of a crappy game and that definitely doesn't make the game's overall production feel any more professional.

While larger corporations are the necessary terrible in our industry, you couldn't pay me enough to go work for any of them at this point. I was five times on the ground floor when most of what is currently happening in the industry began to formulate to where they are today. Being an indie affords guys like me the luxury of individuality, but let's face it, most indies don't have five pennies to rub together. I  don't happen to be one of them, and that is due to the decisions that I made plenty of years ago when everyone was laughing at me for sticking to my type of games. Look where they are today. Running around with the "indie" brand like it was a badge of honor is only significant in the event you actually have something to show for it. So yeah, i like my indie status and I won't trade it for anything in the world. Except maybe for a seriously obscene amount of dough, because let's face it, anyone can be bought for the right cost.

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