Visiting Alganon - The First Day Out

   

     And so I had been vaguely aware of Alganon's existence for quite some time, it sitting on the outskirts of my consciousness, a game that was getting some hype, but was largely dismissed by many from the beta leaks as a World of Warcraft clone.  Generating reports from early testing like that isn't unusual, and I've been in enough betas to know that what goes on in beta isn't always what hits retail.  Age of Conan was proof of that to a certain extent, although I doubt anyone that didn't spend a long time in that beta would understand what a great leap forward, and huge surprise, the retail client was on launch day over the last beta build that was pushed out.  Granted, it still was a train wreck of a build, but the beta client was much, much worse.  Trust me on that.  Anyway, to make a long story short, I was aware of Alganon, where it was headed, but because of the early reports, really didn't keep close tabs on it or expect to ever play it.  At all.   It just didn't sound like my type of game.



     Needless to say, it fell off my radar long before the launch, and whatever ensued afterwards.  I only know of those things from reports and such, but not from personal experience.  From that, it sounds like it was something akin to a disaster, but I'm not going to speculate.  So how did I end up here, playing Alganon?  That's an interesting twist in the story since I was happily playing other games with no intention of ever setting foot this way, nor honestly any real recollection that the game even existed.  It's unstable revenue models even lowered the chance that I would join up.  I mean, really, first AAA style monthly fee, then buy once, play forever, and finally onto a hybrid free to play model, which has generated it's own complaints but more about that later.  Seems like it could never really nail down where the profit was going to come from, and that can be problematic if one has time and energy invested in characters and a game, it sucks if that game shuts down.  Yes, I still miss Earth and Beyond and Auto Assault.

     So here I am.  For all the talk and controversy that swirls around Derek Smart, he is actually the only reason that I gave Alganon a shot.  I know there are a lot of people that don't like, Mr. Smart, for a variety of reasons, some deserved I'm sure, others certainly not, and there are many people that don't like him and don't actually know why, they believe stories and innuendo regarding him.  All that's fine with me.  People are, by and large, not very smart and tend to be sheep, and the internet has to a large extent caused the sheep effect to expand out exponentially and the shepherd to become less often a person or fact and more often rumor or heresay.  That's the way of the wild west style ridiculousness that anonymous representation combined with instant access to information, dubious or not in its origins.  Personally, I've found Smart's comments over the years to be direct, to the point, and often intolerant of stupidity, all things I support completely.  At the very least, his games and posts over the years have brought me some entertainment value, so I can't complain about that any.  And I figured with his hard nosed style, he could only be a benefit to Alganon's further development and long term survivability chances.  So that was enough to convince me to wonder over and take a look at the website and see what the current payment model was.

     I signed up for the free play, but somewhere during that process, sight unseen, segued into a paying customer as I ponied up for the Super Pack.  Granted, it was a bit of a risk, having never tried the game before, but hell, it was on sale for $19.99, I believe was the price, and I'm good for a $20.00 risk.  Can't be any worse than a night of poker, and if it worked out, it would be a much better investment than the poker.  And I suck at poker anyway.  So off I go now, playing Alganon.  One thing I can definitely speak to is that the Super Pack is a great value and worth the money if one plans to spend any time in Alganon.  I can't imagine playing without it.  Now if the mounts weren't so damn expensive.  Actually, I think the mount price is pretty much my only really big complaint.  Granted the game has some bugs here and there, but it seems like the dev team is working to get that straight.  I will see how it goes and report back.