Derek Smart: big changes in store for Alganon

"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."

Well, there you go. Wednesday night we brought you the news that David Allen was gone from Alganon. Shortly after that, Derek Smart spoke out in a big way regarding the event. He has a lot to say and the full post is a great read. He pulls no punches and he seems to have a lot of plans, but you can follow along after the jump for the highlights.

Jason Blood and Hue Henry are gone as well. Hue Henry left of his own volition and on favorable terms. Jason Blood did not. The December first launch of the game "should never have happened," and Smart is working to fix this. Among other things, he says the "WoW lookalike rubbish" is gone. The design team is throwing it out and working in a completely different direction to give the game its own unique look and feel. "You don't go competing with WoW when you don't have a WoW sized budget or the manpower to match."

Hand in hand with that decision is the one to pull a large amount of current content from the game: "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 big news is this: monthly subs are gone for good. They are currently only suspended, but their removal is in the works, and all subscription fees will be refunded 100%. (A few players expressed concern that this would entail a character wipe, and were quickly assured that this was not the case.) Smart has personally approved the budget for this and it is a sure thing.

So what happens now? This means pretty big things in store for Alganon. The December first launch, as we now know, is retroactively being treated as a soft launch and we've got a definite scheduled launch date of April 8th. From the sounds of things, everything we've known about the game is about to be turned on its ear with the goal of taking it in a brand new and much better direction.

There's no doubt that Derek Smart is a controversial figure in the gaming world, but his enthusiasm can't be questioned. The responses to his post were almost entirely positive and thankful for the planned changes. Smart has remained active as the thread continues, with his most recent statement summing it up nicely: "To be clear, the goal here is not to make Alganon into something else but rather to help it establish its own identity and uniqueness based on its pre-existing framework, mythos and lore. "

We, along with the Alganon community, will be watching the developments at Quest Online with great interest, and we wish the entire Alganon team the best of luck here on out.