Welcome, Heroes of the Dawn - 12/07/2009
Its only been a week since the soft launch, but we've already started to see Alganon grow and change based on our players. The Dawning is underway, and many players are working their way through the first aspect of the Dawning the quest chain that leads to the Wrathbreaker crystal. Congratulations to those who have already earned enough tokens to start picking up the rewards. [MORE]
A Talrok Story - 08/29/2009
One of my favorite tasks as lead data designer for Alganon is writing the lore and story for the world weve created. Theres something wonderful about spending time in a different world, full of new places to explore, and new characters to meet. [MORE]
The Hype - 07/21/2009
The most frustrating part of a new MMO for me is being let down from all the "over hype." I hate it when developers brag about a million cool features that they never deliver.
I never want to do that to the people reading these blogs... [MORE]
Embracing the Trinity - 04/27/2009
Hue's Second Rule of MMO Design:
The collective intelligence of MMO Players is much greater than the
collective intelligence of MMO Designers. I don't even have to think for a
moment when I am asked about my favorite aspect of MMOs. My favorite part,
without any doubt, is the players. I've seen MMO players defeat gods that
designers thought were immortal, decode cryptographic messages in less time
than it took to develop the code, infect entire cities with... [MORE]
My History - 03/14/2009
When asked about how I got started in video games, I always find it
necessary to tell about my first computer - a broken TRS-80 that my
father had rescued from abandonment by its former owners. When the poor
machine's built in floppy drive broke, its previous owners decided to
cast the poor thing aside, like common garbage. My father, recognizing
that computers were soon to become an important part of our culture,
asked if he could take the broken computer home to give to his son.... [MORE]
The Deities of Alganon - 02/13/2009
In most fantasy worlds, the deities are pretty simple. If they are more than just a name or end game boss fight, they are just avatars of a given element or idea. They are "the god of death" or "the goddess of love" or "the god of elastic-waist khaki trousers." Everything you wanted to know can be explained with a three-word phrase. [MORE]
An introduction to my design secrets - 01/27/2009
Greetings! In the future I'll post a more formal introduction and
history about myself, but for now I wanted to start with a quick
informal hello.My name is Hue Henry and I am Lead Data Designer here at Quest
Online. What does a Lead Data Designer do? I lead the team that
designs the data, of course. The data team is basically a "catch all"
for anything that is not art, tools or code. That includes lore, items,
combat, crafting, NPCs, dialog, quests, world layout, and too many
other... [MORE]