The easiest way I can describe Alganon is calling it a “Custom CircleMUD”. Now I doubt very many people will understand what I mean by this so I’m going to give you a quick history lesson from my early years of online gaming.

Back in the ’90s most people playing online RPGs were probably playing MUDs. There were a couple of big MUDs (Sojourn, Toril, Duris, Aardwolf, Medievia) and there were hundreds if not thousands of smaller MUDs that were people’s pet projects. People who wanted to make their own MUD with a few of their friends usually picked a base code. The most prevalent was CircleMUD with a prepacked world and four classes. We called these games “Stock MUDs” because the world was always the same but maybe it had a different name. They were always shitty MUDs and with almost nothing different to it.

The next level of MUDs were “Custom CircleMUDs” that always had potential to be fun games. Usually the owners ripped out the stock world and created their own. Sometimes they tweaked the classes and maybe added a new one. Depending on the skill of the people running the game; you could potentially have a good game.

The last level of MUDs were in a realm of their own. The most prevalent that I remember was SojournMUD (Or Duris/Toril). It had a completely original world and a complete customization of classes and mechanics but was still rooted, or was started in, the root stock code base even though it was hardly recognizable unless you knew what to look for.

Now how does this compare to today? Well the big boy on the block would be Warcraft. Complete customization with differing mechanics etc. Alganon would be the “Custom CircleMUD”. And here’s why.

It would be completely silly to ignore the similarities between Alganon and Warcraft. From the UI to the class mechanics there are many things that are similar.

From a recent Massively interview,

It blows my mind how much time people are putting into this sort of thing. WoW is the most successful and well-known MMOG in history, and it follows standards set by countless games before it. Why wouldn’t we want the custom-built Alganon UI to be familiar to players who know these standards? Every piece of the Alganon UI was hand created by our team. We designed it to be familiar and easy to recognize. It’s simple as that.

There are many components to today’s MMORPGs that I consider stock elements. Minimaps, hotbars, chatboxes and even “talent trees” in some form all combine to create a basis of familiarity for the player. Alganon uses all of these, using colors (in the UI and on equipment), shapes and familiar design to help ease a player into a new gaming experience.

The next element that has brought me to compare Alganon to a “Custom CircleMUD” is the class selection you have currently. Right now you can choose between a Magus, Soldier, Healer and Ranger. These are the four basic tenants you have in almost any game. Though it should be mentioned that Alganon promises more in the future. There are also two races to choose from right now. The human race and the Talrok; two opposing factions.

Game play is also something rooted in current DIKU tradition. You play through a series of quests killing 10 of these or grabbing this or that and delivering it to the next guy in the next area. You gain a bulk of your experience through quest rewards.

The key element that elevates Alganon is it’s world. There is nothing stock to it and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was well made and pleasing to play in. While not graphically superior in terms of lighting and polygons, the art style is consistent and creates a fantasy atmosphere. If you want to compare the graphics to other games on the market I would put this game ahead of all the Free-to-Play games out there, namely Allods Online and Runes of Magic, on par with Warcraft 3 years ago before the lighting upgrades, and behind Aion.

Hopefully I’ve set the table to begin this review. Alganon is extremely influenced by Warcraft and swims in sea of DIKU water. With that being said, here is what I think of the game.

With my account set up I begin as we all do by downloading the game. It was an effortless process and I wasn’t long waiting before the setup and patching process was complete. The game starts off asking you to choose between two races. Each race has it’s own starting area and there didn’t appear to be any difference between the two other than what they looked like and whatever lore each carries.

After picking human you were given the normal options of hair and skin color etc etc. The customization was somewhat limited however. I hit a few things at random and continued. This will bring you to the class selection where you had four choices: Healer, Magus, Soldier and Ranger.

I got a chanced to play a few of the classes through the first few levels before I settled on playing the Magus.

You start off in front of a quest giver and you’re off killing ten mobs. You finish that and move on to the next area then the next and so on. It was a pretty standard affair, but they did a good job of it. The leveling curve was quick and easy; the ding/grats rate was pretty high. Starting at an early level you can start putting points into your talent trees. So there was always something to look forward to.

What surprised me in many MMOGs coming out these days and in the past 4 years is that they can not get the leveling curve down. Many often make leveling too long or too arduous . Quests either don’t give you enough to level and forces you to grind, or you have to do too many of them. Alganon gets it right however. For the first 10 levels (out of 50) I moved from one place to another, never staying long enough to get bored. I never was at a loss for quests to do, nor did I have any extra sitting around that I ignored.

Combat isn’t anything special, but it isn’t bad. You had your abilities that you fired off whenever the cooldown was available. You weren’t spamming skills nor were you waiting forever to use them. Again, if you’re going to be doing a DIKU game then you have to go back to Warcraft. Their combat mechanics are stellar. Your abilities fire off when you press buttons, your get feedback during fights. You compare this to games like LOTRO and Aion where you’re queuing abilities and animations have to finish and your character get stuck or you feel like you’re playing in mud. In Alganon the combat system isn’t anything ground breaking however it does what it’s trying to do. With so many games launching in a broken state, good job by them.

There is one system in Alganon that is interesting. They have taken a page out of Warhammer’s book and added an in game Library that discusses lore and your character’s achievements. It’s also an in game datebase for loot and NPCs. I think you’re going to see more and more of this in future games.

Character progression is basically similar to Warcraft with talent trees and levels, but there is one twist. There is a off-line or real time training system similar to EVE-Online. From what I got to see, there are different trees that you can start learning from that add bonuses to your abilities. As a Magus I was learning different things like elemental resistances or boosts to certain elemental damage. I did not get a chance to see how robust it gets as your character ages.

I do have a few complaints though with Alganon. The first are their character models. Up close, they don’t look very good. They are somewhere between Warcraft version 1.0 and Runes of Magic. The models often look like they are floating on the terrain, which happens to be the lack of good lightning. The second complaint I have is purely just my opinion but I don’t like the font. It’s either too big or just not the right one. I can’t put my finger on it.

Let me wrap this up. Alganon works. The developers did a good job in releasing a stable, bug free game (which is asking a lot in today’s MMOG genre) with a world that’s asking to be explored. If you’re looking for a new experience then Alganon is just as good as anything out there on the market right now. While it may not have robust systems in place, the speedy leveling curve will satisfy the appetite of any achiever.

My advice? Download the trial and judge for yourself.