First, thanks to all of you dedicated Alganon fans for sticking around all these years. You were the primary reason that I fought to save - and subsequently purchased - the project. I believed that it was worth saving. So, thanks for that. At the end of the day, it's all about the numbers.
So, what has been going since my last update of August 2022? A heck of a lot. Most of it just boring stuff, really.
Though Alganon isn't as old as many of your favorite MMO games out there, as you all know, the visuals (last updated for the 2015 expansion pack) are getting rather long in the tooth. Not to mention the custom game engine which was built with a now deprecated third-party engine. The game was originally built on the low-fi visuals end of the scale in order for it to run well on its target platforms. As you all know, it did that well enough that performance was never an issue.
I have been sitting on Alganon since my studio purchased it some years back; and although my original plan was to do an international sub-license (or collab sale) deal which would bring it back bigger and better worldwide (the game was never released outside of North America), I never came across a deal that I liked. Then the pandemic happened, and everything went sideways. And so, it was once again on ice.
In the months following my previous update, a lot of work has been done; not only in terms of server upgrades and maintenance - some of which are still ongoing - but we also moved everything to a new datacenter that's closer and more accessible. And through several months of toiling, weeks away from home (datacenter trips to the middle of nowhere aren't fun - ever) etc. we managed to bring the Alganon server hardware back online.
Then the real fun started because for a time after the servers were back up, nothing worked. Like - at all. Aside from the datacenter shenanigans, one in which we showed up to wire up (after the racking from prior visits) only to find out that our racks literally had no power though the work order had already been closed as "ready". Then there was that time we found out that our legacy equipment wasn't compatible with the fiber connectivity at the datacenter - and they didn't have any support for legacy hookups. Yep, you guessed it. We had to order those parts, wait for them to be shipped, go back to the datacenter....only to find that it didn't actually work. Oh, and the many runs to local outlets to source out much-needed materials. Luckily, between us the rag-tag team and the fine folks at TTP who were invaluable to us during the transition, everything worked out.
Once we got the servers back up, upgraded (several retired and e-wasted) etc, configuring Alganon and its many services and databases for the new configuration, IP addresses (trust me, fiddling with legacy BGP settings is alchemy) and all that boring stuff, had its own share of drama.
Once we got through all that and things stabilized, Alganon was running again. Then we started on the critical aspects of the rebirth: updating the code base. For one thing, Alganon was developed with a legacy version of Visual Studio and various other tools (and some middleware). And so, that work started because long-term plans required that the entire code base and associated tools be updated. And that work isn't about adding new features, bug fixes or anything of the sort - because we're not doing that at this point in the process.
I could go on and on, but then this would end up being a technical and boring update.
Alganon has been back up and running internally for several months now; and that's why you can once again access your account details via the MyAlganon web portal. In fact, the only issue (server side) that we had to resolve was related to Keeps sometimes crashing the server during dB updates and subsequently creating a login issue.
So, as you can imagine, doing updates about stuff like this and which aren't actually game-play related, is a pointless and time-wasting venture. But here I am - doing just that. On a Friday. ːsteammockingː
In the "fun stuff" dept, the long-term goal is to continue doing minor backend and client updates to Alganon, redo (where needed) the art assets, improve on the graphics engine pipeline where most needed, do another expansion pack (which, as before, will have all the bells and whistles), and devise a re-release plan that benefits the game as well as ensure continued funding for its live ops.
And yes, I do have a timeline, but I'm not inclined to share that yet. But as I stated in my previous update, the re-release will be a staggered one tagged as alpha, beta etc. until everything in my roadmap is completed and tagged as a final release.
Until next time, I will leave you with this narrated 20-minute video created last month. We plan on not only doing a full-blown tutorial (written and video) for the game, but also similar videos showcasing the many facets and features of the game. This will also include videos of the progress being made as the visual improvements progress. And don't forget that Alganon now also has a dedicated Discord channel where most of the news and feedback will be conducted as things progress.
Alganon will be back. It's ready when it's ready; but right now, it's not ready.
