David Allen Quest Online QOL History

Author’s Note: This article is Part II of a one-on-one discussion with David Allen about Quest Online’s origins.  I am currently working on researching the origins of the online gaming industry, and I found this information interesting and an important part of the overall story.

CONTINUED FROM PART 1 of
David Allen and Quest Online / QOL as can be seen here.

David Allen says “QOL grew very slowly and steadily. We only hired people as we needed them. This ensured the maximum value for the invested dollars and made sure we didn’t have unnecessary overhead. And since QOL was avirtual company, our overhead was next to nothing. Greg offered for us to use the “server cage” at the SmartReply data center to host all of QOL’s servers in order to help save money as well.”

The vision of QOL was made clear to everyone who worked at QOL as was the vision and overall design for Alganon. David ensured they never had useless meetings that wasted hours of time. [Read more...]

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MyAlganon and the Library are exceptional systems many seem to overlook; a social network tied into real-time game data and character statistics similar in nature to WOWHead or the WoW Armory. And QOL had these up and running before the game even launched. This was quite an accomplishment. Pairing MyAlganon with the online library, accessible both via web and in-game, Alganon launched with the ‘support’ features that most MMOs take years to develop. It was several years after their launch when WoW released the Armory, or when Lord of the Rings Online launched the MyLotRO.com, and sites like WoWHead still serve as the main repository for player information. With Alganon, all of this was available at the player’s fingertips at Launch and tied directly to their source data. This was a major accomplishment. [Read more...]