“Derek Not-So-Smart” or “Will Someone Shoot This MMO in the Face Already?”

The fact the new grand poobah over at Quest Online, ‘creators’ of Alganon, is called Derek Smart is irony personified. After his senseless tussles with the previous head-honcho, David Allen and bloated talks of revamping Alganon to move away from the ‘WoW-clone’ mentality, you’d think Derek would smarten up. But that is probably asking for too much. The honorable Mr. Smart has outdone himself by publishing a press release that copies, word for word, a two-year-old press release from BioWare to promote Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Ethic over at Kill Ten Rats caught this most shamefully blatant form of plagiarism and idiocy, thereby writing another chapter in the hilarious saga of all things Alganon.

Here is an excerpt that is of particular interest from his press release, dated Wednesday, April 28, 2010:

“Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars – combat, exploration and character progression,’ Derek Smart continued. ‘In Alganon, in addition to these we’ve added the fourth pillar to the equation; a story. We delivered a fun, immersive adventure that gamers expect in a top quality massively multiplayer online game. To top it all off, we’re not done yet.”

Nearly two years, BioWare released the same document, and I personally remember it because of the ‘fourth pillar’ argument below, dated October 21, 2008:

“Traditionally, massively multiplayer online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars – combat, exploration and character progression,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder and General Manager/CEO of BioWare and General Manager/Vice President of Electronic Arts Inc., “In Star Wars: The Old Republic, we’re fusing BioWare’s heritage of critically-acclaimed storytelling with the amazing pedigree of Lucasfilm and LucasArts, and adding a brand-new fourth pillar to the equation – story. At the same time, we will still deliver all the fun features and activities that fans have come to expect in a AAA massively multiplayer online game.”

For shame Mr. Smart, for shame!