Best Of

The stream format improved before this one when a wider group of players entered testing in A2 and Devs were placed more front and center to swat questions and explain issues.

Too many prior streams with just Steven and Margaret often resembled a commercial for the game with Margaret lobbing up soft questions for Steven and lot of repetition of design principles. That was fun to a point, but even as an optimistic aficionado of all things Ashes thus far, it was wearing a bit thin. We needed to move from promises of what they could do, to what they are doing now and how are they fixing issues.

The trend needs to continue. Streamwatchers have already bought in to the possibility of what this game could be. No hard sell tactics needed. So when the Devs speak, let them dive deep and let them finish. Don't interrupt.

Githal wrote: »

Ludullu wrote: »

Soft cap is better because it would force people, who want to all be in one node, to splurge insane amounts of money just to achieve that, while the payoff is nowhere near as good as spreading out your political/economic/influential power.

This is literally risk/reward. If people think that the reward of being in a single node is worth the risk of wasting a shitton of money - let them. Everyone else who spreads out will benefit more, because they'll still have their big sacks of cash AND have more influence on the region.

Hard cap completely removes that part of gameplay.

thats if people try to get in the metropolis when it already is metropolis.
Usually from village stage you can see which of the neighboring nodes is furthest in development. And all players will join it from early stages, Since its most likely to not get locked as vasal. Which will just make this particular node progression even faster.

Atm this is not the case since node progression is capped to low levels, no vasal system. so no reason for any of this

Oh, wait, for clarity, as far as we know, Citizenship is a moving soft-cap. You need to be able to get a home in the node, and in-node housing is more limited when the Node is small. There may be things that need to be done or built to increase the cap, so we don't know at exactly what Node Stage the 'unlimited' kicks in.

A Hard Cap creates many other behavioural problems in exactly the same way, but with higher incentives for bad behaviour.

Ludullu wrote: »

GreatPhilisopher wrote: »

i'd rather do a 1000 kill and collect quests than farm mobs like a bot

So you prefer running back and forth instead of just farming mobs? Or am I misunderstanding what "1000 kill and collect quests" is?

Cause, as I see it, that's literally the same thing as "farm mobs like a bot", except you waste time on interacting with npcs and clicking through UI windows.

Different people have different likes and dislikes, and even different reasons for liking the things they like.

My reason for preferring even boring, repeatable kill quests is because they offer more variety, generally.

When playing the way you prefer, a player tends to find a spot that has mobs that their class is able to easily and efficiently defeat, they find a spot as close as they can, but that is out of range of respawn location, and then just pull mob after mob. This is monotonous gameplay that is repetative at the level of minute detail.

Doing it this way isn't a requirement, but if the mobs are respawning fact enough and if the player is restoring health and mana fast enough, this is the most efficient way to work this kind of grind (which is actually what I am doing as I type this).

On the other hand, with repeatable kill quests, you talk to an NPC and they tell you what mobs you need to kill. It may or may not be mobs that are easy and efficient for your class, but you don't (or shouldn't) have the choice. You have to locate the mobs the quest giver tells you, and then you need to kill the number of them they ask for, even if the mob in question is difficult for your class. You then need to go back to the quest giver, turn in your quest and get another, for potentially a different mob type, that you then need to locate and kill as many of as the queset giver asks for.

In a well designed game, these two activities should reward roughly the same. The reward from the quest should make up for the fact that you need to travel, and that you kill over all fewer mobs in the same amount of time.

With the above in mind, it should be VERY clear to anyone paying attention that one of these activities is more varied than the other, which is why many people prefer it.

Obviously I'm super biased due to my experience as a tech/software team lead, but this stream felt so comfortable.

If this is in any way less effort or stress on the Devs, especially those who appear on the stream, perfect.

Nice to meet Hector, I wish I had him for my own QA but if he must be somewhere other than that lol I'm super glad that he's where he is, for anyone who doesn't know (again, massive bias) that's exactly who you want in that spot to work with and support the QA team, especially one of that size. Felt just like talking to 'J'.

I'm sure there will be a separate feedback thing thread about the aspects of the stream's content, but this format continues to be great.

The monthly streams are here to update fans and supporters on the progress the studio makes. They are the 'action' of the studios stated culture of 'transparency'. I feel this months stream did this effectively and in many ways fits the current stage of development. The game is now at a place where many pieces are moving at once and it can be easy for players to lose track of just how much work is going on behind the scenes at once. Almost every topic about the games design has been explained and touched on at length. Getting a feel for a handful of the teams that are in major progress every now and then would be a great use of these streams time. In other words, variety, not depth, serves the goal of transparency best in this moment of the games development.

It may be a bit harder to wrangle people, but I think the format you had for the July 2025 stream was excellent. It felt clean, it felt like no topic lingered for too long, and most importantly it felt very in character for Intrepid. I feel like the streams benefit from hearing the many voices at Intrepid speak about how they are feeling about the progress of things and gives us the peak needed to really understand where the studio is at. It serves as a great tool. Maybe not every month, but it'd be great if you used this format more often.

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Maybe my final answer about what content is can be summed up like this: content is the unscripted experience we get from the systems

This is still not a correct definition of what content is.

Content is an objective thing, not something you can have your own opinion on.

You can have your own opinion on what content you like, just as you can have your own opinion on what car you like, or your favorate Care Bear. However, you do not get to have an opinion on what counts as content, just as you do not get to have an opinion on what counts as a car, or what counts as a Care Bear.

Maybe I misunderstood something?
But the new Crate system - that is mainly a way to earn gold right?
And the task is - make crate - transport it slowly in danger, and deliver and get reward - right?
Well that sounds boring and a time consuming chore to make gold.
Some will say, its fun because of risk of PVP? Like boring caravans..

Then why not just give more rewards for the fun parts? of the game.
PVP, PVE, Combat, Exploring.

Reward PVP - forget hauling crates - expand the PVP zones, and reward people for the "heads they take".
Of course varied reward depending on level difference and if the kill is new or the 10'th time you kill the same.

Why not STEAL something that is very popular in other games. - Extraction PVP game - in MMO form.
Announce an Extraxtion PVP event in a zone. All who sign up get to an instancea arena dungeon/area.
The arena has "crates" they can loot. Die in the arena, and you drop the loot from the arena and you are out.
Make different versions. Solo only 5-10 and 20 man all vs all. Groups only 3 man, 5 man, 8 man - and 3-5-7 groups vs each other. - Forget boring crate transports - this is fun pvp!

Reward the things that are fun, instead of having us doing boring time consuming chores and jumping through hoops.

For Fun PVE - make something to earn gold, for those who dont like PVP.

A - Large scale of the already good local events. - But instead of just a small area of Grems going amok, have event in larger scale.
Like 100 1* grems attack a node village. - Make guards vulnerable, so players have to help. If not enough players help, the grems kill all the npc's and then leave. All NPC and guards that die, will respawn in 1-2 hours. So players must defend the town. Maybe stations go out of order for a period if Grems win.
- Now replace Grems with other monster variants and highwaymen.
FUN! And reward all who help with glint or gold. - So earning rewards come through FUN gameplay, and not fkin running with crates.

B - Have random of the outdoor "dungeons" like HH or Oak announce an event 10 min before it happens.
Boost the spawn amount by 3-4 times the normal. Groups in the areas have to work as raids to survive.
It will naturally boost the earnings there, if you can make it. After 20 minutes, all spwn go back to normal.
- FUN!

Sure some will like the crate system.. But I think it sounds boring. And if the goal is to make risks, to earn rewards?
Well its not hard to imagine something more fun than building a crate and transporting it from A to B.
And also better ways to encourage to PVP or PVE events.

Your entire argument rests on the answer to the second question being no. It's just flatly incorrect. The reasons are economic in nature and have nothing to do with a hard cap. More resources scaling up per person requires greater time and access to resources. Resources in AoC are limited in any given area and respawn timers on said resources cost both time and risk getting murked. Lower time commitments to become a citizen (which has HUGE benefits to your economic efficiency in this game) will, in a very real 'invisible hand fashion' incentivize players to move to different nodes. It's just basic economics and it is in line with AoC's stated design goals and philosophies.