Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Best Of
Splinter Topic: 'RP-Frames' (mostly about quests/oneshots)
A Splinter for some ranty information that probably shouldn't go directly into the Feedback Thread. Plz merge if considered better there.
An RP-Frame for my group is 'a set of conditions or lore that give context to an action'. It does not require actual Roleplaying, but it doesn't exclude it. The purpose is to increase immersion for those who like storyline. Here are some random examples of recently used ones and mild explanation for why they worked.
Throne and Liberty:
There is currently a visual bug in some clients of TL where under certain conditions, the sun is black. The light source itself doesn't vanish, the skyglow around it is fine, the sun itself is just black.
There are also at least two 'Ocular' bosses that 'could be responsible for this', Grayeye and Malakar. Their lore is provided to us in game in small blurbs that are easily accessible to everyone. The current RP-Frame is quite strong, able to lead us along a multi-pronged path of investigation, theories, diverse roles, and 'fear', based on just these two things.
The requirement for this to work, other than RP-skill, is the strong worldbuild, but also the large 'empty space' allowed by not pushing too hard on the specifics of these bosses. We know a reasonable amount about them, both through blurbs and through battle, but the game has not 'told us a very specific, locked-in story' for them. This, afaik for most of my group, increases immersion.
Not simply because 'we can RP stuff', you could do this with anything, make up anything about any character in the game, etc, but because it's connected to something, and it's flexible enough that you could probably describe it to someone else, both the reason for your RP, and the reason you took X action, without having to worry that the Game Canon will clash super hard against it, so even if that person is 'more knowledgeable' than you for some reason, it doesn't apply to these enemies as much.
Final Fantasy 11:
The Grauberg area contains a roost of Wyverns, and a Dragon who can communicate with people if you befriend her in various ways. It is geographically above an area where sheep graze and people could, somewhat realistically 'raise' them.
For various reasons I won't go too much into, this mentally lends itself rather well to the idea that if you somehow 'didn't see enough sheep' in that area for a while, or 'certain Elite/Notorious Monsters weren't spawning for a long time', that the Wyverns might be overhunting (for example) and the Dragon might ask someone to help deal with the more aggressive ones. This tier of thing could be an ingame quest or event, but then it would probably be less fun because it'would be so unlikely to be triggered by something that people would accept being so random, with so many prerequisites. (FF11 does have quite a few quests or situations that are that random/dynamic/rare, but we do not expect these in modern games).
It is more than enough that some dynamism is involved, enough to get this feeling oneself. Are the Wyverns starving because they're grounded by a recent spate of summer thunderstorms? Emboldened by some other change in the world? Is the Dragon even in the area and not visiting a City at the moment to be able to know this? Did she 'bring this quest with her' when she came to your city to visit a different friend?
This one really 'feels like it could work as a normal quest', in a game where the Devs somehow have the time to spare to make content that only 1-5% of people will even know exist, but the important part is that creating just the components required for this RP-Frame is so much easier and such 'relatively incidental work' that it is enough to increase immersion on its own. Other than that, the same thing from TL applies.
If you go up to the Aery and find another group there, you have a grounded, ingame way to reference and explain the reason you are there, and one that they all have access to the pieces of. It's not just random stuff in your own mind. They 'could have noticed the summer thunderstorms', they 'could have someone who is also friends with the Dragon', they could 'understand that this is what has led to the higher prices of Ram Leather lately on Auction'. They could absolutely not care whatsoever. But they are no longer as likely to be a threat to immersion 'just because they don't Roleplay, themselves'.
Elite Dangerous
https://inara.cz/elite/squadron/1568/
Those folks literally worship aliens we just got out of a humanity-wide war with, though I guess they weren't technically on the same side so that term is wrong.
Their star system can be analyzed to get all the information you need for coming up with a way to interact with them, and they clearly have some intent, or at least, present one to other players in a way that prevents your immersion from being automatically broken unless they intend it. 'Automatic OOC indicator' basically.
This isn't really a case where the Background Simulation is incredibly important to the RP-frame, though, most of the information is available already. Without the Thargoids ever having any specific interaction with this group (there's some information in the link though), you have all the context required for immersion. It does not matter if the players actually fought on their side in the war, only that there was enough dynamism (the war itself, and any aspect of the BGS changing during the time then or since) for context.
The requirements for these that I have learned as RP-Lead, especially within my group of people with differing levels of skill and investment into the RP itself:
1. No rigid set of actions that must be taken in response to the world change or 'frame trigger' (strong suggestions are fine, so this is hard to really explain without another Elite Dangerously long essay)
2. Enough lore information to give various players context for engagement, even if they choose not to, because somehow this works for immersing even those who have poor memory/relational skill
3. A limit on that lore information so that the space can be filled at all instead of 'everyone worrying that there's some discordant canon that will be jarring later' (I've been told by multiple group members that this fear of being 'squashed by canon' is almost crippling in terms of being imaginative, for them)
4. Enough universal dynamism in the worldsim that is very clear and strongly canonical, for a foundation. Basically, don't let 'real, repeatable things that happen' be too open to interpretation. If a minor event-state spawns 'for no reason' it has to be something that seems like it should (or a bug, or a weird patch, at least then most people experience it the same way).
5. If #4 is not possible, some ecological/meteorological tie-in that can be observed by everyone, and I mean 'everyone period', not 'everyone in a specific Roleplay group'
Quests are a great way to deliver all this, or they can be a terrible wrecking ball to destroy it all even when it already exists.
Since the Quest/Narrative/World Manager team surely knows how they want to approach most/all of this already, it's just a rant that seemed just about worth typing up, but not directly relevant to the Feedback Thread since it's moreso about a tangential experience to Quests, than anything about Quests themselves.
An RP-Frame for my group is 'a set of conditions or lore that give context to an action'. It does not require actual Roleplaying, but it doesn't exclude it. The purpose is to increase immersion for those who like storyline. Here are some random examples of recently used ones and mild explanation for why they worked.
Throne and Liberty:
There is currently a visual bug in some clients of TL where under certain conditions, the sun is black. The light source itself doesn't vanish, the skyglow around it is fine, the sun itself is just black.
There are also at least two 'Ocular' bosses that 'could be responsible for this', Grayeye and Malakar. Their lore is provided to us in game in small blurbs that are easily accessible to everyone. The current RP-Frame is quite strong, able to lead us along a multi-pronged path of investigation, theories, diverse roles, and 'fear', based on just these two things.
The requirement for this to work, other than RP-skill, is the strong worldbuild, but also the large 'empty space' allowed by not pushing too hard on the specifics of these bosses. We know a reasonable amount about them, both through blurbs and through battle, but the game has not 'told us a very specific, locked-in story' for them. This, afaik for most of my group, increases immersion.
Not simply because 'we can RP stuff', you could do this with anything, make up anything about any character in the game, etc, but because it's connected to something, and it's flexible enough that you could probably describe it to someone else, both the reason for your RP, and the reason you took X action, without having to worry that the Game Canon will clash super hard against it, so even if that person is 'more knowledgeable' than you for some reason, it doesn't apply to these enemies as much.
Final Fantasy 11:
The Grauberg area contains a roost of Wyverns, and a Dragon who can communicate with people if you befriend her in various ways. It is geographically above an area where sheep graze and people could, somewhat realistically 'raise' them.
For various reasons I won't go too much into, this mentally lends itself rather well to the idea that if you somehow 'didn't see enough sheep' in that area for a while, or 'certain Elite/Notorious Monsters weren't spawning for a long time', that the Wyverns might be overhunting (for example) and the Dragon might ask someone to help deal with the more aggressive ones. This tier of thing could be an ingame quest or event, but then it would probably be less fun because it'would be so unlikely to be triggered by something that people would accept being so random, with so many prerequisites. (FF11 does have quite a few quests or situations that are that random/dynamic/rare, but we do not expect these in modern games).
It is more than enough that some dynamism is involved, enough to get this feeling oneself. Are the Wyverns starving because they're grounded by a recent spate of summer thunderstorms? Emboldened by some other change in the world? Is the Dragon even in the area and not visiting a City at the moment to be able to know this? Did she 'bring this quest with her' when she came to your city to visit a different friend?
This one really 'feels like it could work as a normal quest', in a game where the Devs somehow have the time to spare to make content that only 1-5% of people will even know exist, but the important part is that creating just the components required for this RP-Frame is so much easier and such 'relatively incidental work' that it is enough to increase immersion on its own. Other than that, the same thing from TL applies.
If you go up to the Aery and find another group there, you have a grounded, ingame way to reference and explain the reason you are there, and one that they all have access to the pieces of. It's not just random stuff in your own mind. They 'could have noticed the summer thunderstorms', they 'could have someone who is also friends with the Dragon', they could 'understand that this is what has led to the higher prices of Ram Leather lately on Auction'. They could absolutely not care whatsoever. But they are no longer as likely to be a threat to immersion 'just because they don't Roleplay, themselves'.
Elite Dangerous
https://inara.cz/elite/squadron/1568/
Those folks literally worship aliens we just got out of a humanity-wide war with, though I guess they weren't technically on the same side so that term is wrong.
Their star system can be analyzed to get all the information you need for coming up with a way to interact with them, and they clearly have some intent, or at least, present one to other players in a way that prevents your immersion from being automatically broken unless they intend it. 'Automatic OOC indicator' basically.
This isn't really a case where the Background Simulation is incredibly important to the RP-frame, though, most of the information is available already. Without the Thargoids ever having any specific interaction with this group (there's some information in the link though), you have all the context required for immersion. It does not matter if the players actually fought on their side in the war, only that there was enough dynamism (the war itself, and any aspect of the BGS changing during the time then or since) for context.
The requirements for these that I have learned as RP-Lead, especially within my group of people with differing levels of skill and investment into the RP itself:
1. No rigid set of actions that must be taken in response to the world change or 'frame trigger' (strong suggestions are fine, so this is hard to really explain without another Elite Dangerously long essay)
2. Enough lore information to give various players context for engagement, even if they choose not to, because somehow this works for immersing even those who have poor memory/relational skill
3. A limit on that lore information so that the space can be filled at all instead of 'everyone worrying that there's some discordant canon that will be jarring later' (I've been told by multiple group members that this fear of being 'squashed by canon' is almost crippling in terms of being imaginative, for them)
4. Enough universal dynamism in the worldsim that is very clear and strongly canonical, for a foundation. Basically, don't let 'real, repeatable things that happen' be too open to interpretation. If a minor event-state spawns 'for no reason' it has to be something that seems like it should (or a bug, or a weird patch, at least then most people experience it the same way).
5. If #4 is not possible, some ecological/meteorological tie-in that can be observed by everyone, and I mean 'everyone period', not 'everyone in a specific Roleplay group'
Quests are a great way to deliver all this, or they can be a terrible wrecking ball to destroy it all even when it already exists.
Since the Quest/Narrative/World Manager team surely knows how they want to approach most/all of this already, it's just a rant that seemed just about worth typing up, but not directly relevant to the Feedback Thread since it's moreso about a tangential experience to Quests, than anything about Quests themselves.
Azherae
1
Re: PVP Jumping
The forum cop Noaani using yet another bad faith argument. He said it looks bad, not that he doesn't want people to have fun. There are people that enjoy immersion and find the popcorn battles immersion breaking.
I too enjoyed this toy when I was 1.
I too enjoyed this toy when I was 1.
Volgaris
4
Re: Node Level Confusion.
@ELWOW
You're always welcome to your opinion, but I think there may be a few misunderstandings about what I’m saying.
There are already starting zones—Lion’s Hold, the Anvils (coming soon), and more. These areas act as static, low-level nodes. They’re not very large, but they’re enough to get players to the point where they can handle level 10 mobs near the roads in active nodes.
I don't think that most goblins would just remain goblins and scale up in level. The design was that goblins would be replaced by stronger enemies—like trolls or ogres—as nodes level up. This was part of the original design intent. If you’re curious, I recommend watching the two videos from the “Four-Part Node Series.”
To my knowledge no one is asking for level 50 ravens one-shotting players in town. The intended idea is that stronger mobs would appear the farther you venture from roads and towns. And honestly, regular overworld mobs aren’t even the central concern—they could stay low-level near towns and roads. What matters more is that points of interest (POIs) and Underrealm content scale appropriately. Keeping overworld mobs low-level around major travel paths would actually be a good thing—it helps low-level players progress and settle in any node.
When I bring up a "player-driven world," it’s not meant as a debating point—it is the core selling point of this game. There are plenty of more complete MMORPGs without player-driven worlds already on the market. What sets Ashes of Creation apart is that promise. Without it, Ashes risks becoming just another forgettable Kickstarter MMO.
You're always welcome to your opinion, but I think there may be a few misunderstandings about what I’m saying.
There are already starting zones—Lion’s Hold, the Anvils (coming soon), and more. These areas act as static, low-level nodes. They’re not very large, but they’re enough to get players to the point where they can handle level 10 mobs near the roads in active nodes.
I don't think that most goblins would just remain goblins and scale up in level. The design was that goblins would be replaced by stronger enemies—like trolls or ogres—as nodes level up. This was part of the original design intent. If you’re curious, I recommend watching the two videos from the “Four-Part Node Series.”
To my knowledge no one is asking for level 50 ravens one-shotting players in town. The intended idea is that stronger mobs would appear the farther you venture from roads and towns. And honestly, regular overworld mobs aren’t even the central concern—they could stay low-level near towns and roads. What matters more is that points of interest (POIs) and Underrealm content scale appropriately. Keeping overworld mobs low-level around major travel paths would actually be a good thing—it helps low-level players progress and settle in any node.
When I bring up a "player-driven world," it’s not meant as a debating point—it is the core selling point of this game. There are plenty of more complete MMORPGs without player-driven worlds already on the market. What sets Ashes of Creation apart is that promise. Without it, Ashes risks becoming just another forgettable Kickstarter MMO.
Vhaeyne
4
Re: Node Level Confusion.
This is the big issue with open development. You have the overall plan on the wiki that defines a general outline of the endstate of all these systems. Then these dev streams come out and the dev might misspeak or not completely understand what the end state should be. Leading to needless confusion.
One of my major complaints is the information flow from the devs to the testers. Any shifts in design should be communicated, that's if we were actual testers. In truth we're just early adopters.
I hope there won't be any permanent level 50 zones or any static zones really, just the starting areas need to be static to get the players to 10, then they venture out. That would be a big shift on the planned design. Maybe they could be doing this to make it a contested area to build a Node? I don't see this being needed and completely against the planned design.
One of my major complaints is the information flow from the devs to the testers. Any shifts in design should be communicated, that's if we were actual testers. In truth we're just early adopters.
I hope there won't be any permanent level 50 zones or any static zones really, just the starting areas need to be static to get the players to 10, then they venture out. That would be a big shift on the planned design. Maybe they could be doing this to make it a contested area to build a Node? I don't see this being needed and completely against the planned design.
Volgaris
4
Re: How much does the quality of the game drop
I don't think you're understanding my posts
The problem isn't that we're testing, it's that they forget that we're primarily players anyway
So if we were employees it would look like you live in Florida but from this day forward you have to work in the NewYork office come as you please it's not the company's problem or leave in general.
So it's easier for them to offend and chase away 60% of all players in order to increase online on one server by 10%.
They don't think about their users (maybe only at this stage but it's a fact:)).
There's nothing stopping them from keeping those servers and doing a sale promotion in the right region.
The problem isn't that we're testing, it's that they forget that we're primarily players anyway
So if we were employees it would look like you live in Florida but from this day forward you have to work in the NewYork office come as you please it's not the company's problem or leave in general.
So it's easier for them to offend and chase away 60% of all players in order to increase online on one server by 10%.
They don't think about their users (maybe only at this stage but it's a fact:)).
There's nothing stopping them from keeping those servers and doing a sale promotion in the right region.
Vadim199
1
Make PvP Viable
Starting from P2 we mostly had PvP in form of caravans PvP to fight over Gold basically, which was fine although from someone who played AA I still wish they would just copy paste that system, currently with flagging on a caravan event let alone 10 is just way worse than force flagging and ganking those caravans esp when you summon your own caravan in order to claim the goods it becomes very messy with people flagging wrong and be in 15 events which some you might be attacker and defender, I honestly don't see the point of an extra system rather then just force flagging and killing it. While you will go corrupt for it, which is the next problem. (not even considering outsiders or people flagging your side in order to crowbar the goods so no one can have it, like wtf is that?)
In this game when going corrupt you will lose your gear and eventually this will be regulated with the Blight system where you can kill some people before losing your gear which will always be the cutoff point. As soon you risk losing your gear you cannot kill someone anymore, you just wont and this is not a good thing. Going back to AA where you would face jail time aka real time you wont be able to play which people would mind less than losing their gear however you faced punishment so people would't go out just killing people for no reason. In addition you faced a jury which was just a bonus to get some player interaction where you could slightly rp and or decide the verdict of people which some had good or bad reputation, just a bonus addition towards the jail system. I rather sit in jail for 2 hours and do manual labour task then losing an item which i farmed for (lets be real, couple days) while it does desensitise to just randomly murder people.
Going back to caravans you also have no real downside to attack someones caravan which would be the case if you just need to force flag. I don't know about you guys but in P2 we murdered so many caravans Steven didn't even showed us the statistics in EU, there was no reason not to and I think that's lame, there should be some "risk and reward" to it. There was also big problem with caravans where a lot of battles became "throw your body against it " battles. With so many embersprings around you could just respawn with spawn protection and go to the caravan and hit it til it was dead (which is significantly harder now in P2.5 tbf). Next point would be embersprings and respawn time, in current game I do think there are too many embersprings which makes killing someone less impactful, when fighting someone in lets say in Jundrak over the hawk bow or daggers where you always could be back than less than 5 minutes (daggers even 1 Minute) that also goes for every POI or almost everywhere developed zone in the game which I saw mainly in P2 due to caravan pvp which happened everywhere.
Going to P2.5 where gold doesn't matter due to no goldsinks and broken economy you fight over named mobs which you cant because how the corruption system works, so you have to dps race which is just lame. In Jundrak til recently we could do that which actually was pretty fun, we fought over the named mobs in order to obtain the kill and hopefully the loot (which made the tedious grind at least fun), which was a good thing you fought over a limited resource which is what Steven wants (at least he said that) and a lot of the core Playerbase. I'm not advocating to make everything lawless or something but pvping should be viable, be it some lawless POI or some lawless zones with good resources or make a viable corruption system because the risk of losing your gear is not viable and never will be.
Right now the pvp system is inferior across the board compared what we had in AA and without some major changes I don't see it being better in the future
In this game when going corrupt you will lose your gear and eventually this will be regulated with the Blight system where you can kill some people before losing your gear which will always be the cutoff point. As soon you risk losing your gear you cannot kill someone anymore, you just wont and this is not a good thing. Going back to AA where you would face jail time aka real time you wont be able to play which people would mind less than losing their gear however you faced punishment so people would't go out just killing people for no reason. In addition you faced a jury which was just a bonus to get some player interaction where you could slightly rp and or decide the verdict of people which some had good or bad reputation, just a bonus addition towards the jail system. I rather sit in jail for 2 hours and do manual labour task then losing an item which i farmed for (lets be real, couple days) while it does desensitise to just randomly murder people.
Going back to caravans you also have no real downside to attack someones caravan which would be the case if you just need to force flag. I don't know about you guys but in P2 we murdered so many caravans Steven didn't even showed us the statistics in EU, there was no reason not to and I think that's lame, there should be some "risk and reward" to it. There was also big problem with caravans where a lot of battles became "throw your body against it " battles. With so many embersprings around you could just respawn with spawn protection and go to the caravan and hit it til it was dead (which is significantly harder now in P2.5 tbf). Next point would be embersprings and respawn time, in current game I do think there are too many embersprings which makes killing someone less impactful, when fighting someone in lets say in Jundrak over the hawk bow or daggers where you always could be back than less than 5 minutes (daggers even 1 Minute) that also goes for every POI or almost everywhere developed zone in the game which I saw mainly in P2 due to caravan pvp which happened everywhere.
Going to P2.5 where gold doesn't matter due to no goldsinks and broken economy you fight over named mobs which you cant because how the corruption system works, so you have to dps race which is just lame. In Jundrak til recently we could do that which actually was pretty fun, we fought over the named mobs in order to obtain the kill and hopefully the loot (which made the tedious grind at least fun), which was a good thing you fought over a limited resource which is what Steven wants (at least he said that) and a lot of the core Playerbase. I'm not advocating to make everything lawless or something but pvping should be viable, be it some lawless POI or some lawless zones with good resources or make a viable corruption system because the risk of losing your gear is not viable and never will be.
Right now the pvp system is inferior across the board compared what we had in AA and without some major changes I don't see it being better in the future
davenb
2
Re: Steven, Please Rethink “Not for Everyone”
What barriers did BG3 have to knock down? Isn't it just a slightly more shallow Dragon Age: Origins, with flirtier characters added to make it more marketable?
->
That seems awfully reductive. The essence of Ashes's niche is defined by more more than PvP balance.
C'mon...
Azherae
1
I made a song
Hey gang, its been a long time. I am back I think. Anyway, I been messing around with music, and made one about Ashes. Have a listen and tell me what you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8aadX3X1bU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8aadX3X1bU
granthor
1
Re: [Fan Art] game-inspired paintings
Py'rai Learning how to summon , using Ashes on Ritual Altar 
Sajrajt
1