Best Of

Saabynator wrote: »

I'm a huge believer in the game. But, I also buy into more than just a game. A indie dev, who makes a whole company from the ground up, with the exact mindset that I have on MMOs. I'm sold on that idea. I have played a ton of MMOs since they came out. All the way from beta testing UO. It was so cool and creative back in the day, but like everything making money, shareholders take over. Money becomes the prime and all devouring factor. This is a chance to turn that stuff on its head. If Intrepid succeeds, then they would have changed the genre, in a meaningful way. So I think there is more riding on this project, than just the game itself. We need Stevens in the game genre. In more than just MMOs to be honest, but its a good place to start

I mean... it's difficult to find family memners who can fund the entire development of an MMORPG.
There won't be many companies like Intrepid.

But, yes, I invested in Ashes because I want to support devs working on game designs and features that I hope make it into future MMOs I will want to play.
So that it's quicker and easier for them to implement them when they work on other games after Ashes.

Yes. That is the ironic part.
From 2010 - 2020, I thought WoW would have to make some kind of WoW 2.0 to make me interested in playing WoW again, but they pretty much solved my issues with Shadowlands in 2021. And I loved Dragonflight.
I had thought I probably would be done with MMORPGs if Ashes failed to meet my needs.

But, now I am eager to play WoW again.
Noaani is back to playing EQ2.
And looks like L2 players have found a version of L2 they enjoy.

Just seems to me that Ashes has missed its window to release without tons of competition.
We kinda gotta get past Phase III first, though.

Dygz wrote: »

But, it's most likely that most MMORPG fans will already happily be playing other games that don't have such a heavy focus on PvP/Risk v Reward.

By the time Ashes releases, the private server with L2 on UE4 will be polished much better, so anyone who was tired of playing the exact same old version of L2 will simply play that, instead of trying out Ashes (this is already the case for thouuusands of people).

This is concurrents on the testing phase of that server.


And that is an old game (even though some changes have been introduced to the gearing/class balance and mobs) with an even harsher grind, yet people are more than willing to play it. THIS is the audience I've been talking about when I said "yeah, I think Ashes can hit 200-300k subs worldwide, if it delivers on its promises".

If even ancient L2 can get over 10k concurrents - Ashes could easily have 50-70k+, which would be right around 200-300k subs overall.

And there's still a chance it hits that, though we'll definitely see huge chunks of that potential playerbase being eaten away by all the other mmos with similar systems, but more attractive parts in other places (like better raiding or better pvp or better econ or better questing, etc).

Ludullu wrote: »

It was going so damn well, all until we hit that lawless zone stuff. Then it became just the second step on AoC's path towards being a full pvp game.

Lawless zones will be the downfall of this entire design. PvPers will complain that they have to travel to get pvp, while all the other pvp systems are not used, because they got nerfed to the groud. While pvers complain that pvpers get the best rewards in the game, because they can murder anyone in a lawless zone for free. Zergs will dominate the lawless zones and just snowball into beating everyone else outside of lawless zones.

On another note. Gamba in quests is the worst. At THE VERY LEAST make it optional, as I asked for in my thread about this
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/67749/please-no-gamba-in-quests#latest

And no mention of stat difference between a Tier 3 Grade 1 item and a T1G2 one was also a great shame. If higher Tier items are weaker than low Tier of the next grade - crafting is still in the hole. People will still just outpace crafting and will just grind mobs for gear, especially if we get more of low tier drops.

There were a ton of good points about other things, but those 3 are the only ones that stuck in my head. Probably mostly because lawless zones made me crash out and concentrate on the negatives more than the positives.

EDIT: here's a video about my thoughts on the lawless changes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq-442PYHUY

Definitely agree with your video, one thing I will add though, with the size of the world it won't really be zergs imo it will be most likely 8v8s, but I would just like the. To add instanced battlegrounds

d889jcl wrote: »

...somthing thats going to make them massive profits ....

that part of your thought is really up in the air - many people suspect this will be a niche game only which means no super-sized subs for years on end

d889jcl wrote: »

I miss the old days where devs used to pay people to play test games, 100 dollars to essentially work for the company and test somthing thats going to make them massive profits seems wierd to me. Ill play it when its like 50 dollars like a normal game

As I said, it will never be $50.

There is no box price, you can never buy this game. All you can do is pay a subscription when the game is out for access to the game for that month.

People paying for access tp alpha and beta have not bought the game.

Ludullu wrote: »

Nope, I want it to go slower, but directed at the proper parts of the game. Instead they're working on shit like FTUI and gear balancing.

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes still hasn't implemented most of the features players were initially hyped about: Node Stages, Node Sieges and Castle Sieges and 64 Classes. Freeholds are barely working.
What Ashes has implemented isn't really much better than any generic UE5 MMORPG - and it's all mired down with some pretty major bugs.
Many long-time fans are just fatigued - and there are now other MMOs that have been released and/or have also reached Alpha and Beta - and are just more fun and eaiser to play/test than Ashes.

This is the biggest thing for me.

We are missing a lot of big "features", "systems" or whatever you want to call it. The game is not going to work the same with, and without those systems being present... Why on earth are they focusing on balancing stuff that doesn't even matter now?
Why do something, that you will have to do again once you implement all the features? Why do something, before having actually functioning systems, and a functioning fun game. Balance, and all that other stuff usually comes last, after you implement all the core systems?

I only see it being done, in order to keep the playerbase playing testing, as otherwise they would get bored/frustrated, and would ultimately end up quitting.

But why do you need an active playerbase testing the game constantly, every day? This all just feels like a convenient excuse, where you "soft-release" a very incomplete project, call it an Alpha to avoid major criticism, and trickle down updates over the years, where the product might or might not become decent after 3-4 years.
But at that point, this is exactly like an early access title going into "full release". It just doesn't make any difference, you are playing the exact same thing you've been playing for years.
It also makes no sense, because they're probably losing money doing this. Unless they find a way to monetize it, beyond selling $100+ access, before release. Btw if they do this, they're done, at least for me. I can see why people like to compare this game to SC so much, and that will be even more true if they decide to further monetize the game before release.

The way things seem to progress, it seems that the actual release won't be a big deal for this game, because all the features they want to implement, will slowly be implemented and tested during alphas/betas.
Alphas and betas do make sense, if you can expect the project to release within let's say 18 months - and if you only test some of the core systems, within a limited part of the world, while most of the game is unavailable. But at that point, what's the point of having a persistent Alpha for months, and months? You could test the core systems in a month or two, and provide feedback on it.

If you do just trickle down updates up to the release, there will be no hype, no sense of discovery, nothing when the game actually goes live. Players are already going to be familiar with the game, and even those who haven't played it during Alphas, were able to watch videos online.

The way Alpha 2 was split into "phases" tells me that this will exactly be how it goes. What's next, phase 4, 5, 6? Even more features introduced, once the devs feel those are in a somewhat playable state? When will be the actual cutoff? Are they going to set up closed test environments, specifically made to actually TEST a certain system, rather than having an unfinished game and saying to players "go test it", where it just looks like they're playing the game, and maybe reporting some bugs that they find on the way?



There probably won't be a game like Ashes on the market, even though I absolutely wish for a 2020s version of Archeage. Most releases won't scratch that same itch Ashes is trying to. But like you mentioned, there are going to be games that will have features similar to what Ashes is planning to do. Even today you have such games.


We have yet to see many of the features being implemented, some of which were (still are) the main reasons why a lot of people even began following the project.

As Dygz said, a lot of us are just fatigued at this point, after following the project for years. Myself, I have been aware of it since early 2017, without following it too closely. In the past 5 years, I've kept up with most news, discussions, etc. and right now, I just don't see a point anymore.
Steven has his own vision, and 4-5 years ago, I might've said it's exactly what I wanted from an MMORPG. Nowadays, things seem to have changed, or rather my excitement has gone down after seeing how that vision is getting implemented.