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Saabynator wrote: »

I dont think I have ever seen an interview, where Steven said 2020?

The Forums says you only joined in 2023, so no surprise that you aren't aware of all the times Steven said that they would release Ashes within 3 years of the Kickstarter. Even in November 2019, Steven was still saying "Before 2020" was technically still possible.
https://mein-mmo.de/en/ashes-of-creation-says-release-before-2020-and-no-fear-about-it,264504/
https://tracker.gg/checkpoint/articles/ashes-of-creation

Saabynator wrote: »

I think that open development forces this fatigue a bit. Its up to the persons participating, to make sure they control their expectations. Everyone wants to help, and everyone wants to be in it. But its not a game yet, and people need to be absolutely aware of that. You got critique? Great! Make it constructive. You got ideas? Great! I am sure they read the boards here for exactly that.

I mean... really expectations are mostly controlled by the devs.
People who are not game devs tend to expect announced deadlines to be met - at least somewhat close to the stated date. Game Devs know that development dead lines are rarely met.
This is why there is always tension around "open development".

Steven is a gamer who wrangled enough money to create his own development studio. He thought he was unique in being a gamer wanting to make a game created by gamers for gamers. He thought that would be enough to speed through development. And then continues to learn that developing MMORPG takes close to a decade and... announced dates are going to be missed. And gamers are likely to become irate about missed dates... that were "PROMISED".

With Ashes, after 8 years, people are expecting more of the features intended to make Ashes unique - like dynamic Nodes, Sieges, Secondary Archetypes and Augments. But, Intrepid is struggling with features gamers are expecting to be fairly easy and fundamental - like a decently working Crafting Economy.
And fairly decent Questing. They may be taking decent combat, Dungeons and Raids for granted.

Saabynator wrote: »

I think you are wrong about the hype though. It might die out now, but they are not even trying. When there is a launch date set, you will start to see advertisement, streamers, videos, interviews.... It will blow the frag up

We shall see. I think Ashes will release too late to "blow the frag up".
Nodes seemed like a super cool way for players to "build" their own homes and villages Before 2020.
Valheim released in Feb 2021 - and gave us a different solution for player-built homes and Villages.
I hate being stuck in Endgame loops (especially when it's just Dungeons and Raids) for years while waiting for an Expansion. Dynamic Nodes are intended to solve that, but... by 2022, most games I play have Seasons - new content and story every 3-4 months, rather than having to wait 12-24 months. So... I no longer need Nodes as an Endgame solution.

Gamers waiting for the next great PvP-centric game, focused on Risk v Reward, similar to ArcheAge and Lineage II might still flock to Ashes when it releases. We can expect those players to be hyped because that is the specific playstyle for which Steven is creating the game.
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.

Ludullu wrote: »

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).

If Ashes delivers on what it promised, the only real 'problem' I can see it having is that it's a very 'exclusive' kind of MMORPG, and I don't mean 'it excludes players or player types'. I mean that it demands a level of dedication that makes it difficult to find time to play other MMORPGs (or sometimes just deal with life stuff), by nature.

This is one of the harsher parts of PvP MMORPGs with less protection.

"I stopped playing months ago and now I'm lost."
"I got into an accident and couldn't play for a month."
"Exams came up, had to cut back."

Ashes is less friendly to these situations when the player is not a casual player. Less invested players can come and go because they're not trying to hold onto their guild's position, world state, or Freehold.

People who actually care and then have life disruptions often get kicked out of guilds for inactivity, 'hold back' their groups if they were critical for harder content, or simply lose their anchor, and that's in games where you can't come back and find that your literal home was destroyed.

I feel like I kinda caused this derail(?) so I'm just reminding that the only reason we got here was 'trying to talk about how Ashes can't rely on uniqueness to win out'. The quality of the game's goalpoint was never in question, nor did I mean to go into 'if I think they will reach it'.

Just the 'yeah this isn't special/unique enough to get huge traction anymore (and for many players never was)'.

Saabynator wrote: »

Its free when it comes out, everyone can try it.

It will not be free. It will cost $15 in godknows which year, by which point those $15 could be someone's entire egg, so paying for a "not for everyone" random mmo with slow leveling and open world pvp will not be on people's priority lists.

Saabynator wrote: »

I think your underestimating the pull a MMO with an indie CEO like Steven has, with a game of so long a development time, will have.

And I think you're underestimating the sheer hate for those kinds of mmos, because pretty much all of them have either completely failed, or have been deemed scams, because they've been in development for nearly a decade, if not more.

And by the time Ashes comes out - it WILL be over a decade of development, and that's the first thing people will hear about it. And you know what "this game has been in development over a decade" phrase creates? Very high expectations. And Ashes will never meet them, no matter how well the team does.

Saabynator wrote: »

Mark my words, when the actual hype train is started from Intrepids side, and the advertisement starts to ramp it.... It will reach a lot of people, and many will try it.

Steven needs to not go bankrupt before that, if he wants to advertise this game to that extent. And it's gonna be real damn hard w/o pulling in more money. And pulling in more money in pretty much any way (other than his own of course) would give the outsiders even more ammo to say "oh, this is a SCAM scam, huh".

Also, I'm sure that Ashes will pull in people in its first month. I'd even wager that it'll pull around a million people, depending on the world and game industry situation at the time. But that million will leave reaaaaal quickly. And it'll leave even faster if all the competitors or games with similar mechanics will have already released by that point and have pre-established audiences and a steady pace of updates.

As I always say, I hope I'm wrong on all of my negative assumptions, but god damn have I been right on almost every god damn one of them so far, which does not help my outlook on things.

I'd assume that bigger guilds would have more money to throw at the problem.

That's how it works in every other game I'm aware of.

I agree that a much wider control structure would be beneficial though, especially since Trade/Election collusion is much more powerful than 'one big guild piled into one City'.

• On a scale of 1–5, how would you rate the current quest rewards in Alpha Two? (1 = Very poor, 5 = Excellent)
• 2/5.
• How would you describe the current quest rewards in Alpha Two? What’s working well, and what could be improved?
• I'd say some quests like the surplus token quests are rewarding in both exp and loot but rest fall flat with a few exceptions. Exp is one way to increase the reward but also giving more than just glint, things like exp scrolls or even gather material upgrades would give you a reason and could even encourage you to craft your first gear pieces and engage with that system.
• In your opinion, what makes for engaging and fair quest rewards in a game like Ashes of Creation that features an economy-driven PvX system?
• The less your hand is held the more rewarding the quest chain should be, encouraging exploration is important but these things should often be higher level quests as that's when you're looking to do other activities. At lower level simpler quests that show you the opportunities of more complex questing and where you could possible look will encourage this hunting later down the road.
• Roughly what percentage of your leveling experience do you feel should come from questing compared to other activities (e.g., grinding, gathering, events)?
• 25–49%
• Why did you choose that percentage?
• I think there should be some beginner quests that kickstart your character, surplus token is a great example of this and maybe a similar quest chain for the other aspects of the game like crafting would introduce these system at their base level and then encourage you to seek out more in the future.
• What helps you feel connected to a game world, and what could Ashes of Creation do to feel more immersive and dynamic?
• I think ashes does a decent job, with things that are already in the pipeline like POI's evolving through story quests that would be the ideal way to drive immersion and a dynamic world

iccer wrote: »

I definitely see this as an improvement, over just having a basic one tier system with 6 different rarities.

I mean, this is pretty much what we're getting in the P3. We'll have 3 tiers per grade of gear and they'll have rarities on top of that. That picture is more about the power scaling of it all, cause I definitely expect AoC's scaling to be waaay wider than in my pic.

Also, as for gear acquisition, I fully expect each new patch to add a faster/alternative way to get the earlier grades of gear.

Smth like "on release G2T2 requires you to drop specific mob items, so it's a fairly limited thing can there's a ton of competition and mobs are limited. But the first 6 month update to the game adds a quest that rewards you a chunk of those items, all while the mobs are still there, so if there's no one farming that spot - you'll get the items faster".

In other words, the earlier grades should be getting easier and easier to go through with time, while the upper gears are not so much more powerful than each other, so once you reach them - you'll be in a relatively good place.

There'd also be hand-me-downs within guilds and friend groups, which would have OEd low grade gear, which would also speed things up. But even with that OEd gear, the rough scaling of each grade would still allow for relatively fair pvp between the people of the same lvl bracket.

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

No, it is not.

It is $100 to support the development of the game and get access to alpha and beta.

When the game releases, there will be a $15 monthly subscription as the only actual required cost to play.