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Azherae wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Ludullu wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Caravan system. The sieges. Nodes. Player run citys with political systems. World that changes by what citys are big. There is actually a ton of new stuff. Not all of it is brand spanking, but it has not put together like this. AoC is very creative with the lego.

As Azherae implied, pretty much all of that stuff has already been done in other games (mostly space ones), but even outside of the space stuff:

• Caravans were in AA and in Silk Road (afaik)
• Sieges were in L2
• Nodes, as I said, we got no damn clue how exactly they'll end up being design by release
• I guess player-led cities might be somewhat unique in fantasy, but I coulda sworn I've heard about something very similar before.
• Node-lvl-related changes remain to be seen too. I hope it's as deep and intricate as was promised before

A somewhat rudimentary combo of those 2 last points was in L2 with the Manor system. Castle owners could add different items to mob loot tables in their region, which was both a political tool that attracted players (somewhat akin to node buildings in Ashes) and was related to the state of the region, cause if the castle was unowned - that loot would not be present and gameplay related to it would not exist in that region.

L2 also had a religious system that opened up dungeons based on player activity, so, in a way, that is another similar system.

And that's just examples from almost a single 20y.o. game. I'm sure I'm missing several fantasy mmos that had either very similar systems or literally the same ones. And, as was said above, space games literally have the exact same systems.

Thats what I meant, not all of it is new. Much of it is good features taken from other games, put a Intrepid twist on it, and putting it together. Its like making a good dish, you take a bunch of good food and put it together. Games does not have to have a new feature to make it good. You can make any game good, with already developed features. Its sa matter of how you implement them, how the game feels etc.

But the point is moreso that Intrepid is in a bad spot when it comes to that aspect. Small, 'less experienced' studio without the ability to pull on the resources of a big MMORPG producer. Most MMOs have a similar enough basis that if you wanted to add all this stuff Ashes talks about, it would be easy.

New games don't 'not add' things Ashes is offering 'because they can't'. They don't add them because they don't think people are going to want them/they think it isn't worth it.

If Amazon Games thought those things would work in , they'd have added them to New World instead of 'taking them away'. Which also means that if Intrepid 'proves' that people want to play a game with variable Nodes, we'll see more modern MMOs adding them.

This is why people end up focused on all the things that 'make Ashes unpleasant', because they 'know' they only have to wait a bit longer (possibly less long than even for AoC) for a game that does the same things but less unpleasant.

I think you are wrong. I think most game companies are controlled from a shareholders perspective, not from a perspective of a selv owned CEO, that wants to make a game he wants to play himself. Thats one of AOCs aces in the sleeve. They can make a game they want, with the quality they want. They arent forced the same way shareholder companies are.

There is a lot more to development than "what they think" especially for a company like Amazon.

I think you misunderstood my point here, almost entirely.

My point was that if that self-owned CEO makes a game he wants to play, and all of us also want to play it, and the 'suits' realize 'wait these people really wanted weather and dynamic NPCs and build variety and all that?'

Those suits will show up to tell the Devs 'hey! add those things to our game!'

And in many cases the Devs will go 'won't work, we didn't build the base to be able to support those things'.

But what if they did?

Other companies also hold Aces.

I did miss your point then. But I am confused now. You seem to contradict yourself here?

Most of what makes Ashes unique is just 'stuff other companies chose not to do' and it's usually easy to add.

There is almost no 'Intrepid twist on it'.

Ohh, but I think there is. Some of the features they are promising in the game is quite unique. We have seen day/night, but seasons like this? City management like this? Thats quite of a twist from other games. Quite easy to add, I think is wrong. Intrepid is taking their time to make a game with a ton of features. Their timspan of making the game is quite long. When shareholders have a say, its usually short. They want money in the bank, and if the game dies after a few years, it does not matter too much, they are on to the next thing. Intrepid is not developing with that goal in mind. Steven would not hurl his own money at this game like this, if he wanted a quick payday. He build something from the ground up, that to me, is respectable. I can only imagine the sleepless nights and worrying that comes with making a company that big. It takes a toll.

I think they are doing so much different, than other companies, that dispite you not liking it, you should acknowledge it. I mean, open development/no NDA... How many does that? The amount of features in this game, thats alot man. You might say, that they are easy to implement in other games, but they havent does it though. Its a huge undertaking for a dude, to make a game for you, from the ground up, starting with a handful of people. Appreciate the effort

Azherae wrote: »

I can absolutely assure you that FF14, BDO, Throne and Liberty and probably Eternal Tombs can implement seasons faster than Ashes can.

Technically Throne and Liberty already has seasons mostly-implemented and they're just taking the path of implementation that Intrepid is now learning. But what is a season in an MMORPG really?

"Trees lose their leaves, ground is snowy, spawns and economy change."

Have you ever looked into BDO's Farming system? BDO simulates the movement of rainclouds over the landscape and the topography of the runoff.

Should we assume Ashes will also implement water tables when Freeholds are released? Because BDO does.

Are there new mobs in the seasons? Is there new harvestables? I dont remember seeing seasons in a game, that actually mattered. Its just graphics. Here though, they play with the weather and seasons and the like. It affects spells, harvestables and the like. Thats is new.

You can mention features other games have. Intrepid took a ton of features that are fun from other games, and made their own twist on it. MMOs have been around for a time you know, I played the first of them. They have to take features already used. What they can do, is make them their own.

You seem to have this idea, that Intrepid is really out of touch. A real dislike. If they are so horrible, why stay in here? Benefits noone, least of all you You can have doubts or critique without all this bitternes.

I'm Brazilian, and the price of the game for us is half the minimum wage here, it is very expensive in our currency. I'm not asking for a price reduction, just to make this option possible.

Thank you very much!

Saabynator wrote: »

I think you are being a bit bitter. So you dont like the pace of the game, so leave it alone and come back. Is is slow? For a game this size, I dont think so.
I def think there is a lot more hype surrounding the game because of open development. The monthly videos is also something I know ton of people are looking forward to. Hell, I think a ton of people are talking about the game, because streamers can stream with no NDA.

The point about a lot of features is, AoC has taken a ton of features into their game. Some of those features, whole games are made around. They took it as part of their features. If they deliever, which personally I think they do, this will be the biggest MMO that ever launched.

Sound like a lot of you alpha testers are wanting this to move along way quicker than it is. To me, it looks like an unrealistic look at what speed a game of this size is developing at. Step away, take a break for some months and come back. Your annoyance and bitterness will only grow from here.

Steven is unexperienced as a game developer. But he has an age where wisdom comes into play. He has been around, he played a ton of games, he knows what he thinks is fun. He didnt hire all new guys here either, he hired some good devs.

No bitterness that I can detect.
MMORPGs take many years to develop. Nobody is really bitter about it taking 8+ years for Ashes to release.
But, we have to keep in mind that in 2017, Steven kept hyping that his team was sooo excellent that Intrepid would release Ashes Before 2020. Even when those of us with game dev experience told him that was highly unlikely.
Ashes had tons of promise as the next great MMORPG Before 2020. With designs planed to solve people's disillusionment with a lack of focus on PvP and static Endgame loops.

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.

In 2017, I didn't really have any games that I was looking forward to playing.
I was burnt out of the MMORPG Endgame loop - and I primarily play RPGs. I don't enjoy repeating Dungeons and Raids. I want to be (for)Ever Questing. So once new Quests dry up, I stop playing MMORPGs. And I would rather not have to wait 12-24+ months for an Expansion.

In the past couple of years - that has been solved by Seasons. Even WoW, which I stopped playing between 2012 to 2021 is now fun to play again.
I now do not have time to play all the games I want to play:
NMS; New World; WoW....
Ashes had features that are not a good fit for my playstyle so, truly, Ashes is not made for me. I was willing to try to compromise with some stuff if Ashes was going to be the next MMORPG released Before 2020.
Now, there is too much competition. There is no reason for me to compromise on the PvP and Steven's obsession with Risk v Reward. And, really, it's just too much of a hassle to try to get the builds to download and install to my laptop - only game I've played that my laptop struggles to install.

Even if Ashes eventually implements everything in their Kickstarter - there will not be much hype for it.
There are too many other games out there now.
Sure, the gamers who want an updated ArcheAge or Lineage II will enjoy the gameplay - if Intrepid can get the Economy working correctly.
But, Ashes probably won't release before 2028. We really do have to hope it will release Before 2030.
But, by then, there will be several more MMORPGs around that also have innovative features. And Ashes will have features that many players now expect to be fundamental - like Building your own villages and homes, similar to Valheim and Nightingale.

Githal wrote: »

These should not be that GAME CHANGING so if you lose it you will feel that you are set behind that much. But in the same time they should be rewarding. And if there are several such systems, even if you lose 1 you own, there is good chance that you are already working on getting different one, which will keep you engaged in the game

As someone who has played a game with the same castle design - Noaani is right, people will definitely leave if they lose the castle or anything remotely as valuable as that.

They lose not because of "omg, I lost and I dunno what to do", but because the loss usually means that the enemy gets to progress even further, so the gap between your powers widens. And if you already lost once to your enemy - there's now an even higher chance of losing again.

Different people have different mental thresholds for this stuff, but I've seen countless people leave the game even on their first loss.

Sophisticus wrote: »

Most of you seem to agree somehow, but you're not assuming this will be drastically changed.

I accept it because there is no solution.

One of your complaints is essentially in regards to character progression, the amount of it that exists - lets look at that.

A western MMORPG needs character progression to survive. That is what keeps players logging in, keeps players paying their subscription. As soon as players stop having a means of progression, they play something else until a means of progression is opened up for them.

However, constant character progression in a PvP MMORPG is a bad thing. The greater the disparity between two given characters in regards to progression, the less of a contest any PvP would be between them. This applies to multiple people situations as well.

So, a game like Ashes literally needs character progression, but also can't have character progression. They can't just cut back the vertical progression down, because then everyone will leave the game when they hit that point, they can't just leave it in because then PvP becomes one sided very quickly.

But then you have how this ties in to another of your issues - the grind. Eventually, players are going to hit the progression cap - or at least the cap of where they are happy to progress to. When players hit this, if there is nothing interesting for them to do (there will be interesting things for a handful of guilds to do), they will go and play a different game. So, if there is a long grind to get to that point, more people are more likely to spend more time in the game before they eventually leave for what ever they move on to afterwards.

The reason we "accept" things is because there is no correct way to do this. The games foundation is already in conflict with itself.

Most gamers are used to no more then 1-3 min between things to see or do. This is a standard game developers have learned. Ashes is so far from that loop its shooking. I really hope this giant game space does not stay the way it is and also hope Ashes does not become a cookie cutter rush to make the game see full and alive.

When i mine Ore's in the World of Worst of ever Story-written Warcraft,

i get EXP.
When i pick up Herbs in Worst of ever-Story-written Warcraft -> i get EXP.



I can't remember when this was patched in. But i liked it. I really really liked it. It was definitely one of the best Additions to the Content of the whole Game.

The Option to do something else than to senselessly slaughter countless Mobs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.



Did You Guys ever heard something,
alone the Lines of like : " Power ... ... ... ... usually always comes with a Price. "



When i - in Phase 1 during the likes of Middle-November or so,
had killed S~OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY Goblins - that i had the feeling between insane headache i had something that felt like a drop of blood maybe bleeding inside my brain or so,

you know a HOT-COLD-WET-"tingle" somewhere inside my brain. ( )



I decided the Prize is too high.
It is just too high.

I gave up around 5% of EXP after reaching LvL 11 towards LvL 12,

and i was disappointed into myself and felt bad for no longer being able to test. But that was my Limit.
Jepp.
Figured i better stop. I should admit it here right now.




In WoW Vanilla when levelling was insanely hard -> before Burning Crusade -> the ever first Expansion of Worst of Warcraft -> i managed to level THREE Characters up to LvL 60 back then - which was the Max-Level in WoW Vanilla,

and it was no biggie. It was doable. It wasn't bad. I don't know what was so different in Ashes of Creatio Phase 1 killing Mobs around Aela/the Starting Area.

But it felt different.
It felt like i am chained down. And i am struggling for every single Percent of EXP for every Level. Knowing fully well i would be set back should i die even a single time. .

I'll continue to disagree, I guess.

Firstly, you might be confusing Commissions with 'Tasks', there is an entire separate Commissions Board in the game right now that sends you off to find places, deliver things (I think), defeat specific mobs, etc.

That's at least 15m per, so they 'only' need around 600 unique ones, and yes, some number of those will be mob killing.

But that's still only like 20 per 'area' (where 'area' can mean a lot of things depending on the game, I don't think that the basis of my 'disagreement' is based on us not being able to agree on what an 'area' would be in Ashes relative to this) to get most people 'to level cap' (assuming a fixed FTUE such that you only really do a bunch of these after level 11 or so).

Anyone who is taking Ashes seriously as what it sells itself as will probably visit at least 5 nodes on their way to level cap, and if we go by the 'standards of the industry' (about 50 Commission type content pieces per Node) that's 250+ pieces of content, at around 15-20m each, easily 80h and each Commission can absolutely be 'allowed' to then give between 10% of exp in the 11-20 range all the way up to '10% of exp in the 30-40 range' for more difficult ones (or ones that open up when the nodes level).

The reason this works is simply because most people don't get bored of an area from just 3 visits, and designers can definitely get 2-3 unique things into each area, sometimes 'per visit'. When you have a lot of world-space (and Ashes certainly does) the goal of a good team is to use it. Use every bit of it you can manage to use without it being ridiculous. Recycle, reuse, refactor, retell stories. If you have an open plain doing nothing in your MMORPG in 2025 fill that with some random thought from a cool dev.

The reason people don't hear about/know about this massive source of content is that some people don't experience even half of it (me, for example, I am literally too busy in TL to consume all their side-content quickly), and those that do enjoy it, but don't have much need to talk about it because it's so personal to them.

Uncommon Sense wrote: »

either perspective I would like to assume suggests less than %25 grind

I can assure you, it will be waaay more than 25%.

And Steven's "some grind" is simply a sugarcoating of bad news that there will be a lot of grind.

The game's design does not work (as Steven wants it) if there is no grind. If people are not present in grind spots - there's no reason to fight for them. If people are not out there gathering - there's no one fighting for them.

Steven loves "soft friction", but that friction can only happen when people are out in the open world grinding locations. Everything else is either a predetermined pvp event or people living in their own little world doing quests.