Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
ALL combatants should risk losing resources/materials etc. corrupted players should lose more since they would have a negative karma so to say.
If people can choose when they want to opt in or out of pvp all it does is create a system where people specifically choose when they want to opt out so they can gather resources and when to opt in to kill people for their resources. It would be a flawed system that would allow players to abuse it for easy gains.
There needs be a mechanism by which "Node A" characters can chase away "Node B" characters from "Node A's" resource points. The game is partly a territorial game. Seems like random PVP to some players, I imagine, but it isn't really random PVP in that case.
Edit: I imagine that such "invader" gatherers or PVE grinders could lose mats when killed but NOT have them go to the killers. That would keep such activity with a sense of danger and risk while not rewarding open PVP beyond legit defense ideals.
PvP-ers have it tougher doing what we want to do. As it stands, PvP-ers can lose GEAR. A few raw mats is NOTHING compared to losing gear.
Like I've mentioned before, between Caravans, node raids and the other legit means to PvP that are seamlessly integrated in the game. Only griefer will want to kill random people.
Edit: The video the other day mentions no AFK mechanics. This is the only reason BDO has survived this long. Their AFK system is genius on so many levels. It populates their world and eliminates the desire to seek out third party cheating software (for the most part). The devs get to control the built-in "cheats" so that they don't negatively effect the game. And having the players logged in and collecting their daily rewards gives a new found desire to continue playing.
I can go on and on about how genius this system is but I feel it will fall on deaf ears. I'm very saddened to hear they are not implementing something like that into Ashes of Creation. With exception of some new node development I have yet to hear anything about player retention. I see a million reasons why players would leave this game and few reasons why they would stay. Everything about this game screams successful launch and then ghost town a few months later.
There's only so many ways we can say that the game is the game.
Let the carebears, actually scartch that I liked the carebears as a kid. Let the Donkeys bray, I won't have any more of it.
In the end separating the servers is not desirable for this game.
Everyone knows now, and should know by launch, that this is a PvX game. This is a game for players that like to do both even if they favor PvE over PvP or vice-versa. I don't understand the assumption that players are not developed or mature enough to handle dealing with both.
...to be honest, if the players that are not mature enough to deal with this environment decide they don't want to play the game I am okay with that. If that somehow forces Ashes to go P2W the game would, imo, already be failing for other reasons as well.
Just has to be too PvP-centric.
Lack of maturity is with the PvPers who refuse to leave other players alone when they ask to be left alone.
And it's those immature players who typically drive players, like myself, who like both to play on PvE-only servers.
Mature players should have the agency to choose when they participate in PvP combat and when they don't. As is the case with every other activity in the game.
Typically, the area I'm in is somewhere in my team's area, away from current attacks on a village/city.
Obviously, if I'm trespassing I should leave if I'm not interested in combat.
If you're interested in combat and you're trespassing in my team's territory, go to where the combat is and leave me be if I'm minding my own business.
MMO worlds tend to be large enough to negotiate gathering territory.
Easy enough to move to a new location if someone else comes along who wants to farm where I've been farming.
That's not the issue.
The issue is dealing with those who want to force combat on other players who are not in the mood for PvP combat.
So, no, it is not the same on both sides.
I think that every little thing that helps PVE oriented players to "get something positive" from an unwanted PVP encounter would help to a degree. I an not only talking about material things here. Hopefully an essay isn't required to catch onto my meaning there...
Having watched this thread for a long time, I have come to a conclusion that it is great for discussion. It simply isn't going to go anywhere past discussion though.
In a MMORPG that is PVX, no one can reasonably expect the impossibility that another player is going to interrupt your goals or schedule at some point. It really just all comes down to that fact.
And, again, how quickly we can get back to what we were doing before being interrupted.
So, we just have to wait to see how that actually works in Ashes.
It is not really forced PvP at this point. I mean, Steven and the team have already stated this this is a PvX game and there will be no PvE servers. Players can attack you when you are out gathering as long as they are not camping your body or purposely going after you over and over and over again ( which is still up in the air how this will all be handled. ) If you choose to play Ashes you are choosing to participate in PvP because you know it is a possibility.
No one is going to negotiate areas of use unless the guilds/groups are already friends but that is not going to stop another group/guild to jump in.
Both PvP and PvE are essential to Ashes.
As a PvX player myself, I have no objection to PvP oriented gameplay. However, unfortunately, PvP environments come with some of the most obnoxious personalities imaginable. In for example WoW my experiences playing on a PvP enabled server in the past were no more than getting ganked whilst gathering, to subsequently having my corpse be tea-bagged, the ganker to keep on repeatedly tracking me down on the map and killing me again, and again, and again. And if I would log off, at occasions even finding a warming welcome back in-game mail telling me I am an 'n00b', 'rage-quitter', whatever more along those lines.
And things like that are not a one-time occurrence, no. They're also not exclusive to World of Warcraft alone. Having encountered it at numerous occasion in numerous MMO's I have found myself, repeatedly, in favor of PvE-only servers with optional PvP in e.g. battlegrounds.
MMO's which did not offer that? Often I would just quit, and with me, many others. Not because the game is bad. Not because the mechanics in the game is bad. But because of the high level of toxicity in the community.
And that's also one of those things that makes me weary for Ashes of Creation's success. As all of this sounds good... in theory. In practice, however, I foresee the legendary stories to be created as little more than tales on as to how one was killed by 'Y0 Mamma' and to have your corpse desecrated. Or on as to how your caravan was raided by the likes of 'cANALLOVER' and 'Testy Coals', to be called out for being total n00bs for having lost the caravan and to if possible have the gloating continue over some form of private messaging.
No, my experience with the solitary PvP crowd is far from positive. And I have seen it gradually become worse and worse over the past 2 decades of MMO gaming. And I have yet to encounter an MMO that A] remained doing well in general and B] did not have such toxicity being part of their PvP gameplay.