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.
The #1 reason I quit MMOs after 15 years
Too easy.
Seems like MMOs these days have a tendency to bend towards the lazy/instant gratification needs of the kinds of people who give their kids trophies for trying. When was the last time you were in an MMO and another played made you stop and go "Now that guys seen some shit"; Either because of level or the gear they had? It's been a long time since i've been inspired like that in-game.
Regurgitated content, engorged stats, DPS races and my least two favorite words to plague the industry "Hard Mode"; all examples of dev laziness in my opinion. FFXI, Vanilla WoW, UO, RS 1.0, all games that required dedication, brain-cells and a level of teamwork that bread true comradery to reach their pinnacles. I have high-hopes for AoC but many great games have fallen to the wayside for far more minute issues. I suppose we will just have to wait and see....or maybe i'm just way too much of an HxC old-school player? meh.
Seems like MMOs these days have a tendency to bend towards the lazy/instant gratification needs of the kinds of people who give their kids trophies for trying. When was the last time you were in an MMO and another played made you stop and go "Now that guys seen some shit"; Either because of level or the gear they had? It's been a long time since i've been inspired like that in-game.
Regurgitated content, engorged stats, DPS races and my least two favorite words to plague the industry "Hard Mode"; all examples of dev laziness in my opinion. FFXI, Vanilla WoW, UO, RS 1.0, all games that required dedication, brain-cells and a level of teamwork that bread true comradery to reach their pinnacles. I have high-hopes for AoC but many great games have fallen to the wayside for far more minute issues. I suppose we will just have to wait and see....or maybe i'm just way too much of an HxC old-school player? meh.
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Comments
From what I do know, if you want it done right ... its just a matter of patience - Devs just have to focus on the little things on whats makes an MMO good & learn from the "Pioneers-of-MMOs" -<strong> they just have to focus on the little things, and it will stand out</strong>. At the same time, actually listening to its community and - at least - taking into consideration of the Community's Ideas and Thoughts.
So from what I can tell, it solely because the Devs are stated to be Veterens of other MMOs that you might have a High-Chance of actually liking this one among the others out there. Additionally, after seeing the May 20 Livestream Gameplay, ... it seems as though they have an Ample amount of Material to work with
Going to take my time with Ashes and enjoy not being one of the thousand's of Chosen Ones. Probably take time away from leveling to explore, level up artisan ranks, and just hang out with people who want to enjoy the content at the level it was made for. Hoping that leveling takes a while - No need to rush through content, especially since many will have already seen it too many times during alpha and beta testing. But should the content in Ashes become repetitious and grindy it won't take too much to walk away from this one as well.
Hoping all the PvP content keeps it as fresh and evolving as the team believes it will be.
Seems like MMOs these days have a tendency to bend towards the lazy/instant gratification needs of the kinds of people who give their kids trophies for trying. When was the last time you were in an MMO and another played made you stop and go “Now that guys seen some shit”; Either because of level or the gear they had? It’s been a long time since i’ve been inspired like that in-game.
Regurgitated content, engorged stats, DPS races and my least two favorite words to plague the industry “Hard Mode”; all examples of dev laziness in my opinion. FFXI, Vanilla WoW, UO, RS 1.0, all games that required dedication, brain-cells and a level of teamwork that bread true comradery to reach their pinnacles. I have high-hopes for AoC but many great games have fallen to the wayside for far more minute issues. I suppose we will just have to wait and see….or maybe i’m just way too much of an HxC old-school player? meh.
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I dont think youll have a problem with that, from what dev iteration and questions have been answered equipment in this game is closer to UO in ease of obtaining it with little arms race for gear with no endgame in sight. The problem you think of is the same problem every game with an item treadmill or grind always has. The developer hides the lack of endgame behind a 6month to 1 year wall and people get fed up with it and want to shorten the jump only to find nothing on the other side.
While yes I do agree the new generation of gamers does have a crowd that want instant gratification I dont think the error is entirely their fault. Many many many many MMOs have been released that have unbalanced horrible systems (BDO pvp for one) that are hidden behind mind numbing grinds, horrible RNG or just poor game mechanics. Most people want only to get to that, to get to the PVP.
In old school UO the grind was always there, thing is tho characters that werent 7x could still pvp and compete effectively and there were a ton of other activities to have fun ingame with. This sense of sandbox is lost on most new MMOs
Seems like MMOs these days have a tendency to bend towards the lazy/instant gratification needs of the kinds of people who give their kids trophies for trying. When was the last time you were in an MMO and another played made you stop and go “Now that guys seen some shit”; Either because of level or the gear they had? It’s been a long time since i’ve been inspired like that in-game.
Regurgitated content, engorged stats, DPS races and my least two favorite words to plague the industry “Hard Mode”; all examples of dev laziness in my opinion. FFXI, Vanilla WoW, UO, RS 1.0, all games that required dedication, brain-cells and a level of teamwork that bread true comradery to reach their pinnacles. I have high-hopes for AoC but many great games have fallen to the wayside for far more minute issues. I suppose we will just have to wait and see….or maybe i’m just way too much of an HxC old-school player? meh.
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I dont think youll have a problem with that, from what dev iteration and questions have been answered equipment in this game is closer to UO in ease of obtaining it with little arms race for gear with no endgame in sight. The problem you think of is the same problem every game with an item treadmill or grind always has. The developer hides the lack of endgame behind a 6month to 1 year wall and people get fed up with it and want to shorten the jump only to find nothing on the other side.
While yes I do agree the new generation of gamers does have a crowd that want instant gratification I dont think the error is entirely their fault. Many many many many MMOs have been released that have unbalanced horrible systems (BDO pvp for one) that are hidden behind mind numbing grinds, horrible RNG or just poor game mechanics. Most people want only to get to that, to get to the PVP.
In old school UO the grind was always there, thing is tho characters that werent 7x could still pvp and compete effectively and there were a ton of other activities to have fun ingame with. This sense of sandbox is lost on most new MMOs
Seems like MMOs these days have a tendency to bend towards the lazy/instant gratification needs of the kinds of people who give their kids trophies for trying. When was the last time you were in an MMO and another played made you stop and go “Now that guys seen some shit”; Either because of level or the gear they had? It’s been a long time since i’ve been inspired like that in-game.
Regurgitated content, engorged stats, DPS races and my least two favorite words to plague the industry “Hard Mode”; all examples of dev laziness in my opinion. FFXI, Vanilla WoW, UO, RS 1.0, all games that required dedication, brain-cells and a level of teamwork that bread true comradery to reach their pinnacles. I have high-hopes for AoC but many great games have fallen to the wayside for far more minute issues. I suppose we will just have to wait and see….or maybe i’m just way too much of an HxC old-school player? meh.
</blockquote>
I dont think youll have a problem with that, from what dev iteration and questions have been answered equipment in this game is closer to UO in ease of obtaining it with little arms race for gear with no endgame in sight. The problem you think of is the same problem every game with an item treadmill or grind always has. The developer hides the lack of endgame behind a 6month to 1 year wall and people get fed up with it and want to shorten the jump only to find nothing on the other side.
While yes I do agree the new generation of gamers does have a crowd that want instant gratification I dont think the error is entirely their fault. Many many many many MMOs have been released that have unbalanced horrible systems (BDO pvp for one) that are hidden behind mind numbing grinds, horrible RNG or just poor game mechanics. Most people want only to get to that, to get to the PVP.
In old school UO the grind was always there, thing is tho characters that werent 7x could still pvp and compete effectively and there were a ton of other activities to have fun ingame with. This sense of sandbox is lost on most new MMOs
Well said.
But part of me still worries.
In one breath we are told there is no endgame as such in AoC, so you kind of hope the player gap and grind wall wont exist.
But then steven says ...until level caps are raised.
As soon as someone mentions raising level caps....I instantly get visions of every MMO failure in history.
Games where the point of raising the cap is to make previous gear and content obsolete.
Seems like MMOs these days have a tendency to bend towards the lazy/instant gratification needs of the kinds of people who give their kids trophies for trying. When was the last time you were in an MMO and another played made you stop and go “Now that guys seen some shit”; Either because of level or the gear they had? It’s been a long time since i’ve been inspired like that in-game.
Regurgitated content, engorged stats, DPS races and my least two favorite words to plague the industry “Hard Mode”; all examples of dev laziness in my opinion. FFXI, Vanilla WoW, UO, RS 1.0, all games that required dedication, brain-cells and a level of teamwork that bread true comradery to reach their pinnacles. I have high-hopes for AoC but many great games have fallen to the wayside for far more minute issues. I suppose we will just have to wait and see….or maybe i’m just way too much of an HxC old-school player? meh.
</blockquote>
I agree at 100%
I miss the time when we had to invest blood sweat and tears to obtain something. These days you just have to invest a lot of time and mindlessly do the same thing over and over again.
I'm sick of this and hope it will change to the better.
I agree at 100%
I miss the time when we had to invest blood sweat and tears to obtain something. These days you just have to invest a lot of time and mindlessly do the same thing over and over again.
I'm sick of this and hope it will change to the better.
I'm not downing this. This is human nature. It is why I play MMORPGs. I want to have fun playing a game and after the time I put into it I want to have something to brag about. I want trophies I have earned.
Instead OP is correct. Nothing is sacred or impresssive in any MMOs.
On a pertinent side note I am reminded of the September 2007 issue of Gameinformer. Borderlands was the title cover. Borderlands had not been released yet, at the time it was in development. It was a concept that drew in my fascination and curiosity. These magazines were how I got my news as a 16 year old kid who loved video games.
<img src="https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?quality=100&image_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogcdn.com%2Fwww.joystiq.com%2Fmedia%2F2007%2F08%2Fborderlands-gi-cover.jpg&client=cbc79c14efcebee57402&signature=6770823fb4e9b95e241c409d189a4b8b34c0955f" alt="" />
Borderlands claim to fame pre-release, or at least what drew me in, was it's "Millions of different weapons."
YES the potential for unique weapons were endless when you considered that each weapon could carry any combination of stocks, sights, ammo, barrels, what have you.
Now Borderlands is now a very beloved game with its fanbase. But it never really sucked me in. Because my hype was crushed. The millions of potential weapon combinations hardly mattered in Borderlands when at the top of them were a handful of orange-grade legendary weapons with the same stats for every player, from specific farmable NPC instances.
What the hell did it matter if there were millions of potential weapons if a handful of very specific weapons were the best? To me, that made the end game worse, not better. There was no sense of potential discovery.
I propose a couple of things.
First understand that even though RNG is despised often, RNG is good if utilized correctly.
If a model is to be established where those who work harder than the majority are rewarded -> Than no one should be rewarded easily. Drop rates for good gear, or rare gear, should be HIGH. There SHOULD be moments in the game world where heads are turned and discussions are had because someone is wielding something that great time and effort was put into achieving.
Also. Since MMORPGs often are modeled in the vein of High Fantasy. Since "Legends" and "Mythos" are in the common vernacular of these developers. Than they should be willing to create true legends.
I formally suggest this feature. Put in 1. Limit 1 unique item per server. A sort of "Sword of a Thousand Truths" for every server.
<img src="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi9guSohILUAhWSyRoKHbC7AO4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsouthpark.cc.com%2Fclips%2Ffxukvm%2Fthe-sword-of-a-thousand-truths&psig=AFQjCNHZz3BIUyjMMLzcW8n_39frXtAJ7w&ust=1495492089478352" alt="" />
Drop chance? 1 in 1 billion or even 50billion. Odds higher than that of winning the lottery, twice. Odds so high that no one may ever get it. Monsters @ a minimum level all carry the potential to drop it.
Potential. One lucky person who wasn't even gunning for notoriety gets the drop. It is instantly bound to their character. They are offered a choice of whether to keep it, with a disclaimer that they likely wont have any privacy xD. If they choose so, they are heralded across all servers. Highlighted on the login screen. Etc. etc. The item itself is inherently worthless. It doesn't offer any game-breaking rewards. Maybe its just really beautifully made, comes with a great animation or something. A legend is created. Beforehand though, every player has these dreams in their heads of achieving things like this with every play session. A constant general excitement is created within the game world. Much like how the devs are trying to achieve with the node system.
For the high end component, Hardcore, hopefully will be derived from the player vs player component, be that pvp, resource control, city vs city, general status, player vs coin bosses, economy vs economy etc.
Not just a PvE hard instance
WoW might have seemed difficult in its early years, but people were mostly clueless about the many different optimizations which have become second nature; and people were less incentivized to crowdsource strategies (probably the most significant difference). There were also problems which we don't really see too much of anymore, like high latency/dropped connections, punishing raid lockout systems, lack of raid forming/management tools, encounters which were literally impossible to beat, raid-halting bugs, etc.
Playing virtually the same game for 15 years, you're going to get really good at it, but you're still going to be a small minority of the population. If you want an end-game that is truly difficult and not specifically tuned for the veteran MMO player (thus creating content which the majority customer won't see or complete), then you're looking for that unique, revolutionary MMO that the industry has so far failed to produce in those 15 years. AoC is probably not going to be that game, but it will have its chance.
Hardmodes can still satisfy the "Now that guys seen some shit" feeling you seek. Hardmodes are actually featured in almost all games, even strategy games have simple difficult settings with easy normal hard insane and so on. The higher ones are essentially hardmodes... only in MMO's you need hardmodes because difficulty settings in game menu obviously won't work.
The most important part for me is: I understand that the usual average difficulty of a game, that will be played by hopefully hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, has to be at a level where most people simply can finish most of the content. There simply is no discussion, that there are people with different levels of skill and determination. So you have two choices:
1. Either you make most of the content too easy, thus pleasing the masses but leaving a part of the community with only the last bit of hardest content (until it gets nerfed for everyone, too... which is a big problem with missing hardmodes in itself)
2. Or you take the same content and boost it with a difficulty modifier: hardmode
- everyone can experience the content(story?)
- people who need more of a challenge get to experience the content AND a challenge
So I am all for option 2.
Just to clarify: Hardmode and Option 2. is NOT the reusing of old content like in world of warcraft the molten core or Naxxramas were redone for higher levels. This sucks and speaks of laziness, even if it was kinda cool to revisit those places.
Hardmodes are more difficult versions of the content that is either available instantly, or after finishing the easier mode or after something else has been accomplished, but basically with the INITIAL release of the content.
Unfortunately, it may not be so easy to change new-to-the-game player expectations. If they have been pre-programmed to expect to play a game by grinding to max rank as fast as possible then hitting the big fights as much as possible, chances are that's how they'll play the new one as well (and they are likely to feel the game is 'broken' if it actively blocks them from being able to do what's always 'worked' for them before). Not saying don't do it differently, I'm looking forward to seeing it done differently. Just saying that to succeed, a game will need to help players with pre-conceived ideas of 'what an MMO is like' to adjust.
We didn't know how to whine about Bosses being too tough back in the day... or that it could get results. It was all new and we rolled with it.
But yeah, I tried a break from sandbox and went to try ESO. No joy. No satisfaction when everything is so easy.