Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
End Game
Hey all,
I am a bit late to the scene and have missed a lot of the live streams, so I am hoping y'all can help me piece this together. One of the biggest failures of MMO's that drives me away is lack of end game. There were games that always kept me coming back (UO for sandbox pvp, EQ/WoW for the PvE), and many games just fall flat on their face in these areas.
Have the devs gone into any real detail on end game besides the obvious siege node/capture node/rebuild node aspect of the game? How in depth will the PvE boss battles be, and will there be replay incentive for all of these activities?
I am a bit late to the scene and have missed a lot of the live streams, so I am hoping y'all can help me piece this together. One of the biggest failures of MMO's that drives me away is lack of end game. There were games that always kept me coming back (UO for sandbox pvp, EQ/WoW for the PvE), and many games just fall flat on their face in these areas.
Have the devs gone into any real detail on end game besides the obvious siege node/capture node/rebuild node aspect of the game? How in depth will the PvE boss battles be, and will there be replay incentive for all of these activities?
0
Comments
They have told us YES to your question but with vague answers so far. Pretty much what they have to do until things are nailed down well.
There is a major focus on player-driven gameplay - the world dynamically responds to what players are doing rather than remaining static.
Also, keep in mind that players can use monster tokens to play as a mob or a boss during monster events, so even fighting the same monster won;t be a matter of memorizing one pattern strategic moves that can be repeated every encounter.
Most mmo players these days post WoW have perception that mmo doesn't truly start tell you reach endgame. For Ashes the game starts as soon as you log in, that is a important concept to convey since the majority of mmo players have never played a more Sandbox style mmo and Ashes might be their first non-thempark mmo.
So you can explore all there is to do in a new node.
Very often when game promises "you dont have to follow quest path to level, you can do whatever you want" it means that you have nothing to do.
I just hope there will be something like the normal theme-park mmo endgame, but that you will have impact on the world and have fun while leveling too.
Very often when game promises "you dont have to follow quest path to level, you can do whatever you want" it means that you have nothing to do.
I just hope there will be something like the normal theme-park mmo endgame, but that you will have impact on the world and have fun while leveling too.
Any game currently in development MUST be built around long term player retention. There is nothing more important. Nothing. Without customers all other development is useless.
Great to see you back again!!
Great to see you back again!!
</blockquote>
Thanks. I decided to keep an eye on the game to see how far they push the PVE envelope.
Great to see you back again!!
</blockquote>
Thanks. I've been keeping an eye out for PVE stuff.
</blockquote>
I believe there's going to be a level cap in game just won't be reachable right off the bat. They want you to advance in player level but also in other ways such as crafting and religion.
</blockquote>
No thanks, endless leveling treadmill to stay relevent in PVP is the fastest way to remove any and all pvp content.
Lets try and avoid the same crutch every game has had in the past that doesn't ever work, creating a grind to retain subscriptions. It doesnt work.
</blockquote>
Ya lets not do an endless grind for character power in a game in which large scale pvp is actually a core component of the game please? Creating any grind as an answer to player retention is a poor solution
Player created content and sandbox gameplay will retain subscriptions. Allowing players to no life character power does not make for a fun game
WoW, EQ2, GW2, Rift, LOTRO, D&D Online, Lineage II, etc. (I could go on forever) these are your outdated PVE games. But what's strange is that these games control about 70% of the market share in this genre.
Each of the above games still has a massive community of faithful players.
Each of the above games is old, their players have begged for sequels and their requests fall upon deaf ears.
Each of the above games is only still alive due to their end game and raid content.
Now that all of that is said I have to put on my business cap. As a business owner and angel investor I try to find voids in emerging markets. When I find that void I exploit the hell out of it.
From a gamer point of view all of the above games are so old I'm shocked those games are still afloat. Many of those games had players leave when Arche Age launched. They hated being thrown into nonconsensual PvP situations and returned to their home games. Most never even tried BDO as a direct result of their experience in Arche Age.
So it's obvious to me that an MMO could come along and rip a massive chunck of all players in this genre from other games.
Why is the AoC team not focusing their efforts on this? The money potential has never seen a better opportunity in this genre than right now.
If I owned this company I would put all my eggs in 3 baskets here:
1. Massive amounts of end game raid content. Appeal to WoW and EQ2 players.
2. Stop the whole sandbox, open world PvP thing. Separate them with consensual and nonconsensual servers.
3. Implement a massive PvP system that incorporates everything from "Overwatch", WoW and Unreal Tournament. Encourage the players on the PVE servers to participate by making the reward or token system amazing.
Games these days fail because they keep trying to change what is currently working in other games (or look at what didn't work). There is nothing more important than player retention. Remove every possible reason a player would want to leave this game and then build your game around that. That's how you succeed in this genre. AoC has so much potential right now.
Plus, people who love raiding and endgame will continue to play them.
2013, when I played NWO, is the first time I heard the concept of "Endgame is the real game. Leveling is just the grind to prevent you from getting to real game."
Endgame is repeatable content intended to keep players busy until the devs are able to add new content.
I play primarily for the story and to explore the world - so I'm not sticking around for endgame content.
In fact, after reaching NWO endgame, I realized I'm done playing MMORPGs that have an endame. My pre-ordered copy of WoW: MoP remains unopened.
Player retention is important, but endgame isn't the way the optimal way to retain players.
MMORPGs need a revolutionary design that is going to provide methods of constantly provide new stories rather than repeatable static content.
New MMORPGs don't retain players because they lack nostalgia and people rush off to play the MMO of the month rather than stick around to play repeatable content in an endgame.
One of the key methods in the Ashes design to retain players is Destructibility. We can destroy and rebuild cities with different designs, attributes and boons. Those different cities will also affect the types of mobs, tasks, events and narratives that enter the world.
In addition, players can use monster tokens to possess monsters and bosses, so raids especially event raids, won't simply be repeating the most efficient strategy to defeat scripted mob behavior.
If Intrepid wanted to just make a lot of money, then Ashes of Creation would be much different.
The key insight here is that they aren't motivated solely by greed. They have their own wants and desires, and a list of things they want to see in their game.
Endgame, especially raids are only a small fraction of most players. Many more players are happy with small group content. Some others don't care for scripted content at all and are all for the pvp. Others don't care for dungeons or pvp but play the economy, enjoy the community, enjoy exploring, challenges, lore and so on.
And AoC don't want to focus on one thing alone.
And in reference to Wildstar, cartoony games are a thing of the past in my opinion. Photorealistic games that players built $1000+ rigs for are what they're seeking. The EQNext team realized this and tried to make a chaulky mix of realism and cartoony. I think that was a mistake too. But that's my personal opinion. Black Desert continues to draw in customers due to its amazing graphics. Noone can argue that BDO looks amazing. It advertises itself.
So BDO's engine and graphics did the job of drawing in players. Too bad they didn't put the same amount of effort into keeping them.
FFXIV 1.0, AA, BDO, all of them look gorgeous, but they are boring. In the east people don't care to grind mindless for hours as long as they have shiny graphics. Here in the west it's different. People crave for great game play first, and graphics second. It's also a reason why all those old MMOs still have many people. They don't have to invest 1000s to play a great game. They can still use their 5-7 year old pc without problems. Sure there are those who get every month the best parts to be up to date, but MOST people don't do this.
I'm a gamer, yet i didn't upgraded my PC in the last 5 years and don't plan to do for the next, and it was only mid tier back then
From what I've seen, most eastern mmo's focus primarily on aesthetics, and combat. Everything else is just whatever. Granted, the games produced by the eastern markets look great, but the gameplay is not innovative. It's the same stuff, just packaged differently. That's why a lot of mmo'ers bounce, back and forth, from one game to the next. They play, get bored, go to the next, get bored, rinse repeat.
And, to be honest, eastern mmo's have been on the rise because western mmo's have themselves been in decline, Most of them have sough to try and copy WoW's success, with small variations here and there, to varying degrees of "success" for some, and outright failures for others. Eastern mmo's swooped in, to fill up the gap.
AoC, as well as other western mmo's in production, look to break the monotony with diverse gameplay. This is why people are getting excited, imo. The mmo genre is getting much needed "new blood".
Good knews!! One of the question asked on stream is "Will raids only be max lvl only ? " ( something like that )
The answer was they plan to make raids / dungeons pretty much all lvls so you don't have to be max lvl to raid Woot!!
But back to the topic I don't believe their will be really a end game considering how much stuff you can/have to do!!
I'm pretty sure with everything going on with sieges etc... you wont feel like your at the end game because every day is something new and exciting
info down below!! ( Want to dive into the community join the discord )
Chain of events:
1. Player creates character and starts at location determined by his/her class or race choice.
2. Player is directed into a series of quests. (theme park so far)
3. Player either runs out of stuff to do at that location and is guided to a new area. (still theme park)
4. Player now does a series of tasks designed to increase the node strength. This could be either PvP or PvE.
5. The node grows in strength. The player is guided to contribute to this new node, which again, is theme park, not sandbox.
6. Player does all the tasks for the 4 or 5 levels of the node and see's it gown into its full strength.
7. A siege happens and all that hard work is undone.
8. Repeat steps 3-6.
9. Now what?
Somewhere between 8 and 9 is where they'll lose players. Not to mention the fact that they already lost advertisement potential by not advertising this aspect of PVE content. And technically that is linear progression. Hence, not a sandbox.