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.
Homer Simpson Car MMO?
ArchivedUser
Guest
Hopefully, a lot of you are familiar with The Simpsons TV show. One of the episodes you might remember, Homer is tasked with building a car for his brother. 
How does this relate to AoC?
In the forums, I am seeing a lot of opinions, complaints and suggestions. Much like Homers car, I am sure each individual idea or suggestion is a good addition in its own right. But with too many opinions and ideas, it could be a total balls up.
As you have seen from the addition of the June backing, Ashes is a crowd pleasure that wants to "listen to their community". However, in doing so, is a minefield in its own context.
What I am getting at is that, the reason games are a great success is because when they're being made, they know what they want to be, not because they catered to every little whim the best they can. I just want Ashes to do Ashes, ya know? I am not saying ignore all opinions of the forums, I just don't want it to turn into an abomination car.
Anyone else having similar thoughts?
How does this relate to AoC?
In the forums, I am seeing a lot of opinions, complaints and suggestions. Much like Homers car, I am sure each individual idea or suggestion is a good addition in its own right. But with too many opinions and ideas, it could be a total balls up.
As you have seen from the addition of the June backing, Ashes is a crowd pleasure that wants to "listen to their community". However, in doing so, is a minefield in its own context.
What I am getting at is that, the reason games are a great success is because when they're being made, they know what they want to be, not because they catered to every little whim the best they can. I just want Ashes to do Ashes, ya know? I am not saying ignore all opinions of the forums, I just don't want it to turn into an abomination car.
Anyone else having similar thoughts?
0
Comments
From what i can tell, most Forum Members have Experience MMOs and their Lack of Content ( and other notable faults )
So much so , most are Veteran / Seasoned.
Ultimately , however, I understand what you mean - they should incorporate mechanics & features ( and more ) just like they planned. However, they've are willling to accept the Fellow Forum Members' Ideas if they missed something - a virtue that most Game Devs, from other Companies, don't have.
More importantly, is it even a thought to them ? Have they seen/read all of the ideas from other Forum Members ?
( such as the Countless LiveStream Questions that gets ignored ... and then it has to be repost until its answered. Has it been answered in a previous LiveStream and Members don't want to find it - thus leading to repetitive questions ?
I say this because Devs usually pick the same question answered in previous LiveStreams btw)
Listened to us players who played before 1.0
Made an amazing game
And I bought it immediately
Its still one of the most played rpgs in the world.
And with stormblood just coming out the game is ripping and roaring servers are full and people are hyped and having a damn good time.
And this game(ff14) took an incredible amount of feedback.
They quite literally took their entire work schedule and posted it on the forums for the pre 1.0 players to look at and comment on and suggest changes and addens to it!
Most companys don't even consider that idea but Square had the balls to stick their neck out and try something so crazy it just might work.
Most companies never get a second chance.
Most games never get a second launch.
And there has never been and MMORPG that has had a second launch let alone first expansion as successful as Ff14 has.
I don't have super high hopes for ashes but I am really excited to see what these guys and do to stir up the very boring and stagnent ARPG market that has be wanting more.
I haven't had a good experience since like 2010 or 11 playing KR blade and soul as an assassin doing PvP in diamond.
I want that exciting blood rushing feeling again.
I want to see the world of rpgs through the eyes of an ARPG development process and thats why I'm excited for ashes.
Because its really hard to get the mixture of raid+open world+questing+progression+community interaction correct.
An excellent point - even i was debating if i should mention how FF14 had a reboot and was successful in doing so
(thought every one knew >.< )
But to add to what you said,
I've always concluded that when making an MMO , the Priority of it's Devs should be:
Community >> Content >> Profits
And the best part for Intrepid Devs ... it seemed as though they already knew what was needed to be focused on when the Project was introduced
However, some feedback from the Community is always helpful indeed
This is slightly different to the situation with Ashes, because we haven't gotten a release yet, so the feedback from the community is somewhat hypothetical right now. The devs have always been pretty up front and ready to admit they haven't got all of the answers and seem to be more willing to listen to the community than protect themselves from criticism. These are very good signs!
I hope they will be just as responsive to the community come alpha and beta time; but as you say, we'll just have to wait and see
Surveys can be easily added into the game/3rd party/through forum/email that allow them to gather valuable detailed feedback through player submitted answers.
There is also just normal general discussion which is very hit or miss too many variables.
A lot of voices in a small room and you'll never know which are the ones to listen closely to.
I'm all for crowd sourced ideas by all means... If we are the gift horses(which I am i mean I spent 485..lol...)then please just look into our mouths because we obviously want to share our time with you... its why we're all here...
Whats most important is indeed community.
However for me another valuable thing that I've learned after playing ff14 and listening to Yoshida himself..
Is that no MMO should be something you're forced to play every day to "keep up"
The balance between casual and hardcore is a very thin thread.
And thats why I love ff14.
There is a difference between good and bad raiders yes.
But everyone is welcome to enjoy the content because the requirements to enter a raid are far lower than the reward given for completion of raids.
Therefor there isn't a need to spend 20 million years grinding things to get to the point of Ex and Savage dungeons.
Everyone is welcome.
They are hard of course and require good execution to come out on top.
The learning part of the dungeons is fun too.
For me the strong points of an mmorpg are storyline.. Community.. And PvP.
Class balance really important to me as well.
Its what ff14 has done well is tried to keep the classes balanced together so that all can be played and have fun with...
Obviously pvp and Pve are completely different ball games.
I would like to see a game that has seperate balance from pvp and Pve so that all classes can be useful in PvE and PvP with obvious differences between the modes to help make some more "op" stuff feel fair to people trying to learn like we all had to do at some point.
I'm also really big on sound design.. Music.. Ambience... character personalities....stuff like that really make me smile when I'm playing... I'm a "it's the little things" type of person when it comes to sound design.
I feel the "design" of combat is nice but its not what sells me.
Animations are nice but not what sell me.
World design is nice but not what sells me.
All things are important but we each have our things that really "sell" the product to us.
Its hard espically for an mmorpg to really hit all the things a player looks for but I aspect each and every developer to try their damn best at their job and if its a little rough when shes leaving the port and setting sale for the first time so be it no one(s) perfect after all!