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.
Pre order pack equals pay to win?
Information is power.
If I gain early access over the masses because I pay for that ability I learn the mechanics of the game, the geography of the game world, and quality loot mob locations.
I will have a huge advantage over those whose first exposure is game launch.
If I gain early access over the masses because I pay for that ability I learn the mechanics of the game, the geography of the game world, and quality loot mob locations.
I will have a huge advantage over those whose first exposure is game launch.
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Your premise is flawed in that all the paid alphas and betas will be streamed. So while you may be one of those that has decided they don't want to pay to test, if you are really that worried about it, you could spend your days in preparation watching the rest of us having a ball breaking stuff over the next two years as the game develops. Since they have stated multiple times now that all progress during testing will be wiped, and that nothing is going to carry over to live, that knocks another hole in your theory. They have also said that they are intentionally leaving lore out and some lore that will appear will be outright false so as not to ruin the "reveal" come launch. That locations of different items will change. And a host of other things. Headstart servers are a whole 48 hours of people running around on servers that won't develop. So while they may be able to meet up with their friends and start grinding, it will not benefit them in any way. Housing makes its first appearance at Node level 3, so it isn't like they will be landgrabbing, none of the content that is dependent on nodes to unlock and spawn will have happened and a host of other things.
Sorry, but before the game goes live all previous saves will in fact be deleted.
There have been many that have come here and claimed those that were involved in the KS and Summer Backing somehow benefit from pay-to-win scenarios. You are not the first, you will not be the last.
In the end, you have to change the commonly accepted definition to make your point. We can all define things any way we want, but that doesn't make us right.
Sorry, but you have been misled or misinformed, there is no benefit from buying a pre-order package that somehow gives you an edge over other players.
If you are claiming that you have more time to practice your skills because you started in the Alpha/Beta stages, then all games ever are pay to win. Because, at some point, a new person will play that game and not have the benefit of the practice that players who started playing the game at launch received. Therefore, by that definition, every game that you pay for that allows players to start after you have been pay to win.
But yeah, make the definition what you want and then claim something fits it to prove your point, awesome!
This is yet another awesome idea!
And for sure making the sub cost higher and charging for the initial game would totally bring in more people, especially those that want to play the alpha/beta's for free.
Genius!
If the game is worth playing consumers will pay for it.
Genius.
Which meant you couldn't share a single scrap of information with anyone until after the NDA was lifted, which was usually only a few days before launch.
All your footage from the testing was also covered by the NDA so you weren't allowed to release that.
Oh, and yeah, since you were a paid tester, you got given information from the developer so that you could properly test.
So yeah, being a paid tester was WAY better if you wanted to have the upper hand.
However, with the way games are now, with streaming, with people who make guides before the game is released, there is a group of of people who pay to have access who then share that information with the community at large.
It's been over 10 years since I played any MMO. The dummying down and cash shops drove me away so I am in no hurry to settle for sub standard gaming.
You want them to give money back and allow more people to play for free?
Sure, game testers use to get paid. Next time you see an add for a game tester position that pays go for it, I am sure you are over qualified and will easily get that job. Also, if you see any for illicit substance testing please let me know
It seems like your only point of view here is wanting to play Ashes for free...
They won't refund the people that purchased access to the alpha/beta's that would cut over 3 million dollar's from the game's budget just from Kickstarter alone, not to mention the Summer crowdfunding or the pre-order packs or even the people who chose to upgrade their packs to a higher tier, not to mention that most of that money has already been spent on hiring new staff etc
I don't understand the hostility to the truth.
I believe in a level playing field.
I might buy an early access pack.
That doesn't change the fact I consider it an unfair advantage to gain knowledge before those who don't pay for it.
In your definition, the only people that ever have "a level playing field" are people that start the game at the same time and put in the same number of hours everyday. What about players that are naturally more skilled in an MMO than someone who hasn't played one in 10 years. Should there be a package that gives you 10 years to develop your skills before others can play?
Nothing in life, that I know of, is like that...
Anyone that doesn't play at launch will be lagging behind but that isn't something most mmo players care about. There will always be people that know the game better and that all comes from experience. We don't know how many quests will be available for testing. We don't know how many hidden exploration items will be in-game at test. We don't know what is turned off. And a person that tested the game may run right past these items. It is everyone's personal responsibility to find the info they are interested in. There will be tons of info out there and if you want to find out what rewards are in what zone then maybe you should look up videos of people questing in those zones.
The testers are going to have limited knowledge of what they encounter. So what happens when I test Node 10 and event a occurs and you watch a stream of someone playing through Node 10 and event b happens? Yeah I won't have any idea of what will happen, but you will. Will I call you a cheater? No... because I was too lazy to research what possible events happen.
And many will be harvesting a long list of private exploits to ensure they win wherever they can.
With that in mind I think I see where some of this is coming from. Your inclusion of the phrase "opportunity cost" clicked as it is something you hear from people who recently took/explored an Econ 101 course or perhaps only took a single course back in school cause it was on the list in an unrelated degree.
Regardless your position makes sense when attempting to examine from an economic perspective but the problem is that you are making a false comparison by attempting to establish that time played is equivalent and the sole determination of access to information. The real "truth" is that the vast majority of the content is going to be sourced, recorded, and provided in the form of streams, Q&A's, and wiki pages. The community, even at this stage, has done an impressive job collecting the known and speculative information into these various sources and are often willing to answer questions on the forums and in discord.
Now if you really want to take about a the competitive advantage of information are you would scream about how "unfair" it would be for the devs to play their own game. Say it ain't so that a member of the Intrepid team actually has their own account. Can you imagine ALL the vast and UNLIMITED information they have?
Yea, it gets pretty absurd when you start to worry about Alpha, Beta, and Early Start players. They may have their hands on the keyboard but the things they experience have been, to this point, made abundantly available to others.
So the only place anyone, including you, might fall behind is in the way of direct character controls. But hey, you have 10 years of downtime from MMO's to ensure your decade long ninja reflexes have not suffered the sullied mechanics of those lesser gamers.
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Side note: The idea that the game should be free to play is what has traditionally, and statistically, brought a game to the pay2win model. It is when a game can not make its money through subs or game sales that they turn to power and convenience monetization.
And while making it free to test does not mean a game must be p2w it does give one more revenue stream to help the game avoid that kind of poison so you can either give the game a vaccine of your money and play early like others. Or you can do the equivalent of the anti-vaxx false reporting and hope you don't get called out.
#CalledOut
I believe you are right, that those involved in the pre-alpha / betas will almost definately end up with an advantage.
Whilst all information, lore and world set up, will as far as we know be wiped before launch from the pre-servers.... those who do get a chance to dip their toes into the game will have a miniscule advantage of being able to work out how best to use the control system, personally for themselves.
Everything else, such as how the crafting system etc works will no doubt be leaked and deeply reported during the open pre-launch sessions.
So the only advantage, unless I'm missing something, is that personal, familiarity with controls.
Bu you cannot from this, leap to the conclusion that this is somehow pay to win.
After all, by that logic someone who logs in on launch immediately has a distinct advantage over someone who can't access a computer for a week after launch.
But then so would someone who logs in immediately over someone who gets in only an hour later.
In fact, for the duration of the game, ANYONE with slightly shorter play times will always be coming from a position of less familiarity.
[Insert image of Luke "Nooooooooooooo" here]
Of course Intrepid could change all of the controls upon launch too....
Thereby placing all of those involved in the pre launch sessions at immediate dis-advantage, because they would have programmed their brains to react according to the original, pre-alpha controls....
To fix that problem they'd need to re-stagger things again, thereby ending up within a continuing rabbit hole of smaller and smaller changes and fixes ad infinito.
Or, we'd all do as we always do when a game launches and relearn the controls within a play session or two.
Please let me know if I'm missing something, but as things seem, someone somewhere will always be at a disadvantage. But PTW? Not really.
Don't you'll make me cry.
That being said, this is one advantage you can not avoid giving to some people, as you need testers so when the game releases it would be a good product rather then bug-fest.
This advantage can be partially alleviated by not enforcing NDAs, making information flow to others who are not playing as well. That being said, as mentioned above also, watching someone is not nearly the same as doing it yourself, so a mild advantage will still remain.
TLDR:
Playing (and testing) early IS a mild advantage, there is no question about it. Testing is however crucial for a quality of final product and you just have to live with existence of this mild advantage that part of players will have on game launch.