On cosmetics and immersion

ArchivedUser

Elderborn said:

I'd say the Dec/Jan pack was our Christmas chance.  But Intrepid knew not give us red nosed reindeer mounts and caravan skins that were sleds with presents.  Instead they focused on the pagan aspect of Christmas, the idea of death in winter and rebirth of a new year in New Year's Day and gave us Necro themed stuff.  

I'm not entirely convinced they simply didn't make that stuff for Halloween and decided to delay the shop for some reason, pushing October's stuff into December. I don't see them avoiding Christmas entirely as a theme. It's too big of a tradition to not recognize. Heck they had an in-game mini-trailer for the holiday.

I also feel like monthly cosmetics will always be a thing, even into launch. Only they will go from being preorder exclusives to always available. If they are wise, they will begin that changeover even before launch day so there isn't an entire laundry list of cosmetics new players will have to deal with never being able to get.

edit: From the Pax Stream on Sunday, it sounds like Steven wants to continue time-limited cosmetics indefinitely. 

ArchivedUser

BraneGames said:

I didn't mind the stufferton at all, and Imo the lore fit quite well into the ashes world. 

Now this doesn't make any sense. The flavor text for the item says something along the lines that it was once a childs plaything brought to life blah blah blah. So you are telling me that you are fine with dozens or hundreds of people running around on this seemingly unique item. That's why I enjoyed deathsproxy's idea. That it was from a magical toy shop that made these items to not scare children while keeping them safe. Now that sounds like a justifiable lore. It also fits in a world with magic and children. However, the flavor text they went with sounds like some kind of carebear's episode.

I can't explain enough how important an immersive experience is to a game. For a lot of people, it is what keeps them logging in after they've played through the story, reached cap, got their BiS gear, or just in general keeps them playing. Content is king but unless this game is going to be making fun of itself and the genre, they really should develop an identity. I almost quit playing Legion because everyone is running around with the exact same fabled/legendary items.

ArchivedUser

I don't understand the fascination with adding RL themes to a video game. They could have their own holidays that aren't just shoddy replacements. They could instead be cycling through all the classes so they can show us the identity of all these classes. Again, an idea that Proxy put forth. We have 64 classes in the game... that sounds like plenty of content to put in the cash shop leading up to release. A pet, mount, and armor set for each class each month. We had the necromancer, now we could move on to anything else. 

ArchivedUser

I support player freedom, if you want to stand out and look silly, you should be capable of doing so. If I see an individual dressed flamboyantly, perhaps like one of their favourite animoo characters irl, I'm certainly not going to shout that they are ruin my real life immersion.

You can't walk into this with the expectations that everyone wants to be fully immersed or look like a high fantasy knight, there are bound to be some goofballs.

ArchivedUser

I live in Japan and have seen some truly bizarre stuff. People just going about their daily lives dressed in whatever particular trend is their thing. I have never once thought, "OMG, that guy dressed as the Crow, or that that girl in the puffy maid costume sitting on the train has ruined Japan for me, silly twats know they should be dressed in either traditional Japanese dress or like salarymen. Fuck it, I'm moving back to a western country!"

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

I live in Japan and have seen some truly bizarre stuff. People just going about their daily lives dressed in whatever particular trend is their thing. I have never once thought, "OMG, that guy dressed as the Crow, or that that girl in the puffy maid costume sitting on the train has ruined Japan for me, silly twats know they should be dressed in either traditional Japanese dress or like salarymen. Fuck it, I'm moving back to a western country!"

To be fair, you're in Japan. That is what to expect in Japan. If everyone was dressed in suit and tie or other reasonable clothing (to a western mind) in Japan, it would ruin my perception of the country.

If you saw the same in some small midwestern town, it probably would alter your impression of the town.

Not saying for better or worse, just alter it.

ArchivedUser

Loyheta said:

BraneGames said:

I didn't mind the stufferton at all, and Imo the lore fit quite well into the ashes world. 

Now this doesn't make any sense. The flavor text for the item says something along the lines that it was once a childs plaything brought to life blah blah blah. So you are telling me that you are fine with dozens or hundreds of people running around on this seemingly unique item. That's why I enjoyed deathsproxy's idea. That it was from a magical toy shop that made these items to not scare children while keeping them safe. Now that sounds like a justifiable lore. It also fits in a world with magic and children. However, the flavor text they went with sounds like some kind of carebear's episode.

I can't explain enough how important an immersive experience is to a game. For a lot of people, it is what keeps them logging in after they've played through the story, reached cap, got their BiS gear, or just in general keeps them playing. Content is king but unless this game is going to be making fun of itself and the genre, they really should develop an identity. I almost quit playing Legion because everyone is running around with the exact same fabled/legendary items.

"The stuffertons mount will not be a sore thumb when it comes to matching the materials and textures that are seen in the world of Ashes. It will fit in visually, with the rest of the world. As for the lore aspect of it, in a world as magically influenced as Verra, the concept of magically animated objects are quite common. This mount stuffertons would likely have served as an Aelan, upper class gift to a university wizard's child, an animated toy that would serve its purpose as a means of transport between the mages tower and home. (on a side note, as a GM in DnD and Pathfinder, I often use animated objects in my campaigns, and the truth of the matter is, that people have different tastes when it comes to their play experience, but I wouldnt say immersion or lore is second to a few bucks, if you knew us by now )"

Quote from Steven on the discord. 

Also, immersion is relative in mmorpgs. We're flying around on big dragons, fighting bosses and magically upgrading our gear with the flick of a hand. What is immersive to you may be different to another player. I get the fact that people feel as though the Stufferton feels disconnected in the world, as do I for now. But since we don't know much lore and how it's going to play out in the game, we can't say if it's going to fit or not. There are some changes that I hope will be added into the game so that the Stufferton doesn't feel like something was added just for fun. I would like more context in regards to these animated objects, and it would be cool if the bear moved on two legs, kind of like tibbers in League of Legends.

*Edit*
I get that the part about it allegedly being given out to one single person, might have been a bit of a bad choice from Intrepid lorewise, but the fact that a mage animated an object and gave it life, is not far fetch in my opinion. You don't have to like the lore that is given, but you also can't expect to take the game as seriously as yourself or have the same idea of immersion.

ArchivedUser

Great post!

Im totally against undead horses, stuffed toys , and flying dragons running around my version of a immersive world. However I respect that this is only my individual taste and others prefer a world filled with flashy stuff.  I suppose there is a few things at play.

The creators uncorrupted vision of the world and what that looks like without the evils of money lol

Then with the introduction  of said evil  monies,  how much of AOC market is for or against teddy bears running around is the question.
I think like any other business as they sell these cosmetics the data will be collected and business decisions made on the popularity weighed up against the original vision.

Thanks for the conversation! 

 

ArchivedUser

Aren't there already enough games where you can slay dragons in a wedding dress wielding a 15' sword?