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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.
Comments
It is 'bad design,' it might be 'good business practices' but it is bad design. I could make a lot of comparisons as to why, but I don't think that's the point and in the end they would just be comparisons.
@Noaani, for the most part I agree with your last post. I do believe that content upgrades and retrofitting everything prior to keep up is a way for an MMO publisher to keep adding new players, charging for more content even if it means 'dwarfing' existing content peeps have already paid for, and staying relevant.
I just hope IS is better able to design Ashes in such a way to make an initial level cap adequate for the lifespan of the game. If Ashes wants to add additional nodes (Sky or Island based for example) I would like to see them on par with all other existing nodes so there would be no reason to reach a new level cap before getting to them.
At max, what matters is how you build your character; not how many more months you've been playing the game.
I should not have to play through all the same content as everyone else because, theoretically, that content should no longer exist. I should need to play through different content that provides equal xp.
Except...!!
Games like WoW typically speed the xp of previous content so that players who did not reach max while their friends did can quickly group with their friends.
Ashes should change the way we think about the concept of "catching up" and playing through the same content as everyone else because the design of the gameplay is significantly different than previous MMORPGs.
Somewhere in this thread I posted that due to the design of Ashes, I don't believe it is suitable for expansions in the same manner as other MMO's.
The whole design of the game - from the node system up - make it so that the game has a different set of requirements in terms of what additional content needs to do, and what it shouldn't do.
An example I've used before is adding new nodes.
If Intrepid add new nodes post launch, they would need to add a cluster of them to the game. In order for players to want to move to a new node, there would need to be the potential for a significant amount of trade, and there would need to be competition for which node could make metropolis (and they would need to raise the metropolis cap by one on each server).
Without giving these new nodes the ability to become a cluster of nodes centered around a metropolis, they won't serve as a solid and permanent foundation for people to make their in game home. On the other hand, if they do become players new home, that means less players in older nodes, meaning they will slowly de-level. This would see an increase in the overall amount of lower level content in the game.
All of this is true - unless Intrepid alter other systems.
They could alter the upkeep required on nodes in order to see Old World nodes maintained. They could add new nodes to the game and tell players they can be citizens of two nodes - or (my preference) they could allow nodes at levels 5 or 6 to "colonize" one of the new nodes added, giving the Old World node benefits of the new node. This could even be done along side adding new node types (espionage node, as an example).
If done, this could exponentially increase the progression paths nodes could consider.
To me though, each of these alterations to a system are the Ashes version of altering the experience curve - they are making alterations to the game purely in order to facilitate the expansion.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think expansions like we have seen in other MMO's will work in Ashes at all. There are ways to add almost anything to the game if the developers really want to put it in, but additions to the world will require a re-balancing of what is already there.
Edit; in regards to the legendary item, also make it so the crafter that upgrades it needs to do a quest or complete some sort of content in order to obtain the recipe to upgrade the item.
That should mean each mega-Metropolis potentially has several Metropolises clustered around it.
More likely to just add a new node type and perhaps a new race and some new biome types.
Increasing the level cap of nodes from 6 to 7 could be an idea to produce a major urban area in game (I'd limit it to 1 per server).
A new node type also brings it's own issues. First of all, unless being added as a part of a larger cluster of nodes (as talked about above - this has it's own issues), where do they add it?
If it's an expansion, that would typically include new lands.
Lets make the assumption that Intrepid add a new land mass that has a cluster of 10 nodes (which is about how many I expect to be associated with an average metropolis).
If there is no increase to the number of metropoles allowed on a server, there is far less of a reason to go to these nodes. While in time one could become a metropolis, it could only really be done with the co-operation of a large portion of the server. If there was any real opposition to it, it wouldn't be possible.
Lets say they did increase the number of metropoles (as said, expansions are about overcoming technical issues) - whats to say there isn't a level 5 node that just missed out on leveling up to metropolis - it would take less time for them to get that last level than it would take to level a node up from 1 to 6.
Lets assume there isn't such a node, or they put an artificial limit so that the Old World has 5 metropoles, and the New World has one metropolis. Now there is the potential for a rush of players from the Old World to the New - as is the case of every expansion in every MMO ever. The problem is, in Ashes, that means nodes not being maintained, which sees them de-level, which results in content level around the nodes going down.
If the bulk of our content is tied to node status, having large portions of the world degrade in regards to node status would be the worst thing that could happen to a server.
Now, as I said a few posts back, there absolutely are ways around this. The point is though, simply adding new land to Verra will have drastically different ramifications to the overall game than doing the same does in any other MMO. Because of this, and because of the fact that Intrepid don't plan on charging for DLC, it is likely we will see a different kind of DLC to other MMO's.
More thought needs to be put in to it than simply "lets add some land over here".
Since there are currently only 4 node types, adding another node type doesn't really require increasing the max number of Metropolises. It's likely to increase PvP conflict if there are already 5 Metropolises existing on the server and enough people wish to gain whatever benefit comes with the new Metropolis type.
New World having one Metropolis is an odd concept. I guess you mean that the New World may only have the potential for one Metropolis, max, due to the relatively small size of the region.
I don't think there's going to be a huge rush to become citizens of a new node type.
If I want to belong to a Metropolis that has fast travel, I'm not going to abandon a Scientific node for some new node type. Same if I want to reap the benefits of the Military, Divine or Economic Metropolises.
Just as I am not at all enticed to become a citizen of a Military or Economic Metropolis.
Rushing to expansion lands occurs when content in the old lands is stagnant.
Which should not be the case in Ashes.
Node influence is not only local, so... the new nodes would likely also alter the content in the old nodes. Just as the old nodes would likely also influence the content in the new nodes.
Content alteration via node influence will also be coming from the DLCs, so we really should not have to worry about the old nodes becoming stagnant.
If the actual gameplay lives up to the current design.
Adding new lands will have significantly different ramifications for Ashes than it has for previous MMORPGs. Yes.
Plus the whole idea of adding content is to add content which takes time.....added time.
Swap vertical progression for horizontal as stated and you wouldnt have to dumb it down through time compression.
Add time sinks so that creators have a decent amount of time to create new content before the old content becomes stagnant.
The only way content in Ashes gets stale is if players leave an area en-masse. As long as there are enough people in a given vicinity, and as long as there is conflict between groups of those people, content will alter.
So unlike any other MMO that I can name, Intrepid have a solid reason to want to keep people in specific parts of the world, and if players do this and play the game as expected (or something close to what is expected), the game will have diversity built right in to it's content.
To be clear, I'm not saying they couldn't add new lands, nor am I saying they couldn't add a new node type. What I am saying is that if they add anything new to the game, they need to do so in a way that doesn't remove population from too much of the existing world.
Now, I've said right from the start - all of these things are possible, they just need to be looked at a little differently. It is perfectly reasonable to assume Intrepid are able to think far enough ahead to leave some open areas in the world for them to add a new node type at a later date. If placed in the middle of an existing node cluster, in an area set aside for it, this is something that could be done without having any kind of negative impact on the surrounding content at all. If such a node gains prominence, it would obviously also alter the population of dungeons in the local area.
The other thing they could do is along the lines of what I said earlier in this thread about Old World nodes colonizing New World nodes, so that players remain citizens of Old World nodes - meaning they will continue to maintain them - but everyone has the ability to explore and make use of new world areas. This has the added potential of developing nodes that can be designed as companions to the four base nodes. To me, the idea of an espionage node allowing any node to spy on it's neighbors - or even sabotage siege weapon production - sounds like it could be a good addition.
The above is actually my personal preferred method - but that is taking in to account we have no real idea how the game will unfold as yet.
Again, I want to reiterate that I'm not saying these things aren't possible to do, just that it takes more thought and planning than simply adding an area with nodes and calling it an expansion.
Yes, in a nutshell everyone does say that. They only say that because they don't know the actual reasons behind the changes.
The idea of adding content is to keep the people that have exhausted the existing content something new to do - it has nothing to do with the people just starting who have not yet experienced any content.
Vertical progression is not the silver bullet some claim it to be. It removes progression, and progression is the reason the majority of players (in my experience) play MMORPG's.
Lets look at a game with vertical progression - if I have a guild of 40 players each with one class maxed out, and with the classes present to be able to form an acceptable raid, without horizontal progression we have nothing left to do.
Once we all level up the class we want to play, and get gear that is good enough to kill anything in the game, there is nothing left for us to do unless horizontal progression is added.
With nothing left to do in the game, we will simply pay to play a different game that gives us something to do.
Vertical progression is like PvP. Both are fantastic things - but neither of them is suitable to create a game from in and of itself. In the same way you can't (and no one has) make an MMO with full PvP, you can't (and no one has) make a game with full vertical progression.
I will apologize in advance for my post wandering all over the map in places. The joys of ADHD. On with it then.
As I have been gaming pre-graphic MMO days (I beta-tested Ultima Online, and come from the MOO/MUD/MUSH era of gaming), I probably think very differently about level caps, and expansions.
Personally - I dislike level caps in the first place. I know, that's kinda unusual. I think a game should come out of the gate with an unlimited level cap, and scaled instances. That means that you COULD (should you desire it) grind the same tiny instance over and over and over again to level out into infinity and beyond - easily remedied by max entrances per day or respawn timers (an additionally, grind a dungeon too much and something horrifically evil comes along and eats you, your experience, and all your gear - leave its babies alone).
Expansions should be, in my humble opinion, comprehensive content for the world we game in. Newly discovered islands, the uncovering of ancient ruins by a major storm in a huge desert, that kind of thing. And they don't always have to be massive high-end content! (Seriously, what is it with expansions equating to max-level content focus only anyway?)
I, too, am a crafter through and through. I obsess about getting every recipe (even the exceptionally rare ones) that I can. And give me the option to craft everything in every trade, and I will. And, I am big into pet collecting, vanity, mount, and utility.
I hope that this game will have a favourable disposition for solo players and crafters, I really do.
I digress...
Generally speaking, I have seen expansions break games and just morph them into a mess of "where the heck is this game even going?" - UO is a great example of that. The first two or three expansions were fantastic... now, when you log onto OSI servers, it's hard to figure out what's what and the system is convoluted at best. Everquest (both 1 and 2) had the same thing: a few of the first expansions were incredible - then it just started turning into a machine, churning out half-thought content that really didn't feel worth the cost (personally, the expansions should be a part of the pay-per-month quality of the game, with "expansion" packages that are one-time account-wide purchases (applicable to all characters on an account, and non-tradeable).
I find that typically, expansions are aimed at the top end (end-game) of a game, with very very little focus on opening content or anything but massively social PVE/PVP content. They seldom add solo player functionality or instancing, crafting is almost never touched (beyond - look, you can now craft higher level stuff and buy more stuff!), and the world is much the same at low levels - there is no reason to revisit anything. Even WoW focuses mainly on end-game content with not much towards the start of the game. People, myself included, start a character and grind levels to get through it because everything is familiar.
A good expansion, imho, would include a SIGNIFICANT amount of content across all levels, and content-types. This would include equitable amounts of content for new and low level players (incentive to build a new character and love the game from the beginning all over again), solo players, social players, crafters, PVPers, and any combination thereof. New areas for each type and level... basically, if one is to pay for an expansion, it really should expand the game as a whole.
I should note that there's nothing wrong with expansions catering to the end-game crowd, there'll be a lot of people at that point in gaming where it makes sense. I just think that when an expansion is released, it directly reflects the company's respect for their players and the company values - if they see us as an income and the company value is the triple bottom line... then we'll see what we see with most other major games... a slap-on expansion that has content that can be plowed through in a month of play then it's back to the same grind as always. It won't be very interesting. It will feel empty and rushed. It won't carry the same quality of imagination as the original content.
However, if Intrepid Studios takes their time on an expansion, and really sinks their teeth in, showing us that the value of the content really means something to them... as they say - to move back to an older school of gaming - and they're priced affordably... then we're all in for a real treat that will literally be a "game changer" in the MMO world.
Let's hope.
At least, that is the current business model.
My main fear with this is that it will see the game expand at a much slower rate than games like EQ and EQ2 that - while not always perfect - had expansions every year.
I mean, it is easier to pump resources and manpower in to an expansion when you can look at 200,000 accounts played regularly with characters at the level cap, knowing that at least 75% of them will pre-order the expansion at $50 each, so you know you have $7,500,000 in the bank on top of subscription fees.
But that isn't what Intrepid are doing, so...
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As to why developers usually aim expansions at players at the level cap - it's quite easy. If an expansion doesn't provide a compelling amount of content for these players but does offer a large amount of content for players at lower levels, there is a good argument for these players not purchasing the expansion. On top of that, if you are a new player and have the whole games worth of content to play through still, being offered new content is unnecessary, and so a similar argument to not purchase it can be made.
The only people that an expansion focused primarily on lower levels really appeals to are people that want to play new characters, but don't want to play the same content. While I'm all for lower level content being added to existing MMO's in expansions, it also isn't out of the scope of MMO's to add lower level content between expansions (EQ2's Darklight Woods, as an example).
Technically we are in discussion over what we would want to see, primarily focused on Level Cap. Not the specific type of content we would want or not want. You want the other thread that was started which asked what kind of expansions do players want.
As for those that prefer to craft, you won't be able to max out every craft possible. Ashes has been strict about the risk/reward aspect of picking one to focus on.
I also like to endlessly level and progress as long as there is new stuff to do. In Ashes, once at max level/gear, PvP like; Caravan Raids, Castle Siege events, and City Siege events will likely be the focus. I am not a fan of some peeps in the forum suggesting that content will only be 'end-game' suggesting lower level players can't participate. The argument for it being 'end-game' type content is valid though.
Note, Ashes is not shooting for an 'end-game' at release. If they continue that thought process as they release new material (expansions) there should not be a need to raise the level cap.
But, because the content continues to change as nodes are leveled and de-leveled and as specific buildings are built within the nodes, in addition to small DLCs every month and large DLCs every quarter, Ashes should remain PvX even at max level.
If the game design is fulfilled.
On one hand I always love more stuff to do and I can see them adding new continents/islands with new resources that alter crafting, naval/aerial trade and combat that will enrich preexisting mechanics and give us tons to do without raising the level cap. I hope they can do this without watering down the population.
Although I can see adding nodes can cause populations to spread out more and grow as a community. More trade, more relationships, more everyday small things that make a game tick. It'll allow more node warfare because each node will have strengths and weaknesses and that may encourage groups to try to capture a node with better resources.
idk.. seems to be as many pros as cons to adding to the map and spreading out the groups... but half the fun is developing relationships so you have people to do things with.
...is totally bunk.
How can it be bunk when the compression system was deployed to remedy the situation described. The remedy confirms the existence of the problem. In the process doing nothing but creating a different problem and making any progress and expense pointless. They just created an endless rat race/ hamster wheel with less and less satisfaction and more and more worthless content.
Why spend millions of man hours on creating content you condemn to become obsolete, and having to rush out new content to satisfy demand, as the available 'viable' content remains the same size instead of ever expanding. As it would do if you didnt denigrate/obsolete the value of the existing content all the time.
But yes I agree with you that vertical progression always demands the addition of more vertical progression. Upward is a relative term.
Lets say in Expansion1 they add a few new lands that are very desirable and some of the inner nodes get deserted, in Expansion2, maybe a meteorite strikes near the old nodes location making that land desirable again.
The ever changing world with some developer control makes for an engaging experience that is vastly different than the likes of WoW or ESO.
Furthermore, because the cities are player created,designed, and controlled, the idea of "instances" will be much more dynamic than the standard MMO experience. It wont be, "go to this place and do this task to progress the story," it will be, "perform real work to progress your node and maybe stumble on some awesome cave."
There shouldn't be standard bullspit tasks that every new player has to trudge through just to progress a predetermined story. While I assume there will be some sort of tutorial, after that, the entire world should be vastly different for 2 players starting the game 12 months apart from one another.
Maybe player 1 sees the largest town to the west and decides to head east, while player 2 (12 months later) heads east only to run into the massive node that recently decimated the western node... the quests in the western node can no longer be completed because it got leveled down.
In my opinion, this creates a welcoming world for new players. If I tried to hop into FF14 with my friends, I couldn't possibly keep up as they have played everything from the beginning, and it would be quite some time before I understood the quests they were going on. This game, however, lets any player join at any time and their job is to join a node and start a life. Its a community game, not a story game.
I imagine it will be like earth. Starting this game is like moving to a new country (an awesome new country) where you know noone (maybe a friend who moved their awhile back) and must learn the customs and history to better fit in, but you don't need to know them to find a job and live happily.
ok, thats enough rambling.