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.
Current Disappointment and Concerns for the Future
Is anybody else feeling incredibly disappointed and frustrated at the lack of fresh content coming out from Intrepid right now? Maybe it’s a different story for those in alpha zero but from the perspective of someone who isn’t in A0, I have little to no excitement for the game at this moment in time. Personally, I think that the most exciting thing to come out recently was the optimization of the game and how smooth the game looked with so many characters on screen; the progression of the game in new aspects is fun to see. However, most of the content released in 2018 seems like fluff to me; I am tired of environmental videos and videos with pre-planned dungeon runs to the point where I am no longer looking forward to live streams. The only things I am personally hoping for now are a bard themed monthly cosmetic pack and the exact alpha one date.
With alpha one right around the corner, I was hoping to see some combat related content. When will we see the bard and summoner? When will we see examples of the augment system through class, race, etc.? What’s the status of the combo bar? Can we see how different combat skills will interact in terms of counter play? These questions, and the combat system itself, are only the tip of the iceberg. When I think of the vast amount of great and ambitious ideas that have not yet been made into any sort of game play at all, it makes me skeptical that Intrepid will be able to deliver in what, 1.5 years?
What do you guys think?
Comments
- Countless of People have already started comparing Ashes of Creation Pre-Alpha with other finished-MMOs ... now let that sink in .... literally no other MMO in Pre-Alpha has ever looked as if the Game is already finished - even some PAX Testers think the Game ... at the State during PAX ... already seemed like a Finished Game. Even some YouTube Commenters believe this is practically finished - but its only Pre-Alpha
Alpha Zero is just the technical aspect/ client-side - they want to give the Server(s) a warm-up before Alpha 1I personally have not been able to login into Alpha Zero testing since Dec 2017 .. soo i kinda understand how you feel .. especially this part
If i i recall ... i think the QTE Bar is only experimental - Intrepid wanted to give their Testers - and the rest of the Community - an idea that they are open-minded about Combat and it's functionality . Or at least, thats how i interpreted that
I do believe that most of these things will come to fruition when Alpha 1 Starts though
Intrepid is permitting us to see the process where other game companies would not. Most games take around 5 years to be fully developed. Because you are seeing the process from the beginning it seems dreadfully slow. It's only been about 2 years. Intrepid needs time to develop a game you will love. Give them that time to make it because we all want it to be a game we can enjoy for years to come. It's better to make it right from the start than always have bugs and patches, and be disappointed at launch.
Perhaps it's time to do other things right now and keep checking back periodically so it won't seem so slow.
Steven did promise that the August Live Stream would have some combat footage.
combat next month!!!
Ashes of Creation is on pace, on time, on schedule.
The problem with a project of this magnitude, is that the staff at intrepid has time to do 1 of 2 things every day
1) Tell you what they are doing
2) Do what they are doing
They don't have time right now to spend a lot of time showcasing and sharing ideas. Think about just one 1-hour live stream. You pull the boss, the #2 guy, and two other people off the main focus to talk to the community. That is a minimum of 8 man-hours of time. Its not like they work on something until 5 minutes before the stream and then just jump in those chairs.
They stop whatever they are working on, transition, prep, set up, tear down, etc. I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but for them to do a 1 hour live stream, is a full man day of work.
Steven has done numerous live-streams where he is interviewed with people, so there is tons of information coming out about the game. People just need to look for it.
Combat is going to be previewed in the next live stream. They are working on getting staff hired (and my god has the staff exploded in the last 60 days), plus working on the new studio.
They have expanded internationally into France and Malaysia with teams in both of those countries, which are not just off hand things, those are calculated chess moves to position Intrepid up for some greater project in the future.
I also don't think you have any idea how a project of this magnitude comes together. You list a good compliment of things like combat, ideas, features, systems, etc, but you are skeptical that they will be able to get them done. Well, that's fine that you are skeptical but what exactly do you draw from to develop that skepticism. Are you basing this perception on other games?
Well, what other game has put a playable Alpha 0 into the hands of their players within 6 months of their kickstarter closing? Nobody.
Intrepid is moving along at a good pace. They have a plan for what they want to test in Alpha 1 Phase 1. They know where they want to be on the timeline?
Also remember, compare Ashes to every other game in development. We know more about Ashes at the 1 year point post kick-starter than we know about any other game in development; including those that have been in development for YEARS longer.
Last livestream we got a ton of new information on ships and caravans. Did we see gameplay of this stuff? No, of course not its still in development.
All these people who are concerned about combat are going to get what they want next month and then in the first phase of Alpha 1.
They have been forthcoming about it, so no reason to be disappointed.
I dont remember where i heard it but i think they said the 4 other classes should in part 2 of alpha1. < not sure if thats correct but i think i heard that somewhere
I am not a member of the elite Alpha-0 club, and I totally think the whole thing was rigged against me.
That said, if we assume that several things will be altered during the Alpha-1 phase why would we want IS to sell us a bunch of "we hope to..." claims.
I donated money, I want to see a final product, I want to know as much about the game as everyone else (except maybe USE), but I also have patience and things to occupy the rest of my free time.
I am not disappointed or otherwise shaken by the 'lack' of info given by IS. At this point it the games development, with all that we know, I think they have been generous. I think sometimes there is an amount of greed displayed by forum members that always want more content or to know exactly where their dollar went.
I hope you find something to occupy your down time, there will probably be long droughts of new info over the next year to two years.
I think too many MMO players are used to getting re-launches of Eastern MMO's, where we have all the information years before launch not because of the developers giving it to us, but because the developers withheld the game from us for years while others played it.
This is a collective full man day of work in the context of an entire team's time in a month.
I agree that there is a ton of information. My point is that it currently looks like Intrepid is all talk. They are not releasing content regarding the development of what they are talking about.
You are correct. I have absolutely no idea how a project of this magnitude comes together. I am not basing this perception on other games. I am looking at this from a layperson's common sense point of view. Intrepid has promised the following: their node system, combat system, naval combat, the underrealm, social organizations, the tul nar, stock exchange, an increasing number of cosmetic items that are only at the concept art stage, and whatever else has been mentioned in their livestreams. I understand that all of this might not be available at release. However, when you consider the magnitude of this project, you believe that the game will be ready before 2020?
If you think what Intrepid is doing is so easy, that they should drop everything they are working on, just to entertain you for your particular wants, you should try doing it yourself. It's entitled attitudes that encourages underdeveloped games to be hurried, buggy, laggy, and poorly launched to appease these impatient people. NO THANKS.
But seriously, to the OP, IS has been sharing a ton of information with us! Another issue that hasn't been brought up is that IS was releasing footage on YouTube pre-pre-pre-Alpha (maybe another pre?) that the internet was bashing. Steven made the call to take down those vids until they had a more polished product. Imagine if their video went viral as a FAIL when all he was doing was giving the public a very early view at his game, and ended up getting negative 'publicity' for it. Imagine how much it would suck for him to lose part of his audience bc he was open about the development stages.
Hold your patience with a horse. It's not like these guys can post a weekly 'Here's what we worked on this week, and what we will work on next week' type blog. That would take too much momentum out of the sails.
Give a little love to our nerds at IS. You will be thanking them when the game releases
I don't think that releasing content of mechanics that will later be retracted is necessarily a bad thing. Everyone is aware that videos being released are currently under the pre-alpha umbrella so I don't think that anyone would be surprised if mechanics changed in the future. Consider the upcoming content regarding combat promised in August. I would not be surprised if the mechanics would continue to develop and change or even get revamped before the game officially launches.
Ok sure, I understand wanting a certain level of polish before something is released.
I am looking more for a here's what we worked on this month and what we will work on next month when it comes to the livestreams. When you have livestreams where the only meaningful content revealed is the next month's cosmetics, the next month of waiting sucks that much more. I will continue to wait, albeit waiting and crying at the same time. Here's hoping that August's combat will shut my mouth up.
Trust me buddy, I know how you feel... I have a Youtube tab with ''ashes of creation'' sorted from newest to oldest search that I refresh several times a day. The problem is that doing this only makes time go slower, but I can't seem to get sucked in to any other game to have a kind of filler.
Edit: Grammar
As far as posting current dev stands/videos/screenshots/mechanics that might possibly change, that is a huge risk. I know some of us are reasonable enough to say "...oh, I see why they changed that or why it didn't make it into the final product..." but many more people are not that reasonable.
It is then those unreasonable people that gravitate to outdated quotes/content and point fingers saying IS promised this or that and failed to deliver.
Huge risk to post things on their official channels that might change, imo.
@WeCanThis - I can understand your impatience. I myself can hardly wait to see more and in fact get my hands on the game. But, unlike you am extremely optimist about this game and for one main single reason among others... Steven Sharif!
The man does not seem like a person who likes to fail. And the fact that he is no stranger to gaming makes me optimist in that he would want to bring out a game that he himself would enjoy playing. If I had his money I would have done exactly what Ashes of Creation is doing and has done thus far..
The team he has gathered are pretty good too, in that, most of them have worked for games that enjoyed both success and failures; therefore making them well experienced and giving them an insight into what works and what does not work in MMOrpgs. And of course the fact that he has covered good portion of the making expenses of the game is also a plus in developing the game.
All and all, the insight of team, their collective experience and the money invested to make the game, leads me to believe as much as it is possible the game does not make it only from our past experiences; I have to say with the PROs that Steven Sharif and AoC team have on their side; I’d say failure of Ashes of Creation would be very hard and almost impossible unless they all go to work and sleep all day LOL
By the way, I also get a sense that most of Ashes of Creation team are very excited and enthusiastic about their work and their creation. That in itself is also a huge plus when people like what they are doing. So am still optimist and have not found a good reason to doubt the outcome of Ashes of Creation... yet.
If you were expecting a combat system that is purportedly never to be re-balanced after the game releases to be easy to make, then I envy you for both your optimism and naïvety. The aforementioned videos were a false indication of how difficult it will be to design functional game-play, especially with the intended class/ability modification system. Plus, the developers only had half of the core classes worked out in a very basic sense to begin with.
There are many challenges for the developers to face in making this game. This is one of them. Their primary job right now is to focus on the task at hand, as opposed to pleasing the public or even their base. For now, all we can do is anxiously await its completion, and have faith that the developers will not disappoint.
- Sikuba
I don't think Intrepid, or any gaming company, should ever release 70% of the game before release. There needs to be some surprise and yet still need some basic information to lure people to buy the game.
If it makes you feel better, there are still people on the Kickstarter page upset that no one has updated the kickstarter for several months now.
TLDR I can't fault anyone that has doubts and want to see more, but also understand that we SHOULD be patient if we want this game to be amazing, so the devs can ignore us and pour 110% into this game.
One thing I would like to add is that up to this point, the developers have done everything we could have hoped from them. They are involved in the community, extremely responsive to questions/concerns in general, and have shown time and again that they are invested in more than just the finances of the game. With the care, attention, and consistency that they have put into the world and into their commitment to its future denizens, I think we all can agree that they have earned a little patience when it comes time to focus and execute the key features they have planned.
The last thing we want to do is pressure the developers for results on things that so obviously warrant time and care, such as class development. This game must be carefully crafted, not hastily assembled, in order to reach the lofty goals that Intrepid set for it. I, personally, have faith in this game and what I believe it can and will become. If that is too much for someone else, which is understandable, I would only ask for a little patience for those who have earned it.
- Sikuba
tl;dr: Chill, Intrepid is bae