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My A0 experience

Hello everyone!

Not so many hours ago, Steven went onto the discord and informed us A0 testers that we are now allowed to share our A0 experience with the rest of you guys. I am still unable to provide audio or video recording as that is still under NDA.

However, I would like to tell you guys about my testing experience and what to take away from A0.

My journey started off with me being unable to get into the game, due to bugs with the client and the game itself. As many others, I would get stuck at the infamous Windmill Boss and I actually only got into the game once for the entire period of testing. I was able to provide bugs and feedback by sharing my experiences with the client, but there was this one time where I actually got into the game

And my, was it beautiful. The graphics in A0 really were something different from A1. You could sense the MMO aspect behind the world and feel it's scale when walking around, especially when you were close to the mountains. Your journey would start off at an Empyrian portal, which was very grand in scale and was sorrounded by large statues and ruins with a roman-esque feel to them. 

Getting into questing itself was tricky due to some bugs that prevented the quest tracker from being able to pick up when a mob was killed, so after reporting the bug, I mostly went exploring. There were some NPC's stuck in the ground, which was pretty hilarious to look at.

When you left the starting area, your gear already looked pretty cool, even though it was very simplistic. You were able to swap weapons and use class abilities. I played a cleric and the amount of healing my character did, at the time seemed very ridiculous. Leaving the portal area, you were met with a vast forest and various paths leading in different directions. I took the one less traveled. Basically I didn't really follow the trail. I went down to the river and was left amazed by the water texture which looked pretty freaking cool. 

Crossing the river I was met with catlike creatures that seemed a bit too overtuned for solocontent, not that I mind the challenge. A few moments after crossing the river, the server crashed and my short adventure had come to an end.

TL:DR of my experience with ashes
- Beautiful graphicwise
- Very standard MMO
- Laggy (Probably due to me being EU)
- Unstable server/connection wise
- Buggy

All things which I expected going into the test, but it was a fun and refreshing experience nonetheless, having never tested a game before.

Please let me know if any of you had any exciting adventures in A0 yourselves, and do not hesitate to ask questions. The game is very much still in alpha, and I may not be able to answer a lot of your questions, due to it being so very basic (in a good way), but I will try my best.

Comments

  • Thankyou for sharing Brane! All your hard work (and all other testers) will help AoC get ready for launch! ♥️
  • I had similar experiences. Since things were in a very pre alpha state there was lots of running in terror and dying. Figuring out that certain named mobs were bosses helped with that experience. Figuring out how to exactly assign skillpoints as you gained them and making mistakes were all part of the process. The tests where I ran with others in the dungeon that was set up were the most fun, because instead of having to run from every single double pull, you could actually get some shots in before you might die. But the overall potential of what Ashes will become was already evident. It is truly going to be a gorgeous game, and once we get the systems and mechanics in place and tuned it will be even more amazing.
  • Thanks for sharing! I have been very curious.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited October 2018
    Those who risk it get the biscuit!



    Also, despite rumors that a the final game was shaped a ton during A0 or we were testing "all the time"  we tested when Steven and company needed us and we were doing a lot of necessary foundation work that they needed bodies for. 


  • Jahlon said:
    Those who risk it get the biscuit!



    Also, despite rumors that a the final game was shaped a ton during A0 or we were testing "all the time"  we tested when Steven and company needed us and we were doing a lot of necessary foundation work that they needed bodies for. 


    Indeed
  • Hi Brane, Thanks for the good feedback...Have just subbed your YT Channel.
  • Hi Brane, Thanks for the good feedback...Have just subbed your YT Channel.
    :O Thank you <3
  • Yeah it was buggy as hell but I have to agree the world looked and felt awesome. I had some lag issues at the start but managed to limit that by using a VPN. It showed a lot of promise despite the numerous bugs. It was a good foundation to build off that's for sure. Never got the questing to work either, I just ran around and killed stuff :P
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited October 2018
    Since you already started a thread I will throw my experiences in here as well as highlight some things.

    A common misconception about A0 was that we got to experience the mmo Ashes as it will be intended later on altho in a smaller enviorement and "light form" (not all skills, not all everything but in general all systems are in place)
    This is completely wrong.

    A0 was a technical test like any other pre-alpha tests usually done behind closed doors. As Brane already put as examples we already started having issues just connecting to the game server in various forms.
    Which is fine, that's what we were here for, testing for Intrepid whatever doesn't work so they can figure out why and fix it to a finished game expected standart.
    We had just specific days or last second notices for stresstesting to hop on and see what happens.
    Stresstesting was probably one of my favorites in one of the tests when the floodgates where opened up approaching the end of a testing period it ended in a rubberbanding so amazing that everything stopped for a solid 20seconds and shot forward in time all at once before breaking down. Was a hillarious flash I haven't experienced before.

    Questtracking as well as the questmarkers (that sometimes appeared for no given reason for some quests) were so broken I once ran off across the entire landscape to find the spot the questmarker wants me to go just to fighting for dear life up to a random spot with nothing there at all.
    Questtext were especially trolling and I still feel the burn reading the line of the rabbit quest "SURELY you have seen them around" while I used hours to try and find THOSE rabbits.

    Some random mobs were undefeatable since their hp would randomly reset or even tho it was the same mob like the other 30 others around it dealt 10times the damage.

    The world was functional in a barebone form, it was a testing enviorement, nothing else. I ran across the landscape and came across a total of 5 different mobs and we all heard how big it is.
    And that is all fine because the focus was not to test out gameplay systems(you know what I mean), but ensure that everything works to a level of satisfaction.

    So what did I like about it?
    Ignoring the barebone state of it, I really liked the introductionary take on arriving in the new world. Everything had a purpose, a first camp that fights off creatures to protect the portal.
    Quests that built on that notion, secure the area, find medical herbs we aquired knowledge off, patrol off to the side to make sure it is still safe in the parts already secured beforehand.
    I also liked quests popping up when moving somewhere that went in tune with your overall purpose. Fighting off rabbits and cheetas along the road.
    I liked the overall feel of what it is going for but that's really it since there really wasn't anything more to see from a gameplay standpoint.
    The easter eggs were fun, the world was beautiful, the glitches were funny but yeah. That was a testing enviorment for technical stuff mostly, nothing more.

    I am grateful and feel honored to have been able to participate in it, it was a fun experience and to me personally it will be a special memory going forward, but from an informational/gameplay standpoint it really was nothing more. We just helped to lay a groundwork for the actual gameplay alpha in the future.
  • This thread is fantastic.
    Thank you guys for sharing your experiences and adventures; it's greatly appreciated. I now have a basic picture in my head of what it was like based on your stories and what we got to see in the Dec15 live stream. Most of all thank you guys for helping Intrepid to build the systems they needed early on which are most likely the foundation upon which they will build the rest of this fantastic game we're all expecting so much from.

    I know I'm not speaking only for myself when I say this again THANK YOU! and THANK YOU Intrepid for all the hard work and long hours.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited October 2018
    Grisu said:
    Since you already started a thread I will throw my experiences in here as well as highlight some things.

    A common misconception about A0 was that we got to experience the mmo Ashes as it will be intended later on altho in a smaller enviorement and "light form" (not all skills, not all everything but in general all systems are in place)
    This is completely wrong.
    I've not seen that opinion aired often, but I agree comparing a pre-alpha to the final MMO implementation would be absurdly silly. The two will no doubt be miles apart. Rather, Alpha 0 is a snapshot of development at this time. Or more precisely, several months back.
  • Nice little insight on the game.Thank you for helping the devs!
  • Damn not gonna lie I feel jealous! I wish I could have explored a bit too if only I had been selected for a key feelsbadman
  • Damn not gonna lie I feel jealous! I wish I could have explored a bit too if only I had been selected for a key feelsbadman
    Understandable, we are very lucky to get to test, but hopefully the majority of the community will be joining us in testing in not too long :)
  • My Alpha 0 experience is like Alpha 1 in trying to get in was frustrating.  The first couple of times I wasn't even finished downloading before the server was shut down.  Other times I would finally get downloaded and get error messages.  Then the window to report the error message had the report buttons grey'd out so I couldn't use it.

    When I got in, there were no instructions on what keys did what and no way to find a keymapping window.  Movement was kind of clunky.  Some quest mobs were unkillable.  Quests would pop up that there were not mobs for it. (looked a long time for those and never found any even following directions)

    Did a lot of exploring, but I really couldn't find a way to chat.  One event I did I kind of followed along with 2 other players and we went exploring and did some jumping puzzles.  Great fun.  Another time another player and I helped each other kill bandits without being able to talk to each other.

    You would think we had lots of time to play but in reality there were assigned time slots that may have lasted only a few hours, and very few of those.  Anyone who thought we got to play as much as we wanted is very wrong.  In sum total I probably got to play a total of 20 hours at the most for the whole of Alpha 0.
  • Thank you folks for relating your experiences, and yes the Alpha 1 stress tests sound similar; you have limited windows of time to log in and you spend most of your time just trying to get in.  Which is why I’ve told people that they shouldn’t be buying packages only to get into the game during Alpha testing because you’re not going to get your money’s worth.  Buy a package for all the neat stuff it gives you and consider early access a bonus.
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