Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
Completly agree with everything you said. People have been blinded in this game already. Ignoring all past failures of other game.
Pertaining to lagfest, yeah 15 years ago when we didnt have decent broadband and cheap i7s, and superpowerfull GPUs that was a real problem. This is 2018 and that excuse is not valid. If it is, then IS has not done a great job with the code. Sorry, I dont have any saved Fraps to link, that's on me. Also, I never said 400 vs 400, I said 400 on a field, but its irrelevant.
I see you didnt like my training wheels metaphor. I stand by it. If you lose 14v3 in a siege, you lost a castle, or won it if you won. The point is there is an impact. This is the story of Vera, and IS has stated multilple times the balance will be in group vs group. Inherrently making 1v1, 3v3, whatever is not a group combination a silly match to begin with. We should fully expect certain classes to get curbstomped by others.
Lastly, sorry Marz, but sports are ultimatly meaningless. I love Football and watching my team and it is fun when they win. But it has no impact on my life, unless I bet on it, but thats just me self impossing a value that didnt originally exist in the product.
-CS
I think you misunderstand the "no end game" as you put it. Nobody is saying that AoC will have nothing for people to do when they hit level cap, it's just the idea that there are things (e.g. raids or arenas) that can only be done at level cap like for example WoW might have.
Again, this is what I was saying earlier. You can't just insert a single idea from ashes into your previous experiences with other mmos and think you can predict how it will work out when there are other fundamental parts of the game that are not the same.
"no end game" is actually no "end game" where end game is defined as blah blah blah. There will still be content for level cap players, but for example we already know there will be raids where non level capped players can take part in but also the super hard ones that less than 10% of the player base will be able to experience.
Give the wiki a more thorough read imo.
I don't quite understand why you keep saying large battles are just going to be "lagfests". For one thing, 40 v 40 is a really low bar to hit in multiplayer games nowadays. Fortnite Battle Royale, running on another version of Unreal Engine 4, can host 50 v 50 with next to no difficulty, even while adding AI zombies and new map layouts.
Depending on how well the game is designed and ported, 400 v 400 is more than possible as well. Eve Online hit 6000 players in one fight back in January without breaking the game, although that did cause a large amount of lag. Planetside 2, a game created in 2012 and is known for having good graphics, is able to handle more than 400 v 400 without all that much issue. There are plenty of videos showing that, as well.
While it is likely that zerging will take place, an organized and coordinated team is almost always superior to a disorganized zerg. We won't quite know enough about sieges to see how viable zerging actually is until we see more of both the class combat system, as well as the siege-specific mechanics.
In events like sieges, this won't be a factor because they will have pre-planned to congregate and defenders will be made aware of the time of siege, but I would argue that that's not really a zerg. I am unaware of spawn mechanics in such situations.
So I guess it is not really clear what you mean by "zerging".
We will be constantly jockeying against other players to maintain possession of the castles and metropolises we want - as well as working together to defeat the mobs that wish to oust us of our possessions.
Ashes isn't about defeating a "boss".
Ashes has arenas where players can compete against each other.
Players can tactically fight in a 20+ v 20+ scenario when objectives are required to win - which is the case in Ashes.
Rotations are faceroll, sure. Not really applicable to Ashes game design, though.
Ashes is a different game than what we have scene previously in MMORPG history.
Although, rotation also was not really applicable in NWO battlegrounds, either.
If what you want is to pit yourself one v one against another player - vie to be the leader of a Military Metropolis.
I mean, we enter the world through a portal. Which means there is an entire other world's worth of content on both sides. They've built it so that whatever content they decide to release in the future, it's reasonable that it could happen. Portals, different levels of magic in alternate worlds/dimensions etc... They've covered their bases from the start.
Kudos for that, Intrepid ^_^
I'm not sure what you mean by that... If you are PvE focused then yes, Ashes is about beating some boss or another.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Bosses
You can't just define the purpose of the game based on your own interests, especially a sandbox game where the point of the game for some people may be to run around and explore or become master craftspeople or w.e they choose.
Also, can you provide some source for that?
When core game play includes node sieges, castle sieges, caravan raids and monster coin events - final lore boss is not a thing.
Especially not when new bosses are spawned after new buildings are built as nodes develop and re-develop.
Core game play imo is raids, PvE encounters that need to be unlocked/triggered through the node system. After all, Steven said "We want as many people as possible to experience the main server Narrative" not we want people to forever fight over castles and caravans. Also, gear is obtained through PvE content or crafted requiring materials obtained through PvE content. The opinion I just provided is just as valid as yours. Yes, opinion, because the reality is that it is a PvX game as you mentioned which means the "core gameplay" involves PvE PvP and crafting.
Your description of what you call "core gameplay" is not a description, it is your opinion. Based on which you conclude that there is no final lore boss when we have little to no information on lore. It's essentially like saying the chicken most definitely came before the egg, but I can just as easily tell you the egg came first.
Will there be a boss that is the strongest/hardest out of all bosses? I mean duh, there has to be. Maybe it's arguable as to which one, but different bosses have different difficulties, and one or more will have the highest difficulty. Will the focus of Ashes be on defeating some big boss at the end of each expansion like WoW? No. That has been stated many times by Intrepid.
If you're looking for challenging raiding content, assuming the planned AI development goes smoothly, I'm certain you will find it. But raiding is just a part of the game - not the goal of it. The closest thing Ashes has to an endgame is building a Metropolis, and that's something that is highly competitive and must be maintained, so I suppose the real endgame is its maintenance and the geopolitics/warfare around it.
I'm sure we'll see some big baddies that tie into the lore at some point, and perhaps even get an expansion structured around eventually fighting one. I'd love to see a fight against a Boss with a City or Metropolis - or perhaps even a server, if the devs feel ambitious enough - at stake. But that's not and at this point, according to Intrepid, never will be the focus of Ashes. Which, for a variety of reasons, I feel is the right call.
Well we already know about the monster coin events which will be monster(s) vs a node (city, metropolis etc). We also know you can fail events and quests which may have negative consequences for the local region or even globally
"Events... can be local, regional or global, and consist of boons or banes. They’re triggered based on a lot of different variables, and some may be one-off Events that occur once, and never again. If an Event is handled successfully, then something good happens to the local, regional, or global area. If it fails, then something bad befalls the local, regional or global area. They’ll relate to the overall Narrative, but don’t fall into its overall structure (for the most part). These are the things that will be written into history, and we imagine that as time grows, each server’s history will diverge more and more"
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Events
And my statement was more to the effect of "it's absurd to say yeah it's a PvX game but the core content is only the PvP components" and less so about the details of is there a final lore boss or not (although you make a much better argument for why it may not be a thing than the comment I was responding to). I'm fairly confident that the game, including its PvE content, will be enjoyable to me. I just wanted to emphasize that the "core content" isn't just about PvP incase someone read it and thought it was true.
Yeah, I get the monster coins and I think those will be fun, but I'm hoping for something maybe a little more... apocalyptic. xd
At least, at some point in time. And I, even as an arena junkie (which is apparently looked down upon by a large - or at least very vocal - portion of the community ;P), definitely agree that PvP isn't the focus of the game, although the Node fighting is built pretty heavily into it. Interaction with the world itself as well as its other denizens will be an equal if not greater aspect of the game. This is especially true considering high-level node sieges have a ~7 week cooldown.
The more I think about it, the more I regret doing so, because it just makes me want to play the game more.
i do not understand the concern over the last bit of because unless every major settlement on your server is a science metropolis you arent going to have to worry about people interrupting your raids because it will involve having to constantly walk to the location over and over if you just keep killing them. which brings us to the point that in order to do things like raids which require a lot of people, organizing and communicating before hand will be of massive importance.
If <Toxic Guild #928> has picked on people for months and they are trying to do a new open world raid, and their top competitor <Decent Humans> is contesting them, I want <Carebear Alliance> <Been Trolled by Toxic Guild #928> and <Casual Bunnies> to be able to show up and just make life hell for the Toxic guild.
Instanced PvP and PvE is where pussies go to hide.
Honestly, I'm totally down for both the open world and the small amount of instanced arenas/raids the devs plan to have, but trying to shame people for liking one or another is approaching an aggressive level of stupidity. I get it, you don't like instances, and you are easily offended by the opinions of those who think instances will have all the best goodies. I, too, agree that would suck. Since we already know that that is not the plan the devs have, you can reign in that insecurity.
And to all those who still believe that instances are the pinnacle of skill and competition in MMOs, keep in mind that a ranked arena ladder just makes it easier to look at the mechanical skills of players. Mechanics are important, but it's just one specific skill set.
Gotta love topics with polarizing opinions based solely on preference instead of something that can be easily proven/disproved. It makes for such a productive discussion.
But let's toss it all in an instance.
Seems like you want a themepark game with non-meaningful PvP like battlegrounds.
Seems like you want to argue with your head up your arse. I'm not going to humor you further.
Cheers ;D
Just on a side note, you are the type of person I would hunt down for hours on end until you quit the game. You have three choices before this game comes out, shape up, ship out, or hope I am not in the same server as you.
Maybe try reading the conversation before posting, hm? I love the groundless little character judgement at the end, too.
No, because it's a fact. People want that safe place to hide and not be bothered as they level, as they gear up with raid gear and then once they've emerged as a max level juggernaut they want to now fight people once they've safely gotten everything to make them the strongest. This is a PvX game. Which means that you will have to deal with PvP and PvE at the same time at all times. Part of that raid encounter is also dealing with other players. Part of being in a dungeon and spot for farming is that someone else might want that spot and it may be contested.
All instances do is take away pvp and make it a PvE game. So it no longer stays PvX, it's all about turning pvp off. That's what instances are. I'm fine with some here or there, especially if it's the end result of a long quest which you more than likely had to do while the risk of other players were there. but to say that high end content should be instance is dumb. Instancing is the biggest pussy way out of PvP there is. That's not opinions, that's all fact. You're hiding in a zone specifically created for you or your group or your raid completely exempt from pvp? Yeah. That's not what this game is trying to be.
At no point have I ever said that I want a large amount of instanced content. I believe that a few instances are necessary, but beyond that I’m happy with open world. You’re trying to disagree with me by saying the same things I have said throughout the thread.
No one understands what context is anymore. Do a little reading on the thread before posting. It’s not a long thread.
this is why i dont post on a thread without reading the entirety of it first and even then might not post if the thread is past a certain amount pages, because other people probably havent read the entire post and just skipped to the last few comments after reading the first few comments. and being civil is a thing of the last era.
As you pointed out in another post, arena PvP can be likened to football (or any other team sport). This is a good analogy, sport is usually played as a hobby, and arena PvP would make a good hobby.
However, no wars have ever been fought where the first thing the two sides do is agree to how many solders they can each use.
Arena PvP is a hobby, open world PvP is a war.
You are essentially arguing that a hobby should be the pinnacle.