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
Yes! That's been one thing on my 'wish list' racial skins, I'd love to be able to change race, but to avoid any issues with pvpers, a racial skin might have to possibly 'glitch' on taking damage or run on a cool down timer.
Pre empt issues.
I disagree, I feel sick when I can no longer earn something and I'm not petty enough to care what others around me have, as long as they put the same effort in to get it.
"That's just life"
And as we all know, video games should function just like real life...
As for the "cosmetics don't matter" argument, that doesn't hold any water. If cosmetics had no impact on a player's enjoyment of a game, then no one would be willing to pay real money for them. The reason cosmetics sell so well is because they do, in fact, matter.
We have examples of entire games built around largely cosmetic customization, like the Sims. In many games, cosmetics are handed out as the main, or indeed only, rewards for completing achievements. Some cosmetics sell for tens of thousands of dollars in games like CS:GO. We created a new word for economies based entirely around cosmetic skins called "skinonomies," that's how popular cosmetics are when sold for real money.
The exclusion of cosmetics from your game negatively impacts the player's enjoyment of the game. That's a fact. The exclusion of cosmetics from your game unless players pay obscene amounts of money for them (such as $100 worth of exclusive new cosmetics released each month before the game has even launched...) has the same effect.
Again, I'll say what I said earlier. Cash shops were supposed to REPLACE subscription models, not be added to them. The justification for cash shops was that the company needed some way to make money once they eliminated their monthly sub. That's how cash shops started in the MMO industry. And as much as I like what I hear from Intrepid with regards to pay2win, their hands aren't exactly clean when they decide to stick a cash shop (of any kind) inside a game that also charges a monthly sub. Don't expect me to start liking that utter BS any time soon. The best you'll get out of me is, "I hate it, but I can live with it."
That's about the best anyone should be able to stomach saying about a monetization strategy that can't even be bothered to unlock 100% of the game after you've paid them a monthly fee.
There's a lot more to ethical and responsible game design than simply ensuring your game isn't pay2win. Some people act like, so long as a game avoids selling power for cash, then the developer can do whatever else they like and we just have to sit there and take it because, "At least it's not pay2win." I don't subscribe to that belief.
It's not those old MMOs I'm pining for, it's the monetization model.
A monthly sub is an honest business model where the company only bugs you once a month asking for money, and then leaves you the hell alone for the next 30 days. I pay 1 recurring fee and get access to everything the game has on offer. Just a simple, streamlined, honest transaction between the customer and the business. Instead, now every time I open an inventory screen in some free2play MMO I am "reminded" that I could have even more phat lootz if I also open my wallet one more time. Bleh.
In modern games, we either deal with pay2win, or we have to pay a sub on top of a cash shop. Meh... not a fan. As great as the Ashes devs have been speaking out against pay2win, ultimately the planned monetization model for this game is still a step backwards from the "good old days" of gaming, where you didn't have to deal with any bullshit at all. Just pay a monthly sub, and gain access to 100% of the game content, including cosmetics.
That said, they have come down decisively against pay2win, and that's a good thing. As long as the "it's just cosmetics" cash shop is relatively unintrusive to my gameplay (ie. there are still a good assortment of cosmetics I can earn through gameplay) then it's something I can live with, even if I'm not happy about it. And maintaining a healthy dose of cosmetics obtainable through gameplay is also something Steven has committed to, so now we just have to wait and see how well all of this is followed through on.