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.
2 hours play time a week? How can they be helped?
So theres a lot of folks with lots of time available to them to play MMO's, but some bods have been infected with some disease called, I understand, 'a life'? *shrugs in confusion*
Anyway, not everyone will have that six hours a day to merrily trot through Verra.
Other than offering lifts to assist with the slow travel thing....
What other ideas can you come up with that might be put into place by someone, ie a community member, to help make those time poor, unfortunate souls get the most fun possible out of AOC?
Anyway, not everyone will have that six hours a day to merrily trot through Verra.
Other than offering lifts to assist with the slow travel thing....
What other ideas can you come up with that might be put into place by someone, ie a community member, to help make those time poor, unfortunate souls get the most fun possible out of AOC?
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I think the point was to indicate during their testing windows not everyone has access. Not that going forward @Megs will only ever to be able to play 2 hours a week.
I'm actually not sure why this became an "MMO and Life aren't for you" type of thread.
I am first and foremost an Explorer in MMORPGs, so just running around for two hours seeing what's new in the area would be fun for me. And I expect roleplaying with both the PCs and NPCs while I do that would also be fun. Especially with the variety of cosmetics we have to help with RP.
Should be fun to hear all the stories from the PCs about their experiences and should be fun to interact with the NPCs to see how their lives have changed.
Gaining xp might be slow-going after Level 10 or 20, but...
Castle siege caravans should always be available.
Religious, social and racial quests should be doable within a couple of hours.
Dailies are typically doable within two hours. Weeklies are typically doable within a couple of hours.
Crafting should be doable within a couple of hours if you have friends to supply you the resources.
All depends on what you consider fun.
I mean the original Final Fantasy on NES is about a 24 hour (average) play through if you aren't speed running. That would be 12+ weeks of MMO time.
Skipping ahead 15 iterations, Final Fantasy XIV is about 52 hours (average)
play through if you do the main store and all the extras.
As far as offering lifts to assist with the slow travel thing; this won't happen. Travel time is one of the corner stones of the game design. You aren't supposed to be able to fast travel, they don't want you to. Because they don't want you to, the world map/travel times are going to be set based around no fast travel. Suddenly introducing fast travel will break several systems of the game including, but not limited to, guild wars, dungeons/raids being tied to Node development, caravans, and node wars.
Yeah, I know it sucks and at several times in my life I've had to give up particular games (Eve Online mainly) because of things called career and children. It sucks, but I couldn't expect the game maker to make things easier for me, because then it becomes easier for everyone and the game becomes just plain easy.
12 weeks out of 52 is a drop in the bucket. 12 weeks out of 104 is inconsequential.
You seem to think that an MMORPG is something to be beaten - I suppose racing to max level "endgame" so you can raid.
An MMORPG is supposed to be a world that you live in.
If you only have 2 hours per week to live in the world, that should still be fun.
And that world should be dynamic enough that experiencing how the world has changed while you were away is also part of the entertaining adventure.
And, especially with Ashes, there should be ways to impact your world's community and social dynamics even if you only play 2 hours per week.
But, being socia - in and out of the game - will probably be crucial.
When I played Wiz101, I was the game's Charles Darwin. I cracked the petnome code for determining how best to breed pets to inherit the abilities you like best in the type of pet you like best.
An elite PvP group adopted my alt as a mascot and power-leveled her to max.
My main character probably didn't even make it to mid-levels but was a celebrity at parties.
Some people in the game were celebrities because of how they decorated their housing for parties.
One grandma was a celebrity because she would run decorating contests with in-game prizes for the winners.
Most of her socializing with the community was via twitter and in-game parties. Her level was inconsequential and nobody cared about her combat prowess.
I know Megs from these forums.
If we were playing on the same server and she only had 2 hours to play, I would try to make sure she obtained an in-node house as well as a spot for her freehold. And, if we're in a scientific Node with elected officials, I'd be trying to help her gain enough positive reputation with the leaders of the Node that she has an influential voice on what gets built and taxes, etc, even if she isn't mechanically a leader.
I would also allot some time to gathering resources to help decorate and defend her Freehold.
Because I play MMORPGs for the cooperative play; not to compete.
And not for the glory of combat.
And because I want to know the story of Meg's character. I want to see her fashion choices and her decoration stories. I want to learn who she interacts with in the Node. Maybe it turns out that she excels at facilitating trade agreements with other Node during the two hours she's in the game. Maybe she hosts diplomatic soirees.
Maybe she spends her 2 hours in game rehearsing for a monthly theatre performance at a tavern.
With all the cosmetics and skins we have, we should be able to throw epic parties - that only need to be two hours long. So, it could be that all someone does is spend 6 hours per month decorating for a party and the final 2 hours allotted for the month hosting an epic party, where people get to show off their costumes and skins and pets and mounts.
If all you want to do is raid max level bosses, that might be highly challenging for only 2 hours per week.
Especially if you don't have friends to carry you.
But, if a person just wants to jump in and engage in combat, there are arenas for that. They may not maintain their spot on the leaderboard, but maybe the player is badass enough that they stay near the top for their specific level.
With the Ashes game design, there should be several ways to have fun just playing two hours per week.
But, again, we would have to know what entails fun to the individual player.
Maybe you spend your time speeding newbies safely off to Villages and Cities via your Epic Mount.
Speed is relative - doesn't have to be "fast travel" to be welcomed and appreciated.
It's not about the devs making the game easier - it's about the devs providing a greater variety of entertaining content and activities than just grinding time-consuming combat.
Because Ashes is an MMORPG; not an MMOFPS and not an MMOBR.
Sure, I might miss a few special events or be pressed on time for dungeons that take over two hours, but 100 hours is 100 hours. If those events are not things I would participate in anyways, it's not a loss.
Just because someone can't game for a few or more hours every night it does not mean they should give the game up completely.
I've just been doing a spot of research into why people play, or hate, mmorpgs to try to come up with a rough plan of ways to help enhance other people's game experience.
I've got ideas for most of the other... Niggle(?)... areas, this one though flummoxed me as it's not one I've personally encountered.
Thanks for helpful input, I think that there's definitely enough to be starting on
One 2 hour movie at a theatre can cost $15 - matinees would make that 4 hours at $15.
Comic books are at least $3 and it does not take me 8 hours to read 5 comic books.
Bang of fun for your buck is all relative, but...
Seems like people are missing the significance of living in a dynamic virtual world vs playing in a repetitive static world.
I don't need to ask players about their adventures in an MMORPG where everyone is the hero doing the same quests and using the same gear and abilities.
Hearing from my fellow citizens the details of how my Kaivek Village changed into a Pyrian City should be highly entertaining. Even if my city survives a siege, seeing how well infrastructure has been impacted by the attack should be fun.
This is especially true of Castle sieges. How does the region change week-to-week due to the influences of my guild vs the influences week-to-week when other guilds are masters of the castle?
I'm not aware of any free-to-play games that offer the dynamic experiences Ashes does.
I frequently soloed dungeons in WoW. And there are many ways to have fun communicating in MMORPGs with other players without fighting world bosses or raiding. Easy enough to socialize with other players because you enjoy socializing with other players without engaging in content that requires formal groups.
But there also should be world bosses, dungeons and raids that people can defeat alongside other players in 2 hours. In addition to world bosses and raids that take weeks for raids to defeat.
Ashes game design isn't like any other MMORPG that currently exists.
If it ends up being like the free-to-play MMORPGs that do currently exist, I won't be playing Ashes - just like I'm not playing those games.
I find it odd that members of this forum would suggest playing something else because someone can't put in the time they do. It's not a job nor should it feel like one. Sure, you may have lots of reasons to invest two hours in another game versus what we expect Ashes to be, but pushing that onto someone else is odd.
I invested heavily into this project with my only prior experience with MMO's being the few hours at most they were able to entertain me. I played WoW for 3 hours and can't believe people I know invested more than 2 hours.
May you all enjoy what you get from Ashes, rather it be 40 hours a week or 4 hours a month!
Wiping in dungeons doesn't matter. Clearing a dungeon is not always the goal.
Massively multiplayer is not synonymous with grouping for combat.
There should be a wide variety of entertaining activities with masses of other players that do not involve combat.
As well as plenty to do solo that doesn't involve combat.
No one in this thread has stated that Ashes shouldn't have difficult group content.
Given that I personally will play mmos for three to ridiculous hours a day, it's unclear as to who this comment is aimed towards.
I think we all know that someone who only has two hours a week is going to be facing a massive masochistic challenge if they make the choice to spend that time in an mmorpg.
However a very small minority appear to do just that.
Most of these seem to be mmo stalwarts whose hours suddenly dropped because of unpredicted life changes.
I don't believe it fair to expect the developers to implement any changes themselves just for these few.
But that should not stop the community from trying to be able to offer support to the time poor if playing Ashes is what they choose to do.