Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I think part of the problem is they were too loose with dates at the beginning, even being unrealistic in hindsight, and got burned by the community when dates had to be changed and things took longer and now they are gun shy about giving us any information because the community will crucify them if they have to push things back again or if something isn't available yet in game that they said would be there even though this happens a lot in game development.
I also think the ranting about the time frame and lack of information does more harm to keeping the community around/adding new members. I understand a lot of KS backers are hitting that "following fatigue" which sets in when your following a project for so long, but bitching about trust issues and then complaining that the community is disappearing is going to do much more harm to the community as new members come in and see these types of posts and go "nope I'm out". For the veterans, take a break, come back in a bit, find another project or game and maybe take a step back to rest up until more solid information comes out, and realize your probably driving people away from an MMO you want to succeed which does the opposite of what you want on a community level.
I do understand, I didn't hop on with the Kickstarter, but found and bought into the game with the Intrepid packages just after the KS and even I have had to step away for a bit here and there when info becomes sparse and came back to check on things.
But, it will always be a testing ground for the MMORPG.
A lot of the hate seems to be coming from gamers who hate BRs.
The video was nice and so was the voting for pets - though I don't think it fits into the letter, as it only concerns those who backed the KS
I would overall just really like to see things presented more in an MMO fashion.
I keep seeing comments like this which confuse me. What exactly do you mean by "presented in a more MMO fashion?"
Put into the MMO world instead of the BR, as well as seeing exactly how the different BR systems will be integrated into the MMO
I've played many f2p games and I don't want any of the players who can't or won't pay into the system to feel they are lesser than other players. They aren't. I grew up in divorcee situation and money was tight. I would never want to make a kid in that situation, or a person in a similarly cruddy financial situation to ever feel bad about not being able to pay. Their gameplay their contribution to gaming through play is valuable, is worth celebrating and makes them true gamers.
The act of gaming betters our society and contributes to the social cohesion of us into a real force in culture and society that pushes society forward. Participating in that is a precious contribution to society.
The people who play apoc and those who play the mmo may not necessarily overlap. People may simply be interested in the BR and that's fine. They aren't going to deceive players. As long as the communication is good enough to convey that this is not a finished/polished product (which seems to be sufficiently conveyed) then it's fine. Many games are available pre-release (it's almost a model right now) and they even expect players to pay (pre-buy before the game is finished). With that in mind, apoc is completely fine, it is a zero risk product that is not a finished/polished game, people engage with it as often as they want.
Now for the possibility that people misunderstand what AoC is by playing apoc, yeah that might happen but IS has been explicit that their marketing schemes are word-of-mouth. I'd expect that once the mmo game does come out, hopefully there will be sufficient coverage and hype on twitch, youtube etc. Then people can see what the finished product looks like, and ultimately, there is no alpha or beta as good as a finished game to help people decide if they want to buy into it.
I have no idea how or why you think anybody is being treated as disposable or a guinea pig. If anything, the possibility of apoc being a standalone product in the future should convey to those who enjoy apoc that it could come back at some point. They are being allowed to play a game for free, not sure how that's taking advantage of anyone.
Again, no idea how you think apoc or AoC the mmo requires people to pay or treats them as less because of it... there is not P2W component in either so far. Steven has been true to his word so far. I'm just confused as to how you perceive players being taken advantage of or being discriminated against based on if they paid or not...
I believe that Steven said, that all the things (assets etc) from the BR are actually made for the MMORPG.
I know, but seeing them demonstrated in an MMO setting would make the BR seem much more reasonable to me at least. The way that they are integrated into the MMO is a huge deal, because a lot of the BR has to do with the combat.
Overall the BR has left me kind of confused (this is something I wrote in another post about the BR) as the team did have arena maps ready for use at PAX about a year ago. I still don't quite understand why the team wouldn't just use those maps to essentially do what the BR does, whilst also providing the ability to test the MMO
That's exactly what they are doing. How do you know that the areas we have seen in APOC aren't also going to be used in the mmo?
how do you know that they will ^^
They want to see Node progression and NPCs and mobs, but the APOC testing is really just testing action combat - though we will get a taste of mobs with Horde Mode.
APOC gives us a taste of MMORPG environments, biomes, buildings, props and destruction, but some of the buildings, like the huts, are generic, rather than being representative of one of the Ashes racial architecture styles.
Patience is a virtue.
The way that things dynamically work together in an MMO and in a BR are vastly different.
I do want to see how the world is in horde mode. im expecting hell on verra ^^
true I suppose. at least a get to see the new lore
You can be patient and still look forward to seeing more, as well as want to eventually see it.
well that's a shame I was hoping so see more tab targeting in the next phase o testing
The letter is bleak, no matter how you look at it. A tweet stating "Glorious Ashes Community, thank you for your continued support, all of us here at IS are still hard at work. Please stay tuned." would've served the same. Which is fine, it just doesn't deserve a "Director's letter" title.
Meaning that we understand they had to back-pedal to nail the best combat system possible, we understand that building an MMO is an unbelievable task and that AoC in particular is so ambitious it will take a lot of time. Iteration, iteration, iteration. We also understand that they have to remain cautious when unveiling gameplay footage...
But since we want AoC to succeed I feel compelled to remind you people that there are 2 more "crowdfunded new-age MMOs" in development that slowly but steadily seem to be gaining ground on Ashes. I don't intend to sound alarmist nor do I intend to change horses (I want to support and follow AoC from launch and beyond) but at least the others are showing us progress on the persistent world, not spread parts from a testing suite that we have to assume will translate properly or as Steven likes to say "it's synonymous to the MMORPG" when Apoc already struggled with performance issues and other technicalities. The other games forums frankly have developed a stronger flow of users and content basically because there is more information to speculate about, and that does worry me.
I couldn't care less about beating them to market and IS has definetely approached this last year with a lot of professionalism. Yet, ironically, the "results" (meaning what we/the community get to see) have never felt so amateur. And I truly hope the next Apoc build showcases the improvements they keep talking about in stream, because if it doesn't, I have a feeling that the AoC fandom will keep on shrinking.
I mean, what would be so wrong (if the map is really intended to be huge) to show us one single zone, even if it is just one tiny portion. What would be so wrong about showing us one PvE critter (not the fucking mushrooms) in-game to get a grasp on how PvE mobs will behave and attack regarding the hybrid combat system... I mean, are they going to get telegraphs for their skills? Or just autoattacks + targeted skills? Just walk us through a stupid-ass quest, 5-6 minutes of footage of a party doing something. I honestly prefer every single Alpha 0 video to all this smoke we're getting lately. I mean, the caravan video is as bleak as the letter.
It is getting tedious having to take everything they say, and the little they show, with a grain of salt. And it feels like the truly active users in these forums are not honest with IS, the other users, or themselves for that matter.
Edit: Oh, I forgot. There's also one other sad consequence of all this. That this new way of sharing information is unavoidably spreading towards the 3-4 content creators who already decided to "marry" AoC as their new main pillar of content. So not only do we have official content of dubious quality, but as a direct result, all the external videos and/or podcasts about AoC are getting boring and bleak aswell.
At least the flip-flop signet looks cool, right? ...
link to the wiki
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_elections
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Guild_halls
Keep in mind that all of this will be tested through Alpha 1 and beyond and will be subject to change. This is why we need to provide constructive feedback so that necessary changes can be made.
That's how I feel, I'm glad they're uploading these videos to youtube showing the creation of stuff and opening up again a bit more. I hope this next test tomorrow goes well so things will be heading in a good direction!