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
The ashes one is also the same. Neither had a alpha test disclaimer
This comes across as an excuse to me. I've heard other members of the community use this argument that they know better but some random person might not because of xyz. If you have concerns then voice them and we can debate it but please don't hide behind the "nameless masses" and assume their perception. I'm only one person and I'm sure some might think the way you claim but from my experience, most people don't care. If they like the game when it comes out, they will play it.
Yes, EA and ubisoft have a bad reputation for micro transactions but from what i have seen, that's because they release a fully priced game and then heavily monetize it. On top of that, there are other games that release with micro transactions and are fine because it's perceived as fair. People also love to hate them because they are big companies with large audiences and lots of resources.
I'd think anyone who looks at APOCs monetization should think it's fair for the most part. It's a free game with no content locked behind a paywall. It has a $10 battle pass that ends up giving you back more cash shop currency then it costs. Only thing is the item in the cash shop are a little much but even they are priced similar to competitors. On top of all of this, the cosmetics you get in apoc transfer to the MMO.
Attempting to make it a stand alone is an obvious choice. Yes, they made it to test but throwing it out afterwards would be a silly waste if others could enjoy it. I don't know how people outside of the community could hold this against them or say they are bad for doing this. If anything, it would be shittier if they took it away just because made it for testing.
I don't think people who are not emotionally attached to the project could look at these things and assume Intrepid is a bad company.
The Ashes channel says it’s an MMORPG Teaser.
It does not say it’s a gameplay teaser.
If the quality of the MMO is high on release the word will spread.
I dislike the marketting at the moment too. Watching the new vid gave me a feeling things are being rushed.
When things are rushed the quality always drops, like this vid lol.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
Perhaps Intrepid got a little excited because they really wanted to show their progress. And to be fair, considering the stage that the game is currently at, I do think they should be proud of what they have achieved. However, unfortunately I do believe that people who have not been following the development as closely as some of us may get confused when seeing this video because they will believe that this literally is what it will be at release.
I think I understand now why Steven stated that if there was something that he would have re-considered if he had an opportunity to do all of this over again, would be whether or not to take the open development route that he decided to take. Reference:
I also think that Intrepid Studios do appreciate constructive criticism. What I think that they do not enjoy is when people slate them without knowing much or anything about the project. With this in mind, I still believe in the project, I just really hope that they take the time to work through feedback and find a way to proceed in the best way possible (I won't pretend to know what this way would be).
you can't sell a big world, detailed rich, diverse driven mmo on that trailer, because it doesn't even show what the game is meant to be. straight up, damage has been done, and it's real. it's now up to the company to fix that part, and i'll do what i can to keep the guys interested that i know. they'll join if the game turns out exactly what we were sold. they're tired of the same old mmo crap we've had to deal with ourselves.
regardless of our discussions here, there is more than one thread that has shown our displeasure at what is happening, there's confusion across the board, and seriously, the devs must come aboard these discussions and set it straight. which direction are things going?
How is it an excuse? I'm voicing my concerns, as someone who has read through the steam reviews, the youtube comments and various forum threads. The general consensus I'm getting is that a lot of people are confused about Intrepid's intentions. When you have new people coming in saying "I paid for this game, where can I download it to play it" to me, that is a big problem.
Most of the confusion on the IGN channel are confused because the IGN title says it's a gameplay video and it obviously isn't gameplay. Some people who are upset about the BR are still upset about the BR. Some people who are upset about the BR being monetized are still upset about the BR being monetized.
And some people don't like the character animations.
Tons of people ask daily where they can download and play Ashes.
That's not going to change any time soon. Regardless.
Because the devs definitely don't care that that's happening.
You might well be right, and yet I have a feeling that things are wrong. I've explained my concerns as well as I can.
We have had people coming in asking where they can download the game from the beginning. That is nothing new. It happened before we had the kickstarter and it will happen until the game is publicly available, maybe even after. I don't think it's a big deal. We would have this issue even if we didn't have APOC and we were in closed testing for the MMO.
The PR has always been a bit off for IS, unless they double down on that I think we will continue to see negative reviews.
ive seen bad PR kill games so they better hurry up and fix it
I'm hoping the next Letter from steven will expound or at least touch on this matter.
This opening post itself just shows how you can't please people all around. On the one hand, you(a general you, noone specifically throughout the post) want them to make a great mmo. So they make a public testing ground to have a good launch and working mechanics as intended, but at the same time the exact thing giving them the opportunity to make that great game, muddles wuddles the waters somehow.
Like yeah, we want it all but we dont want this specific thing.
"We want to see mmo stuff"
<mmostuff is shown>
"No we want other mmo stuff/this isn't mmo stuff"
<more mmo stuff is shown>
"this is bad pr because >>I<< don't like the composition"
"mimimi microtransactions" Microtransactions was always going to be a thing in Ashes, they have been upfront with it. What's the big deal that they are in Apoc? Was anyone actually surprised? If you are upset now that they are there because of shitty MTX in the industry you are like...5 years to late on that. Yes I am fully aware that there have been some recent upsetting things, but then again 12 € for a horse armor skin was upsetting like 8 years ago. EA is still a thing despite it all and still rakes in billions while seemingly EVERYONE is talking about it. (Hello Battlefront 2 that was still bought in the millions digit even tho it's just a rerelease at best with ea having a long track record of lies and empty promises and oh so be my witness, did the same thing for the 6th time over. What a joke.)
BE free to play but don't do anything to be commercially successful please, it's bad pr. I can't describe on how hard I am rolling my eyes on this one. Also please don't have a plan to secure and sustain the jobs you built . Just, I duno, be another telltales company or something and have bad pr after you already sunk or something.
Why wouldn't they make apoc it's own thing. If you aren't an mmo player having those modes standalone is like Left4dead castle defense mod. You like that mod you play it and nothing else. You aren't in the mood to log on for mmo stuff? Just do some standalone castle siege/horde mode.
When people dont have options they always want more options but when the options are there they find something else to complain about because mimimi.
Trailers hu? Yeah those trailers, damned remember that game that was this amazing thing with big umpf trailers? Yeah that one, totally reflective of what to expect, but they were so damned flashy and interesting. So many colours and explosions and they showed so much. (I'm sure everyone can name at least 3 instantly and together we would probably have a list of around I duno all % of all releases that had trailers, ever)
I'll say it, I liked the teaser, it showed stuff.
Good teaser but apparently just bad pr. I suppose opinions vary on that one. Oh gosh that's a thing?
My point of this? None really(revised), just an observation and general giggling on entitlement. Granted sometimes it would be nice if devs listened to the community, but at the same time sometimes it's just another gigabear being paranoid and spouting concpiracy theories threatening to shittalk the game all day long because of entitlement.
Actually reading over the last part there is one, since I'm already reminding everyone why I'm unlikeable. This whole thing is just strong arming them into doing something that may not be their vision. You can dress it up as nicely as you want and be as "concerned" as you want. At the end of the day you are just another variation of an offended peasant who thinks he doesn't get what he wants.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
A troll is a post purposely intent on stirring aggression and angry response.
This was not that, under any circumstance. Excellent points were made. Just none that worry me at this stage of development.
^ This is also not a troll. Again, excellent points are made.
Again, nothing I'm concerned about at this particular point of development.
I'm pretty sure I've voiced my opinion on the "zomg new players gonna be scared away!". Half the world's population is online. There are going to be millions of prospective players thirsty for a new MMO that haven't even heard of AoC yet. I'm not going to stress the monkeys that are dismissing the game NOW, because they are likely terrible people to begin with, and so not worth playing with.
For the record @grisu, I like yew. Blunt honesty is my kinda honesty.
I might not have been entirely clear about my intentions in the OP. I'm not trying to "strong arm" Intrepid into anything, just asking them to consider how their game and their company will be viewed by the wider audience.
The main reason why I am so critical of Intrepid's recent PR stutters is because I believe in them as a company and in the game they are creating. My fear is that if they keep doing stuff like this they will be compared to the scumbag AAA companies like Activision, EA, EPIC, etc. I want Intrepid to succeed but if they gain a bad reputation before they have even released the game, the project could fail.
I am more than happy to wait for Intrepid to release their end product before judging them, but sadly that is not how modern society works, especially in the gaming industry. Companies are judged based on their actions outside of the game as well as the game itself. Capcom have made some amazing games over the years (street fighter, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, etc) but their shady business practices and actions outside of those games make a lot of players want to avoid their games completely, purely because of the company. The same can be true of other companies. I refuse to have anything to do with EPIC or EA because I hate them as a company, regardless of what games they bring out.
Company image is very important and I fear that things like this will ruin Intrepid's image.
Since I got a message I will clarify the last part I wrote.
No the opening post is NOT criticism. It lacks every important and constructive part criticism offers. All it does is say, I don't like this, change/remove it (to what is not something I will bother with) or bad things will happen. Hence the strong arming, hence the variation of an offended peasant.
You can call it an essay I suppose, but that would also strech it.
Edit: Saw your response here to late @Wandering Mist Your intentions may be good, but your execution is horrible.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Sounds a lot like what Intrepid have been doing lately....
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
Ohhhhhhhhhh, shots fired! X'D
Ashes of Creation was using Unreal Engine 4 to make this game when most MMOs used unreal engine 3.
Now they look pretty stupid.
In short lot of trolls out there. So people will jump at anything they can not to much can be done about.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
However, it's quite obvious that not everyone feels that way - and I would suggest that whether you are someone that thinks there is a need for it or someone like me that doesn't think there is a need for it, one thing everyone can agree on (other than dygz) is that there are people on these forums that do feel there is need for damage control.
This kind of thing is 100% subjective. Just because it isn't a thing that I see from my specific subjective point of view, that doesn't mean it isn't a very real thing from someone else's specific subjective point of view.
Doing *something* isn't ever a bad idea, and if there are people that think something needs to be done, it must be an even better idea.
I'm all about the product (both professionally and at home), not the PR. Because of that I have no suggestions as to what could or should be done, other than a generic *something*.
Yes I understand that, but when you say masses what numbers are you thinking of? From memory Steven said there were 8000+ PI & Alpha One participants, hence closing the Alpha One package options as they said they had enough. I would assume the total number of packages under A1 is much larger. How many people do you need to test netcode?
If the requirement is 10's of thousands then I still think Intrepid should be utilising its base of testers to get some initial feedback before releasing it to the general population of gamers, especially via a platform like Steam which can be toxic at the best of times. There are a lot of people that signed up to the project backing it because they believe in the vision that now seem to be overlooked.
I personally couldn't participate, the dl just hung itself at 41% and after that I couldn't even start it anymore, redowloading would have taken too much time with my amazing connection so the testing window flew by me. Not saying a majority will have those issues, but I am showcasing that things can go wrong. The more people you have, the better the chance you get to test what you wanted and as said, netcode changes for a
ONE DAY test
shouldn't offend anyone.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Company image is important *to you*. If I decide not to buy from a company in general, it's typically because of their more annoying practices that directly impact my own personal experience with them.
I don't do EA anymore because I hate Origins. It's a really shitty version of Steam, and my entire account with them vanished into nothing after I bought and played Andromeda all the way through, twice. So EA has permanently lost my business not because I tried and failed to get my account back, but because they lost my account in the first place. I won't bother trying to recover it, because I shouldn't have had to in the first place. It's also really irritating that the games I buy from a particular company aren't MY games. It feels more like I pay for the privilege of playing a rental game.
If I buy a game and decide I don't like it, I don't play it. If I buy multiple games that I end up not liking from one company, I stop buying from that company. I really really liked BioWare and LOVED the entire Mass Effect series, INCLUDING Andromeda. I did not care for Anthem, would have been better as either a single player or an MMO, but that semi-multiplayer-Division type game style is really stupid.
Point being, EA isn't an evil company in my opinion. They just suck on a more personal level. I could care less about their business practices as long as they produce enjoyable content. They might buy up small indie games and then run them into the ground, but that's the small indie publisher's problem, not EA's or mine. THEY chose to sell out to EA, knowing full well what kind of reputation EA has.