So before I begin, I personally love cash shop items such as:
race/gender change
appearance change
class change
skill change
Not for any p2w reason but I know that a minority of players will see it as such. I don't do alternate characters and after playing one toon for a long time, you want to switch things up a bit.
As long as there are in-game means to obtain those items as well other than the cash shop, I am cool with it.
I like options, the more the better.
I think there have said there will be a barbershop like mechanic where you'll be able to change the appearances of things like hair, makeup, skin tone and maybe appearance tweaks. Don't quote me.
I can go for that stuff.
As for the account bound character, I can see the need for it in other games but like someone mentioned IS wants the "spy" to be a thing.
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NagashMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I just want to turn from human to undead for my own lore
The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
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unknownsystemerrorMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Don't know what you want me to respond about. They have said that they want spying and people being able to mask their identity among their alts. You seem think I meant I was in favor of account-bound guild membership. I am not. People join and leave guilds all the time, you sound like you want to limit that behavior. Wishlisting is great. There are many impassioned threads on the forums. Changing the class names comes to mind. At the end of the day they will take that feedback and decide what works best for them. I will say that in the last couple years of following development pretty closely the only change that came from general feedback was about the QTE system that prompted large and immediate backlash. So run your strawpolls, collect your data, but since your sample size is bound to be negligible vs number of accounts confirmed I doubt it will gain much traction.
If you are max level of a given class, I want to know that you have leveled that class up from the start, I don't expect that you have only been that class for 30 seconds.
Limiting guild membership to one per account would simply see spys operating from different accounts (there is already a fair amount of talk about people having multiple accounts, this would just make that worse).
Race change should absolutely not be possible. The value of a race will fluctuate based on things like node affinity (though we don't know the actual impact of this, other than knowing there is "some" impact). Allowing people to change their race will simply see people change to best suit the situation their node is in at that point in time - essentially it will be done for in game advantage and so is not acceptable.
Gender changing is kind of pointless overall, other than for cosmetic purposes. My only reason for being against it is that the gender of your character is a part of your characters identity, and character identity (if not player identity) is excessively important in Ashes.
When you create a character, you create the race, gender, name and primary class. These things shouldn't ever be able to be changed, though everything else about your character should.
Gender, race and primary class should not be able to be changed for anyone for any reason. It should be permanent. Anything else is destructive to the game.
Gender, race and primary class should not be able to be changed for anyone for any reason. It should be permanent. Anything else is destructive to the game.
I can see the argument for the race and primary class but gender should be able to change.
@tsukasa
1. The bear mount was and still is one of the most fought over things Intrepid ever did, and even Steven said that the stuffed bear mount wss a mistake.
2. You should not try to throw your real world agenda into a game. You had the choice of gender at the start, YOU CAN DECIDE that AT THE VERY BEGINNING! There should not have to be a later gender change just because you think that you would rather like to play a male or female character becaue you like the aesthetic more or anything. YOUR DECISIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES AND YOU WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH THEM!
3. A gender change is not the same as a height change, and i would say that even THAT should not be a thing.
4. I dont want name changes either.
5. We are not against same gender marriages in the game, BECAUSE. WE. DO. NOT. CARE! I at least dont care if you like males or females, that is your own personal shitty opinion, and i have no right to influence you. THE SAME WAY THAT YOU CANT GO AROUND AND INSINUATE OTHER PEOPLE BEING TRANSPHOBIC BTW!
I hate it when people try to play the white knight and push their socio/political agenda on me. I will call people whatever fits best in the current situation, until they tell me to call them a specific pronoun. I believe in scientific facts and not opinions.
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AmistMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Gender change is very similar to changing body proprieties like height. You don't want that, too? Or name change?
This game has a same gender marriage AND racial skins, why aren't you against it? Why does it matter now?
This community is really pathetic. I hope Intrepid doesn't ruin its game by listening too much to your narrow-mindedness. I'm very sorry, you are good people, but I've been holding it for years.
They can make everything "just works" in a high-fantasy world, just like how they made a stuffed bear a mount, same logic.
When it comes to cosmetics, it is not worth making your customers PERMANENTLY feel bad about their decisions. Many players would lose interest and not play anymore because they don't want to start over, especially with a subscription model and every name being taken.
When coming onto the forums, you should be prepared to have people disagree with you. It is a place for discussion after all. I do personally think that there is a lot of reasoning behind not wanting a class/race change as it dynamically changes the way that players make choices within the game, but that does not make me pathetic. People don't just agree with Intrepid for the sake of getting on their good side, but have rather found the game interesting due the mutual agreement when it comes to things like class change and race change.
Don't ask a question if you don't want people to argue with you about why they disagree. They are not pathetic for not sharing the same views as you. I would in fact consider you narrowminded and pathetic for being unable to accept opinons that differ from yours
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AmistMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
5. We are not against same gender marriages in the game, BECAUSE. WE. DO. NOT. CARE!
You don't care about people constantly calling each other with vulgar words like g*y or straight people begin considering themselves as such? That's toxic. They could change the word marriage to something else, like soulmate; with(or not/just sharing idea) PvE-only shared skills limited to each other, like healing each other.
More examples:
From an MMO that probably nobody here even heard of, Asda Story
Let me guess. You disagree about this too? but you said you don't care?
It's hopeless
Also.
You are the one "throwing real life agenda" here.
People hearts change, they can get extremely bored of the limitation of their look or name.
What will they do?
Accept living with it? No. I don't think they can change their own feelings of disinterest/unenthusiasm.
Either "impersonate" another character that's near identical to its previous, or give up and uninstall.
^ mostly the latter, because starting over is a lot of work for few cosmetics changes.
What if two players become good friends and marry each other for the content it provides, but they don't want to look creepy because of their gender, so they end up avoiding this system at all?
Marrying someone might cost a fortune, and they would then think it's not worth it.
I'm not interested in discussing this further. I will put it in a spoiler.
I'm fairly certain Intrepid has already stated that marriage will only provide cosmetics and not buffs of any kind.
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unknownsystemerrorMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 2019
@branegames Actually no, they have never stated that there would be no benefit or penalty for marriage. Just that same sex marriage would be available. It was argued back and forth across the forums and Discord and many people weighed in, but an official quote either on Discord or other written media has not happened yet. Same with the mentor program. We know that these things will be in game, just not what form they will take. As you can see from the wiki link I will leave after this they have left it intentionally vague. May be this, might do that. I was in the camp that marriage should provide no benefit beyond cosmetic. But again, they have never said that would be the case, just that it would affect certain systems. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Marriage
As for the OP, take it all with a grain of salt. New account from yesterday, makes a poll about what they want, comments exclusively on it. I smell troll or a sense of entitlement so strong that no matter what you present you are going to be called various things.
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AzathothMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I understood where you were coming from until you started saying things like:
"This community is really pathetic. I hope Intrepid doesn't ruin its game by listening too much to your narrow-mindedness."
"You don't care about people constantly calling each other with vulgar words like g*y or straight people begin considering themselves as such? That's toxic. They could change the word marriage to something else, like soulmate; "
"Understood. I think the mutual agreement is what gathered you people here in the first place. The loyalty."
Which, based on your OP I find very odd.
The first comment means you discount and don't consider opinions opposed to yours. Which makes reading and then taking your post seriously harder by default. You not accepting alternate views is also narrow minded. Well done proving that.
Your second comment makes you sound like you personally have an issue with same sex marriage. I would have guessed the opposite from your original post. So now I am confused as to your actual intend. Most people here, as stated above, don't care. Or at least they don't care enough to be against it in a Video Game.
The third statement, like the first, indicates that people here who agree with Intrepid only do so because IS said so. You have mentioned this previously as well. Which makes taking you serious at all pointless. Because if I don't agree with you, and happen to agree with IS you will simply assume my opinion is wrong.
Overall, this thread has assured me you will be an awesome member of the community.
Welcome aboard!
+1 Skull & Crown metal coin
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MarzzoMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
No, no and no. If you want to go all in on a character, do it. But I want different alts in the same guild. There are many, many reasons for this.
5. We are not against same gender marriages in the game, BECAUSE. WE. DO. NOT. CARE!
You don't care about people constantly calling each other with vulgar words like g*y or straight people begin considering themselves as such? That's toxic. They could change the word marriage to something else, like soulmate; with(or not/just sharing idea) PvE-only shared skills limited to each other, like healing each other.
More examples:
From an MMO that probably nobody here even heard of, Asda Story
Let me guess. You disagree about this too? but you said you don't care?
It's hopeless
Also.
You are the one "throwing real life agenda" here.
People hearts change, they can get extremely bored of the limitation of their look or name.
What will they do?
Accept living with it? No. I don't think they can change their own feelings of disinterest/unenthusiasm.
Either "impersonate" another character that's near identical to its previous, or give up and uninstall.
^ mostly the latter, because starting over is a lot of work for few cosmetics changes.
What if two players become good friends and marry each other for the content it provides, but they don't want to look creepy because of their gender, so they end up avoiding this system at all?
Marrying someone might cost a fortune, and they would then think it's not worth it.
I'm not interested in discussing this further. I will put it in a spoiler.
So.... You are going to cherry pick my argument? Okay, very original.... where have i seen that before?
I watched some gameplay from ASDA story/Global.
It looks like shit. It reminded me of metin 2, which was a bad game. It looks like a generic game with bad graphics and no innovation....
Another point from that game:
Holy shit those abilities are all op as hell.
Delivery of Soulbody: YOU GET EXP WHILE YOU ARE OFFLINE, IF YOUR SOULBOND DOES SHIT IN THE GAME WORLD?!?
Summon of Soulmate: Lets TP where ever the other person is, shall we? Oh and the best part? 20min cd!
Protection of Soul: Lets ignore the death penatly every 20min why not? The travel is an important part of the gamemechanics? FUCK THE MECHANICS!
Whisper of Resurrection: IT DOES WHAT IT SAYS IT DOES IMMEDIATELY! Only a 10min cd btw.
Power-Up (Passive): Straight up 10% more attackpower, as if you had a bard 24/7 with you as long as you stay together.
HEALING OF SOUL: Recover 80% of your soulbonds physical power... Why not? Who needs a healer? The real kicker? It has a 15sec cd!
COMBINATION OF SOUL: 60sec CD. Borrow 70% attack from your soulmate... It disregards level difference. So a level 1 character can use 70% of a max characters attackpower... I CANT SEE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THAT, CAN YOU?!?
DO I DISAGREE ABOUT SUCH BUFFS THROUGH FKN MARRIAGE?!? YES, YES I FKN DO!
That's toxic. They could change the word marriage to something else, like soulmate; with(or not/just sharing idea) PvE-only shared skills limited to each other, like healing each other."
Thats just replacing one word with another... Also: What will you call a divorce then? Soulmates.... shure. xD
Any kind of buffs derived from an ingame marriage should be non existent or solely cosmetic in my opinion. Being married should not give you an advantage over other people...
You are the one "throwing real life agenda" here.
People hearts change, they can get extremely bored of the limitation of their look or name.
What will they do?
Accept living with it? No. I don't think they can change their own feelings of disinterest/unenthusiasm.
Either "impersonate" another character that's near identical to its previous, or give up and uninstall.
^ mostly the latter, because starting over is a lot of work for few cosmetics changes.
What if two players become good friends and marry each other for the content it provides, but they don't want to look creepy because of their gender, so they end up avoiding this system at all?
Marrying someone might cost a fortune, and they would then think it's not worth it.
Bored of the limitations of their looks or name? Okay, let them get the possibility of a name change.
The developers can implement a barber, like they did in WoW. Those are acceptable things.
RACE CHANGE?!? What the F-word? So.... You would also be okay if a white woman decided to suddenly be of african origin and started to color her skin black yeah? Thats called CULTURAL/RACIAL APPROPRIATION, and is looked down upon by the people of that culture...
It is sometimes so laughable, how the people on the internet are... I see the news in america about feminist rallies, where I clearly see how they cherry pick their rights and responsibilities and think "Why have I never seen such things in germany?" I know now. Something is really wrong with america... I have three firends who are all either gay, bi or trans (this is a good part of my friends because i am heavily introverted), and none have EVER complained how people call them He/she even though they identify with the other pronoun. BECAUSE THOSE PEOPLE CANT KNOW THAT AND IT IS NOT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO LOOK OUT FOR OTHER PEOPLES FEELINGS!
I understood where you were coming from until you started saying things like:
"This community is really pathetic. I hope Intrepid doesn't ruin its game by listening too much to your narrow-mindedness."
"You don't care about people constantly calling each other with vulgar words like g*y or straight people begin considering themselves as such? That's toxic. They could change the word marriage to something else, like soulmate; "
"Understood. I think the mutual agreement is what gathered you people here in the first place. The loyalty."
Which, based on your OP I find very odd.
The first comment means you discount and don't consider opinions opposed to yours. Which makes reading and then taking your post seriously harder by default. You not accepting alternate views is also narrow minded. Well done proving that.
Your second comment makes you sound like you personally have an issue with same sex marriage. I would have guessed the opposite from your original post. So now I am confused as to your actual intend. Most people here, as stated above, don't care. Or at least they don't care enough to be against it in a Video Game.
The third statement, like the first, indicates that people here who agree with Intrepid only do so because IS said so. You have mentioned this previously as well. Which makes taking you serious at all pointless. Because if I don't agree with you, and happen to agree with IS you will simply assume my opinion is wrong.
Overall, this thread has assured me you will be an awesome member of the community.
Welcome aboard!
I hope the welcoming part is genuine and not sarcastic. Thanks.
Whether I agree or disagree depends on reasons and examples. Not "Intrepid said it will be This".
If Intrepid deliberately want spying on guilds to be part of the game, then I can't argue back. I've already accepted it, thus I'm not talking about it anymore. Does that make me narrow minded?
No, not interested in the marriage system either. Only brought it up to make my argument reasonable. I'm more worried about how this system will influence the community, actually.
I agree that choices should matter, too. However, with very strict limitation. FOR EXAMPLE: Only possible to change twice a year or start over(by praying to religion or self-sacrifice), at lvl 1 in another race with memory loss, regainable as you progress. It works lore-wise. ANY consequence is fine!
People will quit because everything is "permanent", and can't enjoy the game while holding regret forever.
All of these changeable things (race, class, gender, even appearance) are new to the MMO community. No one quit EQ because they couldn't change even their hair style after character creation. I leveled a human Wizard to 20 before realizing elf Wizards were better, and just rerolled (made a new wizard, gave all my stuff from my old to my new, deleted the old) and started over.
It's actually a very minor thing, and not worth designing a complicated code into the game for without a very serious reason for it (like selling "potions" on a market for real money reasons). Would also require a close look at balance and gameplay related issues, squash bugs, and it'd just be a very expensive process. It worked in FF14 because the gameplay model basically centered AROUND it, making progression in the main story tedious, and selling potions for money so players could step around having to do that entire process again and again.
In the end, gameplay decisions are largely made based on level of effort required vs what it actually adds to or contributes to the gameplay itself. Most of us are going to be fine with simply making an alt to "change it up". It won't be as horrible in AoC as it might be in, say, FF14 which has that really stupid main quest set up where you pretty much repeat the entire game with every character you make, and have to do dungeons as part of the main quest line, and so on and so fourth.
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AzathothMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@Tsukasa my welcoming was 100% genuine. If it wasn't for threads like these I would barely post. I am sure we will engage and not agree a lot and i look forward to each and every time
If players quit because of the "permanent" nature of one character, out of all the alts allowed, they will likely quit other games all the time. I don't see those types of players playing in sub-based game for more than a few months.
As for the narrow minded aspects at play here, no, your acceptance of spying being part of the game is not narrow minded.
Calling the community narrow minded because they don't agree, that's narrow minded and clearly what I referenced when I said so the first time.
What about the marriage system, as planned, are you worried about within the community? We already know your stance on the marriage/gender issue (which is also narrow minded), is that your only concern?
This game has a same gender marriage AND racial skins, why aren't you against it? Why does it matter now?
I'm actually offended that you would think that this is in any way a consideration in my opinion here.
Ashes is a game. I honestly don't care if you want to marry a goat in game, let alone marry a fictional character of the same fictional gender as your fictional character.
Honestly, go marry that goat in game. More power to you.
However, character name, race, gender and primary class are the core foundation of character identity.
Ashes is a game where identity matters and has actual in game value. If identity matters and has value, then being able to change any aspect of that identity (even if only one quarter of that identity) has value. You don't want people being able to change their in game identity in Ashes, even if you don't yet realize that you don't want that.
Now, Ashes will almost certainly have ways for you to change your characters appearance. This is cool (within reason), as changing your appearance does not change your identity.
On topic: I don't mind appearance or gender swaps of any sort, personally. To me, those are cosmetic and harmless, and would let me delve into routine fashion upgrades hohoho. Everybody have fun, marry whomever you like, and look fabulous!
However, I don't personally support class swapping or 1-account-guild-joining. I love having alts, and I like putting alts in different places. If my characters got locked into one single guild by signing up, I'd have a Mighty Sad.
Steven also said in APOC messages that souls exist in Ashes's universe. When the characters die, their souls are left behind and can be turned into health and mana by enemies (and almost certainly allies as well). https://gyazo.com/88ad2b47092e904d40205ccc3e0ffad7
Which in my opinion makes my idea of being Reborn by praying as lvl 1 with memory loss into a body of another race as acceptable.
Okay, but if you have to reset your character to lvl 1 for a race change then... why dont you just create a second character?
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NagashMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Gender and races may change but bones are forever
The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
Comments
race/gender change
appearance change
class change
skill change
Not for any p2w reason but I know that a minority of players will see it as such. I don't do alternate characters and after playing one toon for a long time, you want to switch things up a bit.
As long as there are in-game means to obtain those items as well other than the cash shop, I am cool with it.
I like options, the more the better.
I think there have said there will be a barbershop like mechanic where you'll be able to change the appearances of things like hair, makeup, skin tone and maybe appearance tweaks. Don't quote me.
I can go for that stuff.
As for the account bound character, I can see the need for it in other games but like someone mentioned IS wants the "spy" to be a thing.
Look it's Steven, the famous .... was it rogue or cleric now? He keeps changing...
Names and class matter, because you get know by those, if you keep changing your name and your class, you have no online persona.
Also, if you want to "spice things up" make and alt, or do something different. I hope they dont implement this, really bad
Limiting guild membership to one per account would simply see spys operating from different accounts (there is already a fair amount of talk about people having multiple accounts, this would just make that worse).
Race change should absolutely not be possible. The value of a race will fluctuate based on things like node affinity (though we don't know the actual impact of this, other than knowing there is "some" impact). Allowing people to change their race will simply see people change to best suit the situation their node is in at that point in time - essentially it will be done for in game advantage and so is not acceptable.
Gender changing is kind of pointless overall, other than for cosmetic purposes. My only reason for being against it is that the gender of your character is a part of your characters identity, and character identity (if not player identity) is excessively important in Ashes.
When you create a character, you create the race, gender, name and primary class. These things shouldn't ever be able to be changed, though everything else about your character should.
Gender, race and primary class should not be able to be changed for anyone for any reason. It should be permanent. Anything else is destructive to the game.
I can see the argument for the race and primary class but gender should be able to change.
1. The bear mount was and still is one of the most fought over things Intrepid ever did, and even Steven said that the stuffed bear mount wss a mistake.
2. You should not try to throw your real world agenda into a game. You had the choice of gender at the start, YOU CAN DECIDE that AT THE VERY BEGINNING! There should not have to be a later gender change just because you think that you would rather like to play a male or female character becaue you like the aesthetic more or anything. YOUR DECISIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES AND YOU WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH THEM!
3. A gender change is not the same as a height change, and i would say that even THAT should not be a thing.
4. I dont want name changes either.
5. We are not against same gender marriages in the game, BECAUSE. WE. DO. NOT. CARE! I at least dont care if you like males or females, that is your own personal shitty opinion, and i have no right to influence you. THE SAME WAY THAT YOU CANT GO AROUND AND INSINUATE OTHER PEOPLE BEING TRANSPHOBIC BTW!
I hate it when people try to play the white knight and push their socio/political agenda on me. I will call people whatever fits best in the current situation, until they tell me to call them a specific pronoun. I believe in scientific facts and not opinions.
When coming onto the forums, you should be prepared to have people disagree with you. It is a place for discussion after all. I do personally think that there is a lot of reasoning behind not wanting a class/race change as it dynamically changes the way that players make choices within the game, but that does not make me pathetic. People don't just agree with Intrepid for the sake of getting on their good side, but have rather found the game interesting due the mutual agreement when it comes to things like class change and race change.
Don't ask a question if you don't want people to argue with you about why they disagree. They are not pathetic for not sharing the same views as you. I would in fact consider you narrowminded and pathetic for being unable to accept opinons that differ from yours
I'm fairly certain Intrepid has already stated that marriage will only provide cosmetics and not buffs of any kind.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Marriage
As for the OP, take it all with a grain of salt. New account from yesterday, makes a poll about what they want, comments exclusively on it. I smell troll or a sense of entitlement so strong that no matter what you present you are going to be called various things.
I understood where you were coming from until you started saying things like:
"This community is really pathetic. I hope Intrepid doesn't ruin its game by listening too much to your narrow-mindedness."
"You don't care about people constantly calling each other with vulgar words like g*y or straight people begin considering themselves as such? That's toxic. They could change the word marriage to something else, like soulmate; "
"Understood. I think the mutual agreement is what gathered you people here in the first place. The loyalty."
Which, based on your OP I find very odd.
The first comment means you discount and don't consider opinions opposed to yours. Which makes reading and then taking your post seriously harder by default. You not accepting alternate views is also narrow minded. Well done proving that.
Your second comment makes you sound like you personally have an issue with same sex marriage. I would have guessed the opposite from your original post. So now I am confused as to your actual intend. Most people here, as stated above, don't care. Or at least they don't care enough to be against it in a Video Game.
The third statement, like the first, indicates that people here who agree with Intrepid only do so because IS said so. You have mentioned this previously as well. Which makes taking you serious at all pointless. Because if I don't agree with you, and happen to agree with IS you will simply assume my opinion is wrong.
Overall, this thread has assured me you will be an awesome member of the community.
Welcome aboard!
So.... You are going to cherry pick my argument? Okay, very original.... where have i seen that before?
I watched some gameplay from ASDA story/Global.
It looks like shit. It reminded me of metin 2, which was a bad game. It looks like a generic game with bad graphics and no innovation....
Another point from that game:
Holy shit those abilities are all op as hell.
Delivery of Soulbody: YOU GET EXP WHILE YOU ARE OFFLINE, IF YOUR SOULBOND DOES SHIT IN THE GAME WORLD?!?
Summon of Soulmate: Lets TP where ever the other person is, shall we? Oh and the best part? 20min cd!
Protection of Soul: Lets ignore the death penatly every 20min why not? The travel is an important part of the gamemechanics? FUCK THE MECHANICS!
Whisper of Resurrection: IT DOES WHAT IT SAYS IT DOES IMMEDIATELY! Only a 10min cd btw.
Power-Up (Passive): Straight up 10% more attackpower, as if you had a bard 24/7 with you as long as you stay together.
HEALING OF SOUL: Recover 80% of your soulbonds physical power... Why not? Who needs a healer? The real kicker? It has a 15sec cd!
COMBINATION OF SOUL: 60sec CD. Borrow 70% attack from your soulmate... It disregards level difference. So a level 1 character can use 70% of a max characters attackpower... I CANT SEE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THAT, CAN YOU?!?
DO I DISAGREE ABOUT SUCH BUFFS THROUGH FKN MARRIAGE?!? YES, YES I FKN DO!
I do care about people being rude and calling people slurs. Do I do something about it the chance i hear/see it happen? Yes.
I belive that people all over the world should be AT LEAST respectfull to each other and that they should keep their opinion at home.
I dont like it when men make out with each other in public, AS MUCH AS I DONT LIKE IT WHEN A MAN AND WOMAN MAKE OUT WITH EACH OTHER IN PUBLIC!
Displays of affection should be in the privacy of home or kept short. No one wants to see two people shove their tongues down each others throat.
Thats just replacing one word with another... Also: What will you call a divorce then? Soulmates.... shure. xD
Any kind of buffs derived from an ingame marriage should be non existent or solely cosmetic in my opinion. Being married should not give you an advantage over other people...
Bored of the limitations of their looks or name? Okay, let them get the possibility of a name change.
The developers can implement a barber, like they did in WoW. Those are acceptable things.
RACE CHANGE?!? What the F-word? So.... You would also be okay if a white woman decided to suddenly be of african origin and started to color her skin black yeah? Thats called CULTURAL/RACIAL APPROPRIATION, and is looked down upon by the people of that culture...
It is sometimes so laughable, how the people on the internet are... I see the news in america about feminist rallies, where I clearly see how they cherry pick their rights and responsibilities and think "Why have I never seen such things in germany?" I know now. Something is really wrong with america... I have three firends who are all either gay, bi or trans (this is a good part of my friends because i am heavily introverted), and none have EVER complained how people call them He/she even though they identify with the other pronoun. BECAUSE THOSE PEOPLE CANT KNOW THAT AND IT IS NOT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO LOOK OUT FOR OTHER PEOPLES FEELINGS!
God, I am so done with this thread....
All of these changeable things (race, class, gender, even appearance) are new to the MMO community. No one quit EQ because they couldn't change even their hair style after character creation. I leveled a human Wizard to 20 before realizing elf Wizards were better, and just rerolled (made a new wizard, gave all my stuff from my old to my new, deleted the old) and started over.
It's actually a very minor thing, and not worth designing a complicated code into the game for without a very serious reason for it (like selling "potions" on a market for real money reasons). Would also require a close look at balance and gameplay related issues, squash bugs, and it'd just be a very expensive process. It worked in FF14 because the gameplay model basically centered AROUND it, making progression in the main story tedious, and selling potions for money so players could step around having to do that entire process again and again.
In the end, gameplay decisions are largely made based on level of effort required vs what it actually adds to or contributes to the gameplay itself. Most of us are going to be fine with simply making an alt to "change it up". It won't be as horrible in AoC as it might be in, say, FF14 which has that really stupid main quest set up where you pretty much repeat the entire game with every character you make, and have to do dungeons as part of the main quest line, and so on and so fourth.
If players quit because of the "permanent" nature of one character, out of all the alts allowed, they will likely quit other games all the time. I don't see those types of players playing in sub-based game for more than a few months.
As for the narrow minded aspects at play here, no, your acceptance of spying being part of the game is not narrow minded.
Calling the community narrow minded because they don't agree, that's narrow minded and clearly what I referenced when I said so the first time.
What about the marriage system, as planned, are you worried about within the community? We already know your stance on the marriage/gender issue (which is also narrow minded), is that your only concern?
Ashes is a game. I honestly don't care if you want to marry a goat in game, let alone marry a fictional character of the same fictional gender as your fictional character.
Honestly, go marry that goat in game. More power to you.
However, character name, race, gender and primary class are the core foundation of character identity.
Ashes is a game where identity matters and has actual in game value. If identity matters and has value, then being able to change any aspect of that identity (even if only one quarter of that identity) has value. You don't want people being able to change their in game identity in Ashes, even if you don't yet realize that you don't want that.
Now, Ashes will almost certainly have ways for you to change your characters appearance. This is cool (within reason), as changing your appearance does not change your identity.
On topic: I don't mind appearance or gender swaps of any sort, personally. To me, those are cosmetic and harmless, and would let me delve into routine fashion upgrades hohoho. Everybody have fun, marry whomever you like, and look fabulous!
However, I don't personally support class swapping or 1-account-guild-joining. I love having alts, and I like putting alts in different places. If my characters got locked into one single guild by signing up, I'd have a Mighty Sad.
Characters: Grome | Solun
Okay, but if you have to reset your character to lvl 1 for a race change then... why dont you just create a second character?