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
When they couldnt get it to work how they originally thought they would be able to, they had talked about it too much to release any game called EQN without voxels.
If they had have developed the game normally, when they got to the point of realizing voxels weren't as viable as they thought, they could have scrapped the idea.
This still makes me laugh... considering a company with a staff capable of nothing more than sitting around discussing concepts and then putting together an in engine demo to be game development.
There you are again talking out of your bum. EQ Next didn’t fail because they had been too open about the voxels to go back on their word once that failed. The reason the Voxels failure spelled their doom is because too much had been invested into it (financially and time wise). To redo the game without the Voxel system would have been too expensive. It’s not because they promised people voxels and then couldn’t give voxels. They were a business and if changing the system would have still made them money they would have gone through with a new design. But it wasn’t financially sustainable to do so and they had to drop the project.
I don’t know why I’m still responding to you. Every other word you say is some made up opinion that you cannot back up.
That's ironic considering your entire argument is based on an opinion of what "open development" means. You clearly have a very strong idea of what open development means to you, but Steven might very well have a different idea of it. We don't know for sure since he never defined what open development meant, nor did he promise what information we would be given aat what time.
As such, you cannot really claim he has lied to you.
Bravo! Yes, we have already agreed that it’s based on what I consider open development. However, I have brought evidence to explain my view and why Intrepid fails to uphold that.
There’s a couple comments from me not too far above and one of them is directed to you, but you failed to respond to that and show that my opinion is invalid by bringing a counter argument.
Please go back and bring some meaningful contribution to the conversation by responding to my questions instead of just saying “no u” when I call out someone for continuously making stuff up and not backing up their comments.
It really does. I’m glad that there’s some people who make sense on here. It seems that most posters here are just white knights who’ll defend Intrepid no matter what.
Difference being that IS devs were willing to suspend Apoc for several months - and they are also actively working on the MMORPG.
You wrote, “After three years we still don’t know details about races, classes, node types...”
But, we do have details about classes...names of classes and we not only have names of some class abilities, we have been able to play with some of them. We do have details on some of the Node types and we have more details about Nodes in general.
So... talking about stuff that you can’t back up is pot talking to the kettle.
The streams have topics and QA but they dont spontaneously go into random details.
What u consider a white knight on this thread are mostly people who are satisfied with the amount of information IS is providing.
I personally dont think further time tables are required.
We have the the old roadmap from apoc to release and a general idea what each phase will be focusing on.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
You call a couple abilities here and there in some testing like APOC or alpha 0 details about class abilities? Those aren’t details about classes. Those could be complete place holder abilities that we have no idea
how or which class they represent. Details about classes would look like samples of abilities directly tied to a class, race restrictions etc. actual details about a class and not some random ability from some random testing ground that tells us nothing about a specific class. Come on man... you’ve got to have a better thought process than that.
And I had already admitted that we have some details about nodes. But severely lacking and no update on it in 6 months. Why stop with the “Know Your Nodes” haphazardly without communicating anything to the community. Sure doesn’t look like open development when you see it that way.
And what about all the other aspects of the game? Three years and all we know is names of the races and some concept art.
Like any multi-million dollar project though, it would take more than one thing to go wrong in order for things to be outright cancelled, and so I've never had any doubts that there were many other factors involved - and it is entiery likely that the only people that know all of those factors are the people that made the decision to cancel.
I do know for a fact that they had trouble with StoryBricks (a fantastic idea though), and while I have never heard it specifically linked to cancelling EQN, I have absolutely no doubt it would have been another factor.
Opinions aren’t facts and can’t be “backed up”. You can try to present facts to justify an opinion, but an opinion itself just is what it is.
At least that’s my opinion.
This is very true in a literal sense.
When I talk about backing up an opinion though, I'm not talking about trying to prove it as a fact. What I'm talking about is attempting to show justification for why a persons opinion is what it is. It is as much proof that the opinion is actually thought out fully rather than just some random posting a bunch of words that mean nothing and claiming it as their opinion.
Perhaps a more succinct way to put it is that the notion that all opinions are valid is in fact false, the only valid opinions are those that are carefully considered - and the concept of backing up ones opinion is in fact simply proving that said opinion is carefully considered.
Edited to add; the above is all true - generally speaking.
However, it doesn't hold true in the conversation in this thread.
In this thread, there is an opinion put forward as if it is a fact (Intrepid developing Ashes in a closed environment). While that is an opinion, and asking for said opinion to be backed up as per the above is valid, since it was presented as fact in this thread I am asking for it to be backed up as a fact - rhtorically of course, as an opinion can never be backed up as if it were a fact.
You are assuming that Intrepid have already completely figured out all of that and are intentionally keeping it from us. I'd put money on the fact that (in the case of the Bard and Summoner classes at least) Intrepid don't know how things will work out just yet which is why we have gotten so little information on those topics.
3 years in they don’t have enough information on the bard and summoner? You understand that open development means allowing the community to see aspects of the game that aren’t finished yet and knowing that they could change in the future. If you really think that after 3 years of development Intrepid doesn’t have enough information about bards and summoners (or any other class for that matter) I don’t know what to tell you...
You too don’t think that after 3 years Intrepid has enough information about classes to release with the understanding that open development means letting the community in on unfinished products as you go through the creative and iterative process?
Do you think that open development means they have to tell us literally everything about the game?
If they want to keep two classes close to their chest and reveal nothing at all about them until we get to look at them in an alpha or beta, does that suddenly make all of development for the game closed?
Thanks for pitching in again, but that wasn’t the point of the conversation. The reason I said what I said is because @Wandering Mist said that Intrepid probably doesn’t have enough information about the classes. So I asked him/ her if he/she really thinks that after 3 years of development they don’t have enough information about their classes. Thanks for your contribution to the conversation even though you totally missed the point.
Did I miss the point though?
Us not knowing much about a few classes doesn't in any way mean Intrepid don't know about those classes.
As I was trying to point out, even if they were still trying to maintain open development, that wouldn't mean they are obligated to tell us everything about them.
Basically, what I am saying is that the fact that we have no information on those classes could well mean they are not developed enough as suggested, or it could mean Intrepid want to keep those classes as a surprise for us to see when we get in to the game.
From our perspective right now, both of these possibilities look identical. We have no way at all of knowing which of the two (or any number of other possibilities) is the actual situation.
We also have no way of claiming either one of these signifies open or closed development, as we still get information about other things.
Nope. I don't think I missed the point at all.
It’s literally pointless talking to you.
Yes, you missed the point. @Wandering Mist claimed that maybe Intrepid doesn’t know how the bard and summoner class are going to play out yet. And I told him that it would be absolutely ridiculous if after 3 years Intrepid didn’t have enough information about their classes.
So yes, when you come in and start talking about Intrepid being allowed to keep classes close to their chest and not release information about them when the conversation was actually about Intrepid NOT HAVING ENOUGH INFORMATION YET and not about Intrepid keeping information secret, I will think that you missed the point.
Again, we were talking about Intrepid not having the information yet and you were talking about them not releasing the information yet. Not having and not releasing. Two different things. Yes, you missed the point.
Them not having the information themselves was one very plausable reason given for this.
I simply gave a second plausable reason.
The funny thing is that me giving a second plausable reason could be reasonably taken to mean I agree with you when you said that they should have that information after 3 years. I mean, I disagree with fundamental assumptions that make that statement possible, but it could still be reasonably considered to be me agreeing with you.
Even the stalwart defenders are talking that either IS wants to keep "their cards close to their chest" or the features have yet not been developed. Quite worisome in both cases.
Quite frankly, yes. Think about the classes we have a lot of information on right now - Mage, Tank, Ranger, Cleric. Play any mmorpg with a class-based system and those classes will be there, they are so generic and bog standard that it's easy to have a clear idea of what they will do. On the other hand, Bard and Summoner are relatively niche classes and can be done in so many different ways and until you have a firm grasp of how the combat scenarios will play out it's hard to figure out how those niche classes will fit in. I'm really not surprised that Intrepid have put those classes on the backbench for now while they focus on other aspects of the game.
Of course, both you and I are working with very limited information and a shit ton of speculation. The simple truth is that we don't know why we haven't been given as much information as YOU think we "deserve". What I can tell you is that immediately jumping on the "omg Intrepid have lied to us" line doesn't help anyone.
3 years of development isn't that long for an mmorpg. Most mmorpgs of this scale take 5-6 years to develop, so we are only about half-way through the development cycle right now. On top of that this is a brand new studio working on their first game, with a creative director who has NEVER worked in games development before. I don't know about you but I'm prepared to cut them a bit of slack on this, at least until proper testing for the mmorpg starts.
Not at all.
Not even close, in fact.
My position is that the Intrepid has given us more details on the game than almost any other MMO for where it is in it's development cycle.
People have the mistaken belief that since we heard about this game in 2017, the game must have been in development well before then.
The thing is, with a crowd funded project like this, we heard about the game and were bought in to the fold before Intrepid had a team capable of beginning development. By May 2017 when the kickstarter started, the entire team at Intrepid would have put 100% of their work effort to that point in obtaining funds for development of the game, including the assets shown on the kickstarter page.
It is only once that funding is secured that they worked on bringing in staff to start actual development of the game itself.
The kickstarter ended in October 2017 from memory, at which point Intrepid would be able to start looking for the more senior developers with various sub-disciplines. This could take 6 months easily.
If you assume development of the game started in earnest when these people were all on board (most of them would then have needed to hire their own team, so I don't consider that to be the case myself), then development has been going on for 13 months or so.
Most games aren't even announced after 13 months of development.
Based on that, the fact that we have a wiki with 8,263 pages worth of information after 13 months of development tells me that this is incredibly open development.
As a second point to your post, Steven has said he doesn't want players to know everything before they get in to the game. It is well within brand for him to specifically not tell us about aspects of the game so that when we get in to the game to experience it for ourselves we can all go "oh hey, that's cool!".
Not only is there nothing wrong with this, it is actually a far better idea than just telling us everything so we have no surprises when we do get in to the game.
Most games of this size have what, a 5 year development period.
So if we assume they worked on it for a year, to have enough to show and know what they wanted to do, that would be 2016 + 5 = 2021. Which has been thrown around a lot by the community.
So, I expect that we will start seeing some nice footage next year.
I like to also consider that they are planning on the Alpha 1 crowd to give enough feedback so that by time Alpha 2 occurs, they have a lot they can start streaming to the masses to ramp up for a delivery date.
Honestly, I am not sure what I would even want to see from them right now.
What's the point in knowing how a class works for a game 2 years (approx.) before you can play it?
What's the point in seeing Ashes sharing mechanics before they release? That level of transparency could allow others to grab their ideas and put out a crappy version first. Or convince the community to talk sh*t for two years because some peeps are mad it's not the way they want it. [This is common for gamers, let's not pretend it is not]
What's the point in seeing how the hybrid combat works before we can test it on a mass level (hopefully A1 or A2)?
What else could we ask to see?
Skins? Why? Just so we can look, and give an approving nod and thumbs up from the other side of the forums?
I love how people claim they just want transparency, but in the end it just comes down to "I deserve to see what IS is doing because...". No, no you don't regardless of what they are saying. You did not sign a contract with them outlining and detailing what and when they will show you.
Most people overestimate what they deserve or have rights to.
I mean, surely they would not start funding a project they have no idea how it will work. I mean all the core concepts must have been thought through.
I know Steven said he doesn´t want players to know everything but this kind of statement supports the lack of transparency.
There is difference between stuff like lore, bosses, etc. and core features that were announced such as nodes, classes and races.
The point is transparency
There is nothing wrong with not showing stuff but the whole point of this thread is if they are or aren´t transparent.
As for " You did not sign a contract with them outlining and detailing what and when they will show you."
Yes, we did.
1. Oral contract is as valid as written one
2. If you set expectation of releasing new info let´s say once every month, a part of node serie and than leave it unfinished for 6 months with no new info. The only logical conclusion is lack of communication.
Now, if Steven (or someone acting on his behalf) personally told you that they will give a steady stream of info that you have the right to contest if it is or is not considered transparent, than you would have a verbal agreement.
I do agree there is a lack of communication on some parts of development, but not as a whole.
They aren’t providing as much info as I would like compared to what they initially stated but..
I’ve also been able to test game features much earlier than I have for most MMORPGs.
Steven’s initial expectations were based on inexperience - as a veteran game dev, I always knew that.
I think Steven has in mind where he wants in mind what info he wants released in conjunction with early access milestones, so delays in those milestones results in delays info, so a one year delay has a profound impact on the info we get.
What matters is what the devs are doing or not doing.
I’m concerned that it takes IS 5 months to share an article - but that’s more of a concerns about how that impacts release date/schedule than what the devs say.
Even when I worked as a dev, I never believed producer hype about dates.
I still expect us to get the info some time - I can deal with delays.
The delays for CoE early access bug me more than the lack of info for Ashes.