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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.
Lost trust
Void
Member
In 2018 Ashes of Creation was the most anticipated MMORPG. Things really went down hill with the whole BR thing, delays and 0 MMORPG footage. The trust of community in the project is gone. When someone asks for MMORPG release date, noone even remembers that the official statement is "delay is in months, not years" everyone expects the MMORPG to come out at least in 2021.
In what ways do you think Intrepid could start winning back the trust of the community?
I guess a way to do that would be to show more of MMORPG, but the fact that they are not willing to do that says a lot too.
In what ways do you think Intrepid could start winning back the trust of the community?
I guess a way to do that would be to show more of MMORPG, but the fact that they are not willing to do that says a lot too.
2
Comments
No one should believe "the delay is months; not years" statement any more than the "before 2020" statement.
I think everyone hopes the MMORPG will release at least by 2021. Most people, by now, should understand that MMORPGs take a long time to develop.
Steven's philosophy is that most of the MMORPG showcasing should happen in the game, preferably at launch, rather than releasing a bunch of spoilers beforehand.
I don't think IS can really win back "trust".
It's show; not tell.
IS would have to be able to show on a consistent basis - more than concept art, in-game scenery and mob models.
That being said, telling via a consistent stream of design articles, like Divine Nodes, would be better than nothing.
They have had more than enough opportunities to do things that would mend the bridge, but they appear as if they are just going through the motions.
As for your post, i haven't lost faith in Intrepid but am slightly disappointed at the supposed lack of progress. Here's to hoping castle siege comes out before the year ends. Once that happens i dont imagine horde mode being too difficult to implement and after that its just full speed with the mmo. Again though, even if they appear to be failing now, if the end product is good, people will find out and flock to the game. If it ends bad well shucks i guess
The lack of meaningful progress shown and apparent halt the MMORPG development took when the BR came out just doesn’t look good. I understand that Intrepid claims that most of the BR systems and assets will be used in the MMORPG. However, it’s been months without any sort of information on visible MMORPG progress. And for a studio that claims transparency that just doesn’t look good.
I hope Ashes becomes all that it promises to be because Intrepid really has a beautiful vision, but for now I’m concerned.
Let's dissect your post a bit.
1. "0 MMORPG footage"
False. The BR is a reflection of the MMORPG assets and plenty of videos have showcased environment and wildlife that will be in the MMORPG. example the dev diaries.
2. "the trust of the community in the project is gone"
Mostly true. I have seen the majority of the day 1 community still around and supporting the vision we backed. It is from my perspective that the newcomers have mostly jumped ship due to the BR falling flat or growing stale for them. This is true for most games early on but you'll see a rise in number and streamers once they have a reason to poach.
3. "delay is in months, not years"
Maybe. Steven has tried to maintain his timeline the best he knows how but again he has no real dev experience so timelines are expected to change. Everyone should have been prepared for that but still, it's the internet and people only see and hear what they want.
4. "I guess a way to do that would be to show more of MMORPG, but the fact that they are not willing to do that says a lot too"
False. See #1. Also IS has stated numerous times they want to show off the MMO when the systems are ready because they have learned from the first couple times they have shown us things that were not so polished and people took it as a complete product.
The core problem is that IS/Steven went with open development early on and they put way too much trust in the MMO community. Let's be honest with ourselves, the MMO community is a fickle mistress and if you're not giving us constant attention we'll find a younger and more appealing thing to play with.
There was a midpoint after the first round of pre-alpha testing where they got behind, I believe they should've gone into closed development and only gave us periodic updates because that's what it seems we are in now.
as long follower of AoC i putted money in to be part of the first group to experience AoC.... to look back in a few years and talk about how i seen the game being build up from the ground.... it is totally normal that there was a alpha0/friendsandfamily before alpha 1 starts. ofcource you cant blindly throw hunders of ppl that backed in a alpha 1 world and hope for the best. i was jelours for not winning a alpha0 key but was excited af to go into alpha 1 and run around in any sort of world.
i am satisfied with the things they showed us so far. they got a amazing team i mean just look at the extra life livestream they did! full of energy. amazing vision on how a mmo should be and projected solutions for problems like gold sellers/server layering/optimization. great art work! they seem to work in a structured way and found a balance in what to share and not to share with the cummunity in terms of info.
i am still 100% behind them on this!!
but here is the problem iam having since over a year now that feels like a backstab:
2017 'Invite to Closed Alpha - Phase 1 (Earliest Access to Ashes!)'
2018 'we are going to divide alpha 1 into 2 phases'
2019 'Ashes of Creation Apocalypse is the standalone prequel to the upcoming epic MMORPG Ashes of Creation'
now correct me if iam wrong but if ashes=AoC=apocalypse=alpha1phase1=all assets in apoc are for the mmo
then where is my eariest access to ashes ?
Just because Apoc is using the same assests, that doesn't mean it's the same game as the MMORPG.
The biggest issue Ashes has right now is the community.
It's not that we complain too much. It's not that we are too toxic. It's nothing at all like that.
All it is, honestly, is that we exist.
With the point Ashes is at in it's development, there shouldn't even be a community for the game - let alone a community that is two years old.
This is the downside to crowdfunding an MMO - it means you have a community before actual development of the game has even begun.
When the kickstarter started back in May 2017, the game wasn't in development. Nothing that existed back then - other than ideas - would make it in to the final game.
It wasn't until late 2017/early 2018 that actual development started. Once the kickstarter was finished, they had to hire staff before they could really get in to development in any meaningful way.
Most MMO's take 4 - 5 years to make. With Intrepid being a new studio, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect another year on top of that.
This means that, to me, we can expect the MMO some time between late 2022 and early 2024, with testing of the actual MMO starting some time between late 2020 and mid 2021 (2 years of testing all up is about right).
If Ashes were not crowd funded, working on the above time line, it would be announced mid 2020.
I am fully aware that this timeline has absolutely no resemblance to anything Intrepid have put out, but it seems to work out well with how things look to be going, and matches up perfectly with many other MMO development schedules (most notably - WoW).
Those of us wanting Ashes to succeed really need to be mindful of the fact that we were brought in to the fold years earlier than normal.
We need to temper our expectations based on that.
See this is exactly what I mean. The problem is not that the community does exist. The problem is that they keep saying things which later just do not happen. So at this point noone believes what they say anymore, including you.
I never did believe it.
I have chosen to back (in a small way) the development of an MMORPG that seems like it could be one that I would want to play for a few years. I know full well that MMORPG's take 4 - 5 years to develop if they are done properly - I've known this for 15 years.
I have never had an expectation for Ashes to be delivered prior to 2021, and even that has always been a best case scenario as far as I have been concerned with 2023 being my actual expectation when I first put money in towards the project.
Intrepid has a lot of talented/qualified staff, but this is Stevens first game. We all knew this going in. As it is his first time, he is going to make mistakes.
We all made the decision to back him, we should accept that there will be mistakes.
To me, to not expect mistakes is unreasonable.
At the end of the day though, I want Steven and Intrepid to get their collective heads down and just make the damn game. I don't want them wasting time addressing a community that shouldn't even exist yet. I know full well that this kind of thing can be a massive distraction and can waste a lot of time that could be far more effectively spent actually developing the game.
I do agree, they should just make the game. Also they should address the expectations they set and are not meeting, because it just keeps further destroying their image.
They said many months ago that the roadmaps they have released in the past are no longer accurate, and all such roadmaps going forward will be internal documents only.
I believe that was January this year.
Roadmaps, yes. What I meant is the weekly updates which they promised, because updates we get are far from weekly.
That sounds like a massive waste of time.
When taken in full context, the statement they made on roadmaps also includes them not sharing information with us unless they are fairly well sure it won't change. Basically, they moved from open development to less open development in January this year.
IMO this is a good thing, means they can get on with making the game.
Edit; I mean, it isn't like us knowing anything about the game now actually changes anything...
LELexactly.. you see what i mean ? apoc is the same as mmorpg when it comes to assets. meanwhile apoc is also not the same as mmorpg only because it is not 'earlyest access to ashes' then :P smart move for sure but it takes away this whole feeling of being among the first to test the game.
Apoc is not the MMORPG, so you should not be feeling like you won't be among the first to test the MMORPG just because a different game shares assets.
Formerly T-Elf
Must have been hell around their house around October and they kept demanding why it wasn't Christmas yet.
Or a car trip, where they threw tantrum after tantrum because they were tired of waiting the two hours or took to grandma's house.
Intrepid has lied multiple times.
Lifetime subscriptions are exclusive to Kickstarter, buy them now because this will be your last chance!
Oh, here’s the follow-up summer crowdfunding, you can buy a lifetime sub again.
Fund at this tier and you will get earliest access to Alpha and be among the first to experience the MMORPG!
Oh, well, here’s an “Alpha 0” and we’re going to hand-pick some people we like to play it, but everyone else we promised can get into the MMORPG first, sorry you can’t.
I give Intrepid the benefit of the doubt that not self-publishing in Europe (they swore they’d self-publish everywhere) and instead going with an infamously bad publisher is due to ignorance and not knowing they can’t do it. I give them the benefit of the doubt that their release estimates were also ignorance and being overly optimistic, and also not a lie. I’m being extremely generous because they’ve otherwise been documented as liars, breaking promises to their backers.
Honestly I’m still here because they got my money already and I can’t get a refund. I hope against hope that they’ll someday actually make a game and this isn’t some Star Citizen bullcrap that is never going to happen. Because if it is there’s nothing I can do about it. I try to be hopeful still.
In my opinion this all amounts to a bait and switch against the original kickstarter backers. We were hyped about an epic MMORPG, with the afore-mentioned levels of early access but instead, the money we provided has been used to build a pubg/fortnite clone. Meanwhile we are told "But the MMO will be using the same assets, so it's technically still development of the MMO.", but it isn't! Apoc is a completely separate game and play style, yet us original kickstarter backers are expected to to meekly accept that development of the project we actually backed, appears to be stalled in favor of the pubg/fortnite clone.
And it also seems I didn't even get my "Founder" forum badge either. O.o
That is false, it isn't a completely separate game. Yes, from a game design stand point it plays differently but the systems the BR was designed to test will be the same. I'd understand this argument if they added a bunch of unique BR features that wont transfer over but they haven't. As far as BRs go, they have implemented the bare minimum they could to have a free for all game with a proper game loop.
Design isn't everything that creates a game. Saying APOC and MMO are completely separate games shows a lack of understanding you have for how games work.
The intrepid AoC web site indicates I am correct.
"Apocalypse is the standalone prequel to the upcoming epic MMORPG Ashes of Creation."
https://ashesofcreation.com/apocalypse
Please note the word "standalone" and the following definition.
stand-alone[ stand-uh-lohn ]
adjective
1 self-contained and able to operate without other hardware or software.
noun
2 a device or program with these characteristics.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/standalone
Just because it's a stand alone doesn't mean most of what's created for it will be used for the MMO or that it's a "completely separate game". I don't think it's hard to imagine that you can take a simple game and layor features on top of it to get two games.
If wow created their arena system first and made it stand alone, would that mean it's a completely separate game and not a component of the final product?
Yes it is standlone, but it uses solely mmorpg assets, animations and server technology.
Say you funded a meatloaf restaurant. They open in limited fashion (maybe only for the lunch hour) and serve burgers. You could say that the hamburger and ketchup are being worked on and improved until they are ready to serve meatloaf. And the chefs are claiming that this is why they’re serving burgers; they use the same ingredients (mostly) and they’re also able to determine how good their wait staff is, how well their POS system is, if the seating and decor are to people’s liking, and so on.
You can also say that they are wasting time because while some of the core components are the same, the way they are being used isn’t and is taking time away from developing the product they’re supposed to be making. They’re perfecting a grill that won’t be used with meatloaf. The fillers, binders, and spices for a meatloaf aren’t there in a burger. The bun and most of the toppings aren’t the same.
They will keep the burgers on the menu once they fully open the restaurant. Despite the bad reviews they are getting and the lost faith that their investors are expressing. You have to wonder if they are even capable of serving meatloaf and how much longer it will take them because they are spending time, money, and people in burger development.