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
Exactly what?!?
Which might be the case, however Intrepid behavior suggests release date in 2020/21. I am no expert in economics but is there enough funding to release the mmo even later?
Your arguments make sense if you expect the game being cooked for 3 more years however since we do not know that and predicted release was 2019 I don't believe you should base your opinion on that assumption.
Since neither of us know, we should base our opinion on other MMOs in development such as Pantheon, CoE, Crowfall etc.
I can't speak for all since I don't follow them religiously anymore but in my humble opinion they do far better job in all sections of development better than Intrepid.
I've made the assumption that we are looking at a 2022 release at the earliest, with 2023 being likely. 2024 is entirely possible, imo, if they run in to small issues.
This is based on observations as to how long MMO's take to develop (roughly 5 years), and the fact that actual development on Ashes didnt start until 2018.
Other MMO's almost all have a time line that fits in with this.
I encourage others to use their own brain and figure things out gor themselves though. Feel free to look at the development of other MMO and how long they are taking, and look at Intrepids staffing levels in the past to try and figure out when actual development on the game started. With those to numbers, you can come to your own conclusing as to when you think the game will be released.
I mean, in this regard you have three options. Listen to me, listen to PR or work it out for yourself. I know which one I'd rather you do.
Just to add to this, Intrepid as a company was only formed in December 2015, so even if they started work straight away it would still be a 2022 release based on a 6 year development cycle. On top of that I keep reiterating this but it's important. Steven has NEVER worked on a video game before, in any capacity. Sure he's played a lot of mmorpgs so he knows what he wants to get out of it but to my knowledge he hasn't written a single line of code for a game. Having a Creative Director with absolutely no experience for an mmorpg is unprecedented so expecting them to stay completely on track is pretty unreasonable in my opinion.
Everyone should have known by Feb 2019 that Steven can't be trusted with dates.
Which is why Margaret stated that the Community Managers won't be sharing dates anymore until a week in advance, when they are sure they can meet the date.
This happens monthly in the dev livestreams. This month focused on siege destruction. Steven also gave us details about specific targets siegers might want to disable and gave us details about reconstruction. Alex spoke about implementing the system that attaches and detaches players from siege weapons, providing the previously unknown detail that enemies can dislodge players from siege weapons. We also were given info about supply crates used during sieges. Alex also provided previously unknown info about a fast travel mechanic between respawn points during sieges. Alex mentioned that they've recently been working on implementing the code they need for leaderboards. We saw a handful of NPC mobs that have recently been sculpted and will go on to being rigged for animation.
And then we had Q&A.
That claim is demonstrably false. The last substantial article we got was six months ago, but the devs have talked about different systems and mechanics each month during the dev livestream.
And Steven told us a week ago that the delays for the Divine Nodes and Military Nodes articles is due to waiting on significant design updates.
Which is precisely why the whole transparency/roadmap thing is problematic and really a pipe dream in the first place.
Again - that's a complaint about the devs missing dates.
That is typical of game development - which is why devs are typically reluctant to share dates externally.
It's common for that to be a change in perspective that gamers have to undergo when transitioning to video game production/dev teams... learned the hard way via experience. Steven lacked that experience until this year.
Funny thing is that you don't understand that we've already told you several times that Steven initially over-hyped timelines because he lacked game dev experience... which is why Margaret and Toast made a change to not sharing dates externally until about a week before something drops...so that they can be sure they can actually meet the date.
So... instead of sticking with the "weekly updates" that Steven said, you should be going with the "we will let you know a week in advance" that Margaret and Toast said...repeatedly.
Also, dates that devs give are always tentative - they are not promises. The misconception that dates are promises is precisely why experienced game devs are highly reluctant to give out dates or share external roadmaps.
IS has been honest. Steven has been naive about dates. And overhyped dates. Because Steven was a gamer with a lot of money - not an experienced game dev or game producer.
We've told you that many times already.
1. Way too many people quoting each other, half the thread are quotes.
2. Its Fanboys vs the Frustration Army.
I mean, everyone on these forums is a fan, and everyone on these forums is frustrated, so those two things can't really be opposed to each other.
There is a right way to quote and the wrong way
Yes I would assume everyone is a fan, I see the Issue somewhere else. Rather where the frustration is coming from and each time someone brings it up or wants to talk about it because Intrepid just simply doesn't care, them boys from the white fannypack club show up and jump set person and call him negative or whatever you want to pick.
A lot of the things could be addressed, but must of the time the former core community which doesn't really exist anymore, get some fancy speech about they will come if they build it or some fluff piece. I think a lot more people currently feel a bit tricked out of their money, or at least the vocal ones.
Not yet, at least.
Some people have very odd expectations built around this game, and it is those expectations that need to be addressed more than anything else.
People look at the community around this game and assume that since the community is about 2 years old, the game must have been in full development much longer than that. They build expectations based on this assumption, totally forgetting that the community around Ashes was built before actual development on the game even started (a result of crowd funding).
The thing is, these expectations would hold true in almost every other game, and so they are not unreasonable expectations in general, they just don't apply here.
Where these threads get less civil (and more enjoyable) is when these posters find themselves faced with a truth that does not align with the assumptions they have made. Since people seem to have an issue with accepting that they are wrong these days, these people then go to extraordinary lengths to attempt to prove that they are right.
Welcome back to the Ashes community, I guess.
I would agree with you if it would have not been for the fact that Steven created a lot of these "expectations " himself and people trusted him over it.
White Knights be White Knights, Trolls be Trolls and so on.
Its a never-ending circle.
I am out :P
I'm assuming this post is a kind of satire, but I'm going to roll with it anyways as it's fun.
The kickstarter started May 2 2017 (just over 2 and a half years ago - or "about 2 years" to me). While there was technically a community before then, it wasn't one that could be considered an MMO community even back then - let alone now.
Staff at Intrepid were barebones before the kickstarter ended. When you consider the hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of man hours that go in to developing an MMO, it is not practical to state that a game with a staff that numbered in the single digits were developing an MMO of the scope of Ashes.
The game was in pre-development until early 2018, when the staff at Intrepid were of a reasonable size.
Steven has created all the expectation himself. However, that is a result of lack of experience. Anyone buying in to Ashes (whether with money, with hope or with both) should have looked at his total lack of experience - that he himself has been completely open about - and understood what that means.
Anyway, no doubt we'll see you here again soon.
Will you have the money on that day? Will you get hit by a car? Will you be snowed in or will it be raining? Will your hair grow quickly or slowly and will you need a haircut on that date? Will the street be closed for repairs? Will the hair place be open that day or will it get robbed and be closed? When you get there will the line be so long you don't feel like waiting? Will the person that cuts your hair call in sick?
Let me tell you kids a little story that maybe your dad never told you.
Once upon a time there was this cute little girl who loved baking, and her grandma. One morning she woke up early and baked some fresh cookies to take to her grandma so they could have a nice snack together and maybe grandma would braid her hair afterwards while they talked. She always liked that.
After the cookies were baked she set off. Over the hills and through the vale she went all the way to grandma's house, but when she arrived... her grandma was dead! She had been eaten by a freakin' wolf! A freakin' wolf ate her grandma and it tried to eat her too! On top of that, her beloved horse had died earlier in the week, which is why she had to walk even though she was wearing a riding hood. The little girl was traumatized forever and never ate cookies with her grandma again. What a crappy childhood she had. You see kids, life is like a fairy tale, there's usually a plot twist in it somewhere.
You are deliberately refusing to retract the poorly thought out statement you made, and are also ignoring that the art we are getting is concept, which is first on the road, but also the underpinning of all the things that follow. Without that start we don't get the things we want in the end, and it's there the crazy, zany creatures and worlds we love come from.
All of us here agree, I think, that the transparency is currently considerably more opaque than it was a year ago. Some of us understood that was going to happen back in Feb and March when Margaret stated that going forward roadmaps would be internal only and dates would, for the most part, only be given a week in advance to help ensure that they know they can actually make the date.
Apparently, some of want the devs to state, "We have now moved to closed development." The devs are most likely never going to do that. Especially since they seem to believe they are being sufficiently transparent - especially during the livestreams. It's fine for people to be frustrated about that.
Where people here disagree, I think, is regarding the assertions that words and art don't qualify as open development, with the implication that only in-game footage counts as open development and that the devs haven't shared anything about systems or mechanics in months.
Friday's lifestream actually did share quite a bit of info about siege systems and mechanics.
I believe words do qualify as open development. I've been complaining about the delay in the Divine Nodes article because, while programming can be very challenging to keep in step with a roadmap, words should be comparatively easy. I would be satisfied with an article being released every 2-4 weeks. If Divine Nodes and Military Nodes are delayed, switch over to classes. I'd actually even be satisfied with articles providing more details about the Castle Siege class kits.
But, as much as Steven loves his leeks, he also is prone to delay stuff that should be easy to share.
In-game footage is a challenge. A Nodes 3 demo should be a child's play. A Divine Nodes article should be a breeze.
There isn't any white knighting going on in this thread.
There is plenty of real stuff to be frustrated and negative about without drifting into hyperbole and conspiracy theories. That's all we're saying.