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Has APOC overstayed its welcome?
Heartbeat
Member, Founder, Kickstarter
This is not and end of the world post, just for discussion, so be sure to at least read through the thread
I already know people are gonna try to bash on me for this because for some reason when a game is still in development the fanboys will defend it to the end of the earth because "it's not a final product," or "It's not your game or make your own game." or some dumb shit like that. I only planned on posting this AFTER the december livestream and the creative directive letter because if there are any big reveals planned in those regarding the MMO and finally getting dates for the alpha tests then it makes this post worthless, but I REALLY want to hear what others have to say regarding what's going on.
Anyway, when I backed AOC on kickstarter, I was under the assumption that I was backing an MMO, not a BR, now I know the final release of AOC will be a full-scale MMO, but i've heard rumors floating around discord and the forums here and there that the BR will be its own standalone game, which I haven't bothered to look into but maybe we can get an answer on this thread. Anyway the BR is starting to bother me now for a few reasons.
1. If the rumor of the BR being its own standalone game is true, why weren't we told about it ahead of time on the kickstarter? To the best of my knowledge we ONLY had knowledge of the MMO which we were backing at the time on kickstarter, so if time, resources and money are being thrown into the BR for the sake of "Asset testing" then all that is going to do is delay the alpha/beta and launch schedule of the MMO which i'm sure is what the majority of the community is eagerly waiting for. Also back to the money, if it's being wasted on developing the BR, then that's money that WAS supposed to help reach the stretch goals, if it is being allocated towards the BR this early on is it possible the stretch goals that WE met on kickstarter may not be met by intrepid? The only way I can see the BR being a positive for the MMO is if each and every update/system for the BR will somehow help the MMO, but there are some elements of the BR which would only be exclusive to a BR and never in a MMO, for example the way abilities work and are tied to weapons/armor aren't even going to be present in the MMO which we know because of the ability list teased to us by intrepid quite some time ago and are on the wiki for everyone to see, there's no way a class could utilize their whole skill tree if it was tied to their weapon and a few pieces of armor.
2. The "microtransaction" store. If we could call it that I guess, but that's what i'm going with because that's what it seems like, we have no clear date as to when the alpha tests will even start but it seems like once a month there is some new cosmetic stuff in the store available for purchase for a game that hasn't even been tested yet. Now this could solve the issue of the money problem I brought up in my first point, also I've bought some stuff myself because I know i'm gonna play AOC regardless of WHEN it comes out, but what i'm trying to highlight in this thread is why I believe the BR is no longer necessary, now I know data is necessary in ironing out a game but when will be finally get some solid, long-awaited information about the MMO. We are supposed to get a December livestream like we have once a month and a Letter from the creative director or dev team or something which will most likely have this information, but if it does not include what we are hoping for it'll only reinforce my idea that the BR may have took more time away from the development of the MMO than we thought.
3. The players who backed the kickstarter may feel the same way as me, one voice does not necessarily mean i'm alone in my way of thinking, it doesn't take very long of scrolling through the discord to see others upset with the lack of information we're being given, the lack of dates and test times for the alpha tests. Even on the forums there's a bit of people upset. I feel like if intrepid doesn't do something big come january 2020, a lot of players will lose even more faith.
4. No one really wants to play the BR anymore, I mentioned this in a different post of mine, but I think it's highlighted by the inability or long queue to find a game, and even then just as I said before there are others who are talking about this on the forums and discord, even on another thread about someone trying to get an event going for the end of season 1 of the BR and being told it most likely wouldn't happen because of low player numbers. I'll be honest I stopped playing it after like a week, for multiple reasons, being it's not the MMO, it doesn't even have the combat system that will be in the MMO, low player numbers in games, games are slow and boring because of the combat system in the BR, longer and longer queue times as apoc goes on.
There's probably more reasons i'm upset with the BR but i'm not here to trash on it, just to express why i'm unhappy with it. I really do hope the MMO succeeds as much as it possibly can it sounds ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, I've loved everything I've heard about it. But at this point I feel like we've heard too much about the BR and too little about the MMO, the BR with which was supposed to only be for asset testing, that we never knew was gonna be implemented until after the kickstarter finished(if im wrong correct me on that pls), that's supposedly going to be its own standalone game which begs the question, is it pulling time and money and resources away from the MMO? The MMO with which we backed and supported, we did NOT support a Battle Royale game, and players are only going to get more and more upset if we do not hear any big info come the december livestream and the creative director letter.
I'm not a naysayer, i'm not saying intrepid will crash and burn because of the BR, like I said before I want the MMO to succeed and have years and years of success, but I feel like the focus was shifted around at some point or another and the MMO was pushed back as a result. The BR should NOT have any sort of importance to it that it is worth developing before the MMO. The MMO is what we backed on kickstarter, not the BR.
I already know people are gonna try to bash on me for this because for some reason when a game is still in development the fanboys will defend it to the end of the earth because "it's not a final product," or "It's not your game or make your own game." or some dumb shit like that. I only planned on posting this AFTER the december livestream and the creative directive letter because if there are any big reveals planned in those regarding the MMO and finally getting dates for the alpha tests then it makes this post worthless, but I REALLY want to hear what others have to say regarding what's going on.
Anyway, when I backed AOC on kickstarter, I was under the assumption that I was backing an MMO, not a BR, now I know the final release of AOC will be a full-scale MMO, but i've heard rumors floating around discord and the forums here and there that the BR will be its own standalone game, which I haven't bothered to look into but maybe we can get an answer on this thread. Anyway the BR is starting to bother me now for a few reasons.
1. If the rumor of the BR being its own standalone game is true, why weren't we told about it ahead of time on the kickstarter? To the best of my knowledge we ONLY had knowledge of the MMO which we were backing at the time on kickstarter, so if time, resources and money are being thrown into the BR for the sake of "Asset testing" then all that is going to do is delay the alpha/beta and launch schedule of the MMO which i'm sure is what the majority of the community is eagerly waiting for. Also back to the money, if it's being wasted on developing the BR, then that's money that WAS supposed to help reach the stretch goals, if it is being allocated towards the BR this early on is it possible the stretch goals that WE met on kickstarter may not be met by intrepid? The only way I can see the BR being a positive for the MMO is if each and every update/system for the BR will somehow help the MMO, but there are some elements of the BR which would only be exclusive to a BR and never in a MMO, for example the way abilities work and are tied to weapons/armor aren't even going to be present in the MMO which we know because of the ability list teased to us by intrepid quite some time ago and are on the wiki for everyone to see, there's no way a class could utilize their whole skill tree if it was tied to their weapon and a few pieces of armor.
2. The "microtransaction" store. If we could call it that I guess, but that's what i'm going with because that's what it seems like, we have no clear date as to when the alpha tests will even start but it seems like once a month there is some new cosmetic stuff in the store available for purchase for a game that hasn't even been tested yet. Now this could solve the issue of the money problem I brought up in my first point, also I've bought some stuff myself because I know i'm gonna play AOC regardless of WHEN it comes out, but what i'm trying to highlight in this thread is why I believe the BR is no longer necessary, now I know data is necessary in ironing out a game but when will be finally get some solid, long-awaited information about the MMO. We are supposed to get a December livestream like we have once a month and a Letter from the creative director or dev team or something which will most likely have this information, but if it does not include what we are hoping for it'll only reinforce my idea that the BR may have took more time away from the development of the MMO than we thought.
3. The players who backed the kickstarter may feel the same way as me, one voice does not necessarily mean i'm alone in my way of thinking, it doesn't take very long of scrolling through the discord to see others upset with the lack of information we're being given, the lack of dates and test times for the alpha tests. Even on the forums there's a bit of people upset. I feel like if intrepid doesn't do something big come january 2020, a lot of players will lose even more faith.
4. No one really wants to play the BR anymore, I mentioned this in a different post of mine, but I think it's highlighted by the inability or long queue to find a game, and even then just as I said before there are others who are talking about this on the forums and discord, even on another thread about someone trying to get an event going for the end of season 1 of the BR and being told it most likely wouldn't happen because of low player numbers. I'll be honest I stopped playing it after like a week, for multiple reasons, being it's not the MMO, it doesn't even have the combat system that will be in the MMO, low player numbers in games, games are slow and boring because of the combat system in the BR, longer and longer queue times as apoc goes on.
There's probably more reasons i'm upset with the BR but i'm not here to trash on it, just to express why i'm unhappy with it. I really do hope the MMO succeeds as much as it possibly can it sounds ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, I've loved everything I've heard about it. But at this point I feel like we've heard too much about the BR and too little about the MMO, the BR with which was supposed to only be for asset testing, that we never knew was gonna be implemented until after the kickstarter finished(if im wrong correct me on that pls), that's supposedly going to be its own standalone game which begs the question, is it pulling time and money and resources away from the MMO? The MMO with which we backed and supported, we did NOT support a Battle Royale game, and players are only going to get more and more upset if we do not hear any big info come the december livestream and the creative director letter.
I'm not a naysayer, i'm not saying intrepid will crash and burn because of the BR, like I said before I want the MMO to succeed and have years and years of success, but I feel like the focus was shifted around at some point or another and the MMO was pushed back as a result. The BR should NOT have any sort of importance to it that it is worth developing before the MMO. The MMO is what we backed on kickstarter, not the BR.
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Comments
1. If the rumor of the BR being its own standalone game is true, why weren't we told about it ahead of time on the kickstarter?
The decision to make the BR is a long and sorted tale, with a lot of moving parts. If you want an answer directly from Steven regarding the decision to monetize it, my interview with him is here: https://www.paradoxgaming.net/the-steven-answer
From your answer however, I don't think you understand the way that a game with action/hybrid combat testing was going to work.
Did Intrepid make mistakes trying to spin the BR off as a viable stand-alone product? Yes.
Would we be in exactly the same position as we are today if we had tested the action combat and server load in a pre-alpha tech testing environment? Yes.
Worse, if they had decided not to do the Battle Royale, we would have waited months longer to even get to a traditional MMORPG Alpha setting, only to find out the server back end needed to be redone. The way this worked out, the found the issue faster and started working on it sooner.
2. The "microtransaction" store...only reinforce my idea that the BR may have took more time away from the development of the MMO than we thought.
This entire paragraph is ill-informed of the development of an MMORPG. The people who are working on the art assets are not the people working on the core systems of the game. Everyone has their job to do.
The engineers are working on the server infrastructure; they are not working on the art assets.
The artists and animators are working on the art assets; they are not working on the server infrastructure.
Game Developers are not one size fits all people, not everyone does every job.
3. The players who backed the kickstarter ....big come january 2020, a lot of players will lose even more faith.
So, let's break this out in a couple of ways.
The players who backed in Kickstarter at a small minority of the people following the game. With 20,000 KS backers and 800,000+ registered accounts, it makes the KS backers less than 3% of the population. Don't try to pull the KS backers out and make them a subset of the community or you'll find very quickly they become a disregarded minority. Keep the entire player base a collective.
You don't need to break out the KS backers to talk about players who are frustrated, all the community members are frustrated.
On the January 2020 thing, totally irrelevant and arbitrary date. Intrepid isn't facing an hourglass where at the end of Jan 2020 the entire thing falls apart, we are already passed the part of people losing faith and trust in Intrepid. They needed to do something yesterday, last week, last month, and the month before that.
4. No one really wants to play the BR anymore,
Unfortunately due to the extra cosmetics obtained by hitting level 50 before the end of October, a lot of people simply blitzed to 50 and left. Leader boards never came so there was no incentive to come back and play.
To end with I need to jump on this statement: The BR should NOT have any sort of importance to it that it is worth developing before the MMO. The MMO is what we backed on kickstarter, not the BR.
Couple of technical points here. What you backed on Kickstarter was Intrepid Studios. The product you are expecting is an MMORPG. It is important to make this distinction because Intrepid has a lot of things they need to develop from scratch. They aren't an indie company with pre-exsiting products they can pull off the shelf like a patcher, account management services, etc.
The BR brought to the player-base a method to accomplish the following testing.
Server Architecture
Server Stability
Server Deployment
Action-Combat Designs
Character Asset Polish
Environment Optimization
Account Management Deployment
Launcher/Patcher Deployment
Because they brought it out in Mid/Late 2018 they were were able to discover their server architecture issue in late 2018/early 2019 and were able to focus their efforts earlier on fixing that. Imagine if that hadn't been found for another year.
Action combat has gotten much more refined and polished thanks to the BR testing.
Now, could all of this have been accomplished via "tech-testing" sure, 100% absolutely. The only difference is you wouldn't have seen anything of the Ashes development until it was finished.
Finally, yes Intrepid needs to step up on their communication. The only reason why posts like this keep cropping up is because the players are frustrated and Intrepid isn't saying anything.
That just confusing, goes against how IS is trying to sell APOC and if so; only ppl with alpha access should be able to play it. They went with the stand alone product road to avoid false promices. It was the only way to avoid 'earlyest access to ashes' claims thats stated on the KS website and could have resulted in refunds.
Overall it feels to both IS and the community APOC is like a cameleon lol...... its a testing ground only when it needs to be, also it isnt. Its also an alpha and early access at the same time depending on the situation it switches. Its also funded by mmo money but also it isnt because its a stand alone monitized product and funds its own server costs with 12 players online at the same time xd
I think what @Heartbeat wrote was spot on and dont want to bash the devs but; the sooner the BR (and maybe APOC as whole since it will still be action combat) gets buried under success of the MMO, the better !
The BR was a good idea but ultimately I think pushing it towards it being its own game is what weirded out a lot of players, it would have made sense to have an open test of the game without calling it an alpha as a means of server and asset testing, but calling it a standalone game probably confused a lot of players because a BR was never mentioned in the kickstarter. Good things came out of the BR and it definitely would've been worse in terms of waiting, not seeing anything, and worse alpha testing, but announcing the BR being a standalone game before we had any alpha test, any testing dates probably is what ruined a lot of peoples trust or faith.
What I am trying to say I think is if the BR was never developed could it have helped get the MMO alpha tests out to us sooner? Every idea starts as just a concept and prototype and someone needs to create that concept to bring that idea to life, if there was no BR and there were more people working on getting to the first alpha test, could we have seen MORE concepts and gotten MORE progress with the extra hands no longer working on the BR?
The reason I mentioned the kickstarter backers is because they're the ones who will be getting alpha and beta access unless anyone else got a key or other access. They're the ones eagerly waiting for the first alpha testing to start. Having so many registered accounts shows a great amount of interest in AOC, but ultimately it's the backers who have already invested into the project. The january 2020 isnt a doomsday date but rather just the step to the next year, On June 2, 2017 all stretch goals were met on the kickstarter, I cant remember exactly when the kickstarter ended but the last update we got was october 23 ,2017, idk exactly when APOC came out either but if its been over a year now than it has definitely been too long that we've been without a solid testing date for alpha.
I wont deny that the BR has gotten some much needed testing and polishing, what I'm trying to highlight is after they were able to get through and iron out those issues, why was the BR not pushed to the side shortly after that so they can focus purely on the MMO and they would then be able to show us MORE in their dev diaries and streams which could have prevented players' lost faith and trust and growing boredom in the BR. Also about backing Intrepid and not the MMO itself I have to disagree there. The kickstarter is labeled: "Ashes of Creation ~ New MMORPG by Intrepid Studios," very specifically the first thing we see is the title of the game, even further if we WERE backing Intrepid and not AOC they would've had to be much more specific than that, if they promised a MMO in the kickstarter and then told us that the BR would be the endgame product there would have been outrage and refunds but we haven't seen that at least not on the largescale, mostly people are just annoyed and upset.
The BR HAS helped, for sure, but it should've been shutdown at least until we could get through some alpha tests imo, it would've reinforced players that they are PURELY focusing on the MMO which would've been a nice breath of fresh air seeing as we haven't had a ton of information regarding testing dates. In the last email sent out they mentioned how they are finally pushing towards their milestones of Castle Siege and Alpha 1, which makes my little rant thread worthless like I thought would happen ;.; but regardless I hope Intrepid sees this and takes into consideration that the forums will ALWAYS be a very small, minority voice of the community and even with that being said there will be more who share the same opinion as those on the forums who don't care enough to speak out. TBH the only thing that could kill my interest in the game is if the combat system is garbage.
APOC is a testing environment for the MMORPG.
Currently, what is being tested is MMORPG Alpha systems and mechanics.
The devs always say that APOC is a testing environment for the MMORPG.
The BR is better than nothing.
What I am trying to say I think is if the BR was never developed could it have helped get the MMO alpha tests out to us sooner? Every idea starts as just a concept and prototype and someone needs to create that concept to bring that idea to life, if there was no BR and there were more people working on getting to the first alpha test, could we have seen MORE concepts and gotten MORE progress with the extra hands no longer working on the BR?
Pushing the BR to the side would not provide us with MMORPG info any sooner. The only thing in the BR that the MMORPG won't have is the storm.
How many IS devs do you think are working on the BR and not the MMORPG? The only thing significantly different with the BR in over a year are networking tweaks.
All that's happening with the BR is the devs taking stuff from the MMORPG and dropping it on a BR map so that when we finally make it to the MMORPG maps, we won't be will feel some excitement from the exploration.
The BR is testing MMORPG Alpha systems and mechanics. What systems and mechanics do you imagine are ready to be tested externally that aren't being tested already?
You realize they have been saying that for over a year now, right?
Back at the start the game was a Tower Defence PvE game and i backed it.
Then they added BR, and we all of us backers started complaining that the resources would now be devided into a game we had not supported with our money.
Epic promised that the focus would still be the PvE game and no resources would go over to the BR mode.
We all know how that turned out..
I dont bother watching the developer twitch stream or read the journals anymore.
Theres never any information about the mmorpg, only some concept art, or things about APOC which noone cares about.
If i ask Margeret or any of the devs about images or videos about the actual mmo, i get linked to videos that are over 1 year old..
The longer time it takes for us to actually get any info about the mmo, people will loose interest and leave the game, and left are the BR players.
And those players are NOT what you want as the main source of feedback of how the mmorpg should be like
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the dev team suggests it is helping them gather data.
and they are not wrong anyone that reports can mention problems that will be dealt with in the actual mmo such as terrain glitches animation and attack / movement glitches
i really do not care for br , maybe because i absolutely suck at getting random armor and gear before being slain by someone that is enjoying it and loves slaying scrubs haha. to me it really seams it is just hide till the ring of fire gets to small gain your survived until x player or open x chests.
my thoughts. just waiting for actual mmo
A bit of a gravedig but yeah, the only info we have is old and all we get now is just concepts and old videos and screenshots
ALSO, the directive letter pretty much confirms that alpha-1 probably wont even be until at least mid or late Q2 2020 if not Q3 or Q4 2020, the directive letter says they will begin INTERNAL testing of the client "next month" which would imply February as well as stating that they will be showing an EARLY look at alpha 1 at Game Developers Conference march 2020, but we still have no dates or even mention of getting players into alpha 1 yet, only devs showing off some "early" footage/gameplay like they already have before. And the more they show off their own early internal tests the more it delays getting players into the alpha tests when it's been over 2 years now.
...or..you know....it was made to serve a purpose and has gotten them what they want. Any further additions would probably be redundant and add nothing to the MMO.
....This is what frustrates me. Yes, some of this could be tested but if you think the purpose of the BR was to test terrain as well as other art assets, you don't understand it's purpose or the importance of it's role.
Taking classes putting them in a box plus some pvp functions and objectives does not take that much money or resources. Actually that is what a lot of games do make a box from in game terrian put flags objectives adn there you have it pvp side of game. And never look back then wonder why no pvp community.
Think money time resources allocated to BR are greatly exgarrated in your post. Plus PvP and 100v100 games have been mentioned since pretty much the begginning of the game. Question was asked about 100v100 early on answer was yes.
Thinking real reason people are getting frustrated is because most MMO games now days are trash and players in anticipation of a a great game without that stupid instant que is hard to wait for.
Plus all the other stupid things MMOs cannot help but doing.