Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
Resurrect Apocalypse?
Xenantaya
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The basis of this post is that it seems a shame that AOC currently is getting all this hype but that most people won't be able to play anything AOC-related for roughly 2 years (or perhaps longer). Also, I'm not personally playing anything right now, and kind of miss APOC! Thus, I'm throwing out a suggestion that Intrepid bring back Apocalypse.
For those of you who are relatively new to Ashes, Apocalypse or APOC was a battle royale that Intrepid used to test various game aspects, including action combat, server capacity, movement, etc. Modes were single player, 2-man teams, and 4-man teams. APOC got a bad reputation for reasons including ambiguous (or simply poor) messaging and communications about what it was and what is was meant to do; concerns that Intrepid was only building a battle royale and not an MMO, leading to accusations that Ashes was a "scam"; and an overly expansive cash shop for a testing mode that also reinforced the "scam" narrative.
I think most of these problems are solvable. Today, with all the pre-Alpha MMO footage and Alpha 1 about to start, no one can dispute that Intrepid is making an MMO. Intrepid can be more clear with its messaging, specifically that APOC is only a testing mode for the MMO, and by playing now people will help Intrepid test the Ashes MMO (and if enough people like APOC, then maybe it could eventually be a stand-alone game). I think no cash shop, but instead just a battle pass to make clear it's meant to cover server costs, with the battle pass providing some additional cosmetics (like in the original). APOC could have seasons of, say, 16 weeks or so, and if a player hits max level in a season would be able obtain all armors and weapons of a particular appearance (e.g., Eldritch, Hallowed, Arcanic, or Pyroclastic), plus perhaps some cloaks, robes, embers, etc. through the battlepass.
Downsides are that I don't know how much benefit APOC will be for testing Ashes at this point, though presumably Intrepid still will use an APOC-style game to test Castle Siege and Horde modes. Also, re-starting and maintaining APOC will take away attention from the MMO itself, though that might be minimal if APOC is providing useful information for MMO development. APOC also likely will need some improvements -- particularly the long-promised leaderboards -- though I think most of those improvements will overlap the MMO (e.g., Intrepid has to develop leaderboards for the arena in the MMO, anyway).
In sum, I think bringing back APOC could keep the hype train going and keep people who are just learning about the game interested. Without it, I'm concerned most of the people that LazyPeon, Summ1t, Shroud, Asmongold, TimtheTatMan, and so forth are bringing in will drift away without something to actually play.
For those of you who are relatively new to Ashes, Apocalypse or APOC was a battle royale that Intrepid used to test various game aspects, including action combat, server capacity, movement, etc. Modes were single player, 2-man teams, and 4-man teams. APOC got a bad reputation for reasons including ambiguous (or simply poor) messaging and communications about what it was and what is was meant to do; concerns that Intrepid was only building a battle royale and not an MMO, leading to accusations that Ashes was a "scam"; and an overly expansive cash shop for a testing mode that also reinforced the "scam" narrative.
I think most of these problems are solvable. Today, with all the pre-Alpha MMO footage and Alpha 1 about to start, no one can dispute that Intrepid is making an MMO. Intrepid can be more clear with its messaging, specifically that APOC is only a testing mode for the MMO, and by playing now people will help Intrepid test the Ashes MMO (and if enough people like APOC, then maybe it could eventually be a stand-alone game). I think no cash shop, but instead just a battle pass to make clear it's meant to cover server costs, with the battle pass providing some additional cosmetics (like in the original). APOC could have seasons of, say, 16 weeks or so, and if a player hits max level in a season would be able obtain all armors and weapons of a particular appearance (e.g., Eldritch, Hallowed, Arcanic, or Pyroclastic), plus perhaps some cloaks, robes, embers, etc. through the battlepass.
Downsides are that I don't know how much benefit APOC will be for testing Ashes at this point, though presumably Intrepid still will use an APOC-style game to test Castle Siege and Horde modes. Also, re-starting and maintaining APOC will take away attention from the MMO itself, though that might be minimal if APOC is providing useful information for MMO development. APOC also likely will need some improvements -- particularly the long-promised leaderboards -- though I think most of those improvements will overlap the MMO (e.g., Intrepid has to develop leaderboards for the arena in the MMO, anyway).
In sum, I think bringing back APOC could keep the hype train going and keep people who are just learning about the game interested. Without it, I'm concerned most of the people that LazyPeon, Summ1t, Shroud, Asmongold, TimtheTatMan, and so forth are bringing in will drift away without something to actually play.
0
Comments
I heard a bird ♫
Is this confirmed? I know Intrepid has been working on Castle Sieges and had even previewed them before they shifted gears and decided they need to get the MMO alpha done, so perhaps Castle Sieges are close to done. But I'm not sure we've heard anything about Horde Mode.
More fundamentally, I hadn't heard anything about APOC coming back, or if they still planned to use APOC to test Castle Sieges and Horde Mode.
I think APOC might get released a couple of months before AoC releases. It was pretty unique, even for a battle royale. It just needed more content.