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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.
AoC launch and post-launch discussion
NelsonRebel
Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Hello everyone,
I wanted to have a quick topic conversation on when AoC launches and what some possible problems, and population issues could be during that time.
I want to use ESO as an example here as its just the most recent one I could use.
When ESO first launched it was PC only and it was probably one of the roughest launches I can remember for a AAA budget MMO. It had tremendous problems with log-ins for accounts, bugs galore, and a dozen other random issues I'm sure for others. Fast forward about a year or two and they really turned it around 180 and succesfully launched a console version that became pretty popular.
When AoC launches there are possible (maybe unavoidable) launch issues that we'll see. I'm curious to know if Intrepid or Steven has anticipated this and has plans in place to ensure a continued servicing to keep the game running in order to smooth out those issues.
How many people are already anticipating this and fine with it regardless? I think I would be personally since time has proven that regardless of the budget or size of a company, there are no garuntees on the quality or smoothness in regards to games. I have a more grounded and realistic view of the world so I understand that problems will be unavoidable in some cases.
With how much the Kickstarter promises with additional content and area/mechanical designs like water combat, ship functionalities, and a few other systems they promised to add. I almost wish they promised it for post launch so there would be a lower probability of issues
Regardless I was just curious if anyone else has considered these issues or knows if they have already been considered and planned for as eventualities.
I wanted to have a quick topic conversation on when AoC launches and what some possible problems, and population issues could be during that time.
I want to use ESO as an example here as its just the most recent one I could use.
When ESO first launched it was PC only and it was probably one of the roughest launches I can remember for a AAA budget MMO. It had tremendous problems with log-ins for accounts, bugs galore, and a dozen other random issues I'm sure for others. Fast forward about a year or two and they really turned it around 180 and succesfully launched a console version that became pretty popular.
When AoC launches there are possible (maybe unavoidable) launch issues that we'll see. I'm curious to know if Intrepid or Steven has anticipated this and has plans in place to ensure a continued servicing to keep the game running in order to smooth out those issues.
How many people are already anticipating this and fine with it regardless? I think I would be personally since time has proven that regardless of the budget or size of a company, there are no garuntees on the quality or smoothness in regards to games. I have a more grounded and realistic view of the world so I understand that problems will be unavoidable in some cases.
With how much the Kickstarter promises with additional content and area/mechanical designs like water combat, ship functionalities, and a few other systems they promised to add. I almost wish they promised it for post launch so there would be a lower probability of issues
Regardless I was just curious if anyone else has considered these issues or knows if they have already been considered and planned for as eventualities.
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Comments
That being said, GW2 probably has had the most consistently smooth launches of the game itself, and expansions I've ever seen. Literally no server downtime whatsoever, and very few issues that require multiple restarts. If there is someone there from ArenaNet that had anything to do with it's servers I think we are in good hands, though I don't know that I've heard of anyone form anet going to Intrepid, mostly Amazon
I'll have to give it a look, I vaguely remember the name Atlas game release but I never looked much into it.
Yea I'm fine with bugs because coding is always going to have bugs here and there especially with more complex systems, so with AoC's depth and complexity designs its most likely unavoidable in some areas even with meticulous coders. But I'm happily satisfied with what I've seen so far and play tested.
If they couldn't do a simple uninstaller properly, asking the user edit registry files, that's a big red flag in my book
There are many red flags that I've noticed but there's no place to mention them since people are too sensitive about their so promised liberation they associate the game with
Don't get me wrong, I want intrepid to succeed and deliver a great game, I'm a backer myself, but as soon as I try to discuss and express any of my concerns people lose their minds
No wonder the mmo community gets exploited so easily
I'm hoping to be proven wrong by the upcoming alpha testing, this is where I'll draw the line
Nice name lol
But yea I agree. I dont expect a perfectly smooth launch and as @Neurath mentioned unexpected popularity could be an issue. AoC has a lot of people interested across the board for a lot of reasons. Even a lot of console players have heard of the development so server stress is always an key point of anticipation for launches.
I think its totally fine to identify red flags and ask questions, especially since we all want to see this project come to fruition.
I think we should discuss any red flags and compare them with other games that had the same red flags prior to their launch. Although it's healthy to be constructive about it since we know Intrepid is still (relatively) new.
I dont mind that though because like I mentioned with ESO they had a triple A budget and were an already established company, with a parent company Being Bethesda and they still had one of the worst launches in the past 10 years.
Be that as it may I've been impressed with what I experienced and saw the progress on, but I keep my cautious optimism hat on. What other red flags have you noticed? I think if we identify them as a community and see if Intrepid is working on it or dont know about it and work on addressing it now it will only make the community and game better
Took me 30 hours just to leave the starting area in Atlas so
Amen to that brother... Amen
On a site note Atlas wasnt really an MMORPG and more a Mod for ARK that they wanted to cash on but realized that most ARK players had season passes so they wont be able to get any money from them.
Result was releasing ATlas as a seperate game.
Still remember the ostrich making the same sound as the raptor from ARK.
On Topic:
I belive giving everyone a time limited , sould bound mount when entering the starting area would be a really good idea to spread the population more quickly.
For the time limit i would set it to 5 hours ingame time while beeing a bit worse in terms of stats then every other mount in the game.
As for how intrepid is going to Debug the game before launch?
Simple the Alphas and Betas:
Alpha 1 , Alpha 2, Beta 1 , Beta 2
Hell there might even be an open beta at the end.
With no NDA on any of these, im pretty sure they are confident in their game and a year+ time and a minimum of 4 testing phases should be enough to really polish the game.
Im not worried about bugs but about the sheer number of players in the starting areas at launch. Without sharding there is going to be lag extrem.
Well time will show.
I think regardless of a mount or no mount the starting areas will be congested and laggy for the first couple of days until people start doing the quests that open up the nodes to start developing. I dont know what ingame parts will incentivize people to move out into the wild, quest markers and such along with how the main story quest will progress the players movements.
One of my concerns is making sure people dont just kill new players at the starting area since we know how some folks are lol. So hopefully all new areas will be a no-kill protected zone or something and the quest givers spread people out into the wild well enough to keep the server from smoking up in flames.
But it just depends I guess on the number of servers Intrepid will have and how well the internal instances will be for each server and population caps.
I'm not sure if they specified any of that yet
If someone in the starting area want to kill me i let them.
They gain corruption having a death penelety of 400%
And yes EXP can go negativ so i outlevel them quickly.
EDIT:
I dont think this game will have a main story.
From what iv got every note levels up if you do something in them.
Gathering will help level the note and quests will apear from there.
So yah my guild will rush away from the starting area the moment we spawn.
But only if the Starting area quests dont give something essecial like a mount.
Just wanted to comment on this and say, a game having Bethesda related to them in any way is probably MORE of a reason for a game to have been immensely wary of a horrible launch.
You have point here lol. Still they did improve over time (in some ways, worse in others)