Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
1. Fast Travel. Flying mounts are great with limits, but it breaks interaction. I praise Intrepid for limiting fast travel and flying mounts. In fact, I'd like to see mounts have health (they can be temporarily vanquished) and have stamina. Meaning they can only go a certain distance and can only be used for a certain amount of time per day. This creates meaning in having multiple mounts, mounts with stamina, mounts with speed, or mounts that can be called to the world of Verra for greater periods of time. Let people grow attached to their mounts, some will treat them as objects, and others as friends Let people choose to express themselves. They can upgrade their mount or invest resources into having multiple mounts.
2. Meta-gaming. This falls into a large pool of situations. From players "requiring" others to play a certain way, ganking because "he'll probably win because he has no health and I'm a higher level character", and more. I'm either looking healthy, weathered, injured, or severely injured. 100 - 74% 73 - 49% 48 - 30% or less. I am either either within within 10% of the character, lower, or higher. There shouldn't be a buff that tells you what tier my gear is. People wouldn't try to "gank" other characters so much if the player wasn't so sure that their kill was an easy one. Let people size up the situation the old fashion way.
3. Bad story telling. Don't tell me, show me. If the city is in dire need I should be able to see it. If level 55 guards are walking around the city it should be attacked by NPCs once a month, rumors of bandits pop up, outside patrols actually go up and down the road "and help clear monsters".
4. Weather, I know people complain about not be able to see in certain games. Ravenloft is a foggy, dark, gritty, and demoralizing place because of its lethality, great story, and atmosphere. The barrens in WoW, Un'Goro crater where it rains so hard its hard to see the BIG DINOSAUR (recreates the Jurrassic park moment). Games without atmosphere to compliment the area feel so less immersive. Atmosphere is so important.
Teaching
Low levels should be easy and teach players different mechanics of the game. They should also start to simulate pvp encounters by level ten to an extent. Mobs in an area may have 2-3 abilities of a mob in a dungeon. Mobs in a dungeon may have an ability or two of a mini-boss or/and dungeon bosses. Dungeon bosses may have a mechanic that raid bosses have. If you're having people craft things without "instant" recipes then give them one or two instant recipes to see something the craft can offer. (also give hints for recipes through lore and interaction with NPCs) Some choices should be intuitive because of how developers "teach" player to play. Status affects should be taught to players throughout the game.
Deep Mental Involvement
5. Non-intricate designs. If I design a wolf, I'm going to design canines. I'll ask myself at what levels is it appropriate for players to face canines, how are they related, how do they relate to the world, and then I'll make a table of abilities. Mobs have traits animal, monstrous, intelligent. Tribal, loner, family. Healthy, neutral, endangered. Common, rare, elite, named. Each area has an overarching story and a theme should be given for each area. I only want canines to appear at levels 1 - 35. Commons wolves will appear at levels 1 - 5. 6 - 10 will have great wolves. Anything higher will be worgs, frost wolves, previous werewolves who lost their ability to form, ect..until level 45 when hell hounds appear where the animations are scaled, new skin, and new abilities. The quest isn't going to be go to Elwynn forest and kill 10 wolves and bring back 10 wolf meat. If I bring 10 strips of canine meat I should be fine. This is 2020, let me feed the people and help prepare clothes for the coming winter. Let me see the orphanage or "untouchables" of the world which builds the node faster, or let me cash in and make more money. It might only be 10 - 20% more ( or less) but let it be my choice. Second don't tell to go fetch meat and then not find wood at the same time. Don't annoy players by going back and forth, if you do be smart about. Like you can only kill the wolves in spring and fall otherwise their population goes too low and you need winter wood bark from the trees. But there better be a great story and new fantastical things about the wood. Maybe I see a frost wolf for the first time. Also, monsters who venture too far into each others territories might attack each other. I might cause double aggro, because I'm definitely not suppose to be there...but still.
Back to the orphans real quick. I do it once and it's a quest. Maybe every season this quest needs to be done for every "Citizen" in the node. Suddenly, I have an optional task of feeding the orphans. It was hard at level 3, but at level ten I can do it quickly. But how do they look when well fed and clothed? Are they running around smiling? Are they in bed thin with tattered clothes? New content should be opened by keeping them "fed". Does it help my node grow to give me more options? I'm a man but in my experience is best at making a home and atmosphere/immersion mean a lot.
6. Death is irrelevant. Yes, it's a game and most players play an MMO because all their work is still there tomorrow. I suggest there be some quests that the player can die for. That some choices, and some gear requires player death or risks player death. That death is not the end but a new beginning. Upon the choice of not being returned to Verra the player has a choice to end his line, asks of an inheritor, or child exists that will live on with their name. Allow a title of the previous player be present on the new character and all items and inheritence be bestowed on the newly made character who is leveled merely 2 - 10% below the previous. When death becomes routine...there is no thrill for safety because there is no cost. There is also, no reward.
All gear is returned with 10% durability. Back to lineage: Constace Stormsurge, daughter of Dareth Dragon's Bane. Suddenly titles mean something.
This also has the affect of people thinking they "chose" the wrong character. They can always just die., and not have to start from scratch. Of course, this was at the cost of their initial character.
Fast travel, teleportation's, summoning .... etc
Although saying this, Ashes seems to have a different way of allocating players around the map with the Node systems so hopefully this will give more of a community feel to the game.
I like mob's interacting with other mob's, i never get bored of watching a wolf chase after a rabbit.
Creatures you don't kill, little birdies, butterfly's, tiny door mouse, fly's over a rotting corpse that sort of thing.
Hit boxes, i will probably roll a big ass orc, how ever if i'm fighting with a 3ft dwarf i want to feel like i'm actually hitting him, not only through sound, connection feel, BUT through him having a smaller hit box than me.
7ft or 6ft Orc fighting a 4ft or 5ft Dwarf the hit boxes have got to suit.
As long as you can't make the Dwarf 2ft and the Orc 8ft having different size hit boxes will feel much better immersion.
You might have it that the stats of the Orc has better strength than a dwarf, So even if the dwarf has a smaller hitbox than me, i might only have to hit him 5 times to he's 6.... etc
Some sort of intoxication in the Taverns, getting drunk, smoking herb's, eating magic mushrooms ....... etc
You could tie the mat's for intoxication into some sort of growing skill in the garden of your house, grow your own hop's, wheat, mushrooms...... etc
Very little
1. Add-ons: The whole dps meters and such ruin immersion for me but even in games where I tried to not have add-ons when asking people for help most of the time you just get add-ons recommended at you.
2. Lack of control over certain aspects of the game, such as auto-sheathing weapons after/between battles.
3. Small/limited inventory space at times can ruin immersion. I understand people mentioning realism when carrying super heavy items such as 200 stack of ore or stone or lumber, but magic bag?! The bag with a pocket dimension, very well known through rpg's and I see them used alot on the litrpgs I read and I think they're a great feature.
4. Global/Trade chats can ruin the immersion for sure.
5. Limits on movement such as not being able to swim, not being able to jump or not being able to climb or jump over a wall as it's just above jump height peak and no climbing mechanic.
6. When you do a quest that should have some impact such as clear out some mobs from an overrun town or something and then next thing you know it's back to how it was when you got there except no quest anymore.
7. The feel of combat and action, by that I mean the weighty-ness of swinging a weapon and that weapon striking something/someone and also when gathering. one thing I like about New world is that when you are mining or chopping trees for example due to the animations and sounds it feels very very authentic/real when your tool is striking the trunk / boulder. So many games have not quite got this and ruins the feel of the game/immersion.
8. And last but not least..... LAG! The one good thing WoW has is the seamlessness / lack of lag. I don't think I need to say much more on lag, it's rather obvious how that can ruin immersion
This! So much!
I would also add totally over the top cosmetic skins that let your character look like god himself when in reality its just a low level and badly equipped one.
Appearance should signal how powerful a player is.
One of my favorite examples of immersion aids was in Everquest II. Each class had 2-5 "fun spells" that were nothing other than cosmetic, and most of them were fitting with the theme of the class. Anything that helps you actually feel like you are what you're playing is great. This being said, however, when you break theme with fun stuff it can be a bit jarring. Watching someone sprint past you as a giant ninja ghost spewing flowers everywhere is...errr...not the best. Not that I'd advocate removing the silly stuff, as sometimes it's fun to be silly, but it does break immersion when used excessively.
It's been mentioned a lot already in this thread, but being able to interact with the environment is also key. It's a real bummer when you're trying to RP and everyone is hovering 3 feet above their chairs in a sitting animation that looks like they're sitting on the ground instead of a chair. Or even when you're just playing a smaller/larger character and clipping happens with environmental interaction. Oof. Nothing breaks it like leaning against the wall just for 1/3 of my body to sink into the void or be so small that I'm leaning on air a foot to the left of the wall.
And my last big one: Lack of character customization will just destroy immersion for me. I don't want to play a muscley hulk-man, thank you. Why can race X only have ridiculous hairstyles that don't even make sense in the gameworld? Isn't it odd that literally every human on the planet is the same height, except for those important NPC ones that are 9 feet tall screaming "Notice me, Senpai!"?
#2: Poorly made, pointless/repetitive quest.
#3 Pop up ads/ in game mail for skin shops
4# the same NPC shop owners in each city. this might be hard to do BUT it would be nice to be able to customize the shop owners somewhat in each node that way when I'm out adventuring and come across another city I wont see Grogniak the Orc blacksmith from my node in someone else node.
ESO had a quite the few moments where immersion becomes fractured. One of the first things to break my immersion was their One Tamriel Update that integrated the 3 warring alliances into the same instances. Another immersion breaker was when they started to bring back the companions(A group of characters from the main story) into the DLC. There most recent one produced a plot hole as the companion is a possible dead character depending on your choice in the main story line. They didn't seem to care about the story timeline of old characters and it was set up for the perspective of a new character.
How much did those moments affect your perception of the game?
The One Tamriel update made me switch up my RP. I was a war monger caught up in the fictional disdain for my enemies that didn't dissipate when the barriers came down and our enemies peacefully walked in. I refused for a while to do anything in foreign lands out side of slaughtering their citizens and acquiring a bounty. The bounty for some reason was international so even my own alliances guards would try to accost me, and that's when I was like this is dumb. It wasn't a deal breaker for the game, but ruined the vicious combative mentality of pvp. Now enemies were people we had to talk to and trade with. Rather than everyone around you being all in to stop the encroaching menaces that plagued Cyrodiil(The PvP War Zone), it became more like Sunday Night football. Everyone had played a bit back in highschool, but now its left to the professionals who can trade teams every season. Most people just work on their house and PvE stuff. Football was no longer that important. Some root for there home team, a lot of people don't care. To say, the update changed the whole feel and landscape and in effect makes you look bad if you cared too much about the war.
The thing that made me loose some respect for the game is when they popped up a dead character, no explanation. I hadn't completed the main story line on any of my characters as apart of RP. But it made me take a look and wonder at the state and direction of the game. Pvp had been out washed for years no love or commitment, I was a PvPer. But if I had been a devote PvEer, it shows they had lost commitment to producing a good story. I haven't even played the Graymoor DLC yet, but I read reviews that said it was the same rewritten story of an older DLC Elswer. Makes you loose interest in the game especially when you stare at the many in game bugs.
How important is immersion to you, generally?
I got into immersion pretty deeply in ESO. I didn't RP so hard that I created a character. I was still me. But I had become a leader of men & mer. The Emperor of Tamriel. And had a good bit of fun enjoying the journey and story. AoC plans to offer me so much more. I wish I knew what this game was about back when it was in kickstarter. I'd be totally down to help design a house or castle that I could defend with pride. Alas my time is split with work nowadays so I don't know if I'll be able to achieve the great virtual feats I fantasize. However, the immersion should come naturally in AoC. I don't see many ways to break it, outside of the classical every mob and boss is a recurring plague on the realm that doesn't really ever go away. But wait, in AoC they do go away for a time when the node gets destroyed, which is cool.
I want to hear the city noises as I walk or ride in, I want to hear the plates, silverware, and voices of those in the tavern and the musicians playing in the back.
I want to hear the birds, wind, and running streams if I am by one, and the lone wolf howl in the distance.
If I'm in a dark dungeon I want to hear single creaks, a single drop of water hitting a small puddle, maybe even a lone growl or screech from an unseen advisary further in. I also want to hear the sputtering of the torch if I'm carrying one. The same could be said for campfires and fire pits, I want to hear that wood crackle and pop and the low muffled sound of the flames as they eat the oxygen in the air.
If I'm by the sea I want to hear the waves crashing or rolling onto the beach, and the faint sound of seagulls or their equivalent in the distance.
By what I've read by what most are saying, although they never used the proper word, that for immersion you have to create a believable atmosphere. It will have to be done carefully, too much and it will break it and not enough you can tell it a mile away. You are going to have to push it a bit because we lack the sense of smell in the game, and there are ways to make up for this.
But if done right, and not over the top and timed just right you can knock this ball out of the park for an awesome grand slam.
Personally, I cant wait to get completely lost in the world of Verra and I can't wait to experience the atmosphere you chose to create for us.
Also auto pathing or ANYTHING that makes me feel like I can do this task afk. If I have to spend a 10 minutes "processing" stuff without doing anything it just gives me a chance to get distracted doing something else with my time. And, if I am unlucky (or the game is unlucky), will make it so I never come back. Making sure that all of my time is actively engaging in some form is critical to keeping me immersed.
What ruins "my" immersion? Being forced into linear quests and tasks.
I enjoy MMORPGs, because of the open enviornment, and deciding my own fate. If I want a linear story or do repeative tasks to keep me interested, I'll go play the plithora of other games (particularly solo).
The idea of; finding like minded people to conquer a boss, or mission, or creating content, is what keeps me immersed in a MMORPG.
I know dude hate when that happens in real life too so unrealistic. It's like dude desert or forest. Make a pick don't put them next to each other.
Studying botany and ecology in California is a real trip for this, especially in the mountains. The highest and lowest elevations in the contiguous 48 US states are a couple day’s hike from each other and I know one person who did it in one day. Transitions here can be ridiculous and during certain times of year feel more unrealistic than in games.
But one of the most *impactful, *offensive, and *immersion breaking moments I have ever had in a video game (in this case WoW) was when I let go of the keyboard and mouse and said out loud "They literally put this in and designed it to waste my time".
I forget exactly what it was, (it was around the time of Pandaria or WoD) but It was something relating to a *system that was precisely designed to take X amount of time and it was *greedy and a *thinly veiled illusion- of being there for any reason other than for them to make more money. It felt dishonest, it felt like psychological exploitation. And their is almost nothing more offensive than a failed attempt at manipulation.
As WoW developed, it became more tailored, a Arcade game, Easy-mode-Halo Master Chief. A addiction machine more focused on dopamine hits, flashy distractions, endless collect-a-thons, and Gamble/Slot machine style personal loot, with actual game design philosophy being sacrificed for making shareholders money. And they refined that Carrot on a stick with precision, to where it kept being more and more clear that internally they were saying to each other "What else can we add to make them stay on it longer/Get more money".
I understand that there needs to be a *carrot on a sick, *utilizing proper psychology to make a good game, *things that take a lot of time to do, and for *things to be exclusive otherwise they wont have value. But please, don't go the rout of offensively obvious Psychological exploitation, and create some type of offensively obvious game mechanic and label it as "for fun" when the sole reason is for money.
Sorry for being kinda vague, It was many years ago and all I can remember is my impression and emotions.
Keeping subs will clearly be a motivation. Just please don't descend into a cash grab mindset, and maintain your core game design philosophies for the long term. Otherwise I would expect it to die at some point, and for people to hope to find something else UnCorrupted by money.
Don't bring "Chuck Norris" into this.
Very little
The moments in an MMO that break immersion for me are:
1) Loading between zones, dungeons, cities, etc. I really dislike traveling on a mount, boat, air ship from fluidly. However, when this is broken up by loading screens, it really removes the immersion effect. If we can keep this to a minimum, I will be very happy.
2) Global, large zone chant, while they can be nice at times, i really don't think they belong. Very unrealistic for a fantasy MMORPG. Lets keep them out of the game. I'd be ok with perhaps a city wide chat when you are within city limits, but once outside, chat only within a reasonable range (realistic shouting distance).
3) Global auction houses and magically transported goods from one side of the world to the other. I love player to player trade and some sort of shop and auction house, but when you can order/purchase a good on one side of the world and then have it magically arrive in your local mail box, this really breaks the immersion for me. This is too simple, to convenient and unrealistic. I like the idea that we have to travel to the location for where the good is actually listed.
So glad Ashes won't have this in the world except for instance housing.
"Does 9-16 damage and slows the enemy" ✖
"Does moderate damage and slows the enemy" 💖
What I find really useful is when they have that short description as the default, but you can see "more details..." so you can make better sense of how the skill works
What makes it even worse, is when I get scolded or even kicked from a group because I am not moving fast enough or properly "contributing" because while I was reading the text the rest have run off leaving me behind.
Also, sitting at a location "farming" xp and loot is pretty immersion breaking. The idea of finding a location where there are good drops and high xp monster spawns that just keep literally popping up just doesn't feel like I am in a world, but that I am just gaming the system. If there is an in-game reason why the creatures keep returning to the area with their loot, then it can be better, but they also have to come from somewhere else, just appearing out of nowhere is weird. (What is even worse is when a creature spawns on top of its still present dead body.)
-Lanson
1. Over abundance of quest markers. When I enter a town for the first time, and see a sea of ! or ? or stars... it pulls me right out. Some quest tracking is good, but too much is an eyesore.
2. Open world map. This one’s very much a personal preference, but I much rather a map that is covered with the “fog of war”, only filling when you’ve discovered an area.
3. You’re an adventurer coming up on a settlement after a long fought battle against an ancient lich subverting a coven of vampires into his personal foot soldiers, and over the speakers you hear the every present cry of “legendary essence, 500 gold” “vampire bite, 1000” “Leroy Pk’d”.... Voice chat has its place, but too often it becomes just background noise that will suck you right out of the game.
As far as how important immersion is, really depends on the game itself. Some are built to lose yourself in, others are more just community experiences. I do usually prefer an immersive experience though
I think one thing that breaks my immersion is the addition of convenience items, like WoW has the summoning of mobile banks, vendors, blacksmiths anvils.
Unrealistic world transitions
So some games do this all the time, and it's just so weird from an immersion point of view. If my group successfully attacks a city or castle, the transition shouldn't be an instant flip and the NPCs just come and go like the place wasn't just on fire. Capturing a castle shouldn't immediately be repaired and fully armed with NPCs and furnishings as if they had been established for weeks.
In-game shop interface
Having in-game purchases are cool, but I feel like it should be done out of game for a currency, mailed to you in game to collect, and then have a specific vendor in various locations to purchase from. Maybe like an Exotic Merchant or something. Although you could just pretend to be an anime or manga character who transmigrated to another world with RPG mechanics....lol jk
Player titles that should be assigned to a single person
So World of Warcraft has a few titles connected to classes from the Legion xpac that are immersion breaking. So I played a warlock and got the Netherlord title, well every other warlock also has that title, so who the hell is the Netherlord now? There can only be one lol. If the title was instead like the title Archmage, where there can be many. Think about it like this, there can be many Cardinals, but only one Pope at a time.
Well, rpg's are all about numbers, same as saying i'd like so icecream, but without any icecream taste
Another point of immersion breaking is strange physics breaking movements. One of the strongest examples is this was when the galaxy turtle mount animations were shown. The moment it jumped up and had a quick cartoon like fall as it entered its shell was very immersion breaking. Another example of this would be unweighty attacks, where characters don't have any animation when hit by certain weapons.
I'm not a hardcore RPer but I'm drawn to games that let me immerse myself into a world as a fantasy character, so immersion breaking things can be negating me from the game.