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.
A List of Humble Suggestions
Madock
Member
Greetings lovely community! This is my very first post on this forum so please bear with me if I repeat some suggestions or step on other ideas.
First of all I want to say that I am neither a financial backer nor an Alpha tester of this amazing project due to the currency crisis my country is going through for almost 3 years now. I want to back this game with all my wallet but if I buy even a single package, I will be left without electricity for the month. However, I do believe, as a 30 year old MMORPG veteran, I can at least give some feedback and some suggestions based on what I read, watched and listened to about the game for the past few months.
1. Yes it is a fantasy game, but it does not have to be an over-exaggerated shiny particle fest.
I think the art team of this game is doing an absolutely great job but I feel like they carry a lot more of a burden than they are actually aware of. The art style and how the game looks is one of the main factors why games live or die, especially MMO's. I know the development is in it's early stages and Steven told us multiple times that many effects are subject to change. But from what I gather so far, the direction on spell and ability effects is leaning towards some shiny, exaggerated animations. I get that some people enjoy that style; but from my perspective, it's too much. Especially in a group fight setting, which this game leans heavily on, having so many huge particles and shiny stuff flying around, leaving mark on the ground etc. is too demanding for the eyes, not to mention the GPU. Plus, it does not look good.
I will give an example from WoW and many people may disagree with me on this one.When they ''updated'' the animations on Warrior class abilities, I simply quit the game, because it was just too much. I played a warrior to feel the raw physical strength but what my character began to do was creating this high-fantasy spell looking arcs with it's attacks. It was a huge turn off. And what I can see so far is that the Warrior archetype in this game has a similar direction. If it's some sort of a spell-blade type of a character, I could understand the sparkly cone attacks but swinging a regular sword should not be so shiny in my opinion.
Also, the cleric abilities video that was released the other day had me very worried as well. Especially the ability called ''Exorcism''. Don't get me wrong, it looks cool, but is it really an ability that a 1-10 level cleric can cast? I mean the levitating and all... it looks super badass for a novice cleric. If you have abilities like that, they should at least reflect the power and progress of your character. More on this on item 3.
To summarise; I don't think exaggerated spells do any good. Yes, it is a fantasy setting, but being a fantasy setting doesn't mean you can have realistic effects. Having powerful and rare abilities with unique animations while leaving regular abilities with small sized decent ones could be a better solution.
2. Spells and abilities should not be combat-oriented only.
I hate giving examples from other games but WoW does this best if you ask me. Take the Mage class for example. Yes, you have your Fireballs and Frost Novas etc. But you also have slow-fall which adds a whole new angle to traversing on foot. Or blinking to go faster... or polymorphing random critters. It makes you enjoy your character in many other ways. Or playing a rogue, stealthing and sapping NPC's to pickpocket them or lockpick the chest near them without fighting them. There are so many possibilities. A game that does not have this is Elder Scrolls Online and it is the main reason I hate that game. Everything is so combat oriented, every spell, every ability is just there to smack some NPC or an enemy player. But I just want to chill with my sorcerer and turn water into wine with my templar for example... well you can't do that. You are just a killing machine. Adding abilities with non combat utilities or even combat abilities with outside combat usages is an aspect many aspiring MMO's are missing in my opinion. It makes interacting with the world million times more fun. Please consider this.
3. Immersion is king.
The lore and the aesthetics of the game is looking solid so far and I believe that it will get even better with time. However, in order to make players become immersed in this world, they must be a part of it's living cycle. To be honest, I don't want to be the hero who saves the entire planet. I don't want to be the super soldier with flying, fireball throwing, sparks flying cone creating abilities. I want to be a part of the world, just like many other players are. I want to own an estate, make a living with trading, operating caravans. I know the game provides this but how can I get immersed in a caravan-master fantasy if my character is a level 5 flying-while-casting-spells type of a hero? In order to make people get immersed in this awesome world, in it's incredibly designed systems, they must feel like they are a part of it, not being above it. Being a player should not mean being a hero, it should mean being a part of the world.
This item actually encompasses the previous two. I remember the days of Vanilla WoW where everything was dangerous, you were not the hero, you struggled to buy your next spell and you could not do everything by yourself. That made you feel part of the world. Today, WoW is just about being ABOVE the world. Running into dungeons and soloing everything, farming for cosmetics. Accepting quests without hesitation because you know you can complete them even by AFK'ing the entire chain. That killed the immersion. Please don't make the same mistakes.
Conclusion
I believe I have already said too much and I do apologise again if I repeated some of the stuff already being pointed out but I felt the need to write this post. I believe this game has so much potential and I can see all the passion the devs and the community are putting into it. I just want it to be a great game that every MMO player has been craving for over the years. You guys are heading towards an incredible success and maybe, just maybe, these suggestions might make it an even bigger one.
Thank you for reading!
First of all I want to say that I am neither a financial backer nor an Alpha tester of this amazing project due to the currency crisis my country is going through for almost 3 years now. I want to back this game with all my wallet but if I buy even a single package, I will be left without electricity for the month. However, I do believe, as a 30 year old MMORPG veteran, I can at least give some feedback and some suggestions based on what I read, watched and listened to about the game for the past few months.
1. Yes it is a fantasy game, but it does not have to be an over-exaggerated shiny particle fest.
I think the art team of this game is doing an absolutely great job but I feel like they carry a lot more of a burden than they are actually aware of. The art style and how the game looks is one of the main factors why games live or die, especially MMO's. I know the development is in it's early stages and Steven told us multiple times that many effects are subject to change. But from what I gather so far, the direction on spell and ability effects is leaning towards some shiny, exaggerated animations. I get that some people enjoy that style; but from my perspective, it's too much. Especially in a group fight setting, which this game leans heavily on, having so many huge particles and shiny stuff flying around, leaving mark on the ground etc. is too demanding for the eyes, not to mention the GPU. Plus, it does not look good.
I will give an example from WoW and many people may disagree with me on this one.When they ''updated'' the animations on Warrior class abilities, I simply quit the game, because it was just too much. I played a warrior to feel the raw physical strength but what my character began to do was creating this high-fantasy spell looking arcs with it's attacks. It was a huge turn off. And what I can see so far is that the Warrior archetype in this game has a similar direction. If it's some sort of a spell-blade type of a character, I could understand the sparkly cone attacks but swinging a regular sword should not be so shiny in my opinion.
Also, the cleric abilities video that was released the other day had me very worried as well. Especially the ability called ''Exorcism''. Don't get me wrong, it looks cool, but is it really an ability that a 1-10 level cleric can cast? I mean the levitating and all... it looks super badass for a novice cleric. If you have abilities like that, they should at least reflect the power and progress of your character. More on this on item 3.
To summarise; I don't think exaggerated spells do any good. Yes, it is a fantasy setting, but being a fantasy setting doesn't mean you can have realistic effects. Having powerful and rare abilities with unique animations while leaving regular abilities with small sized decent ones could be a better solution.
2. Spells and abilities should not be combat-oriented only.
I hate giving examples from other games but WoW does this best if you ask me. Take the Mage class for example. Yes, you have your Fireballs and Frost Novas etc. But you also have slow-fall which adds a whole new angle to traversing on foot. Or blinking to go faster... or polymorphing random critters. It makes you enjoy your character in many other ways. Or playing a rogue, stealthing and sapping NPC's to pickpocket them or lockpick the chest near them without fighting them. There are so many possibilities. A game that does not have this is Elder Scrolls Online and it is the main reason I hate that game. Everything is so combat oriented, every spell, every ability is just there to smack some NPC or an enemy player. But I just want to chill with my sorcerer and turn water into wine with my templar for example... well you can't do that. You are just a killing machine. Adding abilities with non combat utilities or even combat abilities with outside combat usages is an aspect many aspiring MMO's are missing in my opinion. It makes interacting with the world million times more fun. Please consider this.
3. Immersion is king.
The lore and the aesthetics of the game is looking solid so far and I believe that it will get even better with time. However, in order to make players become immersed in this world, they must be a part of it's living cycle. To be honest, I don't want to be the hero who saves the entire planet. I don't want to be the super soldier with flying, fireball throwing, sparks flying cone creating abilities. I want to be a part of the world, just like many other players are. I want to own an estate, make a living with trading, operating caravans. I know the game provides this but how can I get immersed in a caravan-master fantasy if my character is a level 5 flying-while-casting-spells type of a hero? In order to make people get immersed in this awesome world, in it's incredibly designed systems, they must feel like they are a part of it, not being above it. Being a player should not mean being a hero, it should mean being a part of the world.
This item actually encompasses the previous two. I remember the days of Vanilla WoW where everything was dangerous, you were not the hero, you struggled to buy your next spell and you could not do everything by yourself. That made you feel part of the world. Today, WoW is just about being ABOVE the world. Running into dungeons and soloing everything, farming for cosmetics. Accepting quests without hesitation because you know you can complete them even by AFK'ing the entire chain. That killed the immersion. Please don't make the same mistakes.
Conclusion
I believe I have already said too much and I do apologise again if I repeated some of the stuff already being pointed out but I felt the need to write this post. I believe this game has so much potential and I can see all the passion the devs and the community are putting into it. I just want it to be a great game that every MMO player has been craving for over the years. You guys are heading towards an incredible success and maybe, just maybe, these suggestions might make it an even bigger one.
Thank you for reading!
1
Comments
I'll happily be the flying, fireball throwing, sparks flying, super soldier! Don't worry, I'll look after you! Hehe
Blink
Forcefield
Jump
Portal
Sprint
Not to mention the class-specific utility skills for finding hidden paths/etc:
Mage's Detection
Track
/etc
I am very happy to see this! I hope there are even more like these, it would be incredible to interact with the world in such different ways!
Yeah, especially for someone like me who likes to climb to the top of absolutely everything I can see. If I'm struggling, I might be able to just pop a Portal down and keep climbing!
Here's the link to the Skills we know about, in case you haven't seen it yet: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Skills
Same here - it's great to get a peek at all of the work that was put into a specific place to make it look a certain way and sometime to impart a certain feel.
I think the OP was asking about spells along the lines of "Family Summon" under the Utilities section, in that link. Wiki's an excellent master-resource to refer to, for the established elements and mechanics of the game, thus far.
Still though, my points do stand. I hope the game feels more like a ''world'' rather than a ''theme park'' experience. And systems alone is not enough, it's the little ways players interact with the world that can make a huge difference. That can sum up my post I suppose
I absolutely agree! We ALL can't be ruthless killing machines. Some of us just want to goof around and have fun. If the Nightspell (Rogue/Mage) wants to polymorph him/herself into a Crate or a Chair while hiding in a castle or tavern, they should totally be able to!
Steven Sharif is my James Halliday (Anorak)
“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
-HPL