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
Along the discussion of the daily coins, I like the idea, but would take it one step further. Offer the coins daily, but if I'd like to save up 90 coins (aka loosely as 3 months), then maybe I get the fancy mount. My saving abilities and goals may be different than another players and possibly the month's cosmetic is not something that interests me as much. Theoretically there would be items at all level of savings. What if I save for an entire year, what would I get then? I think it takes it beyond the daily login reward of today you get $5K gold and tomorrow you get 4 experience scrolls (aka ESO). I also feel there should be an incentive to save beyond a 30 day period. As many have mentioned already, however, it should NOT offer an unfair advantage to another player.
I believe something along these lines, as you have mentioned, would satisfy the needs of the casual player and the hardcore. Keep in mind, that casual players are just that, casual. I know there will be comments about" work schedule" and "I cannot play as much as the next guy," etc. I understand that as it's my life today. But, why would I get catered to for playing once a week versus another player who can play 8 hours a day. Some might call that P2W and not good for the game, but the idea of receiving an award for simply showing up has its downside imho. Catering to the loud few has ruined many a MMORPG when the company didn't focus on the much quieter majority. Is AC to be yet another game for the casual player? How does AC want to develop? Seems that the whole idea of the game (node development) is based on quite the time sink. Again, I'm simply playing devil's advocate with respect to casual versus hard core.
What is the goal of the daily login? As mentioned earlier, it can encourage players in the 'wrong way.' What if instead a gift was presented to players upon anniversary of time played across all toons on an account? Would not having played 300, 600, 1200 hours per account and receiving a substantial reward not be easier on all. Currently, the games that I'm playing offer daily logins. It creates anxiety when I know I'm going to miss the daily login times because I'm unavailable to login. Perhaps a Title based on time played in addition to receiving an in-game reward? These rewards would be respective tiered awesomeness based on time played.
I'm not sure I have an opinion one way or the other, however, thinking out of the box and creating a unique gaming experience would further delineate AC from the saturated field. I for one am EXTREMELY excited for this game's success and will support as much as possible. Keep up the amazing work!
Daily Login Rewards are a type of manipulative psychology used to scare your players into logging in when they otherwise wouldn't have done so. They're only needed where the game itself isn't enough of a draw to get people logging in, and for the most part the rewards are crap and very rarely used.
How confident are you in the quality of your game? If it's good, you won't need daily login rewards, and putting them in place will only undermine the playerbase's confidence in the game.
When we're talking about larger time frames exclusivity can be allowed. If you can get an item within 10 days in a time-frame of a year then that is fair.
Rewarding players for being there (When I am seeing my WoW achievements for like 2008-2010) is good. Punishing players (to harshly) for not being there is really bad.
I would not like to connect everyday because of the sweet sugar for me the good dog :
1° It feel like a lazy mechanics (1 daily connexion = 1 point / 100 point = good job) ?? I connect to AoC because the game is good, not because of the sugar sugar. Don't be insecure about the quality of the game...
2° Maybe there is another way to give a daily life to AoC : daily bag for craft, daily quest, etc. ... OR you make a bigger RP mechanics in the multiple connexion (stack point or anything by a daily quest -> at X stack there is a nice event with nice loot or another stack sort of point to stack for anther thing)
Of course you'll need a daily mechanic, but PLEASE don't make it lazy, or don't suggest we (your player) will be lazy ass.
Good job with what you did till now, keep going !!
If there were to be login rewards, which tbh I'd rather NOT SEE AT ALL, I'd want them to be COSMETIC items that are nearly identical to something I could get from maybe a holiday that isn't going on at the moment. Maybe a dungeon (that isn't currently unlocked) has gear that looks like the outfit for that month. The dungeon wouldn't be a hard dungeon though, so once it was eventually unlocked, everyone who didn't play that month or couldn't get the necessary coins, could then get it from running the dungeon it came from.
Maybe if instead of login rewards we stick to daily quests that reward these types of things. At least then it's an earned item....
Well either way, I'm not a fan of login rewards because they remind me of BDO and other p2w games and I'm still traumatized with the sheer amount of money I put into BDO because of their p2w practices ($5k~). I won't be letting myself be so irresponsible from now on. I hope you guys keep strong with the anti p2w values as promised, as the non-long-time followers will see stuff like that and immediately jump to conclusions.
Taking a day or two off once in a while is healthy for a game that innately demands so much time investment, and any kind of daily reset creates a slight sense of guilt for doing so because of permanently missing out on some small thing. Widening that window allows each reward to be a little more impactful and turns it into more of a long term loyalty reward (ex: log in every week for a year) rather than a nagging reminder to boot up the game for 30 seconds on your 'off' days.
The one-coin-a-day thing would work too, as long as the coins can be earned in other ways and previous monthly cosmetics remain purchasable (so people can catch-up or get a cosmetic that they missed). They're not supposed to be rare or valuable, right? So just let people earn them at their own pace, and give people a decent baseline of coins just for logging in. I guess it's still a login "incentive" but at least it's not that punishing when you miss a few days.
Personally when i've played games like that, after i've missed a login streak my desire to play the game plummets it honestly isn't worth it and players who already might feel like not playing the game will be turned away sooner and faster than before.
I do think we should have daily login rewards, but have it so that you don't have to login every day to acheive it. That way dedicated players still get their rewards and players who maybe can't or don't play as often still get the odd reward thrown their way. This shouldn't affect the game much anyway as like Steven said, these coins would only be able to be used for cosmetic items.
Furthermore I don't think that the rewards from these coins should be exclusive to just the coins, i'm not sure exactly how to implement this as it heavily depends on what way you sell things which i doubt has been throughouly thought out yet. But maybe have it so that the coins can only be used to buy "low tier" things off the ingame shop? Perhaps like a hat or single armor piece but not a full armor set. Or maybe to only be able to buy one piece of a full armor set? So 1 month = one piece of armor of a full set. That way players will have a small long term, stress free goal they can work towards.
A good example for how the login rewards system should be done in my opinion is Guild wars 2 (though not the actual rewards themselves, keep it to something small like the cosmetic coin).
I like the idea of the reward costing 30 coins, but would like to see the rewards have a purchase period for a bit longer, say 40 days. This way its not a punishment for a person to miss a day or two for what ever reason. As well as promote the reward at least 15 days ahead of time or something of that nature so people know what that monthly reward would be. Give them the incentive.
I agree the rewards should be a cosmetic of some form as it will not benefit game play. I would like to see those cosmetics not be rushed and deal with poor clipping or pull from the feel of the game. An example is my personal hatred for a bunny girl outfit with stockings, doesn't quite fit for a fantasy world.
As long as it dosent become another log into win / P2W type thing it could be cool to earn extra cosemetics. Season themed gear or an item that shows off how much of a consistant player you are could be cool. I dont really see to many negitives other then maybe stressing someone out who really wants that months item but has IRL stuff stopping them from logging in daily for that week.
With that said I think a weekly reward or a monthly reward for consistant subscription would be a little less stressful for those completionists becuase sometimes we cant log in for the day
Invincible Tank
Unrivalled Dps
Queen of Growlgate
Kraken Tamer
Super Cutie
H8 me cuz u ain't me
Also, rewards for keeping our sub active is equally as good.
Why not both?
This is pointing toward one of the more successful traits I've seen in recent MMO's--The push away from a need to log-in every day. Rather, players should want to log-in when they have things to do, rather than feel obligated to log-in for the sake ticking off a daily box that requires them to do nothing but enter and alt+f4 before they go back to the game they want to play that day. In the long run, I believe players logging in less often will lead to them playing for longer. One of the best changes WoW made in its daily content structure was to shift away from a set of quests that must be done every day or the reward is lost, to a system of randomly spawning quests around the world with a meta-quest to complete a certain number of them that is available for 3 days before expiring. Instead of logging in every day to do dailies, you can log in every 3 days.
Since players have so many more games to play, relaxing that daily play pressure allows them to enjoy all of these games at an equivalent rate without necessarily missing out on any one. Though we are not talking about gameplay rewards in Ashes, I think the philosophy is still very applicable. Getting a cosmetic token upon log-in could still create that feeling of needing to log in every day to the detriment of the game. An easy middle ground could be letting players claim 'daily' tokens for up to 3 days before that day's rewards are no longer available?
It depends on what you want to incentivize, and how you want players to engage with Ashes, I feel. Why do they log in every day? Is it to play the game, or to claim a shot of dopamine and to make sure they don't miss out on an anomalous reward? Breaking my daily log-in chains has almost always lead to me logging into a game less often, personally.
Most people seem to be complaining about the time-limited nature of daily log-in events. What's probably a more practical use of these daily Cosmetic Coins is to have a standard Cosmetic Coin shop with a selection of things to buy from. You can accumulate the coins on your own time without the worry that your desired outfit may leave the shop forever. Or, in the case of limited-time items, list the item for a duration longer than it takes to acquire it. Eg. 30 Cosmetic Coins to buy a dress that will be listed for the next 60 days and then will be gone for a year. Hardcore grinders will likely already have the coins stocked up while those bankrupt of coins will have twice the opportunity to achieve the minimum log-ins. It's much less of a compulsion and much more of a reward that way. Though, if you're buying two months of game time and logging in for less than half of that, are you really getting your money's worth to begin with?
Edit: I also kind of like the daily rewards being centered around total subscription days. If cosmetics are all you care about, you're already paying for them, so who cares lol. FOMO for gear gains is a real thing but why does there need to be anxiety inducing FOMO for useless cosmetics.
Also, I've noticed that some other MMO's give consumables for daily logins. I dont think consumables of any kind should be given, whether its an XP potion or food.
The absolute worst way to implement login rewards is to have there be a combo system, where your rewards increase for each consecutive day, and reset if you miss a day.
Please don't make it a "monthly login reward costume", instead just let us purchase any cash-shop costume for either X amount of real money OR 30, 50, 100 login coins (whatever the relative value would be)
Then there's no FOMO of missing a monthly limited skin, its just a bonus for consistent players to get a free costume for staying committed to playing
I would suggest a Vet system where people are rewarded based on sub time.
Formerly T-Elf
This would remove much of the FOMO concern in my opinion though you will still have some who will feel like they need in the least time possible so will be logging in every day to get a token to be able to get it "first" ...
The thing is that usually those are the types that will be logging in every day anyhow to work towards other "firsts" so is on them at that point and not the Studious issue.
Other type of "veteran" rewards are fine as well, such as account loyalty for having a active account for a year and getting a reward each year ... these are just fun things for the people who support a game in my opinion.
Lets break all of this down first.
I don't like daily loginrewards, it makes u feel pressured to login every day just to get the thing, else u fear falling behind, and people in general don't like falling behind. This approach is different though.
Montly cosmetics is a neat idea, i don't care too much for it, it's highly dependable on how they're aquireable though. The approach you've got here i actually enjoy, seems like a nice thing for everyone.
Gathering coins each day, simply by logging in, to purchase a cosmetic only item i have nothing against.
If you're going the way i assume after reading then it's even better, which is that there's only 1 type of coin, not 1 for every month, 1 type of coin. This coin is collected daily upon logging in to ur account. You can then spend 30 of these coins to purchase the currently available cosmetic only item for the month. If u dislike this months cosmetic item you can wait for next month and maybe purchase that one instead.
This approach that I just went over is, imo, the best version. It removes the "ooh no, i need to log on today" feeling and u feel stressed about being on vacation with your family, it becomes a chore and some people might associate it with something negative. Instead you know that you'll get 1 coin and then when u have enough you can purchase what you want if it's available.
Should these montly cosmetic only items be available on the cashshop? No, i personally don't think so. It gives the items "value" or atleast prestige, it becomes a collectors item and people like to collect in MMOs. Should they return next year during the same month? Sure, why not, i'm personally fine with it but i'm ok with not aswell. But if they do return every year at the same month, should we also get additional cosmetics for that month? Yes, give the old veterans something to feel proud of, since now they can get the new item while having the old one.
One suggestion aswell, if implemented, would be to show the upcoming month well in advance to give the players who simply can't log every day the grace period of choosing, like u do currently, it's awesome, keep doing that.
These are my thoughts regarding all of this, hope this helps u make a desicion, looking forward to A2 where i can start playing!
Invincible Tank
Unrivalled Dps
Queen of Growlgate
Kraken Tamer
Super Cutie
H8 me cuz u ain't me
I think the best reward system I've seen was FFXIV's. They had a subscriber track that kept rewarding you the longer you were subbed. The main difference between this and a log-in reward is FOMO. People should not feel obligated to log-in they should want to log-in to play. With the subscriber reward track people can miss months or years and still (eventually) unlock rewards that are being released.
ESO has a log-in reward system and I really dislike it. It left a sour taste in my mouth because I felt I had to log in to train my mount and get the log-in reward. It soured me so much that I stopped playing and said **** the rewards. The system you are talking about doesn't sound that bad but I think you should have the monthly reward only cost 15 coins and the extras could be redeemed for embers or pooled incase they couldn't log in for a week or two. This way you don't have "too much" pressure for people to log-in. You want it to be rewarding but also forgiving, real-life should always be taken in to consideration.
So to sum up my two favored options: subscriber-reward track (although this doesn't encourage lifetime subbers to log-in). Or lower the reward cost to relieve the pressure for logging in and allow people to convert them into embers for cash shop rewards.
EDIT: You also could just reward Embers for logging-in and do away with the cosmetic coin. This way people can buy it outright or earn it through logging in.
Its like the wow world quests that reward you with epics, the problem with that is that they numb the brain to the elation of delayed gratification.
It also triggers my ocd and i cant stop until i scratched that itch which is not a nice feeling...
Please dont make the login reward a skin btw... that would make it so much worse for me if i ever didnt manage to log in.