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
New words for this thread:
This has been commented a few times but if we are forced to have this daily login thing 30 is too much and not consistent. I understand 30 was for like “a month” but not every month is 30 days, and what happens in February when there is only 28 days and we can’t afford the 30? Not to mention it turns something fun into work and as soon as it becomes work, I lose the happy motivation I once had, and it turns into annoyed obligation. And please don’t take me saying that 30 is too much to be that I think it should be implemented with just less coins. No. I don’t want it. Period.
Also, if this coin is to be given out daily it needs to be as soon as a person logs in, none of this “play for an hour” fooey. Don’t force players to afk, because that’s what many of us will do if we’re busy. If this is to become a thing it needs to be at “login”.
In comparison to the hard-core players, I would be considered fairly casual. However, that doesn’t mean I want a handout for trying. Casual doesn’t mean I don’t like earning my rewards too, it just means I’m not going to be first and I’ll get to it when I get to it. This is just my opinion, but I don’t want something out of pity or feeling bad. If I truly want something, I’ll put in that little bit more “hard-core” effort to get it. Logging in should not be “something to work towards” it shouldn’t even be associated with anything other than “man I’m so excited to do/try XYZ today!” as opposed to “%#$#, gotta login to get my stupid coin today”.
I’ve played many games that have had daily login mechanics. Some games give the rewards as soon as you login, others make you play for an hour. I hated both, but hated the forced wait time even more. These login rewards also gave random trash or gold which I could’ve lived without (and sometimes they’d fill my inventory forcing me to return to town to sell stuff). Also, every time I had a reward a massive popup would block out the screen to inform me regardless of where I was or what I was doing.
Now the 2 systems I’ve played where I actually enjoyed or didn’t mind their rewards system were Guild Wars (1) and FFXIV. GW gave the player a little birthday box for how long their characters birthday (creation date) with a little pet or something which was nice and pretty wholesome. FFXIV had subscriber rewards for staying subbed for X months that gave a costume, which I usually always forgot about until they showed up in my mailbox, and I was just like “neat”. Neither of these were daily. If the goal is to reward casual players, a daily system is not the way to do it as even that mindset is still fairly hardcore.
Now I apologize to any of you that might read this. I know you all are busy and trying your best. I try to stay positive on these forums as much as possible, but I needed to make it abundantly clear that I detest being told how or when I should play (and anything that is “daily” is that).
Repost from the megathread in case that is being ignored:
Just wanted to pop into this thread to also post that I really dislike any form of "daily" mechanics.
For Detail on Logins:
For the daily login rewards it's been said a couple of times, but it feels cheap. Logging into a game shouldn't be an accomplishment to overcome. Tangible items, like potions or gold, should never be daily rewards as it can easily ruin certain economies. And when the item is at the end of a daily-login month, like a cosmetic, it makes it feel like such a chore and instantly makes me start associating my fun-time game with work/chores.
As for any other daily mechanic that might've crossed anyone's minds:
Other than the "main storyline" of games I really hate when my daily tasks are dictated before I even get a chance to play. Some days I want to take it slow and just fish for a few hours, other days I want to hardcore grind mobs, and other days I want to work as a team to defeat a dungeon. If I'm told what I should be doing before I even figure out what I want to do, that's just bad design. You shouldn't be playing the game for me.
No.
If the game has problems with retention (ie. it's a bad game that players don't want to play for long), no amount of daily login rewards will fix that, especially not in a subscription based game.
This is true, but a scenario that will happen is if the game is free-to-play but with a subscription that opens up content - including login rewards - people will re-subscribe to the game sooner in order to get that login reward.
To me, this is a reason to not do it at all. It makes the game feel like it will go free-to-play at any point.
However, I believe that dailies are still very necessary, for incentives and especially for regular players. Once again, I think FFXIV handles it very well (though it could be better). For those that do not know how they do it, FFXIV integrates dailies as a "random dungeon queue" that rewards bonus XP and/or bonus end-game currency. The key term here being bonus, as these bonus rewards are just as easily obtainable parallel to dailies.
Basically, Ashes could nicely implement a sub-reward system, especially since its primary selling point is cosmetics and exclusivity. As more of an "incentive" to play the game, dailies could be a subset of another mechanic. For example, if there was an (indefinitely) repeatable quest to increase some node reputation or whatnot, it could have a daily integration to have the first completion add a little more reputation. Of course, numbers are heavily subject to balance, but it's the tiny things that incentivize player involvement and not (forced) player service.
if implemented you can have it be not locked by month at all or days like other games with daily logins(be they gacha or the phone hierarchy of games)
if tasks are a thing have them roll over from the day you begin a subscription or resubscribe..,(thus eliminating part of the greater drag of checklist and dailies, which tend to be just the limited amount of time they have for completion)
as for awards, or gifts/extras.., removing their usually imposed time exclusiveness should also ease most concern and drving factor of The Fear Of Missing Out..,
(could be tied achievements or a timeline if there be tied occurrences)
where the more content or things to do increases players are not locked out for good or a year(seasonal could probably just be available/continueable once you hit one partake in one ongoing season event, so even if completion isnt done that year or the next, -but to avoid interference with current login/events, can be also accessed/conversed else where specifically-)
while adding a tiering system to it, so those who do have time to put in, can, whilst putting in effort which could benifit others/character without going beyond into things that will affect the game..,(example being the basic completion would be everything for the one character played on, another tier up for better quality/gains, while the next two subtiers are for tue basic for account, or better quality/gains for account)
(im sure some would love to not missed event only cosmetics of events of yore..,
My friends and I were always excited to see "Gifts from GMs" when the game launcher started downloading stuffs.
Plus, my suggestion for AoC, the items MUST ONLY be the cosmetics, and they don't have to be permanent.
Ultimately, I think it would be interesting to go back to a time before login rewards and not have to worry about it, but as long as they don’t become an active part of my daily life, I would not mind if they were there.
There can be seasonality in the daily messages. You can even make it so that players can put in submissions for daily messages like a mini creative writing contest, with the winning daily messages being shared globally. I think this is more fun and engaging than the acquisition of “things” just for logging on: What will the omnipresent voices of Verra share with me today?
My final thoughts; subscription based rewards are cool and I wouldn't mind seeing it. Tho I'd like the option for those items or variants of those items to still be available in ember store
Just my two cents..
nothing else...
This is something I've experienced in both GW2 and RS3. Literally logging in for that login/daily reward and not playing.
The thing that these systems always forget, is vacations! Not everyone is going to be available 5-7days out of the week. And when people are on vacations even less so. Most vacation lengths span one whole month when people are given the opportunity.
Since that's not been taking into consideration, I voted no on the poll.
I also feel the fact that you have to consider this means there isn't enough reason for someone to play the game enough as it is. I really think that is terrible for the long term, and sets the tone of your game launch (looking at you BDO). The fact that I clicked the shortcut to log in out of all of the other competitors out there should be enough, and don't forget, you already have the carrot of requiring a subscription to play the game. People are going to try and log in as much as they can because they are paying $15/mo
Regardless of my opinion and the portion of the community's other thread, I feel like you are going to implement it anyways. So here is an alternate solution:
Basicly given away free stuff for login..
if you make a good game steven?! players will login, dont matter if you have login rewards then
If you really want to give players stuff for logging in, stick to seasonal events. They'll have to do something to earn the reward, it won't be forever, it breaks up the monotony (for the players and the developers), and it can come back next year if people miss it.
100% agree with this! In my experience, a lot of my friends didn't enjoy logging in just to get an item they weren't really interested in. Sometimes it can clutter one's inventory. Some don't even pay much mind to them because it either doesn't seem interesting, engaging, or/and important. I'd say seasonal event daily quests would be the best way to have your players be more engaged in the game. Overall this is just my cup of tea, I feel more satisfaction being able to do a quest to earn something I spent time on.
So what if you make the daly login give you a coin and whit that coin you can buy a scrol that cant tel you about the lore behind the game. tel like a story. to find out more about the world. that is not Pay to win. it is not mandetory and it wil reward you whit content and story. i wood like it to be a dailie cwest like a realy short 1 like make an old npc som food.
I'd only be o.k. with it under certain conditions:
The log-in calendar should have half the rewards of the running month (so 15 login-rewards rewards / month). This would allow people with less time on their hands (or who aren't actually home every day) to still complete the month and wouldn't make them feel excluded from this or stressed out about missing a day / few days.
Just make sure, that special rewards like skins and costumes are account bound and not character bound...
Otherwise a full on 30-day reward calendar in a 30-day month would be a big NO for me...as it just creates too much pressure and feels like a cheap way to make people log in.
Another good idea is how AION handled rewards:
Each month you were subscribed in AION you'd get special "prestige" rewards. Those rewards were account wide and available for every character you create for as long as you played the game.
You got, for example, inventory space tokens, different pets (auto loot pets, pvp alarm pets, inventory pets), storage furniture for your house, important endgame currency, wings and mounts, cosmetics, etc.. This was especially nice, since - if you switch characters down the road - you can still allocate all these rewards to the newly created character.
The system would also punish people that are unable to login on a given day.
The system would also punish people that are unable to login on a given day.
I personally will be logging in everyday, but I want to get rewarded/ahead with what I have done ingame not what I received automatically(even if it is just a skin).
No need for any of these, especially not during holidays. Some games tend to release some holiday login rewards, just why?
Game is meant to be a next-gen in an old-school way, then stick to the old-school. People have become way too lazy, soft with all the AFK activities and login rewards and what not in MMOs.
- Make it easy to get to and not an annoying popup, similar to stereotypical eastern games
- Make the cosmetics purely through reward systems, these cosmetics should NEVER include things that require time and effort to gain through gameplay
- Don't make it streak based, it sounds like the current plan is not due to it simply being a token reward each day you log in, where the best reward may be 30 coins.. It's just incredibly demoralizing to feel like you're behind the curve because you missed one day. It's a nono.