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
I can see daily login rewards working for F2P games to keep their community engaged, but since this is subscription-based (which is expected to provide higher value than F2P's), it just doesn't fit the model. Rather, it lowers the value of a subscription-based model.
Psychologically, the majority of players will view a daily login reward in a subscription-based game more as a chore rather than a perk, usually regardless of the reward. That's just the way our brain works, and like others have stated, is probably why it exists in other games today. Just look at daily quests in WoW, and how it's player-base responds to them.
A company that gives back to the player for supporting the game (via subscription) will bring a good feeling (nice warm fuzzy) to the player, knowing that said company appreciates the player's time supporting the game.
I think this would help build that player-to-studio relationship we all crave. We all want to immerse ourselves in a world created by passionate developers, and we want to express our support for those developers providing us a great experience. If the player sees that the studio acknowledges this and gives back to their community in return, I think this will lead to a healthy, passionate community.
I would like a monthly "to-do-list". For example 20 tasks you have to do, like dailys, and after completion you get the item. This way every person can decide for themselves when and how fast they do the tasks. I think that would be fair for hardcore and casual players. Only difference is that some people would get the item at the first day and some later.
It seems we'll have plenty of things to do in matter of character progress, city progress or religion stuff and even in cosmetic with lots of things to do with our houses. Adding daily chores on top of those will probably overwhelm us. I would only suggest there should be more than one reward option that we can choose if we'd take daily login reward path. And 30 seems a bit much but if we could do some stupid stuffs like idk scare an NPC or such, which gives same coin reward on weekends and maybe even sometimes with group requirement; I think that could turn into a fun activity. Monthly reward or gift options could cycle so everyone could have something unique of their choose for a while. Collector playes could try to build up extra coins to buy 2 of the options at one point.
I'm suggesting cycling reward options because I believe it won't cause any pressure. You couldn't reach 30 coins for first month? So be it. Next month you don't have to gather that much and maybe for a few more months and you will be able to get those and you will be able to catch up that gift you have missed.
This system could go even further and in time we could see some cosmetic rewards that requires something like 40 coins or 100 coins. People could choose to save their coins if they have something they like very much (if we'd have on that time) in schedule for the next month or so.
Some cool rewards should be easily reachable in game. There are times and times more casual players than hardcore players in any game. And it seems Steven's idea is about letting people have something just for being casual and it's nice. It would be something to get excited about.
PS: I am completely against that this turns into subscription status reward. That's a payment reward. It has nothing to do with playing and engaging the game or community. That's a reward type comes after credit card, not after being in the Verra.
however, the game DOES have a sub fee and I think a system for rewarding players after x amount of subs is alright FFXIV has a system like that. what they do is give you certain exclusive pets or mounts after you've been subscribed to the game a certain number of days, and it doesn't need to be in a row either, I left the game for 4 years and then re-subbed later and got my reward so if there HAS to be a system I would much prefer it be based on subscriptions rather than login bonuses. but overall I would rather the game just be the game and I log in because I want to have fun.
I think rewards should always be powered by in game content and if your content is engaging with differing levels of time commitment for different types of players then there really is no reason for free login rewards.
I got my 330 day veteran reward years ago. I would say if AOC was to use this version of the system, and have only cosmetic outfits as the rewards. Every six months of sub time would be a fair implementation.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Login rewards, even though only cosmetics, is a benefit gained by non gameplay related activities. It is like extra in-game shop where you pay with your time schedule. Majority of playerbase agree that cosmetics non-p2w in-game shops are necessary evil to add extra profit, but login rewards does no good neither to player nor company - so just "why"?
Don't ruin this epic adventure with neediness.
It goes completely against all the mindset ive been told about this game.
A reward for logging in 30 out of 30 days does seem a little excessive though. If you miss one day then you don't receive a reward? It seems to me that many people would treat this as a task. The mental load of ensuring that they don't miss a single day out of the month might be somewhat annoying.
In general, I like low risk login rewards. I think they are a fun way for devs to say "thank you for playing." I liked when GW2 would give a small sandwich or token daily to boost xp or stats for an hour. I thought that was a great way to reward daily and casual play. If I'm a casual player with only an hour to play, that hour counts more. In general, I hate daily quests and limited time login rewards. I think they detract from the overall game, and either push casual players away, or force them to choose between the real game and the daily quest game. For some people with limited time to play, adding this feature will not be a gift but a burden. Others have already mentioned being sick, taking vacation, even wildfires in CA (we have hurricanes on the east coast) as reasons to scale the cosmetic coins back from 30 per item to 15 or 20. I'd like to give a personal example: my wife is a very casual player, but she likes to collect mini pets. When we went on vacation I had to entice my best friend to visit our apartment to sign in for her daily mini because the game unveiled her all time favorite right before we went on vacation, and the daily reward was only available while we were gone.
To Steven's comments, I like the idea of cosmetic coins, but I don't think the trade in value should be 30/30. Others have proposed similar ideas but with casual players specifically in mind, I would introduce a rolling cosmetic coin catalogue, and reward players just for logging in. Something like every month a new cosmetic is added to the catalogue, there are some number of cosmetics in the catalogue from previous months, and each cosmetic costs 15-20 cosmetic coins.
The reason is real life. Anything can happen to prevent me from logging in. If my goal is related to logging in then my goal will be destroyed without my consent. I prefer goals that can be shunned and re-taken on a whim, not a streamlined, time framed set of circumstances beyond my control.
I can appreciate some in-game parameters will be streamlined and possibly time framed, but, I would be able to partake in these instances when I have the time, rather than at a pre-determined disposition.
And I would like to remind you that Squenix and Yoshida's studio are so lazy that they wouldn't even make blue mage an actual class, so it's no wonder they stopped using vet rewards. Plus all of the outfits from it have been from Main Characters in the series and the series itself doesn't have that many, Ashes doesn't have that problem.
Login rewards are not for the hardcore gamers like most of us that will already be rewarded by the gameplay and achievements earned at the deepest rewards from the content. So, they don't associate value with login rewards. The game must have rewards that work for different groups of people. By providing player choice, tie in back to actual gameplay, and presented as a thank you for playing our game should help alleviate negative responses and promote the heart of the game.
Yes, to login rewards. Here is my suggestion for the implementation. (some ideas already stated by others)
1. A coin, shard, feather shows up in the mail as a thank you note. (Don't break immersion with pop up)
2. 10 coins a month (by going to a 28 day month the year is broken into 13 evenly distributed periods)
3. Login rewards shop keeper to spend on the item you want. (15 items in the shop)
4. Currency can not be embers because it devalues the items purchasable with embers.
5. The shop rewards rotate monthly. (nothing worse than logging in to get an unwanted item to miss the next day's item you wanted. Or, being a day short of something wanted.)
6. Subscriber membership provides 5 coins. This gets you a third of the items without a login.
7. Unused coins stack/transferable to future months not to other players
8. Anniversary thank you note with an in-game cosmetic trophy
9. Generic trophy created by in-game crafters to apply the cosmetic
9. Catch up weekends with 3x coins
10. Login shop cosmetics' blueprints are researchable by scholars after two months.
11. If there are auras or pixels around the PC that are limited to the rewards shop then the divine nodes can provide them.
12. If toys or the such allow blueprints and crafters
Thank you for the great work the team is doing.
-SpireMetro/DorinLive
P.S. By going to 28 day months and keeping an annual subscription of 12 months allows Intrepid to provide one month for free to all players making it easier to get new players into the game without taking away from paying subscribers. Or, presented as the 1st month of subscription gets you two months of gameplay.
When you buy a coke, they reward you by ensuring their product is exactly what you expect it to be, and is generally both cold and refreshing. They don't reward you for taking the bottle to the checkout.
When you buy an iMac, they reward you with a machine that mostly does as the box says, and has styling that means everyone will know that you do indeed have an Apple product. They don[t reward you for looking at Apple products over other brands.
These three companies have - without a doubt - the three most successful marketing strategies of the last 100 years (which is to say - ever). None of them offer anything remotely resembling login rewards, and as such it seems foolish to suggest that there is a marketing angle by which to want login rewards.
What each of these companies do to "thank" people for purchasing their products, is they work to ensure the product itself is exactly as the customer expects and wants it to be.
That is what Intrepid should be doing.
I was struggling to put to words what I thought was wrong with that take as well, but I think you explained it well. I've studied marketing, but years back, and I just know in my gut that daily login rewards are completely wrong for this game, from a marketing point of view. And because of other reasons I have already written about as well.
However, if you do want to have such a system at all, it shouldn't JUST be from logging in, imo you should get a cosmetic coin if you login and for doing piece of content from the game BOTH. That way it feels rewarding and even if you play casually you'll eventually do things/play enough to get the coins. Maybe lower the amount of coins to like half and then have it be rewarded like I mentioned earlier.
Even if it is just a cosmetic you can still feel the jealousy of "Well shit he has that cool cape and i don't because i forgot to log in that day" I think a login reward system could work but only if the costumes or items are available in another way too.
The system would need to be something that actually rewards you for being online and not punish you for missing a day or so. What i can see happening is that the cosmetics will need coins to be brought but lets say you miss a few days, you can still obtain that item through crafting with additional materials that you can get in the game itself.
So for example a nice robe is available for 18 coins for an entire month. At the end of the month you notice that you only got 15 coins since well you have been busy moving to a different house and you didn't had much time. When you look in the cosmetic shop you can see that the item is still available but you will need some ingredients from a Dungeon and some additional gathering items that can be found in the forest.
After a day or so of work you can still craft the cosmetic and you are able to still get the item, even though you didn't have enough coins.
Having said all of that i still think login rewards are a bad idea. I mean do you get free goodies when walking through a store or when showing up for work? No not really. It might be a good incentive to keep people logging in but in the end you only force people to do things that eventually they don't like.
I think if you have a engaging product you don't need to give a daily 'hit' to your consumer base if you are confident of your entertainment value. I'm confident in AOC to be this product. The Gods have spoken.
However if those coins could be obtained by ingame grinding of some kind and the 1 coin was given out for free for logging in then i'd be definitely ok with that
― Plato
This is what worries me the most...
I really hope not. If they do, it's going to completely kill my hype for the game.
Everyone loves beneficial suprises, not so much detrimental surpises.
Either way, a surprise is a surprise because it is...wait for it.... 'unexpected'
For me though, life is full of ups and downs.
I would find it just as interesting to be confronted by random PvE muggers/assassins, intent on taking goods,
as random PvE messengers that come bearing gifts, from anonymous benefactors.
Even more so, if there is a quest line hidden behind the intentions of the good and the bad.
But that goes back to a 'nothing happens/exists without a reason philosophy'.
If the reason is logging in, as opposed to playing the game,
its kind of like breaking the 4th wall to me.