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 think you misunderstood. My idea was you can only choose the snail pack if you happen to have pre-ordered earlier. Like if I pre-order now I would only be able to choose from this month until launch. Your snail would be safe ^^
You realize that that literally is the same thing that this post is talking about? You feeling special because no one else can acquire that mount after that month is wholly emotional manipulation.... Where as for me the only reason I want anything is to personally have it. I want it for me and me alone. I don't care if there are 5 other people that have it or 50,000. I just want it for me to have for me to look at when I want to look at it.
Otherwise, that idea would have been fine be my when they started this whole thing. It is just a little too late for it now.
@Heruwolf Were just going to have to agree that we disagree on the importance of cosmetics. What is tricky about ashes is that a lot of use see the game we want, and we don't all want the same thing. I want the best of the four games under the inspirations section of that design pillars link. Others want more story and lore focused stuff. I hope we all get enough of what we want to be satisfied.
I don't feel emotionally manipulated about the back tattoo. When I notice it my reaction is to always make them tell me a story from 1.0. A joyous experience for all involved. I would say I am a little sad I missed out on 1.0, but that is not true because there were just better games to play when 1.0 was live.
I used the Celestial Steed mount from WOW as an example for this before. That thing was never special because day one there were tons of them flying around Dalaran. Those Card game mounts in WOW though... Yes you can "technically" still get them, but that is a pie in the sky expectation. When you see a TCG mount in WOW it is special. To be honest I am happy to just see it in game. I would not feel that way if I could easily obtain one. Same with the Black Qiraji War Tank. I have seen one in game. Just seeing it was special for me.
These monthly mounts will be that way. People will say "Whoa! look at that thing go!", and I will slither/galop by majestically.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I fully agree and have been worried about this for over a year with these monthly cosmetics. I stated in another thread recently that I think the studio needs to slow the heck down with cosmetics because I don’t see it as a good thing to have hundreds of cosmetics.
I do want a lot to choose from don’t get me wrong. I also will be glad to see new options hit the cash shop every once in a while. But understand, once you reach a certain point, even exclusive cosmetics lose value because eventually everyone can feel special and exclusive, just with everyone in a different exclusive outfit.
Too many outfits, pet designs, house designs, etc. especially so many that are limited time exclusive before the game even launches (what are we at like 20 exclusive outfits so far?) and by the time the game launches another 24 or so outfits, pet skins, mount skins, etc will have to be thought up, drawn up and made unique or original in some way and actually put into the game on top of the stuff available to all players in the game, and on top of having even more skins/looks for your racial variances on some items?
I don’t see it as sustainable. Especially when these several dozen exclusives will be unable to be replicated or even closely resembled.
If the only value of a cosmetic to you is how many other people have that same cosmetic and whether or not it's still acquirable, then this system works perfectly for you. However, I, myself only care about one thing when it comes to cosmetics, and that's whether or not I have them. The entire damn player base could have it and as long as I have it, I'm happy, assuming I wanted it in the first place.
It works against me just as much it works for me. As far as I am concerned this thing is a god:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Arctic_Prowler
My ass will never see the backside of that thing. That is fine to me. I know that someone out there is very happy to have that thing. I just want to see someone ride it.
@Cypher described a dystopia: "But understand, once you reach a certain point, even exclusive cosmetics lose value because eventually everyone can feel special and exclusive, just with everyone in a different exclusive outfit."
Sounds like a Utopia to me. With a high amount of these cosmetic rewards, more people can find the thing that they think is amazing, and they can enjoy the fact that not everyone will have it. Just keep your eyes out.
I get that we disagree here, but I don't think the reward system is going to change between now, and launch. To be completely honest I would like to see it go on for the life of the game. I can enjoy the fact that someone else has something I will never have. I don't think I will ever own a lambo, but when I see one. I think "That is sweet, god speed, how many computer parts could I buy for the cost of that thing, ect"
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I personally feel that we should expect more from the companies that make our games, because the industry as a whole has become horribly predatory. And frankly, while I think Intrepid is largely on the lesser end of that predatory scale, I don't believe they are innocent. The fact that ANYTHING exists in a game that I have to pay monthly for that I can't get in the game is just wrong. I understand time exclusive things like the aforementioned Black Qiraji Battle Tank, but to have to pay for something, and it be limited time. It's just too much imo. We can debate all day about "cosmetics" not providing any kind of in game advantage. However I'd rather debate about whether or not purchasable cosmetics detract from the game by removing potentially interesting content to explore/complete to acquire the cosmetics instead.
Ashes will not have a box cost, so no $60 entry fee to the game to then also have to pay that same subscription, and also no expansion costs down the road as they are all free.
Yet, Intrepid will still incur the same expenses as other MMO companies, staffing, building leases, server access, network costs, etc.
No box cost means Intrepid are losing at least $30 per player per year, and they need to make that back somehow. They are unlikely to get that back from the majority of players in the cash shop, which means this predatory action that you claim Intrepid are taking is actually going to result in most players paying less money for access to the game.
Taking an action that results in making less money seems like specifically not predatory behavior.
Steven is a businessman. There is no way he would make a decision like this if it would make less money. The reality is that cash shops actually make more money. Cash shops rely on whales entirely. There will be someone somewhere that is purchasing every single cosmetic that exists in this game from alpha 0 forward. The fact of the matter is that that whale is paying for us to play the game in exchange for cosmetics. Even then most people tend to spend more on cash shops over the course of a year than one would on a box cost + subscription based game.
WoW a game that solely ran on subscriptions an box costs now has a cash shop, why? Cause they make money. Even FFXIV has a box cost, a sub, and a cash shop. Meanwhile others have just a box cost and a cash shop. While yes, this is probably the only game that will currently be sub based with a cash shop, I would still rather see box cost and sub ONLY instead of a cash shop. Barrier to entry is better, imo.
No he isn't, he is a real estate investor and a gamer.
He decided on this model because he believes it to be less predatory. Rather than force people to buy the game and then pay a subscription, people need only pay the subscription and can then buy cosmetics if - and only if - they want to.
Right now, I think it may not have been the most well thought out policy. The endless debates about it are proof of that. Maybe if they knew when they where making the policy what they know now, things might be slightly different. At this point the ship seems to be on a fixed course with cosmetics.
All of their business practices so far seem reasonable. You are right about the games industry as a whole needing to be better. The floor right now is Genshin Impact and the ceiling is Path of Exile(Tabs are P2W BTW). The game industry can do better than that.
@Noaani brought up the 60$ box price. Which is something that always bugged me. Games should be more than 60$. Growing up games cost 60$. AAA games costs 60$ in the 1990s, I mowed a lot of lawns to learn that. With inflation a 1990s 60$ game would be 118$ in 2021. Those 1990s games were way less man hour intensive to make. Part of the reason the games industry has leaned so heavily into microtransactions is to try and make back that extra money they are not getting from inflation, and to make up for the massive amount of man hours it takes to make games now. I don't like microtransactions, but I understand it.
In the case of AOC, just having a game that is 100% playable with only a 15$ sub. That is a huge deal. I had to buy TABs in PoE, and that game is the one people seem to think is the "Good" one.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
When he started his own gaming studio business, he became a businessman again. You're going to have a hell of a time trying to justify that one. Although, I know you will do for four or five more pages...
@Vhaeyne I've state a number of times that "emotional marketing" (since I can't use the other term w/o a 5 post debate) is that FOMO and marketing doesn't have to be intentionally malicious.
There's primarily two sources of value from these cosmetics. People like customization and their artificial scarcity.
You've said a couple of times that what you value most is not the looks, but that yours is unique in that very few people will have it. That's FOMO...that's what this entire thread is about. People deriving value from pixels that can only be achieved on a specific month years before the game is even remotely ready to launch.
Malicious intent is wholly irrelevant to that fact. Intrepid could be overflowing w/ well meaning saints, doesn't change the fact that the current iteration of the store yanks on the FOMO cord. You cannot have limited time items w/o having others experience FOMO...you just can't. Note: That doesn't mean I'm against limited time items, just that you can't have one w/o the other.
As I've repeatedly stated though that's not inherently bad. FOMO isn't necessarily evil but it needs to be balanced out. Steven knows cosmetics are important to a lot of players, it took up like 20 minutes of his interview w/ Asmongold. People will play this game to dress up their pixel barbie...just b/c you don't value it doesn't mean that value doesn't exists. For every "It's all optional wait until launch" quote we have of Steven there's a "I know cosmetics and flexing on others is important to players."
So knowing people inherently value these costumes and knowing that people value exclusivity Intrepid's job is to balance that out where the most amount of people are comfortable w/ it. Perhaps not happy, but comfortable and I do think the scale is a little heavy on the wrong end.
In my opinion, owning a business does not in itself qualify someone to be called a "business man", and definitely doesn't inherently mean that others should assume any degree of business acumen.
I'm not saying he doesn't have a degree of business acumen, as he clearly has enough to appoint a COO rather than doing that himself.
Didn't want to wait 4 or 5 pages, not this time.
I dunno, having earned that much money by his age, just through his own business acumen, I'm totally ok with calling him a businessman.
Fair enough,
I am very comfortable with the system as it is now. Personally I would prefer no cosmetics, and everything is earned in game. Since no one wants to go back to MMOs being like that. I will take having the things that are sold, be at least somewhat exclusive.
The amount of related threads is proof that not everyone is happy with the monthly cosmetics. I do wonder how many upset threads there would be if they changed their mind about the policy? It is hard to know if we are dealing with a vocal minority or not.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I agree w/ you. I don't think exclusivity on it's own is bad and whereas I try really hard not to blindly agree w/ things just b/c there's a lot of post, I do see that a lot of complaints about the store boil down to pretty much the same three points:
Until we're further into development the only thing of tangible value right now is the exclusivity. Which I can see why people would think that's an odd thing to sell in a game that's still years out from launch. Add to that (somewhat frequent) miscommunications like many people thinking "comparable" equated to similar models and many likely held off on purchasing anything when otherwise they would have.
Whereas these threads might just be a loud minority, I do think there's a pillar of long term fans that find it difficult to be objective when it comes to criticism against Intrepid. If this was EA, Ubisoft, or Blizzard far less people would argue w/ calling the store a cash grab.
Again, and I can't stress this enough, it doesn't mean there's inherent malice from Intrepid and it says a bit about Steven being able to build a business...but currently the store is the most well designed and polished aspect of the entire project and I can't fault people for having warning bells go off everytime they see it. Not after what the last decade of gaming has done w/ microtransactions.
YOU define this as a 'FOMO' strategy. Perhaps the other side of the coin is that if it isn't limited, why should I buy it now, instead of 4 years from now?
I don't fear missing out, since they've let us know that similar variants will be available in-game via normal, non-cash shop-related means. Just because I can't get a specific color or texture on something because it is no longer available for purchase won't create in my soul a hole that can never be filled - and I just can't relate to anyone for whom this will.
Sure, we can call this a "you" problem in general. But by definition this is emotional marketing through fear of missing out on these items. The largest problem I have is that as @Maezriel stated the shop has so far been in every stage of development. Intrepid is literally selling in game items for a game that is years from release and that may not ever release. This game may flop on day 1, or implode 3 months after launch. My problem here is the same problem I had with Ark: Survival Evolved selling a DLC before they even left Early Access. It's scummy, there's no way around that. You want to give kick starters something special? Awesome. You want to give different pre-order level packages that have cosmetics with them and access to different testing phases? Amazing. However, it's not JUST that. It's that plus, "Oh, here's more cosmetics that are limited, feel free to buy them if you like them, but you can only do that if you've bought others in the past." I do not think that Intrepid is being malicious. I do think however that with Steven being new to the gaming industry as a dev he picked what he thought to be the least predatory, despite there being a perfectly additional valid option of a box cost plus subscription. He can defend it by saying that he doesn't want there to be a high barrier for entry as much as he wants, however, there will always be a barrier to entry within MMO's and money is generally not one of them, it's time. I can't help but agree with @Vhaeyne here that AAA games have added all of these microtransaction gimmicks because they didn't increase their box costs for inflation. If I had to buy Ashes for $120 if it looks good, fits the niche I want, I'd do it on top of paying for the subscription fee.
@Tyranthraxus You can say that you don't fear missing out, but you are one person as is @Vhaeyne. Why is your opinion that you don't fear missing out more valid than ours that do fear missing out?
I really like the idea of a cosmetic store over the regrettably lucrative lootbox/gacha/P2W options.
You’re being intentionally dense. Selling a service per-month that gets constant upkeep is far different than selling a “Only this month! Get it now or miss out! Limited time!” offer.
You cannot be honest if you try to insist that both are being sold at face value. FOMO raises prices past their worth, it raises prices out of fear, its literal purpose is to convince people on the fence to shell out the money they otherwise wouldn’t if it was something they could buy at another time.
There are seminars on taking advantage of human psychology to maximize profits, and FOMO (flavor of the month/fear of missing out) tactics are very high on the list of manipulative practices that are used to increase revenue. It’s not a theory either, Steven publicly said the limited time was to increase sales.
Certainly it isn’t the worst evil, but it’s dishonest to claim it isn’t a manipulative practice.
It's easier to blame the evil corporations for the inability to keep your hands of the cake rather than facing the fact that the lacking self control and psychosis over potentially missing out on something unimportant should be worked on.
Intrepid did say a while ago that people should look at the *supporter* packs as just that, something you buy to support Intrepid. They have said a few times that this should be your primary reason for buying a supporter pack.
An argument absolutely could be made about them continuing to introduce new cosmetics when the idea was to support them rather than get cosmetics, as could one be made about them not highlighting the above point on the shop itself, but as far as I am concerned, those two things are literally the only scope for complaining that we have.
When you look at those two points, and contrast them to other games, complaining about them does seem quite petty.
Bruh these tactics were designed to get people to buy things when they otherwise wouldn’t, for prices higher than they would if it wasn’t limited. Steven himself said that is why he went with limited time sales, to increase the likelihood that people would buy them. It’s not some conspiracy, it is literally the purpose of these marketing decisions.
It was them that said that anything a company does that manipulates (ie, alters) anyones emotions is emotional manipulation. Since want is an emotion (desire), that means any company that creates any product that people want is - by their definition - emotionally manipulating people.
It wasn't me being dense, it was me pointing out the arguments others in this thread were making.
And for the record, I totally agree that it is a stupid argument, which is why I wasn't making it.
There is absolutely scope for emotional marketing. I am not debating this. It is a thing, it's fine.
However, emotional manipulation is also a thing. If you google emotional advertising, you will get information on it, examples of it, why companies do it, etc. If you google emotional manipulation, you will get information on how to spot if you or a loved one are in a relationship that is emotionally manipulative.
As terms, these two SHOULD NEVER BE CONFUSED. Emotional manipulation is a thing. It is it's own thing. It is a bad thing. There are ways of manipulating emotions that are positive, or that are morally neutral, and these should never be confused with the term emotional manipulation.
This is how if you are sitting in your living room watching Netflix with the AC on, you probably shouldn't call that "Netflix and Chill", even though that is literally exactly what you are doing.
@Caeryl feel free to post a clip of Steven saying that.
Because everything i heard from him since 2017 was tge exact opposite
Around the 1 hour mark.
https://sleeknote.com/blog/fomo-marketing
FOMO works on everyone. Not for the same things of course, or sub-tactics, but trying brush it off as a poor people's excuse is... a nice term would be "extremely wrong and misguided".
Edit: When I said "everyone", I meant with somewhat normal mental health. There are probably some mental disorders out there that resist FOMO. Maybe psychopathy? I don't think psychopaths feel fear the same way.
Without a game, cosmetics have no value. If the game was out, you would be able to use the cosmetic as soon as you buy it but since it's not, there is no reason to buy cosmetics.
If you believe ALL FOMO marketing is bad then is kickstarter and all crowdfunding sites that give rewards to backers bad? What about steam sales? Temporary sales are FOMO marketing, do you think all temporary sales are bad. What about limited time events in games that have limited time rewards? That's technically FOMO, are all of those bad?
Is it wrong for them to reward players for taking a risk and supporting their development before they have finished it?
My take:
This is definitely not a black and white issue. There are gray areas and nuance and degrees to this. Temporary or seasonal sales aren't bad IMO, because they work on price rather than availability of the product. I wish that's how they decided to do the cash shop instead. Big sale the month the new cosmetics are released, and then normal price after that. They can't do that retroactively, sure, but going forward they can do whatever they want pretty much.
For limited time goods it depends, are they recurring or one-off things? How often do these time limited offers occur? Can the items be traded after the fact, like they can in real life?
A game with a recurring winter event might have cosmetics exclusive to that event. If people miss out, they'll have to wait a year to access them again. I personally have no problem with that.
If the winter event has exclusives that people can only get that year, and next year they have different exclusive cosmetics, I like it a lot less. The only mitigating factor is if it's just one event that year, and not a constant thing.
I am still only talking about the cash shop here. If the items are exclusive to an achievement tied to an ingame event, where the players had to complete said event, I feel differently about this. It's more ok to have exclusive stuff earned through ingame means in seasonal events, I think.
What the current cash shop is doing is non-stop, back-to-back, one-time only, non-tradable cosmetics, with no way to get variants of the same cosmetics later on in the game. For years. That's a bit much.
But even that wasn't a huge deal for me until Steven proposed adding the same fomo system tied to daily login rewards. People having to log in 30 days a month to be able to get an exclusive, one-time only, non-tradable cosmetic. Every single month for the entirety of the game. That would be disastrous for the game.