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
So that's your baseline as a developer. That's what you're dealing with when making design decisions. And its a big part of the sad state of video games these days. Shallow, hollow, garbage. Movies and television shows too, many of which can easily be summed up as: Shallow, hollow, garbage.
I think Ashes is doing almost everything right to make an actual good game. We'll see how it all pans out once it's done. But conceptually it's looking very good and could be a breath of fresh air from the state of video games as described above.
Nevertheless, Ashes devs still have to TRY to appeal to that market of young gamers that want to teleport instantly everywhere and have dungeon groups placed in a platter in front of them. So how do you do that? Well I don't know exactly.
But if you're going to make some young kid who's used to instant gratification spend ten minutes walking to the dungeon (keeping in mind this is something they're going to do many many times) you better make that walk as interesting as possible. The world needs to be beautiful, alive and engaging. Try to make the walk not seem like a chore for chore's sake, but an adventure. You gotta do something to at least try to rope those people back in. Statistically it's not going to work for everyone. But if you can just do something where a percentage of them say "ya know this isn't actually all that bad," then we get a bigger, healthier game community, and a much better game, whether they realize it or not.
Actually, it's kind of the opposite.
MMO's innovated, but those innovations turned out to be to the detriment of the game and genre, not to the benefit.
Before the genre moves forward, it needs to take a step back.
The line comparing trash to other trash to see which is the least trashy trash is very well said. Most of them have been so horribly dumbed down and/or had all social interaction removed. That you can go make a new toon right now and play 95% of the content and never say anything or interact with anyone is just bad design.
One of the big reasons I came here and don't play any MMO right now. Complete lack of anything resembling fun. If I want to play a single player game I can load FO4 or Cyberpunk.
I truly believe it's the defining characteristic of a good MMO.
Build an identity, find your unique place in a living community, cooperate with/against other communities to leave a lasting impact on the world.
That's what I've been thinking too. If Ashes fail, I'd probably stop trying to find new mmos and just stick with single player games forever.
This type of players have a lot of games for this.
For ONCE a MMORPG will be release without all of this type of features let's not transform it into an ANOTHER WoW/FF14 clone.
During the "release hype" this forum will be flooded of those type of players asking LFG/LFR/TP/P2Fast/No outdoor content etc... I really really hope that Intrepid won't listent to them. They'll be gone in few weeks anyway because that's how they consume MMORPG.
Yeah, @Okeydoke I have to agree with @Andy here. I don't think Ashes should try and cater to a new gamer audience at all. It seems like a recipe for failure just because they have the games they want to play. To do so would be like trying to set up a ice cream stand with only vanilla ice cream in front of a cold stone or something. New gamers want to play fall guys, among us, or what ever is popular that week. They don't have or want the attention span required to play a game for 40 days at 6 hours a day just to reach cap, and start the real game. It is all about what ever is top ten on steam or twitch that week. All catering to them would do is cause them to have to spool up more servers at launch to deal with the flood only to end up in a crisis when they all leave for the next game.
There was a thread a while back about "what do you wish Intrepid would more of" or something. I actually stopped myself from expressing this at the time because I know I can come off as rude at times. I wish Intrepid did try to alienate some MMO players. They know what they are making is not for everyone. They could be putting their foot down a little harder now to prevent a server crisis later. A risk vs reward based game is going to be brutal for some people. Some people are going to get to the point that they are escorting their first caravan. Lose it, and uninstall. I just don't think it is very responsible to try to appeal to young gamers with some of the systems Ashes has. Should anyone be able to try Ashes? Absolutely! Should they know what they are getting into first? Most defiantly. To me that means not trying to appeal to young gamers.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Steven knows what he's game will be and he's not compromising. And I actually admire that. His view could be flawed, yes, but there are people who enjoy those games.
And let's be honest, if the game becomes a thing, people will play it nonetheless, ignoring the fact that it doesn't have a dungeon finder, etc.
We're back to old school gaming, where your words matter, and how you behave. Also forming a party might take time, and longer sessions of playtime. Eventually people will get used to or just quit.
I hope that element of the community get ignored. There's plenty of p2w alternatives out there for them.
I love the idea that if someone is doing better than me it is because they've committed more time or played smarter. Either way, they deserve an amount of respect. I might not like their behavior, but at least they earnt what they have in-game, not through RMT. If they are out-right jerks then they may struggle to get anyone on their server to keep their gear maintained. It feels like a this kind of interdependent community will self regulate.
Back to the TLP video, yes 5/10 for the best of every MMORPG out there feels about right. If AoC only implements a mediocre version of everything they've mentioned so far they will be a 6/10. If they get some polish on all the systems that they've proposed then there's no reason why they couldn't set the new standard by which all MMORPGs are measured.
All I meant was if there were other ways they could rope some of those people back in, that would be great. I want CONVERTS lol. If those kinds of players get reeled back in, maybe they begin to realize what a good game is again. Because we have to face it, WE are the dying breed. We kind of need converts if we want more good games going forward for years to come.
But no, at no time should Intrepid ever begin to bend to those types of players design wishes. They either convert or begone. haha
I appreciate you integrity not deleting your post. I know I can come off as a dick in my responses as well.
You are right, we need converts. I think we can get a lot of converts if people see others having fun with the game. I know I was initially put off by Darkfall which quickly became a favorite of mine. All my friend had to do was show me some ship v ship PvP videos, and I was willing to learn to deal with the fact that your mount can get killed right under you. I think once players can put out videos that accurately depict the game. People will know what they are willing to put up with and convert accordingly.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
For starters, I didn't make those decisions but I don't think instant teleporting was added to MMOs because they wanted to appeal to children. I've played these games for almost 20 years and i saw those features gradually added for convenience reasons without fully understanding how it would affect gameplay.
On the other side of this argument, If we look at the games popular with the younger generation, I don't see this trend.
The most popular game with young kids for the longest time was minecraft. A sandbox game where players are free to explore and build whatever they want. From my perspective, the game doesn't bombard them with instant gratification. It allows them to explore and build whatever they want.
Next to minecraft, you have fortnite and while I'd say it has more action the minecraft, it's still slower than a game like COD. There is plenty of time running across a map and if you get killed, you have to start another game. Only one person or squad can win.
The latest hotness seems to be Among us which I also don't see as being about giving its players instant gratification.
This existed in older MMO's too, there use to be server Team Speak channels or various forums. Sure it wasn't as accessible as discord. Personally I have less of an issue with group finding tools and more of the tools that instantly teleport you across the world.
My first MMO (we are all a little bias with our first game in the genre) was DAoC. It did have a portal system, but it had a bit more unique approach to it. You ended up purchasing a token and a mage NPC came and ported all players on a portal once per minute. It was kind of a nice way to interact with other players as you waited to be ported to various places around the world.
There is a lot of talk here on what makes an MMORPG and for me, it is the world and how a game will encourage you to explore it. A good Open world RPG doesn't go out of it's way to hold your hand the entire way. Vanilla WoW was praised because you had this big open world to explore and you weren't always lead down a linear path. Compare that to current WoW where questing involves a singular path, zones are cramped with stuff always going on and there is very little left to explore or discover.
Instanced content has also become the norm. Some of my favorite parts of DAoC were the dungeons. While you still had to zone into them, they were shared server-wide and many of them were huge. You could solo the upper layers of the dungeons, but if you wanted to travel deeper you needed a group. One of the most beloved dungeons was one that was shared across all 3 factions. PvP occurred there, it had raid bosses, and one could easily get lost in it. For a time, there wasn't a dungeon map that told you your position within it.
For dungeon queues - maybe some sort of noticeboard in the nearest Tavern where you can write your name if you're ready to go, and then clear your name when you're done?
Everyone begged for Spirit of Wolf in EQ. Druids and wizards had group teleport spells, but these were provided by the players, they were services people charged for and many would gladly pay for them.
DAoC had horse routes, you'd pay a NPC and a horse would carry you to the town you bought the ride for. Sometime you needed more than one ride to get where you wanted. Sometime you had to jump off the horse to buy a ride that was only available from a mid destination from your first one.
There were no player mounts in these games though.
The thing with SoW in EQ and EQ2 is that you still needed to know where you were going, and you still needed to pay attention. If you didn't pay attention, you could still quite easily die.
Basically, even with SoW on, you were still actually playing the game. You were travelling faster to your destination, but you were still playing the game while travelling there.
To me, this is what Steven should be doing rather than a family summons.
Sure, you can go on to Discord or what ever to find groups, that's great. The purpose of not having a dungeon finder is not to make groups harder to form - it is to make it so you have to actually decide who to take (and by extention, who to not take).
If there are a half dozen people on your server that you don't want to group with, you simply won't include them in your group when you are forming it - this is true whether you form it in game or on discord.
On the other hand, if you use a dungeon finder, you join a queue, and are then thrown in an instance with how ever many other players makes up a group in the game you happen to be playing at the time. Not only is there no selection of participants on your part, but the people that do join your group are likely not even from the same server as you.
The thing that you are missing though, the thing that makes your post seem competely niave, is the fact that the goal of these systems is not for players to continue to form groups or raids in chat channels, or on discord. The idea is that people will form groups made up exclusively of players they have grouped with or raided with before.
This is how MMO's used to be - and it is how they should be again. This is the step MMO's need to take back before they can take any further steps forward.
I don't think you read or understood parts of the thread. OP was talking about lack of doing anything with new people and wanted all forms of lobbies removed. You are talking about not wanting to do things with (some) new people at all. Its wierd how two completly opposing views are both say removing "lobbies" will fix it.
Well it would wierd except both of you are using the term and talking about different things.
OP and I were both talking about features in ff14, you on the other hand sound like you are talking about wow. In ff14 dungeon finder and party finder are two greatly different things. Dungeon finder is a queue system that pops you into a dungeon with other queued people. Party finder is a function that can be viewed globally to see people doing X and you can join them, and then the party leader can keep you or remove you before you do the content.
My post only referenced party finder, a way to find people doing stuff your interested in outside of a guild. I didn't talk about a dungeon finder in my post and don't give a damn about it. But I'll reiterate my views, this game needs a way to find other people to do stuff outside of 3rd party websites/discord being the only way to find like-minded players.
I totally agree with you on that. The only thing close to Fast Travel were the Crags you HAD to find in certain zones, if you wanted to get to a certain region asap without running on foot, chocobo, or airship(or all the above period). And even then, you'd NEED to have a WHM with the spell to teleport you to that Crag; which, in most cases costed a good amount of gil(oh Jueno, how I miss you lol). It really made the game feel more...alive immersive, since you needed to communicate with people in order to really get anywhere and progress. I do admit that Fast Travel is a great quality of life feature for MMOs, but if you can just go anywhere at anytime, it kind of kills the point of an well crafted MMO world.
One of the reasons I enjoyed FFXI over FFXIV, personally. MMOs have just fallen into that excuse of, "Well, people just don't have a lot of time these days, so we try to make things quicker for them." Okay, I can understand that notion, but if they don't have time to play an MMO; I'm sorry, tough luck. Why play an MMO at all, when you can only take out 1 hour of your busy day; when MMOs have ALWAYS, for the most part, been extremely time consuming games that required a huge amount of commitment in order to progress. I don't wanna sound like some "hardcore" gamer or elitest, but catering to the casual crowed has honestly ruined modern MMOs, in my opinion; there's no longer that great feeling of accomplishment of grind for a Legendary weapon drop for a good month, now that anyone can get a weapon just as good as said Legendary by buying it at a Special Currency Shop.
Personally, Modern MMOs always feel like when you're in a competition, and you lose, but still get a trophy for participation. It just undermines all the hard work the person in first place has done, and makes it so everyone is a winner in the end. As my brother and I, who used to play FFXIV consistently, have said, "this game is just WoW with a FF skin over it". It doesn't even play out as an RPG, since decking out your stats really don't matter, and trying to play a class a certain way that feeds into your own playstyle, is punishing; players have little to no agency on how they wish to play the game at all, the only thing they DO have agency over is playing dress up. There's no point in Diety signs, elemental stats, or even your Relic Weapon you grind for. It's only successful because of the casual fanbase; and not saying that's bad or anything, but it really just ruined the overall game for me, which is why I've left it, regardless of how "good" it's story is.
Sorry for the rant, but just thinking of FFXIV always makes me rage a bit. I hate how the players believe FFXIV is a masterpiece of an MMO; it's not. It only succeeds because of the IP, as well as all the fanservice the game has in it, as well as collaborations with other IPs. The gameplay is flashy, so that keeps people's attention long enough not to notice how dull the combat feels, or how barebones a lot of their classes are too. If they didn't have consistent content drops like, every 2 months, and an expansion every 1-2 years; the game would be empty most of the time.
This is exactly why I'm excited for this game; tired of PvP focused MMOs, or the themepark orientated causal MMOs. I want a MMO that really makes the player feel like they're in control of their OWN adventure and actually impact the world they're in. FFXIV doesn't even feel ALIVE for the most part; there's no reason to revisit zone, the world isn't impacted the players, but obviously the developers; which sucks, because I remember that 1.0 had events that would have Fast Travel points taken over so players couldn't use it until it was liberated(kind of like GW2). Ironically, FFXI did something like that, with the Campaign feature, which in a way was kind of a competitive PvEvP experience to control other regions, which in turn lowered taxes at shops and Auction houses(I think); nothing crazy, but it was cool back then in the early 2000s for an MMO, I'd say.
I don't see the topic of in-game tools as being directly related to the server-lobby state we see with modern MMOs, but here are my thoughts on in-game tools.
I can personally speak group finding tools in FFXIV and WOW. Even in FFXIV there are things like the Discord ("Primal Raid Community") shout out to them for all the good work they do. WOW has similar Discords. These discords are used to accomplish things that the game already provides, but Discord always ends up being a more powerful and effective tool.
I have a few theories as to why Discord is better than any in-game tools for group forming I have encountered.
1: Most people keep discord up whilst they are not even in the game, and will tab over the the group finding channel to see if there is a group worth logging on to join when they are doing other things.
2: Discords voice chat and channel system is and always will be superior to anything a MMO creates as a side project. It is just a matter that Discord is hyper-specialized in providing robust communication tools.
3: Discord works cross games. If you friend people on discord when you have had a good pug. You might see them down the line in another game you are playing, and pug with them again.
4: Discord has become a expectation. Even if the game has built in voice. Most guilds in most games will still use discord.
5: Game servers are less reliable than Discord. Every single MMO has less uptime than discord. You can get DCed from the game and still maintain full voice chat with your party. This is big.
I am not under the illusion that we can go back to a more primitive time where in order to meet people in game you had to shout in town or go to the entrance of the dungeon, and whisper random people asking if that have a free slot in their party. I also don't think that in-game tools are worth developing with discord present.
A few patches ago FFXIV implemented a new feature where you could create in-game community with bulletin boards. I think they are called "Fellowships". Just like "Party Finder", Link shells", and "Free Companies". Most of these community's have a corresponding Discord that is used more. Realistically the only people using these in-game tools are luddites. I can't stress enough that I would not have a single problem with in-game party finder tools if I thought people would use them. The only reason people use "Duty finder" or "Random Dungeon Que" is because they from and teleport you to content that is so easy you will take the risk of random party members. For any other content, discord ends up being king. Yes, people will use "Party finder" or "Group Finder", but even then they will link you a discord as soon as you join. Remember WOW also has in-game voice chat. No one uses it.
What I think will keep Ashes from being a server-lobby MMO, and why Ashes is important. Is the focus on keeping the player in the world, and moving about it manually. Quickly forming a group is fine if you still have to meet up and make your way to the dungeon. This is why I said that mythic+ in WOW is a shadow of the old way. You still have to make a group and two people have to get to the dungeon on their own. Which is trivial in WOW. FFXIV, I literally never leave the patch of area between my house in the market board in from of my house. I have zero reason to. Ashes on the other hand, you are going to need to escort caravans to make the most out of your work, and everything in out in a ever changing world.
Again I don't think in-game grouping tools are the devil. I just don't think they are worth developing. Too many people are just going to use Discord. There is some promise in the fact that the world is so big that people might prefer the use the Tavern grouping system, due to the need to form local groups. I am fine with this so long as people need to use the world too.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
You can't create an in game friends list of people you know are worth bringing along to a group if you don't first group with new people. Even when you do have a substantial list of people you enjoy grouping with, you still need to continually add to it to make up for people that leave the game, or that refocus on other activities.
I am talking about the expectation that groups that are organized last minute should be expected to be viable - they should not. They may happen to work out on occasion, but that should not be the expectation.
The problem with a party finder (which is in many, many games) is that people just don't use them. They are no easier to use or more successful than simply looking for people in open chat, and suffer from the same issue of most people being organized enough to already have plans, and so not being willing to join random groups.
Pick up groups should be looked at as a means of meeting new people worth grouping up with in order to do the things you want to do. They should not be looked at as a means of doing the things you want to do.
Other big problem is the endgame pvp/pve is always instanced, so you have a dead world ..
What i loved in mmorpg i don´t have anymore, a thing called Risk/reward, now you are always rewarded you never lose, so in the end every player easily get what they want and consequently leave the game...
The only MMORPG i kinda have the same feeling is Eve, but i m not into spaceships and Albion online, beside being a crapy lowtier mmorpg , have what i like in old mmorpgs, politics, healthy economy, alot of social interaction especially in open world pvp , and is risky as hell...
This is actually a pretty nice system, I am of the mind that any sort of faster travel should be costly if implemented at all.
The unfortunate thing about gaming is unless you force a player to smell the roses they will optimize themselves out of that experience.
Immersion is what is needed. And a good AI for NPC helps drastically with that
One concept on dungeon raids I've bantered about is having dungeons with smart bosses that control the dungeon environment and lead its minions more than just "waiting in the same room at the very end and being killed when players enter its room". This boss may "remember" players who have been to its dungeon before and act accordingly. Escape when the players are getting too close to it and return to the dungeon or another dungeon it makes much later. Make snide comments to players who fail for their tricks.
Can't wait for the quantum servers to come around, cause I think once they do... it will change the face of the MMOs and actually be able to give us good AI and immersion.
agree - go to AoC on reddit and people are just learning and are upset about the quest marker not being there and how it's weird and confusing. EXPECT TONS OF repost spams on this very subject once the NDA is lifted, During Beta and Launch day.
I am an older gamer, I wish I can force everyone to play original Zelda they way I did. We had no internet, no gamefaqs, no instruction. That game was difficult to beat and it was mind blowing hearing a tibdit of info from your friend in School, or managed to learn from it on a magazine 6-7 months later. LIKE WHAT I CAN BLOW UP A TREE TO UNLOCK A CAVE?!
Or send people back into time, the EQ days where you had to type specific key words with the NPC to advance the dialog and get a quest.
People want EZ / Fast mode. They don't want to interact and be social. They want to be a solo player in a MMO world. We can't allow those people to dictate the direction of the game. Go be a voyeurs somewhere else.
This is part of the reason I am on here everyday fighting the good fight. There is type of person that is far too in abundance now a days that want things handed to them. I imagine the perfect game for them is whatever dystopia the humans in that movie wall-e live in. Where they sit back and life takes them from one place to another showing them things and dip feeding them endorphins.
You hit the nail on the head. I am so sick of "Quality of life" "Improvements" ruining games. I honestly wish I had the patience to argue on reddit too, but I know that hivemind would have me shadow banned in a month.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
It never really works trying to tell someone directly that "What you expect is bad."
I'd have to say we are a pretty resilient group.
Ashes and Intrepid have always stood out to me because I've seen the passion and fire over the years and it has not wavered.
Game for fun, not for life
The problem is, MMOs have historically been a rather niche market. I wonder how steady a playerbase Ashes needs to grow and develop post-launch and how big. Nowadays if an MMO doesn't have a million of concurrent players it's considered by many a "failure"
When things are "given" to you, there is no commitment, there is no "YES! I finally did it!", there is no immersion, and catering to the Casual and Solo player push has seriously watered down the MMOs because they need all the fast travel, give-me's and etc in order to play within their slotted time frames. Yes, catering to them will make a company more money for a "short" while, but it will never give them a dedicated player base cause their games are just not-interesting. More like that 1001 Idler games.
However, since there are SOOO many of these types of players, they all have a loud voice in "pushing" their "I want to be able to play by myself cause I just don't have time to be friends so let me be able to do everything in the game" agenda. As long as companies listen to them, they will never produce a great MMO game which by definition is a Multiplayer game.
I've followed AoC for a long time now even though I've just recently bought in (waiting on Alpha) just because I hate buying in too early and seeing the mmo making companies give-in to the solo/casual players.
Thankfully we have several companies producing mmos from passion now and not for money. Gives us hope that a great MMO will finally be made and I trust AoC to be there.