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
They make money from views, this means their opinion is largely based on what they think will get the most views.
Watching streamers to get good opinion or solid fact about an MMO is like getting your news from The Onion.
Oh lol look, more ad hominem
Doesn't seem like I should expect any good arguments from you so this will be my last response to your childishness
It has already been stated that the non cash shop items will be equitable to the cash shop items in terms of appearance. And in some cases, non cash shop items may look even better, in regards to legendaries.
Pretty much this
Can't please all of the people all of the time.
Sadly I don't see this changing in the gaming world anytime soon
Thats my belief as well. In a day and age with pay to win and loot boxes I'm just happy with skins I can buy
Sure, that's the honorable way out, @Orym ... but without a cash shop how do you propose Ashes fund itself for future expansions and content (without having a box cost)?
I'm hoping you don't say "just the monthly sub" like the OP is suggesting. That isn't good logic.
As long as they don't start selling inventory expansions and other pay to win/pay for convenience bullshit, I will gladly take a cosmetic cash shop.
Someone you otter know.
These are your feelings; Value is relative, and other players value other things. Yours truly personally feels that it's great that we can customize our appearances with cash shop items.
This isn't disappointing, to me, since a lot of games just monetize the hell out of the ENTIRE GAME; The more income AoC can have without completely monetizing the game, the BETTER!
If you want other players to see what mount you're actually riding, why not turn off the appearance one? Did someone tell you that if you bought an appearance mount skin that it was mandatory to always use it?
I missed your gifs ^^
or any other type of visual information.
On characters the easiest and most used way to circumvent this issue is by providing important information that could be visually acquired, through other means such icons below the character target: Character level, Character Class, Type of weapon and Type of Armor, Tier of weapon and Tier of armor.
In the case of Mounts, if the only difference between 2 different mounts of the same tier was visual, then yes i would agree that skin/cosmetic mounts would probably straight up kill the animal husbandry profession.
But mounts will have varied speeds and most likely different resistances, defensive abilities, skills, charge abilities, and attacks as can be found in the wiki. And there is also Combat Pets.
So we can assume each species of mounts will have its peculiarities in those differences and hybrids created through animal husbandry will have combinations of those differences of the species.
If a icon referent to the species(or combination of species) of the mounts is provided for you to have an alternative way to know what is under the skin/costume, i will not find mounts skins/costumes a problem and believe it will not be a problem for animal husbandry profession at all.
Aren't we all sinners?
Threat assessment: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvP#Threat_assessment
Players will have a buff on their nameplate that indicates the gear set they are wearing. Other players will be able to see this buff by targeting that player at a distance.
When you see a player approaching you and they're wearing a transmog you know you don't know if that person is a high damage mitigation against physical damage or against magical damage and essentially the way we overcome that is through you being able to target a player at a distance and they will have a buff that's present on them that you will see, which indicates that essentially the piece set that they are wearing. It is important for players to be able to ascertain from a threat assessment standpoint you know what they're going up against if they're actively checking that and that will be available.– Steven Sharif
Being by default able to see a person's "gear score" / equipment list... may cause unwelcome behavior.
I took the time to read through it, and have not seen any points on the anti-cash shop side that have moved me. With 70 new posts in this thread since the last time I looked at it I was hoping to see something new and exciting on the anti-cash shop side of the argument. Sadly it is the same points I have seen over the years.
It has not been mentioned in this thread, but I think part of the problem is that people listen to people like Asmongold or Jimquisition, and lose the ability to think for themselves. I am not saying that anti-cash shop person on this forum can't think for themselves, but I am saying I have heard all of these arguments from Asmongold and Jimquisition in the past. I feel like with the amount of energy people put into debating this topic we would have more good ideas of why cash shops are bad beyond greed, immersion, and reward systems.
So far greed has not been shown by intrepid. When it is shown I will call it for what it is.
Immersion as a priority is extremely debatable. I base this on what the DEVs have shown us not what they have said. Every chance they get we see something that is more epic than realistic. I feel like the game will be extremely high fantasy by the time we see release. Which is fine. That is what they seem to want.
Visual rewards have been addressed by the DEVs. They say endgame earnable will look better than cash shop cosmetics. Also the cash shop cosmetics are not dyable or mixable, making them worst in every way IMO. FFXIV has pulled this off. Look at Ultimate weapons for an example.
I just want to see some stronger arguments come for the anti-shop side.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Yep i know Ashes's threat assessment for players, the thing is we still don't know if we will have this type of information for mounts, as skins may deny your opponent visual information of your type/species of mount.
Aren't we all sinners?
As per the currently confirmed information, that is factually incorrect. As I have stated in a previous post:
You can't for instance put a corgi skin on a non dog base mount. You can't use a glowy spacey turtle skin, on a non turtle mount etc.
To take the Emu example: most of the cosmetic flavor will be in the look of said Emu. For instance, it may be red or yellow instead of its natural base color.
You don't have to worry about someone applying the skin of something completely unrelated to the base mount.
This way you will always know what type of mount they have, and whether it's a regular mount or a pack mule etc. The aesthetics might be slightly different and the saddles more ornate etc, but the creature type and species will remain unchanged.
Skins are only be able to be applied to things that have already been earned, crafted or found within Ashes of Creation.
Mount skins require a specific type of mount to have been achieved in-game.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Skins
They reference this:
Oh quite interesting information, i thought the skin mounts restrictions would only be Tier Based(T1 ground, T2 gliding and T3 Flying) and not Species Based(Except aquatic), as species wasn't cited.
Taking in consideration this generalizing example on the mounts section of the wiki:
For example, the Ramstrider skin will only be applicable to the class of land mounts (tier 1), and the Nighthunter Gryphon skin is only applicable to the class of royal mounts (tier 3).
and this reference:
Aren't we all sinners?
Certainly seems like a bit of a conflicting information. Seeing as though the video I linked is from a more recent stream, should we assume that's the one with the more accurate information?
Maybe? Possible?
But his phrase in the video reference you linked is quite vague:
"Mount skins do require yes there to be specific type of mount achieved"
Its unsure if he is refering to the type of tiers(T1 ground, T2 gliding and T3 Flying or aquatic) like on previous references or to type of species.
Aren't we all sinners?
Then you are out of luck. No variants/reskin/recolor of the pack cosmetics/costumes can be found as achievable itwm in game
@Hellfar
Please read the rest of the thread
We've reached the point where new people are coming in and not reading through the responses and are the rehashing points and arguments already made and followed through
Let me ask you, are you pro shop or just pro intrepid revenue (more supposed funds for development)?
Or are you just anti-anti-shop ?
Going off of what Asmongold said in the video, you have to judge the cash shop stuff based off of its effect on the game. In WoW, the cash shop 1) is unnecessary monetization as they also have a box-cost and a subscription and 2) makes the game worse because it devalues in-game achievable cosmetics.
AoC will not utilize a box-cost, so the monetization is more understandable. They've also said multiple times that the in-game achievable stuff will be just as good, if not better than the cash-shop appearances, though we have yet to see if that's true.
WoW is not AoC. while the cash shop is strictly bad in WoW, it will likely be different in AoC. Honestly, I trust steven & co to keep it at a good level.
You're just rehashing arguments we already went over by not reading through the thread
I hope lots of people buy from the shop so IS has more funds to create content with.
Welcome to what people that have been here for a while see in literally every thread - this one included.
I am pro creator freedom.
To me the funds don't just go to development. They are there so when Microsoft shows up on Intrepid's doorstep offering $2.5 billion(Minecraft). Steven can afford to slam the door in Microsoft's face. That decision seems like it would be harder to make in worn out sandals vs gold plated sandals.
Because I don't like to deal in absolutes. Who is running the cash shop and how they are doing it is important to me. Which is why I mostly approve of POE and Ashes cash shops whilst denouncing things like Genshin Impact or ArcheAge. WOW and FFXIV walk a fine line.
Would I pay a $30 a month sub to have a game with no cash shop? Yes, I would pay up to 50$ a month. Would the amount of other people required to also do that pay the same? I highly doubt it. Cash shops are here to stay. Cosmetic only is unfortunately our best case scenario. I could go on talking about inflation and why that 15$ sub fee does not make as much since in 2021 as it did in the early 00s. I have said it all before in other threads like this. I just want Intrepid to be able to afford to stay in control of their own creation. Low profits have ruined a lot of games for me.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Right, so you're not pro-shop
In an ideal scenario where none of that was an issue, would you prefer the game with or without a cosmetic shop?
I ask this because Steven has talked about how there are players who want the cash shop and to buy skins and that's one of the major reasons he is implementing it.