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
Like I said.
I would prefer without to an amount of 50$ a month. I am not joking. I would pay that for my own account and any close friend who can't afford it. To me it would be like going to a theme park once a month, but I go like 6 to 8 hours a day. Easy decision, why would I not bring a friend if they were in need.
I understand that prospective exists, but I don't think those players alone would motivate Steven to put in a cash shop. I think being successful enough to stay independent is a bigger motivation. I think it is just hard to effetely communicate that as the head of a company to your prospective customers. What ever words he uses will get picked apart.
I have admitted in past threads that I could be wrong about all this, and Intrepid could just be greedy. I just have not seen the evidence yet.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
*shrug* get fucked
this thread won't change anything. not people's opinions, or the way the cash shop is implemented in AoC. That means that if I don't feel like reading four pages of arguments, I don't have to. Besides, if the five minute post that I made after reading the OP and skimming through the asmon video is 'rehashing arguments', then none of the arguments here were very interesting in the first place.
I got into RPGs 40 years ago because I'm an actor.
Cosmetics are great for MMORPG costume parties - and I am not at all tied to outfits being a marker of uber combat prowess.
Change my mind.
(You can't.)
40 years ago there were less avenues for people to spend time acting for fun. We now have all sorts of places outside of RPGs you could spend time acting things out. Youtube,Twitch, VR Chat, Ect... If you had a goal to maximize time spent having fun acting. Would you not want to prioritize other options?
Not asking to challenge you, just curious.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
MMORPG costume parties are great for YouTube, Twitch, etc.
Life doesn't always have to be about maximizing everything.
Everything you're saying can also be accomplished through no cash shop. Sure it's not as easy as just spending $100 for an instant outfit, but no less applicable.
Just because an item is a little harder to get, it doesn't make it any less valuable for fashion in the way you apparently are trying to play the game.
How do you think Vanilla WoW machinemas had outfits for their characters? Vanilla WoW had no cash shop.
Edit: Adding onto Vhaeyne's comment, you could very easily just have an Ashes themed VRChat map and models to accomplish the same thing.
Hopefully the tier system is implemented well enough where you still have to go through some of the effort to look as good through the cash shop.
Having a cash shop with only cosmetics is far better that having pay to win or pay to convenience.
Having the cash shop will generate far more money than a monthly subscription and a box cost would so the cash shop will help fund future work on the game. Whales spend a lot...
I would personally like an option to turn cosmetics off but then people who buy them would complain and be less likely to buy them.
It's probably the best tradeoff they can do where the sacrifice something in game to make more money but it still does sacrifice something in game. (Based on this game wanting to be more like the older MMOs)
This is why I brought up the Emu scenario earlier in the thread.
Even some minor visuals can have stories behind them.
If I see someone with a scorpion pet in my Mountain-top node city I know they must have travelled far to a desert to obtain it. Or possibly they are a traveler from the Desert passing through. Maybe he bought the pet off a trader who got it from an animal husbandry scorpion breeder who lives in a Desert node biome?
It's the little details like that that seem insignificant, but make the world so much more impactful.
Sure, we could do without those kinds of details very easily and not have a bad experience because of it, but it's the kind of thing you appreciate when you see it.
If someone puts a skin over that scorpion to turn it into a salamander, it loses that immersive touch.
If the cosmetics are just palette swaps and pet/mount equipment like saddles then like I stated before in the thread that is not as big of a deal as I originally thought.
Would be cool if they slow down a little on nonstop releasing packs of skins and selling them for pre-orders on a pre-alpha game. And there are a lot of skins/cosmetics already, even long before launch.
I understand your frustration, but have you considered something like FFXIV's Ultimate weapons. I use these as an example because achievement of obtaining one is something that has yet to be devalued. The game scales you down to the power level of the fight when you go to attempt these raids. The only thing that makes these raids easier is a slight increase in power from class adjustments from expansion to expansion, but it is debatable from class to class. They are also doing a numbers squish in FFXIV's next X-pack so they might be harder.
The point is that FFXIV has a cash shop, but the best appearances in the game come from high end raiding. This is something Steven has said he wants for Ashes. FFXIV is a game where you know a ultimate weapon when you see it and the achievement is respected by all who witness it. I see no reason why that can't be the case in Ashes.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
As a fellow FFXIV player I can confirm this.
Hell, most of the cosmetics are earned through in game holiday events or the minigames hall.
What few things are on the Mogstation (cash shop) are often rotating or limited to a hairstyle or the clothes of a famous character from other FF games.
Ultimately you can tell at a glance what is from the store and what is from in game. And most of the coolest stuff is in game.
But, this topic is not about whether I would be OK with having no cosmetic shop.
I already told you that I pretty much ignore WoW's cash shop.
I support having cosmetic shops for the games that have them.
Cosmetic shop makes having costume parties and more players having a variety of cool fashion much easier.
The little details will still be important.
Why that owner chose to use an illusion to hide the appearance may still have a story behind it. Maybe she bought the illusion off of a trader or maybe the Scholar's Academy gifted her the illusion.
I'm not referring to the pre-order packs. I'm referring to post-launch, unique, cash shop cosmetics. I could care less about the uniqueness of the pre-order packs because there is no game yet, and there should be incentive to supporting the studio leading up to the game's launch.
So, I am OK having a limited list of unique skins available to the Alpha Andys and Beta Bills. It's when they start offering limited-time, completely unique skins that are cash-shop only AFTER launch that I'll start ranting to the studio.
I think you're misunderstanding, but that's because I used a bad analogy, not any fault of yours.
I was using pets as an example when it would have been more apt to use mounts, since it's mounts that are confirmed to have the cosmetics you can apply to them.
"Pets" isn't accurate because if they work like cosmetic pets from any other game they are just un-interactable npcs that just follow you around, and those kinds of things are fine to have as cash shop cosmetics (as long as they don't break the game theme)
My emu example was more in line with battle-companions, which after double-checking don't seem to be confirmed to have skins for them or not.
The "illusion" excuse, while could be argued as a valid one, feels to me like a convenient contrived reasoning after the fact to make an excuse for it.
It doesn't matter what the cosmetic is - you will be able to recognize a store cosmetic if you know what the accent details of the store cosmetics are and wish to be able to distinguish them from non-store items.
Ashes is a high fantasy setting.
We should not be surprised that lots of characters choose to use illusions.
That is not an excuse - it's an expected result of being set in a high fantasy world.
Yes, for you. I dont plan on spending a dime except for my subscription, and I dont care what other people are looking like. You cant generalise a group of people by yourself, because that never ends well.
https://knightsofember.com/forums/members/winner909098.54
Venturing out perhaps with others and investing time to get the look and or gear i wanted felt very rewarding as it was not easy to do.
If myself or others can look the way we want instantly it takes away a lot of motivation and appreciation for myself and others looking cool. Why do that quest? Why do that dungeon again? Why leave town?
I feel like people will participate in the world less in some aspects and just glance over things with less appreciation for what they represent or get or a unrealistic visual representation of a player friend or foe as to their Level/Gear/Commitment to the game. Thanks for reading.
We focus on questing to look cool because that's the only thing games had to offer back in the day.
"When I was a boy, we had to walk 3 miles to fetch water. Now people can just fetch cold water from the door of the fridge."
''In the future we didnt even have to put in any effort we just paid for it''
The cosmetic shop is not going to take away a lot of motivation to explore and play the game.
We will have considerably more motivations to explore the world and play the game than just trying to acquire a cool costume.
So, those points about how a cash shop will diminish motivations to explore and play are moot.
Why do the quests and why leave the town? Because we have cities to construct and defend.
As you said we have quests/cities to construct and defend and yea you get rewarded COOL LOOKING ITEMS for your efforts.
To have a cash shop with ALSO COOL LOOKING ITEMS takes away forcing people to contribute and participate to look cool. Im not saying cosmetics are the be all end all but it all adds up.
Who said the cash shop will have the same rewards?
If the only point of constructing and defending cities is cosmetics, then the game is literally just a fashion simulator.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
My negatives with cash shop cosmetics are that it almost entirely removes the appeal of gear collecting and transmogs. Also they enable people to be lazier. "I got my cool costume, I don't need anything else."
Neither of those points should really affect my game experience. Costumes in general hide the gear you're wearing and I dislike that. However, it's a different topic