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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Yeah they merged 3 threads in yours
For female dwarves I think the options are wide open because there are simply not enough good representations. And yes, good is relative and subjective.
I would also think dwarven females would have many more hairstyle options than their male counterparts. Partly because it’s one of the more common expressions of feminism (other than accessories) and partly to differentiate the female dwarves from the male dwarves. But then the stoic side of the dwarven personality may mean fewer styles than the other races. So coming up with artistic concepts that are both feminine and stoic seem like a challenge and may explain why there just are not very many good representations in the overall genre. Or do you go to the extreme where Dunir culture dictates veils and drab gear for female dwarves? I just don’t see that resonating with players who want to play female dwarves unless it’s part of a totally optional sect of dwarves (the elite faceless sisters).
Maybe the female dwarves have their own distinctive war paint? And Nails reinforced with elaborate metalworking?
Maybe only female dwarves can do front flips with their own special eye gouging maneuver.
If you think of dwarves as small, tough and fierce, you would want options in appearance that brings this out.
As for child looking Dunir. You need spies, especially to spy on those heretical beach dwarves.
For the less stout and even hairless dwarves. Perhaps there’s a relationship between essence and these kind of traits.
love the idea of having distinct warpaints, not just for the females but males too, everyone wants their chars to be distinct and unique and this is a pretty good way of going about it! - perhaps special patterns of war paints can be obtained through tough achievements ect..think that would be amazing!
dwarves. don't. spy! we march right up to them and ask them directly!
That would then imply dwarves aren’t rogues, sneaking around and stealing things.
But dwarves might prefer the term reconnaissance. Better?
no need we don't leave our mountains unless grudges need to be settled! (and in that case we go out in full force and are unstoppable, hence recon isn't necessary!) everything else comes to us
khazukan khazakit ha! - look out the dwarves are on the warpath!
The Dünir are very clearly Dwarves.
They are shorter, wider and thicker than Aelar.
Look.
Someone buy that dwarf a hearty meal.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I already told them that.
They basically said it’s time to join the 21st century.
Imagine the preposterous stance of not liking what you liked in a game from 20 years ago.
I get the devs might have gone in that direction originally, but if a sizeable enough number of players would prefer them to take inspiration from a different kind of dwarf, it might be worth considering at least.
And, what’s most important is how the changes will impact the release schedule.
Also, again, sliders might be able to result in something that mollifies the haters...
Probably shouldn’t expect Warhammer Dwarves.
The devs will definitely consider the complaints regardless.
Sizeable does currently mean a majority as per those who have been polled. Like... 77% want a change. If you wanna count half of those indifferent to the change as accepting it, you get 89%.
The release schedule is not going to be all that impacted, as it is currently entirely non existant.
Considering they don't have the pressure of a publisher breathing down their necks, they can take whatever time they want to take to make sure a number of things work well and appeal to their potential playerbase. Character models is one of those.
Sliders are good, but I personally would rather have a base model that I think looks good. Especially because not everyone is going to be playing around with sliders all that much. Some people will just pick a race they think looks cool and jump in.
The extra work for (potentially) 80% of people to make them look like how we're proposing they look.... seems easier to have them look like we're proposing
Then you the obvious minority thus far, can work the sliders to make yours look like dwarves in EQ.
I don't expect them to look like the Warhammer ones either, but I can hope the base model looks closer to those than the ones seen currently.
That is something the devs will evaluate better than a poll written and initiated by a fan - especially a fan biased towards one very specific image of what a Dwarf must be.
You have no clue how the changes will impact the schedule. The more drastic the change, the more it will negatively impact the schedule. And these devs have a hard time keeping on schedule as it already stands.
Alpha One is already at least 3 years late and is still in delay.
They will either feel they have the time to make changes or they won’t. If they make a change as drastic as to Warhammer Dwarves, expect a sizeable delay in release.
Not simply due to changing the Dwarves, but because that will indicate they are willing to allow considerable feature creep with little regard to how it affects the schedule.
No one is advocating to be able to make the Dwarves look like EQ Dwarves. Rather, most people will be fine with playing the Dwarves as they currently appear in the concept art.
Plenty are saying minor tweaks would be sufficient.
If sliders are going to be able to result in Dwarves that appease everyone, then there is no point in wasting time changing the base model. Especially not from a project management/game development perspective.
You can hope the base models look closer.
They might get tweaked to look CLOSER.
No one here is against the base models being tweaked to look CLOSER.
Closer doesn’t necessarily mean close.
So, again...
All I’ve really said is that the base models are unlikely to get MUCH wider.
In response to posts that said the Warhammer Dwarves are what they prefer, I said don’t expect to be able to make Warhammer Dwarves - that is unlikely to be possible, given the current state of the release schedule.
And, I disagree that the current Dunir models are skinny and thin and look like Gnomes or Halflings.
They look like Dwarves we have seen before.
They just don’t look like your narrow minded view of what Dwarves must be.
If we had started with a 7 year release schedule and the devs had a decent track record of meeting their milestones and this push to change the base models was happening at year 2 instead of year 4...sure...there should be little concern about making a drastic change in the base model - even to Warhammer Dwarves.
But that is not the reality we are living in.
The devs are aware of your desires.
Now we wait to see if they are able to accommodate them and to see how doing so actually affects the schedule.
They are also hiring more and more people. Modifying an existing character model will not delay the game by years.
Then again, as I said earlier, you can't delay what doesn't have a release date.
Also, and AGAIN, you keep saying that the majority likes how they look at this time. However, of the people actively following the development, and participating in forums, reddit and discord, the actual majority appears to want them to look different.
You may not like the results of the vote, and you can campaign #NotMyDwarves, but just because you feel that way, doesn't mean you're right either.
There is a bias in thinking that because you're in the minority (proven to be so thus far) you're more unique and right. That the mass majority is incorrect or misinformed etc. That's the reasoning that gets us things like conspiracy theorists.
I am glad the dev team is aware of the people's opinion on the current state of dwarves. Hopefully something comes of it.
APOC had it’s own dev team and just used assists, abilities, features and mechanics already created for Ashes. The only thing created for APOC was the Corruption barrier.
The testing was focused networking and action abilities... and they chose to do that because they didn’t have mobs and AI ready for the stuff they wanted to test so they used PVP to test it.
The Alpha wasn’t ready so they went with APOC, instead. Because APOC was a stripped down version of what they want the Alpha to be.
They are hiring more people.
They’re not hiring more people to overall their current Dwarf models. They’re hiring more people to move forward the current design.
What you’re talking about now moves towards the danger of a Curt Shilling/Kingdoms of Amalur fiasco.
That is a quick slide into vaporware.
You can delay what had a release date of 2018. You can predict that such behavior will result in more of the same delays we’ve been experiencing since Kickstarter.
Which is OK as long as you understand that the game might then be releasing closer to 2025 than 2023.
I don’t care about the results of the poll.
The poll is irrelevant.
There are enough people interested in changing the base model of the Dunir to warrant the devs to consider making changes. Poll or no poll.
All that matters is how making the changes will affect the release schedule.
The greater the changes, the more negative impact on the release schedule. That’s just basic logic.
If on July 1st, we logged into Alpha One and the Dunir base model looked like Gotrek, I would be perfectly fine with that.
But, I highly doubt that will happen.
That is an unrealistic expectation.
The devs will either make the changes you want or they won’t. That really has nothing to do with me being right.
I have not claimed that the devs will not make the changes.
I’ve shared a prognostication, but a poll does not affect the prognostication.
You are the one with the #NotMyDwarves campaign. Any Dwarves the devs implement will be “my” Dwarves.
All that matters is whether the devs have the time to make the changes and how making the changes impacts the schedule.
The greater the changes, the greater the impact to the schedule. That will be the devs’ deciding factor; not a poll generated by fan on the forums.
“Unique and right” is your own obsession that is irrelevant to this topic.
Just to be clear, I never expressed anything regarding the need to have them changed by that date. For all that matters, I would just like it to happen so they are updated for when the game releases.
A prognostication based on your own feelings/desires, and with no substantiation, is as accurate as reading Tarot or Astrology. With a poll you get some tangible numbers at least, regardless of whether you like the poll or not.
You are once again mislabeling the reason for the poll. It is not a "We signed petition. Now comply" scenario.
More of a: "look how many people share this concern. Please consider the option proposed".
Let me remind you again that they went ahead and changed the animations for the Mage's spellcasting.
That case happened precisely because people disliked a visual component of the game, when it also presented no real negative impact on the game. You could have probably explained it by saying "~~magic~~" (as you're so fond of). And yet, it got changed.
How is, on a basic level, people complaining about the dwarven character model any different?
Except I'm not unique. I'm one of many. And in many people sharing a similar response to a piece of content, there is a feedback to be taken.
Your idea that all can be explained and let the devs do anything they want, is valid to some extent.
And problematic past a certain one.
Then again... you did work for Activision. And we've seen the kind of work they've been doing with their largest MMO, by not listening to their players. Perhaps that philosophy runs deeper than expected.
EQ Next, Pathfinder, Tolkien, Warhammer...Keep em on coming 2 thumbs up.
Yep they all look like mineshaft digging, hefty, beardy boys...
The only exception and by a slim margin is the curent AOC dwarf models. They do not look like "the Strongest Fighter"
Are you going to tell me the Orcs and Tulnar will look weaker than the dwarfs....
I am not fooled by their size I am fooled by their mass its just not there ok and I am not alone in this observation regardless of weather or not you want to be an asshole and vote in a poll that is or is not up to your particular standards.
Appreciate you making this community perception issue known to the devs.
Hopefully the poll expands.
I think the current concept art looks OK and are clearly Dwarves. I don’t agree that they don’t look like Dwarves, but if people want change, push for some change.
I’m not thwarting the push.
I believe Warhammer degree results are very unlikely.
I believe Pathfinder results seem very possible by Beta/Launch.
The greater the change, the more negative impact on the schedule and that is what will primarily drive how close we get to Warhammer Dwarves - if the devs change the base model.
But, the devs are aware.
Now we just wait and see what we end up with.
💜
An open poll that is responded to at random (as is the case here) is as accurate as reading Tarot or Astrology.
Just because there are numbers, doesn't mean the numbers mean anything.
I feel the same whenever numbers from the Alpha tests are used as gospel
Most of my references are from Reddit than the forums though
/facepalm you lot are just finding any little thing to argue about at this point. give it up you living embodiments of the word count meme!
Maggie knows how to determine valid numbers. The dev team is not going to solely rely on a poll created by a biased forum member. If they want valid numbers, they will create their own tools to determine those.
But, a poll is irrelevant.
A bunch of people want beefier, wider Dünir.
Most likely the devs plan to offer that with sliders anyways. There should be no surprise that EQ/EQ2 devs are going to start with dwarves that resemble EQ Dwarves.
Just as there should be no surprise that the default skin tones and facial features for Humans, Elves and Dwarves will be European for Western games and Asian for Asian games...even though it would be very nice to sometimes have the default be non-European - especially for American studios.
It’s not really a question of whether or not the devs will provide options for beefier, wider Dünir. The question is much beefier and how much wider can they go.
One of the primary limitations on that is the Dünir armor. Each of the races have their own armor based on the proportions of the race. There’s going to be a point where width breaks this limitations...and Warhammer width is probably going to break those limitations. They would have to rework all of the Dûnir costumes they already created.
If they’re swapping the Warhammer Dwarf as the base model, they would likely have to significantly adjust the Dwarf animations as well. It’s not just as simple as plopping in a beefier, wider model...at this late date.
Is a Warhammer-sized Dünir going to look right on all the mounts? Those are all things they are going to have to test out...and more...and that is going to have a significant impact on the release schedule.
If the devs are truly going to rely on a poll to determine whether EQ is the base model or Warhammer is the base model, that poll needs to happen before assets are made.
Not after 2+ years of design and asset creation already invested.
And the wording of the poll would be crafted by professionals, like Toast and Maggie.
It’s not really a question of whether Dünir can be more stout and beefy. Most likely the devs have always had plans to accommodate that since the character creator design includes sliders. It’s really just a question of what the max proportions will be.
And a fan-created poll is not going to determine that, regardless of what those numbers are.
Not at all. I have said several times on these forums that player polls are not worth anything - even when those polls agreed with me.
Also, take note that I have still not shared my opinion on dwarves. My posts here have been in relation to poor debate and a lack of logic - I'm sure many people here would agree that I rate logical debate and discussion far higher than I would rate the appearance of a race in Ashes.