For the Devs

Pizzadude

Steven, your drive to put out a product is amazing! Keep up your great work! Keep following your goal to make this game even more amazing!

Developers, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed an MMO so much! It's been well over a decade and with this being your alpha product, you have something already amazing and I can't wait to see more!

Discord support staff, your time spent helping this community is awesome! You guys continue to do do great work!

To the rest of the Intrepid staff, I love all of you! I look forward to seeing the continued efforts from everyone involved with this awesome game!

McKaySama

Thank you so much for allowing me to participate in the test! I enjoyed every second of my time in Verra and am looking forward to spending a whole lot more time in the future. I believe I had more fun in this game than I have with other MMO's out on the market... and this was just the Alpha!! Thank you Steven for being the passionate person you are because without you, this may have never taken place and all us MMO fans would have little to no hope in the future of MMO's. You and your team of developers are incredible!!

Excylis

This was my first opportunity to participate in the Alpha testing and I was blown away by the progress so far. Heeding Steven's explicit warnings, I truly went in with no expectations, and yet the current state of the project exceeded my wildest. I do not regret my decision to purchase the Adventurer pack in the slightest. I am eager to participate in future tests and to experience the growth of the project.

The art and environment teams have done an amazing job creating a world I want to explore, and considering the current combat is pending a revamp I am eager to see the improvements.

I want to thank the whole team at Intrepid, not just for their work on Ashes, but for getting me excited about gaming again.

Shabob

The game all ready feels great. It'll be a long haul to fill a giant world with all the content, but I am very optimistic. This is the best looking immersive MMO I've been in, and I've played 10's of thousands of hours over the last 20 years.

Shenrah

This was my first alpha one test and I can't be any more impressed. I know you guys were primarily testing patching/downloading and server stability but you also had quests, tons of different spells, monsters, and a plethora of other things to make testing fun. You guys are really making a game worth playing, not just doing the minimum to call it an mmo and keep people subscribed. I can't imagine how many hours you guys put in and how much sleep you sacrificed to give us stable servers to test on. I truly mean it when I say I appreciate your hard work and I am proud to be able to play the game you guys are making.

Kaien

Thank you all for your hard work and dedication but do not forget to stay safe during these times. My faith in you guys has not faltered, especially not after this weekends test. It was a fun test and i got to see your vision and i agree with that vision i honestly believe you guys are on to something really good here. Do not lose faith and stay the course and most importently stay healthy.

Playbook

You guys are the best!!!

Glamdring

Markytark

As someone who has dabbled in a bit of game design, I am beyond impressed with what you have created so far! I really appreciate your hard work and dedication to this project! To all the people I see often in the streams and on Discord, and to all of you behind the scenes.. you have my gratitude. I hope you are proud of your progress like so many other people are!
I am unable to write words to compensate for what you've all sacrificed to bring Ashes to life. The late nights, the debugging etc. But I can offer my unyielding support.
Thank you.

Shoelid

I went to sleep Saturday night excited to wake up and play more. The fact that the game has been this much fun with 10% of the features and 100% of the bugs says something about how talented you guys are! This game has real promise and I'm excited to see the results of your labor.

Thanks for the long hours this weekend! Looking forward to participate in the future with every chance I get.

iMachi1

Thank you devs for your hard work! Love you all

blkshinobi

I was skeptical watching the update videos, but when I got onto the server this game was gorgeous. The scenery and skill animations were beautiful, especially for mid alpha. A lot of other games I've seen in mid alpha are barely textured. Great work guys, I'm one impressed poppa.

RisingPhoenix

We, core members of Risingphoenix want to be sure that you all know this... we have been testers for several games, and we have been together almost 20 years in the same games Steven has eluded to as some of Intrepids inspiration...

You all should know those who had access...it is the first time I have heard "this game is beyond anything out there". "This game will set a whole new standard for everyone to follow". "These guys actually care what the players say". "LOOK AT THE DETAIL!!!".
All your hard work is greatly appreciated by all of us and your enthusiasm, and drive to deliver is without equal. Keep pushing hard and know the entire AOC gaming community is behind you completely. Not one of us regrets buying into what will clearly be the future highbar in the MMO community.

Always take a breath, and thanks!
Aleran

Olendril

I was expecting to enter the game to a state where it's barely playable considering it's a pre alpha. But instead I was amazed by the game. I can clearly see why it can become the phoenix that lead the rebirth of the MMO Genre. It's been a long time I had this sense of discovery and wow factor of "I want to see what there is behind this hill". Thank you

Morbash

This game is awesome! Keep going and it will be THE GAME

Neurotoxin

Congrats on the successful weekend of spot testing. and cheers for everyone who jumped in! A shout-out to Margaret, Steven, and Toast, for being all over chat and answering questions everywhere, and keeping us up-to-date on server status changes!

And to the whole Intrepid Studios team, the game is in great shape, and it ran pretty well when the conditions were optimal. I had fun making a tank named "Explore" and jamming North right out of the gate with no quests to look for all things cool and broken. I did pretty well punching above my weight class, but fights were pretty easy to avoid by being careful. To put things to the "show me" test, I checked out a high peak not far from the starting area, and it was great to see as far as the eye could see in all directions, no fog or draw cutoff, from the ocean across the land in all directions. Well done IS team!

TheWeiner

Massive improvements from day to day!! keep up the awesome work!! love ya miss ya!
sincerely yours, TheWeiner

Sjelden

Greetings developers,

I thank you for this oppertunity to voice my feedback on your project.

Let me prephase this feedback summary by saying that I first discovered your project a few weeks ago, and have not played the game prior to this weekend. Second, while I have seen a fair amount of content creators videos, I am not up to date on Intrepids planned scope for the game as a whole. For this reason, some of my comments may be more or less relevant as feedback.

Positive

• Your Art team has done a fantastic job putting the world together, and there is clearly a great deal of passion gone into building this world. It looks amazing.
• The combat felt smooth and engaging.
• The Node system was a refreshing mechanic, making me invested in a specific area.
• Skill system was engaging and kept me chasing the next tier of skills.

Constructive feedback
PvP and PvE combat
Time to kill in pvp seem directly impacted by the lack of cooldown between skill use. I noticed the same thing in regular combat; I could spam several damaging abilities without a "lockout" time.
With a longer time to kill in pvp engagements, players would have had a chance to react with defencive skills and counter attacks. When I got "jumped" by other players, the combat was over in a second (or less). This is probably somewhat related to equipement (see comment below), however with the current lack of "global cooldown", the problem will persist.

A second note on same topic, the high damage granted both by certain skills (and specific weapons), combat experience rendered questing less rewarding. As a level 5 cleric, I could easily grind level 12-15 monsters for high experience gain and rapid leveling. Coming from Everquest and actually enjoying static monster camp grinding, I was happy to see this as a viable option, but this may be less engaging for other players who prefer quest grinding. Maybe balance for both options would be an ideal solution?

Resources
With harvestable resources only located in one node area (as far as I could identify), it was less interessting to progress tradeskilling considering how tempting it was to explore the whole world. This was probably done by design to encourage players to develop a specific node, but it seemed somewhat forced, and impacted the experience as a whole.

Character progression
The skill system was keeping me engaged, and the ease of reallocation of skills made sense during the testing, but long term, skill reset should probably require jumping through some hoops to avoid instant "heal to dps spec" for certain classes where this would provide unfair advantages.
Example: Playing as a cleric, I never bothered investing into ressurection, as I could easily just move skill points if needed.

A second note on same topic, the items available at the merchant seemed incomplete. One weapon in particular (spear) was a massive step above the rest in combat performance, rendering even combat abilities somewhat irrelevant.

Monster loot table
I assume the current loot table is a placeholde for future monster loot. Personally, I find great enjoyment in finding upgrades from defeated monsters. While beasts should not drop loot (only spawn a harvestable node once killed, such as meat and fur), humanoid creatures should have a chance to drop the equipment they are actually using, such as weapons, armour etc.

All in all, job well done on the game so far, and I am looking forward to the continuation of the project.

ovie

For a developmental alpha you guys have really captured the feeling of an exciting MMO experience. Obviously many features are WIP but I really enjoyed my time testing over the weekend both solo and during group activities. You guys and gals should all be very proud!

Star

Thank you for the hard work and dedication for this weekend. Had a great time!

Alira

Thank you for an awesome experience during the test weekend. I recently began following this project and must say I am impressed by it´s vision and scale. Keep up the great work! And please take your time - this is worth waiting for

Spudz

Well done Dev team and all involved. All your hard work is paying off, and the support and comms over the Alpha was great. Keep up the great work, and stay the course. You’re going to be apart of an absolute game changer (excuse the pun), that will have such a positive impact.

Feanen

Thanks all in Dev team and all people in Intrepid studio for all this great work. It was my first Alfa test here, and I must say, how amazing and stunning all world you created is. A piece of tremendous work can be seen around every corner. And all people on support team all time give us all great advices. Thank you, thank you all of you for everything what you do for us. I wish you all best in yours next work on game and all best in yours real lives too. You all, are same amazing and stinning people like game you creating

Sorcres

Thanks for your work! I believe you are doing what you can to show us the real MMO. Special thanks to Toast, I admire how she manages to respond to a lot of questions or problems on the discord. She has eyes everywhere! Thanks.

Kaalia

Thank you everyone for all the hard work creating this new game!! You aided us in Discord on the fly which was amazing and appreciate it immensely! Keep it up and I'll be here for more testing! This will be EPIC when it launches!!

DJPenguin

Thank you for the opportunity to partake in this test right before my surgery and birthday! Ashes is certainly the most beautiful fantasy mmo I've ever played and I've played a lot of em. Keep up the great work!

Eternalknight7

Love you all so, so much. AoC is a dream come true - and you are literally making it happen. My respect for the team is virtually unparalleled. You are creating an entire universe to explore, engage, and enjoy with Friends/Family/Others.

I have already met more awesome people in the AoC community, than I did in all of 2020 (before I found out about AoC). Am super grateful to be a part of our community, and hope to continue to be a part of its development!

Thank you,
-Ben

Cvr

First time testing/playing the game here this weekend, and I must say I am very positively surprised.
Right of the bat, the biome/landscape and creature designs, they look amazing, and it was a very pleasant experience just exploring, looking at it all.
Was fortunate enough to see most of the current aspects of the game, and outside nitpicking everything seems very well put together.

Keep up the amazing work, I'm super excited to see how the game is progressing.

Emberstone

Hi there devs!

Wonderful job on the game so far! You can confidently say you all put together a phenomenal preview alpha build whose quality is already far above to how games release in this day and age. Can't wait to see how you guys pour more of your love and affection for making games into this and then get to play the result!

Keep up the great work!

Saucisson

Thank you for working overtime and during the week-ends for a game, i hope it's not too often (Steven i count on you to keep their working hours healthy).