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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.
Not really feeling the whole front flip Dwarfs...
Uncommon Sense
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I understand Intrepid is taking its own direction on races and lore for Ashes...Perhaps not trying to fall into fantasy tropes or intellectual property thresholds.
But logically speaking I don't feel a mountain carving and tunneling race (Dünir) would jump flip... "Stoic and stout" seems more rotund, staunch and stocky... a 'regular' jump with perhaps a dodge roll seems a better fit.
(Verbal NDA lifted personal experience alpha tester, So actual hands on impression of the race as it currently being offered)
The islander dwarfs/halflings (Niküa) might seem fine with such athleticism.
I hope Intreprid might already have such details in the pipeline but just not implemented yet.
If not I hope they might reconsider the Jump Flip for mountain dorfs...
But logically speaking I don't feel a mountain carving and tunneling race (Dünir) would jump flip... "Stoic and stout" seems more rotund, staunch and stocky... a 'regular' jump with perhaps a dodge roll seems a better fit.
(Verbal NDA lifted personal experience alpha tester, So actual hands on impression of the race as it currently being offered)
The islander dwarfs/halflings (Niküa) might seem fine with such athleticism.
I hope Intreprid might already have such details in the pipeline but just not implemented yet.
If not I hope they might reconsider the Jump Flip for mountain dorfs...
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You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
Dexterity swinging a hammer and hauling rocks. Don't recall Cornish coal miners front flipping to work down the pit
Not a race that lives under a mountain with minimal headroom carrying 2x it's body weight on a regular basis.
top heavy physics aside.
From an environmental point of view and the foot note information provided by intrepid on their races The Dunir to me do not sound like circus acrobats.
I read Tolkien...can't recall any Dwarven flipping.
What a race that lives under those mountains might do is up to Steven's lore; not Tolkien's lore.
We have no clue how much head room the Dünir have beneath their mountains. I am pretty sure that there will be plenty of room for Dünir to complete their flips in the Underground and in whatever undermountain dwellings we encounter on Verra.
You don't know what you don't know.
Edit: /s
shitty take as usual
you seem to only care for the devs vision and not what the actual players want..it's a recipe for disaster...is this why you no longer work for activision!?
If Steven wanted to create his very own race with its own lore that doesn’t come with expectations, he shouldn’t have called them bloody dwarves. It’s that simple
If you don't like it, you can play a game you like.
Players who don't like the game creators create don't have to play the game.
Play games that you like.
If you want to play Middle-Earth Dwarves, play a game in the Middle-Earth setting.
sorry but you're the one in the wrong here, we like the game they're making but we don't like a sizeable part of it(that being the dwarves design overall) any good dev will see this and change things accordingly and they absolutely will given how much time left in the development stage there is and how many complaints they are getting about it. Also wanna mention that steven plays warhammer fantasy, that to me says that inspiration coming from warhammer is not off the table like you keep assuming it is.
Ashes is not based on Middle-Earth lore. It does not take place on Middle-Earth.
So if what you don't like about the game is that it doesn't fit Middle-Earth lore, you should go play a game that takes place on Middle-Earth - rather than play a game that has nothing to do with Middle-Earth.
It's fine to complain about not liking the flip. It's even fine to ask the devs to remove it... that is probably a fairly quick task if they want to replace the flip with something else.
But stating that the reason is because there's no room in the Underground for the flip because there's no room for that in Tolkien's Middle-Earth is absurd.
Stoic - a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.
A flip does nothing to negate a person being able to endure hardship without showing their feelings or complaining. Citing the reason for not feeling the flip as being because it doesn't match the concept of stoic is apples and oranges. One has nothing to do with the other.
Also, of course, it's much easier for the devs to change that one word than it is to change the flip.
Steven plays Warhammer fantasy. But, Ashes comes from his Pathfinder game.
If the concept art for Ashes Dwarves does not reflect Warhammer Dwarves and has not for the past 5+ years, don't expect a change in the base model to reflect the appearance of Warhammer Dwarves.
If Warhammer were the inspiration for Ashes Dwarves, we would have seen that reflected in the Ashes concept art by 2018.
Steven enjoying playing Warhammer does not negate anything I've said. If he wanted the base model for Ashes Dwarves to look like Warhammer Dwarves, they would look like Warhammer Dwarves.
If Steven thought that the Ashes concept art did not fit with his vision of Dwarves because he thinks Warhammer Dwarves are perfection, the concept art would look like Warhammer Dwarves. And would have by 2018.
If they did not want this race to be like the dwarfs people have come to love and expect from other more popular high fantasy media. They should have avoided the word dwarf all together. I would have been happy with just Dünzenkell, Dünir, or Niküa. I have zero expectations of any of those races based on their names. When you specifically call them dwarfs as well. For me that adds some expectations I have dwarfs from other popular high fantasy franchises.
If Ashes was not specifically calling itself "High Fantasy", and was instead calling itself "Fairy Tale Fantasy". The seven dwarfs style dwarfs would also make sense. I am not saying that Intrepid should not have full creative control or freedom in their project. I am saying that it makes sense that people would be disappointed when they hear a game is going to have dwarfs, then they see the dwarfs in the game.
Players Kid: Can we have dwarves?
Intrepid Mom: We have dwarves at home. in Verra.
This is the one image of a dwarf I found on the kickstarter:
Seems pretty good to me. I am very skeptical that guy do a front flip though.
Again, none of this is a deal breaker for me, but I would be lying if I said that the current dwarfs were not a disappointment.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
"Stoic. Tradition. Forge. Most of the peoples from the old world would see a mountain and think nothing of it. The Dünir saw a defensible home where riches abound. The Dünir take immense pride in what they craft and what they build: fortifications that seem impregnable, warhammers that never break, or beautiful gems for their royalty are all in their repertoire. Don't be deceived by their stout stature. They're pound for pound the strongest warriors the world has ever known."
if intrepid are trying to make them fit their own lore they should at least not make them sound exactly like traditional tolkien or warhammer dwarves no? with a description like that i expect something more from the models than what we currently have ingame! "pound for pound the best warriors the world has ever known?!" that is a joke. when i read that line i think of a gotrek gurnisson not any of snow whites 7 bloody dwarves!
Absolutely agree, and also @Vhaeyne just noticed the updated signature with Ultros on it. A hearty Lali-ho to that
I tried to choose my words very carefully in my post. I specified "Popular High Fantasy". Maybe I should have said "Current Generation Popular High Fantasy". The whole point of my post was to point out that the word Dwarf in a "Popular High Fantasy" context has a expected image. Which comes with disappointment if the expectations of "Dwarf" is not met. Which is why this thread and many like it keep popping up.
Intrepid made a choice to use the word Dwarf and go against the popular interpretation of Dwarfs.
People are disappointed. That is real. Saying that Ashes is different or its own thing is not going to change that.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
But, where's Sisko, huh? HUH? It's like you don't even care any more, Vhaeyne.
I don't know who you are any more....
Exactly.I was using Intrepid's very own lore as a basis for my opinion .The only reason i refereed to Tolkien is 1. i was responding to a comment and 2. Tolkien basically invented dwarves as we all imagine them to be.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Dwarf Dwarves
As I originally criticized I have no issue with this animation in conjunction with the Polynesian surfer gnomes (Nikua)..so not a wasted asset.
But for me Intrepid lore wise Mountain Dwarfs (Dunir) are not acrobats. Would rather see something like a both arms swing jump animation and perhaps a dodge roll as compromise...
These are merely suggestions. I hope intrepid sees and considers if not already acknowledged and in the development pipeline beyond alpha testing parameters.
For all we know, the flip is something they are testing for Niküa and Dünir will not have the flip at launch.
Or the flip will be removed later.
Everyone should already know that Ashes of Creation stems from Steven's homebrew Pathfinder game.
It does not come from his Middle-Earth GMing. It does not come from his Warhammer GMing.
Ashes of Creation does not transpire on Golarion, the primary world of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting.
Rather, Ashes of Creation is lore that Steven created using the Pathfinder ruleset.
Steven is not trying to emulate Middle-Earth Dwarves. Steven is not trying to emulate Warhammer Dwarves.
He has taken Patherfinder rules for Dwarves and modified them to fit his vision and his lore for Verra and Sanctus. And he is now translating that into an MMORPG - with a dev team mostly comprised of former SOE/Daybreak devs...many of whom worked on EQ and EQ2.
Steven has never said that the races of Verra will reflect "Current Generation Popular High Fantasy". That has never been stated as a design goal. If that is your expectation, expect to be disappointed.
EQ and EQ2 are popular High Fantasy MMORPGs. You should expect that former EQ devs are going to design Ashes Dwarves to appear similar to EQ Dwarves. If that's a dealbreaker for you, you should probably play a different game.
I dunno why you would follow a game being created by former EQ devs if the appearance of EQ Dwarves are a dealbreaker for you.
Middle-Earth has seven clans of Dwarves. They do not all have exactly the same traits. They don't all have the exact same physical builds. They don't all have the exact same cultural traits or personality traits.
There are many subtypes of Dwarves, not only in Middle Earth, but also in D&D and Pathfinder.
Anyone who plays RPGs should know that the Dwarves of a homebrew setting may differ significantly in many ways from Middle-Earth Dwarves or Faerun Dwarves or Golarion Dwarves or Greyhawk Dwarves.
We don't know how Dünir Dwarves differ from Dünzenkell Dwarves.
For all we know, Dünir Dwarves and Niküa Dwarves evolved on Sanctus in a manner that allows them to flip on Verra and most of them love the new experience.
Nothing in the description of Dünir Dwarves indicates that they can't perform a flip.
Seeming similar in many ways to Dwarves from other settings does not mean they are exactly the same as Dwarves from other settings.
But, again, it's Alpha. It's easy enough to ask the devs what their intention is with the flip.