Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Asraiel gives his Feedback
Asraiel
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
One weekend has Passed with testing Alpha one of Ashes of Creation now it's time to do a Feedback
I was positively surprised by the environment. It did look great. Also there is still room to get it to be very great or even amazing. But for an alpha map it is forgiven that some parts didn't receive so much love.
The water effect on rivers did look really nice. I missed a bit the love on the edge of the rivers as well, so parts where the water did flow in a solid structure instead of getting redirected. Also many rivers were at sea level and so the downhill flow didnt kick in, also the force of the water was kinda missing. If you would cross a river in a straight line the water flow wouldnt push you donwhill so it was even possible to swim uphill.
Trees and forest had received a bit less love because I didn't find a single forest on the map, only several groups of trees that stood a bit closer but not so dense to really say it's a forest. It does not suit the lore that the map of the realm was abandoned for several hundred years. Also the ground beneath the trees was mostly the same as if there were no trees. Overall it didn't make me feel like i'm in a forest. There are many different types of trees in the map, especially the non-harvestable have received a lot of love. But the others kinda did look a bit the same: thin stem, same height.
Terrain at the starting area was a bit clunky, more like piled sand with texture over it didn't fit as a mountain area, there were way less edges and cliffs. but there's also a difference in regions, some had definitely received more love than others.
the ground plantation was very great in all places loads of green and different plants suiting the environment they were in also with the naval area with the seagras the sea stars and the dirty coast lines sadly it seemed that every where was sand beach, no stoney beaches like they are found in england or edgy cliffs.
Snow sadly was a flat texture and not something more like a plant space holder with some sort of volume to it that makes it look like its on top of the ground, so it didn't look as snow more like bird poop.
No weather sadly there is only sunshine in the world and even a night does not exist it's always day with an open sky. you see some clouds but they don't affect the lighting also no rain or other weather effects so far to be seen. I hope there will be some added that may also affect the terrain adding a wet texture, doesn't have to be like in anthem but at least some sort of weather.
Really positively i was surprised that the looting, it didn't require selecting the item in the lootpool to loot it. also movement of the character got smoother.
Mobs sadly were still mostly stationary and if they got agroed by passing by to close it switched you into battle mode even without being hit or receiving dmg. Also the loss on death was annoying because I wasn't able to craft a wand. The positive was that on death you didn't get a xp dept. I managed to receive one 2 times due to a bug and so had to work at 40% xp dept. The loss on death also made me lose a lot of stuff that I could have turned into gold to buy other stuff so I wasn't able to test housing or get the other grinding tools. and so i wasn't able to do testing in those things
Even though it may primarily list bad things i can say it's by far the most advanced technical alpha i ever participated in and the team did a great job. There are a lot of games out there that never even came close (on release) to how good the alpha works and looks. so you can tap your shoulders because i can't do it for you.
And a late coming Happy Birthday to Steven, it did surprise me that you are born only half a year befor me.
Regards Asraiel
I was positively surprised by the environment. It did look great. Also there is still room to get it to be very great or even amazing. But for an alpha map it is forgiven that some parts didn't receive so much love.
The water effect on rivers did look really nice. I missed a bit the love on the edge of the rivers as well, so parts where the water did flow in a solid structure instead of getting redirected. Also many rivers were at sea level and so the downhill flow didnt kick in, also the force of the water was kinda missing. If you would cross a river in a straight line the water flow wouldnt push you donwhill so it was even possible to swim uphill.
Trees and forest had received a bit less love because I didn't find a single forest on the map, only several groups of trees that stood a bit closer but not so dense to really say it's a forest. It does not suit the lore that the map of the realm was abandoned for several hundred years. Also the ground beneath the trees was mostly the same as if there were no trees. Overall it didn't make me feel like i'm in a forest. There are many different types of trees in the map, especially the non-harvestable have received a lot of love. But the others kinda did look a bit the same: thin stem, same height.
Terrain at the starting area was a bit clunky, more like piled sand with texture over it didn't fit as a mountain area, there were way less edges and cliffs. but there's also a difference in regions, some had definitely received more love than others.
the ground plantation was very great in all places loads of green and different plants suiting the environment they were in also with the naval area with the seagras the sea stars and the dirty coast lines sadly it seemed that every where was sand beach, no stoney beaches like they are found in england or edgy cliffs.
Snow sadly was a flat texture and not something more like a plant space holder with some sort of volume to it that makes it look like its on top of the ground, so it didn't look as snow more like bird poop.
No weather sadly there is only sunshine in the world and even a night does not exist it's always day with an open sky. you see some clouds but they don't affect the lighting also no rain or other weather effects so far to be seen. I hope there will be some added that may also affect the terrain adding a wet texture, doesn't have to be like in anthem but at least some sort of weather.
Really positively i was surprised that the looting, it didn't require selecting the item in the lootpool to loot it. also movement of the character got smoother.
Mobs sadly were still mostly stationary and if they got agroed by passing by to close it switched you into battle mode even without being hit or receiving dmg. Also the loss on death was annoying because I wasn't able to craft a wand. The positive was that on death you didn't get a xp dept. I managed to receive one 2 times due to a bug and so had to work at 40% xp dept. The loss on death also made me lose a lot of stuff that I could have turned into gold to buy other stuff so I wasn't able to test housing or get the other grinding tools. and so i wasn't able to do testing in those things
Even though it may primarily list bad things i can say it's by far the most advanced technical alpha i ever participated in and the team did a great job. There are a lot of games out there that never even came close (on release) to how good the alpha works and looks. so you can tap your shoulders because i can't do it for you.
And a late coming Happy Birthday to Steven, it did surprise me that you are born only half a year befor me.
Regards Asraiel
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