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.
Things that WoW did good that Ashes should Implement
Arthus Dawnbreaker
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I know most of this won't be thought about until later in development, but still wanted to voice my view.
1. Music changes when entering different zones and areas. Cave Music should no be the same as a Beautiful field. Music changes for different race city styles, and different climates.
2. More diverse Environments, colors, Vegetation trees and skies will make the world more interesting and not repetative
3. Sounds, Let the environment sounds come through every once in a while by giving nice pauses to enjoy the ambient noises and sounds of our surroundings like (rustling leaves, wind, crickets, birds, frogs)
4. Enemy Name plates are not necessary until they need to be. when mousing over an enemy the enemy should highlight with a glow and name plate should appear this gives a clear visual of who my character is focusing on.
5. Give us some Racial Music for each race. Example (dwarves give a rustic industrial feel, elves an angelic sound, Tulnar give an Ominous and ancient sound, Orcs a tribal sound)
6. Ambient noises for cities like (bells, blacksmith hammering, NPC's telling and conversing, boys and girls playing)
7. More active in motion NPC's in cities make the world feel more alive
8. Damage Numbers should be animated and follow the swing, slash, or piercing motion of the weapon. They also need to grow and shrink according to the damage level. It is more satisfying to see them animated and make them pop.
9. Flow of combat. Hitting one button after the other and have the attacks actually flow from one skill to another like a dance. this even works while jumping around. Its flow is flawless
10. I should be able to move the camera around my character easily while attacking an enemy so I can see my character from all angles not just look at my back the hole time.
These are some of the things I thought World of Warcraft did very well and made me enjoy the game more.
1. Music changes when entering different zones and areas. Cave Music should no be the same as a Beautiful field. Music changes for different race city styles, and different climates.
2. More diverse Environments, colors, Vegetation trees and skies will make the world more interesting and not repetative
3. Sounds, Let the environment sounds come through every once in a while by giving nice pauses to enjoy the ambient noises and sounds of our surroundings like (rustling leaves, wind, crickets, birds, frogs)
4. Enemy Name plates are not necessary until they need to be. when mousing over an enemy the enemy should highlight with a glow and name plate should appear this gives a clear visual of who my character is focusing on.
5. Give us some Racial Music for each race. Example (dwarves give a rustic industrial feel, elves an angelic sound, Tulnar give an Ominous and ancient sound, Orcs a tribal sound)
6. Ambient noises for cities like (bells, blacksmith hammering, NPC's telling and conversing, boys and girls playing)
7. More active in motion NPC's in cities make the world feel more alive
8. Damage Numbers should be animated and follow the swing, slash, or piercing motion of the weapon. They also need to grow and shrink according to the damage level. It is more satisfying to see them animated and make them pop.
9. Flow of combat. Hitting one button after the other and have the attacks actually flow from one skill to another like a dance. this even works while jumping around. Its flow is flawless
10. I should be able to move the camera around my character easily while attacking an enemy so I can see my character from all angles not just look at my back the hole time.
These are some of the things I thought World of Warcraft did very well and made me enjoy the game more.
3
Comments
lets make cities alive, not static like in standard mmo
I like that many of the factions had recognizable themes - colors, symbols, armor, music, etc - that made them unique.
And let's not forget the ability to turn the numbers off. I certainly love being immersed so numbers always off, same as personal nameplate
Camera should be locked in action combat, but in tab target it will probably be free cam
The cartoony art-style seems silly at first, but the stylized graphics have a huge benefit in that they age well. Realistic art assets tend to look out dated quickly, while more stylized assets can last many years before needing a fresh coat of paint.
I love how Ashes looks, but I worry how we'll see it years from now. Maybe it will look fine though! ArcheAge still looks fine to me, apart from the resolution.
Agreed, this is why I love wow. The graphics are timeless and the only real issue is the shit engine which they never seem to update, only run to the ground.
I kinda wish Ashes went for that because that would keep the graphics fresh for way more years
Useful NPC's - I loved that you could talk to the guards and they would actually be very helpful in finding Class Trainers, Profession Trainers, Different Districts, Etc. The number of times I spotted a wandering guard and clicked him to remind me where the Herbalism Trainers is, Etc.
Macros gave me better control when managing a ton of skills with limited keyboard binds (just my setup). Especially with classes like shaman.
Opening the LUA for AddOns gave me greater customization to my UX beyond the vanilla options. I had a much different setup when main tanking than healing.
Hunter pet ability hunting / swapping / optimization (classic through cataclysm - may have been WotLK). I enjoyed hunting specific skills to bring to raids or pvp.
Addons were the biggest strength of wow. (bigger than its casualisation or top quality PvE). Because it allowed community to creates anything usefull they didn't have. and Blizzard had all its time to add it... or not. Calendar, Atlasloot, Carbonitequest/questhelper... and others were all finally added to the game but first were community creation. (even if carbonite/questhelper... i dislike the idea but other subject). Never i saw comunity complain because "blizzard didnt make this thing" if they had addon to do... they did consider game have it. So convenient for devs
And i won"t speak how with addons, wow get the most customisable UI i saw in MMORPG.
Buuuuut While it is top, there is flaw to thise, some addons are finally bad idea (even if a lot used) like boss mods (and the part of weak aura allowing to do personnal boss mods) the quest helper. Those are best examples i think about as "should have never exist would have been better". But i think, devs allowed API for those, they could also block to limit addon around UI and utilities (like was calendar)
I understand AoC devs not implementing addon but i think most MMORPG now underestimate how powerfull the tool could be for their game. And creating a highly customisable UI will never does as good as addons.
And again, about "bad addons" there are way to block those. It happens sometime that blizzard changed their API to block some kind of addon they considered a big problem. Was rare thing because blizzard wanted to allow a lot, but things like boss mods could, i think, easily be blocked to exist as addon.
About the window full of addon : free for each. I did topend raid. being in most of the first of my server for vanilla/TLK, and really efficient guild in BC (where sometime i was RL) with a lot of people discovering the game. I never had plethora of addons. some for UI (bartender and Xpearl then Elvui. And necrosis during vanilla/BC) for convenience (calendar, atlasloot) the threat meter and damage meter. And an addon for roleplay (ImmersionRP then TRP2 and TRP3). And was more than enough for me. Not because addon exists and are usefull that they are mandatory to compete... I only lacked weakaura/boss mods but back in WOTLK and before they had less impact clearly. and as said previously. i think all kind of boss mod can probably be easy blocked by devs
Macros : they are a mandatory thing in MMORPG. Serious game i saw with macro manage totally to limit what they allowed to do with macro. So i don't think hard to do. and it helps a lot to do your shortcut bars as you want. Didn't use it a lot personally, but the small use i had in Aion, WoW or FFXIV were really usefull.
I consider a negativ point the fact of not having macro system in MMORPG now. clearly.
Good example would be Demon Hunter class in Legion compared to something like Wotlk Shaman. Don't get me wrong, Ench Shaman was probably most engaging to play when compared to other classes due to it's adaptability and lack of obvious clear rotation patterns. But it was a clunky mess. And only "better" when compared to rather sub-par piers which were defined by brain dead rotations AoE vs single target.
Add-ons. It's a bit of a doubled edges sword. Which harms new players most. As player is forced to look outside the game to third part sites and download third party software which may not be safe. Yet gives an edge to those who do which doesn't have much to do with players ability to actually play the game. In competitive environments it's harmful. Moreover, out sourcing UI to third party often leads to developers not bothering improving the actual in game UI. So you're stuck with crap UI's and thus a lot of said players are stuck with crap UI's for the lifetime of the game. Better, the game should provide proper UI customization on it's own. And once few popular templates of top performing players are known, game suggested templates should become a thing.
Arbitrary barriers of entry related to third party software, input devices or technical obstacles which do not pertain to actual game and it's content should be removed whenever possible.
Also, about UI... let be honest, no game and no wow addon managed to be "the one" in customisation side... People tried addon and finally removed them to stick with basic wow UI settings. Some people loved adding the 3d animated portrait from Xpearl. Some people like the square black design from elvui, other hate it. I did not complained about BNS/BDO or GW2 UI... because those game are minded the way a minimalistic UI is more than enough : GW2 is about 10 + 1 to 5 class skill. BDO has just no shortcut. BNS is like GW2. The shortcut bars are just here to show CDs of skills. (and personally, i never liked having all those information in middle of the screen...) And it is not game were healers are a big things (and so the need to see all party health bar easily) A little for GW2 but the UI is so empty of all that easy to find a spot for it.
If i see Aion, WoW, or FFXIV (the game i played most with skillbar, and relying on healing ) Neither their base UI satisfy me... WoW i dislike all aesthetic asset, i want UI simple (so love elvui that also allows me change i can't do in base WoW) FFXIV...
About macros, i don't really see your point between macro and number of skills. One simple way i used macro in FFXIV was not because "too much skill" (never thought it from any game i played yet... and i am one of the people complaining about skills removing each wow Xpac,) but simply because it was usefull in other ways.
A simple example from FFXIV : Warrior got a CD that allowed him, for 6 second to never go under 1 health point. So when you knew there will be a mega strike you use it. and hope the white mage will use its spell to make you full life just before the skills stop.
I did one macro saying "Next tank buster incoming, ill use holmgang" so healers knew they didnt need to heal for this (would be a waste). and a second one "holmgang used, wears off in 6 second" and this same macro announced the 3 sec and 1 sec left by itself. So i added 1 button (the "ill use holmgang") and the skill button became the second macro... "why not using voice chat" because most pickup don't use any voice. In fact when people knows fight well it is not needed. Simple macro like this were more than enough. was same for the other "no death possible" skill from other tank. And saw many other uses...
On wow, my main use was for cc spells. It helped a lot to maintain 3 cc at same time (fear, succubus and the ban-demon) with a target=focus, a target=pettarget. Or even, on some bosses, a target=[name of the ennemy i have to controll asap]. Even more, on wow, playing a lot warlock (be it for dot or for bane) and shadowpriest (dot) the target=focus to double-targetting were usefull. also for my healer, the same shortcut bars allowed me to either use spell on me, the focus, or my target
And for wow/ffxiv i am mouseclicker... How could i do top end and do my part and more as mouseclicker ?
1) high mouse sensitivity
2) an ui with a really specific way (FFXIV/aion allows me to do, wow a little, but addons
3) macros well done.
A last great use of addon in FFXIV : having dynamic skill bars : there are command to copy/paste content of some skillbar. With it, i filled the skill bar from the 9 base class (useless when you reach lvl 30 because of job far better than their base class) and i have 3 skill bar that travel between them to adding lot of menu shortcut.
This will not be a thing for AoC sure, it is FFXIV specific (due to the fact there is those 9 useless class). But is shows that macro can offer far more usefull trick than just about managing your skills when there is "too much button" (even if i never understood this complain ^^')
Because macro don't have the flaw addons have, and will always be usefull i think it is mandatory
I agree with wherediditrun’s sentiment that outsourcing to addons lets game developers be lazy and not improve certain aspects of their game. Just include it all out of the box, ask intrepid to work with these people out the gate. A lot of the creators of these addons are pretty talented and I feel like it would be beneficial to reach out to them to work on what some view as core elements of their game experience.
And I’m definitely in the macro camp. I’ve always used them so I would like to see them in game. Personally for me they aren’t mandatory, but I would like them.
I agree with all of your points in the OP as well and I think intrepid definitely has the ability and skill to do it properly. As people who actually play games they know what made the world feel alive to them. The lead composer Bear McCreary has done some pretty great tracks so I look forward to seeing what he creates for the game.
I do certainly want the capability to make UI skins and pop them into a folder for me to use. I have doubts I will like the UI art since most games go for over simplified UI these days and lose the fantasy feeling behind them. Meanwhile here I am missing the cool UI that games like Baldurs Gate had. Paper, carved rock, golden trim etc.
Ok. Another way to look at this would be that by allowing your player base to design and use a broad spectrum of UI features, the dev team can measure what features / UX components are being used most frequently and can then prioritize their UI development accordingly. Keep in mind, the dev team may not be fully dedicated to UI, and will also be balancing creating new stuff with fixing existing stuff. This is especially helpful when you’re attempting to keep you overall development team lean.
“Lazy” is an interesting judgement. But it’s like calling sailing the ocean lazy instead of rowing.
Anything affecting the gameplay should not be allowed. Period. Outside of that the dev release new skins pretty often. Maybe those can availed as event rewards or something which again is not really important.
But things affecting gameplay has no place in a competitive game which considering how AoC has emphasized PvP, cannot be denied. Moreover it has potential to introduce pay to win by buying top tier addons.
Either way Addons wont be present. This has been established a long time back.
I agree with this 99%. I think addons that allow you to customize UI should be allowed. Unless Ashes introduces its own UI customization system for placement and art/design.
UI affect gameplay... maybe most than anything else i saw in MMORPG...
As said, addon are not a "all or nothing" wow blocked API to avoid some kind of addon.
And yes we won't have addon, less way to show devs what we want (saying "we want a tool to do this" is good. showing the tool is better).
I defend addons but i totally understand why devs doesnt want it
Time we have macros i won't complain.
Addons were actually a big negative for me, and whether players realize it or not, for WoW in general. It is incredibly difficult to create encounters and balance aspects of the game when there is no baseline for how much a player sees. If you didn't run DBM, or even if you did run it and it wasn't optimally configured, you were at a huge disadvantage. Essentially, to a large degree, your UI played the game for you. Or at least, you were incredibly restricted or enabled by how optimized your UI was. I don't think that's a great design feature for a game.
Again, you take some addon, even more a specific one (one of the main boss mod, the other is bigwigs. and also weak aura... which is what is used for world first)... And ignore totally the fact i point those addon as bad... Yes, totally right, boss mods on wow are problem. And not only for what you say, but also because it makes people become bad... When i stopped being in "top guild" to be more casual play, i saw it well... and i forbid people using bossmod the time to learn bosses. And it was so easy to see who did listen to me and those using it... the first improved faster on fight than the seconds... And when i allowed back bossmod (to go for the kill) the first were far far more efficient... So i have many reason to say that "boss mods are bad" (and i have complains about more addon)
NOW read it well : Blizzard had choice, any dev has choice... they can allow addon only for UI if they want. There were so many time in patch note were blizzard listed information they added/removed in API. I remember three time a kind of addon appeared, and blizzard forbid it, and when possible they did a patch making impossible to do those addons.
Boss mods, weak aura even to monitor the character information (skill CDs, special ressource bar, etc etc) can totally be block, either in wow or in any future MMORPG allowing addon.
Now, tell me why ALL addons are bad. When it is possible to block some kind of addon, being against addons at a whole is not about specific one. it is about ALL ... say me why bartender is bad. why xpearl was bad. Why elvui is bad thing. Why TRP3 and other RP addon are a problem in wow. Immersion quest (this change the quest UI to a more "RPG" one). And the list is long. Would be really good to have ALL those thing in AoC without addon... But it would be far to optimist to think it will be... I see NO MMORPG with the RP addon, Immersion quest, or even the UI customisation allowed by elvui...
We can hope to have a thing close to what elvui allow... but we will NEVER have things like IRP/TRP3... and it is sad. And allowing addon to do it is not "allowing boss mods" ...
That's something we should do, too.
Gladius is a perfect example for an addon that if you aren’t using it in arena, you are at a severe disadvantage due to the amount of information the people using it get, or the CD trackers weakauras, or someone using BG weakauras to help call flags/nodes vs someone hitting enter and typing.
If they just do a great job at including all the information they want the players to have access to out of the box then we won’t need addons and I hope that remains the case. I would much rather push Intrepid to do better with these aspects of the game than push Intrepid to let other people do these aspects of the game better for them.
I don’t think addons are bad, I just think we deserve better.
Not so simple than this. Even more with Steven considering that combat tracker (not boss mod, but addon like recount) shows how to kill boss...
Because we can't push things simply by asking... this is why no game have things so deep "good" addons gives. Also, gladius is for me like boss mod "bad addon" and should just not exist (and nothing close) but won't debate about it.
I saw nowhere with customisation for the main UI like wow, or thing like TRP3. And for a good reason : even if people ask they won't have because it is really too much work... it would be a waste.
I am not an utopist, but realist and i won't trust AoC devs to give us what we need... They won't give it. And WoW was far from the worst about it... really far. on FFXIV most thing community request, they don't care, or does it the way the community didn't want it... And i won't speak about NCsoft...
I didn't find a game where community had what it wanted... So yes i prefer to have way the community to build what it needs itself
Also, another thing i like about addon : it allow community to exist, and be usefull. And prefer the community building tools than just aesthetic mods... (I have nothing against it. but it remains useless ^^'). So many time i see hypocrits devs saying "it is nice to have a such awesome community, so invested in our game"... while avoiding the community to even have its word in the game (and just listening to it when the forum is on fire... again)
Finally, what better way to push devs doing things that showing them what you want ?
WoW graphics were one of the biggest turn offs for me. I would suspend disbelief then I would see a 15 foot wide rivet. They could have been stylized without being cartoony, similar to TF2.
WOW was designed for easy mode, they wanted children and the mentally deficient to succeed. That way they would get millions of subscribers and make lots of money.
I hope a new game comes out that has challenging content, but copying WOW is not the way to do that. It will help them make a lot of money off the bad players though.
Also there was a great sense of community. If you had a question about a quest or a system, then asking in general/ area chat usually lead to someone answering your questions, because the other player usually was in the same situation and could relate with the struggle.
Cool that you had that experience with the WoW community. My experience was the opposite, which is why I eventually removed the chat UI entirely. An example, if I say a thread reminds me of 'Barrens Chat' it's almost a culturally understood adjective.