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.
Comments
Ashes is consistent enough at a glance that the ambiguity that is there is harder to deal with when you realize it's there.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
My problem with Ashes is actually that all the things they are unambiguous about are good when they're done well and terrible to the point of painful when they are not. It's not usually things like 'There will be this ratio of instanced dungeons to non', it's stuff like 'we will be balancing around group PvP'. Uhhh....
And New World was just another reminder in a very long list of 'MMOs are really hard to make and require a rare skillset'. I watch it and think 'wait who signed off on this?' at least once per video. I find it incredibly hard to trust that MMO developers have thought their systems (or the lack of implementation of one) through.
When you've worked in a 100-person company that teeters along on the backs of 5 people who actually know what they're doing, you learn not to expect that specific type of competence. Fortunately, I do believe that just 'dedication' and 'willingness to think about it' goes a long way. At least moreso than 'having the Amazon name' or anything similar.
Let's try to have some fun. I am hoping/assuming you know very little about Mortal Online 2.
Reading this, do you think you are in Mortal Online 2's target audience?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
First-person, sandbox...I don't particularly find either of those appealing.
Choose your own path doesn't necessarily sound appealing.
Skill rather than levels (and gear) doesn't sound appealing for an RPG.
I want to ever quest and experience a never-ending story - seems like Mortal Online 2 is too free form for that, based on the quote.
I think a significant difference between what Ashes says is their target audience and what Mortal Combat says is their target audience is that Ashes is a themebox, while Mortal Online is a sandbox.
Ashes is striving for hybrid Tab Target and Action Combat - seems like Mortal Online 2 does not have tab target. Etc..
But, whether I am in their target audience is mostly irrelevant.
What's relevant is whether or not they have enough of the features, systems and mechanics I want to entice me to play the game. Seems from that blurb that they don't. Regardless of who they are targeting.
Yeah, based on what little I know about you, I did not get the idea you would like the skill over levels and gear part.
What I like about their description is that it starts strong with all of the things people would love or hate depending on the type of MMORPG player they are. In a way it kind of filters people out before they get in over their head with hopes and expectations.
Then it follows up with:
Which in my opinion is not true. Mortal Online does not cater to players of all shapes, sizes and playstyles. Far from it. The game is brutal as can be and has lacks tons of things a mainstream MMORPG player would want.
It caters not to p2w players or PvE only players.
For some reason. Despite how deceptive, I think Mortal Online 2's description of itself is. Mortal Online 2 seems to have successfully found only its target audience.
I just wish things were more like that for Ashes.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Of course, Mortal Online 2 is only going to grab the sandbox audience if they don't have any themebox in their design or implementation. Of course, they will pretty much only grab the "action combat" audience if they have no tab target combat in their design or implementation.
Ashes actually has systems and features and mechanics to support almost every MMORPG playstyle in their design. Ashes target audience is "almost every" MMORPG "playstyle".
And you keep trying to narrow it down it to to whatever your vision is of the target audience.
The Ashes target audience - who the devs are designing systems for- is considerably broader than you want it to be.
It's not that I keep trying to narrow down the target audience. The game's stated systems should be doing that on its own inherently. The problem is that we have contradictory statements from Intrepid that artificially expands the target audience to include people that will hate Ashes.
You stated early in this thread that everyone here is the target audience:
This has been demonstrated to not be true. Only a handful of people have participated in this thread, and many of us are in here scratching our heads wondering if we are going to be in the target audience or not?
I don't know how you don't see the confusion as a problem. Especially in a climate where MMORPGs fail due to struggles to find their target audience. Which was part of the problem Jahlon was highlighting when he made the video that spawned these threads.
Is everyone wrong but you @Dygz ?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Am I part of the target audience?
A really good question.
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-12-31-creative-directors-letter
invites us all to "the world we hope you'll call home."
I feel welcome. At face value the game features are appealing. I guess I'm within the target audience.
Ashes stands out as a beacon of hope for no p2w MMORPGs because it promises to deliver so many desirable systems. I don't feel the need to repeat the long list of game features that many other posters have so eloquently highlighted, other than to "+1" them.
As a minimum at launch, for me, the combat needs to be "4 out of 5 stars", the other systems could get away with averaging a mediocre "3 out of 5 stars". It would take several months to determine if the game will keep running with a healthy population, the more stars the better the prognosis. That might be an interesting poll - how bad can the game be at release and you would still play it for at least a year, providing that your server population stayed healthy and active?
The good thing about about the transparent development is that we can track the current state of the game against our own interpretation of the proposed expectation, making it much easier for individuals to judge when/if they want to financially commit.
Even if the game released in its current state (not going to happen!) I would probably sub for a month just to walk around the world and admire first hand the environmental art that Mr Bacon and team have worked on. Alpha1 vistas (I don't know the exact terminology) - the use of lower resolution rendering of distant objects to give a feel for the sheer size of the world - I found really (OMG) impressive.
Target audience will likely also be lost to a good number of players temporarily to some of the big ticket RPG games (not MMO) that are not so far around the corner too.
So timing when to release will be quite a strategy to get right.
New World will be extremely popular in the first 6 months, after which popularity drops off a cliff. Their business model is to make the game appeal to as many people as possible for high volume of initial sales, then introduce a cash shop later to capitalize on that. I believe they recently delayed the game again, because they promised no "pay for convenience" items until 2022, and they want as many people as possible to buy cash shop items before they hit level 60 and quit. They realized that they needed to start introducing cash shop items less than 6 months after release to make as much money as possible.
The only good things about New World are graphics, action combat, and leveling progression. Once the majority of players hit 60, the game will be mostly dead. Open world PvP is meaningless and not rewarding with their flagging opt-in system, and the instanced PvP, while combat is good, is not more fun than playing a standard multiplayer game.
What playstyle does Ashes not have systems for??
LMFAO
That statement is not the target audience.
That statement is about belief in the target audience.
You are right. My statement about belief has been demonstrated not be true.
I don't know why anyone would follow a game when they do not believe they are part of the target audience, but people do odd things.
The devs state that they want solo players in the game. The devs state that they have features designed for solo players. And yet a solo player states they don't believe they are in the target audience.
A fan not believing they are in the target audience does not mean that they actually aren't in the target audience. Just as someone believing that the Earth is flat doesn't mean the Earth is flat.
Leth mentions caravans as an example of where grouping will be necessary, but we can hire NPC guards for caravans, so solo player can hire NPCs rather than gather a group of players. And then, as the caravan travels, other players can choose to guard the caravan. There are mechanisms in place to support solo players.
Some people might not beware of all the systems and others might choose to ignore/dismiss the systems that don't fit their playstyle.
You keep framing it as "target audience" and I keep telling you what you are talking about is different than "target audience".
What you are talking about is whether you will actually enjoy playing the game.
What is the target release date? Do you believe the target release date is actually the target? Why do believe it's not truly the target?
Whether you believe they will actually hit the target release date is a different question.
When Steven stated that their target release date was before 2020, I believed that was their target date because that was their target date.
I did not in any way believe they would actually hit that target.
You still need to clarify what it is you think is not the target audience and why.
The devs state that they want solo players to be part of the playerbase. They have mentioned features and systems for solo players. Do you not believe solo players are part of the target audience? If not, why not?
The devs state that they want casual players to be part of the playerbase.
"The idea is to incorporate some significant chunk of time but still respect the casual player, because you know the way we respect the casual player is not everything is driven in our game through the adventuring progression line. Not everything is driven through your class level per-se. There's a lot of different progression paths that are available and make you relevant within certain systems and mechanics within the game; and some of those paths are more casual friendly and some of those paths are more hardcore friendly."
How is that confusing and why do you not believe them?
Again, the Ashes devs are definitely targeting me. I typically play on PvE-Only servers. They want me to play and they are hoping that the Corruption mechanic is a enough of a random gank deterrent that I will enjoy playing on their PvX-Only servers.
I believe I am in their target audience because - I am in their target audience.
Do I believe I will enjoy playing the final version of the game? Of that I'm not convinced. I will have to see if Corruption actually works as well as the devs think it will.
Target audience and whether I will enjoy the game are not the same thing.
Target playerbase and actual player base may not be the same thing.
Am I in their target playerbase? Yes.
Will I be in their actual playerbase at launch? I don't know.
I'm not confused about that.
I am confused by what it is that you are trying to figure out (and why), but I don't think it's about "target audience." The Ashes devs have been quite clear about their target audience:
They have features and systems in the design for almost every MMORPG playstyle.
The game is not just a sandbox, it is also a themepark - it is a themebox.
Their target/goal is for hybrid combat - not just tab target, but also action.
Whether or not I believe they will hit that target/goal is a different question than what the target/goal is.
What do you think are the artificial expansions - and what is the evidence that they are actually artificial?
Why? I have a credit card and I am willing to pay good money for a good MMORPG experience.
The main feature that makes me believe in a good MMORPG experience in Ashes is the node system, with all it's derivative systems. I want to build up a good node, while destroying all competing nodes.
The Node system, while great, and 'amazing that no one has actually implemented it before now on a big scale', is not hard to design, it's only moderately hard to implement.
If Ashes isn't good, then Wayward Realms will do it. If Wayward Realms fails at it, another will pop up with it. If not them, someone else. The fact that Steven was the first to commit to it is great and if the rest of the game suits a sufficient amount of people, then it will absolutely hold onto its pioneer spot.
But it's not as if this will be some 'completely unique' thing, especially once people see how Intrepid does it and start basic reverse engineering the design. It looks like just tiled weighting with architectural limits. I have a literal equation for this already that I use for a Tabletop.
Are you saying 'you will play Ashes even if you like Wayward Realms gameplay better'? Or just 'any game with a Node system includes you in its target Audience'?
Just to be a pedantic ass. There's a difference (from a product perspective) between a customer (a consumer that purchases your product) and a targeted customer (a specific segment you are intentionally pursuing to purchase your product). For instance, a list of feature updates will be prioritized based on the segments they are targeting, not based on all customer feedback.
That's not arguing whether you are or are not part of the target audience (I personally would say you are). I just wanted to make the point above.
</pedantic asshat-ery>
Thats why 'every mmo player' isn't a target audience. If your product is 'mmo' 'anyone who buys an mmo' isn't a target. People who think it is make watered down garbage 9 times out of 10 and not just mmos. Anything. It's like if Strickland Propane said 'our target audience is anyone who buys propane and propane accessories.' No Dale, your target audience is 'people with grills'.
LOL! Well-wait-a-gosh-darn-min-der-dum-guy-wip-fsh-n-steak-jus-wan-eat-man-gsh-darn.
I miss Boomhauer.
But, if the devs state that their MMORPG has a role for almost every MMORPG playstyle and when you ask them about support for specific playstyles they tell you about the systems they've designed for those playstyles - and they actually have systems designed for almost every playstyle, then the target audience is almost every playstyle.
And then you have to determine which playstyle is not included in "almost every".
It's very similar to the EQNext design. Which is great, since Steven has a bunch of SOE/Daybreak devs on his team.
I expect to see more of this in the future. Yes.
Oh I didn't know about Wayward Realms. Looks potentially promising! But it's also a different genre than Ashes, so the two don't really compete. I can see myself playing both. I like the general concept of nodes/cities competing in general, but the MMO part of Ashes is what I think elevates it. Single-player just can't compete with player driven content in that regard IMO.
The node concept isn't new no, but Ashes is the first game to elevate it to this level and scale, where players build up a big city that changes the entire world around it, and then potentially destroy it again to open up new content.
I know, I was being rather tongue-in-cheek with that first part
I think the topic here is a bit moot. When you boil it down, I am in their target audience because I happen to like their design choices overall. It's not one specific thing. It's really that simple. I think a better way of framing this is something along the line of "What excites you the most about Ashes?", which I know has been done before.
Steven and Intrepid doesn't strike me as a company that sat down and designed a game based on a target audience other than themselves. It's closer to the whole "build it and they will come" way of doing things.
To oversimplify things perhaps, the only real target audience is Steven. He just hopes other people will like it in numbers big enough to have an mmorpg for him to enjoy, and for him to make some money too I am sure.
I think there's a lot to be said there. I don't think Steven is being overly analytical when deciding core features that are in or out. I think a huge part is, "I want this," so it's in. I do think there has to be some discussion inside IS about, 'well, who do we actually think our core audience will be?'
Laser eye Dygz: Yes.
Nah I mean I see what Dygz is saying, though I don't think Ashes is targeting EVERY mmo player. Does it have traditional faction/rvr pvp? No. Faction/rvr pvp players are not targeted.
But Ashes has raids. So to some extent, even if only a token gesture, it's targeting raiders. It will get some of them.
There's a lot more nuance to what yall are arguing about. Noaani would argue it's not targeting instanced competitive progression raiders. Ok maybe so. But you can divide and subdivide every category to the point where you can say ok they're not targeting this thing.
Game has fishing. Fishers are targeted. "But wait it doesn't have comprehensive fishing with baits and lures and fish that fight back in a mini game so it's not targeting me!!" Ok I guess not when you put it that way, but it's still targeting fishers in general.
I don't think its as much of a question of who they're targeting (because they're targeting alot), but more so a question of how much they're targeting each individual group.
I think you're going to be hard pressed to get Steven to blanket say "yeah were not targeting this group" because I think he thinks he's targeting many many different groups.
More than anything though, I think it's more like Nerror said, that Intrepid is going on "if you build it they will come."
Heh. Or your perception that's the subtext...
Did I nail it or am I missing something. I have to be missing something.
I did not start this thread to play word games. I started it to see if people think they are a part of the target audience. For the most part, that has been successful. There should not really be much debate in this thread.
I take part of the blame for participating in the argument when I should have tried to keep things on track earlier in the thread. I am not going to continue to debate the meanings of terms when I just want to know people's personal feelings when it comes to the target audience, and if they think they are a part of it.
@therestofthethread
This stuff should be entirely subjective. I don't think there are wrong answers for a question like this. We all come to different conclusions based on how information about the game is presented to us. I enjoy the response to the topic question and want to read more of them.
If you have something constructive you think may improve someone's prospective about the game, certainly offer it as a reply. Let's just not argue, please.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
lol is Dygz being Dygz again. I haven't read every post in this thread, cant lie.
I said earlier in the thread I agree with more clarity from Intrepid. Same time I just don't understand the frenzy. One of the biggest content creators for this game recently made a video saying "We dont know the target audience!! QUICK, change dungeons from 80/20 to 20/80!!" Like what? Bro it hasn't even been put in the game and tested yet.
I'm over dramatizing it, but that was essentially what was said. The game is still years out, not quite getting the frenzy.
I think you are missing something, and I think I know what it is - because it is the part that makes me unsure.
Not only do people in the target audience for this game need to specifically want some of the features the game will have, and be ok with things like PvP that will not be able to be completely un-avoided, but people will also need to be ok with the things the game won't have.
If your bright line for an MMO is that you really want black powder guns or some equivalent, Ashes isn't for you because this game won't have that.
If your bright line is that you want a well crafted, rich, deep story with quality storytelling from the game, Ashes isn't for you as the "story" of Ashes will be determined by players, not developers.
If your bright line is having a few nights a week where you and your friends can work on challenging PvE content without interference, Ashes isn't the game for you as it won't have that content type.
I'm sure most players have a thing they wish Ashes had that it isn't going to have, the question is what side of the line that thing falls on.
Speaking of which, while we sit here and debate video games, God bless our troops.
Who will actually enjoy those features are not necessarily the same thing.
Again, target release date is not the same thing as the actual release date.
We don't have to debate the terms - though I am telling you they are different.
Am I part of the target playerbase: Yes
Am I confident I will enjoy playing the game at launch: No
Is there contradictory messaging about who their target playerbase is: No
The actual claim is: I believe the devs are over-hyping their game and trying to attract people who will actually hate the game by sending contradictory messages about who they are designing systems for.
With no evidence whatsover that that is true.