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.
What would you suggest to keep a sane community on Ashes ?
Ael
Member, Alpha Two
Hey guys,
Since Ashes relies a lot on its community, getting and keeping a « sane » / non-toxic community will be absolutely mandatory in order for the game to be a success and for us to enjoy playing it for a long time.
Many mechanisms of the game have been thought and designed in order to enhance a « play together » playstyle, which is undoubtly a good thing to bring people together and thus to encourage having a "sane" community.
But we should not rely on mechanisms only, since we all have a role to play (not to say « a responsability ») about the community we are part of.
Thus I wanted to know what you guys think about :
1) What could we, as players, do concretly in order to keep a « good / sane » community for Ashes ?
2) What would you like the developpers / game masters to do in order to achieve the same thing ?
Since Ashes relies a lot on its community, getting and keeping a « sane » / non-toxic community will be absolutely mandatory in order for the game to be a success and for us to enjoy playing it for a long time.
Many mechanisms of the game have been thought and designed in order to enhance a « play together » playstyle, which is undoubtly a good thing to bring people together and thus to encourage having a "sane" community.
But we should not rely on mechanisms only, since we all have a role to play (not to say « a responsability ») about the community we are part of.
Thus I wanted to know what you guys think about :
1) What could we, as players, do concretly in order to keep a « good / sane » community for Ashes ?
2) What would you like the developpers / game masters to do in order to achieve the same thing ?
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Comments
- Initiate and participate to in-game player-made events (Mount races, battle pet fights, taverns games, treasure hunts...)
- Offer to help newcomers through the mentorship program
- Spend time to give a hand to people in game even if it doesn't bring any outcome we need
- Complain together about how imba [put a class name in here] has become since the latest patch
- Be active and benevolent on forums / discord
2) What would you like the developpers / game masters to do in order to achieve the same thing ?
- Bring help / special rewards to local player-made events
- Manage some large scale events. For example : initiate a quest for all the players to bring ressources to create a huge arena, and host some « Ashesolympic games » once a year when it's built.
- Create some indicators about how safe/toxic is the community on a given server, and periodically grant global rewards (5% rebate on all in game purchases or stuff like that) if the indicator are goods.
Sane community? Keep a sane community? Who are you or anybody to tell others what to do? Leave people alone.
For me the only reasonable thing is tackling real issues like exesive insulting and real racism. Take a pic of the chat send it to IS. IS can issue a warning or ban straight away if there is a real offense there.
That's all. People label toxic everything that isn't about giving then validation and a feeling of belonging. You cant even argue anymore without someone turning to victimhood and making threats for a ban.
People get killed ingame in a game that has killing in it and they call it harrasment. Weak in mind, seek others set up rules that ruin everybodys fun just because their bubble bursted.
Grow up people. It's not the community that's not sane. It's you that you havent learned to ignore, argue facts or pvp back.
In an environment like that, sportsmanship is not going to be the top priority for everyone every day. It would be nice, but it is very unrealistic to expect friends and foes to be paragons of sportsmanship all the time.
Knowing this, it only seems reasonable that individuals looking to get involved in things like fighting for castles, raid bosses, or caravans should expect a degree of salt. In fact, salt can be part of the game. Nearly everything cool that happens in Game of Thrones is due to someone being salty and motivated by it. To say the Grayjoys are toxic would be an understatement. As long as the toxicity stays in game, I think it can be a great boon and give meaning to these endless battles many of us long to be a part of.
Look, at EVE. Some of the best stories in video game history, IMO have come out of the real player PvP interactions of that game. Short of doxing, nearly anything goes in EVE. All is fair in love and war.
In short, sportsmanship is nice, but it can't always be expected. As long as the anger stays in the game, it should be fine. IMO.
Stay salty.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
@Aeleanael Unfortunately, I disagree with this statement - "non-toxic community will be absolutely mandatory in order for the game to be a success and for us to enjoy playing it for a long time". The reason I disagree is because what you are saying is just not possible. There will be toxicity and lots of it. The community so far on the forums is fantastic but I have already watched guilds form and fall apart in Alpha 1....and this was a time to simply test the game out! People are just shitty online. Fortunately, the social aspect of what AoC is trying to do will help weed people out quickly on every server. Guilds will have blacklists, trolls will quit the game and through the ashes, good communities will be created (you see what I did there? lol
For example, if your town mayor throws a festival - what would make a citizen want to participate in that festival? Does there need to be some sort of reward to dole out to winners? A Leaderboard for people to get street cred in their node?
A murder hobo tries an innocent argument. I see through your dark logic! 🤪
Seriously, is it only L2 and L2 ex-players that will have experienced how pk`ing can be used for good and bad?
I generally find the same in RL, too.
Yes, because that hasn't really been a thing in any other games since then.
Basically, if you didn't play L2, you missed it.
Don't ever expect it to come back either, honestly. It just isn't what MMO players do these days.
Yet, we have Steven who threw 40million at this project because he misses what Lineage 2 was and what ArcheAge should have been...
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Yeah, thing is, that isn't going to change player behavior or patterns.
Both Archeage and BDO (And Albion, from what little I knew of it) had what was needed to facilitate the kind of gameplay that people in L2 keep talking about - yet neither game really had it.
It's probably worth asking why...
I would bet it is because the games you just mentioned are all more forgiving than L2 was in its prime.
Getting anything was real effort. Having to put monumental effort into obtaining gear and levels changes your mentality when it comes to needless risks when losing that effort is on the table.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
And how many players are left that are willing to put that effort in?
That is the behavior and patterns thing above.
I mean, I'm keen to put in some real time and effort in to a game, but not as much as the original EQ asked at it's start, which was about on par with what L2 was asking for.
It just isn't gamers these days, like it or not.
Working together to build villages/towns/cities/metros as our homes - and knowing where other players with similar playstyles have their homes - will go a long ways towards building friendly communities.
The devs expect this to be extended to servers - with people knowing which server best suits a particular playstyle.
These Forums and the content creators already help contention feel more fun than I originally expected.
When I recognize people from the Forums or from Twitch/YouTube, I'm sometimes rooting for them even when they're on the opposing side of a Siege.
Might feel similar for Node Sieges.
"Crap! Atama's guild just destroyed our City, but... I really wanna see what Atama is like as a Mayor."
I always said Ashes is a niche game. People act like niche is a dirty word around here. Just because something lacks mass appeal doesn't mean it has no appeal. It just means the crowd that it appeals to is not the largest in it's genre.
With that said I don't think it will be as bad as what me and you may have been raised in. Stuff like EQ, FFXI, and L2 is in the past. I do think it will/must be work enough to keep the same mindset in play from L2. Where people would avoid the "YOLO LOL" play style as much as possible.
Effort itself may be a niche concept in all online games these days...
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
The only form of sportsmanship would be adhering to the EULA. Cheating is bad sportsmanship, but everything else kinda goes. Open pvp tends to solve some toxicity problems, and create others. Corruption is designed to help open pvp solve more problems than it creates.
One of the reasons I like ice hockey is that conflict is built into the game, two guys just duke the crap out of each other, get a penalty, and then get over it and keep playing.
1) Remove all in-game chat channels, and all the voice channels
2) Make a really bad game so that no one plays
It's been my experience that sane communities in MMOs are limited to small guilds. Otherwise? They're about as rare as the rarest Shiny that the hardest raid boss in the game drops!
You can't get over it and just keep playing if you're corpse-camped, looted and still flagged for PvP when you no longer want to be.
Details …
If the game is designed in a way that proportionally rewards players for taking on risks/challenges then you can curb these feelings a bit, but not entirely.
My suggestion will always be a strong, solid ToS that smacks the crap out of you if you break the rules. Create a ToS that is as cut and dry as it can be. Leave room for areas that have to be grey and make sure that punishment is swift and accurate.
If players know they are going to get slapped when they do something, they are much less likely to do it. Let us be real here though, no amount of policing will stop all of the idiots out there. That is just a fact of life and sometimes the ignore option will be your best option.
We have to define what these term mean and they don't mean the same thing to everyone.
Case in point. A friend of mine is a college professor. If he hangs out with me and a certain grouping of my fiends he is either embarrassed or shocked that such things could be said(is really funny to watch). I keep some of my groups of friends separated as different groups have different thresholds on what is considered ok. Some like to cuss a lot like a lot a lot. Some don't cuss at all. Some like off color jokes and are never offended others are super thin skinned.
In an MMO you will have a mix of all these types of people. Basic rules of decency should apply here. Treat people with respect and grace at the same time. Far to many people seem to think if some one says something different that they are wrong and toxic. To be fair here these people do exist but some trolling and trash talking has to be allowed as long as people aren't devolving into the obvious hateful garbage.
If they set basic rules and set people free the community will figure it out.
@George Black :
I agree with some of your points such as :
Overreacting (like « this guy killed me this is harrassment he is so toxic he should be perma banned ») is an issue that can't be considered as being even close to real issues.
Reporting and getting rid of real issues like excessive insulting and racism is absolutely mandatory.
I may be wrong but I feel like you're thinking things are black or white only.
I mean, for example not everybody consider being killed in game is harassment/toxxcity and so on right ?
Some people do, some don't. Some will just be pissed about being killed for a couple of minutes, some will hold grudge forever and complain even longer.
I don't think making general assumptions about how people behave about that will bring us anywhere.
The point of this thread is certainly not to tell anybody what they have to do, it's to get ideas about what can be concretly done in order to strenghten a good/benevolent/sane (idk what is the right word, you get the idea) community.
No great theory and all, just actuall stuff anyone could do in game.
And for those who don't care... well that's fine too.
(sorry btw but I'm not sure I have understood what you meant with your two first sentences?)
@Vhaeyne
I agree with that, because in my opinion being salty is not necessary being toxic.
« The dose makes the poison » as they say.
Of course losing my carvan / castle / raid boss to some salty guys would piss me, but that's what the game is about so at the end of the day it's fine. I lose something in game and the other team earns something in game in return.
In my opinion toxicity is more « player related ». Bringing harm to a player in order to harm the player is toxicity.
I don't feel that bringing harm to a game character in order to conquer or node or whatever is toxicity.
Of course not everyone has the same tolerance toward what happens in game, but my point here is not to draw a line between what would be « salty and acceptable » and what is « toxic and unwanted ».
It's to get ideas about what could be actively done on an individual [=player] and/or GM basis in order to have a better community.
@Khronus
That's right, I should have added « In my opinion » before this sentence my bad
Since as far as I'm concerned I have way more fun playing a bad game with good friends than playing an amazing game filled with assholes.
Of course there will always be toxicity online and this is true for each and every game. But as you're saying it, there are also good communities and behaviors that rise (from ashes for example indeed: ) ).
My point is not to bring toxicity to level 0 because I agree it'll never happen. It's to think about what anybody could do in order to help the community being as good as our expectations to the game are.
@maouw
That's something I'm also interested in. I think there are lots of things that can be done if devs/GM are not only focused about game updates / answering queries, but also have an active in-game rôle by supporting / hosting events
@Tyranthraxus
But the more « valuable » people there will be too.
I truly don't think there some kind of fatality that leads any great game to end up with a shitty community.
@Sathrago
Although I somehow dislike this kind of reasoning (mainly because I believe people are « allowed » to make errors, and should not be punished too hard for that in lots of cases), I have to agree that a severe ToS about breaking the rules may bring out good results on a global scale.
I also agree with the rest of your post about grey lines, policies and ignore.
@bloodprophet
I agree with this too, it points out the difficulty to state what is acceptable vs. what is too much, or what is salty vs. what is toxic... what I personnaly think is that such things have to be considered case by case, since as you're saying people don't have the same tolerance with trolling and so on.
It's hard to figure out the tolerance of people we don't know, and thus to know if they'll get hurt or not, which makes very difficult to draw this line about « acceptable » and « not acceptable ».
I'd like not to focus too much about « what is toxic and what is not » on this thread since it's a concept that don't mean the same thing for each of us, and may deserve a separated thread.
Rather I'd like again to get your ideas about what could be concretly done in order to prevent Ashes community to slip on the « bad side », whatever you consider being this bad side.
In short, what can we do in game to get the best instead of the worst out of people ?
As a member of the community, I take it as part of my responsibility to be interactive with newcomers, strangers and acquaintences.
It's always hard to trust strangers these days, but I'm doing my best to not to let that doubt ruin the potential for sunshine.
Do you have a source for that?
My understanding is that Steven is prepared to put in up to $40 million if it is required, which is a subtly different (and smarter) level of commitment than him having already transferred $40 million into Intrepid's bank account.
Is my understanding correct?
A) No name changes.
C) No zoning-in from other realms/servers.
Let player reputation matter in a game where socialization is important for achieving anything of value and where making a character takes a lot of time.
In such a context being toxic will not be worth it and people will see that being sociable in a good way is more profitable.
As for griefers.... its a PvP game. Such a game is a competition.
Yes there will be serious pvp competition in the open world and everywhere.
Good.
In that vein, Intrepid, we need good player reporting tools please! Make it easy to attach screenshots or chat logs and such.
I would be perfectly ok with a report option that let's us link the player and then an open box for us to explain the situation. If screenshots are needed, a simple email to us with the option to reply back with screenshots that will automatically be associated with said report ticket based on the emails title (Support ticket "XXXXXXX") will be simple and effective. I do firmly believe that with this level of community they are planning to deliver, we will not have as many issues as most other games have.