Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
So, in Ashes, cosmetics from the store are full costume, and unable to be dyed. Cosmetics gained in game are individual slots that can be mixed and matched, and can be dyed.
This means your end game in terms of cosmetics shifts from being about the biggest shoulder accoutrements, and more about finding a unique look by combining multiple in game items and applying dyes to get the exact color you want.
So sure, it's a shift in what the cosmetic end game is, but it is still there.
Seems to me that it's not so much cash shops you don't like, as it is cosmetic slots or the ability to transmog - as either of these render the ability to see who has powerful gear obsolete.
I can't remember the last game that didn't have something along these lines.
The monthly fee goes a long way to pay for the game but it's not enough. That amount of money has never been enough in modern time for a full-blown MMORPG, which is why as others have demonstrated in this thread that they all have to make additional money somehow. Most of the time that is done via microtransactions, because the beauty of microtransactions (IN THEORY) is that they are optional; you don't have to buy them if you don't want to, so you can feel free to play the game for a minimum cost and enjoy what other people are paying for.
The reason I said "in theory" is that many games, especially the "free to play" ones, have a little scam going where they claim that microtransactions are optional when they really aren't. They often put "paywalls" in place, where at some point it's just not feasible to get any further without paying for something. Or they restrict it enough that the game isn't enjoyable without paying; Star Wars: The Old Republic is like that, where the last time I tried to play it without a subscription I didn't even have enough slots to put all my skills into without paying money. And then there is the far-too-common situation where you just can't compete with other players who paid for great gear with real life cash in a PvP situation.
That is all "pay to win" but fortunately Ashes of Creation has none of that. This is a rare gem of a game where the microtransactions are all cosmetic. Not even World of Warcraft does that; while the vast majority of stuff you can buy from their shop are things like mounts and pets which give little-to-no real benefit in the game aside from looks, they do offer things like the ability to advance a character to max level immediately by paying cash for it.
Railing against microtransactions in this game is ridiculous. It's childish. You are asking for something unrealistic because, "I don't wanna!" The only alternative to microtransactions is to raise the subscription fee. You are literally asking to pay more for this game, and I'm sure you don't even realize it.
Here's what you do. You get a small box, stick a piece of masking tape on it, and write on the tape "Ashes of Creation". Pretend that's the box you just bought. Take $60 in cash and throw it in the box. Then for the first 4 months that you play this game, you take $15 out of that box, deposit that $15 into your bank account, and then pay the monthly fee. You just got exactly what you wanted.
(Or you can dispense with all of that silliness completely, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.)
Perhaps there is some entity (Paypal, Cashapp, etc.) which will cover the conversion cost for you. I don't know if there is, perhaps someone on these forums can share the info if there is one.
I know that I get credit card offers where there is no foreign currency transaction fee on that card, which might be worth looking in to if your credit is good enough.
Edit: it's too bad I can't pay with Crypto Stable Coins. The rates are much preferred.
Double edit: Yes, I can pay in Crypto Stable Coins thanks to my crypto card. Perfection.
Treble edit: 'The purchase was completed successfully.' I love you IS
Great point, @Atama.
The only problem is the OP has been gone for months now ... and will completely miss the good advice or conveniently ignore it.
I don't like it either, frankly, but that's reality. Maybe there is a new business model that avoids them which might work, and nobody has tried before, but there's a reason that there are no successful MMORPGs (long-lived, currently active, and with a good playerbase) that don't have MTX.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
(In a love-based purchasing model, would a hug be a microtransaction?)
if it was my choice I wish I didn't have it, but far from being something big, I think more important than that is to be open to change if it gets bad, but at the end of the day it's a way to raise more money without spoiling the game. They will reinvest I don't know, only time will tell.
Is kind of silly.
Personaly, i prefer a month fee and not paying for box OR pay for box and have the months equivalent of it and then keep the monthly fee (we all know that is expensive keeping an MMO structure).
Regarding shop, being ONLY cosmetic stuff, you only buy it if you want and nothing will make you gain advantage over other players, simple as that!
That being said, i think is exxacly what Intrepid is doing with AoC ... wich makes me happy and looking forward for the game!
Micro transactions have nothing to do with the declines of those games. A fickle and changing playerbase is the main reason, combined with occasionally taking the game design in a bad direction.
There is entropy in all things and MMORPGs are no different. It’s astounding that WoW has lasted as long as it has. But nothing lasts forever.
Intrepid has promised us a game that won't make us pay to succeed in the game with sellable armor, weapons and augments/boosters. They have never promised that they won't charge us money for additional items we may want cosmetically.
$15 has been the standard subscription price for over 2 decades, and given inflation, and the fact new video games cost $60-70 now, $15 a month is really not that much to ask. If you can't afford $15 a month, you may have other priorities than playing MMOs in your life. That being said, "double dipping" would be if they charged us a sub model, and then charged us a "premium VIP" to access the rest of the game they pay gated.
What Intrepid is doing is selling us an ice cream cone, and then charging us extra for sprinkles. Really, very common to charge extra for additional items to enhance your base product. If you don't want to buy, then don't. It's literally that simple. But don't try to make a big deal out of nothing because you have a fatal case of the FOMO.
At the moment....
Unless Steven and the devs have some sort of huge fumble in the game design (which doesn't appear to be forthcoming), the game won't stray from it's original non-pay-to-win philosophy, @JONTA.
In other words, there's no evidence to support your statement.
Other MMOs have been successful with cosmetic and convenience items only in the cash shop (ESO for example).
True , . But things have a strange habit of turning out the complete opposite of what was meant to be over time. Don't believe all you read and are told and nothing will surprise you when it changes..
Do you have an example of an MMORPG that pledged no P2W and then changed completely later? If you are trying to establish that there is a precedent and you're not just making things up to be a gadfly.
Hmm. Well given the conversation in another thread I see a potential fumble (one easily fixed.)
Some people in another thread (without being corrected) have said IS plans to have cosmetics transmog over your equipped gear regardless of them matching your equipped gear. Example: A greatsword transmog on a staff, a robe on plate armor etc. This is obviously poor game design in a PvP game. Especially when you cannot turn off said skins which is another design decision Intrepid has stated in the past.
If this is true, it's not a small thing to worry about cash shop giving you more information control (which is power in pvp.) The benefit this gives is even stronger in a high participation count activity like seige or caravan where you have to have split second decisions and less ability to track any given player. You simply cant have optimal decisions against such a player in those situations, but optimal decisions are required in those situations....
Even if you can unlock these transmogs in game, the fact that you presumably can buy these costumes in the cash shop is definitionally paying money to get advantage earlier than the competition and less time spent getting those items instead of earning coin, or node xp, or actual better gear pieces. This wouldn't matter in a pve game, but Ashes is heavily PvP.
It's a major fumble if they stick with these design decision.
I don't have an example(suppose if i could be bothered to look hard enough I could find one )
and this isn't about other mmorpgs it's about this game, all I am saying is dont taken what is said as set in stone . When the £$ start to fall off things change to bring in those £$.
Your all so touchy on this forum anything negative or against the grain and you get called well basically a troll..
No, but it's nice if you make claims that you back them up, otherwise nobody is going to give your comments any credence. When you say "don't believe all you read" don't worry, I'm certainly not believing any of the theories you're trying to put forth here.
If you think that people are called "trolls" for saying anything negative, you certainly don't know the forum very well. One of the biggest critics of this company is me. Many of the people here who've been around for years have lived through the bad decisions and broken promises the developers have made. To me the worst was when they promised a Kickstarter-exclusive lifetime subscription, then offered it again to people after Kickstarter was over. The My.com partnership was also a debacle that brought a lot of criticism, though they at least had a good explanation for why they felt it was necessary, and they eventually ended that deal so folks in EU don't have to deal with that notorious company. I still maintain that it is embarrassingly dumb to call one of the archetypes a "tank" given that there is no in-game reference for such a term; Steven claims he called it that because "people are going to call it a tank anyway" which is a pretty thin argument. (Why do we have an archetype called "cleric" and not just "healer"? Why is there a "mage" archetype, not "magic damage-dealer"?)
For that matter, one of the worst decisions they made, and it continues to cause problems, is to misleadingly change common gaming terms and call their classes "archetypes", and then the class specializations "classes" when they aren't really classes. It confuses so many people and that confusion is intentional; they are intentionally misleading people. They are doing it so that they can market the game as "OMG we have 64 classes LOL!!!!111" which is a lie. Just because you call something a class, that doesn't make it a class. Yet another poor decision.
I could go on and on about criticism of this game. The thing is, criticism that has reason behind it is usually accepted. Criticism based on things you totally make up, based on misunderstandings, based on falsehoods, that criticism is going to lead to derision. When people continue to maintain that criticism despite being shown objectively that they are incorrect, that is by its nature trolling.
I'm not saying you, specifically, are a troll. But we get a number of them on the boards (as you will anywhere online), and that is one of the ways in which you can identify them.