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
Everything should be modified a little bit to fit into Verra and its lore.
More important is the question of what to import from the real world.
Holidays and New Year Celebration is a good idea, because most of the world knows it and does it.
Some other celebrations like Valentines Day and Halloween are well known also, so they could be added i think.
What should not be added in my view is everything that is national. Europe doesnt care about Independence Day and USA doesnt care about something like the reunification of Germany. So dont touch national topics.
BUT, everything that is added, when it lines up with the real world, should still be part of Verras history,
AND when you are doing a game that wants to be in a "serious world" where female armor is real armor and not a bikini, then please dont forget to be as serious with things like holidays. What i mean is, dont make some strange anime games with crazy bright colors and such things that is not fitting into the rest of the game.
In fact, I don't want RL holidays to influence Verran holidays at all. We have 10 known deities. Make up holidays for those 10. Seven of them the player-characters can enjoy, and three of them are for the evil NPCs like the ancients to enjoy and for the PCs to disrupt.
This is a time for your writers to shine and invent lore-appropriate holidays. That's 10 different monthly events right there, one for each deity. Then we have 9 different races with their version of major racial holidays, and now we're at 19 different monthly events.
You have a plethora of options going by potential Verran lore alone, and I hope you don't fall into the trap of applying the typical American-centric holidays to the game. I don't want to see christmas (you're pushing it with the Festive Protector’s Garments that look like Santa this month), I don't want to see the easter bunny or even halloween. I DEFINITELY don't want to see a corporate day like valentines day
Once you start going down that road, you'd have to include Hannukah, Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, Diwali and Bodhi Day as well. Chinese New Year too perhaps. I don't want to see any of them.
You kind of limited yourself with your one week seasons in the game. Had you stuck to three month seasons you could have made proper seasonal events. Now that isn't an option really, or it would feel very forced at the very least. Unless you separate the weekly weather from the seasons somehow?
if you start doing christmas, then you will have to do all the other religious holidays.
otherwise you turn the game into a political and religious propaganda
It's going to be a big mess.
Ashes of creation has its own history, it's another universe, with its own deities, and its own past.
some players want to play RP and would like you to respect your own game.
just asking us this question is worrying!
It should be a no-brainer.
we play to see something other than real life, if people want a christmas tree or a hollowed out pumpkin let them do it at home.
be creative, dig your brains out!
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
However I will repaste my post from there.
"Video game events are one of my primary ways of feeling festive. I prefer when a world has their own events/holidays/traditions, but correlated to the holiday schedule's of irl. I am less interested in character artifacts from real world holidays (santa, elves, rabbits, cupids, etc), but things like decorated trees, snow, lights, festive music, candles, candy/festive food, and even color schemes blue/white, red/green, orange/black etc are all quite welcome and encouraged.
There are really easy ways to put your spin on thematics to make it feel like Verra. Free example IS can take. Xmas is instead The Birth From Ashes. A week long celebration of life's cycle of death and rebirth. Each day represents a different part of the journey of a flame The Monday of wicks, the Tuesday of oils, the Wednesday of flames, the Thursday of wax, the Friday of smoke, the Saturday of darkness and ash, and the Sunday of rebirth. The days and length are less important than the theme. Its all about making a metaphor represent something important to the world build and making it festive. I would love to see this in December or even xmas plus new years time frame since it does a good job of both holidays.
Even more cool would be having the different religions trading their own holidays and takes on the different seasonal holidays. We don't know anything about the religions as far as I know but it'd be cool if there was like, chasing a phoenix festival for the temple of the phoenix, and a harvest bounty led by the temple of prosperity or w/e. "
I would also find it cool if races had their own holidays separately that drew from their races cultural background. For example Nikua's Polynesian background leading to a festival similar to Makahiki occasionally happening at nodes with high populations of them. Maybe Mayors can set these separate more 'regional' holidays to give the node a slight short term economic boost for some cost.
I'm a little bit biased about out of world holidays comming into the game world. I love in game holidays and events, But i feel it should be related to In game sentiments. The problem with out of world holidays is that many holidays have a cultural requirement. If your not from a particular country or region, or a particular out of world religion, a lot of the holidays have no meaning to you.
EG. depending on your region / culture, New Year is on different days (one often named Chinese new year), Independence day is a pure American Holiday, as is Thanksgiving. People outside of America have little or no cultural significance of that holiday. Same goes for Religion based holidays like X-mas, Summer or Winter Solice.
Instead what i would prefer is having the in game holidays tied to the race that contributes the most to the node. Each race has a resemblance to an out of ashes culture / region. Why not have the holidays reflect that as well. eg: Kaelar could be Christian based holidays, Vaelune could be Islamic based holidays, Dunir could have a Viking like holiday theme, Niküa Polynesian, Imperian Greek/Roman holidays, Py'rai Navajo/American holidays etc.
What better then having each reflected culture actually reflect the culture as well in the holidays. In that regard, the game could actually teach a bit of tolerance.
Pretty short answer this time around.
For example they could hide loot at random and leave a clue where you can gather it (with a slight bonus for completing their treasure hunt), or they can randomly curse you and transform you into an animal for a short duration when you go afk.
if you want to make a soup kitchen
put Christmas, Easter Bunny, Valentine's Day
make us a game of some kind
if you want ashes of creation to be a best, a new reference in the world of mmo
then you will put the holidays in game in connection with the lore.
it requires work, reflection, creativity
I've played games where the holiday events are exactly the same every year. You do the event one year (the quests or whatever the event is) and unless you missed a few things that you want to get, the quests and rewards are the same every year. Fun once or twice, then just kind of boring.
Would that be a programming nightmare? Maybe you could have an Intrepid Studios contest for creating new holiday events each year...
Creating meaningful holidays for Verra lore would be more interesting than wasting time trying to figure out how to make Easter fit into a fantasy setting.
Much love
As an NA player, pseudo-Christmas events and the like don’t bother me, but they may turn-off players with non-traditional celebrations. Especially those on EU and SEA servers.
- Please incorporate all secular holidays.
- Release them alongside the IRL timeline.
- Avoid national holidays & celebrations
- Seems most here would like lore-supported holidays with some deviation to the tradition, so consider that.
Just my 2 cents.
Oh I detest it. Made up Corporate Consumption BS day, that makes the world a more miserable place.
(ah that felt good)
Only feeding the greedy aspect if you buy stuff for it! That being said, it can be made into something wholesome in Verra.
Why would Christmas events turn off EU and SEA players?
I had no idea people felt this way.
To me it's always been cutesy, haha.
I especially love the events where you're playing matchmaker and the fate of Romeo and Juliet is in your creative hands mwahaha
I reckon some players on EU and SEA servers are more likely to be turned off by (my particular example) Christmas because the groups who do not observe Christmas as a holiday generally reside in these regions.
Was simply acknowledging that others may not share my opinion. But…
Most of these demographics are the minority. Therefore, I think secular holidays should be included.
IMO, Intrepid doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel here.
IF AoC does not include holiday type events during major international holidays, its is entirely possible that population levels will suffer during these times because frankly almost all existing competitors DO offer something during these periods (often time-gated loot), and it is entirely possible that by offering that content AoC competitors could draw players away for a time. People are drawn to whatever the 'new' thing is, and as such, I feel like in-game holiday events during major international holidays might actually be necessary, but must be predicated on the next point.
In-game holidays should have sufficient lore to stand alone if the RL holiday outside of the game did not exist. For example, an in-game holiday event for Halloween might have parallels with real life Halloween traditions, but there MUST be lore (that makes sense) which explains why those parallels make sense in Verra. If RL Halloween did not exist, would the in-game event in Verra and the traditions associated with it make sense? If not, the lore is not developed enough. Done particularly well this might involve branching differences in traditions between the races depending on the history of their race and civilization. If not tailored racially or geographically, the lore on which the in-game event is based needs to be related to something of such magnitude that each race or civilization has the same traditions.
In support of the above, I think that such in-game holiday events should be very limited in number over the course of a RL year so they can be flushed out with significant lore and world impact, something that would take quite a bit of developer time if done right, and be difficult if in-game holidays are too numerous. Furthermore, since most RL holidays are seasonally based, it might make sense that in-game holiday events "freeze" the in-game season for the duration of the event to be concurrent with the RL seasonal holiday. This could be explained easily enough by some magical construct or divine interference, or potentially something more sinister.
Other thoughts on in-game holiday events
- Holiday themed cosmetics, collections, quests/adventures, and other items for players to chase are a huge part of typical in-game holidays and a draw for players and absolutely necessary.
- Holiday cosmetics, quests/adventures, or items ideally should change each year, but with each prior year still being obtainable (even if obtaining prior year items must be done by paying a significant premium).
- Holidays must feel meaningful in the game - fewer holidays but with more world engagement is best IMO. In my view that means NPC dialogues and even interactions should be altered where appropriate. Caravans, node sieges, etc. should be impacted. Nodes should be updated to suit the traditions of the in-game holiday in question (whatever those happen to look like) based on the lore for that region, race, etc. Mobs should change if appropriate for the lore.
Great write-up. I respect your perspective. Although my thoughts differ.
Now I enjoy immersive MMOs that leverage quest-related and visual storytelling. But, I’m surprised at how many players strongly prefer holiday events to be rationalized through lore. To me it feels excessive.
I’m of the camp that accept and appreciate the fact that the developers designed this temporary artwork. Any fictional rationalization is appreciated but far from necessary.
Can someone succinctly explain to me why this degree of immersion is so important? Or is this thread just blowing it out of proportion since this is the topic at hand.
To me it’s like rationalizing a Christmas work party by making it work-themed. Sure I’ll take it, but we’re all adults here. Does it really have to go there?
This seems like what's already being done so I'm pretty happy with how it's going. Like this months cosmetics, each piece is informative on what a different race does this time of year. Each race having unique decorations and activities for the major holidays sounds awesome as long as it's fleshed out well.
I don't understand people saying you have to do all holidays if you do some... No you can just do the big ones a large portion of the world recognizes and stop there. Having a Valentine's event doesn't mean we'll eventually have to start celebrating international pancake day in game.
I don't really care for a July 4th ish holiday but don't see anything wrong with it. The game is being developed in the US, as long as it's lore friendly and unique go for it. China can make an MMO and have a big event for Chinese New Year if they want. They're no more obligated to have a July 4th event than a US game is to have a Spring Festival event.
That being said I'd still prefer not to go to crazy with the real world holidays, especially more niche ones.. That way there would still be plenty of room to add completely Verra unique holidays without the world feeling oversaturated with holiday events.
That is on the individual if they can't step away from a game to spend time with their family.
I counter argue to say that having holiday events gives people without families or the ability to be with their families an outlet and something to look forward to. As well as the people who don't even celebrate holidays, they get to go experience some cool in game events while their friends are off spending time with their families.
I think AoC has so much potential to come up with original holiday/festival ideas instead, given the history of the lore and major events that have shaped the fate of the races.
First off, keep the real world holidays away from the keyboard.
The least creative thing you can do is copy Christmas, like you did with the December cosmetic.
You tell us Verra is not earth. Verra is its own world with its own cultures and stories. Then do that. Come up with a winter holiday that makes sense for Verra. Don't just copy the Aesthetic of Christmas and call it a day. Be original.
If you want holidays to exist in the game you need to come up with a reason for why we don't celebrate them every year. Right now, a Verra year is only one month. So why do we celebrate yearly holidays once every 12 years? There is opportunity for fresh new lore building at every turn.
Here is an idea. Every three Verra years is a "long year".
Do a month long in game season/festival dedicated to:
[spring(March), summer(June), fall(September),winter(December)]
The seasons are a common marker for nearly everyone holidays. They are generic enough to use, but leave room for a creative spin on how each season could be celebrated.
People are also complaining that the seasons are too short. Maybe a month of each season once a year will make them thankful they are only a week long normally...
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.