Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I have seen nothing to indicate that I won’t be able to play this game. I’ll advance slower than no-lifers, but so what? It means the content will last longer for me. I’ve played MMORPGs for more than 20 years. I play them right now. I play end game content in many of them. I catch up eventually.
I am sure there’ll be lots of players like me and we’ll be happy. Why wouldn’t we be? It’s not a race, it’s a role-playing game.
The people who won’t be happy are those who can’t stand any PvP, but oh well. This isn’t a PvE game. People who love PvE (like me) will have tons of things to do and enjoy. You just need to accept that PvP is not totally avoidable. You might even enjoy it on occasion. Hopefully you will.
How very "woke" of you.
This age old argument where a casual PVE player attempts to weaponize the PVP mechanics in an attempt to oppress a segment of the population is quite trollish.
Let's look at some quick facts, ever since the radicalism of MMO's in which they attempted to accommodate the constant crying of the "woke" MMO player has consequently led the industry to where its at today, a dying venture.
The key reason is the constant dumbing down of the game to appease this particular group. From instances to safe zones it removed the human dynamic of the world causing it to suffocate and die.
In AOC the risk vs reward is fairly balanced, and PVP is a driving engine for change in the world. This will keep players engaged and create a world where decisions have consequences.
This also builds a sense of community mainly because the two gaming ideologies can not exist without the other.
Short answer to your question is, No.
Look for another game or a single player RPG.
I’ll be 45 this year so I can’t help you.
while I don't disagree with your final point, you got to it using some incorrect logic.
The notion of instances is what made MMO's, not what broke them. Before instanced content, MMO's had less than a few million players in the EU/NA region in total, across all MMO's. Once instances became a thing, individual games had millions (or tens of millions) of players.
Sure, the genre has broken a lot since then, but don't blame the thing that made MMO's in to a viable game genre for their current state.
Viable? Cheese isn't anymore viable because a broader range of people consume it. I think you're perhaps talking along the lines of the wealth generated from a large audience gifted them more benefits such as more expansive work due to profits but it's arguable, I'd say with the profits a game like WoW generated it wasn't anything too impressive which I feel most fairly successful companies could push out.
Instances help massively to ease game engine capacity limitations and more importantly, for people who don't immerse/casual, provides organised and tailored game moments without other players intervening. This did help break the genre, in the sense that there are two demographics, dedicated and casuals players, both are essentially disconnected from each other and thanks to other practices by the mainstream mmo's they don't rely on each other, economy and growth wise, everyone prods along at their own pace and doesn't need to know anyone.
But now...
If L2 was the level and demographic of success MMO's could expect, there would have been Asian MMO's, but no Western MMO's at all (the game peaked at around 200k NA/EU players - and that level only lasted a month or so - it was under 100k 6 months after release).
Developers looked at EQ2 and WoW as being proof of the commercial viability of MMO's in NA/EU, and both of those games lean HEAVILY on instances.
If those two games were not commercial successes (they were very different levels of commercial success, but were indeed both commercial successes), there would be no NA/EU market for MMO's. Instances are not something that split anything along a casual/dedicated line. The hardest content in any MMO, content that can only be taken on by dedicated players, exists in instances and can only exist there.
I will agree with you that WoW's use of instances has gone some way to breaking MMO's, but that is more the addition of instant travel to instances and the LFG system, rather than instances them self. If you put instances to work as they are best used (the boss of a dungeon being instanced, while the rest of the dungeon being open, as an example), then instances are nothing but a boon for the MMO genre.
WoW wouldn't of existed if L2 was holding an "expected" million+ concurrent playerbase? That all depends on the hunger of a company in an attempt to push out their vision of what would believe to be more appealing to generate some kind of revanue.
South Korea/China didn't look at MMO's from the west, they made their own thing and just merely shipped them to western publisher's without much of a care in the world (hence many complaints as the game is designed for an Asian audience). The South Korean and China's way of life is much different from our own, games like Lineage 1 were making truck loads in that part of the World, a game that would easily be considered a joke in the western world.
Archeage and BDO's concepts were barely anything to scream "this is a copy of the west", the core of their systems was always in the player contests and players grafting (and spending) to achieve, something that western development was never known for as they kept prodding along making quest and achievement based games that were almost akin to console based games.
Ofc I didn't fully go into more detail about how instances have benefitted, ofc you can make interesting and timed content that are boss related usually. Lineage 2 (UE2 limitations mind) had that with their dragons and other things but they also made sure there was huge player vs player contest to happen first. We can have that interest with UE4/UE5 in open world now but would I say the past instancing efforts intrigued and encouraged people to think about how it can be improved going forward? Again it's questionable but I wouldn't underestimate people's imaginations.
You can talk about instancing as a boon if you like, I will just be looking at it as a sometimes needed feature required for what engines and scales they were working with at the time, which Koreans utilized when they needed and what Western Development and idea making ABUSED.
Yes instancing alone wasn't the main culprit in taking away outside principles, "Dungeon Queue WoW" and so many other casual "pick up and play" features just dumbed down the experience, as I said earlier, features akin to a console/single w/co-op game.
(On a vent here...)
Ashe's of Creation is a project, that, is closer to normalizing and balancing the failure of interesting Eastern Development concepts (that include social politics/reliance) than looking toward Western "Successes" IE at the amount of people who bought and played WoW but never bothered with any form of high end raiding or PvP.
Besides UO, The West's success has only looked to entice people who weren't really interested in a properly growing and player driven online space to begin with, WoW has been nothing but a curse and a road block to players who geninuely enjoy systems, player connections and more importantly companies looking to enter the space with many ideas but the big elephant that is "the best mmo ever" will never leave will by default stunt their growth (so similar to the moba LoL, the price humans pay for not setting up and encouraging competition in the competitive business space).
If you're likeable and not in anyone's way then no one has any good reason to touch you, PK'ers incur potentially heavy penalties and are forced into survival and having to carefully watch their back.
If you want to "opt out" feel free to play New World or the many avaliable single and co-op player games, no one is forcing you to play and create a meaningful and social ingame avatar in a world that is player driven.
A good chunk of why NW didn't succeed was because it had opt in and opt out systems that, along with other things, made the World un-interactive and pointless.
This game will not have MTX, why are you being suggestingly negative basically saying there will be?
I agree that instancing can cause a lack of sociality. Being able to jump into a dungeon can save you time not having to travel there which some people like with limited time. There was something to say when you had to go to town to try to get 40 people to make a raid group.
Instancing can also be necessary from a technical aspect. Even if the game pulls off 500 v 500 castle sieges that is still instancing in that you don't have all 8000 people on the server at the battle. It would be interesting to have 1000 people transporting things in a mega caravan. Please, by all means attack us. World of Warcraft would have been successful despite Lineage because when it first came out it was fun. You also have a lot of South Koreans that like Blizzard games. The market there was so lucrative that they have their own servers and events to cater to the South Korean player base.
Eve Online is a game with one server that everyone in the game plays on. The problem with that was combat and the issue of delay when you get hundreds of ships into a single zone. It made the combat not fun at all. Now the developers might be able to fix that if they wanted to recode the game and spend money on it, but this is a case where instancing would be helpful.
Here are some facts for you...
1) The game does have raids.
2) Forced PvP is something that can and probably will happen to you. However, if you are attacked and don't defend yourself because you don't wish to participate in the combat, and the attacker kills you, there are consequences. So it shouldn't be a regular occurrence.
3) Microtransactions are purely cosmetic in nature. You can buy skins that can change your clothing appearance, or the appearance of mounts, pets, ships, and buildings in your freehold. Absolutely nothing that can give you any kind of boost or other advantage in game will be available as an MTX. There is no pay to win. The appearance items you can buy from the cash shop aren't even the best in the game; there are "legendary" appearance items that can only be earned through gameplay. MTX is completely optional in this game.
Knowing these things, does that change your opinion at all? If you really want to learn about this game, I recommend starting here:
https://www.ashes101.com/
That is part of the appeal to me, something entirely new since Steven seems determined to make this special and which will be fun without constant frustration.
In WoW, in theory you can flag as PvP and go around doing PvE stuff while opening yourself up to attack from people from an enemy faction. Just imagine that you can't turn that PvP flag off, and you get the idea of how PvX works.
Another way to think of it, if you are familiar with WoW, is think of the Alterac Valley battleground. It's a PvE challenge where your goal is to fight your way across a landscape fighting NPCs and bosses, but enemy players on the other side are doing the same thing and when you run into each other you can fight. Imagine that the entire game is like that.
I will say, too, that AV was by far my favorite battleground in WoW. I'd play it over and over. Even though I'm not a big PvP guy, I think I'll like AoC because of that.
Who said this?
Mainstream mmo practices like WoW and FF14 are the correct approach they just have to evolve the formula. WoW and FF14 had sustain growth for 10 years so obviously the main stream mmo practice works. PvX mmos have not had sustain growth over the long haul. The weakness of mmos has always been retention and if they do not gain new players they inevitable die.
I think Ashes of Creation needs is ten year roadmap to signal to players that they plan on growing the population and updating the game. I do not think that Ashes' will attract the MOBA's,/FPS/Sports and Battle Royale games. People who play those games enjoy pvp but not in mmos.
Fortnite dominates the online space now and I do not know how any mmo is going to draw players from that game.
That's a precarious statement, @Rhel ... seeing as Fortnite is a survival shooter and Ashes an MMORPG.
You can't get much more apples and oranges.
Would Ashes actually want players from Fortnite?
I couldn't convince myself of an answer either way ...
I am not saying Ashes should target people who play fortnight, but people can be multifaceted and like more than one type of game.
If Ashes fails to deliver on any given facet of their game, like combat or crafting they will fail to draw in people. What draws said people in is shaped by all of their previous gaming and life experiences.
So when there is a game that was universally liked and played by a large group of people, it would be foolish from a design stand point not to look for what expectations may occur relative to your games own design, if only to figure out how best to explain things to people that might be different (or familiar with some key differences) from what they are used to.
I'm not saying that's what the person you were responding to meant either, but there are plenty of reasons a person who sells apples should pay attention to people who sell and buy oranges, in short. Human psychology is pretty universal after all, if complex.
"If L2 was the level and demographic of success MMO's could expect, there would have been Asian MMO's, but no Western MMO's at all (the game peaked at around 200k NA/EU players - and that level only lasted a month or so - it was under 100k 6 months after release)."
I'm unable to fathom what you're getting at (not taking this piss btw).
Fortnite had its explosive year but League of Legends still stands as the strongest. Lot's of LoL's playerbase enjoy their particular characters (classes), expression, itemization and grinding (CS'ing), these are common elements that exist in an MMO.
L2 had a low population in terms of NA/EU players. This is the demographic that NA/EU game developers are after.
As such, if L2 was the only third generation MMO that NA/EU developers had to go off of, they would not have funded any MMO's aimed at the NA/EU market.
However, as both EQ2 and WoW are also third generation MMO's, and had significantly larger NA/EU populations than L2 (and both proved exponentially more popular over time), developers were able to look at those two games and understand that there was indeed an NA/EU market for MMO's.
Both of those games were the success they were (massive success for WoW, moderate success for EQ2) because they relied heavily on instanced content primarily so that players knew there was content for them to run on any specific day (even in 2004, there was no technological need for instances, it was purely a case of making sure players had access to content).
So, as the entire post you seem to be misreading points out, instances are the foundation of NA/EU MMO's. Sure, point out flaws in how some games have implemented them if you want (I consider WoW's LFG system to be the single worst thing to happen to MMO's at all, ever, and am somewhat vocal about that). However, don't go pointing a finger at all instances claiming they are the problem (or agreeing with someone that says as much), when they are in fact the foundation.
I didn't misread the entirety of your post, just that segment.
Your logic is fixated on the amount of players equates to the amount of success and from a business stand point this is true. If we talk about food like MMO's, Mcdonald's is the most successful venture, let's label that the best food and call it a day...(surprised Pikachu faces everywhere).
Not many are going to argue that Mcdonalds is the best at providing accessible food that meets most peoples criteria for a "a decent bit of filth, pretty fun, didn't have to cook" and that is, in essence, WoW and FF14 (The 2 Heavyweight champions of instance).
My point toward you was to only push the notion that instances were a tool that was helpful, not essential, for devs to make some interesting content, usually outside of their mmo principals and concepts. Instances aren't, at all, a solid foundation for game building if peoples idea of a great game is if the world was NOT INSTANCED , all it's proven is that the general, less dedicated gamer of a population like is to be given practically ANYTHING relating to fun and essentially, with instances you're making seperate games, super.
WoW and FF14 provide fast food, in a perfect world there would be no fast food, just good food.
When dedicated gamer's talk about Archeage, they mean it when they angrily say that it had so much potential, the game wasn't instanced reliant, Instances were just some small content adds for acquiring some mat's and some decent bound equipment that doesn't matter in the long run, everyone was invested in the open world and their own claim to fame and glory within it.
I really don't think you've "succeeded" in driving your point across to people like myself or @flatline .
The genre did elevate by providing the masses to an "introductory" and as I've said, Fast Food style MMO concept but that does not in anyway mean that it's the right way to do things and that's why Ashe's is needing to take that sweet time, for an MMO to not only be the best place for dedicated gamer's but a warm and fuzzy place for casuals also.
Quantity does not equal quality, I am not saying this.
I am saying that if a product does not sell well in a region, you don't invest hundreds of millions of dollars to attempt to develop that product for that region.
Prior to WoW and EQ2, MMO's didn't sell well in NA/EU.
Using your example of McDonalds, there are no McDonalds restaurants in Jamaica. There are other restaurants there, and there are many McDonalds restaurants in other parts of the world. However, at least right now, McDonalds know it is not a good decision to attempt to open a restaurant in Jamaica.
If it were not for WoW and EQ2, that would be the thinking that game developers would have towards MMOs in NA/EU. Those two games (that rely heavily on instancing) showed developers that there was indeed an NA/EU market for MMO's that was worth investing in. If people only think that an MMO can be good if it has no instances, then that is their issue to deal with.
They are wrong, objectively speaking.
They may be right subjectively, but they are objectively wrong.
I also want to reiterate that the notion of instances being required due to any technical limitation is factually incorrect. Instances were created (in EQ) so that players, groups and guilds had access to content. The game was suffering because if you were not online when a specific mob spawned, you just missed out on it. Since PvE was (and still is) the core of MMORPG's, missing out on PvE means you are missing out on the game. Miss out on the game and you play a different game - which means you stop subscribing. This is the exact situation the original EQ was in.
Thus, instances.
Now every guild has at least access to content, meaning you can actually play the game. They weren't a tool to make interesting content, they were a *requirement* for delivering MMO content to a large number of people.
Yes, there are some people that think PvP is the core of an MMO, but all one needs to do is look at the spectacular lack of long term success PvP based MMO's have in comparison to PvE based MMO's to see how blatantly blind this notion is.
Edit: Will also add that while I do think there will certainly be PK’s and folks who try to find ways to utilize the corruption mechanic, I think there will be far more people ready to hunt those individuals down. It will create a lot of fun situations and events.
Seriously? did you use the word woke? You can't use the word woke for everything you disagree with. In fact, you shouldn't use the word woke at all, its a very dumb word.