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
I think one of the things that will enable progression to be stretched out is the respawn rates of world bosses. In the same way raid lockouts slow down player progression in other games, respawn rates can be adjusted to affect how fast players can get the best gear. Since these bosses are in the open world, they can only be killed and looted by one group each spawn. Combine that with the necessity for resources to repair gear as well as overenchanting and i think there will be a tier of progression that will take extremely long to progress through. Nodes also add another layer to this since they limit the content that is available. As time goes on and nodes change, so will the items that are available.
/sigh
I think my responses on this thread speak for themselves, regardless of your defensiveness.
Hahaha dude... the point is that there is no difference between Themebox and Sandpark... both terms refer to a mix between Sandbox and Themepark games... So you coming here to say that it's not Sandpark, but that it's instead Themebox is pointless because both terms mean the exact same thing so you are literally just here to disagree.
And no I'm not gonna share what I think is correct, because I know nobody is ever convinced by strangers on the internet, when it comes to fundamental and contentious stuff like this.
But this isn't real life. It doesn't work like that with video games when people have the simple option to just quit. Developers need to design good parameters.
It's a game that people choose to play, a little different than real life. Not sure who expects real life to be the same as a game or why you think a game needs to mimic real life. We are shooting magic spells at dragons for crying out loud.
Whole point of forums is to share opinions and even if you can't convince the person you talking to, readers could be swayed.
Heh. There are differences, particularly relative to the story being told, and the player's participation in that story. Ultimately, Ashes is probably going to be its own thing somewhere in that gray. The only reason I brought it up, is that 'themebox' is how Intrepid explicitly refers to their design direction.
Feel free to be aggrieved accordingly.
You wrote:
"What you are describing is an issue in theme park MMOs. In sandbox/sandpark MMOs this is not an issue.
The content is the players and events they bring forward not the necessarily the gear you chase."
That quote is flawed.
The accurate version is:
"What you are describing is an issue in theme park MMOs. In sandbox MMOs this is not an issue.
The content is the players and events they bring forward not the necessarily the gear you chase."
Ashes is a themebox/sandpark. Ashes has a mix of both dev curated "content" and players as "content".
But, Steven feels Ashes will have more of a focus on the theme than the sand.
People are not going to quit because they're losing to "casuals".
How is a hardcore going to know they are fighting a casual-time player?
At this point, what we're talking about is a gearscore gap.
But, time played is not a hard limit on acquisition of competitive gear.
We can Ashes to reward players adequately for time invested.
But, there are several ways people can skip over time obstacles - especially if you have hardcore time friends to help you do so.
This is so petty... Please go ahead and define the difference between Sandpark and Themebox. A clear definition that is accepted by the MMO community which clearly shows that the two are very different.
It's not as if Steven referred to AoC as both a Themebox and a Sandpark.
Steven literally explained it, and @CROW3 quoted it to you.
Like, he explained it EXACTLY.
There doesn't even need to be a separate definition that is 'largely agreed on', the Creative Director used and EXPLAINED a term in detail.
You are... more easily triggered than most people I know, and that's saying a lot.
There is the other one... was wondering how long it would take you to scratch the disagreement itch. I never said that there is a difference between themebox and sandpark. I simply said "sandbox/sandpark" because these games differ a lot from themepark MMOs. I did not say "sandbox/sandpark/themebox" because sandpark and themebox are the same thing so it would be redundant.
Steven also called AoC a sandpark MMO. What is the difference between the two if you are coming here to correct my calling AoC a sandpark as opposed to a themepark? If there is no difference between the two it doesn't matter.
Oh, no no, you're right, actually, I was able to find a point where Steven used the word sandpark once.
So I'll just presume that all his other detailed explanations, including a design description that can easily be contrasted with a potential opposite, and the whole pages and relative logic (that I must now assume only makes sense to me and maybe @CROW3 ) were irrelevant, since he DID admittedly use a term that doesn't have a consensus definition probably until Ashes is finished, at least one time.
Carry on.
Yep, some of the most important misconceptions OP has in his post that i criticized way back in page 4 is his Black and White Dicotomy mentality that refuse to see all the gray in between casuals and hardcore which also refuses to acknowledge Time-Efficient Casual players or Time-InefficientHardcore players.
I mean, i literally said this, back in page 2 but our man VmanGman got stunlocked with his 20-30% ideal and wasn't satisfied with Steven's 40-50%.
Aren't we all sinners?
Agreed. Well said, cousin.
Archeage managed to do it.
Sure, it was grundy, but you had your pick of ways to grind it out.
The game also had its issues with pay to win, but the basic itemization system could be copied over to a game without that monetization just fine.
For all the many reasons people left Archeage, I never once heard anyone leave because they felt there was jo longer any viable progression for them.
I can't say that about any other MMO that I can think of.
This is a fairly weak argument, honestly.
First, as pointed out, Ashes isn't an outright sandbox MMO. This is a good thing, because it wouldn't survive as one.
Second, even if it were a sandbox MMO, people still need a reason to fight, and the only reason that has ever been successful is personal progression. Cut off that personal progression, and you stop giving players a reason to fight, or to be fought, or to log in.
I'm unsure of your last statement that people will always have meaningful progress to make in a game like Ashes. They can only have progress to make if the game has a path for them to progress down. If the game has a path for them to progress down, then those that progress down that path faster will be at an advantage over those that don't.
It is logical that you can't have both continual progression, and a narrow gap between those that progress and those that don't.
A game can pick one or the other.
Thank you. You said what I've been thinking perfectly.
Every time I see the title of this thread it irritates the crap out of me. "Protecting our Casuals". Like all casuals are delicate little flowers that need to be swaddled in bubble wrap and have everything handed to us because we can't do anything for ourselves or figure anything out on our own. Maybe I'm the only one who feels that ways, I don't know.
It's great to be concerned about the game being balanced and for it to be enjoyable to its player base. It's a good conversation to have. But you need to watch out for blanket generalizations. Few things in live are either/or, most are "and".
You wrote:
"What you are describing is an issue in theme park MMOs. In sandbox/sandpark MMOs this is not an issue. The content is the players and events they bring forward not the necessarily the gear you chase."
Content is the players is the Sand. Which is why you placed sandbox/sandpark in opposition to Theme and said the content is the players.
Did you even read Steven's quote? Or did you merely not understand it?
I said there is a difference between themepark and sandbox/sandpark. I did not say there is a difference between themebox and sandpark... smh
@Azherae Steven has used themebox and sandpark interchangeably because the terms are interchangeable. In that one specific quote he used themebox, but there are plenty of other circumstances where he describes AoC as a sandpark MMO. I actually cannot believe that this is an argument we're having.
Now you know how I feel sometimes in discussions with a few people here!
And yeah, themebox and sandpark are each a portmanteau of themepark and sandbox, and as such both mean the same thing.
I am now waiting for someone to jump up and down complaining that neither of those words are any type of luggage, let alone a leather traveling bag - because that is the level of disingenuity we have around here at times.
CROW3 posted a bigass quote where Steven spells out the differences.
If you can't read that and comprehend the differences, that's on you.
I mean, the quote from Steven didn't talk about Sandparks at all.
It was the difference between themepark, sandbox and themebox that the quote was about - not themebox and sandpark. The term "sandpark" isn't even mentioned in the quote.
If you can't read that and comprehend the differences, that's on you.
As Noaani said, Steven did not spell out the difference between themebox and sandpark in that quote. He spelled out the difference between themepark, sandbox, and themebox... that still does not mean that themebox and sandpark are different things. You're really confused about the conversation at hand. Please go back and read everything and clear things up for yourself. It's really weird when you come here just to disagree even when you don't even know what we're talking about.