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'm gonna be that person and claim that literally none of this is true.
How is it not? Please explain why you do not agree.
"Literally none of this is true". Actually it is. I'm looking at it from a marketing perspective by scaling. MMO's has to cater to a large group of people. Only a certain type of person likes Elden Ring/Souls. It's a great game, don't get me wrong. But no. Would not work.
MMOs are a niche genre by almost any standard, though. It takes quite a long time before most of them get meaningfully close to the numbers that the more mainstream games pull in. That's why the term 'mainstream' is usually used for games like Elden Ring (yes, even "Souls" type games are 'mainstream' now), and 'niche' is usually used for MMOs.
Elden Ring has already sold 12 million copies. It released less than a month ago.
I don't dispute that only a certain type of person likes those games, I'm moreso noting that the 'number' of 'those types of people' are actually equal or higher to those who like MMOs. This is such a well known 'problem' in the Genre that there are entire studies about how to get around it, and how to introduce more Adventure game and True exploration elements into MMOs to account for it.
You've already seen multiple people in this thread who like both types of game. There are more of them too, they're not here because they're still playing Elden Ring.
MMOs used to be 'fun for everyone' because they offered an experience that no other game did, before easy communications platforms and better development systems carved up the MMORPG playerbase into MMO-whatever-else, MOBA, and 'complex adventure game people'.
I don't know if MMOs need to bring those people back or not, but if they can get some back without ruining their games, it's probably a good bet.
Let me know if I need to provide more numbers or studies to fully explain myself.
I can't help but think there are going to be many instances of lore only being unlocked when specific conditions are met and in some cases, those conditions may never be met.
But, yes, some lore will never be unlocked on a server.
yes I second this.
Jeffrey Bard left Ashes almost a year ago.
Calling Elden Ring a “niche game” is honestly kind of laughable at this point. The game is wildly popular with practically every person I’ve spoken who enjoys gaming in any genre. The RPG players have liked it, the FPS players enjoy it, even the newer players have been drawn in by the hype and found it fun. Players have gotten sick of the games that treat them like imbeciles and refuse to have them think for themselves in anything. It may be a novel experience, but we need more games like Elden Ring, and far less like WoW or FFXIV
I said he had too much to do....
P.S. I corrected the original post and removed the Jeffrey Bard reference, thank you for the notice.
Highly recommended video, has English subtitles.
Yes. Vertical power creep in MMORPGs is a problem when max level is 50 instead of 20.
The only subtitles that I see are spanish.
Can someone explain in a few words?
Says who?
And if this really is what you want from an MMORPG, Ashes isn't the game for you. They will have the same time constraints on creating new content, the only difference is that they will need to create more content and players will be able to see less of that content - meaning players are going to always be in a state of waiting for something new.
What you have to do to activate the English subtitles is:
setting + subtitles ( activate the subtitles, it will be activated in Spanish) + re-enter subtitles + automatic translation + choose the language.
I summarize it for you:
The video talks about the problems that MMOs and open worlds have when it comes to giving you the freedoms in their worlds, and how Elden Ring or Zelda Breath of the wild have solved it (each in their own way).
It touches topics on:
-Horizontal Progression.
-Power Creep.
-Elden Ring fixing the Power Creep.
-Elden Ring strategic diversity and freedom.
-Elden Ring divergent reward system.
-Elden Ring encouraging the player for strategic diversity and how this helps a more positive community.
-Some problems in the horizontal progression of Zelda Breath of the wild.
-As Elden Ring and Zelda Breath of the wild in their own way, have contributed to the open world to make it known that freedom can be granted that is not forced and that the player can experience the diversity of the open world.
I really like this
that's true, but you can always learn or create ideas based on the success of others, see their benefits/disadvantages and try to see if those successful ideas can add something positive to your ideas.
If ER is really fun, novel, innovative, quirky, and makes you want to explore its world without actually offering to do so, then ER has done a good thing.
As a long time MMO player never thought i'd even try Elden Ring...I did...I'm in love.
Whatever you do AoC please make combat and killing things somewhat difficult... What i hate more than anything with any new RPG or MMO is you can just walk thru and kill anything with ease.. Hack and slash is not fun.
Exploration is a big part of what makes Elden Ring so incredibly fun.
The benchmark has been set.
How long can "exploring" possibly take you?. Elden Ring will at most take you 100 hours to see everything and now take into consideration that leveling alone in AoC will take you at least twice as long as that.
As far as combat goes, am I the only one that thinks that Elden Ring's combat is slow and clunky where animation-lock makes up most of the difficulty? I felt Sekiro had better combat.
I do agree on the difficulty angle though and while the open world itself cannot be too difficult since that would make the game like EverQuest and FF11 where soloing wasn't really a thing you could do. I have high hopes for the dungeons and hope dungeon crawling in AoC is difficult like in the old days.
Never , the fact is that ER brought fresh air, he dared and believed in his work and that is why he is successful.
Many MMORPGs, development studios have stagnated in recent years in the formula that attracts the fastest success but that does not ensure success.
For example, in the last years the WOW killer became so popular that it lost its sense, nobody should try to surpass WOW to be considered a good MMORPG, nobody should try to copy the formula of WOW because at that moment the sense of innovation, of daring, of surpassing is lost.
WOW is the past, it marked an era, it became a cultural MMORPG but it also stopped improving, it stayed in its comfort zone and that is what has damaged it the most.
That's why I emphasize on ER because he also use the formula of success of soul games BUT he were also smart to try to do different things, innovative, curious, daring that the player appreciates and it shows in the success that ER has had.
The success of ER is not only a good marketing or a nice cinematic but it is a work behind where he know how to combine the formula of success with a good job.
Find a corrupted crystal pulsating with an ominous light, take it a scholar/researcher. Help them in finding out what it is. You'll learn about the lore of the crystal, what happened, what it is, what causes it, what effects it has, possibly how it can be used to augment armour or weapons. And you learn the in universe processes of how things are found out.
As an example, a particular quest in World of Warcraft stands out most in my memory. (because I am a Roleplayer) There is a spell that is often used within RP (true sight) it's abilities and such have changed over the years. But there was one quest for the Horde which utilised it. You needed several items, all of which played a key role to find the eventual mob you had to kill. It was a lovely little touch that added to the world's magic.
There are other examples of it being done badly, like the law of sympathy only coming from the extended universe, even if it was the basis of Enchanting (disenchanting especially) Which, again would be a wonderful way to present this kind of stuff in-game.
Ashes, I think is in such a lovely, gorgeous, wonderful position for this, because, as players we are amongst the first to once again set foot in this world after countless ages. So learning about the world, and the mechanisms which drive it, and how we may use it to our advantage, the effects it has etc. It can all be presented in-game through a wonderful narrative.
It's a world we'll be living in (hopefully for a long time to come) as such, fleshing out said world is key (and not just for RP'ers like myself) unlike Elden Ring, which I personally don't think needed to be open world. It's mostly just boss runs. Perhaps that's unfair. I'll put it like this. Games like Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Cyberpunk etc. I play those for the story. Elden Ring, not so much.
Obviously it is also necessary to take into account that the economic support for the investment of this path is very necessary and to want to do things right so that the development of this different video game is as correct as possible in its own style.
The idea is clear and gradually gaining momentum, as Elden Ring's attitude surpasses the triple A formula.
But they should look on elden ring for sure and take some inspiration , many people are starving for an mmorpg like this :
I would also prefer an mmo with the tone found in the witcher. Yes, the witcher has humor, but the inhabitants of the world are miserable, suspicious and treacherous. Why? Because it's realistic for a land torn from the conflicts of factions.
Not happy-go-lucky.
This whole lack of seriousness from the entertainment all the way to real life has made people take everything for a joke, even when a situation is serious for some. Everybody seems so thirsty for 3rd grade comedy and a cheap laugh. "Lol".........
I cant see a soulslike mmo. The vast amount of players + the shop/quest/faction npcs that mmos have would ruin the sense of a desolate world.
I would like to see open world "dungeons" in mmos that have the feeling of Lothric Castle or Stormvale Castle or Leyndell.
Well isn´t Ashes of creation an post-apocalyptic world cursed with corruption where many people was left behind to have horrible deaths?
I don´t say the whole game should have an serious tone, but would expect an great part to have some dark lore and ambience, danger, like you said darksouls maybe is to much, but the witcher for example have the perfect balance, where you can have an very funny quest , then an really grotesque quest line...
And i think you shouldn´t have many npcs outside the city's except some survivors all messed up that were left with an cursed world full of monster...
But every week we are bombed with fluffy stuff