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
The issue with not having enough races would be not seeing diversity as you roam around. I really don't see that being a problem with ashes when you think about how much they have planned.
I don't like the idea of an "alts only" race. (i.e. one I can only unlock by already having chosen something else on my main.) They would just feel like they are "denied to me", more or less, in an entirely arbitrary way. If I had an affinity for one, I would have to go do extra work in a form I didn't like as much just to unlock the one I preferred. Specifically not investing in my character along the path to that, would kind of sour my initial experience with the game, and poison future interactions. It would feel like a chore, and I would have the beginning of the game "spoiled" when the time came for my "real" playthrough. I think that I would end up simply not choosing the race I preferred, if that happened to me, and that would feel bad too. There'd be no way for me to win.
As an argument, this applies to literally everything in an MMO.
So, maybe you really want to play that race. Cool, what ever.
What about people that really want to have a freehold? They need to put time and effort in to the game (and likely need to start out with a lower tier property that they have no long term interest in) just to get the thing they want.
Same can be said of gear. All players will replace the gear in every slot many times before they get the gear they actually want there. Since this is players having to put work in to something they don't want - but that is a part of the journey to the thing they do want - this is deemed acceptable.
There is literally no reason at all that this can not apply to a selection of races as well. I have played a number of games that have done this - and no one has complained in the manner you are complaining here.
While I am not specifically saying Intrepid should add such a race, I absolutely am saying that you should not whine about the possibility - you should make the conscious decision to unlock said fictional race as being a part of the journey in that game to get the thing you want to get.
Making a decision to look at it in that manner is literally nothing more than a decision for you to make.
The thing is, I don't like the idea of changing my race mid-game either. My race is an important part of my character, and it's hard to imagine "race changes" that aren't fundamental shifts to my self-perception was a whole. You might manage a smaller one through story, but even with a solid story, a more significant one would just feel wrong. I'm not looking to suddenly become a different person, nor deal with the "body morph" storyline overall. Even well executed, such a shift would be jarring at best. I can't solve the problem that way.
And, yeah, it would be very odd for a character to evolve into a different race.
Kaelar = Fully humans.
Vaelune = Fully humans.
Dünir = Fully humans.
Niküa = Fully humans.
Empyrean = Humans with pointy ears.
Py'Rai = Humans with pointy ears and antlers.
Ren'Kai = Disfigured humans, not even green skinned.
That leaves only Vek and Tulnar.
Changing race should be possible if new races will be added in the future.
In WoW.
I mean WoW is hardly the only game with quirky races. EQ2 has lions, rats, tigers, frogs, bug fairies, lizard people, there are more and a lot of them are dlc races, but I think I proved the point.
I'm not asking for races that animalistic mind you. I don't like dlc races and I think tulnar fill the niche for that sort of feeling fine if executed properly. But I can at least agree with Alice that the races aren't that fantastical compared to other games. That's kind of the point, as it's consistent with their aesthetic. I would argue there is an extremely wide range with races we got right now though.
Fantastical races I could see still fitting well in ashes world build: half elementals (already described), some sort of dagon like fish people/mind flayer types that are born from corruption rituals, mushroom fae (tree fae is already well served by pyrai in my opinion.)
All of these races have a plausible back story; two are created after arrival of the races (and have pre-existing architecture based off their ancestors), and mushroom fae people would presumably be found in the deeper dark in an underground map expansion. The dagon/mindflayer type probably would be the hardest to execute the architecture of without feeling out of place.
I’m ok with that. Dunir are awesome.
Ashes is based on Steven's Pathfinder campaign.
But Pathfinder has a ton of weird races to choose from...
And the ones chosen are all pretty vanilla choices.
Please never, EVER encourage a dev team to be anything more like WoW.
Once you start down the dark path, forever shall it dominate your destiny....
We should expect vanilla games to have vanilla races.
The seven core races of Pathfinder are: Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Orcs, Halflings, and Humans.
Pathfinder may very well have little to nothing to do with your post.
I did not quote your posts.
And then I quoted and replied to SirChancelot.
Maybe you shouldn't assume I am disagreeing with you.
If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.
Vanilla as in tame and boring...
I hope ashes isn't aiming to be tame and boring.
Ashes starts with 2 variants of 4 typical core races - plus one stretch goal race.
Keep in mind that originally Steven was planning for Ashes to launch within 2 years - 3 years tops.
Ashes is not intending to be noteworthy for having a bunch of ground-breaking non-Human races.
I was letting you know what I meant by vanilla
I was NOT using it like vanilla wow...
My point fits both usages.
@SirChancelot Dygz is right; The term 'Vanilla' in MMO's refers to the OGC - the original game content. It doesn't equate to meaning 'boring' or 'plain'.
It feels like 9 races is plenty for the Vanilla content - especially given how diverse the races are, already.
It's pointless to argue about the topic from the perspective of 'adding races pre-launch'. Almost no one is arguing for that (and if you wanna argue with the few people who are, maybe you should quote or highlight them. It'll make it easier to tell who you are arguing with at least.)
The conversation would benefit more from discussing the topic in terms of dlc. You know, where it's fine to wildly speculate and think of ways the games to could be expanded to improve their audience reach.
I'm not really in favor of dlc races either. But it's also fairly boring to just go 'no' and close the topic.
Or you could keep arguing about... whatever it is you are arguing about. You as usual have soured most of my interest.
I said pre-expansion... expect to have some core races at launch. Plus the Tulnar, which were added as a stretch goal.
I think you soured your own interest.
As far as I can tell, you misunderstood everything I wrote.
And that seems to be due to your bias, thinking that I always disagree with you.