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'm sorry but, no matter how i look at this comment, i see straight up naivity or simple lack of knowledge about bots and scripts potential. Never underestimate the people who have money on the line to be gained with that.
Believing ANY company managing a MMORPG(especially one of this escale that plans to have around 8k to 10K players per server) can effectively and consistently deal with "the bot issue" as a whole through "direct actions to their account" alone without making any direct in-game bot deterrents is ludicrous.
Let alone giving them in-game ways to mess around the systems.
I'm telling you this as someone who has faced "the bot issue" from both sides of the rope.
Aren't we all sinners?
That kind of thing would be really good with protected spawn points and quick regeneration of hp after combat, and bad with slow regeneration of hp and spawning at your corpse. Because then you can't fight any monster you want to fight out of fear that you will get ambushed at a vounerabe state, and you can't respawn because whoever killed you could still be there somewere.
I don't think it will be anywhere near as bad as some people think it will be/hope. On dedicated servers where your reputation will matter. I think players that do gank lowbies often will earn a bad rap and be hunted by the local community to the point they change servers , change their ways or just quit making the community better as a whole. Nobody wants to play with people like that except themselves. I imagine a server community that will collectively and actively hunt these people down and gank them till they cry. Curb stomping a new player once in a while will happen but if players go out of their way to do it over and over that is the whole point of the corruption and bounty hunter systems.
This is a really god question. You have brought some really good thoughts and thought experiments into the forums as usual and I thank you for that.
Let's ask the question a little differently.
Why not? Why should the game be like so many others out there? Why should they not do something different?
There are a ton of game out there. I am sure this list is not complete and some aren't even MMO's.
https://www.mmorpg.com/games-list
Lets go back to the brownie analogy. If one store sells brownies with nuts and the one right door does not. Should the one that does be forced into conformity because some people can't/won't eat brownies with nuts in them or should they be allowed to create their own product be honest in their advertising to make and sell a product that other people want to consume?
Steven started a company, to build a product he thinks will be a good product. He is basing the product off of his experiences consuming other products he enjoyed and thinks others will as well. He open the idea to the public and got a massive positive response from people that like the ideas he has put forward. At one point couple years ago in a stream he mentioned over 1 million unique accounts signed up on the official website. Should they change course an create a different product several years in or stay true to their original over arching views and primary directives.
TDLR:
Stay to to the original plan or change course to appease people that don't like what your selling?
Honestly if you hate PvP, a PvX game isn't for you, it is designed for PvP and PvE one or the other won't give enough challenging content content and will ahve tons of system you will want change to fit PvE.
You make a lot of assumptions on pvpers, i can only assume based on your attitude you piss people off and get pked.
If the reason is only your desire to do it then you should be prepared to fail. And fail not only yourself, but all the other people who enjoy brownies with nuts. But you could potentially avoid that failure if you provided at least one other type of brownies with a texture/taste similar to the nut ones, so that you can appeal to the allergic people (though this probably wouldn't work irl, but you get the point) and you might even provide another type of brownie to lure all the people who might not be interested in nut ones. But after they try your no-nut brownie, it might get them interested in trying out the ones with the nuts. You haven't really conformed to what everyone else is doing, because nut brownies are still your main staple, but you've broadened your appeal far enough to sustain your shop for longer and now you have more chances for your shop's name to become so famous for having great nut brownies that people from other places come to you.
I'm literarily tired of these mmorpgs than only have pve content and can't mix it together or do pvp well and fun with all the potential it has to have modes around it. If you hate PvX, you think games will fail because of having pvp or owpvp no oen cares to hear I won't sub if it has these things in it. Just play lost ark. For me I'm looking to get the fuck off lost ark and into a more interesting game that has a bit of rush into it that wont put me the hell to sleep.
PvE single player mmorpgs where you don't interact with the world, que your match and playing with your guild or small group of friends and aren't forced to deal with tons of other players. That is something im getting out off and a type of mmorpg that is DEAD in the water and exactly why none of those mmorpgs grow anymore.
Final thoughts on PvE or the game is dead.....Bitch Pve mmorpgs have been dead for ages none of them grow since the wow golden days, same numbers same players, dead and not growing in the water.
Time for the age of PvX, i hear the most popular games that are watched have pvp
Interesting video and I agree adversity gives meaning. When I go to the gym get on the mat and Grapple(BJJ) I do not want to grapple with those weaker then me I want the challenge I want to grapple with those better then me that will challenge me and make me better. Unfortunately the human condition is to avoid challenge and seek comfort. Short term pleasure over long term gratification. Josh said this as well in different terms.
It is not an accident that many of the older players have good stories about overcoming the adversity and many of the newer players have completed games and can't tell you any more about it other then yep I finished it. We saw this with Elden Ring. So many videos whining about how it is to hard and so many videos about how it is the best game ever. Those seeking comfort hate it those seeking challenge love it.
Rippa has many videos on this subject about how older games were better and just because you got the game was NOT a guarantee that you would be able to complete it.
Should games be made so the lowest common denominator can be really good at the game and easily complete/compete or should there be adversity and challenge? Should Intrepid make yet another weak mindless game in the hopes of a quick buck or take the souls route and say no our game WILL offer challenge to those that want it?
Ashes has none of that and doesn't have investors to prop it up in the case it fails at the start (i.e. NW), but that's obviously why we like it. So having just a few more flavors of icecream from this particular brand could mean the difference between life and death for them. Of course I hope that their current design will be more than enough, but I'm preparing myself for worse cause I've seen too many games fail before.
That was kind of the point. There are a thousand other MMO's. Should this one be forced to conform to be like them or should they be different and take a chance at success or failure? I would submit the reason many of us are here is because we look at the ones that are out there and either tolerate what we see or choose not to engage it them as we see them not worth our time, effort and money.
Is it wrong to choose to be different?
Primary reason we loved older MMORPGs was the novelty of being able to jump into a virtual, Fantasy Tolkien-esque world 24/7 and basically play D&D with a bunch of other players. Rather than being forced to wait until everyone's school and work schedules synched so that we could finally play. Because what used to be every weekend in high school, became once a month or once every two months (if we were lucky) by the time we finished college.
That was great when we could ever quest.
But, it fairly quickly became that we could race through the content in a few weeks and then be stuck in endgame for years waiting for the next expansion.
I mean, EQ and EQ2 has new expansions once a year, seems like, but the graphics are crappy and...I dunno why 20 years later people would still enjoy zoning and the ubiquitous invisible walls.
Can't really make non-consensual PvP more appealing to people who despise non-consensual PvP.
You can, perhaps, make it some what more tolerable.
They are literally trying t make it tolerable, that is what the whole corruption system is for. Though it does add loot drops, it has a heavy handed effect for red players attacking pve player not interested in a fight. If corruption system doesn't feel like it does enough once tested should be when you are going harder on if things should be changed. Based on my experience with the BDO karma system 80% people were very hesitant to go red ever, this one seems way more punishing than that so....Also in BDO you can falg up on anyone and it was created in such a way that you can't grind with people so it was a crap ton of friction to fight each other and gain nothing. People still often times refused to fight unless some p2w whale showed. People normally did duel for spot, ask you how long or find another spot.
That goes side tracks now.
Here is two examples how non-consensual PvP term is used. The first example is from Ultima Online wiki and the second one is a post made by Sandbox Interactive's developer (Albion Online).
"Ultima Online began with a single world, with specific expansion packs adding additional territory and new worlds. The second world was the "Lost Lands", with additional land, dungeons, creatures, and terrain. The third was Trammel. This led the developers to distinguish the original world by making the environment more grim, and naming it "Felucca".[5] The two kinds of servers were "normal" servers with both Trammel (consensual PVP) and Felucca (non-consensual PVP) ruleset and "siege" servers with non-consensual PVP and no item insurance."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online
Balancing non-consensual PvP: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/72770-Balancing-Non-Consensual-PvP/?pageNo=1&s=08b037204632c3397121aa64248eb2574d924580
Like I said before term "non-consensual PvP" is not something that anyone here is made up. It is a term used for years by players and developers in different games and forums. It cannot be erased just by arguing that it does not exist.
If we forget this hypothetical PvE-server thing. Ashes will have non-consensual PvP regardless players like it or not. Only time will tell which direction the corruption rules will be adjusted but it is hard to say anything for that before proper testing. Yeah I agree that it will not necessarily be that bad but at the end it depends what level is acceptable from developers mind. I am personally easy to please here because I am okay with everything.
Its a very strong system that i think it be hard to solo players to take advantage of just killing someone and getting away easy. People are going to look at it being like a long term negative debuff where they can lose more if they don't play their cards right and if they have done it often.
That is why its not realistic based on the information we know about it to think everyone will be free pking (minus guidl wars of course). It doesn't make sense...and then it makes the discussion for pve players them getting pked a few tiems a week maybe if that and complaining that it is still a thing when it hardly effects them.
Greatness can also not be achieved by being the same as everyone else. Guess I am not a defeatist and expect the project to be a great success because of the stated design choices not inspite of them.
Time will tell.
That is what I and many others already think Ashes is doing. Ashes is extremely moderate compared to hardcore mmos. Somehow even some of those more hardcore mmos survive and thrive. Somehow even some carebear pve mmos fail.
It kinda just depends on if you make a good game or not.
As a designer I expect it's just that I think beyond just 'I hope the game is good' and my mind always goes into 'wait what might be going wrong here that I need to bring to their attention'?
Maybe the companies I've worked in sucked. Maybe the companies all my cohorts worked in also suck. But if I go purely by personal experience and anecdotes, people usually do not think about all of the potential fails because they go into things with their biases, and working hard to get through them is absolutely required. It's even easier when you're not the one in charge because you can just ignore them because 'the boss said so'. The boss' bias becomes yours, your day-to-day isn't focused on 'critically examining everything'. It's focused on 'making what the boss told you to make, as best as it can be made, within those assumptions'.
There's no way this isn't happening in the MMO industry, because if it wasn't, MMOs would NOT be failing this much. All these bad games happen precisely because of this. The number of things in New World that someone explicitly told Amazon 'wait no this is a bad idea' was staggering.
So you are at 'I hope they make a good game', and I am at 'What exactly is the definition of 'good' here?'
Not my definition, not Dygz' definition. If anything, I would be targeting NiKr's definition, because NiKr is the person so far that has shown me the most 'understanding of PvP incentive structures' beyond the thing I personally believe creates the problem.
If you believe there's no problem, or that it can be solved, just that MMO designers just need to 'git gud', then you don't have a PROBLEM with any discussion on the matter. You don't need to have a single reaction to any of my hypotheticals, you can just ignore the entire thing at all times.
I hope for the best for Ashes, while expecting some very rough times during the first few months of the game (that is if they stick with the current design, which I hope they do). And because of that expectations I'm trying to find anything that could decrease its probability of happening.
Not sure if you're asking me to self censor. I am far from being the most prolific poster here. I just say something when I have something to say.
Two 'brass tacks' thoughts:
1. I think a pve version of Ashes is simply a non-starter (hence the HEAVY sarcasm of the OP) for obvious reasons
2. Given a PvX ow, the core governing mechanism is corruption. We know next to nothing about that system. We've never tested it and never seen it demoed. We also have no understanding of what the combat system is going to be. So while the conversations about the right blend of PvP are interesting justifications for more popcorn, we're ALL operating from a place of near-complete ignorance
Just keep that in mind before some of you tear each others virtual heads off.
You know what? I am, actually, but let me clarify why I don't think of it as 'censoring'.
If I try to tackle something I see as a problem and you don't see as a problem, continually going 'I don't think this is a problem, so you can ignore it', but without being able to address my concern in itself other than 'I think it's fine', is wasting your own time, right? If I engage with you, it's wasting mine too. My best bet would be to ignore you and keep addressing the problem.
There's a system for that, I'm only asking you to 'self-censor' because if 90% of your posts don't seem to relate to what I'm talking about, I will ignore you and miss the 10% that have valid points. I'm fine with just ignoring you too, I'm just, in all arrogance, letting you know that you're getting to the point of 'a pointless distraction', and therefore if you do ignore these things until you have a full response, it's more likely for that full response to be seen.
If you don't care and just 'talk because you feel like it', then just lmk, it's no issue to me, I just tend to assume that when people talk on forums it's because they want to discuss things.
That 'bias' in your definition is the thing I personally consider to be required. If this is going to be addressed at all, within Intrepid, I would absolutely expect it to be by the PvP centric designers on the team, as the forefront, not the PvE ones.
Therefore if I conclude 'wait they didn't seem to achieve what they were aiming at' (because somehow most games don't despite coming out of bigger studios) then who else are they going to ask? I don't have the L2 experience to go 'This is what we as PvP players in L2 which is the same style of game as Ashes, were aiming for', so I can't 'say how to preserve it'. Therefore my feedback is not as relevant as yours.
I'll POKE you until the problem's defined. YOU fix it. I can't poke Intrepid and hopefully I don't need to.
But I can do that in PM from now on, and let the 'PvE players always try to ruin our games, good thing Steven will stand up to them!' flow continue. I was really interested in the data for 'what happens if a PvP community is welcoming and can give good reasons for the implementat to PvE players, does it help the game's reputation?' But that's selfish, since it requires a change in behaviour from others and not from myself.
I will, as always, hope to be wrong. I will further hope that if I'm not wrong, the reason is somehow obvious.
I keep saying this but no one cares lmao
Entirely valid, like I said.
I'm trying to have a type of conversation that doesn't suit the space I'm trying to have it in, and being selfish about it, demanding others to change the way they interact for my benefit.
I will stop.