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've been reading your comments and I still don't understand the point you're trying to make here. The fact that you're playing a PvX game makes open world PvP consensual by default, because you agree to the rules by playing a game with set and public rules. These rules are not hidden from you, you are very well aware what you're getting into. This game has it's set vision and direction, Steven talked about these multiple times. Why are you here if you don't like what the game offers? You are not the target audience, and that's okay. Just as I'm not the target audience for FF14, yet you don't see me complaining on their forums about catgirls and the themepark gameplay, I just look for things that suits me more, such as Ashes of Creation.
As per https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvX
"Ashes of Creation is a PvX game. Players will naturally encounter both PvP and PvE elements.[2][3][4] It is unlikely that a player could purely focus on just PvP or just PvE.[4]
There is a balance between PvP and PvE in Ashes of Creation.[4]
All stats relate to a player's combat effectiveness in PvX.[5]
There won't be separate PvE and PvP servers but some servers may be more PvP focused than others.[3][6]
There will not be different PvP and PvE gear types.[7]
Progression in the game might require PvE elements.[4]
We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay.[8] – Steven Sharif"
Now let me clarify it for you, because your narcissism is still showing: "We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody."
"Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay."
If you don't like the game don't follow it, fairly simple. Yes, this is going to be a PvX game, take it or leave it.
Sometimes speaking with your words changes people's opinions and you don't have to get to the more drastic point of speaking with your wallet and watching something fail.
Not at all saying that's what would happen here. Just reminding you that not everyone goes 'I'll just not buy it', regardless of how justified 'ordering a pizza at a Subway' is.
Sometimes the result is that Subway starts serving pizza.
Yes it happens when a company wants to become that massive megacorp, and the only thing that matters to them is more money. Subway is not a game studio, their products don't have to have soul, they are not connected to their consumers the same way crowdfunded game studios are. And yes, there are game studios that are just as greedy, that's why I specified "crowdfunded game studios", because there is no publisher monitoring their every move and demanding them to be faster or whatever. So even though I understand the analogy you're making here it doesn't make much sense in the context of what's Steven stance on the MMO market and game studios in general.
I'm sure there will come a point where Ashes will see a huge dropoff in interest even from diehard fans. The reason is because there are at least seven still-undefined aspects of their design that are polarizing.
Basically, we're still at the stage where people have seen so little of the overall development that they hear 'we are open to feedback' and think 'well maybe they'll realize that X is a mistake if I tell them so'. Even for something as relatively extreme as 'Add PvE servers', some people won't think of it as extreme.
If Steven had strong immutable stances on those undefined aspects, we would probably get more specific answers on things. So that's the parallel. To most people, this isn't 'A Subway', but it also is 'just a corner sandwich shop with a billboard up and a few pics of its signature sandwiches, many of which are contradictory'. Or should I say 'oddly inclusive'.
The greatest restaurant (imo of course) near where I live has 'Pizza' in its name but sells shawarma wraps and rice bowls for some reason. It's great. I bet I could ask them to try their hand at some food I haven't thought of yet (because they serve pretty much everything I like anyway).
But they also have nuts in their brownies lately for some reason... and I often eat with someone who has a nut allergy and can't risk it. So I could ask them to stop getting brownies with nuts in them, or I could stop buying their food for safety.
Nuts in brownies are a very polarizing topic. Perhaps they add soul.
Consensual and non-consensual are standard terminology and just playing the game does not change non-consensual to consensual. If a player cannot choose when he/she wants to fight in PvP (for example get ganked) that is always non-consensual PvP. He would not touch to any consensual PvP part of the game, sieges, caravans, other battlegrounds, and those can stay as are. However, he would like to change open world PvP rules from non-consensual PvP to consensual PvP which would mean in practice that non-combatant green players cannot be attacked anymore. Open world PvP would happen only between those players who are flagged to combatant. Perhaps PvE-server as a term is here a little bit misleading because most of the PvP would be still involded in this theoretical server.
Did we though? Cause New World sucked for so many other reasons we can't be sure of that.
You don't have to try to perform these sort of mental gymnastics to explain his point of view. I am perfectly aware what he is asking for, and I still disagree.
There is open world PvP, which means you are okay with fighting in the open. End of story. This argument is like saying dying in Call of duty Multiplayer is non consensual because I am doing a pacifist challenge, and it's unfair how people shoot me. There are guns in the game, and you're playing against other people. This is the game with it's rules, and you knowingly entered that space. It doesn't matter if at some points you REALLY don't want to die (because let's say you're carrying some rare materials, and trust me nobody wants to die and lose items, but this sort of emotional investment is the point of the system), open world PvP still allows people to attack you. I could copy Steven's stance and the PvX article again on why this is important for the game's design but I'm not going to, you can scroll up and read it.
Arguing about this makes absolutely zero sense. The guy who want this to be different clearly just wishes for a more forgiving environment. Go and play a game with such a setting, there are boatloads of them.
I am an early tester of NW, I can give you a fair description of how the game worked back then.
NW's alpha version was by far the best iteration of the game due to the following reasons:
- The game was way more on the sandbox side (people could build their own homes for example, amazon planned to have these massive cities and communities built by players)
- Light and heavy attacks used to inflict a "stagger" effect, which basically worked just like the souls games (dark souls) or other swordplay (chivalry, mordhau) and fighting games (tekken, mortal kombat). Just in case you're not familiar with them I will try to explain: If you successfully hit someone with an attack the stagger effect gave you frame advantage, which means your recovery was faster than the enemy's weapon swing, however your attack recovery was slower than the enemies block/dodge animation. Basically what this means if you started attacking someone, but they were mashing attack, and you hit first, you won. If your enemy had a working brain, they would instead block or dodge after they get hit once, to reset the fight's flow.
-there was also stamina management system, and sprinting was not automatic.
-open world PvP was always on
-open world PvP was also full loot (I disagreed with this during the development of the game. I like AoC's system better)
-there was no criminal system as far as I know (which is dumb if you ask me, this is needed)
-I can't think of a single instanced content back then, it was all open world
-the main idea for endgame content was generating conflict between players (both political and combat), which would have worked really well with the whole sandbox setting. There was no themepark, the game was just a big playground for the players
By changing their game drastically the only thing amazon achieved was not only they alienated a lot of their more hardcore users (who would have stick around, casual players don't stick around they just want their 2 months of content then they move on to the next new thing), but by changing directions they also had no PvE content either to serve the more relaxed players.
I would say New World would've done much better if they never steered away from their original vision and would have gone with monetization model that's similar to AoC's. The main reason NW is on life support is due to not sticking to their vision and capitalizing on their playerbase (by changing the monetization system).
Amazon wanted NW to be for everyone, whereas Steven knows this is impossible, so he's been pre-emptively saying that AOC is not for everyone. And that's okay...
You didn't get it, and you've gone beyond just 'disagreeing'.
So I'll finish the analogy. Assume that the brownies contain both nuts, and some other less 'dangerous' crunchy textured addition.
"Why are there nuts in your brownies, I don't like/can't eat those."
"It's part of the texture, we don't consider them to be as good without them."
"Can you make a version without nuts?"
"Sorry, the texture's required or they don't even bake properly."
"But they already have 'other crunchy thing' anyway, I just want it without the nuts."
You can disagree on whether or not the brownies need the nuts, but for a lot of people, brownies are fine without nuts, and if the point is the texture, and they'll eat it with the other texture (the multiple other PvP), to them, you're just refusing to remove the nuts on principle.
So they ask.
But New World has so many different kind of problems so it is not just about the flagging part. Additionally, it does not mean that if Amazon Studios are uncapable to get their product working that others could not tackle it.
Literally took the words from my mouth. I read his post and was going to reply talking about the mental gymnastics he was doing. Exactly what it is, mental gymnastics to try to push an agenda.
I was going to use an Apex Legends example of getting third partied right after finishing a fight, not being healed up or ready for this new fight etc. I do not consent to this fight. Except I did, when I turned on the frickin game and played it.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvX
We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay. – Steven Sharif
I don't know what to tell you. You don't have to be a part of everything, you don't have to be invited to every party. Sometimes you just gotta look for a different space that's more suited for you, which is basically what I've been saying the whole time. Good luck finding the game which provides what you're looking for. I already found it.
Apex is also a great example. If you don't like the fundamentals of the game, play something else.
I totally agree with you here on having a discourse about it, discussion is healthy, but here's how I take that analogy in this particular case.
I don't think it's quite as apples to oranges as 'ordering a pizza at a subway', but perhaps closer to ordering a reuben when the only sandwich you've ever seen the employees make is the half-finished BLT they're still putting together on the counter right in front of you. You have no idea what other ingredients they have behind the counter - some of what they'd need for a reuben they might have already, some of it they probably don't. It's not on the menu, and they've never advertised a reuben at this restaurant before. In fact, they've explicitly said in the past that you won't be able to buy a sandwich from their restaurant that won't have bacon on it. They haven't even finished making their first BLT yet, but they've got over 20,000 people who've already paid and have been waiting over five years for this BLT. In fact, they're in line right behind you.
Are you gonna order a reuben and make the 20,000+ people who've paid and been waiting for their BLT wait even longer so that the restaurant staff can reassess their ingredients, go to the store and pick up whatever they don't have, confirm they know how to build a good reuben, and put that on the menu too before finishing their first BLT? Maybe it would be a better idea to just let them finish the BLT, see how well the BLT is selling, see how many BLT-curious people who normally only eat reubens come back saying how much they like their BLT, and decide from there whether they want to invest in making a good reuben.
Perhaps if the team's initial market research returned data suggesting they'd sell more copies of the game (and they knew they'd enjoy the product more themselves) if they made PvP optional, that would've been the game that was backed on Kickstarter, and people would've been prepared to wait for both the 'reuben' and the 'BLT'. But that's not what happened, and that's not what people have been waiting for. I think asking for major system changes like these when the original concept of the system isn't even finished or fully prototyped yet is getting a bit ahead of oneself.
I pretty much out lined the ones that are dependent on each other.
Right. So...
I was an Associate Producer at Activision for 10 years. Starting out in QA.
My primary task was evaluating changes to the dev task schedule, then adjusting the projected release schedule and reporting that to the Executive Producer. Typically, telling him, "The Producer still says they are going to hit this date, but they can't hit that date if they make these changes so...expect the release date to be pushed back at least a week or two." And I would typically triple-check my assessment with the QA Lead to be sure my prediction was correct. If the devs make x change it's going to add y time in QA.
So, I'm quite aware how a change can affect release schedules.
I could be wrong, but you would have to provide some meaningful evidence that I'm wrong.
OWPvP does not significantly affect the changes to the world like battlegrounds PvP changes the world.
The lack of OWPvP does not detrimentally affect Node growth.
You can try to give an example of how it would, but just stating that you think it would is not convincing.
I don't understand how OWPvP being disabled can affect the relative ability of a Node to withstand OWPvP. That's not really possible when OWPvP is disabled.
OWPvP makes it likely that Nodes will be stronger, because it's easier for players to to successfully gather and maintain resources and transport them individually to their destinations.
The danger with OWPvP is that it becomes too difficult to successfully Siege fortified Nodes.
Just saying that something gives you an impression, again, is not at all convincing.
"I have a feeling there are snakes here."
"What? Why?"
"Because we're in a forest and snakes are part of a forest ecosystem."
"Is there evididence of snakes around here?"
"Well, I'm not a snake expert so, I can't give you specifics. I jst have an impression that snakes are here."
You don't have to say, "Well, I see a snake right over there."
But, you should at least be able to say, "Well, here is some shed snake skin." Or...
"Well, that hole over there looks like the type that leads to a snake nest."
Something more than just an "impression".
Some systems are dependant on each other - OWPvP, Corruption, Bounty Hunting.
Most systems do not rely on OWPvP significantly enough that's it's going to be a major problem if OWPvP is turned off.
It would be a major problem if Sieges and Caravan battlegrounds were disabled because those forms of PvP combat drive the world to change over time.
I don't know that we have a disagreement about that.
The best time to test that would be during A2. When the regular servers are being tested.
And, again, it's moot because at this point, any time testing a "PvE server" is a waste of dev time, the team cannot afford.
No. Not really.
I mean... your speculation kinda feels like you lack much experience in QA and with game dev teams, but...
It sounds great to you in your head, sure.
What if the brownies without nuts are sold next door. To the left and the right. Across the street. The next street over. Is it really about that at that point? Or is it just conformity that needs to be achieved comrade. Even after being told no multiple times.
You said: "I've been reading your comments and I still don't understand the point you're trying to make here."
And now you are saying that you are perfectly aware what he is asking. Makes no sense.
Example:
WoW (PvE-server) = Consensual owPvP
WoW (PvP-server) = Non-consensual owPvP
"I still don't understand the point you're trying to make here" This is something we say in my native language to people who act really dumb. I do understand the point, I just don't get it how can anyone be so obnoxious to not realize how wrong it is. I guess it translates rough into english, which is a good argument if you got nothing else. What's next, calling out sarcasm and irony?
Great, you found one of the MMOs that have PvE servers and flagging. Now go and play it.
That would work if you are talking about WoW. Pvp is in the game but its more just thrown on. When you are talking about system built around pvp, balancing and progression for players and the server its different.
It be more like i want a burger but I don't like meat, so they created beyond burger.
While I respect your veterancy in the game dev space, not all game dev teams are the same, and not all games are the same. I don't know if you're suggesting you worked with the WoW team, but if you didn't, then you didn't work on an MMO, which I don't have to tell you is an incredibly different type of game system than your average video game. If you are suggesting you worked with the WoW team, I would argue the various systems in WoW are much less dependent on each other than the systems we've so far been presented with in Ashes. PvP Server or PvE server, you've got two global marketplaces for every server per faction, so contestation of regional gathering areas is fairly moot, only two factions, and zero shifting of territory/resource control since the alignment of the zones in the game are static, completely isolated battleground/arena style PvP that has zero affect on anything else in the game, and totally instanced PvE content apart from quests, which barely count. There's very little sense of player risk in any area, as there's no threat of having your property stolen or looted by other players, and at most, OWPvP on PvP servers amounts to a minor inconvenience. So if that's your best form of experience, I don't know what to tell you other than it doesn't say enough to me in this context for me to be swayed by your otherwise impressive resume.
Again, I'm not trying to diss you, but if I told you I spent ten years as a logistical expert for the US Airforce, and therefore I could tell you exactly how long it would take for the Philippine Navy to redirect the course of a fleet of submarines, would you believe me? Both involve military logistics, yes, but with different teams and different services.
To be fair, you aren't a member of the Intrepid team, and I doubt that you're in regular contact with them about their design processes and how their particular scope issues and content redesigns will affect their particular dev timeline on as detailed of a level as this.
I don't want to argue about this with you anymore, because it's absolutely ridiculous. We're arguing over whether the full development and support of a "PvE" server that still has game-changing PvP elements would take 6 weeks or 6 months to develop, and it doesn't matter anyway, because if it's ever going to happen, it won't be until all these forum posts are buried under six feet of dirt. I tried to leave it at an agree to disagree standpoint regarding systems that aren't even finished being made yet, and you reply by pulling out your adjacent-of-relevant resume and suggesting that unless I prove you wrong, you're irrefutably right. Leaving this thread now.
So basically you decided the other person was wrong and then explicitly acted as if you didn't understand them. Not even that you didn't understand 'why they had the perception' so you could correct it... just 'outright not meaning it'.
This sounds to me like you're much more likely to be the one not understanding.
If Ashes retained Caravan PvP, Node PvP, Siege PvP, Guild v Guild PvP, Arena PvP, and then changed a few things about people's expectations of bosses, then they still have a heavy PvP game that just doesn't contain pure owPvP.
To some people, who want or don't mind those five forms of PvP but don't want 'random owPvP', this sounds like a good product. It's also one you can't currently get at the implied quality anywhere else. So in short, you're conflating 'I would like this specific form of PvP removed' with 'I should be willing to play other less good games without any of the other forms of PvP I might eventually like because the designers of this game are adamant about keeping the last kind that I don't like'.
Anyways, since you've clarified now that you actually don't have a lack of understanding, just 'prefer to dismiss other people's perspectives if you have a way to just not engage', then at least say that, because there are other people with genuine lack of understanding, so people try to engage you as if you are one of those people.
I understand the situation, you don't seem to be realizing how ridiculous it is when people try to force their optics and needs on other games where the direction is set. You are literally arguing the fundamental systems of the game. You should practice that "understanding" you're preaching about and move on.
This game won't be for everyone, and that's fine.
Yeah ok, your stance is clear, thanks.
Then, honestly, speaking from a design standpoint if possible.
Tell me what removing owPvP, just the 'random' kind, affects, in terms of systems. I am not even going to claim there are none, and I'll remind you one more time that I am much closer to a 'griefer' than someone who wants PvP removed from games.
What systems, what balance, what progression, have we ever seen, that we know 'if owPvP is removed, this will start to fail'. I know one. Gathering. It would probably need a rework to not end up like New World's nonsense. To me, that's enough.
But to the standard non-PvP gatherer, they don't even get this benefit, because the person 'who dares to steal their stuff instead of coming to an agreement' in owPvP is probably not a person they can kill. If it's me, I don't even care if they can do it, I'll 'steal their gathering point' anyway. If they retaliate I get a 'match', if they don't I get the item.
So.
What if anything do we know about Ashes that requires owPvP to exist given that there are no Factions and that Guild v Guild exists?
Why are you scared of OWPVP?
I think others have mentioned it before, but I dunno how pvp-dislikers would look at node wars as a concept. To me that's literally owpvp on a huge scale and a kind of replacement of L2's guild wars (because AoC's GWs will be more goal-based). So if you watched that 17min video that I posted in your thread, you know how those wars went, and that definitely doesn't look all too consensual to me (mainly because it's gonna be a bit harder to change your node, compared to how ez it was to exit a clan at war if you didn't want to bother with the war).
And even outside of node wars there's pvp/pk attacks as the means of active node attrition. We obviously have no clue how exactly the node points will be distributed, but I'd assume higher lvled content would probably give out more points (at least that seems logical to me), so a guild/group from another node coming to yours and just locking everyone out of a dungeon through pvp/pk would quickly put pressure on your node's atrophy. Obviously this would be a huge undertaking and would probably be difficult to execute well, but I'm sure you know that there'll always be people ready to attempt the hardest things if they see a benefit in doing so.
Those 3 are the biggest ones that came to my mind rn.