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 do not know intrepids goal or do i speak with them, but i do inderstand that a company is always out to make what money it can. Until ashes proves it can be a lasting success, it make since for the company to try and capitalize on its risks.
And one could draw a parallel between that system limitation and a potential limitation of playing as a part of any given NPC group. You can always imagine that you're a part of that group (and cosmetics would have no real influence or limitation on your imagination), but gameplay-wise you might not be able to directly play the role of a member.
There's a reason why we'll have a system-based Marriage feature. Because Intrepid directly supports people marrying each other in the game and have this event as an intended part of gameplay. I'm sure there's a ton of mmos where there is no such feature, but players still RPed as a married couple there. The system itself didn't stop them from pretending that they're married, but there were no wedding clothes in the game nor was there any feature/mechanic related to 2 people being together.
So with that in mind I can't see how any potential cosmetic in the shop is, in any way, stopping any player in the game from partaking in RP. Would the cosmetic make it easier to RP? Yeah, probably. But, as I've said before, this would make the whole cosmetic store a p4c feature rather than a p2w one. There's no difference between 2 people saying "I'm a knight". The sheer fact of them proclaiming that would mean that they've reached their goal of "RPing as a knight". The cosmetic doesn't suddenly make one of them more of a knight, while any other "p2w feature" does have that effect.
And as I've stated before, if you positioned your argument around cosmetics being p4c and said that you were against them, more people would be on your side, because the argument of "p4c is pretty much p2w" is a much more debated one than the "cosmetics are p2w" argument.
I have never played that game, so I can't say for sure... but I don't generally consider expansions or DLCs in non-mmos to be p2w. Like I said, my post was about mmos. If it's an open world rpg mmo with multiple progression paths, then probably.
The, ive said it elsewhere defence doesnt matter unfortunately. You started this thread. Argue your point on this thread, or conceed. Im not reading every word on the internet as a whole to try and get your side of the story.
To say that social influence in an rpg mmo isn't "power gain," then you don't understand rpg mmos. This game is literally going to have Kings and social hierarchy. Again, you are limiting things to your view of how online massively multiplayer roleplaying games should be played.
You are not directly responding to any of my claims so I assume you didn't even read anything, but the title. That's your opinion and that's fine, but I already countered it in the original post.
@NiKr - just make sure you're wearing your fancy cloak when you declare me an enemy of the state.
I don't have to do anything you tell me to do, sorry for that inconvenience to you. Like I said, it's never been my goal to convince PenguinPaladin of this perspective XD
I brought up Streetfighter since they are classic 1v1 online games.
Would you consider emotes and different text colours as p2w in legacy style, text-based MMORPGS?
And if you wanna say they didn't start out this way, then yeah, they started out 18 damn years ago. Times have changed and the industry has changed with them. Iirc GW2 is selling cosmetics too, and that shit's infamously known as Dressup Wars (or whatever equivalent name for "people measure their dicks in cosmetics rather than anything else). Yet I'm pretty sure that in-game super rare cosmetics are way more valued there and I don't think I've heard GW2 players ever mentioning the unfairness of buyable cosmetics. If we got any GW2 players here, please do correct me if I said smth wrong.
Alright. Then i dont know why you come back to this thread.... what are you doing here if you dont want to discuss things, explain your views, and work towards an understanding or solution?
Im literally trying to help you become constructive over toxic here... but alright. Bye.
I did read it. Your entire argument is "This is my definition of "winning" in a game so I can try to argue that I shouldn't have to support the game by paying for cosmetics features that aren't a factor in gameplay, and don't affect my ability to have impact on outcomes involving other players"
Cosmetics have no affect on gameplay. Therefore they can't give you an advantage in any gameplay systems. A collection is purely personal, it doesn't affect other players, therefore it is irrelevant in terms of "winning" in an mmo. Its focus is multi-player, and in this game, there is no paid for advantage to put you ahead of other players.
Dressing up is single player mode content.
Not sure, I’ve never played a text based mmorg. Initial response is that I think because it’s text based and not visually based with the visual mechanics of character creation and expression having such an impact on the experience of the game that it can’t really be compared.
@NiKr please help me understand this lmfao. Dressing up is social influence? I don't remember me being in a guild and someone checking out how my pixels looked and that having any influence of pvp or a siege akin to taking a node or territory (akin to as she says being a king).
I'm not limiting my view I'm telling you that isn't pay to win, you are lying to my face again and making things up like social influence and how you look as if that is going to effective who is mayor. Just admit you are in the wrong and everyone would move on from the p2w.
Uh what? I am a little confused. Anything that’s achievable in game is not p2w, no, if that’s what you’re asking.
Yea they have p2w, and it makes me dislike the game and the community disliked it so much so that they released multiple versions of their classic game before any p2w was added, from yes 18 years ago. Almost all end game of mmos is appearance and gear collection. Even someone who thinks they don’t care about appearances and just care about numbers still decide what is the “best” piece of gear, care about gear, admire gear, and utilize transmog features. Everyone is playing the dress up game when they play a mmo role playing game whether they like it or not.
Now that you mention it, there have been plenty of times in MMOs where I absolutely stomped players with much cooler looking cosmetics than me. Crazy how their look didn't factor into their stats and skill. It's like looking good doesn't matter in the aspect of actually playing a game.
Sure, but it doesn't provide any gameplay advantage.
I think they'd be equal in terms of visual impact.
I mean, a red axe is visually different to a blue axe. They're still both just axes. It's just an appearance has been applied using a cash shop.
Visually I might have preference for one over the other.
But I don't think I agree that this counts as being pay to win... It's just a visual effect?
It doesn't change the nature of the item. The only thing it effects is other peoples opinion and perception of it. This is purely subjective whether they think it is better or not.
Nope, not my definition of winning. Just a definition of winning in a role playing game that offers multiple progression routes. Cosmetics and character appearance DO have an effect on your gameplay experience or there wouldn’t be an art team working their ass off to make it look awesome. Having the gameplay mechanic of appearance collection be monetized does make it p2w. Any in-game mechanic that is part of your gameplay experience being paid for beyond of the sub fee and or box costs in an mmo is p2w.
Im still wondering why they wont address this point also, as the whole point of this thread is the "p2w" side of things........ but i mean, i guess if this whole thread was pointless it would make sense for you to avoid this
Explain how a cosmetic skin is a gameplay mechanic.
Dude who lied to you? It’s not me. “admit I’m wrong” haha, or what? I don’t think I’m wrong and just because you are limiting your perspective of what effects player experience in game doesn’t mean that it’s true.
No no, you've got the wrong idea. She isnt here to explain herself or have any agreeable views. She just wants to complain everyone keeps repeating themselves for clearification that she wont give.
Mm I don’t think it’s the same. The color of letters is completely different than the appearance of armor your character is wearing. I think in that text based mmo if your character’s “described armor” could be purchased that would be a better comparison.
Your definition is not the definition of gameplay. Here you go. Now explain how cosmetics"graphics" are relative to gameplay.
game·play
/ˈɡāmplā/
Learn to pronounce
noun
the tactical aspects of a video game, such as its plot and the way it is played, as distinct from the graphics and sound effects.
Crow did a good joke about it. For Iridianny, as it seems to me, the visual presentation of her character is the most important part of the game. And any and all activities in the game are (or at least might be) directed at changing/improving said visual. Any other form of gameplay is secondary, which is why the impact of story cosmetics is the biggest on her.
I'd assume that in her eyes being a king means having a proper attire to go along with the mechanical/gameplay side of literally being a king in Ashes. And if there was a super cool store cosmetic that looked exactly like a king should look like (there was one a few months back btw, the one with the corgi) - then a King player who has said cosmetic is now a "better king" when compared to any other king in the game.
I'd assume Iridianny claims that you don't know how mmorpgs are played because in her social bubble her pov is highly valued and is seeing as the "right" way to play. And due to said bubble she feels justified to call store cosmetics p2w, because to her social groups they truly are that. I'd assume @Dygz could see her pov much better than any of us cause I think he's quite deep in RP too. He might not agree with her views on the matter, but I'd assume he at least understands where she's coming from.
But as for anyone outside of said bubble, I'm not sure any of them would give a flying fuck about how the King looks if said King can just make anyone the enemy of the state (though it's the mayor who does that, but let's forget about that for now) and/or make his guild attack some dude on sight. And this was the reason for Crow's joke. The functionality of any given mechanic is in no way hampered by the visual presentation of the one who controls the mechanic, and it could be seen as humorous if you assume (as Iridianny does) that it is.
Or, well, that's at least what I took away from this particular thread and the other messages I've seen Iridianny write. I might've completely misunderstood her (she said as much several times now sooooo).
I didn’t address this because I didn’t see it until now.
That is the same as saying that people could buy their way to max level and it doesn’t matter. Once you are max level whether you bought it or earned it, doesn’t matter when fighting those other max level players in pvp. But no, then having the “advantage” of not having to earn it bothers you even though it doesn’t necessarily directly affect you.