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.
Underwater content
Anonymous332
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Is a waste of time and a scope creep. 95% or more of playerbase will be on the surface at all times anyway. Make it a goal for the future just focus on land content imo or it could potentially delay game for way longer
5
Comments
Underwater content falls in with the rp element rather than real exploration and gain.
There is so much scope when it comes to populating the oceans. The naval aspect of the game is such a big part of the world IMO.
I would hope that everyone on this forum is excited and anxious to take part in this creation, but we need to trust the Devs on this one.
Pretty sure Steven has noted how underwater gameplay is usually a chore in other games and he wants to go against this grain, which to me tells me sees it somewhat as part of the design.
They also intend to have underwater dungeons so again I see it as part of the plan.
I don't think you can call it Scope creep if it is already something they have invested development time on account of it intending to be part of the core game.
Intending, being the key part really. I suspect there will be less underwater content than land (obviously) and I mean we don't really want the ocean just being this empty void do we? I'd like to know that there is something out there. It'll be emptier in terms of the actual land-based nodes, but it should have some personality about it.
mark 7:10
How can you possibly state that without knowing what's going to be there? If there's something down there that's worth getting, then there will be people going down there to get it.
Otherwise you're just telling anyone who's settling a coastal node that they get half the content that other nodes do, because you think it's a waste of time to develop those aquatic pieces of content.
And that's just shelfish..... I'll see myself out.
its funny because there loads more to the ocean content like: vehicles, mounts, fishing and other tons of activities that revolve around this content, not just dungeons and raids but also maybe monster coin events and world bosses(fish? krakken) etc
Agreed, I was focusing on the underwater dungeons and raids, because Steven already teased some such thing in the past. And we've also already had a slew of people declaring themselves to be a pirate guild (which btw have been missing from the forums for ages after everyone got tired of their "we'll PK everyone MUAHAHA" shtick).
The ocean will be incredibly important to caravans as well.
So yeah, basically kneecapping a full array of nodes because I or some other player may prefer to play in the mountains, seems counterproductive to having a good game.
I'll also see myself out.
I don't see why it's ok to neglect this biome in particular.
As far as content such as underwater dungeons/raids maybe even cities or nodes. That can wait.
why would they not have accounted for that already? - if they had planed and pathed out a scope for the project they would have accounted for water/underwater and underground content in advance.
The underwater mounts are already farther along than I was expecting for launch.
WoW has had underwater content for 5+ years, so... it's not like Ashes would be breaking new ground... shouldn't be particularly challenging for them to accomplish. Especially since they've already added a couple more years to the launch schedule.
But... we'll see.
Would be sick to be out sailing, do a deep diving excursion, fight off some sea monsters inhabiting an ancient sunken ship, and get an awesome new figurehead schematic, or a new type of cannon schematic. Finding that sort of stuff in a chest at the base of a volcano or out in a ruined temple in a field somewhere just doesn't make a whole lot of sense imo.
With this in mind, including the likelihood of several coastal nodes likely being populated by large amounts of sea-content-focused players, delaying the underwater gameplay experience at launch because it's not something you plan to prioritize might have greater impacts on a larger percentage of the population than you might imagine.
Like GW2 and ArcheAge both have on underwater contents and underwater combat but both not good as on land, for exmple in GW2 skills base on ground target just have to be rework again and again to able to find a barely okay way to use it in underwater combat but still some is simple can't use it in underwater combat. But if you make skills specific for underwater will be too much learning price for players to jump into underwater contents, and how GW2 tweak how their ground target skills use differently underwater is already make learning price high enough.
And to me if underwater combat is not good don't even bother make something like contents like make players fight boss in underwater dungeon building with no water, it's lack rings of the link between surface and dungeon.
I personally dont believe that there should be dedicated, class based underwater combat at all, as underwater (as well as flying) combat is usually scuffed as hell.
For every PvP related activity, the Ships you dive underwater from will suffice.
For PvE type things, you might as well just give the player an harpoon with a couple of skills while diving.
Water-based content was a kickstarter stretch-goal. Not delivering that by launch would create all kinds of backlash and bad press.
I do however agree, that they should primarily work on the "core" gameplay experience to get out Alpha 2. Underwater content can be worked on while A2 is on-going.
Personally speaking, I look forward to all the underwater (and above water) content, everything ocean related is very appealing to me. I honestly cannot wait to be able to play Sea of Thieves but in a persistent game.
However, if they need to postpone some or all of the underwater content to a few months after launch I guess it's fine, although I'm pretty sure they'd rather delay the launch than delaying Kickstarter content.
Just hide it behind Node Stage 6, then yiu have like 3+months post launch to get it in
That’s a vanilla ‘must have.’ 😵
Sure. Tank casts javelin below target swimming away to get a breath of air. Yank, drown, dead. Totally do-able... If they have underwater combat.