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.

NEW World Map! Images Included!

SimurghSimurgh Member, Phoenix Initiative, Avatar of the Phoenix, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
in General Discussion
txF3Jv7.jpg]
YyOEBHH.jpg]

So the new map is 1200 square km! thoughts? I called this about 1 month or so back but didn't think it would be this much bigger! Shout out to my fellow Ashes Pathfinders!
kQcyFmb.jpg
Keep Up-To-Date with Ashes of Creation on AshesHQ - Join the community around Ashes HQ, Ashes Pathfinders, & KOTP on Discord
«1

Comments

  • SigtyrSigtyr Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    Apparently continents will take 50 minutes to cross while mounted.

    Personally I think that this is the perfect map size and I love this change. This world needs to feel large enough for "nations" and their capitals to develop, for trade between them to feel consequential, and for offensive movement against one another to be deliberate and decisive.

    A lot of reasons I think this will benefit the game and I, as well as Intrepid I'm sure, can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts on this.
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    Editing this one after merging threads, to avoid double posting.
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    I still get the sense it feels small.

    If I can basically cross my continent in less than an hour, and going from node to node takes maybe 10 minutes....

    That's not too long for a caravan pvp encounter to happen, unless the caravan moves massively slower than walking.

    Crossing the sea from one continent to the other seems like it'll take maybe 20 minutes? Autoflagging won't really do much if you get in and out of there before people can realize you're there and can group to gank you.
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • SigtyrSigtyr Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    This is just something we are going to have to wait until Alpha 2 to know for sure I think. Steven makes a good point when talking about how it all "feels" in game. Information still travels instantly between players via things like Discord, so if any significant and consequential movement is happening there will be plenty of time to respond and react to it in my opinion.
  • VaknarVaknar Member, Staff
    I merged a couple of similar threads regarding the new map changes together to make discussions a bit smoother for folks!

    I'm excited to see what y'all have to say about it! ^_^ Personally, I'm so excited!
    community_management.gif
  • Theplague4uTheplague4u Member, Alpha Two
    Asgerr wrote: »
    I still get the sense it feels small.

    Crossing the sea from one continent to the other seems like it'll take maybe 20 minutes? Autoflagging won't really do much if you get in and out of there before people can realize you're there and can group to gank you.

    I was thinking you could cross it by boat in 5 mins. If we are talking about the nw island to the se island then 20 mins seems more like a possibility.
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    DrPlague wrote: »
    Asgerr wrote: »
    I still get the sense it feels small.

    Crossing the sea from one continent to the other seems like it'll take maybe 20 minutes? Autoflagging won't really do much if you get in and out of there before people can realize you're there and can group to gank you.

    I was thinking you could cross it by boat in 5 mins. If we are talking about the nw island to the se island then 20 mins seems more like a possibility.

    Yeah not much threat to you in a five minutes crossing from the closest points of the 2 major continents.
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    I'm really hyped and love this, but my main dampener on all that hype is "could this be considered scope creep?" The map being twice as big would imply that you need to fill it with twice as much content (and Steven proved this with the "travel being meaningful"), which seems like a ton of work for the developers. You obviously could just copy mobs/content, but so far Intrepid has been trying to stay away from that.

    Does anyone else feel like this is a bit too close to scope creep territory?
  • ScarbeusScarbeus Member, Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    Does anyone else feel like this is a bit too close to scope creep territory?

    It's difficult to say, but in regards to what the world is like I think it's ok as that's something they have to get right from the start. Adding more things than necessary into that world is closer to scope creep. For all we know some of the extra land areas may be more spacious and didn't slow things down too much.
    r7ldqg4wh0yj.gif
  • mcstackersonmcstackerson Member, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    I'm really hyped and love this, but my main dampener on all that hype is "could this be considered scope creep?" The map being twice as big would imply that you need to fill it with twice as much content (and Steven proved this with the "travel being meaningful"), which seems like a ton of work for the developers. You obviously could just copy mobs/content, but so far Intrepid has been trying to stay away from that.

    Does anyone else feel like this is a bit too close to scope creep territory?

    No, this isn't a new feature and the whole reason for the change is to spread things out more so it shouldn't come with more content. They also mentioned that they are reducing the number of nodes which means less work.

    I think it's silly to try to scream scope creep for a change. They will learn stuff as the develop and need to be able to adjust.
  • SolmyrSolmyr Member
    Vandagar has a lot of interesting features.
    • There are only two land routes from the Kaela Riverlands lands up to the Dünzenkell Mountains, both of which seem to go through relatively tight chokepoints - the quicker route being narrower than the long way around.
    • The western coast is covered in islands. If some of the bigger ones have harbor nodes on them, they would make great pitstops for ship crews operating in that area.
    • There's no tundra/ice biome, although Sujoma is a relatively short sail away from the northernmost peninsula.
    • There's a large river going from the Riverlands down to the Sandsquall Desert, which might have major implications for trade between the two areas.

    There's probably a lot more details, but it's hard to pick things out without a higher resolution image. Looking forward to seeing how it plays during alpha 2.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    mcstackerson wrote: »
    No, this isn't a new feature and the whole reason for the change is to spread things out more so it shouldn't come with more content. They also mentioned that they are reducing the number of nodes which means less work.

    I think it's silly to try to scream scope creep for a change. They will learn stuff as the develop and need to be able to adjust.
    Yeah, I hope it's not as bad as my kneejerk reaction felt it'd be. Obviously UE5 also helps with making locations/content easier and faster.
  • TheDarkSorcererTheDarkSorcerer Member, Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    Vaknar wrote: »
    I merged a couple of similar threads regarding the new map changes together to make discussions a bit smoother for folks!

    I'm excited to see what y'all have to say about it! ^_^ Personally, I'm so excited!

    Hi @Vaknar , is it possible to get a highres image for this map where we can really zoom in ? :)
    m6jque7ofxxf.gif
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    HVRvzl1.png
  • ChimeChime Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I was able to snag a few screenshots from the livestream as well.
    xu4oitwcei0k.png
    pranttomwk1g.png
    i0ksu5ruy2ah.png
    esns06x67lra.png
    k4ye1gg8ey08.png
    izu4djmzfj8e.png
    ☼ Alpha 2 let's gooooo ☼
  • -T0Mb--T0Mb- Member, Alpha Two
    This new map looks very interesting. I like that there is more islands and I was surprised that there is going to be two different snow areas. I wonder what differences these two snow areas will have between each other. :#
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Sujoma is my favorite, so far.
  • ScarbeusScarbeus Member, Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    Actually I'm going to go back on being unsure about the whole scope creep thing. Here is some very basic copy paste of the new islands onto the old map. The eastern continent did a exact 180 and moved further east and two of the old islands were moved. Compare this with what the new map looks like now and it doesn't look like there has been a huge amount of change.
    0zdoljqmrlzy.jpg
    bkiburcrjiqp.png
    yi06jljreqga.jpg
    Edit: put the old map on here as it's life on the Wiki may be short.
    r7ldqg4wh0yj.gif
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    Sujoma is my favorite, so far.
    I'm torn between Sujoma and Frostgrave. On the one hand you have high risk high reward of ocean trade and potential super rarity of resources from the island and on the other hand you have "safe" trade, resource availability and most likely way more players close to you, which means more costumers. A really tough choice.
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    Dygz wrote: »
    Sujoma is my favorite, so far.
    I'm torn between Sujoma and Frostgrave. On the one hand you have high risk high reward of ocean trade and potential super rarity of resources from the island and on the other hand you have "safe" trade, resource availability and most likely way more players close to you, which means more costumers. A really tough choice.

    See, you're thinking about it too hard. I choose The Frostgrave Fells because I like mountains and winter XD
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Asgerr wrote: »
    See, you're thinking about it too hard. I choose The Frostgrave Fells because I like mountains and winter XD
    BUT BOTH HAVE THOSE!!@$!@4
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    Asgerr wrote: »
    See, you're thinking about it too hard. I choose The Frostgrave Fells because I like mountains and winter XD
    BUT BOTH HAVE THOSE!!@$!@4

    Sujoma is basically just Iceland but with a Finnish name. Few mountains, sorta snowy. Less epic name.

    Frostgrave Fells? Many mountains. Much cool. Such snow. Epic name. And you don't have to take a ship to everywhere.
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • -T0Mb--T0Mb- Member, Alpha Two
    Asgerr wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    Asgerr wrote: »
    See, you're thinking about it too hard. I choose The Frostgrave Fells because I like mountains and winter XD
    BUT BOTH HAVE THOSE!!@$!@4

    Sujoma is basically just Iceland but with a Finnish name. Few mountains, sorta snowy. Less epic name.

    Frostgrave Fells? Many mountains. Much cool. Such snow. Epic name. And you don't have to take a ship to everywhere.

    As a Finnish person I can say that Sujoma doesn't mean anything in Finnish but it resembles with Finland's Finnish name Suomi. :D

  • Morg7x7Morg7x7 Member, Alpha Two
    I'm that one guy who planned on living in the tundra biome and now they drop a big blurry volcano on my ass...
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    -T0Mb- wrote: »
    Asgerr wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    Asgerr wrote: »
    See, you're thinking about it too hard. I choose The Frostgrave Fells because I like mountains and winter XD
    BUT BOTH HAVE THOSE!!@$!@4

    Sujoma is basically just Iceland but with a Finnish name. Few mountains, sorta snowy. Less epic name.

    Frostgrave Fells? Many mountains. Much cool. Such snow. Epic name. And you don't have to take a ship to everywhere.

    As a Finnish person I can say that Sujoma doesn't mean anything in Finnish but it resembles with Finland's Finnish name Suomi. :D

    Yeah that's why I correlated the two. Would have been to odd to name ti Suoma or Pohjola or something like that. Although we could have had some witch and her beautiful daughters as raid bosses lol
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • AlacriteAlacrite Member, Alpha Two
    Why the map look like a four legged beast with wings fighting a bear with wings?
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    -T0Mb- wrote: »
    As a Finnish person I can say that Sujoma doesn't mean anything in Finnish but it resembles with Finland's Finnish name Suomi. :D
    Didn’t sound Finnish to me, but… that’s not one of my languages…
    😀
  • GrandHarfangGrandHarfang Member
    edited August 2022
    Vaknar wrote: »
    I merged a couple of similar threads regarding the new map changes together to make discussions a bit smoother for folks!

    I'm excited to see what y'all have to say about it! ^_^ Personally, I'm so excited!

    Any chance we can get an HD picture of the new map? :)
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    -T0Mb- wrote: »
    As a Finnish person I can say that Sujoma doesn't mean anything in Finnish but it resembles with Finland's Finnish name Suomi. :D
    Didn’t sound Finnish to me, but… that’s not one of my languages…
    😀

    I'm just used to Finnish because a lot of the metal music I listen to is from there. Songs like Kunnes Varjot Saa, or Surunvarjo have a similar sound and consonation and letter usage. So maybe that was some inspiration for the sound of the name.
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    Sounds Asian to me.
Sign In or Register to comment.