Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
No, because this requires the participant to decide what winning is, not the developer.
If you enter a race, the winner is generally the first to cross the finish line. No one is running a race, losing to Usain Bolt and saying "but I LOOKED better running the race, so I should get a gold medal too".
Sure, people are able to have their own objectives. You may run a marathon with the intention of beating your personal best but no intention of winning. That's great, more power to you. However, if you enter the Boston Marathon and beat your personal best, you are jot going to claim you won the Boston Marathon (unless you also happen to have crossed the finish line first).
In an MMO, the developer sets the win condition, not the player. Players can set personal goals, that's fine - but they cant set win conditions.
Sure but the issue of P2W is that you have to pay to have fun right. Like if winning wasn't fun it just wouldn't matter, because the only point of video games is to have fun. So if vanity is more fun to you than winning than Pay 2 Look Cool is the same problem, just a different name.
wait why no one complains about league of legends skins? or any other genra skins..only mmorpg?
In MMO's your visual appearance usually matches your achievements. There is a reason that common gear doesn't look better than legendary gear.
In league of legends you don't grind for gear. A game only lasts 30 minutes not thousands of hours.
No.
The only way something could be pay to win in an MMO is of it increases your economic potential. This could be via direct selling, via crafting or via killing mobs or players better.
Having fun isnt involved at all - at least not directly. It is pay to win, not pay to have fun.
The reason a freehold isnt pay to win is because it doesnt increase your economic potential any more than simply making a friend in game. In fact, since you would have two sets of tax to pay with two freehold, having a friend is objectively better.
As such, a second freehold via a second account achieves nothing other than preventing you from making that friend.
In this case, as said earlier,asdcond account is simply a case of pay to be an introvert. If you want to pay $15 a month in order to still not match my economic potential with one account and one friend, have at it.
Yeah but why does pay to win matter. Because it isn't fun. If P2W was more fun than we would all want our games to be P2W.
I'm just making that comparison to other things like cosmetics. If something isn't fun it probably shouldn't be there.
Of course people might like the cash shop and then in that case it's totally fine.
Some people really like pay to win games. I knew an accountant in Archeage that absolutely loved that about the game.
The reason we want Ashes to not be pay to win is because that is what the game was sold to us as. It is the same as why we dont want Ashes to drop open world PvP - even though there are many successful MMO's without it.
Pay to win is simply one of those things that some games have and some do not.
I fail to understand the connection between this and freehold being pay to win.
P2W is bad in terms of Ashes of Creation and it's community. Other gamers enjoy P2W but for the context of this game and it's community it's bad.
Freeholds allow you to at the very least grow a limited amount of crops. If you want to bypass that limit you can spend $15 a month. There are other features but obviously the game isn't out yet so maybe processing buildings won't be able to be used while offline or something.
If spending money provides you an advantage how is that not P2W?
I think that's a valid point and that it might be a concern. However, it's not necessarily going to result in something that feels like P2W unless the value of crops is extreme. I could imagine a system where you need 1000 super-fruits to craft the best armor in the game. If each freehold can produce only one super-fruit per month, then I'm sure people will be tempted to pay additional money to acquire more freeholds. That sort of design, IMO, should be avoided.
It's very easy to imagine that you can find all the loopholes without understanding the systems of the game or how they are interlinked.
No need to understand the details, but acknowledge that and refrain from labeling things as p2w. You only promote misinformation to those that quickly glance the social media and loss of trust to project. It's counter-productive.
My banana armor will be unmatched.
Good point.
Freeholds can be obtained. And will be used a long time after were obtained so a player might have the possibility to get a 2nd one too.
The game limits the account to one citizenship only per server and one freehold per account for the same purpose: to make the player focus on the community of the node.
A 2nd account would allow a 2nd freehold and a 2nd citizenship and less attachment to the node you live in.
Would also allow you to fight against the node were you have a 2nd home or more likely prevent you to want to fight.
And as a mayor, you could take less optimal decisions because you have such incentives which are not also for the community's benefit.
Of course the mayor can be corrupted and secretly working for friends or a rich guild to ruin a node or make trade agreements it shouldn't but at least the game does not directly encourage this with a free 2nd citizenship.
There's no sane way to prevent this for a Western game. Korean ones can (and do) demand unique personal identifiers.
But unless Intrepid wants to lockout every couple who wants to play together but don't want to share a Freehold, or every 'pair of siblings who share a computer or internet connection but play separately', we're not going to see anything to prevent this.
Therefore as usual the only thing they can do is focus on 'making it harder to do or less effective in some way'.
This is why the argument here is the EQUIVALENT of 'having friends is P2W'.
I can go one step further to the ultimate. Being married irl is pay to win.
You could let alts have their own freeholds. I mean most players won't even have a freehold, they're supposed to be pretty big achievements. I'm basically only talking about the top 1% of players here.
We're back to that whole 'exactly which barrier stops people?' thing.
I don't AGREE with you about which barrier we should be relying on, so I consider it valid that you perceive 'might as well let alts have it instead of making someone pay an extra $180 a year'.
But it WILL stop some subset of people, and the only question is if that is a 'big enough' subset for Intrepid's purposes. I think this way is MORE effective because, the sort of person who has LOTS of time could earn a Freehold twice over in your scenario.
And the sort of person who has a spare $180 a year to spend on it might not have time to EARN the second Freehold. But maybe not. But I feel this is a good metric. If you are spending money for the relatively limited opportunity to do something, and that isn't a big enough barrier for quite a few people, then sure, things will go in the 'everyone should have a second Freehold' direction.
And hear your wife singing, doing a karaoke every day and being forced to tell her how beautiful her voice is? I have some doubts...
But yes, it can open the possibility to defeat raid content easier...
Everyone walks it own path.
I for one ascribe to this incredible gaming lifehack and will be using it for every raid.
Chances are you can use other people free holds aswell for processing you might need to pay a tax to use them though but steven kinda want freehold from my understanding to bring people together and act as a social hub tp a degree. So im pretty sure if somone has a furnace on there freehold in some way or form other player will be able to use said furnaces or sawmill for a cost
Why would I want to rely on someone else's freehold when I could have my own.
not everyone gonna be able to get one tbh, not to mention you wont be able to get every single processing benches on freeholds or you might not be in an area of your freehold since localised resources and it be lighter to carry processed good over raw goods
REALLY not a believer in this whole 'division of labor and costs' thing, huh?
For YOU there is probably no reason, because that's your mentality. For four people I know, it saves them time, money, and worry about maintenance.
Some people can't imagine not having everything the exact way they want it. If it's even a tiny bit different, "shit game is shit."
The wiki says the freeholds are about 5 acres, which is 20,000 sqm, or 140x140 meters. That seems big enough for every type of crafting station, no? Seems like an investment/real estate type of decision rather than a "setting up my garrison" decision. If you are really successful you might want to invest in a freehold, but by the sound of it most people will be using instanced housing and city accommodations for some time.
It is .5 acre. As in half. So it is not that large.
Well then....uh yeah maybe my thoughts change on this... I still think they will be more of a "community hub" rather than a hideout like in Path of Exile or garrisons in WoW, but yeahh thats quite a bit less space.
No reason to make it personal, I'm not talking about my own experience, I'm saying if owning multiple accounts to manage multiple freeholds provides an advantage then there are high level players that will do it.
For me, there is no need to own more than one freehold.
This is my general plan for launch, with the limited information we have.
(Obviously everything is subject to change)
Char 1: Mining + Herbalism
Char 2: Metalworking + Alchemy
Char 3: Armor smithing + Weapon smithing
My main will be a pure tank, and I'll be able to help supply my guild with consumables.
With only two processing trades, I should only need a single freehold.
But for the crazy people who want to have all nine processing trades mastered, they may need another account for more freehold space.
Sorry, I didn't mean it that way.
My point is 'some players will do it' is not necessarily a negative because 'some players' will do nearly anything to avoid having to rely on other players.
I would GUESS that the goal is to make it so it is not the best plan unless you don't value 'the interaction with others'. So that people who are happy to leave things to others at least somewhat, don't have to worry about being denied an advantage OTHER THAN being self-sufficient.
In relation to the point specifically about 'owning a Freehold' for example, my friends can all use mine (assuming I am even the first one to get it, but I'm the Processor of my group so it is likely), and that's it. Why would they want to do that? Because it doesn't bother them, and getting their own is unnecessary time and work that they could devote to something else.
Some people may indeed do it, and more power to then. However, they are not paying an additional subscription to "win", or even to gain an advantage.
They are paying an additional subscription to avoid needing to make use of other people. In doing this, they are actually putting themselves at an in game DISADVANTAGE due to needing to pay for a second freehold - whereas someone with friends would just use an existing, already paid for freehold with the required equipment.
That is - again - why this is not pay to win. If it is not pay to win, it is an individual players choice to do this or not do this, and either is fine.
No one has given a reason as to why this isnt just fine...