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
Temporary conflict points? Battlegrounds were always going to be temporary sporadic events that you could steer around and avoid. Caravans same thing. That is very different from 'static permanent corruptionless zone that makes exploration in that zone always flagged'
1. Again do not bring up information that does not matter in relation to my time trying to make a point of your assumption of me being here for one year if it does not matter. It is not in anyone head it is your own words you have sated for whatever reason in attempt to push a point with false information.
Its not hard to understand you are in the wrong here. Else you are free to enlighten me why you brought up the year you see on this profile and made that assumption of information and why it relates to this topic. Again your own words.
2. This is open development you sound pretty entitled saying "At this point in development" this is development and open development a reason why you will not see this from other studios with comments like yours. They are developing the game in how they want to make it, deal with their challenges and create the content they are trying to make. But please you are free to enlighten me about all the systems in navel content and how they work if you have such a large understanding of their development and where they are, i certainly do not know how everything is going to be working together and what content will be there to do exactly.
Their point of development is their concern, and their process to create the content and take the direction they feel is best as they make the game. This is not BETA, this is in-between alphas where they are making the actual content for the game where clearly it did not fully exist before, because you know its development so they need to make it and not in the late stages of development yet.
Now if it was in the late stages of development and we were in betas and direction was done and feedback taken and used, sure you could make more of a point about it being this stage in development and id still find that potentially debatable unless we are talking about beta 2 or after.
In fact BDO had you lose XP on death and changed that upon after releasing the game which is a pretty giant change.
They have not "fucked up" this is development again, and their choice in direction they want to go, pvp is not new or sudden to the game. All of this falls in line with PvX. This is not them removing PvP content, this is not them creating barebones pve content with recycled mobs everywhere and no kinds of challenge what so ever.
You are overexaggerating.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/new-world-developer-interview
And this change is considered one of the hugest fuckups in mmos (well, considered that by the pvp community obviously) because it did a 180. Now obviously Intrepid didn't do a full 180 quite yet, but changing half of the world's rules is quite close to that imo. And with the ruins mechanic change we're now setting a precedent and an exact direction ("2 points make a line" and all that) for the design of the game.
I'm not saying that Steven's about to make Ashes a ffa pvp game, but the direction of the changes is definitely pointing there.
That is my point no one knows and he doesn't either, there is no reason why everyone needs to know every design detail. Else you get a reaction over everything with people disliking ideas or growing too attached to others and why there is no official document, that won't come out until the game is actually in its final stages of being done. This is development, this is not at the end of their development where you can say it is too late and they should be telling people all details with how everything works. They are already doing more than most by like 100x.
With the game design point I don't have anything against that, though if that would have changed things I have a feeling maybe not. Would they have tried to explain things and detail their systems a bit more, I'm not sure I feel its still in the early phases of them testing things that may or may not be there, so its hard to say why when it might have some other kind of push back.
It isn't really something they need to explain its just the game they are making and the game they will be testing. This is only my guuuuess but yes this game is Steven's baby so as a lead game designer you are going to have less kind of freedom as far as talking on the streams as there are certain things Steven will want and that is more than likely what will happen. But behind the scenes leads are very important of course, and more than likely they have a senior that is acting as a lead and keeping the team organized.
So long story short, surprising yes that is fair. But saying this is unacceptable (que karen voice) that is a reach based on the type of the game and the current systems in place that he know about.
This would be right about late in development technically and doing a full 180.
Why i say technically
1. No one spent money
2. Its most likely debatable if this was early or late in development based on the game most likely needed another 2 years.
3. Was under NDA and not open to the public
4. Most likely made a better game in the end, as what it was before was most likely very trash (especially if you take into account they most likely had like no real pve content)
I just can't see land and water content even remotely on the same wavelength as far as where the content you will be wanting to do most of the time. I also don't view it as a change in direction as you are going to have guild wars, node wars so you can already flag on people without corruption and they have battlegrounds. I feel people have more a PvE view point of AoC than realizing its PvX and pvp is a big part of it.
Another note, these changes are nothing new to games so it is a bit naïve to be saying this is unacceptable for games. Nightingale was changed from MMORPG into a survival game during development. Overwatch was changed from a mmorpg into a team based fps from a mmorpg. If AoC was changed toth at extend with people having put money in the game id agree with it being unacceptable. IE if AoC became a battle royale
it literally stays true to the design philosophies of the game, such as player agency and interaction, and risk vs reward. this is literally just content added that stays true to the design philosophies.
I hope there are more people like you that don't feel a need to say anything because you have already said it. I don't always agree with you but I continue to appreciate your ability to see things from a perspective outside your own.
Now what I'd love to get from Intrepid in these next few dev streams is any good info on the pve side of things. Yes, we've seen a few new mobs here and there, but what about AI, what about boss design, what about mob/boss abilities, etc etc etc. We're coming closer and closer to alpha2, but we've barely heard anything about their progress on their pve promises, namely the "<10% of players can clear this content" type of stuff. Are they even working on that right now?
In other words, I want some counterbalance to all the pvp changes we've seen so far.
Is it an explicit 'Well we're not going to go here ___ x ____." ?
What's the bridge too far for Steven, that they would reign it back in?
You keep farming like off me xD
@CROW3 Ya i agree that is the most important thing in relation to content and how far its being pushed towards ffa pvp or not. Which means the content int he area and how often you are there matters as well. Ie if people are doing ocean content 15% or less it doesn't really impact the x-y amount of pvp.
Also what is the end game game loop going to be like, and what is the amount of pvp around that being less or more. To many questions that we don't know and won't for awhile more than likely.
Sorry but no I never once thought battlegrounds would be temporary. The way they were described to me sounded like wows wintergrasp. A zone that is always pvp enabled but at certain times objectives pop up for players to contend for. The event would be temporary but the zone would be perpetually pvp flagged.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Open_world_battlegrounds
Well, that's the Curse of Ambiguity.
We all interpret it however makes the most sense to us.
"My definition of what a battleground is- and it's non-traditional - it's not typically something that is defined in the same way in other MMORPGS, but I kind of view them as these small skirmishes that might lead up to a siege or to a war and they might have capture points during node and castle fights; and these PvP objectives may be more relevant for smaller groups than for giant raids; and you might have concurrently running objectives during a particular event where you have to dispatch groups simultaneously to go address these objectives in order to complete one particular type of event or one particular type of of success condition."
I don't know how you listen to or read that and come away thinking that Ashes Battlegrounds are permanent like Wintergrasp. Steven's primary examples of Battlegrounds prior to the Open Seas announcement were Caravans and Node and Castle Sieges - all of which are temporary.
I will not deny that the particular wiki quote steven says here sounds like its only something used for node or castle sieges and only works during those times. Yet the open seas announcement reinforces my PoV. Not yours.
Ruins now miiiiight be close to that, but I don't think that mobs will be present anywhere in the ruins so that part's out the window. But ruins are also a thing that has just been announced and nothing like it was present in the design before them.
Maybe you were mistaking battlegrounds for guild wars? Cause what you've described is somewhat similar to them? People will have some goals that happen in the open world, there'll be mobs, pvp between the warring guilds and the war goals can range from kills to the capture of some relic-type things. But even then, it's not a location (or "arena") that anyone can enter and be flagged for pvp. It's a process that involves just two guilds, so it doesn't really fit either.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ don't know.
Imagine how a lot of New World players felt when a change was made that reduced open world pvp to literal grab ass outside Everfall gates, on many servers.
Shit happens. What can ya do. Write your senator maybe. But I sympathize with Dygz because he's been here so long and has put a substantial amount of money into the game.
The thing is, in a PvE game, you get all those things for a purpose. Generally, that purpose is to be able to take on content that you were previously unable to take on.
In a game like Ashes though - with what we know about it so far - that isnt going to be a thing. The purpose of getting gear is either to be better at PvP, or simply because that is what playing the game is.
To someone like Dygz, that PvP aspect is pointless, it just isnt a factor. To him, getting those resources and such IS the game. It isnt about what he does with them, he doesnt want the resources to have them, he wants to get them because getting them is the game.
Again, transitioning this into something you may understand, it would be like an arena ladder where you are just able to buy the top spot. That isnt the point, you participate in the arena FOR the arena, not for the rewards. Someone telling you to just buy the rewards does nothing other than show that said person has no clue.
He is not going anywhere. He has a mission.
If he genuinely would want to explore the seas, some players would try to help him. But he wants to make the game worse. I do not sympathize with his attitude.
So, to be clear, you believe that Dygz is so important that his choosing not to play will make the game worse?
I mean, you probably meant he won't leave forums, but why does it even matter?
If the game would have to change to make people like Dygz happy enough to play, and you think that would make it worse, then you shouldn't care at all if they play or not.
But he does not seem interested to play. Probably was never his main goal.
And if I have to chose, I prefer to see Dygz lose than see the game tuned down on the risk vs reward aspect.
Like, its less than a grain of sand on a beach, when the change we are concerned with here is an archipelago of many islands each with many beaches, each with many grains of sand.
That right there was an exaggeration - but only slightly.
The BDO change to xp is something that takes effect after the fact. You do the thing you want to do, and afterwards you maybe have some xp debt to work off. However, in BDO, this was removed, meaning players were less constrained than they were before, they had fewer systems in the game telling them what they can and can not do.
The change to oceans in Ashes (that once again, I feel it worth pointing out that I assumed this is how it would be - I am not personally upset by it, I just fully understand why others would be, and consider the whole thing a failure by Intrepid) dormant remove constraints on all players, it takes constraints off some (those wanting open PvP) and simply places constraints on others (those wanting what little protection corruption offers).
maybe steven can just give him a solo server where there no mobs or other players so he can explore lol that seesm to be what he wants lol
To be honest, in a game with open dungeons, I would expect this to be possible - if you are skilled at stealth (yes, being a good stealth player in an MMO is a skill).
I have yet to see a game with open dungeons where I couldn't at least arrive at the end boss solo. In games with open raid dungeons, it is just as possible there as well.
Now, obviously I haven't played every game, but I've played a lot of games with open dungeons.
As for ocean pvp.. The seas were increased in size and volume and a pvp zone was created in the newly created middle.. .it is more an addition than a change.
Long live <The Elven Twinkle>!