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
To be fair, I really like the node system as a concept. If it was conceived as a backdrop to an equally robust guild system, it would be fantastic.
in all MMOs, guilds have a guild leader and maybe some hierarchy. Some guilds could be like dictators, demanding obedience, or they kick you out. If a guild member becomes mayor, the guild leader will find itself in a delicate position where the member is supposed to not listen to the guild leader but to think to the good of his citizens.
Was this discussed before?
What do you think will happen?
Nothing. The Mayor probably got voted in due to a majority of support from their own Guildmates, 'bought in' by a majority of cash, 'pushed in' by quest boosting or 'whatever is required to win the Gladiator match for the Military node'.
Chances are that the guild members ARE the citizens, the Guild Leader is 'in charge' and the Mayor is either a proxy or the guild's logistician and the Guild Leader leaves it to them.
Very organized guilds are often MORE organized than large rl companies, to the point where there was a point where 'being an MMO guild leader' was a 'soft qualification' in some software management jobs (the articles about this flipflopped between amused and annoyed, back then). This might STILL be true, actually.
Nothing is going to break up or change Guilds that are really trying. They literally ARE already micro-nations. All that will happen is that Ashes will give those Nations a place to 'physically (gameworld)' exist.
That's an example of when node loyalty might trump guild loyalty. Probably other examples that can be thought up too. I mean you're not going to get guys that have been gaming together in the same guild for 10 years to split up like that. But yeah there will probably be times where less cohesive guilds splinter due to the node system. We'll see.
You misquoted me Noaani on the page before, I think you meant to quote Nerror.
I agree with Azherae on this.
If you are in a node voting for mayor (assuming scientific), know that you are voting for the node to enact the best option for that candidates guild. Why would that person even be running if not to do what is best for their guild?
If the player in question goes against his guilds best interest, he can assume they wont be backing him next month (important in all leadership contests) and he may well need to find a new guild as well.
I'm sure that after a few years, we'll be able to find some examples of people becoming mayor and abandoning their guild (or even just going against their guilds best interest). However, for every time that happens, I'm sure we will see a hundred or more times where people became mayor of a node to further their guilds agenda.
You think there will be something required for the gladiator fight? I assumed anyone will be able to participate in that one.
In the ones with the elections, you mentioned before nodes with many citizens I think there will be only up to 800 players in a level 6 node. But even so, a guild can be quite small if chooses to level up perks in certain ways. They can be restricted to 30-50 members.
But in the scientific nodes where elections happen, chances are good that the player who can lead a guild is the one who is also chosen as mayor, due to the leadership skills. And probably the same players will win many times and will stay mayors because they did a good job before.
When I asked the question I just assumed that somehow the mayor is not the guild leader and that these two players have different opinion how to proceed, when some unexpected chain of events take place.
On the page before I quoted Nerror.
But quotes can get damaged easily when sections are edited in plain text during a reply.
Sorry if I made a mistake.
I'm aware this is the assumption you made.
As a thought experiment, your assumption works if we make one further assumption - that guilds are formed at random.
However, if we assume guilds are formed mostly due to players having a similar play style and mindset, it would be extremely rare that a mayor of a node would want to do anything that goes against the general will of their guild.
I was just letting Noaani know that he misquoted me on the last of the 7th page, which he still hasn't fixed heh. You didn't make a mistake, I should have specified better.
True, I was thinking to guilds formed in-game, like those I see spamming in chat that they are recruiting.
The 800 number of players in a lvl 6 node I got it this way:
The max number of players on a server will be 10K and we will have max 5 metropolises.
That means there are 2000 players in this structure
The taxes will be balanced to set a cap on each node, probably while testing in alpha 2.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Nodes#Node_taxes
Taxation rates scale based on when a player joined a node as a citizen. The goal is to exert financial pressure on node populations by making taxes increasingly expensive as nodes advance, rather than putting in place hard population caps.[107]
So I imagine with just a lvl 6 and two lvl 5 nodes, these would get 1000 and 2 x 500 players.
But if Steven want players also in the other nodes, the function by which the tax grows will push some players away. And I just took a lower number from this assumed 1000. Maybe not enough of them.
50,000 accounts per server actually, with 10-15k concurrent (meaning logged in) players. So a metro might have a much higher cap. Those numbers can change of course, but that's the current plan as far as we know.
People in those guilds aren't going to be mayor.
If you are in a guild with influence, you aren't spamming chat looking for new members, you are screening applications to find ones that fit your guild and are worth taking up valuable guild space.
As to your 800 players number, as pointed out above your 10k total players is where you went wrong. Since the number is potentially set to be as high as 5 times that (50k), you should assume a metropolis can hold five times what you are assuming (so, 4k) - assuming you stand behind your reasoning.
My assumption is that a metropolis will have around 1,200 to 1,500 somewhat active players, with around 2,000 total. I have nothing to really back that up, however.
Yes, those are the more vulnerable in this context where node wars happen and one falls.
They might be the ones who Steven targets, with this citizenship concept.
The well organized guilds do not need it.
They might still control lower level nodes where population is low.
I think players will not really accept staying in queues. If during the server prime-time or in weekends players cannot login, they will cancel the subscription.
But indeed I have not considered that some players will play only outside of the prime-time which will increase the active population to more than 10k.
A lot also depends on how well spread out the population is. And a lot of people don't even log in every day. I question the 50k myself, but I can certainly see 30K active accounts with 15K concurrent.
Indeed, my assumption is that there will be about 25 - 30k actually active players per server, with 10k concurrent being the cap.
It isn't just that some will play outside prime time, it is also that not everyone plays for all of prime time, and not everyone plays every day.
A lot of people (st least, people that I know) will only log in to their MMO 2 or 3 times a week. They will be online somewhere from 4 to 6 hours each time (or longer), but they simply do not play every day.