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Thoughts on why a long Alpha 2 is necessary and alpha burnout isn't an issue
Liniker
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
Because we won't get alpha 3, alpha 4 or alpha 5.10, and we can't rush to a launch build. Proper balancing with time for node development and long-term player behavior is necessary and since intrepid will use testers to do this, it is essential to have as long of an alpha 2 as needed, even if that means a +2 year alpha. There is just no possible way Intrepid can balance and tune a game like Ashes of Creation with all its long-term intricacies with a 4 or 6 month alpha.
I hear people talk about alpha burnout, the loss of mystery and excitement with the game being revealed during alphas and guides being made - and tbh this is a non-issue for the game, although it can for sure be an issue to some of the testers.
Remember, almost every KR MMO launch we had, was launched in their region years before the global launch, and multiple NA/EU guilds, content creators and players participated in the KR or RU servers and we had guides all over the internet. This didn't stop, for example, Lost Ark from having a +1M concurrent player launch and didn't hurt the excitement about the game. The same can be said about Archeage, BDO, Tera, and so many others. It was never an issue, nor will it be for AoC.
Maybe people that talk about this just weren't aware of these games before the global launch but all the major guilds and hardcore players definitely were. It's the exact same thing for Ashes of Creation alpha, the 100k number they have for Alpha 2 is a fraction of the +4M playerbase that they already have, a number that will probably double at launch.
There's not really a perfect solution here, the most important thing is to get the game balanced, polished and ready for launch, and since the path is with an NDA free alpha with paid access, If people don't want to get their launch experience ruined, the only solution is to just not participate in alpha and beta testing and not watching content about it.
What are your thoughts on this?
I hear people talk about alpha burnout, the loss of mystery and excitement with the game being revealed during alphas and guides being made - and tbh this is a non-issue for the game, although it can for sure be an issue to some of the testers.
Remember, almost every KR MMO launch we had, was launched in their region years before the global launch, and multiple NA/EU guilds, content creators and players participated in the KR or RU servers and we had guides all over the internet. This didn't stop, for example, Lost Ark from having a +1M concurrent player launch and didn't hurt the excitement about the game. The same can be said about Archeage, BDO, Tera, and so many others. It was never an issue, nor will it be for AoC.
Maybe people that talk about this just weren't aware of these games before the global launch but all the major guilds and hardcore players definitely were. It's the exact same thing for Ashes of Creation alpha, the 100k number they have for Alpha 2 is a fraction of the +4M playerbase that they already have, a number that will probably double at launch.
There's not really a perfect solution here, the most important thing is to get the game balanced, polished and ready for launch, and since the path is with an NDA free alpha with paid access, If people don't want to get their launch experience ruined, the only solution is to just not participate in alpha and beta testing and not watching content about it.
What are your thoughts on this?
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Alpha burnout cannot be a thing specifically because content is meant to come out periodically during alpha. People wh oburnout in alpha would burn out from the actual game, so I dont see why this is any more a problem than if there was no alpha.
I think its another symdrome of "impatience" and "trying to catter to the younger no-attention generation".. which is bollox. Even that assumption about the younger generaion is incomplete. They can have high attention spands as long as the activity itself is worth it.
And i guess people are trying to influence Intrepid because they want the game so bad. hehe. Just shows how excited people are
As for alpha burnout, that is rarely a problem for the game, true, unless they are already short on testers. But it's certainly a real problem for the individual testers. Been there myself, and seen so many others suffer from it in other MMOs. Worst one for me was LOTRO, where I got into the closed alpha, and by the time the game released I was just done. I lasted 6 months after release because of the guild and community, but all the wipes and bugs and such during the testing just wore me out.
Now, I know what you are going to say, and that Intrepid plans on not having wipes. That's not accurate. Intrepid plans on having persistent testing with as few disruptions to that testing as possible. If they need to wipe to get relevant data, they will wipe.
The question becomes what is an Alpha 2 build and what does that look like vs what is a Alpha 1.1 - Alpha 1.9 build and what does that look like?
Intrepid has painted themselves into a corner with all the variations of testing over the years. Alpha 0, Alpha 1 Phase 1, Alpha 1 Phase 2, Alpha 1, Alpha 1 Preview Testing, Alpha 2, Spot Tests between Alpha 1 and Alpha 2.
Unless Intrepid Studios has a significant amount of content ready to push and test that they haven't shown us any previews of, then they are nowhere near ready to put on anything with Alpha 2 in the title, preview testing or not.
The Node System is without contestation the fundamental system in Ashes of Creation. That system must be ready to go on the first day of Alpha 2 testing. Not to some random acceptable Stage like 4 or 5, but the Node System, with all the its particulars, must function 100% from Stage 0 to Stage 6 prior to putting Ashes of Creation into testing for Alpha 2. To fail to do this, will result in less than accurate data being gathered. That will result in wipes.
Those very same wipes that cause Alpha burnout. The 100,000 testers will be asked to redo a the experience when they bring the new node system online. That will cause the testers to go through three iterations at least:
1: Whatever initial Alpha 2 build comes out
2: The updated build to get solid data
3: The launch experience
If you need validation of this perspective look no further than Fractured Online from Dynamight Studios. Over the years they have done no less than 5, and I believe closer to 7 wipes and restarts of their Alpha testing, Beta Testing, Early Access, etc. Each time they did this, they lost more and more testers.
As far as the perspective that a long Alpha 2 is necessary, it is absolute not necessary, its what the player base wants but it would be disastrous for the overall health of the project.
The players are excited to get their hands on Alpha 2; however, much as we saw during Apoc where we ended the testing with less than 3 people queuing for matches, much as we saw during Alpha 1 where they reopened sales because the core compliment of the initial 10,000 testers weren't showing up for testing, launching an Alpha 2 product that doesn't live up to the name and expectations of Alpha 2 will be far more damaging then waiting.
The 2023 video game year has a window that Intrepid can use to get off center stage for a minute. Let the Hype of Throne and Liberty shine and don't try to outshine that, or the launch of Diablo 4. Regardless of your opinion on Blizzard or NCSoft, Diablo 4 and Throne and Liberty are going to be the hot games of the first half of 2023. Intrepid doesn't need to stay center stage all the time.
This is a good time for them to take a step out of the light, regroup, and then figure out exactly what they want to do with testing without promising "Alpha 2 Soon"™ for 18+ months.
I can agree with some parts of your argument, even tho Fractured was a very specific case, and the main reason for its failure and testers dropping out was the partnership with Gamigo and they pushing whatever that last build was as a "Beta".
However, you didn't address how is intrepid supposed to test, balance, and make all the changes necessary with a short Alpha 2, if you say it's not necessary to be long - the node system itself is something that takes months to level up + all the extra months for sieges and long-term world changes, the legendary items and their impact on the economy as well as mastering the artisan classes and their long term impact on the server and players.
all these things can not be properly tested and tuned within a few months and intrepid doesn't have 50k or 10k QA testers to do that without the backers, so it will need to be done eventually, It makes sense to start testing As soon as possible, and the "as possible" being as soon as there are systems that require long testing sessions for balance and tuning.
Why would Intrepid need 50,000 or even 10,000 testers to do their internal Q&A testing?
There are things you need internal testers for, there are things you need external testers for, and there are things you need customer feedback for. You seem to be blurring the three lanes and using them interchangeably.
Does Intrepid need to test back end server performance? If yes, they don't need to move forward into Alpha 2 testing, they can put up a build similar to Alpha 1, retest, reverify all the testing they did in Alpha 1 to see if their new build on Unreal Engine 5 / 5.1 is as stable as they had before.
Most of what people want is to give feedback to make the game their own. The problem is Intrepid Studios is going to get split down the middle feedback. They will get 51% yes, 49% no on the feedback. Very rarely has the Ashes of Creation fanbase been polarized to one opinion or the other. The mage fireball animation, and the daily rewards were really the only two times that community was 90% or more in agreement.
At that point, what feedback do you need? There's no point in testing things until they know what direction they want to go. Active Blocking being a perfect case in point. Is it going to use mana? Is it going to use stamina? Is it going to use a third resource?
Intrepid doesn't need to push into Alpha 2 and figure it out, they need to figure it out, and then let testers test what they come up with.
I've talked about this a few times, I'm on that boat, I definitely think intrepid should figure it out first, and then present us with their game and their ideas, so we can test
my post about was more about after we get alpha 2, and how that testing phase should go, and not so much about when we should get it, we should get it once it's ready and testers are necessary, for sure
None of that applies to Ashes. Nobody is forced to engage with this game development at all, it is purely optional and the information about whether or not someone wants an Alpha or Beta key can be acquired without going through every livestream made. It is perfectly fine to put this game on the "watchlist" and check in every few months to see whether there are any release dates yet or not. If one is no longer interested by the time it reaches completion - well, than that's that, one can easily move on and nobody loses over that decision.
The overinvestment of some people into this cannot be placed at Intrepids feet, they have long abandoned putting out dates for specific milestones and sure, while that might be frustrating for people who have developed specific timely expectations over this, there is not fixing that beyond going for better practices.
I'm fairly new to this community and game, but the same phenomenon I see here I have seen in a different space with much more detrimental consequences: Investing. People putting things on the line they don't want or cannot afford to lose for a timely action they have no control over. And they get frustrated in a similar manner as some people here do - even worse when they neglect their own due diligence in informing themselves about the possible risks and potential chance of failure. So while the game is newer to me than to most folks here, the phenomenon of overly invested people isn't and it leads me to the same conclusion every time:
Perhaps also consider the consequences of a prolonged beta and the impact of a lot of transparency and not much mystery left too!
It might be worth remembering that according to the information currently available, Alpha 2 will be far from the full game. The levelcap is said to be Lv 35, so that we can get hints at augmentations and the Zone for the Alpha 2 tests according to some very sloppy calculation of mine will be maybe around 20-25% of the full map, primarily surrounding the Riverlands (probably the southern part of Vandagar)
So while I think the Alpha 2 test will last quite some time (I would guess 3-6 months; and admitting that I am not sure what "persistent server" means) I am certain there will be much left to discover after the Alpha 2
Exactly these consumers just want the game and will use "needs to be tested for a long period of time" to get it earlier. Honestly think some people are in shock because they are seeing actual live development for the first time.
No one here needs to play it and feel that is what is going to make it a good game like you gave give more exact feedback and you know what is right. Have to trust the developers to make a good game, and then when they have the alpha out you can further give them the data and additional feedback needed.
And of course, leading up to alpha two have good discussion on what they show without trying to get into every detail that does not matter.
I would prefer this paid access to have also a monthly subscription, in addition to the current Voyager Pre-Order Pack price.
Why? The game isn't at the point of being done by then and it seems inappropriate to double charge someone for helping with tests which are heavily reliant on your participation. Even though it is fun, it is kind of work as you basically become part of the development team so to speak and that is quite the opposite of what I would think would warrant paying twice.
Because I want to prevent Steven to claim that the Voyager Pre-Order Pack price is to support developers rather than keeping the servers up and refuse offering the alpha 2 soon.
Also I do not want to abuse his pockets even if are endless. Let him use his money to pay even more developers.
And finally by agreeing to charge a monthly subscription would maybe make him presenting all the unfinished parts of the game in a somewhat decent shape which makes sense.
Edit: also a long beta without subscription would look like those pay to play games supported by selling cosmetics and then switching to the intended subscription might cause complaints, players trying to delay the release, saying that was not ready, developers greedy etc.
I have a few questions about that. Why would he deliberately delay the Alpha 2 longer than he has to when every month of unreleased development is a net loss to him and him only? Why do you suspect Steven is making excuses regarding the financing? It seems a bit odd to follow something where the person in charge seemingly is not to be trusted. And why would you be concerned about his money if Steven himself seems to be 'abusing his pockets' as you put it? Maybe my lacking english skills are showing here but I fail to make sense of you said here.
Why would a monthly subscription fee for an Alpha compel or force him and Intrepid to present unfinished features? And why would he agree to double charge for Alpha 2 access when that leads to them having to do something they clearly do not want to?
The Wiki suggests that the Beta Phase has been planned for quite some time to be 'short' and I suspect that is meant in comparison to the Alpha phases.
We talked quite a bit across various threats but you lost me on this one, I genuinely can't figure out the overarching sense behind this one or where you are getting with this really. I understood you want double payment for Alpha 2 access but beyond that... its just a big question mark for me sorry.
I think the beta phase will be short compared to other games which go through the beta.
The game was announced in 2017 and after they failed to meet the deadline for the kickstarters, they switched to the attitude of "when is ready". If Steven would want himself to offer the game in alpha 2 for a long time, I would have no issue. But I doubt such a thing is intended. I think the alpha 2 is not not intended to be longer than 9-10 months and that moment is sometime in the far future. And this thread tries to change those plans.
We don't know the state of many game mechanics and I oppose them to show a mix of not finished things just to satisfy the curiosity of players. We may be arroganly think we know better than they know what they should do, but a first iteration for those things must exist (the map, quests, ship combat, crafting...)
If they really need some specific feedback, they could give limited access to a few non streamers under NDA.
Yes, but what else did you expect them to do? Try to make promises about a release while they have to still build their team during 2 years of lockdown? Make new promises that were just as speculative as the ones before? Possibly put their development teams under ridiculous pressure again and again for a new release date they don't know whether or not it's realistic?
Alpha 2 servers are said to be persistent so I'm not sure where you got your information from that the time would be limited unless you mean that it will take 10 months from Alpha 2 to full release; unless of course my reading skills have completely left my body.
So you don't think the open development process was a good idea?
Isn't that what they are doing? As far as I am aware it has been said that spot tests are taking place under NDAs.
I think they did the right thing when they didn't make new promises about the next phases especially during the lockdowns where it was far from clear how things will go from then on. To me it was the right decision to offer - offer not compel! - people to see how things are going by putting out little livestreams along the way. If some people can't handle watching that because they are not interested in the development process - they shouldn't watch. Sure, development has been slow from what we saw, but I don't see the issue with that since to me it seems what they have been doing is developing primarily tools which will help them design now at a high pace without losing out on quality.
There is nothing in the Alpha 2 key package that informs players the might be charged extra for participating in the tests, so I think trying to change that now would be akin to a scam, especially since its for testing a game, so the focus is not to just have fun.
All things considered, the only thing that I am really surprised about is the amount of animosity this community has recently shown towards Intrepid for trying to offer an insight into the development process. Again - if someone is not interested in the development - don't watch livestreams about development. You can't go to a butcher to moan for the lack of vegan options either.
If the Alpha 2 is bare bones, very unpolished and with very little content, that will make the public turn away from Ashes.
For this reason I do not believe they can afford to approach this from a purely technical point of view.
Alpha 2 needs to come out reasonably polished and with enough content to make streamers and youtubers go ''wohooo, let's go for some more''.
It at the least needs the classes (combat, especially combat), the node system (including sieges) and the caravan system to be in an impressive state.
Together with a couple of polished, difficulty-adaptive dungeons and some good quality questing and lvling zones.
For this reason I sincerely doubt A2 is anywhere near and I would be extremely surprised if it hits us in Q1 of 2024, yet alone 2023 (I see no chance of a 2023 A2).
Intrepid has a lot of work to do.
mmo-rpgs take ages to make.
Between 7 and 10 years of active development, by already established studios
We are nowhere near that with Ashes of Creation.
They seem to have actually entered active development in 2020 (Covd realistically didn't help much either) by making a studio from scratch.
If Intrepid just worked like a normal studio we would just forget about AOC until Alpha 2 at the least.
So we wouldn't be fussing over it, it wouldn't seem like an eternity, it would just hit us one day almost without expectation.
Instead Intrepid is going out of its way to have an open development, with all the advantages and disadvantages.
If ''waiting'' for AOC stresses you out, then just get out of the Intrepid media-loop and forget about the thing and one day in 2025/2026 you will see it explode on YouTube and be like ''ohh, yeah, I remember, awesome, guess I can go play it now''.
That's for $40 for a game that was known to have 0 content on release, then had an absolute shitton of problems for the first year after release and just now starting to turn things around.
I cannot imagine how much Intrepid would have to fuck things up to not get millions of people to at least try a month of the game. Literally no one will care if alpha2 looks like shit.
Even if that 25mil figure is sales and not units (cause it's written confusingly), it's still crazy how many units they sold, considering the quality of that game.
And yes they still did relatively well.
The thing is, if they had a polished beta and did not announce the P2W stuff they would have done much better.
Did you find Narc's copium stash and snort it all before he could react NiK?
Millions of people will see AOC for the first time through the streamers and youtubers who will check it out and will not give AOC a second shot if they don't get a good impression then and there.
Your average gamer Joe is physically incapable of understanding what an Alpha is and that a lot can change betewen Alpha 2 and release date. They are utterly incapable of it no matter how much it is explained.
If Alpha 2 doesn't look great, public impression about it will go sour from then onward.
Intrepid has to release and do stuff for testing eventually anyway.
Might as well wait a while longer to release it in a better state for the public to make a good impression out of it.
What is the alternative? Give in to ree-ing copium addicts on forums? Yeah, that doesn't sound too smart.
I (for their sake and ours) hope they will just wait and throw a decent A2 at us, one to make a good impression.
Personally I don't think they have a choice.
Those here thinking this project is founded to completion are not only high on copium but they don't understand the basics of mmo-development.
Mmo-rpgs dont only take huge amounts of time to make but also cash and AOC is a particularly ambitious project.
They will need to sell as much A2 keys as possibe.
Releasing a polished A2 can make the difference between selling 10.000 or 200.000 keys.
Not to mention that if the A2 makes a good impression, sales of cosmetics and such will go through the roof.
They need those tens of millions, especially with the economic shocks projected to hit the global economy in the next years.
They can't afford to release a mess of an A2.
I hope they're wise enough to realize this.
A2 isn't coming this year and 2025 release is quite optimistic at this point. Both things are for the better.
After 2 years, the biggest video is still only 2.6mil. And I bet that most people that saw that video have forgotten about the game. And I'm sure that if alpha2 comes out as it should - an alpha, people will just forget about the game again until it comes out.
And when the game comes out, all those people will just come back and play the game. Just as it happened with NW.
Yes - And not one second earlier. I plan on dying in peace. Meaning ingame XD
Open to streamers and youtubers... not so sure.
Open to WoW and FFXIV players... no.
I think the lockdown had little impact on software development in general. Their delay have other reasons.
I understand they learned to avoid giving deadlines. I don't blame them for that.
The link you provided says
Persistent means that the Alpha-2 servers will be kept up all day and night until launch.[1]
I also understand it will be free of charge.
Therefore I cannot assume it will take 5 years or as long as needed.
But their attitude of "when is ready" does not give us a clue how much work remains. I assume there is still a lot of work until release. Others here on forum think the same:
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/388833/#Comment_388833
I don't want to be a jerk and demand access to persistent servers which "will be kept up all day and night until launch" for free a few years long. I would rather pay subscription. But then, if IS agrees for such a change, then I expect them to provide a decent environment, even if not optimized and full of bugs. By decent I mean the the core elements of the game, the so called pillars should exist (except the story). At least the node wars, caravans, crafting and 4-5 classes. And NPCs to kill.
...
I don't know about the animosity. I guess you mean reaction to the tank presented recently. I cannot comment on that as I was not reading those posts.
But animosity is a good reason to keep the gates to an Alpha 2 closed until they are prepared