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
Exactly!
I appreciate the compliment, but that's not really something they can filter for without breaking every right to privacy that exists. Intrepid cannot act based on what might be desirable, only based on what is actually possible. And it is possible to charge people a solid amount of 250$ to even get an Alpha 2 key. How many people still actively playing WoW or FF14 are going to do that?
Influencers? Sure, there is a reason why they almost sound like a disease and for sure the Lord of the ever twitching eyebrows Asmongold will flood his fans with livestreams about it and maybe tell them again how terrible it is that people in Ashes can have agency over other peoples game experience XD
Suffice to say, the pay wall will keep a good portion out but not everyone at that's the best we can hope for. Other than that I'll just keep away from anything but the subreddit and forums here.
I think thats a bit over the top pessimistic. I would agree if you or Liniker would have said they need to improve their communication regarding the building of tools, even though I assume that people haven't shown much interest in the technical part of the development process, they want gameplay footage and more gameplay footage. Intrepid wants to show bits of the current process and has continuously stated that they do not plan on revealing things that cannot be exactly revealed, like systems which you can't just show, those need to be experienced. Also depending on how viewer numbers did during livestreams that had more technical interviews explaining the tools e.g. developed for creating new assets in UE5.1 they might have determined that it does not really make a lot of sense showing off something people don't want to here about despite its significance for the overall development speed.
And that's where I see the biggest issue. Since I've been watching I have picked up again and again hints about how Intrepid was building new tools to have multiple people working on the same part of the project at the same time. If I had to guess, the reason why the quantity of "content" seemed low it is primarily due to that. The technical team had to learn from the designers how they would go about creating landscape, textures, skills, gear etc and then build a tool that makes that process easier. They give that tool to the designer, they give feedback and give it back to the technical team, they improve it, the designers approve of the tool now working in a way they can use it and from then on design speed is twice as fast as before (arbitrary number). So in my opinion, with every tool they have built but not shown because nobody seems interested in that, the actual development speed has kicked up significantly. I wouldn't be surprised if the map is +60% done (probably primarily lacking the island & ocean landscapes) and the teams are slowly starting to work more extensively on the classes, augmentations and so on. It's also just a guess but I think that the tools they have been building will make 2023 a very efficient year in development process as they can put their nose to the grind stone.
Which I agree with. But I don't think charging people a second time will help them get the value they need out of the Alpha 2.
Combined, the mentioned videos alone have 6 million views, which is in itself only a small part of the nr of views all content creators on YouTube, Twitch, etc have gathered so far.
To way you pretend like this is nothing is just ridiculous. Brands will pay huge sums of money to get seen by such numbers, not as elaborate presentations, but as annoying adds to be dismissed in a moment.
A fraction of these viewers buying alpha 2 keys would have a world's difference for Intrepid. Not to mention the numbers of people who would buy cosmetics too. It would translate in tens of millions of dollars.
I'm sorry but that's just a ridiculous (baseless) assumption on your part.
If people are left with a possitive impression they aren't going to forget sht, they're going to want more.
It's how games in general get their playerbase.
It should come out with enough content and polished enough to give a good impression and leave people wanting more, way more.
NW lost huge % of its potential playerbase in these periods, you absolutely do not want AOC to follow in NW's steps
There was actually a stream showing tools they made, which speed up the modeling. I think was last summer, when they shown the sand momma
I cannot link it now that I write on mobile.
Regarding the rest of the post, I am not sure if there is any more to clarify.
If you say you expect big progress then maybe Alpha 2 will actually be short, 9-10 months only, as I think it is worth being open for us to test. Then no monthly subscription is needed.
I say such a subscription should exist only if - the alpha 2 take longer than that
- and Steven doesn't want to keep the servers online that long
I don't want the subscription to exist in order to be a paywall but because I see it fair for a game which intends to be a subscription based game. Those who can afford to play it after release, can afford it now too.
The Voyager Pre-Order Pack price includes some subscription time after lunch but the rest of the money is not for us to decide how should be used.
If you say it should be used to keep the Alpha 2 servers up for 2-3 years instead of paying additional developers, I do not support you.
Why would you play an unfinished game so long anyway?
Edit: the subscription after release should be high enough to bring a profit and sustain further development. Before release, I want a lower subscription which would just cover the servers running cost, including having GMs.
Those who want to support paying developers before alpha should buy cosmetics.
My wish would be after release, the subscription to be high enough to be unnecessary to sell cosmetics. But I know this is not going to happen.
I think the players that have bought into Alpha-2 because "they want to play the game" are more likely to burn out. They're just impatient.
The players that have bought into Alpha-2 because they want to help test the game and help improve it for release, will be fine. They've accepted what they're getting into.
As long as there are enough of the 'testing' group, I don't suppose it really matters how many from the 'playing' group end up burning out.
Don't worry, I know the one, but that part was actually the one where I heard people say "booooring" about and the community managers will 100% have picked up the feedback of the community just like they did after the Tank livestream. I suspect that we have seen much less about the tools than Intrepid could have shown us by now.
I expect Intrepid to build the world way faster with these tools than they could do before. But that doesn't mean that Alpha 2 will speed because of that - because the Alpha 2 is not just a phase you do because you promised those pesky customers something to play with.
They have to seriously put the core mechanics to the test and that takes time. Even if the rest of the world map is done 1 month after Alpha 2 started, if the core mechanics of the game aren't fully tested, there is no reason to cut the Alpha short, it has to continue to collect data in the confines of the environment.
So a faster designing process does not equal a shorter Alpha 2 to me.
The people who who have Alpha 2 keys have already paid for it. That is why I repeatedly said: It would double charge the Alpha Key buyers. And it's not just "playing the game" it is a test phase for the fundamental systems of what will at some point become the game. Charging double for that would EA level scumbaggery.
I made a very simplified calculation multiple times to get an understanding of what it would take for Intrepid to run this game at a profit and with just subscriptions of 15$ a month alone 250'000 players would be enough. That is FAR from anything WoW has as an active player base (see reference here). Again, Steven said he had this projects development covered from the get got and there is no need to put unnecessary extra bills on Alpha testers. It makes no sense, it harms the goal of the Alpha 2.
There will also be Betas, where they can still balance things.
What do you see as a core mechanic which could change during Alpha 2?
For me core mechanics are things like flagging/corruption, which should not be changed into an opt-in flag like New World did during testing.
But I agree, because core mechanics the game can fail.
And I'm sure that the "6mil" number you imply is also pretty much same people, just distributed across different channels.
And they have already bought in. 100k in fact. And even more people will buy in when alpha2 releases. But they won't really care what form alpha2 comes in. But the hardcore audience might care. Because Steven has been yelling about "true alpha this true alpha that", but if they release an alpha2 that feels like an almost finished game - that's literally the same marketing trick as all the other companies do. So Intrepid would be no better than any other corpo trash or EA scam.
I addressed this in the first part of this comment.
Addressed in the second part of this comment.
NW lost its playerbase because it was a shit game. They showed off a shitty BETA (not alpha) and then released the same shitty game. If Ashes does the same - they'll suffer the same fate. But we're not talking about the release or the beta. We're talking about alpha2 and Intrepid has been saying over and over again that they're doing a "true development alpha" where the game is unfinished and there's bugs and crashes and all that good testing stuff.
If they release a polished product as alpha2 - that would mean they've been lying this whole time and have turned to the same shitty marketing that pretty much every other current company exploits. And imo they're already on that path.
If they promised to build the game together with players and providing them updates, these streams are not the kind of updates players commonly expect. I've seen this trick used before by a small indie dev. His development was just a scam pretending to be an early access.
What are core mechanics to me: Nodes, Augmentations, Artisan skills, Ship mechanics, Caravan mechanics, Corruption system, Monster/threat mechanics, general fight & PvP mechanics
I think Node progression speed, when Node features become available and the destructibility of Nodes may change.
Depending on how they are done, stealth mechanics might change (if Camouflage doesn't cut it and people always get discovered, they will have to do something about it)
And regarding fights I wouldn't be surprised to see changes in active blocking and resource management at some point.
But my main point with this was: The Alpha 2 has to have a certain length to see how motivated players are to participate in Node wars and to see how the ZOIs change after a Node gets destroyed.
Intrepid should release alpha2 sooner, it should look and play like a damn alpha and it should go for long enough for any casual viewer to forget about the game. And then when we're nearing the release and Intrepid have polished the game into a gem - all those casuals would still just come back to the game because that's literally what they always do, as was shown by NW's release.
Yes, by "update" I understand a change to a game you have installed on your PC and not a status update about what they are working on.
If they would provide a playable game and regular updates, I would call that an "early access".
In my opinion, as I observed the indie (not mmorpg) games, those which receive a mixed reception during this "early access" phase will remain mixed and will never have a big influx of players at the proper release.
Having a good reception at the first release was critical.
But if there was already a huge initial player base and if the updates were also ok, the rating could improve over time.
I've seen a few mmorpgs which tried "early access" and failed.
I think that early access mmorpgs are doomed to fail because compared to normal games, they have the additional challenge to retain players, even when they are in a finished and polished state.
I would not call those players who would play the mmorpg in this early stage "hardcore". These kind of players are fans who get their satisfaction also from reporting bugs and communicating with the developers. I would not trust their opinion about the game at release time.
Some of the features you listed can be adjusted and balanced fast, except the level up -> siege cycle of max level nodes.
The other features are indeed core features and changing them would change the type of game they promised in 2017. Depends also on details.
And some changes can happen even after release.
hmm... I guess you are right on this one.
250$ for an Alpha 2 key seems like enough of a paywall to "prove" that one is a 'hardcore player/fan'. I don't think further paywalls are necessary or would be appropriate.
Listen.
THINGS WILL GO WRONG. STOP THIS. THE MORE YOU SCREAM FOR PERFECTION AND GET IT, THE MORE YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED WHEN THIS RELEASES IN 2030!!
Know why? Because what can go wrong will go wrong. If someone thinks they've planned for everything when it comes to a large player base and an MMO, trust me you haven't. Things will be messed up for the first few months. Get used to the idea.
You are the ones making these developers think its okay to continue holding off releasing the game in the name of trying to make a perfect product. It does not exist. Stop this crap. it's been six years going on 100000
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
Yes better of releasing a shit bucket early and improving then releasing what "should have been perfect" and get f***t. Time for IS to give the community more then promises and a monthly stream.
They do. However, we were not talking about them, we were talking about the content creators who get hundreds of thousands, millions over a year.
We're talking about tens of millions of people introduced to the game over the years before A2 Beta and release.
Even if a fraction of these people get a good impression which leads them to buy an alpha 2 key, beta key or cosmetic packs, we're talking about many tens of millions of dollars for Intrepid.
The way you're minimizing this is just irrational.
Arguing for the sake of arguing.
Even if they're still the same people, they're still potential customers for Intrepid, customers in the process of being ''sold'' the idea of the game.
But the truth is they're not ''the same people'', large % of them are people who come consolidate their impression them and there (regardless if they came across the game in the past).
How many people will buy the game depends almost entirely on what impression they get about the game from content creators, and this impression will depend almost entirely on the quality of the content being released.
They absolutely will.
They will be exposed to more AOC content than there has ever been before and with this surge (AOC trending on content creator platforms), the number of people exposed will also surge like never before.
What impression they form then, be it possitive, neutral or negative will determine Alpha key, Beta and final product sales.
The way you're talking about these people as if they are alzheimer patients is a joke.
Strawman.
I never said it should look like a finished game.
I said "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."
That is in no way shape or form ''like a finished game''.
Off-topic.
We were talking about the buildup to NW's release, which was bad, which proves my point.
99% of people do not and cannot understand the difference and will judge the game at face value first time they see it, as if it is the definitive product
its why A2 needs to give people a taste for more which means A2 needs to be released in a ready state not rushed
A2 needs to be released with the content creators and public in general in mind
not with the technical side of things in mind purely
No, if they release a polished A2 (meaning explained above) which leaves people wanting more they will prove they weren't lying, that they do have a good thing going.
If they, however, release a purely technical A2 the way you suggest, then people will accuse them of lying and form a bad impression about the game.
YouTube, Twitch, etc (millions of people) need to see those epic, LOTR sieges when the game starts trending (which will absolutely happen when A2 comes out).
They need to see the content creators and their fans having fun, pouring their energy and care into leveling their node community.
They need to have a constant, long-term activity-objective, such as caravan trading.
And they need to see at least a polished progressive difficulty dungeon.
But none of this will matter if the combat and classes aren't fun. And if the leveling (quests) isn't at least decent.
Of course this is but a fraction of the final product, but it is needed to make a good first impression.
You know what Iron Hope? Not all of us have your hope. In fact more.and more people are thinking they bit off more than they could chew as a small developer. They promised too much. Also experience with an MMO community seems to be missing. I say this because when the devs or whomever from AoC go and post in a YouTube comment thread things like, "What kind of music do you want for PVP?" That is a big red flag this far into development and indicates (to me) thr presence of soft and indecisive leadership. If they had asked question like that before we hit the 6 year mark, it would have been fine. instead it makes them look like theyre weak for even asking at this point, a question like that to MMO communities that are notoriously basement dwelling negative types that point out every little thing wrong and how they could have made a better game. I have been one. I am in recovery.
also it makes them look like they don't have a plan anymore. they don't have a dream to act on. on a project that they keep adding more and more crap too without even have finished their initial game.
An example - extending the world map by 30% are you KIDDING?
Release the game and drop a DLC you can charge for. Don't continue to add things. The game will not release. Add your extra 30% map in a future expansion you can get some money off of. Or if an expansion is not to your liking, that's what content patches ar× for.
And an idea would be to drop the core mechanics first, the world obviously, whatever races complete at this time, PVP, raids and 65% of the nodes. Then, work on each unfinished node one at a time to knock them out. As those nodes get finished, they patch them into the game - let's say two nodes at a time.
There. You don't even have to have music AoC as that seems to be a stumper for you guys.You can test the game and deal with the agro and unreasonable people who drop in at the beginning. Them when those guys say they are too good for your game and go back to Runescape or something awful, you will see that the 6 years of worrying about problems and holding back releasing the game to fix said future problems was a giant waste of your time.
You can go take a nap and be back in a few years. We don't want 60% of Ashes, we want 100% of it, and it doesn't matter how long it's gonna take, it will be ready when it's ready.
You can wait, you have no other choice.
I wonder if you are the same guy who complained about this to me before.
The rest of your post is almost ok, it is what typically Early Access games do.
But they fail to attract a huge number of players even if they end being finished and polished.
And the aim of this game is to have a really big number at launch. more than 100 servers. That is not possible with an Early Access approach, open for everybody.
Why are you still here, dude? There are other places you can go that will bring you more happiness. This just doesn't seem like the place for you, right now. Have a think about the kinds of things that bring you joy, and chase them.
I agree its a monumental project for a studio their size... Its why they need an A2 that will sell well, which won't happen if they approach this from a purely technical pov and have a lacking A2 release.
My understanding is they started actual active development in 2020.
Either way, an mmo-rpg takes between 7 and 10 years to develop.
I don't know what people around here are/were expecting.
They said the map needed to be larger because there were too many things packed in an area that was too small.
So they didn't really add content needing to be made, they just put more space between content. A large % of the ''map increase'' is just empty water.
On the contrary, they decided to diminuish the number of nodes, so it was in fact a content reduction.
The game's mechanics are very intertwined so they are very much forced to release it as a bulk.
They did not add anything besides empty space between things that were planned from second 1.
They actually reduced the nr of nodes, so it was a scope reduction not a scope creep.