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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
@Terrifying_Truth and @Rym They just posted it here: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/55451/next-livestream-q-a-submission-friday-april-28-2023-at-11am-pacific
Beat me to it, still quote-pinging as 'promised' though, in case they were looking out for it from me specifically.
Now I need to remember which thread spawned the questions we were going to ask this month...
On to the question, I generally do not expect too much of a hype this year despite (and this is where we disagree) the improving quality of the livestreams. As recently mentioned, Alpha 2 initial tests will only begin at the end of the year, meaning no A2 launch announcement this year. But people do not want an Alpha or Beta - they want the game, which basically feels most likely to release in 2026 by the common calculation.
That dampens the hype in combination with other games on the horizon. All things considered, I have to say I am not too worried about the recent decline in enthusiasm as the game in my opinion displayed significant progress in the recent months, displaying core systems like the story arch system and such. I think Intrepid themselves aren't too worried either as the next big hype train in conjunction with the content creator program will probably be the Alpha 2. That according to my speculation will launch somewhere in Q2 or Q3 of 2024. And I think there is not much to worry about in that regard as the time previously has to be packed with interesting showcases of the core systems that'll be present in Alpha 2, class reveals and at least one more biome reveal. This alone should keep attention on an acceptable level while the Alpha 2 announcement will generate a ton of "the story so far" content to sum up all those livestreams. And the Alpha 2 itself will generate quite a lot of content in itself with various streamers and influencers having this game on their "watchlist".
To sum it all up: I'd say it's a combination of "burnout" and summer low already kicking in and making the project seem less interesting than it actually is.
It’s like saying there’s a problem when excitement for Christmas fades in June.
AoC has awareness for the product, that’s all you want at this point.
Absolutely false. Out of the entire playerbase, the forum players are always a minority. There were some statistics on this a few years ago in the CRPG community (BG3 in particular) - and the forum users were often die-hard fans - but numberwise they were in a very small minority. No doubt about it.
I cannot imagine the case would be any different here.
I corrected myself..i I meant to say arent, not are. most people who are going to play areNNNTTT active in the forums
People see AOC as a partially built non functional "open development game" they don't need to care, and don't want to. Many have heard the open development line multiple times already. Most don't have the time to sink into a game that won't even exist for an unknown period of time.
How can one even explain why having a dynamic quest system is good? How do you explain variable loot spawns, cities developing through player experience gain, OW dungeons and everything else that AOC wants all before the typical gamer attention span has already moved on?
Don't worry so much about activity right now. It is without a doubt that right now is the least important period of time for players to know, care or think about AOC. 99.95% of the words written on this forum are useless to the developers.
If that were true that would mean that people have become indeed the mindless "beasts of consumption" big corporations make them out to be. "Buy this; consume that; like; subcribe; don't think consume more; pay more; show off your digital participation trophy". I think it's not that bad yet and I think that a good number of people have grown sick and tired of the condecending way they are treated. "We can just make those idiots pay even for crap, so why make any efforts, let's get someone to pay us to insert their ideology/product into the entertainment content, those lowly consumers will buy it anyways." doesn't seem to fly all that well anymore.
I think that first part is a misconception many people in marketing and those watching "advertisment/showcases" have these days. They don't need to explain why something is "universally good", they only need to show that this is product well adjusted for a clearly defined customer group. Ashes will have a much easier time explaining the mechanics of their game to people who aren't passionate Rust playing fanatics or Lobby-RPGs like WoW and FF. Doesn't mean they have to make effort to get these off to the side or anything but I would say for the initial success of the game from which the can build these groups don't matter too much.
Suffice to say - when it comes to the type of game Ashes plans to be, I am a firm believer that "show, don't tell" will apply in spades, which to me means the drop in interest amongst the extended MMO community is nothing to worry about. They'll come around when the core community shows how much fun there is to be had in such games - and I am not talking ads here just streaming and sharing their experience in the game.
Yep, I think this is just the drop before the A2 hype
And yet, there are people that subscribe to watch someone online just cos they wear a picture of Steven Sharif on their underwear.
An individual person can be intelligent. But, people as a group are generally pretty stupid.
I watch Narc myself and it is not because he fails to put on some proper pants but I like the way he thinks about game design and - ignoring his style choices in picture and words - his ability to clearly formulate what he thinks about those games and Ashes in particular, without trying to row in special deals with any of those companies whose "product" he is mentioning.
And his new video series thumbnail being "Chronicles of Copium" despite the title is actually something I really like because he flashed out what could be the frame of a whole story arch start to finish based on actual information available to us as waiting players.
I don't see him trying to push any unrelated messages on his channel and his production quality is not comparing to professional study work (no surprise seeing he runs a one man show), even though I find some of his dedication to the meme-culture over the top, but the core elements of his channel as very sound and of good quality, which is why I have to conclude by saying that his work - while less successful - is in my opinion superior in integrity to many of the stuff I have seen bigger studios and influencers do. It's nichee, like Ashes itself is currently a niche thing, but since it's still around I am quite optimistic that there are still people left interested in some decent content (within the limits of their respective funding).
That may or may not be true but whether or not someone decides to actually throw currency at something is an individual decision.
funny enough I largely don't disagree with any of your points haha.
I think most people follow, abut I do think a shift in consumerism has happened recently both expanding peoples budgets for gaming but also making them more critical
AOC success will 100% be show don't tell and will draw from a launch of a game not in shambles, a game that has mechanics designed for a 5 year cycle not a 3 month cycle.
and yeah its just the lull before the storm.
I agree with your points above, and just to clarify I do not personally think that the quality of the livestreams are diminishing, was just posting potential hypothesizes in the original post.
If the community simply settles into a monthy live stream rhythm that's probably for the best until it heats up right before A2.
Alpha 1 came and went. It was a solid prototype, but being mainly a technical test, didn't inspire a whole lot of interest on it's own. Most of the features were basic (hollow) versions of things we'd known about for a long time (nodes), or just run-of-the-mill MMO systems. Although it did prove Ashes is a "real game", actively being developed, not just cool ideas/vaporware.
After that, there's been kind of a lull in the monthly livestreams, mostly showing off little side-systems (like the weather systems) and a bunch of art. The livestreams about gathering and basic attacks were a bit more relevant to my interests, but were also quite thin. Basically, there just wasn't enough to inspire new conversations or deep thoughts that hadn't already been beaten to death for the last 6 years.
Only recently, with story arcs being shown off, and having the whole structure of that system being explained in detail, has my interest been piqued enough to check the forums again. Oh and the UI stream before it. Not as impressive, but it showed a level of polish and some hints at crafting that made me more hopeful about Alpha 2 being soon...
Speaking of which, turns out that's not gonna be for another year, so my engagement is likely to fall off again. But I'll still check the livestreams for new announcements.
Aside from all that, uh, yeah I can agree that the forum culture is getting a little... stale. A lot of old names bickering about the same old things. (I won't say more, but I have some salty personal opinions.) But more than that, it's really just that there's nothing new to bicker over. Shout out to the few people who actually pose interesting concepts/questions now and then in a new thread. (I mostly lurk, but I very much appreciate the new thought experiments.)
I don't think any of this is bad or unexpected though. Just a natural lull as we wait for Alpha 2.
Can you explain how the weather system is a "little side-system"? From all I've gathered from the streams it seems to me that this is one of the most important systems when it comes to mob, worldboss and resource rotation in a zone as well as very likey a key factor for story arch triggers.
And while not always explicitely mentioned that way I found the livestreams in 22 largely very exciting and showing significant progress for the game, even though the core systems are yet to be revealed. They did a lot of ground-laying work with only a few streams not being all too exciting.
What I got from the weather livestream was mostly a tour of the visual differences. It did look good certainly, but that's not gonna spark much discussion.
And yes, the affects to mob/event spawners, resource rotations, and story arcs are very interesting/important, but I don't remember getting much more than hints at those. (My apologies if I'm mis-remembering, it's been a while, and I didn't do any research for this post.) And we've already had hints at those for years, from earlier livesteams stating that weather would affect crop yields, open certain paths in the world, maybe affect elemental spells, etc.
My issue is that we didn't see (or hear) how any of that would be implemented in practice. No mock UIs or showcasing different versions of a world boss depending on the season or anything like that. (Aside from the hidden sandal behind the ice that melts, but that's really small potatoes.) So I'm still not convinced about the scale of the system. I'm still imagining a system that mostly affects crop farmers, and acts as a non-interactive predicate for a few story arcs/exploration secrets.
The weather system isn't even the interesting half of those interactions. It's kind of a semantic opinion I guess, but I'm more impressed that the story arcs, events, and even topography systems can respond to the weather/season, than I am impressed by the weather/seasons themselves. And we only saw the weather/seasons half in that livestream.
And I don't wanna sound like a big doubter. These systems all tie together to make AoC really deep and fascinating. The weather system is kinda at the fringes of that tangled web, IMO. It certainly contributes to the whole, but not as much as combat/classes/crafting/nodes/caravans/story arcs/guilds/etc.
True there was no worldboss differences, but what we got were a bunch of monsters and animals changing depending on the season which I would suspect will be what determines the default color of our armor. So hunting an elk with winter fur in the Riverlands might be a good material for someone who wants to move over to the Frostgrave Fells. Or just the best way to obtain a leather armor that can be dyed.
I don't mean like I am attacking you personally. I think however that making a strict cut at the point where something has been explicitely shown or said is what actually kills discussion. Intrepid as far as I remember said that they are using these updates to show the progress on specific game mechanics and elements. I think the absence of a broad discussion how this integrates back into all other systems previously shown and showing how this relates to all possible enemy types is intentional to avoid more spoilers. The game is hugely about discovery so the more they talk about mechanics and show what things might be hidden somewhere in the world the more of that goes away.
To me it just looks like what we are shown is very intentional for us to discuss in greater detail what this by itself maybe not so crazy showcase actually hinted at.
Let me give you an example for what I mean: I think the ranged weapon attack showcase gave us already a hint for the augmentation system. What I saw there was a Minotaur Shaman. I think if they weren't somehow related to the class players will be able to pick, it would have been named differently. Hence, we can speculate on two interesting things: (1) Will humoids (and to some extent non-humanoid) mobs also be one of the 64 classes - it would make sense in a lot of cases that they are and (2) what do the skills that Shaman had tell us about the Shaman class?
I think systems like the weather and season system have to be viewed as the foundation on which the core systems wil stand, wherever that puts them in the hierarchy of importance, I am very confident when I say: They aren't optional. The game would function without them, not from a mechanical perspective but from a perspective of immersion, fun and novelty.