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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Amazon is trying to remove owpvp, implement pve dungeons and want to remove autoplay in a game that's, at its core, is built around hardcore grind (though that is apparently changing too, considering the last update).
In other words, TL will be an absolutely different game and will not be a direct Ashes competitor in the western gaming scene.
https://throneandliberty.online/amazon-games-talks-about-major-changes-of-throne-and-liberty-pvp-autoplay-and-p2w/
auto play or not, dont care. you progress faster manually anyways. kind of wanted to auto farm some stuff at work haha the boring quests, you know.
This is pretty much New World all over again. Years of making one game, just to end up changing the entire design at the very last moment. The game will still flop, just for another reason.
ill still give it a try, since its free. but wont spend any money on it, most likely i wont
But, it will be a competitor for MMORPG players in general.
I'm more likely to play Throne and Liberty than I am Ashes of Creation.
Just as I'm more likely to play Pax Dei than I am Ashes of Creation.
Which is why it seems to me that Ashes will be more niche than I originally expected.
lol get New World'd. I think it might be able to just be called the Amazon Treatment now. But the carebearization of mmos has been going on long before either New World or Amazon's entry into gaming. It's just that New World was such a profound example of it that it became it's own verb.
I dunno, I read the article. (To be honest with you I lost all interest in TL months ago, even before this.) But I read the article and it doesn't seem to be getting rid of all owpvp elements. Definitely sounds like the Western version will be much more carebear than the Korean one though.
That sucks if you had hopes for TL and it being a Lineage successor. Sounds like thats out the window now. And the "options" on the horizon we appeared to have several months ago are certainly dwindling. For me, it's just Ashes and Pax Dei now. Maybe a glimmer of hope in Archeage 2, but past history tells me not to count on it.
Yeah, I had hoped to have it a timekiller before A2, but, after learning that Amazon doesn't understand the difference between Ukraine and Russia, I'm just looking at the car wreck of a publishing process. I got real hyped by what I saw during the streamable beta of TL, but I won't be able to play it either way, so whatever.
maybe you are the niche? i mean, isnt your profered playstyle exploration? like you dont really care about other stuff too much, just explore every inch of the map. that seems more niche to me than a pvx mmorpg
also, every game, product or service is niche, popular or not. popular means its a big niche.
for example, the 3 biggest niches are health, business (wealth, money making, etc) and dating / relationships. they are niche but they are super popular.
I abhor non-consensual PvP.
At this point, there are many other MMORPGs that offer systems similar to Ashes’ Nodes, where I don’t have to accept non-consensual PvP with the compromise of Corruption.
For MMORPGs, players who abhor non-consensual PvP are more prevalent than players of love PvP.
Which is why there is a solid audience for a new MMORPG similar to Ashes and L2 and ArcheAge.
Because most MMORPGs are going to be havens for PvE players. Most MMORPGs are going to be designed for PvE first and feel like PvP was more of an after thought.
Typically MMORPGs like Shadowbane and Crowfall, designed for the extreme end of PvP (relative to RPGs), are not going to last long.
Most MMORPGs are going to include some method of avoiding non-consensual PvP when players are not in the mood for PvP.
Because most MMORPG players prefer PvE over PvP.
That being said…
Ashes may also attract a significant number of gamers who enjoy PvP in MMO Survival games and MMOFPS games.
We’ll see.
Why would they make Ukrainians play with Russians? yikes
Well, there's always Palia. lol
As for Palia, I'm almost finished with it
shame on you! dygz turned you into a pve hero.
we have lost a good soldier
Yeah this looks something like what New World did. Changing it to a PvE focused game. It will still have sieges though? Lol....it might be ok but sounds like another seasonal content Contender.
Is Amazon really turning again a PvP game into a PvE game ? It wasn't enought for them after New World failure.
Lose translating some of the details (personal comments in brackets):
Zones will be PvE by default, but every 2 to 3 days the outpost of a zone will be under siege, turning the area temporarily into a PvP zone. These events will be announced beforehand. There will be world bosses and other open world events with default PvP, but in all cases these areas will be marked as "PvP zones" on map and in game. Despite that there will be full PvE world events. It follows a quote that indicates that it will be possible to avoid 100% of the PvP in the game. The initially planned feature of unrestricted PvP at night (I think this was also hailed as a great idea by some in this forum) will now be abolished, however there will be dungeons that will only be accessible at night and in these dungeons people will automatically be flagged for PvP. (Along with what has been said before that would probably mean one can avoid all PvP in T&L but will miss out on some of the content.) Amazon is currently "testing" PvE only dungeons but they have yet to confirm those as a feature. The castle siege - as of now there is only one - will take place every 2 weeks.
Despite that Amazon thinks this will be a PvP Game. (I guess it will be if there is not enough or no interesting content outside of PvP to play - but if PvP is fully avoidable, why make a "PvP game" to begin with?)
Guilds can take control of the castle, which will enable the owner guild to raise taxes from the outposts. The taxes will basically be put into a caravan and can be attacked by other players.
Furthermore, during the tech tests the autoplay feature will initially be deactivated but they will see how well received that actually is (if they don't adjust their proficiency progression that basically made autoplay necessary before, then of course players will want the autoplay "back", same goes for any other game aspect e.g. drop rates for materials)
- Presumably all P2W items will be removed from the "western" shops.
- Crossplay is said to be possible.
- items not only have a rarity class but also an optional upgrade; uncommon up to +6, rare (and possibly above) up to +12 (this sounds to me like these gatcha gambling mechanics that make autofarming necessary to get the best in slot item)
- release is planned to be in 2024
To be honest it sounds to me that the game will be quite hollow, as people can avoid its core mechanics. But I'd be lying if I said that I seriously followed this project, I've heard too many things that made it sound meh while not hearing anything interesting about the story for example. But ultimately as soon as I hear "korean game" and "grind" I'm basically out the door anyways.
Apparently, Amazon has determined that they're MMORPG audience prefers less PvP than T&L originally planned to offer.
Which is fairly typical of the MMORPG audience in the US.
well, at least in l2, its normal to see americans with hundreds of pvp by the time they reach max level whereas korean players reach max lvl with 0 pvp and 0 pk.
amazon thought people would like the changes made in nw to make it more pve, and hey they were wrong (:
The failure of New World is (partly) linked to the fact that Amazon turned the game from a PvP game into a PvE game with some PvP mechanics.
Then they realized they'd betrayed the community, so they reinstated PvP. But PvE players didn't like it.
In the end, nobody was happy and the game died. So I'm not too confident in Amazon's ability to meet the needs of its audience. Of course there were other factors (bugs, cheats, gold sellers, etc.). But the game was already dead in the water.
Do you think PvE players will like AoC and keep playing it 2 years after release?
I don't have a crystal ball. But above all, I don't think AOC has much in common with either Throne and Liberty or New World, because AOC's gameplay seems to be more assertive.
it started with a lot, lot more. it had about a million players...more than 1 million copies sold T_T
but aoc isnt catered to pure pve players even tho you have to pve to progress..so who cares if the pve players leave? thats not the right question. the right questions are will pvp players stay? will more pvp players join?
Muuuuch more than 1 million copies sold. There were almost 1 million concurrent players at the launch with certainly another million in queue. New World sold arround 15 millions copies. So maybe it's still (maybe, coz I don't have their financial stats) a profitable operation for Amazon but a fail for the genre and for those who bought the game.
Given that NW had no subscription, I think many assumed they can buy it once and play many months and have fun. I don't know if AoC can create the same amount of hype. I think Alpha 2 can be a good way to create the hype by showing how much we like it
PvP players will have a higher chance to stay because they have the open sea.
I have no idea what kind of players will play on land.
L2 is not a typical MMORPG for the US. And doesn't need to be. It is what it is and worked well enough for that game. Also well enough to inspire Steven to create something similar.
Now this response is interesting, so if you don't mind...
When I analyzed this data, I found it to be 'not much different from what they were originally offering'. Three 'real' changes occurred.
1. Probably more 'Field' type zones which have no PvP in default conditions.
2. No unrestricted PvP at night, this was moved to Dungeons which only open at night, making it clearer
3. Supposedly no P2W
Your note was the game will be quite hollow because people can avoid its core mechanics. But this isn't Ashes, so there's less open world gathering for example, and no 'Node exp' that we know of, so the driving meaningful factors of open world unrestricted PvP aren't even there (I've read both the public datamine and the other one, so just trust me on the gathering part).
So I wish to understand which core mechanics they're avoiding? I see the reason that Ashes needs open world PvP + Corruption from the design perspective (not the preference one) to be that the world's dynamism and node progression are tied to it.
A game without Nodes or strong dynamism could easily have a PvP model that TL has and most people will be happy, so, any thoughts on it as a whole? This is what I expect to see from most MMOs going forward, because I don't expect most to have any 'Nodes'. And similarly I expect all the other 'Node' style ones that have either gathering or 'Node Progression' to have the 'Corruption' style owPvP.
Also @Dygz what say you? I think this works better for you, right? Or are the Night Dungeons a concern? I can't be sure because you could theoretically, since they're very targeted locations, get a group together to 'explore' them (I see this as different from the Open Sea, so I ask).