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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
No, I'm fully aware that is the intent.
The thing is, that is just another issue.
The idea of a family system in an MMO is so that players have a unit of membership that is just for friends, rather than something that needs to be optimised for gameplay reasons.
You join a guild that best fits with your playstyle, but you have a family with your actual friends. Doesnt matter if they are casual, doesnt matter if they only log in once a month. It's a thing that doesnt matter at all in terms of gameplay.
Now, all of a sudden, Intrepid have taken that system away and turned it in to a smaller version of guilds. Suddenly you need to be selective as to who joins your family based on who will be most beneficial.
The above aside, other people having access to a freehold only matters if they are the same processor class. If my freehold is all farmland, it doesnt matter if others can access it, I'd be using it all.
Same if it were used for animal husbandry, or if it had fishing ponds.
It is worth noting that your numbers for how many freeholds exist keep going up.
My assumption is a maximum of 1.5k (that is in the low thousands, which is the number we have) potential locations if every node were developed, but since not every node will be developed that means somewhere between 750 and 1k is a fairly safe assumption at any given point in time.
Honestly, I think assuming 1k active freehold plots at a time is probably about right. 3k is not.
Archeage got a LOT right with its housing system. It's only real flaw was not dealing with bots claiming land.
Sure, having one property wasnt a particularly big accomplishment. It wasnt supposed to be - that was supposed to be something an average player could do by them self. That why there was a quest to do exactly that at about level 15 - to indicate to players that land isnt a big deal in and of itself.
However, as a greater than average player, or as a guild, getting a lot of land WAS an accomplishment, especially if it was a continuous farm.
No man... see, that's the issue with your argument and most people that are complaining - that is not the idea of a family system in an MMO - that is Your personal biased idea. People are pulling opinions and trying to make them facts to push their own agenda on why something is an issue "for the game" when it's just a You problem.
You do not represent me, my friends, and millions of other players, and there is absolutely no metrics you can use to say you represent a majority of players.
What matters is what's Intrepid idea of the family system.
I do not care about "family" in MMOs if there is no mechanics that tie into gameplay involved. I am not a RP player, and as a matter of fact, most MMORPG players are not RPers.
Gathering, processing, crafting - all can be done solo and at a casual pace, it will just take way longer than what a group can put out.
Questing will most likely be a solo/casual thing. They will most likely tie to social orgs as well.
Node wars and sieges and caravans - all can have casual participants. You won't do shit in those as a solo unit, but you can participate.
General map exploration is also a casual thing that people like.
I think all of those cover around 80-90% of the game's content. Even if there are no solo-farmable dungeons, you can still farm mobs in the overworld, so it's not like pve is not accessible to you as a casual. You'd only be missing out on bosses and castle sieges, both of which are always a group/guild thing.
And all of that was talking about purely soloable stuff that casuals would be able to do on their own. You can still always find a casual group of people and do weak dungeons and potentially even a few unpopular bosses. And I'm 100% sure there'll be casual guilds that would invite a casual party to join (I know this because I'll make one for my node).
Again though, your impact on the game's world and your ability to go super deep into all of those features won't be that big, but that's just the life of a casual - you need more time to make an impact because you're moving slow.
I mean, that is why they were first added to MMO's. If you have a different idea of them,that is a you problem.
It is also the original idea Steven had for families. When talking about the family summons he was talking about the exact kind of situation of having a real life friend that couldn't be on early enough, and the family system was there to help with this kind of thing.
His idea of what a family in an MMO may have changed since then, but that doesnt mean you can come in here and say my idea of what a family system is about is wrong.
Explain to me why the freehold system needs to be family based, rather than guild based, or individual permission based.
The thing is, you cant. There is no reason for this to be family based other than Intrepid needing to do something with the family system other than the family summons that will never make it to live.
@Neurath
It probably isnt worth trying to talk someone that is on the more casual side out of just walking away from the game.
Honestly, the list of content left for a more casual player to do in Ashes is less than 10% of what there is to do in any other game. The best thing for a casual player to do is to go to literally any other game.
I mean, from the perspective of these people, most of the recent major announcements have basically just been content they are cut off from. Even if we want to say there are things they can do still, how do we know those things wont be cut off to the casual player in the next livestream?
I mean, last year we were talking about both land and naval exploration for casual players. We were talking about how casual players could farm. To a casual player, these were the things that attracted them to this gamez not mindlessly killing trash mobs.
Or we could look at questing. You know where you'll get at least some quests? From your freehold.
From the perspective of a casual gamer, Intrepid has been whittling away at the game they have access to since Jeff left.
So far this latest change seems to have triggered a ton of people (deservedly so). Iirc even more than the seas change did. Steven likes to say "we listen to feedback and it's an open development and all that", so we'll have to see what their response to all of this feedback will be.
I'd expect a response on the Ashen Forge on the 9th, or at the very least during the next dev stream. If there is no response or if the response is "all those people can go fuck off" - yes, it'll be waaaay more likely that future changes might push away even more people.
But here's a question for you, as a person who probably knows the most here - would Bill try to push against these kinds of changes? Did EQ(2) have way less "pushy" features? Obviously Steven is still the director and could still say no to any suggestions, but I'd assume he hired Bill for a reason.
This argument really doesn't make any sense.
Everything else aside - if a large group of people can accumulate more money than a small group of players, time is not the element that flips the equation around, it enforces it.
I think Steven is too stubborn to say anything other than "all those people can go fuck off".
As to Bill, he was more EQ, while I was more playing EQ2. I dont know enough about him to know if he will tell Steven when his stupid ideas are stupid.
I'm unsure about what you mean by "pushy" features.
What i will say about EQ2 is that players had access to what ever content type they wanted.
If you wanted to go out and kill stuff, there was entry level stuff to kill. You could work your way up to more advanced stuff if you wanted to, but there was entry level stuff to start on.
If you wanted to go out and craft stuff, there was entry level stuff to craft. You could work your way up to more advanced stuff if you wanted to, but there was entry level stuff to start on.
If you wanted to go out and do quests, there were entry level quests. You could work your way up to more advanced stuff, but there was entry level stuff to start on.
If you wanted to get housing, there were entry level houses. You could work your way up to more advanced stuff, but there was entry level stuff to start on.
None of the above saw you missing out on actual gameplay features for not being at the top. Sure, there is content you would only see by running that content, but not features.
As an example, if you had an entry level house in EQ2, you had access to every function a house offered in the game. You didnt have much access, but you had access.
You could increase that access by upgrading to a bigger house and then a bigger still house, and then a bigger still house, and then an even bigger one. After all of that though, you dont gain access to anything new, you just gain greater access to the same features.
Basically, this meant players had a game to play. Radical idea.
The current feared/popular assumption is that big guilds will get almost all the freeholds, but how many freeholds does a guild really need to have if it forces marriages and reconstructs families for maximum efficiency?
What's the point of diminish return? When the costs of running and maintaining the place could be best invested in other endeavours? At some point you'll saturate the market with whatever you process, no?
Guilds dont care about how many they need, they care about how many they can get.
If you are my rival (everyone not in my guild is a potential rival), any freehold my guild has means one less you could have.
Keep in mind that one guild isn't supposed to level a node to metropolis on its own. At some points, if a guild only look to itself, it will only have itself. And there are pros and cons to that.
I'll elaborate, see, I have been playing MMOs for a long time, both as solo, a guild member, and guild leader, and I have an extensive knowledge of AoC's design - which is also the case for most of the people that are engaging in this discussions here, like Noaani, Neurath and others,
so when I say something I don't lay out all the context and variables to my argument because I know usually I'm speaking with people that get it and more often than not just try to debunk the argument by purposely ignoring the context, which is fine I also do that, but Intrepid devs that read through these know their game better than we do
so when I say that eventually a solo player will be able to get the gold for his freehold, that takes into account that we are not talking about a vertical gold acquisition where 300 people are constantly farming and 1 people is also farming and they need to dispute with each other, if this was the conversation, Of course the solo guy would never stand a chance, but we are talking about complex MMORPGs with variables and many, MANY Gold sinks and different objectives that players want to spend their gold on,
first, there are multiple nodes, 85 of them, in which approx 40~50 can be Level 3, 4, 5 and 6, all of these nodes will have a very different population, not all of them will be occupied by the largest guilds, this is not the case in any MMORPG
even in the most extreme cases of hardcore MMOs like Mortal Online or EVE, guilds don't represent 90% of the playerbase the vast majority are small guilds, casuals, solos - and these are the people you will be competing against in most of a server's nodes - yes, in most cases its a solo vs solo or small guild vs small guild
also, even the largest guilds will have gold sinks, obviously, they wont be accumulating gold forever, and it is literally Pointless for a large guild to want to own "all the freehold" this is one of the most ridiculous arguments that I continuously read here coming from people that has absolutely no idea how "big guilds" work
Guilds have different objectives, some want to compete for castles, some want server firsts in PvE, some want to focus on the economy, some want to do crafting, each have their own objectives and spending all your gold in freehold when you only need literally 3~4 to cover all the available processing professions and stations is ridiculous
so yes, even as a solo, eventually, you will get the gold for a freehold, the same way solos can get things in other open-economy games that are 10 times more hardcore and zerg-focused than AoC - guilds simply have other things to spend their gold, other objectives, drama going on, and not all of them are living in your node
we need to step out of our made up scenarios created in our minds to win these arguments and just look at how real games work.
Well no, I think that their idea of what a family system in MMO is, is correct. The problem is how players utilize that family system, so in reality it's different than the original idea. On one hand you have people who are using it for strictly RP reasons, on the other you have people who will exploit any kind of mechanic that comes with the family system, for their own benefit (or to be as efficient, rich, and powerful as possible).
Just because a lot of games previously haven't really expanded into gameplay features/mechanics of being a member of a family, it doesn't mean that the original idea of what a family should be, is wrong.
Intrepid's idea of the family system doesn't matter. What matters is how players are going to use that idea/system in game. And most of the sweaty hardcore players will absolutely exploit that system as well, so they can benefit the most from it, and not use it as Intrepid "intended". The more mechanics that you add (and the more those mechanics impact the power of your character), the more exploited it will be.
Legendary armor offers you power, and maybe looks. It's hard to obtain, not everyone will obtain it, blah, blah. And you know the reason why people are okay with it? Because in the end, not having legendary armor doesn't completely lock you out of certain gameplay feature(s).
Not having a Freehold, absolutely does.
I wonder if guilds having so many resources can just own markets. I hope it's not possible. We'll see. I will play a lot, but without a guild, you're nothing pretty much and that's good, but being in a guild requires by default playing alot.
There are going to be casual guilds or semi-casuals guilds...not all guilds require you to play 24/7.
I might be wrong, but when someone has power, they usually reach for more power. They don't stop and say "oh, let's others have some power". People have mentioned several times that games have become stagnant because it was always the same guilds in power.
Maybe I don't understand how guild leaders think, but even if you wanna do PvP only, you still need gear, and that gear needs a freehold. If I control who gets access to my freehold I can stop other guilds from advancing in power, which means they become weaker and therefore cannot contest content or guild wars that would make them stronger.
If they move elsewhere, good for me too. They will get a freehold, meanwhile I'm already processing and have a lead on them, which means I can attack their node, destroy it and do not share power.
The strong don't share power, they take it all for themselves.
You can't stop people from progressing...Though you are free to try. Your scenario is that a few guilds own every single freehold on the land and have told all their members they can never see any of the mats on the market. On top of letting their own node get destroyed if there are people who bought freeholds and rebuilding the node and buying all the freeholds so some randos don't get it.
On top of that you are assuming IS is fine with that happening and ensuring the production of t5 mats being processed will be very limited and most players will not be able to get mats.
You are just making up situations that aren't going to happen
I just literally saw a video about FFXIV where one player controlled the entire market for one material and boom, made billions.
Why is so irrational to think that a few guilds will own all the freeholds and forbid access to other people who aren't in their guild? In my mind that's just normal gameplay.
People did it in Wow where they would kill everyone and not let them get into raid.
Final fantasy and AoC are different in goal and design as well as importance. Not to mention you literally can pvp and destroy freeholds. You are trying to fine comparisons with games that have 2 completely different goals in design.
On the matter of raids, again you are trying to compare two completely different designs lmao. Faction based is dog crap, there is nothing in place as well like a karma system allowing you to freely attack whoever without consequences.
You are using bad examples to try to justify your point.
What I am not seeing any recognition of on the other side of this debate is that game design choices involve trade-offs. When you make something more accessible to solos and casuals, you are taking away a separate gameplay layer from the most involved members of the community who are really the core audience of consumers at any rate. When you look at all the other MMOs available right now, the games have a system of one-dimensional gameplay layers because the gameplay has been flattened to promote accessibility. This is precisely what we are hoping Intrepid avoids.
But I'll definitely be the first one to say that everyone should be able to have an apartment, because that's exactly the "entrance lvl content" that any person should have access to.
And considering that the story will have instances (potentially with bosses), there's a good chance that even that kind of content will be directed more at the casual audience than the hardcore one (cause ain't no hardcore player cares about npcs and their stories).
This is why I said that majority of content in Ashes will be experiencable by casual players. It's just that it won't be at a big scale or with huge rewards.