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
cnan you please explain what is a good design and what is a bad design?
what elements make a design good and what elements make a design bad. also please give me design patterns.
also, how do you know animal husbandry and farming are the most popular professions? im personally not interested in any of those, but i would like to see some numbers. maybe im wrong
Those replies add nothing to the conversation, but whatever.
What is there to be added. Nodes are the central part of AOC, what makes you think they aren't? When you ask people what excites them most about the game, neither of your propositions would pop up as answers often.
But how??? How can a node be central if half the node has no stakes in it? If you don't own a freehold or static housing, a node being destroyed is just a minor nuisance.
This isn’t a problem, it’s just human nature. Why join a single guild fighting for resources when there are multi-guilds to join? You might not get as large a share of the rewards, but at least your guild might win something. Lower-power single guilds will have to settle for lesser/different resources and such in the corners of the world that don’t see as much conflict.
Players and their guilds will fall into comfortable areas of fair competition, given enough time. The only frustrating part of this is that unless given a “resource shuffle” of some shape or form, these areas will likely become static battlegrounds. Don’t like it? Join up with some other guilds and try to overthrow one of the multi-guilds.
With all that being said, there should be areas of the world where these multi-guilds are not interested in spending loads of resources pursuing freeholds. These areas are the ones which will cater to a more casual player base. If all the action is at the center of the map, how many members of those guilds want to live in a freehold on the other size of the map?
Yeah yeah, "this game is not for everyone", "this game is not for casuals". But you can't rely on loyalty and people who play 24/7, that's a very small group of people. Casuals, quite frankly are IMPORTANT. We live in a day and age where most Gen X/Millenials (Your target audience for this game) need two jobs just to get by. They don't have the luxury to just sit around playing all day, but they will play when they have the time.
Housing to me should be a lot more available for everyone than what the current plan is. But that's just me.
Regardless of how little or much one personally cares about a given node surviving or being destroyed, they still make up a significant part of the game design, either directly, or by other features of the game that tie back to them. From the different node types, to the quests / dungeons / raids being unlocked, in node service buildings, caravans, goverments, vassals, etc etc.
Being a citizen of a node gives benefits also, even if you only own an appartment.
But maybe I just misinterpreted what you were saying
What we are saying is, nodes are supposed to be a thing players care about, that players interact with.
Currently, there is no reason to do that. Nodes may as well be some back end system that players don't see, understand or even know of.
Well, becoming a citizen via appartment housing would make you care also. Even if you're not a citizen you might care because you found a lucrative market for your goods, or you like the services provided to non citizens, or again you want to do the content that the node unlocks. On the flipside, maybe you care about it being destroyed so another node that you're citizen of can advance. I'm not entirely sure what kind of interaction you would like to see
It offers me no gameplay at all other than decorating.
Losing a siege means I need to decorate my new apartment when I get it. Since that is the only reason (so far) to have one, the assumption should be that people with one enjoy decorating. As such, losing a siege just means more decorating to people that like decorating.
If a node is destroyed, that market may shift, but it won't die.
The interaction I would like to see - as has been mentioned a few times - if for there to be a reason to care about nodes.
I've been in this community since 2017. In that time, the only reason I have seen to care about your node is to prevent your freehold being destroyed. Everything else is either something that can be done once, something that doesn't matter, or something you ae actually better off not interacting with at all.
Without a freehold, there is no reason to care about any node.
But node itself has no intrinsic value then. Freeholds have value, just by existing. All those things you've listed can and will be present in other nodes.
Smaller guilds or casuals won't be able to care about "latest content" in a node, because it will be dominated by large guilds. If that's the hot stuff, forget about accessing it.
Instanced housing is just what? Some storage and a house? It holds no real value in my opinion.
I'm not against the current freehold system, I'm just asking questions because I see holes in why casuals would be interested in playing a game that basically doesn't give a crap about them with content and accesibility.
I didn't say anything about caring about the appartment, I said you would care about the citizenry, and its associated benefits. Certainly you wouldn't like to spend money again on purchasing citenzry elsewhere if you're settled in your node. And while decorating might not interest you and offer no "gameplay", doesn't the content unlocked by the node (in, as well as outside of it) do so?
Nodes offer benefits to citizens, that's value, and while there are plenty of T3 nodes, there will be few T6 nodes. As for "latest content", high tier dungeons, raiding whatever is not the only thing that people care about. Maybe the node just unlocks a quest for a pet that you want, some other cosmetic item, or anything not hardcore related really.
I have no reason to believe farming and animal husbandry will be the most sought-after skills. People flock to the most profitable/advantageous trade skills and this is just a matter of balance. I doubt most WoW Classic players had the player fantasy of "being an Engineer", it was just what's best for PVE/PVP. If nothing can compete with farming income then that income can be nerfed.
Locking the highest processing levels to freeholds is not "the most insane thing ever" or "complete failure", just like highest crafting skills are locked to node type and development. Scarcity is a key point to the game design where not everything is available to the server at all times. There's nothing insane here because most people don't want to play a game only to grow corn or mix horses with birds. I think you're projecting your own mindset on everyone here.
I'm also not denying that player fantasies exist. However, players that want to only farm or breed can join guilds to fulfill those fantasies. If you demand that you must fulfill your master mount breeder fantasy AND you must be able to do it solo, then I think you're demanding a bit much. If everyone can solo it, then being a master at anything is meaningless, and big guilds will just flood the market with whatever you would offer anyway.
Also, I see no reason there can't be public farms/stables as node buildings, where players can practice the freehold professions up to intermediate levels.
Again, most MMO players don't care about housing either. There's this underlying assumption here that people want to play AoC only because freeholds exist. Most people are excited for AoC because of the no P2W promise and achievements meaning something. These threads are just a gathering point for a minority of a minority.
This is an assumption you had. I don't think saying "most" here is obvious enough to be common sense. When I heard about freeholds, I thought "oh those are gonna be rare because they aren't instanced".
Uh oh I really don't like this line of thought. Just becase Stuffertons exists it's not okay to break out the Fortnite skins. Additionally, you don't quite understand how bad a problem too many freeholds is. Imagine playing WoW or GW2 or any MMO and every 100 meters there's someone's cuckshed. The world will just absolutely stop feeling like a fantasy world.
From what I've read so far, there haven't been many games with similar housing designs, nor have those games been killed by anything relating to housing.
It would be nice to hear reasoning behind these points! While I'm not inherently against an increased number of freeholds, it can't come at the cost of the every day gameplay experience. While adding some "ArcheAge"-like designated dense areas for smaller freeholds sounds like a good idea, I'm still not convinced freehold ownership is this absolutely gamebreaking problem.
Also, what did inns do to you? To me, the inn system sounds like a very interesting innovation that promotes a sense of community.
Uhhh these numbers have just been pulled out of your rear end. I want to see this "data" that shows how "limited housing" and "destruction of a player progression" kill games. I thought it was excessive P2W and design decisions being motivated by profit instead of longevity. This whole portion reads like you are fantasizing revenge on a game that isn't even out yet.
Also, by relying on "psychology consultants" you end up with games like WoW and New World, because those indivdiuals will tell you that the vast majority of gamers just want a solo player experience with as little inconvenience as possible. Ashes is supposed to be the alternative to the current mainstream.
In summary I see a lot of frustration (which is okay) projected into massive doom and gloom (which is quite baseless without concrete examples and data).
You're just basically saying "everyone likes different things", but proving no value for the node itself. The node itself is worth nothing, therefore the same for citizenship. The real value is having a property which most won't have.
Plus if you're citizen in a vassal node you get access to everything anyway, so again.
You listed a lot of things, but those things only have value because the player gave them value, not because the thing itself as value.
If you don't like pets, you couldn't care less about having access to a pet. Meanwhile a freehold or static housing have intrinsic value.
I thought the guiding thread here was players caring about the outcome of a node siege. So whether they derive this from "intrinsic" node value, or value they derive for themselves in whatever way is entirely irrelevant. You're switching between what's being argued here. Is it hard monetary value of nodes or players caring about nodes?
Vassal node citizens can derive some but not all (afaik) benefits from their liege nodes. But then again they can't profit at all if that node gets destroyed, and I also I don't understand why you claim citizenry is worthless.
That's because you're really unskilled.
Restricting high end production to towns/cities and high end processing to farmsteads is binary and unnatural (unexplained) solution, expecially for mmorpg...
...It be far more natural to have processing and production time and restriction of how many can use the processing building or workstation at the same time.
With towns and cities having a lot of population and little space for the processing buildings, there would be waiting times and que's, of noobs smelting their copper and iron ignots, efficiently bottlenecking the town/city production, but not taking the option away when it's needed and homesteads are not available or supplying. Homesteads, having many processing buildings, would still provide the volume, most of the processing, making them viable.
I'm not that intrested in having a dollhouse in the middle of the forest or joining a colhose. Since they are on short supply and some people really really want them, it would make sense not to force people like me to have them just for processing.
Perfect!
There are already testing mechanisms to test all the theories you posited here. Intrepid has made it clear that the testing phase will be long enough to test these theories about freehold mechanics and player fall off.
if you are right, and Intrepid does not react, they will get what deserve. So far, though, it seems they are eager to make the game fun and engaging, even if that means changing some of the mechanics they created.
define casual.
A person who play the game on their time. A person not signing up to be in a cult/dictatorship on when and how much they should be playing, and how they should be playing.
A casual player play on their term when they find time and do things they enjoy. It's not forced gameplay.
By this definition there are 'casuals' who play sixteen hours a day.
Casuals don't have commitment to others, that's the point of being casual. If you're hc it's because you are there X times a day to farm something with your guild or something else.
I would like to recall Steven saying at some point during the last two years that "Ashes will have something for everyone." That is the statement I fell in love with. That on top of the huge server cap and many different acitivities had me mesmerizied.
And see, the current changes are not an issue for myself and my guildies. We're usually among the hardcore players. We min-max, we take take time off for release and nerd the game at launch and important patches etc. We organize and we very much enjoy the PvX aspect - we all adore both PvE and PvP content.
But the thing is - those are not the only ones I hoped to bring along. With the sentiment "there is something for everyone" I was hoping to bring my parents, MMORPG-veterans since 20 years back. They are a bit older now, and were never very hardcore. My father enjoys PvP very much, and my mother is a very typical "life-skiller" - I hoped that AoC's diversity would finally get them back to the MMORPGames that they miss so dearly. But they would never enjoy a game where everything is locked out for the very elite. They can deal with ganking, they can deal with PvP - but they like to do their thing in their own phase. Just be a part of the world where you meet a random player, help each other in silence for a while and then part ways.
And I was also hoping to bring my brother - but he is very much a "perioder" (playing very intensively for a period, then having a long break, repeat). He wouldn't thrive either in AoC, because taking a break means falling way too far behind and losing pretty much everything due to the Freehold design.
In the end, I will probably only be able to bring my guild mates at this rate. Which is very disappointing when I've been talking about AoC with my parents for years. And even if the game still suit us, none of us are interested in playing a game that is part-dead. With no new players, no casuals - only hardcore players. I don't want to play a game that is an elitist social club where everyone knows everybody and it is the very same social conflict within the same circles over and over.
TL;DR:
My point is: AoC in its current state and current direction might become a great game (for some). But it will not be a huge game. At least not in population. I absolutely understand that a lot of people like these changes. The competitive feeling, the constant anticipation for change.... That is great for a lot of people. But if the game does not offer the casual players any kind of worthwhile progression, then that crowd will be lost. Thus, AoC might become a great game for it's apparent extremely specific crowd, but it will never be at the top because the scope is too narrow. And many of us were looking for the next big MMORPG that will shine on for hopefully decades to come. Not just another extremely niche experience.
Who knows? Maybe I am wrong, but it does not feel like AoC is going for the "something for everyone". And that is fine - it is Steven's game afterall. If AoC does not seem right for us, then myself and my company will simply keep looking elsewhere. c:
exactyl xDDDDDDDD
oh so if a guy logs in every day at 7 after work, and he plays 2 hours, then he meets a few more ppl with the same schedule and they agree to do some dungeons or dailies or farm for an hour when they log in, since they can help each other you know and they play in the same schedule, so suddenly they arent casuals? they are hardcore players?
This hits me to my core.
same, on how ignorant what he said is. you cant sell to every customer (or mmorpg player). i wish people would take a basic marketing course (or even a design course) and learned about personas and segmentation...