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
Nope this is bad. I'm agreeing with you on the freehold stuff.
Also, no you should not have to compete with large organizations to run a tavern.
Along with the economic issues this causes, it also renders two entirely different gameplay styles almost mutually exclusive. This example is the tavern owner vs the processor.
The design is fantastic, more than I could have hoped for. The availability is unsustainable unless population levels are low, which is also bad for everyone.
It's great.
The problem is, land for processing, land for farming, land for animal hunbandry, land for taverns or just land to decorate should all be distinct from each other - OR there should be enough land that people do not need to compete against each other for it - but rather compete against each other for what they build on it.
Make land common enough that each person can probably get a small piece if they want. Then make it so there is one particular mob in the game that drops a resource that is needed to create a top tier smelting furnace. If guilds want to block that mob so as to block out others from getting a top tier furnace, more power to them. It's what I would do.
This leaves others with the ability to have a lower tier furnace if they want one (thus enjoying the game play that comes with having their own land with their own furnace), or to run a tavern, or to set up a sawmill, or to get involed in animal husbandry, or to plant crops to farm, or to just decorate.
Doing it this way creates the possibility of actual scarcity, leaves guilds in a position where they can block others from the aspects they want to block others from without blocking people from things they don't care about, leaves players with the ability to engage in the gameplay they want.
Basically, it is just an all round better solution.
Sure, I also think NiKr had a good idea for guild halls that would help. So there are mechanics that can be implimented to support multiple options for a freehold. Right now they are not supported.
Scarcity as something Ashes players should be constantly concerned about with regard to Freeholds is not hinted at in the Kickstarter. Certainly not by any mention of Economy in the video.
Just as the reveal of Inventory restrictions pushing us to contemplate Economic Warfare every time we want to go pick some flowers is new.
Yay! It doesn't surprise me that you would've already talked about this a few times, since I frequently agree with your posts. You pretty much express everything I think, in regards to AoC.
you know..what he said there makes absolutely no sense?
pve mmorpg were made 20 years ago or more, so by that logic, trying to make a pve mmorg with today playerbase isnt the best fit
mmorpg that sepparates pvp and pve were also made 20 years ago or more, so by that logic, trying to make a pve mmorg with today playerbase isnt the best fit
/facepalm
shooters were also games made over 20 years ago.
platformers.
adventure games
etc etc etc
the devs of mario, metal gear, final fantasy, zelda, metroid, mega man, etc etc keep making the same game over and over and they are hyper successful and these games are 30-40 years old.
I specifically said trying to remake a game from 20 years ago but with the playerbase of today isn't necessarily the best fit.
I didn't say PvP or PvE, I said game. This applies as much to L2 as it does to EQ2.
Yes, shooters were being made 20 years ago - but shooters today are made VERY differently to those from 20 years ago - so it actually applies to them as well. I mean, compare Halflife 2 with the latest CoD or what ever, vastly different games.
the pvp and pve were examples.
nope. shooters are still made the same way
what about mario, metal gear,, final fantasy 9the single player games, not the mmorpg) etc etc
but nvm im out you will never accept that you are wrong.
I mean, every line of this is wrong - in a factual sense.
They weren't examples. "PvP" and "PvE" are not the only charastics of games from 20 years ago. I never said you couldn't have some charastics of those games, I said you can't just remake those 20 year old games. Turning that in to a PvP vs PvE thing literally doesn't make sense, because both existed then and both exist now. Obviously that isn't the point of the comment - so why would you think they were applicable examples? (hint, they weren't, you thought you had caught me out and then had to scrable).
Shooters are made very differently to how they were made 20 years ago. This is mostly in relation to map design, but also touches on things like weapon balance.
The three game franchises you listed actually prove my point. Get a 15 year old to play any of the earlier games from those franchises but give them the option to play the most recent if they would prefer. 90%+ would opt to play the most recent, and wouldn't give the older one a second look.
every letter of this is wrong - in a factual sense.
i guess until you learn game development and make some games you won't know what im saying.
but again, you are always right, even if you arent, and even if you are being subjective and cant provide any objective elements to support your claims.
like i said, go play the games i mentioned and tell me how they are made differently. obviously, graphics have improved but mainly the only difference is in the flavor of the game (story, graphics, some music).
fyi map design is the same as it was in the past, you know why? because design patterns, concepts, game theory, etc etc is still the same. all the books are the same. they are just reorganized in different ways to create an illusion of something different.
edit: you cant tell me what rp is, you cant tell me what pvp, pve, cooperative, competitive, cooperative-competitive is.
you cant tell me what elements constitute top end pve, other than "number of attempts", you cant design it with all your gaming experience.
you cant tell me how games are different now. what design patterns have changed. what patterns are being used now that werent being used before. how are they implemented in a way that is different than before.
yet somehow, you are still right and everybody else is wrong. ok
another edit: do you know why the 15 years old gamer prefers current games and not older games even if they are made the same way? its because they grew up with them, thats what they knew, wether they are better or worse.
same reason (the majority of) people who grew up in the 80's prefer music of the 80's, same with the 90's etc.
you dont see 15 years old blasting elvis presley, michael jackson, the beatles, mozart of beethoven. instead, they are listening to taylor swift, cardi b, justin bieber, lil peep etc etc. and you cant say the laters are better than the formers, no matter how good they might be, yet music is made in the same way that its been made.
the way you harmonize hasnt changed. notes havent changed, tone scales havent changed, fugue hasnt changed, counterpoint hasnt changed, etc, etc, etc.. you can argue that new rythms have appeared, sure, but they still use the same elements, etc.
another edit: balnce isnt a core feature, balance is balance. and there are literally ways in which you can balance things. there are PATTERNS that are used to balance things in games, and they havent changed.
you have a or b, rock paper scissor, etc etc. unfortunately i cant remember them all off the top of my head, but you can google them and inform yourself. now please explain me how balancing has changed when the same patterns are being used for decades.
Map design is greatly different from what it was even 10 years ago. If your books on it are the same, buy new books.
No, this is one of those cases where it doesn't matter to the discussion - so why would I?
Unless you want to debate that Intrepid have said we can run taverns on freeholds, you don't have a point to make here, just a distraction.
Me not being able to define a concept that no one can define doesn't have any bearing at all on whether it should or shouldn't be in the game. I mean, we can't even agree on these forums as to a definition of PvP - some people think it is just fighting, some think it includes economic activities. By what I assume your logic here is - if we can't define it, we shouldn't have it.
If that isn't your logic, why are you even asking me to define RP? I mean, it's not like I give a shit about RP myself (I am very much on the record on these forums in that regard). I give a shit because others do. Nope, you are wrong again here.
In my previous job running kitchens in a fairly remote part of the world, I often had to rely on teenage workers. I worked with dozens of such people in the many years I was running kitchens in these parts of the world. As a part of making them feel more comfortable in what to many of them was their first job, I would let them put on what ever music they liked.
Most have playlists ready to go, because of course they do - though some are too shy to play music for everyone.
Without exception, when these people put their play lists on, there is music from more decades than even I listen to on a regular basis. Almost all of them had music going back to the 60's, and had songs from every decade up to the present.
Most of these younger people don't think twice about putting something on from Lorde, and following it up with something from Lucy Rose, or The Beatles. You are right on Elvis, Mozart and Beethoven, I've yet to see any of them play this - but your point about them not blasting older music is just outright wrong.
They won't do this with games though. Put them in front of Metal Gear Solid and they will quit after a few minutes.
because you are the one making the claims
go read dont make me think by steve krug, published in 2000, and the design of every day things by don norman published in 1988. probably the 2 most important books in design, no matter what area of design you go to. now go tell them how the concepts are wrong, how things have changed, and how they are irrelevant.
you are a clown.
It is an absolute form of logic. Even if the language specifics change, the basic principles dont. I'll just go dust my copy off...
That was a joke, I'm not dusting it off.
The reason that book is still relavent (and it is), is because it talks about principles of design. It doesn't say "THIS IS HOW YOU DESIGN A WEBSITE", if it did it would have been obsolite before it was published.
If you think you are proving a point here, point me to a website from 2000 that is the same as a website from today.
the way websites were made is the same and the design principles havent changed. yeah sure we have modern tools that also made life easier for the programmer (so in a sense, the way you implement the design has changed. we use components for example, and rest or graphql apis, we went from waterfall to agile and agile has existed for 20 years now), websites grab more attention now, etc. the flavor of the websites has changed, thats it (which is related to visual design and motion design, but you still have shape, form and details...that hasnt changed).
talking to you is like talking to someone who says "my religion is right because i say so and yours is wrong because i say so".
True and real
But it is also true that the way websites are made have changed signifcantly.
What we expect to see on a website has changed significantly. And how we expect to interact with a website has changed significantly.
Noaani isn't using this example, but it's kinda on the lines of choosing not to include fast travel for your 202x MMORPG because you had to walk up hill in the snow barefoot when you wanted to travel somewhere in the199x MMORPGs you loved to play.
Kinda like when I look at the combat for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen and think, "Oh! Hell Naw! I would fall into a coma if I had to watch that slow-ass crap. It's not 1997!!!"
thats what im saying. visuals have been updated. the flavor has changed. things look cooler now, etc. but the way you make games hasnt changed, as in the design patterns, the type of games, the process of making the game, etc.
we still have the same elements, we are just rearranging and mixing things. its like saying chemistry has changed because you are making a new compound using the same base elements
The way games are made has changed significantly, but I don't think that was Noaani's point.
Again, some design patterns have changed significantly; some have stayed the same.
Some genres have stayed the same; some have changed significantly.
We don't merely have the same elements. It's like saying a PC built in 1990 is the same as a PC built in 2020.
It's like saying the process for creating and applying Klingon prosthetics in 2020 is the same as it was in 1990.
Much of that is the same - and there are also significant differences.
It's not at all like saying chemistry has changed because it's not really that chemistry "changes" - it's not a human creation - rather, our understanding of chemistry and how we can use it changes.
This miscommunication with Noaani feels to me like the miscommunication you had with me over Node mechanics.
You aren't completely wrong... But what you are talking about does not seem to me to be what Noanni is talking about.
hardware has changed more than software in the last 70 years, which is strange because software should be changing (or be easier to change) than hardware xDDD
what design patterns have changed?
what genres have changed? other than adding elements of other genres. which was what I was talking about. just the rearrangement of elements has changed, but the elements themselves haven't
the cameras in fps hasnt changed...you know, tis still first person... just throwing that out there. you have 1st 2nd and 3rd person cameras, top down and isometric (which is top down at an angle). a radar is just a top down camera that sits above you and uses different sprites to render thing on the screen on the radar area. etc etc etc
until somebody comes up with a way to shoot bullets that isnt a projectile, raycasting or hybrid, to shoot things at other things, the way shooters are made hasnt changed.
waiting for someone to invent the 4th, 5th and 6th person cameras.
sure you can add a wall that follows the player and kills them or hurts them (which is an element of other game genres) and put players who will be shooting at each other in an island, and boom you got a battle royale. doesnt mean the way you made shooters has changed. you are just adding elements from other games. sure your idea might be original, but the way that idea came to life and the process and elements behind it, wasnt,(design, add art, vfx, sfx, implement, tools, patterns etc etc), therefore the way you design and implement sofwtare hasnt really changed.
and we can go deeper than that. sequence, selection and iteration. period. that hasnt changed in 50 years? but we are talking about design here so maybe lets not go that deep.
There was a time when website design did not include space for cookies and ads.
So... you're saying that UE5 adds no significant changes to, say, character creation?
And character creation is designed, today, exactly like it was in 1997. In 1997, we could create exactly the same kinds of characters we can today?
And... in 1997 we had all the exact same genres of games that we do in 2023?
Nothing has changed. Everything is designed exactly the same.
If I play Ashes of Creation, when I see a mountain off in the distance, I'll still have to bump into a variety of invisible walls that will cause me to have to wait 30 seconds for the next area to buffer...??
There's no difference.
Action Combat in MMORPGs does not exist? Combat still looks and feels, in all MMORPGs, exactly like Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen? Traveling through the air on flying mounts is impossible so that means we still have to run on foot everywhere in all the MMORPGs available in 2023?
video and sound on websites isnt a design pattern...................................................
i think we need to define what a design pattern is...
also fyi there were websites back then with videos im sure you remember flash player. also youtube came out in 2005, and there were hosting sites before that.
ue5... that's a tool. tools help you write less code. you know, before ue5 you could have "ue5 features" on your games. you just had to manually code them yourself (or your team). remember that code in u5 was written by someone, and anyone could have written it as custom code as part of their own mini framework. the difference is ue5 now has some features out of the box, meaning you don't need to write them.
Again... you seem to focus on jargon that is unique your profession, but is not really the same thing that others outside of your profession are actually talking about.
Manual coding was not why UE5 features were not implemented in 1990s video games.
adding a video to your site isnt a design pattern (you could say its more related to marketing). adding captions to said video so that users with impaired hearing can understand the video is a design pattern. this is accessibility for example.
making your current link different from the rest of the links is also a design pattern
and you are probably right, most people arent talking about actual design...they are talking about feelings and subjective things that they think its design, then they want to argue about how they are right.
these patterns haven't really changed in 20 years.
the equivalent would be someone trying to argue with a doctor on what treatment they should receive since they get sick a lot. doesnt mean they are right.
Again... what you mean when you say node mechanics is not what I mean when I say Node mechanics.
You are having your own pedantic conversation with yourself that really has nothing to do with what Noaani was trying to convey to you.
My comment was quite general - on purpose.
Him going in to specifics is completely missing the point.