Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
Possibly and also no.
No, in the sense that commercial viability doesn't necessarily have to be relevant when defining the market segments, where a product may be targeted and articulated as 'niche' or 'generic.' There are investment firms that fund product lines that enter the market for no other reason than to disrupt another product. These can be complete cost-centers, but their main strategic purpose isn't revenue capture.
Possibly, because it largely depends on how you define 'commercial viability.' Are you capturing share? Are you chasing margin? Are you focused on revenues? There's a lot of wiggle there. It can also be completely irrelevant if Steven is sitting on a literal gold mine. If he can fund Intrepid privately in perpetuity, he can dedicate the organization to produce as niche a product as he desires regardless of the market landscape.
you did and no p2w didnt kill it. they made billions and games are still up and running. yeah maybe many people quit, but those were the people who werent paying...
I don’t think this contextually speaks to the reason why some games are dead. Turbine was a smaller company and Asherons Call was its first game and longest lasting.
Asherons Call closed because the devs completed the story.
As a game a face lift and some updates and it can easily surpass itself.
The same goes for other titles, no one knows why they’re gone.
The old Official L2 servers even tho merged and with a far smaller populations still commercialy thrives after 20 years through the pure whales' will spending thousands of dolars a month according to NCsoft reports, same goes for Classic and Essence/Aden Official versions. They basically became gacha mobile games trying to mimic the success of their Giga Lucrative Mobile counterparts Lineage M, Lineage W and Lineage M2.
Aren't we all sinners?
No, I didn't. Proof is the fact that I put LA in line with other veteran MMORPGs.
As for my comment about LA - P2W is a different beast, project lifecycle works differently there. Reincarnations are not a failure of the old game, but a way to boost playerbase without risking cannibalization since players in old games are hooked by their P2W investments.
So... sure. We agree.
Semantics.
And to be clear that is totally fine. Development changes. Minds change. This is Steven's game and he should make the game he believes in.
And also I don't think of the words niche game as bad words. Plenty of niche games are successful.
I would personally love if AoC became an EvE in non-cosmic setting. There is Albion Online also but it is too cartoonish to my taste.
WoW PvP vs PvE server is a useless argument. Players on PvE servers have access to the game's pinnacle of PvP: Arenas and rated BGs. Random people ganking in the world is not a focus of the game even if some people enjoy it.
I think travel time and even nodes evolving could be a deterrent for the casual player (ie, 10h or less per week). Spend half your play session finding a decent place to gather/level, spend the other half doing that. Then log in 3 days later to find out the area has changed. Spend more time traveling...yay. We'll see how fast the mounts are.
Like empires, they rise and fall.
Well I think all those games were selecting a Niche crowd at that time. MMO's and internet gameplay was still relatively new and a lot of games simply survived because it was a new experience. 20 years later, online gameplay seems like almost every new game, its no longer the new thing but the normal or expected thing. All the big games that everyone remembers were developed 20-25 years ago and that just made me feel old.
I am mostly just highlighting that most comparisons made to what AoC will be is based on what was. New World had massive numbers at Launch. Blizzard was forced to make Classic and Hardcore because of popularity There is clearly mass appeal to something new and different and New World almost found it.
I think its important to Remember that the player base for online gaming is substantially larger now too, it's also growing still. Which is why I think realistically people need to stop using comparisons that simply have no relevance, I understand its mostly what everyone has to go on but its also very unreliable. No one saw Tarkov and extraction shooters coming because of the same comparisons. What I am saying is look at what is happening overall in gaming, look at the current picture.
Perhaps. I am an avid consumer of mmo media. Pax Dei has shown so little, I think it is absurdly early to even include them in the mix. They have cool videos and exotic accents, but they have shown almost nothing of their game, and, honestly, some of the things they have shown are somewhat concerning.
Ashes combat has been attacked and rehashed over and over... in many ways to the detriment of the game.
How do you feel about the Pax Dei combat? is it tab or action. how are the animations?
Why would you give them such a pass, when you are so critical (mostly appropriate) of Ashes based up real and mostly specific information?
To sell Pax Dei as an alternative to Ashes at this point in any way but purely theoretical seems disengenious.
I would assume @Dygz , as a rational adult, that you agree. Do you agree?
Arenas and RBGs weren't in the game during the largest period of growth for wow. Random people ganking was one of the focuses of the game during it's highest period of growth. The point of even referencing this is to illustrate that historic growth happens on pvp servers. This in turn counters the many claims that ashes will be niche because of its open world nature. Flagging pve players are the minority in the MMO community at large.
I was in plenty of Southshore to TM zerg pvp battles and BRS entrance camping scenarios. None of it was a good PvP scene, but people did it to farm honor. BGs saved WoW's PvP
The joy of open world pvp is the constant threat and the meaningful interaction facilitated by it. I think we have a differing opinions on what makes "good" pvp. The sense of wonder for what's over the next hill is what I'm looking for. Sometimes it's a fun fight, sometimes its 30 bad people and short ride to death, sometimes it's an opportunistic gank on a member of a rival guild. These are all not supported by battlegrounds and flagging.
I agree completely. People don't want the same thing as they did 20 years ago. The gamer population is not at all like it used to be. Any player that enjoys fantasy games and PvP should enjoy Ashes of Creation. Players who resent PvP like some that haunt these forums, are far more niche than the ones they claim are. They are just bitter about the game not being built the way they irrationally dreamed it up in their heads. It's their own fault and they should have known better what they were investing in.
Now days, the most popular games ARE PvP based, just look at MOBAs, Shooters, battle royales, Survival, pretty much any genre of multiplayer game. Also consider the fact that there hasn't been a good PvP MMO in a long time and there are a ton of us waiting patiently on the sidelines for it. There's definitely an audience for this kind of a game and it's far from small. They just need to make a good game and it will be successful. Don't change the entire game because a few relentless whiners can't handle PvP. Luckily Palia will be out soon, so they can go pick daisies on their free farms and forget about Freeholds.
Hmm, you say that people don't want the same things as they did 20 years ago, but Ashes of Creation is far closer to those games from 20 years ago than it is to modern MMORPGs. So, with this logic, people don't want Ashes of Creation?
Using other PvP games that don't require you to pick flowers or kill rats for 200-300 hours before you can get into proper PvP isn't really a good point when it comes to the popularity of PvP in MMORPGs.
There is an audience for this game; it just won't be that big, and that's completely fine. Any game where other players can decide if you are having fun or not in the context of MMORPGs will be niche. It might start big, but these systems will eventually cannibalize the player base. It's not like this hasn't happened multiple times already. AoC isn't going to be any different.
What you are missing is that none of the MMOs back then had anything in common really. The only thing that AoC really has in common is that it's not following or copying someone else. It's taking ideas sure and expanding sure but that's good. They also have innovation. Point being that there was no formula before they made what they thought sounded awesome.
Best way I can explain it is Theme parks or WoW style are chips and candy. What Intrepid is making is meat and vegetables.
Not sure what games you are referring to for "happened multiple times". I will say that your line of thinking is why people still copy WoW. The mindset that WoW showed everyone what works is a pigeon hole. Just because someone "tried" something it doesn't mean that people don't want it. Extraction shooters have become their own Genre like BRs. People don't want candy anymore
aoc is 80-90% l2 and thats why i wanna play it hehehe
also what is BRs?
The 100k number will explode when they actually give a date for A2 tbh, most people probaly havant bought in cause there no game for them yet, once A2 becomes available or date for it there be people buying in.
damn the packs just changed and i dont like the new one either ugh. i guess if i dont buy it now i never will. i remember there was a pack that i liked a while back and now i regret not buying it T_t i dont rly care too much for skins tho but oh well
Improvement over last 2 months imo :P i dont mind the mount and boat tbh, but i realy waiting for an asian themed set specific a cloth/lighter armor set.
Battle Royal. I guess. Fortnight, PUBG, etc.
According to the OP, we should ask Asmongold, or at least take Asmon's usual 'definition'.
In which case I believe the answer would be 'both'.
They also mentioned a counterpoint about things like Survival games and Extraction shooters, and mentioned 'bigger than New World', so I've been going with 'New World isn't quite niche and anything bigger than that isn't niche' + 'The rising popularity of hardcore games such as Tarkov implies that gaming's populace would push Ashes beyond niche'.
So from that, I actually have a question for you... why would it be helpful to clarify that this time?
I would just add that I don't think Asmongold's opinion is the end all be all but in that it just seems to reflect the common notion that this game will have a smaller community. It was more to add weight to idea of the general populace feeling this way.
I am super excited for AoC and I just don't think anyone should allow bad logic or cynicism to be their guide. Don't let others dampen it either. It might also be a disservice to the game because of how the development is being structured. Where feedback seems to have a larger roll then ever before.