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
Trion's well known and well criticized BS PR to hide their greed is "public knowledge" tho, as i said before i've not seem an specific post of Trion directly saying "we losing players cuz Thunderstruck tree".
But i have this print from the old Trion forums of Trion Staff member Scapes implying "Game better cuz P2W RNG Box Tree by player reports".
Aren't we all sinners?
For sure.
I'm not saying their execution was perfect. I'm just saying the issue they saw, and the eventual fix to it.
Such "fix" to such "issue" was certainly not welcomed by a huge amount of players that ragequited, as seen in the fairly sharp downfall of population in the following month(s), maybe they did not believed in said "issue" nor in said "fix"?
Who knows, we can only make assumptions right Noaani?
Aren't we all sinners?
Based on that comment, wouldn't any attempt at pinpointing these things by you be you making assumptions?
Correct Noaani, it's all about the assumptions out here right?
Some of them more based others more baseless.
Aren't we all sinners?
This is true.
That said, I don't think your assumptions are baseless. I'm sure you have valid grounds for making the assumptions you are making. This doesn't necessarily make them right or wrong, but I am still sure you have grounds for your assumptions.
The thing to keep in mind though, is that I am making as few assumptions as I can, I am essentially just repeating things I have been told.
I'm guessing you mean 2 years before release of the game?
I said I don't consider Amazon to be a AAA game dev company.
One successful MMO out of many attempts is still a horrible track record.
I jump back into NW sometimes. It's a fairly fun game. I can play with PvP turned off, so...
I will likely be jumping into NW way more often than I jump into Ashes, after Ashes launches.
I don't even really know what you're trying to say by "participation trophy side".
But, I am a Casual Challenge player. "Participation trophy" seems to be a pejorative used by Hardcore Challenge players - similar to using "carebear" as a pejorative.
I have no clue why you mention fishing. I have no clue how you, personally, determine something is good.
What same systems are you talking about and why am I supposed to care if they play off each other?
I haven't made the argument that similar games will nullify each other - and I agree that completely lacks any logic whatsoever as far as I can tell - I have no clue what you are even trying to say.
I agree. Especially since I never said that Open World PvP would hurt the game. I also never said that auto-flag Purple on the Open Seas would make the game unsuccessful.
What I said is that it's a ruleset I won't play - and since all the servers share that ruleset - that means I won't be playing Ashes. And, I'm pretty sure it's going to alienate all the other MMORPG players who find non-consensual PvP to be distasteful.
The gamers who loved, UO, EvE Online, ArcheAge and Lineage II should love playing Ashes.
That's great! I expect them to have tons of fun in the Open Seas.
I dunno what that has to do with the price of tea in China, but...OOOKKAAAYYY.
AAA company doesnt mean successful. you can make an AAA game that fails and no one wants to play. AAA means high budget, lots of employees, specialists, etc as opposed to an indie studio.
And I would say that Amazon Games (and NW) is AA, at best.
But, we don't have to agree. I don't think it really moves the original topic forward.
Yes around two years previous to the launch in 2021, they decided to switch focus from an open pvp game to a standard pve mmo.
how is ags not an aaa studio when they had 200+ people working on making the game and spent hundreds of millions?
What you define as AAA doesn't really matter. What I was referring to was YOU said they had a horrible track record for MMOs. They have only developed one and we both agree it's decent. The rest AGS was just the publisher, the games came pre-assembled. My main point in bringing up New World was that it was different or promised something different then what most Modern MMOs were offering and to speak towards the demand for MMOs in general.
"Participation Trophy" is a design philosophy difference. It is what you seem to be leaning heavily towards and assuming others want too. It's what I disagree with. It's the idea that if I spend my time playing a game that I should have the opportunity to have something or in other words a participation award. So that might not be first prize but I am always going to get rewards. You might be implying a negative connotation but it's simply not. It's a difference in philosophy and I think once you grasp that AoC is offering something different, you might see what I am saying. The logic comment was based on what you were saying, how if other games come out with the same options then why would anyone play AoC if it launches much later. I am simply stating that and used fishing as an example that two design teams can create 1 thing and both be substantially different. So it doesn't matter how long AoC takes if their designs are better.
You're experience with Open World PVP seems limited. You are still focusing on this aspect on it as this big hurdle. Really, only L2 , UO And AA had this type of system, might have been others but I wouldn't consider them relevant. I could be wrong there but not enough to invalidate my point. So basically this type of world or game design really hasn't been iterated or improved on very much. There's a reason that Intrepid is adding it. They are not creating a PVP or PVE game, they are creating a true MMORPG. Where the focus is on the world.
Most development has in recent memory been focused on the MMO side of things where they think it's just about creating shared space with other players. MMOs were made into a genre because of UO,EQ,Asheron's Call. WoWs original design was VERY much in line until people started focusing on the Dopamine rush rather then an authentic experience. I think with the rise in more hardcore genres like Tarkov that it's clear players are looking for that authentic experience again. Which is why I brought it up in the OP as well. So price in china aside, the point is even with in shooters which are extravagant point and clicks there's still room for innovation that surprises people. So there's always room, especially in MMOs for this side of innovation too.
The Open World PVP I think, is not being added to make this game a PVP game to simply allow non consensual PVP. It's why there are big penalties for unwanted pvping or PKing. With this type of system comes danger,risk, politics, bigger social issues, rivalries. It's about creating an atmosphere where the participation award design ignores. You are not going to play this game for the same type of experience as WoW or or other PVE centric Theme Park MMOs. You are stepping in to a closet and in to another world. Making a true MMORPG the with that mindset was always a massive financial risk and its why we saw the development fall off and move towards cheaper and simpler Theme parks or they simply copied WoW.
You might want to read what I said at the start because you and your general outlook is exactly who I was talking to.
issue 1.
I played it like a year before release and you could get towards end game in the beta (i did not so i dont know how much content they allowed players to do). They changed some stuff but not really from a art perspective everything was the game, the issues were the same it was more the combat and such they tweaked. Overall if there were some things missing I didn't notice or see them in a big deal, It didn't feel liek they were adding content in the years time more so adjusting the gameplay
issue 2
The most important part (i was not apart of) would be the actual alpha before the 2 year mark as far as what content was there, how much, etc. Without that information it is hard to judge how much work they had already and how much content they were making.
Overall...
I can't really judge what they did in this time frame on how much content they were making, the feeling I had was not much was made during this time. So I can't fully just judge on content production like that, personally i feel their issues were elsewhere and that was their focus in making the game.
Their content was mostly all made already, and they took what they made to try to move it into a mmorpg, Which resulted in a lot of copy and pasted content, locations, dungeons, mobs, rigs, animations, everything. Their focus wasn't on creating more content, but taking the content they had and making it into more of a casual mmorpg. Some of such content they also did not bring over because they did not have the time to do so (two handed sword as an example). And some stuff had to stay on the back burner until they could implement it in a mmorpg way over a survival game way.
Long story short content creation wasn't the purpose, it was scaling what they had to make work as a mmorpg. That is what took the bulk of the time and why everything felt rushed and bad game design wise, not having enough time to get it to the level where it needed to be. As well as working off their more survival game and having to force that into the mold of a mmorpg do to time constraints and direction change. Which left a lot of whole and issues with design as well as things not being properly tested.
If i knew the state of this game during the true alpha (not the mmorpg one) I could give a better answer.
Everyone should have been locked down, it would have been disruptive everywhere, even more so on the creative side and where you have bath and forth issues between different departments.
Though i still work remote myself, kind of nice to wake up then sit on the computer and work lmao.
When i get back into games though, i think id prefer working more at the studio.
It is a pejorative used by Hardcore Challenge gamers.
So, yes, devs who are Hardcore Challenge gamers might incorporate that bias into their game design.
You're saying limited experience, when it's intentionally limited since I don't enjoy the PvP rulesets for UO, AA and L2.
LMAO
And that term "True MMORPG" is so absurd, I can no longer take you seriously.
I'm done. Have a great life.
But... the game was supposed to release before 2020. And lockdowns happened after that.
Alpha 1 was 2 years ago. After the lockdowns were over, but I think they IS devs were not back in the studio - maybe due to some renovation?
Anyway, I was not expecting a 2-year gap between Alpha 1 and Alpha 2, but...
The devs are making significant changes to the design and also moved from UE4 to UE5.
I'm not sure what the "delay" in release schedule is intended to add to this discussion.
You ARE hardcore.
I had just wondered if it was a factor in development from 2017 till now. As far as I know no one has asked that question. I think it would be a valid reason for some delay. Depending if/how long they where locked down and if working remotely could they do everything they needed. Is there something wrong with that?
But, again, the game was supposed to release before 2020. If it had, that would have been before COVID lockdowns.
And, then Alpha 1 was in 2021. After lockdowns, but before they moved back to working from the studio.
That seemed like a fairly reasonable time frame given the lockdowns.
I mean... most people understood even from Kickstarter, that Before 2020 was mostly car salseman hype.
None of us were expecting a 2-year gap between Alpha 1 and Alpha 2, but...
That's because it wasn't made super-clear inititially that they had changed their schedule philosphy to fit with the more reasonable expectation of 5-10 years form Alpha to Release for an MMORPG.
All I was asking was if covid was a factor between 2017 and the present. Nothing about when things where supposed to be released or the new schedual. Is there anywhere I can find where they discussed this new schedual?
I think at some point around the 1 year gap after Alpha 1, we began to realize that
"Alpha 2 when its ready" meant it probably is not happening any time in the next few months.
And then by the time we're getting closer to 2 years, we realize that means Release is likely at least a couple years from now.
It's already 5 years since Kickstarter.
5 years for their progress is really good. Realistically what people are going to want is an alpha 2. Which is probably why they really want to make sure their Alpha 2 is solid because people are insane and will judge the final product on it.
I have at least 10 games in my steam library that I have not even played yet. I can wait for a good finished product. I am kind of wanting to play alpha 2 though to start looking for bugs!
The impression I get is you don't take anyone seriously. You are free to disagree but once someone tries to diminish anyone's else's opinion, in my experience there's only one reason someone does it and it's never good.
I doubt anyone who reads your posts about AoC delays would construe it as positive.
That is how absurd I find your comment about creating a true MMORPG to be.
Ok