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
It doesn't mean - "Keep in mind that most people will not be able to obtain a pet." Or "Remember that mounts will be rare."
Dygz are you employeed btw?
Are you doing any work?
In an attempt to sound less aggresive, let me rephrase:
What have you been working on for the past 5 years?
Eve Online has tons of casual players too, both in hi-sec and null-sec. Did you even play it?
Jesus, how many times does it need to be said and you still don't get it. It's not just about housing. It's a combination of many things. It's what you do on the freehold like animal husbandry, some crafting, processing, farming, taverns, businesses, that is now barred for the majority of the playerbase. It's how the game has been marketed differently for 6 years, it's about how other parts of the game lean so heavily into exclusivity as well. It's bad for the game overall. If it was only about housing, people wouldn't care nearly as much.
I know you think this system is good for you and your mega-guild. Exclusivity like this makes the game easy-mode for that play style.
I'm in both the time- and approach-hardcore category myself, but I can see past my own immediate self-interest and know that you need a large, happy and vibrant casual player base for the health and for the good of the game for everyone. Including for the good of hardcore players. And I am not afraid of a giving the casuals a little leg up so we can get a little more fair competition from them.
And I am sure many are
I mean... I was always on the fence and kinda just waiting for Steven to confirm that Ashes was too PvP-centric for me... doesn't change my support for the game design.
I'm a bit more trepidatious to see that Nerror and Azherae have concerns - and you know the world is totally out of whack when Noaani and I are so much in a agreement.
That's my fucking point, thank you ahah
Same will happen with AoC, a lot of casuals will be playing the game literally everyone here complaining will be playing it
unless you are like Dygz and you dont like the whole foundation of the game like the pvp part of it but then you are just not the target audience so it's not a game problem it's a you problem,
but not owning land ain't it
and don't bring up processing we already know +40% of the playerbase can get access to that and it's been said since 2018 processing serves as a bottleneck for crafting so it is meant by design to be limited
Minute 27:00 in this interview from 2018 Steven says you will need Land to access the higher tiers of Processing (includes animal husbandry and everything you mentioned)
that, with other mentions he made about freeholds being a Monumental achievement (same words he use to describe Legendary items)
so this was always the plan and always what was told you either weren't paying attention or (more likely) you just created your own false expectations
Eve Online isn't arbitrarily limited and exclusive to the degree Ashes is (currently). It doesn't suffer from the same "exclusivity masked as risk vs reward" problem. So if that's your point, you've seriously missed the mark.
Edit: And about the marketing thing, we've already been over this. You're wrong, but we aren't going to see eye to eye on it probably, so no need for a rehash.
Ok I will just disengage because now I know for a fact you have absolutely no clue and this conversation is me trying to explain my 6yo sister why the sky is blue.
Yeah the feeling is mutual. We better leave it.
Steven does say that you won't be able to really do much to start your Profession before a Node hits the Village Stage. He doesn't say anything about the scarcity of Freeholds in a City/Metro.
More importantly, he says, "You might choose not to sell this Bow that you Craft or work for certain people on the server who you don't like. And thos people might be upset with that and they may lead a campaign to Siege the City in which you have placed your Crafting Base at. Or the City at which that Bow is Craftable. If they are successful, then you've lost your ability to Craft that Bow until you build it up again.
And that is a way for PvP to kind of impact Crafting."
----Steven
Now...while there is progression to get that Freehold built and build up this Processing for your Crafting experience...that is going to be a process. We understand that there's going to be fluidity in how Nodes exist. They'll come one day and might be destroyed the next day. We don't want you to have to repeat a tedious process to get that infrastrcuture built up again, so once you've built it once, it will be easier to build it again.
And you can save certain settings and furniture and placement so that is, not a seamless process, but it is a process that was not as difficult as it was to achieve it the first time around."
---Steven
Again... Freeholds were kind of at the low end of my list of interests so I never really put much thought into it, but...
This did not sound to me like it would take a monumental effort to acquire a Freehold.
Also, seemed to me to mean that if your Frehoold got destroyed, it would be relatively easy for you to re-establish your Freehold at another Node.
My understanding of the complaint is that however scarce Freeholds might have seemed to be in the past - it now seems to be even scarcer with the addition of Bidding. Because it's not just going to be a matter of purchasing the plot of land. You also have to earn Favor and jump through some other hoops to try to win the Bid.
Even if your original Node is "rebuilt", there's no guarantee at the moment that you will have Favor with the right people - they might not even be at that Node anymore if there is a different Dominant Race.
We'll have to see if the folk for whom we must curry Favor are universal by Node Type or if they are dependant on dominant Race.
I don't see anything in that interview that indicates the extra hoops of Bidding and Favor.
So, there should be no surprise to see some Crafters responding with, "I have to jump through even more hoops and bust down even more gates just to do some crafting?"
And it doesn't help to have the info delivered with the snark of "If you don't wanna do the work, just remember that Ashes isn't one of those games where you get to reach Grandmaster Crafter just for playing the game as if it's a participation trophy!"
Easy to connect some dots with 20/20 hindsight, sure.
I don't think I need a participation trophy, but I also don't want to have to be strategizing for economic warfare every time a choose a bag to go pick some flowers. Sometimes I'd just like to be able to pick some flowers without needing to be forced into PvP.
All of that being said...
It may not feel as horrible as some people fear it will.
Definitely something that needs to be tested - like Corruption.
That is the foundation of the game design.
What I'm not OK with are permanent zones that are auto-flag Purple, Corruption-free FFA PvP.
That's a recent addition; not a foundation of the game design.
And...
I own know why you gotta use me to insult someone else...
@Dygz what I wasn't making any insults in that reply I apologize if it sounded like that
was saying someone not being the target audience is not a game problem it's a 'you' problem
like: just because Liniker don't like soccer games and don't like car games - Liniker not liking Rocket League is not because the game has a bad design that needs to change
was using you as an example of someone that doesn't like forced open world pvp - which is a core part of AoC - to say unless you have a dealbreaking issue like that with the game, something like freeholds probably won't stop people from playing the game
That statement doesn't imply anything about the ease of FH acquisition to me.
I checked several sources and they all said the Eve online has about 30k subscribers. Do you think Steven would consider that a success?
I have never played Eve, but I have heard it is very pay to win. That would allow it to keep the profit up with less subs and is something Steven is very much against.
It's not "housing" that's the problem, I know there are other housing options in node, including instanced housing. It's the freeholds being tied to player progression for the people that play MMOs that way I'm concerned about... There are people that would love to have a plot and just play Farmville and get to the highest tier possible. Use their crops and open up a tavern, and that be peak gameplay for them to run the best tavern. I have a friend in wow where his favorite thing to do is collect, craft, make money, if he leaves the city it's just to farm mats then head back.
But the freehold system they've described so far is kind of catch 22 for them. That group of players that don't play MMOs for dungeons, or PvP, the players that like to do all the 'other' stuff that games have to offer. They are the players that would want a freehold to run a farm or a tavern... But now a freehold has been labeled as not for them.
So now if ashes doesn't have anything for them, I see them doing what you say, going to other games. Which is a problem for everyone, because while I don't want to do any of that I want those people on my server. I'm pretty sure most of the people who want to go out and kill the highest tier bosses they can find, and grind out dungeons are NOT the people who want to sit on a farm tending crops.
As always, all of this is just thinking out loud. We won't know until we actually get to play.
Also known as 90% of your server
I don't know man, I've always been weirded out by those because we knew so little. Also scale of some of the ones 4 years ago a wild, I don't know how they're going to work at all.
So, it doesn’t say the same stuff we just learned. Also, sure, with 20/20 hindsight, we can more easily guess that “infrastructure” is the key word there that restricts what might be meant by “easier to build again”.
I can assure you that no one trying to paraphrase what Steven described in that interview would remember to use the word “infrastructure”.
But, would very likely remember “easier to build again”. And, “not as difficult to achieve”.
It wasn't designed for casuals. It was designed for competition. Sit down now.
Also known as "something I was making a parallel to with real life, but I wont risk a ban by coming out and and saying it to make a few people laugh"
I would actually say it's a Steven poor communication problem because I straight up to his face tried to get him to confirm that I wasn't in the target audience in the very first questions I asked him on The Ashen Forge in May 2018. And, I was also asking that for players who typically play MMORPGs on PvE-Only servers.
I agree - so I probably should not be lumped in with people asking for changes to the game design because I have not asked for changes to the game design. I just finally got the confirmation I was seeking when I asked Steven about his PvP design goals 5 years ago.
But.. The Open Seas are not a core part of Ashes. The Open Seas are a recent change.
The "deal" that Steven described when we discussed his goals for PvP 5 years ago is that non-consensual PvP can be punished by Corruption everywhere across the map. That's not something I misconstrued. Steven changed the parameters of the PvP ruleset to be too similar to MMORPGs I refuse to play.
With Freeholds you seem to be saying that Steven provided all the same info in 2018 that he did in 2023.
You're saying the design of Freeholds did not change. Rather, people did not pay enough attention to what Steven said in 2018.
So... that would not be the same as my situation.
Though I think the complaints are about the additional info that was not mentioned in 2018.
Bidding and Favor are too extra obstacles.
Which means more competition than people were previously expecting - so it's more Hardcore Challenge than Casuals were expecting. Might also be more Hardcore Time than casuals were expecting.
I don't recall Steven saying that acquiring a Freehold can only happen at Level 50 and is an "endgame" activity.
In the 2018 interview Steven seems to indciate players can acquire Freeholds once a Node reaches Stage 3 Village. That's not Level 50/"endgame". It looks like all the quotes for that are from June 30, 2023.
So while it might not be a change in the design - it is recent info that most people were not expecting.
All of the new info might be more competition and barriers than some people feel comfortable with - there should be no surprise there...
Although, that being said - it's new gameplay - I'm not aware of anything like that in previous MMORPGs.
We still need more info and... we really should learn what it actually feels like before making snap judgments.
The category of people that keep trying to poke holes in the promises of the direction chosen for AoC.
The likes of Jahlon, who was complaining about Keys and collectables, because Steven changed his mind, for no other reason but the betterment of his game, and allowed more testers.
I will lump you in the category of people why are just shy enough to call Steven a liar, because of your personal views of what the players attracted to AoC, should expect to find in Vera.
I will lump you in the category of people who I have never seen posting anything worthy of considering, with the big picture of AoCs intertwined systems, yet somehow bloat every thread out there; most of the times of "I would enjoy" or "I wouldn't enjoy", but never "the group" or "the guild".
You are not a competitive mmo player, the likes of which AoC wants to provide challenges for and great, engaging gameplay such as highseas navigation and piracy or true, friends-owned housing like the FH, and I was kinda glad when you weren't posting for a while.