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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.
Ashes of Creation HAS NEVER PIVOTED from its CORE DESIGN!
Ayeveegaming1
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
https://youtu.be/x38RLluHpBs
Comments
Interesting take, thanks for sharing it.
I think many of us had made assumptions, and that has given us some big disappointments. For myself, I really was interested in getting into breeding. Since my playstyle simply can't keep up with the big boys, I'm just going to have to change my plans.
I knew that there was a possibility of being disappointed in a million ways by backing a Kickstarter game. In the ways that truly matter, Intrepid hasn't disappointed me.
Spot on, and this is something that happens with every new MMO announced, the more you know - the less hype you have, and there will never be a game that will live up to the expectations and assumptions we make.
and this applies to a lot of things, if you look up guild recruitment posts and see the sheer amount of guilds that claim they will be server first, rank 1, castle owners, and so on, the reality is 90% of those will have their dreams crushed
*walks over to the guild recruitment forum*
Now I'm curious
I start to falter when that discussion comes to freeholds.
Why I take this a little bit more personally isn't just the fact that Steven said in 2022, as the video points out, that anyone who put the effort in would get a freehold even though it would be a monumental achievement. It is that I specifically asked him in 2018 if I put in the work would I get to own a freehold and the answer was yes anyone that put in the work could. He again stated it would be a difficult achievement but ultimately yes we could. This question was also phrased as a single player experience.
So we had 5 years of being told anyone that put in the effort and work could obtain a freehold and then this year we are told it would only around 10% and likely the only way a casual time player could obtain one was through trying to make enough gold to buy one or possibly earn enough alternative currency but we would still be bidding against others with likely more time and money.
Now, I am all for change when change is needed. So they have seen something that told them to do this. And I will adjust. I will still play. And I will still try to own a freehold. But this part of the vision did change in my eyes. And unfortunately (watch any of the three interviews with Steven) all I have ever wanted to do in Ashes was own a freehold.
I will also point out as a side note that the pillars cited in the wiki and on the website that were cited in the video are different from those that are in the Kickstarter video. I point this out to Lex and now there is a historical section in the wiki. The article that gets cited was from March 2017 while the Kickstarter video is May of 2017. I think this change was made to make it easier for the general public to understand but it removed risk vs reward as a pillar and introduced economy as a pillar among a few of changes.
Again I am 100% a supporter of this game. But in this I will likely never completely agree. It is just a new challenge to overcome.
Steven shot himself in the foot by saying this. Cause it still stood that anyone who put in enough effort could own one. If all available ones are taken, you have to put together a successful siege. If you don't have enough gold to win a bid, you save up. Eventually you should be able to save up enough to win a bid.
Might take a couple years, but hey, he did say it would be a "monumental achievement", monumental is a big word and I don't think he was using it lightly.
Not at all for me. I dont get hyped about many games and the ones i do get hyped about usually dont dissapoint me so theres no reason to not get hyped. I just go based of what i see and dont try to judge too much. From what i think to know about ppl i think the guys at entrepit are not here to shit on us as players so i put my trust in them and approch the whole thing with a "im pretty sure they got this but lets give some feedback where i can to help give them ideas" attitude.
You will absolutely be able to have one if you put the work in. Its just unlikely a casual player will have the time to put the work in, but if you do what stops you from getting one ?
The answer Steven gives to both you and DYGZ sounds like getting a freehold solo will be an extremely hard and rare accomplishment. Solo players can't expect to be the first ones to own a freehold. You can still farm and process on your in-node housing. I'm sure that will be a much easier accomplishment for a solo player, especially one who only has 2 hours a day to play. And i think yall are taking the, "10%" comment too literally. Players/guilds will lose their freeholds as the game/player environment evolves. As Nodes tier-up more freeholds become available. It might take a solo player months to farm the gold/certificates/minor resources/lords quest. Steven didn't pull a fast one on yall, he gave a vague number and yall ran with it in the worse way.
agreed and agreed. Shot himself by giving a number for people to scrutinize. But HE did describe obtaining a freehold as a monumental task and he was not using that term lightly.
edit: the only thing indont agree with is taking years for a casual to own a freehold solo. Multiple multple months, but years (2+) is a little much
This is an owpvp mmo. A lot of work means keeping your enemies at bay while you reach for the prize.
It doesnt mean that you'd be in a safe bubble, with the prize waiting for you to put the work in at your leisure.
Owpvp is at the center of it all. That's what a lot of work means.
To be fair, I would say the same thing about a YouTuber with a subscriber count with 10 digits - if the video was as much of a failure as that one was.
So, he says on one had that Steven said freeholds will only be limited by how much land is available (at a point in time where we had been told freeholds were half an acre), and then says that there was no other mention of limitations on freehold accesability. Now that we have very low relative limited numbers and limitations on freehold accessability, nothing has changed - he claims.
The guy that made that video should watch his own damn video. I personally feel stupider for watching it.
Also, the change from Meaningful Conflict to an obsession with Risk v Reward is also fairly kinda pivotal.
And then 4.5 years laters he announces, "Oh. We recently added a change. Now, the answer is yes."
"We also may find that certain systems or mechanics that we're talking about today simply aren't fun or good for the health of the game. In those cases, be aware that the game may change in fundamental ways as we work through feedback, testing, and polish. The vision will always remain the same, but how we get there might not." https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1791529601/ashes-of-creation-new-mmorpg-by-intrepid-studios/description
>Anyone that puts in time, effort and hard work can acquire a freehold
to
>Only the top 10% of the playerbase can have a freehold, regardless of how much effort you put into trying to get one.
They made freeholds an RNG based gamble, where you have to compete against large guilds, and looking at guild halls, it's quite obvious that the direction they're going for with freeholds is to be something more oriented towards guilds and no longer is it about time, effort, and hard work. It's about numbers, it's about who can recruit the most people and dominate that specific area in the game.
People that want to support this type of system clearly have never played hardcore pvp type games where these types of systems already exist. The problem is that Ashes isn't a hardcore pvp game, that's why this type of system will be exploited exponentially by large guilds.
If people seem to think that a guild of maybe 100~300 active members is considered large, then that's an understatement of assumptions. A lot of large guilds have sister guilds that they're allied with, they recruit so much that they easily replace those that leave. So, you're looking at guilds with roughly 700~1000 active players or more.
You can look at Eves current alliances and see that the top three have over 30k members each. So, it's very possible for such large alliances to simply take control of the entire map, and control the economy. Making progression half for those that choose not to be involved in those large guilds.
So, the reality is that you can say the game hasn't pivoted due to Stevens vague words; however, I doubt many people were thinking that Ashes was going to end up becoming an mmo that caters to extremely massive guilds.
IMO there has not been fundemental changes to the CORE pillars. There has been changes within the game design that had to be made. The overall design is the same (the core)
LOL you have some serious delusion and are putting words in his mouth. Steven has never said that.
This i can agree with. They need to make more of a distinction between freeholds and Guild Halls. And yes, you understand the game mechanics. In order to keep your valuables you will have to make alliances, you are actually going to have to play with people because this is not a single player game.
In today's lesson we learned that before listening to what someone has to say you need to look at their sub count
FOUR digits!
if the first thing you came up to discredit someone is how much followers they have.... that's says a lot about you and your arguments
Ad hominem at its finest
The number is based on total nodes and by extension total of freeholds likely available divided by their expected 50k server pop. Of course it could change but that is what we have to go on.
It is somewhat incorrect when you add in the ability to have family use your freehold.
Cool, and I wouldn't be surprised if they change that in the future or bothered if its kept into launch.
you are wrong - you can get a freehold with a soulbond node-currency that you farm on your own
and even if it was just gold, you'd still be wrong, but again, it's not just gold, so you are 100% wrong.
I don't know what's up with all this fear and hatred against large guilds I'm honestly starting to think you people never actually played MMOs with large guilds and what you say is based on what you heard someone else say or what you assume happens in those games.
Do you seriously think large guilds don't have any fucking objectives in the game and all they care about is destroying their own server spending all day camping dungeons and buying all the freeholds? wtf
First thing me and my officers talked about after the FH stream was how many FHs we would NEED if it's 3 maybe 4 for the whole guild, the minimum amount possible because we as a large guild ain't stupid and will have more important things to spend our gold....
Yes, I understand where they get the 10% from. I was more talking about DrDefault claiming. "... regardless of how much effort you put into trying to get one."
In todays lesson we learned that before reading a post you need to reply to it!
Sure, I opened up with an attack. If someone is going to present a video as bad as the one presented here being credible, I am going to begin my rebuttal by discrediting the medium of video as having any inheret merit.
Once that is established, I will then go in to the specifics of the video in question - exactly as I did. But hey, don't feel the need to be thorough in anything at all that you do - I mean, why start now?
It's ok though, my dude, we know you had to rebut my post in some way, and it isn't as if you could attempt to say anything against the actual point I made.