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
Which limits are good, I'd be fine with even harsher limits tbh (though not around irl money). But the chat in BDO is one of the spaces that makes it not feel as "solo" as you grind mobs solo for those that are interested in the read.
Mk, I was just clarifying for those who don't actually play BDO, because your point made it sound like somehow, there was some difficulty with talking to the whole server in BDO, and I wanted to make sure it was clear to everyone.
Chatting in BDO Global chat costs like 1 or 2 energy (it's so insignificant for basic communication that I don't even remember).
You can lie in your bed in your house and regen it faster than anyone would normally need to talk. I've burned 100 energy just playing stupid chat games with people while riding.
Your note on BDO was a little misleading, since it's only accurate to you, is what I'm saying.
I was responding to the general chat and lfg chat comments. Hence why I only mentioned general chat and the local adventurer aspect of general chat. I realise its a korean game and the terms are different between western MMOs and korean MMOs. I often use a dedicated toon for chat in BDO, much the same as I use dedicated toons to get my workers. I often separate my toons for the functions provided. For example, I wouldn't use my Chef to hunt, I use my Hunter to hunt and my Chef to cook.
Making trade connections across the entire server through global chat would only boost the danger of your transfer, so even if we did get a global chat any trading talks would still be in discord (or PMs), so that the enemy can't just ambush you or upsell you.
I know it was a different time and most definitely a different culture, but limited chat distance in L2 worked just fine. You had localized markets where you'd read your "trade" chat, you had localized skirmishes with PKers/PvPers and you had your guild/alliance chat for any discussions across the server.
The only global chat in L2 was the "Hero" chat, but it was only available to 38 people on the server. And this limitation would always create the fun kind of drama, because it'd be the biggest people on the server from several biggest guilds on the server. And they'd argue with each other in Hero chat for hours. And these arguments would quite often overflow into fights or even wars. And the server would learn about those through this chat.
Having 10 fucking thousand people spamming the absolute shite out of global chat would just be a cacophony of messages, majority of which would simply be "selling tree branches in Node 51A, come buy".
This is a whole separate topic for a whole separate feature that we don't even know about. If Intrepid decide to do smth like this, I'd prefer if that entire event had its own chat channel.
change my mind
teehee
Its not about leaking information, its about making contacts. How do I know someone's name from the north if not for general chat? Maybe the guy's a complete douche and I will get scammed because I only used whispers rather than see the general consensus around people in situations. Its like school. I had friends from different classes because we all congregated at the lunch hall and in the corridors. Granted, the teachers couldn't hear our conversations which was a boon but without the 'general chat' there would be only localised friends from my own class.
Edit
It is like saying you have 10k people all in one single dungeon so they need instanced content.
add boomer to that.
Also, as I've stated before, my preferred PKing balance is "you should be able to remove your corruption within roughly the same time it would take the victim to come back to you; anything above 1-3 PK count should be cleared by BHs (which is most likely sub10 min)". So in my preferred design, no one in global would even save you, but you would in fact waste their time were they to try.
Localized knowledge is the entire damn point of Ashes
You want to learn who you can trust in a distant region? Go there and talk to people there. Because if regional-based community works how Steven wants it to work - you'd hear about the best and most trusted traders in that region from people there. Global chat would assure that this does not work.
Then what is the point of global chat if it's not fucking GLOBAL, with the entire server having access to it? Huh?
Logically though, this topic boils down to solo players vs group play. The harder the game makes it to group up, the more it should be focused towards solo play.
I play MMOs because I want to play with others. I want the game to have the tools -IN GAME- to help me find groups. We shouldn't need websites (like destiny2lfg) or massive discords outside of the game just to connect with other players.
Yes, it is the point of ashes. And what no general chat will initiate is closed communities. The server will always be fragmented, thus, creating factions in a factionless game. I wouldn't even use the chat for trade but if my node in the south was destroyed I would probably move to the north where I knew other like minded people. Just because someone's in the local vicinity doesn't mean they are like minded individuals.
You go up to it, look at guilds that are in your region and that fit your playstyle/time and you PM the person who's written on the board. Easy. No global chat required.
Or, well, that's what I'd like bulletin boards to do and function as at least.
Because the players can't dictate the factions if there's no server wide access to communication. Imagine having only local news and no global news channels in real life. How soon would the nation boil down to a city, town or village? No server wide communication means I'm stuck with local people - I can't decide if there are better people elsewhere, I have to choose a node based on local people. How will I know if I'm a PvPer in a PvE dominated node until its too late and we get steam rolled in a siege? I have a guild of course but the guild will aim for a castle which is a whole different aspect.
I concede that I don't have the capacity to grasp what you're saying.
I'd figure the point was that if you didn't like a place, you'd leave to explore to look for a new one, and that would be the 'story' of the game for you.
I never considered what you're describing, so that's on me. I'll try to see it from your perspective.
Nodes are supposed to be your highest allegiance (I doubt it'll be like that, but the community should still be present). Your chosen node should reflect your gameplay preferences, which would then mean that other citizens of that node would be close to your preferences as well.
As a continuation of what I said above in this post, you also have guilds that will be located in several nodes as well, so you can always go there when yours falls.
Player-chosen factions is at the core of factionless owpvp games. In most games it's just guilds, but in Ashes it's nodes as well. And the more you befriend people at your "faction", the more reasons you'll have to defend them or help them.
Having friends from across the server would dilute that. Though again, you can always go to that other location, learn about the people there and befriend whoever you want.
That's the damn story of your character. That's the whole fun of socializing in a world that doesn't have a WORLD-FUCKING-WIDE communication system.
Again, this worked just fine 10 years ago. "Just use discord" is a bad argument against this.
Some people might not want to join a guild, some people might join a smaller guild, there are a ton of reasons nothing to blast them for it. As long as they enjoy the game while understanding the type of game it is. It doesn't mean reducing their sense of community or things they enjoy or things able to help them with communication.
People should have a reason to save you, if you want to come back but the isn't the entirely of the point in having someone to save you. It is about the overall vibe, connections and communication of environment on all aspects as it is a group heavy game. The idea of lack of communication will create a contrast when grouping is so important. Like i said it leads people to discord or quitting for certain types of people.
Your point about joining a guild (i had mentioned earlier in this post they could be a small group of friends). Having more communication in game can lead to them finding more friends to group and be more competitive for their content. Though the point of find a guild matches my point on organized guilds using discord to talk staying on top and controlling servers.
Organized group vrs people cant even talk to each other makes it clear who is going to be winning.
It still is global chat, but like i said I'm talking about multiple levels of chat (which can be multiple global ones).
LFG, trading, general global chat. Those chats can be further broken down by region on the map and there can be a cost to access global chat to talk to ensure people have a respect for it. It creates a lot of separate chats with limitations not resulting in chat spam with the entire server and plenty of communication between people. Not that everyone will use it so it will be pretty fair in readability.
Which can all be tested in Alpha, and adjusted to the desired scroll speed of the chat.
so, you want me to join the highest allegiance - a node, with local people, pay taxes and fight wars for those people without the ability to communicate with 90% of the server whenever I want to? What if the mayor is a complete twat to other nodes and we get sieged because to the node the mayor is sweet as pie. I'd rather know the deal prior to getting sieged so I can be a conscientious objector. This has come to a head because I can't be nodeless anymore after the recent node updates. I would have just been a drifter with friends all across the server - some for local dungeons, some for PvP, some for Arena, some for trade; all in off peak hours etc. Much the same as other MMOs from the past. Except now, I will have to totally rely on my Guild who may or may not be privy to the information we require at any given time. After all, a diluted guild spread across two continents can't fight too effectively.
discord that will ban people for little reason or stop you from talking, control in game server elements, or black list whole guilds when all that drama kicks in ^_-.
I owned a sever discord and i black listed a guild, though they were actually braindead. But I was also on the side of people doing snaky things and ruining it.
Yes that will still exist global or not, but means less power in their hands if you can communicate in game, else you are at their mercy.
Yes, organized groups will always win. If nodes have no guilds in them and the mayor of the node is absolutely oblivious to what is happening around his node - they deserve to lose. Simple as that.
So you want to put a shitton of limitations and costs and whatever else on the global chat, which at that point would make it barely even global or inaccessible to people who'd benefit from it the most.
Yes
I don't remember if I said this in this thread, though I do think I've said this before. I definitely support a node-wide chat. I'd still prefer a shout-based limitation, but I'm fine with a chat channel that has all citizens of a node in it. Ideally this chat would also become bigger if you're in the parent of your vassal chain's ZOI. So it would be effectively a 1/5 global chat, but only if you've traveled to the capital.
I think this would address your mayor concerns, because this scale would support a larger "news network", while not revealing every piece of info about any other place on the map.
But ultimately, yes, I want people to have limited information when it comes to chat communication. Because limitations breed innovation and creativeness. And mainly because I don't believe that AoC's world will work well with a global chat.
Yes because that is how you do global chat, which still means yes it is global chat.
I can use the same logic in AoC to suggest they need instanced content mainly or remove pvp penalty Of course when you have a ton of people there needs to be some kind of regulation to balance things out and reduce potential spam.
But if you think there should be 0 restrictions on all things in games we can go with that route.
Though the whole point is you are saying it is a mess, but when you hear limits to balance out the content you are trying to say its not global chat suddenly. You are trying to play both sides in a negative way than trying to be more positive on it ;o
To be fair, I'll probably make contacts on the Server Forums. Possibly in the class threads and any other threads of relevance. Not going to have Server Forums? I will display my character and server details in my bio and work from there. Need more direct communication faster? Will request or make a Server Discord. Want to introduce my contacts to the guild? Will invite the players as guests and see if the guild likes the players. Need more people for off-peak? Will make contacts in all locations deep into the night and even guard caravans to and fro in unusual hours. Need to fight pirates on the open sea? Good luck with no General Chat.
Either the game is properly populated and each node has a good 100+ people during primetime, which is way more than enough to fill up the chat with whatever discussions. Or the game is dead and global chat ain't saving shit, because you can't solo the game either way and having a convo partner 20 minutes of running from your current location gives you no tangible benefit.
It only had open world content, players, guild chat and everything. Not a mmorpg in a typical sense, but shows the issue of the lack of global chat. And guess what everyone was using discord and people abusing mod powers there
If you think a dead general chat is bad then wait until you see a dead node chat. I assume you'd have to be a citizen to use node chat? Also, those who have partners in twin locations will be richer than most because the further you travel the more gold you make. Thus, farming in twin locations will be very profitable. Of course, you could just take other node citizens with you to the other location but pvp would probably ensue. Much better to be with locals in both areas.
Oh, I know! Let's give homeless people a global chat! A network of Verran hobos! In theory there wouldn't be all that many homeless people and this would be the biggest benefit to partake in that kind of gameplay. I'd agree with that kind of global chat
Yes, connections across the server will be valuable, which, to me, is simply yet another reason to not have global chat.
Because if you can simply write "looking to trade this for this" to the entire server - there's no weight behind the trade. You didn't spend time making connections in other places to enact that trade. You didn't risk bringing your wares to another location before establishing a connection. The entire process is way more streamlined than what I would personally prefer.
I'm not talking about the trade. I'm talking about selling Certificates to NPCs. I can do that without allies. However, farming elite mobs/bosses in localised areas takes a team. You need a team to get the best certificates. Granted, in A1 I could roll up to a boss and join the campers. Tons of loot that way. Might even do that in the main game but to avoid the possibility of a gank I'd rather have connections. Trade runs will be done with the Guild. Good luck having a social MMO when you can't even talk to people in Node Chat when you roll up. The streets will be full of blood.