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
I am "men"
So, your grand plan for an integrated economic system where one player can't master all professions, and not all gatherers can gather everything is to have all of the economic systems under constant attack outside localities, thus, limiting the trade network to local products only and having most of the server unable to acquire the resources required to reach the pinnacle of equipment? Sounds like I will be paid handsomely to protect these caravan systems. My fears of a lacklustre Bounty Hunter pension has been superseded by my desire to make Merchants richer.
Connections are important so to make so you stop people from making those in a mmorpg is one of the backwards things I've seen. Mmorpgs are social so having the tools to interact and make connections should not be reduced....
You want to connect to some rando from across the server who'll be over 20 minutes away from you, while I want to connect to people in my node/guild, who'll be 5 minutes away, if that.
You want "internet acquaintances", I want "irl friends".
That's the difference between a true friend and an acquaintance. I would argue the node citizens are acquaintances because you haven't vetted the people before you joined the people. However, friendship has no distance requirements and thus the friendship would be stronger due to the vetting process.
And I guess that's the main reason for our differing opinions.
Nik wants to fight the whole server until his node is destroyed. Must believe a node can last forever or believe all node citizens will remain friends after the node has been destroyed. Either way, Nik won't be a very valuable friend because of the Node Chat. Can't assist the friends in the local disputes or join in on the chats in a locality unless you are part of the locality. Seems counter productive to true friendship, unless Nik invites all those node friends into a Mega Guild.
My friends' and mine guild has been called "WarToAll" for over a decade. We'd declare war on all eligible guilds on the server and fight them till we either "win" or leave the server.
And yes, I do plan on making a guild based purely on my node's citizens. It'll be a casual guild whose entire point is to support those people in whichever way it can, asking nothing in return
I'm all for Total War. Can't rule a server by being timid. However, back to the friendship notion. I don't actually have any friends in real life. My old friends were drug addicts and I had to give up drugs. My old friends were from all over though, not just my street. Though, in my roleplay my toon does have friends because those toons are in the world too. So, while I don't consider those toons 'real' I do consider those toons 'allies'. Politics and intrigue are important to Ashes and so is making 'allies'. I do not like to be in Mega Guilds. I like to be in Pro Guilds. I love to fight outnumbered. I love to PvP. It boggles my mind that you want caravan defence to boil down to those in the immediate vicinity but the attackers can alert a thousand or more from a Node ZOI in an instant chat.
Why are they randos, there can be 1000 reasons for someone to be far away you know, or maybe have had a past with before. Be it a single person or maybe a guild that you helped back in the day. Sure maybe you don't do anything that day but them knowing what is going on has them move over to help you the next day.
I don't remember conversation being so limited there are a ton of possibilities and everyone's friendship, acquittances, rivals, etc all have their own reasons and values. Communication between people can make plenty of entertainment in any form.
Your values are fair and just, but you can't dictate the values of others and what they want by oppressing them from being able to communicate. Let them decide their own values. That journey 20 min away someone might be happy to make, or perhaps it was their plant o do so some time ago already. Maybe someone has a op mount and can make the journey even faster.
Lack of communication only leads to less stories with good and bad connections.
And if an entire node, for whatever reason, decides to come down on your small party caravan and fuck you up - there's either something waaay bigger going on and you should've checked where you were going better, or you messed with the wrong people previously and should've, once again, known better.
I feel you haven't played a PvP MMO with PvP Experience. You never want to give your enemies anything. Especially PvP Experience. Caravans are full loot. If Guilds A, B and C want to let Guild D trade in a node, then that only strengthens Guild D. Guild A, B and C might have to fight Guild D in the future so its not in Guilds A, B and Cs interest to let Guild D trade. You might say, Guild D, E and F should all trade in one group in alliance and battle with Guilds A, B and C. However, Guilds A, B and C each have different alliances inside the node and suddenly its 9 guilds vs 3. Again, because you do not want your potential enemies to profit. There is a micro war and there is a macro war. You can win a micro war but can you win a macro war? You might say, all guilds in each Node should trade together and have a big fight with all opposition. Zerg vs Zerg and the winners take all. Fair enough. I'll fight against a Zerg but there comes a point when the gameplay is ruined for the small guilds.
I feel like y'all are visualizing entirely different types of game...
How is Guild D importing things to a Node only benefitting Guild D?
Is this because of those damned Certificates again?
Because the attackers can wipe out guild D and take all the resources back to their node without giving anything but death in return?
I don't remember where exactly I have seen it recently, I'll go check, but I feel like this isn't actually how that works anymore.
Presumably because someone pointed out the exact thing you have.
I've lead guilds that were part of that alphabet and I've been in guilds that led that alphabet. I've been in politics and was a politician myself. And I'm planning on making a heel turn into AoC's politics if the game lives long enough, but at first I'll just be the local helper with a casual guild
If those alphabeters decide to raid my caravans because they think I'm standing in the way of their progress - so be it. If my guildmates complain about their caravans dying left and right - I'll help with each fight, but I'll keep saying that we're a casual guild and they shouldn't expect to win against the super organized hardcore bois, though I will reimburse the guildmate with some of my own mats if possible.
In other words, I know what place in the foodchain I'm gonna take up. All I'm saying is that all the other people should know that as well. And if they can't do that w/o a global chat - that's their own weakness.
Seems like guild D was just weak and couldn't deal with the pressure's of the game. They should seek help from others in the location of their operations.
I don't see those changes on the wiki for personal caravans. There is a notice that system driven caravans information might be outdated but my theories are still relevant to the wiki information on the personal caravans to my knowledge. You can only attack one caravan at a time and decoy caravans can be used, but, when you outnumber the defenders each team can be split to attack any number of caravans. I do not believe Steven wants to limit tactics in either direction.
Guild D isn't weak. Its amassed a Guild's worth of resources from all sources. Its protected those resources from across the map and amassed the capability to initiate the caravans in person. Its gathered the full fighting forces and even thrown in PvE players as bait. What has happened is a pre-emptive strike and a full on guild war between alliances. Guilds will rise and guilds will fall. Guild D has been monitored, has counter monitored and has fought to keep the resources but your proposed Node Chat has simply overwhelmed Guild D's alliance because all routes were covered. Guild D's Node Mayor will be informed and all guilds inside the node will be informed. Before long, regional war erupts and total war ensues. That's the difference between a micro disposition and a macro disposition. I'm all for the experience and the PvP but some people won't stay because corruption doesn't apply.
I'm just trying to understand what's the benefit that I'm not seeing here? Cause, as I said before, we didn't have global chats in L2 (hero chats were never used to make deals in my experience), but we somehow had the same exact politics and backstabbings and ambushes and whatever else. And hell, we didn't even have discord back then, it was all vetted members in ventro/TS.
So how exactly would global chat help a guild that has such strong enemies that their whole damn node couldn't help?
My view of this, is that the system should encourage you to talk to people and make friends... not encourage you to treat other players like NPC's... this is what happened to Wow's LFG system once it became super automated.... ultimately, the simpler system encouraged good players, as you wanted to make a good impression so you'd be asked to join future events... where the newer system encouraged bad players because the game would punish you for not completing the dungeon even if it paired you with absolute morons.
General Chat will enable alliances to form across the server. You can have 4 guilds in alliance and Nodes can also form alliances. It does no good to have insulated Node Chat whereby only locals can talk to each other. How soon would those locals be overwhelmed in the little bubble? A guild will struggle to fight on all fronts on two continents but an alliance spread across two continents will be richer and more powerful. Those alliances could also travel and meet up for alliance activities on either continent. Alliances have Alliance Chat but you need the ability to form the alliances first. Guild perks have to be unlocked and reputations have to be considered. Local reputations are all well and good but server wide reputations should trump local reputations.
I have looked it up and I agree with you entirely now.
The latest updates on the Caravan and Certificate systems have made me think that things are going to be even worse than you laid out, so I thank you.
I now agree with Neurath. Global Chat plz.
We still don't know if we'll have all the content we need in just our node vassal systems or whether we'll have to move around at least from time to time. And if it's the latter, then you'll learn even more info about other guilds (or you'll at least have to learn it to survive). So it won't just be small groups in small bubbles.
I feel like we're just situated on slightly different point of the hardcoreness scale. I want people to work for their wins. And to me chatting up in global chat is the absence of said work. It's instead the laziest form of communication in a game like Ashes.
Yes, I understand your position. How much local chat will happen when people are going to be contesting at the resource locations, contesting the raid bosses, contesting the world bosses, contesting the rare spawns, contesting the farm spots, contesting the caravan routes, contesting the elite mobs, contesting the open seas etc. We even have Node Specialisations. How will mercenaries be hired if no one can see who needs mercenaries? If everything was local chat then those 'mercenaries' would be roped in regardless. The world will be cut throat. Its not even half the guilds on the forum, it will be all the pro guilds hidden behind the scenes and watching you want to be wary of. Those top guilds from PvP MMOs.
I started the global chat thing -_-
Yes but I don't agree with any of your reasons on it, I agree with Neurath's most recent reasons based on something I checked that made me change my opinion.