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
I feel particularly sorry for people who have only the vocal-auditory kind, but then love unvoiced games.
Like, they can read and visualize a story and muddle through the 'dialogue' parts without being able to imagine the character's voices, sure... but then when the characters' voices are supposed to 'interact with the ingame moment' and you're just otherwise staring at an unmoving character with limited facial expression... and then you can't imagine their voice...
It must be really sad to be so close and yet so far.
I'm forever thankful that games have progressed so far that aphantasia 'sufferers' who like them, can now just get the whole experience. I actually also support at least some sort of plugin that allows AI VA for Ashes, I just never get involved in those threads.
Who is disliking what? It is either interested or if I'm not captivated I don't get that deep in it unless i have a reason.
Again the point I'm trying to make it the effort and passion have more resources creating a better product. Mmorpgs don't have the resources to do that being split and held back by limits. IE you aren't killing an important character and seeing that change in the world by your own choice. It has to follow a flow that makes sense for all players in the world.
You aren't going to be constants scenes like the video i posted above in the gameplay, you aren't going to get a personal story that will connect to you or pull at your heart strings like that.
Another example if me think about mmorpgs with text stories maybe someone is out for revenge after someone was killed. That is going to be more glossed over than even the detail and weight of the death of that character for that random quest npc. Where again the video above you make a really hard choice and can really feel the story pulling at you, anger, sadness, confusion, doubt.
You aren't going to get a book for text dialogue that is going to go into every detail on the persons face, their tears, the sway their voice cracks. The feel of anxiety described with words in detail to pull at your feeling like reading a novel. They have 100 and one quest and you aren't going to get a book to have those quest and interactions be of that level of detail. To make up for what will be lacking on the 3d side.
And yeah, I doubt this will ever change. Well, maybe not ever, cause AI and stuff, but definitely no time soon.
It can't possibly be referring to that, unless the whole thing was just another red herring.
Of course a non-sandbox MMO can't have a world where the world changes every time anyone interacts with any NPC/Non-player force (except Elite Dangerous) because then the Devs/writers would have to intervene whenever a set of changes reaches a critical point where they should have a greater effect outside the code parameters (which is what they do in Elite Dangerous).
This has nothing to do with things like 'a character finishing their class change quest from their mentor and having a specific interactive experience with that mentor and other students'.
Did Mag just start off by jumping on the OP's wish and then making up shit to argue against? No (not this time), so this could still be a meaningful discussion about MMO storytelling as a medium. Please don't let it devolve into 'trying to convince Mag7 with logic'.
One potential option is that whenever Mag is talking other people deflecting the conversation and bringing up irrelevant points, it's just projecting.
Or maybe Mag had like, some smarter older sibling/cousin who'd point it out as a way to win arguments and learned to do it that way.
I should clarify what I'm requesting here. This thread was kinda interesting, might get some nice input from people who wander by if it stays on the front page for a bit. Mag then... 'engaged with the OP' let's say, and Sage tried for a bit.
My request is that no one ever 'try to figure out what Mag's problem is', honestly.
Large chunk would be money, you can make a story where no one is the main character but you are still sealed off certain things like killing an important character / or other situation that impacts the whole game.
Maybe int he future it will change, these story types of games advance as well it isn't just mmorpgs. SWTOR could have been triple A story if it came out muuuuch earlier. But as time goes on the goal post moves and standard increases if you are talking about a mmorpg that will be better.
Back to the original point i made in the thread though this isn't a instanced mmorpg and is more sandbox style so you aren't going to get a SWTOR. It is a new Ip so they don't have the easy gate on players connecting as easy as WoW or a Riot mmorpg would have. So they have to work even harder so players can connect and enjoy the world.
And I'm sure they will do a good job with a mmorpg on all that story and ip building and have it interesting. But I need to keep it 100% when people start saying mmorpgs have as good or better stories mixed with questing with what the expectation would be from general people on what better is.
Though there are definitely people out there that will feel their mmorpg has the best story they have connected with strongly over time humans are like that. But my point is about general people not outliers and actual facts with gameplay and all elements that make he story not only just writing aspects (again though mmorpgs aren't writing novels per quest to make up for lost detail for hundreds of quest)
Alas, my cabbages... carry on.
You are missing the point, if something increases the experience in a positive way than it is better. No one is saying you can't enjoy something basic this whole thing was the guy tried to make a point mmorpgs can have as good or better stories in a quest related thread. I'm saying mmorpgs stories with direct links to quest do not match any where near what a story based game has with exact examples that have not been challenged.
Again has nothing to do with what you enjoy, you can enjoy both, but mmorpgs have other strengths.
There is no actual problem with mmorpgs, Problem is when someone says something can be of the same level but is only doing 30% of the things and no where close to being of the same.
Edit* Atleast this is more entertaining than the noaani going in circles. I can't even read it at this point anymore.
I'm sure those CP77 videos are great, cause I've played the base game and it was also super impactful for me and I've also not played mmos that hit at the same lvl, but that's mainly cause I haven't played good story-based mmos.
But I extrapolate my experience in Genshin to the potential experience in Ashes and I know that they could make a story that impacts me as hard as Genshin does, even w/o the visuals and/or sound.
It's all about the writing for me, and that's definitely doable for Intrepid, so I hope they succeed at making a good and impactful story
Everyone hopes for that but then this ties back into questing how do you think they approach that to do this with quest/ story? Personally i don't think they can hit the same levels as some of these other games that were referenced in a mmorpg. But maybe you can give me a difference perspective
His example was it should be more like witcher or BG
The most recent impactful such interaction was in the last Genshin patch's quest.
The previous patch had a small quest about am old dude who has 3 dogs. You needed to simply help him bring those dogs to their doghouse w/o touching the flowers that they were playing in. It takes like 5 minutes.
After you're done he says that this dogs are unruly, but he keeps them because his daughter loved them, and she left him some time ago so the dogs remind him of her. And he asks you to look out for her name and tell her he's waiting for at least a word from her.
Then in the current patch you get a completely different quest related to a completely different place and to a much bigger lore-related events. But during this quest there's a small girl in a prison. And from her dialogue it seems that she was born there and that her mother seemingly died (iirc). And the girl has been helped by a super lore-important character, who's been telling her different stories to entertain her and distract her from the prison life.
Throughout the quest you talk to the guards and ask them to find any of her relatives on the outside, so that you could take her to them (cause you're in the process of escaping prison and want to take her with you).
And as you might guess from this comment, this girl is the granddaughter of that old dude with the dogs. So after the breakout you take her to him and the quest ends with the dude saying "I got so many stories to tell you".
I started tearing up as soon as I learned who her relatives were and I cried after that last line. These quests were unvoiced and had the most basic npc animations. And only the prison quest had the tiniest relevancy towards the main story of the game, so the overall significance of them is fairly low (and majority of people don't even do these quests).
And if this kind of quest was added to an mmo, I'd probably have the npc that moves (the girl in this case) become invisible in the prison to the player who's done the quest and visible at the dude's house. Though I'm not sure if it is doable, code-wise. But in case it is way too hard to do - there's always instances which can be set up according to player markers.
In other words, this impactful story could be relatively easily done in Ashes. And I hope they do this kind of story here. Just random "human experiences" that can impact different people in different ways. Have some interconnections between them, add some lore tie-ins that people can uncover in books or item descriptions or from some absolutely random npcs - and you have yourself a deep impactful story in an mmo.
Well, imo of course.
Haven't played those, so wouldn't know how they do things
You didnt play baldurs gate O.O why?
Granted my first play through of Baldur's gate was like 180 hours nothing felt overwhelming and pacing felt good. So I suppose they could manage without using any filler quest. And focus a lot more on exploring and with the world changing it adding new quest (which they have already shown or talked about).
Thinking about it baldur's gate approach seems more reasonable I might be what they aim for in some sort. Though the quality in quest will be lacking and won't be as detailed is what my feelings tell me. Some might hit a bit more interesting but its going to be a lot of little pockets of mini things.
Maybe Final Fantasy 14 questing which is ok but a bit too long I did not feel much with the environment/atmosphere of the game. First time I played the main quest for ESO I liked it then it felt fetch like in next dlcs. Main issue was the environment was not memorable.
WoW vanilla questing and classic was alright, but by far my memorable because the world was interesting. As long as ashes of creation is able to capture that feeling in their game I would be able to look past the questing. I did not really know what was going on with the quests as I did not like reading a wall of text but the atmosphere and environment captivating. Now with questing ofc I do not want it grindy like BDO.
I still remember how early WoW used to make me feel when I got to darkshore/Ashenvale and first time getting to stormwind and going to barren lands in low level finding that elite horde npc would try to attack. If the similar atmosphere can be created that would be great and memorable than the questing experience by itself.
The only other two game that made me really enjoy the environment/world was Witcher 3 and Skyrim which are not MMORPGs.
Did you play Warcraft 3, this is why i was saying earlier is AoC won't have the same feel as wow with it being nostalgia at this point. Back than it was good sure now it really isn't a good mmo outdated and old living off nostalgia.
When it came out last big mmo people experienced was Everquest and the genre was still new, everything was mystical and in fact doubled because of the IP warcraft built up. Being able to see the world with your own eye than just being the up down view and explore it. That feeling is hard to beat where AoC has to do a lot of work to build up their ip. You won't have that feeling like wondering about the witch king in the future or seeing familiar characters.
Only mmorpg that will have that advantage is Riot with LoL (dota is better).
Not saying you can't have that feeling in AoC simply saying you might not have as strong do to valid reasons with WoW and insane hype around that game.