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
The issue is glint does not currently drop from Caravan PvP which means there is no risk to the strategy. Even if you lose the caravan you can just start another caravan and start again. I've requested Glint drops from dead players in Caravan PvP to curb this phenomenon.
So this will just be the classic "forums go crazy for 3 days after the stream and then forget about it".
Not to get political, but I am more of a capitalist leaning mindset. Those who organize themselves and strive the hardest reap rewards. (No, it's not always fair, but what is.) This mindset will be extremely evident throughout Ashes, across almost the entire game.
That said, there's a lot of testing to be done. This system will create a lot of motivation in people to do whatever it takes to compete in the caravan system and to run caravans themselves. To group up, to ally up, for non mega guilders to at least collaborate with other non mega guilders so that they can accomplish some of the same things. That's a good thing. Caravans are a major part of the game. A part that there should be some impetus for people to engage in, as opposed to being something you can just ignore.
But if in testing it's found that really it's just mega guilds or a select group of power players who can reliably run caravans, and thus it's creating a huge imbalance in power - I think they'd need to dial back on how lucrative caravans are. We'll see. There's just too many unknowns right now. And it remains to be seen how competitive other making money activities will be with caravans. There could be other activities that generate decent money and don't require you to always have 50-100 people mobbed up in a caravan ball.
At a certain point I think it's going to become evident to the people who fear and don't like mega guilds that you either fight them, or they run you over. They're not invincible. Honestly, many of their members are really bad. Fight them, organize and attack their caravans. That's the game. It's fun. They're gonna be coming for you, that's for sure.
Crumbs can be sucked up a straw like copium lol.
Yeah many people will get absorbed by mega guilds. And that's fine. They'll get a little piece of the pie. If it's not a big enough piece then some of them will start acting counter to the guild. Spying, sabotage, etc. Some mega guilds are good at assimilating randoms and making them feel important and valued. Some aren't. It's going to be awesome to see the mega guilds that implode.
I think most servers will evolve into a number of loose factions. Factions made up of a dominant mega guild, it's allies and it's affiliates. Probably on average 3 to 5 factions per server. Most players will probably get caught up in picking a side by at least loosely collaborating with one of these factions. So I think a lot of players will get the opportunity to engage in systems, like caravans, that they normally wouldn't with their group of 5 friends, by being loosely affiliated with a "faction" or even just their home node. But they gotta want it, they have to participate and get involved.
It's just going to be awesome though. A beautiful mess of war, spying, sabotage, political intrigue, backstabbing, guilds and entire factions imploding, turning on each other. A constant realignment and shifting of loyalties of players who feel like they're currently getting the short end of the stick.
Anyway, getting off topic. I get the caravan issue now. I think it could be a problem, need more info, need TESTING.
Absolute apocalypse and lawlessness in the Verran lands. By BHing days shall be glorios.
I won't have time to BH i feel. All my PvP exploits will be in guild defence lol.
What's the leaks. I mean I'll probably just look it up in discord but you can post here for the thread if you want
I think the game is a hardcore game despite other people's opinions on the topic. It will be like Silk Road and Albion combined.
Certificates were just renamed to Glint I am pretty sure. We had the same type of crystal-like drops in A1 from mobs. My point is, it's not a new system they came up with, but I am sure it's been changing over time of course, if that was all you meant.
As was already alluded to, I think the reason they are physical items are at least two-fold: They can be dropped upon death like materials, turning them into stolen glint. They are probably also crafting materials, considering they are Essence in material form. I assume they don't actually become stolen glint until someone not the owner loots them though
I hope stolen glint can't be used directly to pay for taxes, but have to go through the Black Market vendor somehow. Either to buy commodities for transport and resale via caravan, or laundered into clean glint or gold with a hefty loss of 50% or more of the original value. Maybe even 70%.
Yeah, you echo some of my requests in the dev thread. I realise the glint is old but its replaced the monster certificates which were the bound currency a month ago. Not sure of the reasons. Monster certificates were very profitable. Imagine a Legendary World Boss Monster Certificate lol.