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.
Major issues with other games that brought you to AoC
Morgalf
Member, Alpha Two
I am curious about what are the main problems with other games that people have. What brough you to Ashes of Creation...
Personally, I have been on a long road to find a good MMORPG. My biggest concerns with MMO's are the lack of immersion, risk vs reward, and social communication. I believe Ashes is handling these issues very well.
First, I will mention immersion. When you play WoW classic Hardcore, you run around noticing your peers have some cool gear, but nothing too special. They look cool because believe it or not, (think Lord of the Rings) less is more when it comes to flashiness. When someone has something rare, and no one else does, it becomes truly special. Most of the mounts are pretty humble, and very few are flashy. These circumstances create memorable and engaging moments for the player. Now lets log in to WoW retail. BOOM, everyone looks like the coolest, most badass, glowing character in the game. They are WAY cooler looking then the main story characters. No one is special because literally everyone is special. Furthermore, no one matches at all. The game was all over the place so the gear doesn't even look like it is from the same universe. Some of the stuff should only be in City of Heroes. Mounts are beyond ridiculous in WoW. Once again, it looks like they come from different games. Flying mounts also force you to miss out on much of the immersive things happening on the ground level. Why create a beautiful world and basically force players to avoid it in order to keep up? This was one thing New World did right, and look how many people mention how gorgeous their world is. Screw flying mounts!
Another area of Ashes that I believe NAILS immersion reminds me of Star Wars Galaxies. Ashes mentions how they will have events that if you miss them, you miss them for good. This sounds like a bummer, but as long as they keep providing more engaging content it will be an overall awesome experience. In star Wars Galaxies, becoming a Jedi took about a year if I recall correctly. Seeing a jedi was pretty rare and awesome. It was a progression through four stages (one per quarter). You COULD knock them all out in a straight line, but if you miss something you're out of luck for a very long time. It took a lot of commitment to become a jedi, and when you did you weren't that much stronger than everyone else. However, seeing a legitimate assassination attempt between a jedi and bounty hunter was something out of a movie. These moments appear tedious, and trust me it hurts when you miss a piece of the process you really want, but this is what made the game feel REAL and immersive. I never became a jedi until they released the new system where everyone could easily make a jedi. However, that's when the game started to feel like it wasn't special anymore.
Next, Risk vs Reward. I was thinking about being involved in New World's Alpha. I was there when PvP was not toggleable. There was a loud minority that hated this system, Amazon listened to them, and after making changes their game was dead in the water very quickly. That is when many of us stopped caring. World of Warcraft retail made this same mistake and had similar results from player responses. This issue disrupts the feeling of both immersion and risk. In a game with wars waging and free will, what sense does it make to stand in front of your enemy and safely /rude /spit at them, or not see them at all. I love that Ashes is willing to let some people get killed unfairly. I just hope we tweak it in Alpha so that vocal minority does not feel the need to complain. Go play another game! There are so many! In my opinion, the risk of getting ganked is not something you want, but it is something you NEED in order to feel fully immersed in a scary world. Otherwise, like Amazon and Retail WoW, people will slowly start falling out of love with the game and move on.
Finally, social communication. Lets take another look at Hardcore WoW and compare it to retail WoW. In hardcore dungeons you need to chat with your party about what roles you need. You need to figure out how to get there and make sure your party has their ducks in a row. When you are there, if you do not communicate, you will likely die. Teamwork makes the dream work. The trade chat is busy with people trying to practice their professions. Guild recruitment is also being spammed in the city. Now looking at retail, all of this is gone. I often go in and try to get a few questions answered with little to no responses. Trade, guild recruitment, and general chat is dead. Maybe I will get "your mom." Dungeons, arenas, raids, and battlegrounds immediately teleport you there ruining immersion, risk, and communication. Then, the dungeons are follow the leader style requiring no actual teamwork. No one says a word and the maximum communication will be trash talk. Welcome to a single player MMORPG. Thankfully, Ashes seems to be avoiding this teleport to around the world trend of modern MMO's. I think this alone will make a huge difference on this topic.
Remember, pursuing the paths of other games will likely result in the same fate. If someone wants the stuff above that AoC is avoiding, why don't they just play the many games that already have them? We need at least 1 good game that cares about immersion, world PvP, and communication! So far, Ashes of Creation is on a great path to avoid these issues and create the immersive world we all need. A little death, talking, and walking/riding (not flying) never hurt anyone...
So what are the major issues that brought you here?
Personally, I have been on a long road to find a good MMORPG. My biggest concerns with MMO's are the lack of immersion, risk vs reward, and social communication. I believe Ashes is handling these issues very well.
First, I will mention immersion. When you play WoW classic Hardcore, you run around noticing your peers have some cool gear, but nothing too special. They look cool because believe it or not, (think Lord of the Rings) less is more when it comes to flashiness. When someone has something rare, and no one else does, it becomes truly special. Most of the mounts are pretty humble, and very few are flashy. These circumstances create memorable and engaging moments for the player. Now lets log in to WoW retail. BOOM, everyone looks like the coolest, most badass, glowing character in the game. They are WAY cooler looking then the main story characters. No one is special because literally everyone is special. Furthermore, no one matches at all. The game was all over the place so the gear doesn't even look like it is from the same universe. Some of the stuff should only be in City of Heroes. Mounts are beyond ridiculous in WoW. Once again, it looks like they come from different games. Flying mounts also force you to miss out on much of the immersive things happening on the ground level. Why create a beautiful world and basically force players to avoid it in order to keep up? This was one thing New World did right, and look how many people mention how gorgeous their world is. Screw flying mounts!
Another area of Ashes that I believe NAILS immersion reminds me of Star Wars Galaxies. Ashes mentions how they will have events that if you miss them, you miss them for good. This sounds like a bummer, but as long as they keep providing more engaging content it will be an overall awesome experience. In star Wars Galaxies, becoming a Jedi took about a year if I recall correctly. Seeing a jedi was pretty rare and awesome. It was a progression through four stages (one per quarter). You COULD knock them all out in a straight line, but if you miss something you're out of luck for a very long time. It took a lot of commitment to become a jedi, and when you did you weren't that much stronger than everyone else. However, seeing a legitimate assassination attempt between a jedi and bounty hunter was something out of a movie. These moments appear tedious, and trust me it hurts when you miss a piece of the process you really want, but this is what made the game feel REAL and immersive. I never became a jedi until they released the new system where everyone could easily make a jedi. However, that's when the game started to feel like it wasn't special anymore.
Next, Risk vs Reward. I was thinking about being involved in New World's Alpha. I was there when PvP was not toggleable. There was a loud minority that hated this system, Amazon listened to them, and after making changes their game was dead in the water very quickly. That is when many of us stopped caring. World of Warcraft retail made this same mistake and had similar results from player responses. This issue disrupts the feeling of both immersion and risk. In a game with wars waging and free will, what sense does it make to stand in front of your enemy and safely /rude /spit at them, or not see them at all. I love that Ashes is willing to let some people get killed unfairly. I just hope we tweak it in Alpha so that vocal minority does not feel the need to complain. Go play another game! There are so many! In my opinion, the risk of getting ganked is not something you want, but it is something you NEED in order to feel fully immersed in a scary world. Otherwise, like Amazon and Retail WoW, people will slowly start falling out of love with the game and move on.
Finally, social communication. Lets take another look at Hardcore WoW and compare it to retail WoW. In hardcore dungeons you need to chat with your party about what roles you need. You need to figure out how to get there and make sure your party has their ducks in a row. When you are there, if you do not communicate, you will likely die. Teamwork makes the dream work. The trade chat is busy with people trying to practice their professions. Guild recruitment is also being spammed in the city. Now looking at retail, all of this is gone. I often go in and try to get a few questions answered with little to no responses. Trade, guild recruitment, and general chat is dead. Maybe I will get "your mom." Dungeons, arenas, raids, and battlegrounds immediately teleport you there ruining immersion, risk, and communication. Then, the dungeons are follow the leader style requiring no actual teamwork. No one says a word and the maximum communication will be trash talk. Welcome to a single player MMORPG. Thankfully, Ashes seems to be avoiding this teleport to around the world trend of modern MMO's. I think this alone will make a huge difference on this topic.
Remember, pursuing the paths of other games will likely result in the same fate. If someone wants the stuff above that AoC is avoiding, why don't they just play the many games that already have them? We need at least 1 good game that cares about immersion, world PvP, and communication! So far, Ashes of Creation is on a great path to avoid these issues and create the immersive world we all need. A little death, talking, and walking/riding (not flying) never hurt anyone...
So what are the major issues that brought you here?
"The gods do not fear death. They greet death as an old friend. When your time comes to return to the ashes, move forward knowing death is merely one of many paths to a new adventure."
5
Comments
Across the board. P2W, overall design, growing soloability, changes that no one asked for, etc etc etc.
Ewwww P2W. Mounts sell better than anything else anyway. I think that 1 mount in WoW was more profitable than many games, although I forget which one it was...
Growing soloability is huge. MMO's are not COD! I think Ashes may have a threat with that because of augments. If every secondary cleric or X religion augment gets a nice heal, we may have an issue. However, it does not seem like that is their goals. At the least they should watch out for it because then everyone will be pushing for personal heals over everything else.
Flat characterizations of enemies, flat simplifications of systems. I understand why it's so, to a point, but still kinda want a new game where it isn't.
1) Combat - I do not give a damn about a game if the combat is boring or lacks difficulty. Strategic and Tactical combat that requires not only game knowledge but the mechanical acumen to pull it off would be the best type of combat this genre could offer. Hopefully the hybrid system does exactly that. High skill ceiling gameplay is where its at.
2) PvP being everywhere, this is the same as your risk vs reward, but I've grown really tired of the amount of people who just cannot stand PvP so they have to get it nerfed to it scales to where their liking is. I like being under constant threat, most MMOs don't do that.
3) Economy - early in my mmorpg days I didn't give a damn about it, but now that I am older I am really picky about there being a good economy. I think Ashes will accomplish that better than most games to date.
4) Community - I'd like an oldschool tight knit community who understands risk vs reward, wins and losses. Not this new era of foolishness where people are too concerned with the "toxicity" of others where they have their own damnselves to clean up.
5) Actual useful professions - Most professions in most games are a bloody slog, hopefully the Siegesmithing/Shipbuilding/Arcane Engineering is good!
Could see several games similar yet different to AoC over the next few years announced.
UE5 bringing many options to the market.
Instanced based themeparks running out of content too soon. Really sucks to have a content patch, farm up the new BiS loots in 6 weeks (shortest time it takes due to timegating), and then be waiting on new things to do with that new gear for months, and then waiting more months for the next thing, and then more months for the next content patch with new BiS to get in a forever cycle of just waiting. . .
The appeal of player driven world state changing the content up on a weekly/monthly basis
From dungeons to grind,
Places where the pvp usually happens
Traderoutes to farm
BiS being crafted gear
The hope of challenging encounters to face
All of it being dynamic is what brings me here.
And I accidentally clicked on an Intrepid KS video.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
Blaming games because it's always someone elses fault.
the guild war system is super boring, the bounty hunting is inexistent, corruption is boring, freeholds are boring, players can't build their own houses or dungeons, etc
naval stuff is promising but we don't know much about it right now, caravans seem cute but not of great use for now
the node system is great
overall many boring systems and great effort in looking cute and looking appealing
Season content is scratching that itch for me now in WoW retail and New World. (WoW was not at all enticing for me between Cataclysm and Shadowlands).
Oh, okay. And one of my Friends was so INSANE to buy me the 375 Dollars Pack for the Unseen Order, hence Alpha Two and Beta Keys. It is a once-in-several-Decades-kind of Story that he was so generous to pull for me,
so jeah. Here i am.
Ready to watch, observe - and hopefully, take Part in one of the greatest Efforts for a good MMO ever made.
Seeing Ashes of Creation being born - and putting on it's Baby Shoes.
It's gonna be great. I am pressing both my Thumbs for Sir Steven and his Crew and wish them all good Luck and Godspeed in succeeding as magnicificent as possible.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
A never ending circle of this months hot builds till they rebalance and blah blah blah.. more cosmetics....... Nothing EVER FIXED... Just sad.
They all tie in to each other
Actually I guess that's my main reason, thinking on it?
I don't enjoy FFXI as much anymore because the economy slowed due to the playerbase shrinking (and some other decisions which I just personally don't like as much) and I don't play BDO because its economy is trash-tier.
Themepark games usually phase out their economy aspects fairly fast to appease the more 'casual' player, or constantly try to change them up so that players can always feel like they 'have a chance' without having to actually play the Economy part of the game as an MMO too (not in terms of combat, in terms of trade relationships).
1) Unnatural divide between PvP and PvE
While playing WoW the notion of PvP basically does not exist and even on PvP server it is dare I say almost pointless. The best example for that is where open world PvP actually made sense: In Burning Crusade, there were some PvP objectives you could take over when you are flagged and if you took them over your faction gained a bonus from it.
The divide however made for such a stark contrast that most did not want to participate at all. Additionally the stats required for PvP were vastly different from what PvE gameplay requires.
IMO here lies much of the potential for Ashes: While there won't be a single best-in-slot item, I hope that stats have more equal advantages in PvE and PvP so that a gearset against Frost giants would also be strong against an Ice Mage.
2) Unsocial Gameplay
When I returned after 2 years to see how the game had changed I found that the best way to level was no longer to engage with the world, doing quests and such, but to pop open the dungeon finder, click on "start search" and then waltz through a dungeon. People were teleported inside, most didn't say or replied to a "hi", nobody talked tactics because there were in-game guides for all dungeons including creature description & role guides. So without any communication you'd run through the dungeon gain tons of XP and as soon as the boss was looted everyone just quit the group without a word, got teleported back to town and repeated the process until they hit the level cap.
Then you got a segment of fun & engaging quests that layed out the story but that were solo experiences that resulted in... unlocking max level dailies. Yeah, finally back in the loop. The new loop was now to farm dungeons and do dailies in between, all of which was possible without making a single acquaintance.
IMO that made WoW and empty OSLG (Online Solo Lobby Game) rather than a MMORPG.
3) Overall level of difficulty
I guess there is not as much to say about this than with the two previous points: WoW wasn't a very difficult game in general but the overall challenge level fell even more with each consecutive expansion to the point were encounters tended to become boring.
CONCLUSION
I don't expect perfection but as the mantra about Ashes goes: "Ashes is not for everyone" and I hope Intrepid stays true to the notion to not compromise their most engaging features to increase player numbers.
I would like to be introduced to your very generous friend.
1) Sandbox worlds freakin' rule. SWG was (or 'is', in the case of the on-going SWG: Legends) full-sandbox, while SWTOR was a damn themepark. TP's suck, with all the closed-in walls, limited travel-scape, and pre-planned ever-spawns of enemies. Was quite happy to see that AoC will be the real-deal sandbox word, an environ that should produce interesting and unique player-towns - akin to SWG.
2) No chat-bubbles. In SWG, they could sometimes be annoying - but you just don't appreciate how populated/alive an area is, until you go from a game that has chat-bubbles to one that doesn't.
3) No custom shops/specialized buildings. In SWG, it was cool to setup a facility used for sorting space-loot parts. SWTOR operates on cross-character vaults, as housing is instanced and doesn't impact/shape the world. SWG's did, there was just more running around. I liked it, versus alts-hopping while they are all parked in front of a terminal. It's fun to decorate shops and have people swing by and see what you're arranged in decor. SWTOR was just a list-it-on-a-terminal market. So cold and impersonal.
4) The list goes on and on. These just came to mind, first. The gist of it is that I hated going from an open-world game to the theme-park, and that the personal touches were better in the far-older game, in nearly every way.
I can actually try to do this for You, but no Promises he might do this for You as well. 😁
Because i am aware not even he is very rich : and he pulled this insane Stunt just this one Time for me in several Decades. I must admit : i didn't knew he would go to such a Length for me and buy me something like that.
🙄 . 😳
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)