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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 have never thought about an "ultimate goal".
I play RPGs hoping to ever quest. To have new quests and new adventures to complete - and they don't necessarily have to have anything "ultimate" about them. Just provide new experiences and stories.
Primary problem there is that players and gamers can race through content faster than devs can create it.
I do find it very likely that if I helped build a city - I would be invested in defending it from threats.
Preferably environmental threats and mob threats. And I probably wouldn't care if the attackers were other players - especially if the Sieges were scheduled days in advance.
The rise and fall of new Cities churning out new content with new quests and new mobs and new NPCs is a great way to reduce the length of Endgame. Endgame being stuck at max Level with no new content; just repeating the same dungeons and raids ad nauseum (for more than a year).
In the past couple of years, I'm finding that seasonal Battlepass Achievements can keep me interested during Endgame - because the Battlepasses typically introduce some new content every 3 or 4 months.
Also, it's currently fairly easy these days for UE5 games to include building homes/bases/villages a la Fortnite/LEGO Fortnite/Nightingale.
Even introducing new architecture tiles to build with could probably keep me interested during Endgame.
But, there would have to be enough land in the world for that to be be feasible in an MMORPG.
Looks like Ghost will solve that dilemma... if it releases.
So the Nodes system, with PvP Sieges and Caravans, is currently not the Holy Grail for ending Endgame it might have been had Ashes released before 2020.
And then, I prefer to Gather on PvE-only servers, where my progression goals for a play session cannot be disrupted by gamers who want to PvP.
The technical reasons most definitely were very relevant historically, less so today and not necessarily restricted to programming either.
Internet speeds for a start were a severe bottleneck. And that's before you start worrying about managing server load before cloud infra and containerised servers were a thing.
So of course historically games would be PvE focused, out of necessity as there was simply no other choice. And the genre developed from there.
Your "MEOW" suggestion sounds pretty apt. I'm not here to debate semantics, but yes you may be right in the sense that the expectations of an MMO have evolved in this direction.
But I'd argue it's an evolution, an improvement on the same underlying concept.
Personally there's no getting away from the fact that in a world like Ashes (and many others); artificial restrictions on what can be attacked and when, are exactly that... artificial.
Agreed on all fronts!
I think the node dynamics, castles, sieges etc are a great way to bring us all together in "PvX" harmony.
Obviously it's a tough problem to solve (without resorting to the PvP/PvE server workaround as other games have) but I think they're having a bloody good crack at it.
UO is the first MMORPG and had plenty of PvP.
EQ is the first MMORPG with first person view and third person view. There were PvP servers.
But, the foundation of RPGs is PvE. So MMORPGs are going to primarily have PvE with PvP kind of tacked on.
They are RPGs with some PvP.
As opposed to being an MMO PvP game with some RPG elements.
Ashes skews closer to being an MMO PvP game first and foremost - because what Steven wants most is to have large scale, 250 v 250 PvP battles with near-constant Risk v Reward (where Risk = the threat of PvP).
And then, he also wants that to be taking place in a High Magic Fantasy RPG setting.
Internet speeds did not prevent UO from having plenty of PvP.
I didn't say "games were PvE focused" because that is not true. There were plenty of video games that were PvP focused before MMORPGs were a thing.
I worked on some of them at Activision, like MechWarrior: Netmech, Heavy Gear, Hyperblade and Call of Duty.
There were no rules restricting PvP in D&D or Pathfinder or Shadowrun.
It just very rarely occured. I've only encountered PvP twice in 40 years of playing those games.
Competitive video gamers wanted PvP to be added to multiplayer Online RPGs precisely because they enjoyed PvP in other genres of video games.
Tech limitations do not prevent the creation of PvP MMO FPS games with some RPG elements.
ShadowBane seemed to be great for the PvP gamers who wanted to play in a Fantasy RPG setting - but it wasn't popular among the majority of RPG fans because RPGs are fundamentally coop PvE, rather than competitive PvP.
And that tends to remain true today. MMORPGs like Lineage II, ArcheAge and EvE tend to be niche.
Because the vast majority of RPG fans prefer PvE.
That's why the Lineage II, ArcheAge and EvE devs are currently developing games with a lesser focus on PvP than their previous games - because they've determined that's what the majority of the MMORPG audience prefers.
That decision has nothing to do with tech limitations.
(Also why it's great that Steven is making a game that skews towards MMORPG fans who enjoy PvP.)
It's not semantics.
Just as the differences between American Football, Soccer, Rugby and Kickball are not semantics, even though all include some amount of kicking a ball. And they all have different degrees of maneuvering the ball with your hands.
MEOW might be an evolution from MMORPG, just as American Football, Soccer and Rugby evolved from Association Soccer.
And, sure, Steven is trying to develop Ashes as an evolution from Lineage II, ArcheAge and EvE to have PvP more seamlessly integrated into the PvE: in order to have what he considers to be a truly PvX MMORPG.
Um. All games have "artificial" rules and restrictions.
Basketball
Football
Soccer
Chess
Checkers
Poker
Bridge
You've seen those "Life is an RPG" t-shirts yeah?
I think no matter which fancy acronym we give it, we all broadly know what is inferred by "MMORPG", despite the various different takes on the genre.
I think it's pretty fair to say the scope of an MMO doesn't in any way compare to the game Basketball.. etc.
A modern MMO (MEOW/WOOF/whatever) is striving for an immersive online multiplayer world.
Then when a game adds factions into the mix, or other forms of rivalry such as nodes etc
AND puts your characters combat abilities to the fore.. I think it's reasonable to suggest that the addition of consent systems with arbitrary flag timers can feel artificial to some.
And we know that different genres of MMO have different audiences.
What counts as immersive is going to be different depending on playstyle audiences and genre interest.
There are MMO genres that do not focus on combat. And MMO RPGs - the ones with the highest populations and longevity - tend to have more focus on PvE combat than on PvP combat.
An MMO FPS is likely to have more of a focus on PvP combat than an MMO RPG.
There will always be players of any game who feel some of the rules are arbitrary/"artificial".
So there is no surprise that any individual might fall into that category.
Similarly, we probably all know what Kickball is, but...
The "kickball" I want to play is Soccer.
The "kickball" Steven prefers is American Football - which includes tackling and more hands maneuvering the ball.
The "kickball" you prefer to play might be Rugby - "I want to tackle without all the extra padding, like helmets and kneepads and shoulderpads."
And then some people might prefer to play the Kickball that is closer to Baseball.
Agreed so to bring this convo nicely back to the context of Ashes of Creation (I refer to the url), this is a game with heavy focus on both a) combat and b) rivalry.
So I think stating that flagging rules with arbitrary timers which punish pvp feels artificial, is an easy argument to make.
Bearing in mind I've never once expressed a wish to get rid of these rules! Quite the contrary, I understand and appreciate the intent behind corruption. I just think there are some rough edges which could be smoothed out, such as the example presented in this thread.
I never said anything about you trying to get rid of rules.
I said I don't support your suggested addition to the current rules.
There will always be some players, for every game, who want to "smoothe out" rules they feel are arbitrary/"artificial" to better suit how they prefer to play.
Lol of course it doesn't. I've made no appeal to any refs or devs.
I was thinking about corruption and various wpvp scenarios, and wondered if these examples might be a case where the system doesn't quite work as intended. An open question really. So I thought a thread on an Ashes discussion forum might be the place!
The suggestion of pre-flagging as a combatant came partway through as a potential solution, is all.
Yeah that's probably how it started. And Steven is making a game catering to those players and guilds.
And you can't see how "an MMORPG where you primarily or only fight against environmental factors" is super vague and not a definition of anything specific, without any context. Do you think a random non-gamer would have any clue what that means specifically? They'll be asking "So are you like, fighting the weather or surviving in the desert?". It's not supposed to be specific either, btw, just like "PvX" at the top level isn't supposed to be any more specific than that. The same people that understand the average PvE and PvP terminology will completely understand PvX as being both, because that's what it means. Unless they are deliberately being obtuse.
I really think some of ya'll are missing the forest for the trees here.
Steven wrote:
You want to know what that means specifically? We have pages of specifics of what PvX means in Ashes: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Nodes
PvX = The node system, with everything in it. The PvM, the PvP, the artisanship, the economy, the politics. All of it interconnected to a point where it starts to fall apart if you remove one of the elements. That is what PvX means, specifically.
There is more to it than the node system of course, but that's the big one.
For both the PvE, PvP and PvX terms, you always have to go to a specific game if you want anything remotely resembling specific game mechanics. Try telling a WoW player looking for a new MMO to go play Eve Online because both are MMOs with PvE, and not tell them anything else, and see what happens.
Unfortunately I think this hits the nail on the head a significant % of the time:
Yes, we haven't seen any story content, but I'd imagine we won't see it even in beta, considering how protective Steven is of just lore, let alone direct story.
Yes, you can choose your own adventure (role), for it is gonna be a "role playing game", but there's gonna be a predetermined dev-created system-based "end" of the game. It'll most likely get prolonged through expansions and stuff, but that's not any different from "part 2"s or dlcs in other story games, so that's nothing new.
Even so, it's probably more true that if Ashes intends to deliver on a 'PvX goal' system, they can. So can Pax Dei.
Despite all else, this is the thing I know is the 'most robust' thing you can develop. A studio might mess up the process of getting to it, but I think it takes a special kind of failure to attempt to make a PvX game and mess up the PvX goal structure.
Build, Maintain, Defend, Reshape.
Works for both PvP and PvE game types, combines easily for 'PvX' games.
It's a really simple definition. If you don't like that the game has all four aspects or aren't really interested in at least 2 of them, you probably should play something else. That's not a PvP or PvE thing in this space (unless you're talking about PvP players that don't care about building and just want to fight all the time, and they'd probably move on too).
Not every MEOW is an RPG. Not every MMORPG bothers or wants to be a MEOW. The majority of players don't even want one.
A group of RP players (or some studio GMs) can absolutely put in some effort to make a MEOW into an MMORPG for any given player. A game could have systems that then work against or tear down the RPG aspects.
We end up discussing that part of this way more than any other part. We know we have a MEOW-RPG, and it is true that they aren't common, so it's good that we might be getting another one or two. The question is now 'is this one in an acceptable place on the PvX spectrum for what it's trying to be?'.
But, since they're rare, Intrepid, via Vaknar, is asking for 'hey who has played these?'
It can't be just us and Nerror.
And that's probably the biggest reason for why it's hard for me to have a proper discussion about rpgs. Especially with someone like Dygz, who has a very entrenched definition of what an rpg must be (or what a game must be to be considered an rpg).
<sad Meridian 59 noises>
Yep. Meridian_59 a sad wannabe.
I'm not aware of a MEOW that has been released yet.
Just as I'm not aware of a PvX MMORPG that has been released yet.
Likely a MEOW would not be so heavily invested in Questing, in Leveling via Classes or in Character Background/Character Acting.
Rather, it would be a multiplayer online game that is closer to life activities in the real world.
Kind of a cross between New World, Ashes (Sieges and Caravans to evolve the world) and vanilla Valheim.
Of course, blat would be hoping that the PvP could be as intense as New World Alpha.
And, yeah, it would kind of be like saying you can't tell the difference between American Football, Soccer and Rugby because they are all Kickball to you.
Ashes is a bit too tied to Steven's homebrew Pathfinder game to be a MEOW instead of an RPG.
Ashes is an MMO RPG. But it's primary focus is Massively Multiplayer PvP combat and Risk v Reward.
What isn't common about Ashes is that Steven is trying to make the PvP and PvE more symbiotic in a way that we haven't seen before. Steven says "reciprocal", but I view them as being more inextricably intertwined in the Ashes design than "reciprocal" suggests.
Ashes is the first MMORPG I've heard of that's trying to attach the PvX label to the Server/Game instead of to the playstyle of a Player or Guild. So, I don't really consider there to be a PvX spectrum for MMORPGs, yet.
I'm also not aware of any video games in any genre that have PvX attached to the Server/Game.
Perhaps people can list some.
Is Steven's vision of a PvX Server/Game acceptable?
Sure. It's going to be acceptable for the vast majority of MMORPG players who love Lineage II, ArcheAge and EvE.
It's not going to be accepted as well by gamers who love PvP games that are other genres besides MMORPG - they are likely to want more PvP.
Also, it's unlikely to be accepted by players who typically play MMORPGs on PvE-Only servers.
Which is a little different than Steven's original claim that Ashes should feel comfortable for PvErs who don't 100% hate PvP. Especially since that claim was based on Corruption and Steven has subsequently implemented large areas of the map that are Corruption-free.
I don't agree that Corruption needs a solution.
And I also have no interest in supporting more bonuses to PvPers - especially without also providing more bonuses to PvEers.
You asked me how I felt about the suggestion. I've given you my answer.
And then, for some reason, you don't want to accept my answer.
But, I'm never seeking an "ultimate story".
I'm hoping more for a Neverending Story. Kinda like how soap operas continued with new stories for decades.
In Ashes, there will be dev curated stories - but there will also be player-generated stories as Nodes rise and fall. That's great story-telling, too.
"Who owns that Castle now? What happened to the previous Monarch?"
Ashes doesn't have an Endgame. Endgame is when you run out of quests/story and you're stuck in a static world with nothing to do except repeat the same dungeons and raids and kill the same bosses over and over and over again.
But Ashes is not a static world.
Verra changes significantly as Nodes rise and fall. As the Verran Seasons change. As the Events system progresses. And as the devs introduce new content quarterly.
Part 2s and DLCs are not new.
Especially now that most UE5 games are releasing new content quarterly via Battlepasses.
Which is one of the main reasons I've returned to playing WoW after 8+ years of being burnt out by the Endgame treadmill.
"Ultimate PvE Goal" is not something that PvEers are seeking as far as I know.
Endgame was just the limitation of devs not being able to create and implement new content at the same pace that gamers could race to the end of the provided content.
4 weeks to reach Endgame and then one to two years (or more) to wait for new content.
It could be writing style but I didn't get the impression it was even considered. The anti-pvp flag went up before the problem was even understood.
No worries, all good. Your playstyle seems very niche and this is in an area that seems pretty polar opposite to your gameplay anyway.
In other news you'll be amazed to hear I scored "100% killer" on this Bartle test. (I was actually.. I'm pretty into the economy side of things too).
47% explorer so we have that.
It is not a full description of a game, it is an initial indicator to attract the right type of player, and inform the wrong type of player that the game is not for them.
If I saw a new MMORPG being advertised that said it was a PvP MMORPG, I know not to suggest it to Dygz, for example. I don't need to know anything more about the game to make that assertion.
Saying an MMORPG is PvX does nothing. It doesn't inform people of anything more than just saying it is an MMORPG. Sure, it tells people there is some PvE - but that is required to be an MMORPG. It also tells people there is some PvP, but that could well just be an arena system.
Your comments in regards to a random non-gamer are irrelevant here. To someone completely unfamiliar with a given sphere, you don't use acronyms, let alone acronyms of sphere specific concepts. To someone new to gaming, you explain the game to them and answer questions - you don't throw acronyms of foreign terms at them and expdct understanding
After a decade of playing Lineage 2, I can safely say it doesn't matter if Steven says 200 times that it's PvX. The moment you're raiding and you get absolutely dumpstered by another party who PKs your healer and then the rest of your party when the Raid Boss you were fighting is on 5% HP (and trust me, it's going to happen a lot), you're going to quickly realize it's a PvP game and PvP friction+alliances/guild wars will dictate 90% of the game. Just because you can safely kill some instanced story bosses, it doesn't make it a PvX game. And by the way, I'd safely bet money that those instances will be completely irrelevant for end game and BIS items. 100% sure they will NEVER allow an instance boss to drop mats for BIS gear unless there's a fight (mass PvP) to get into that instance. It's all about competition and Steven has been telling everyone for years that not everyone can be a winner and how it's all about risk Vs. reward. There's obviously 0 risk in running an instance 40 times until you get what you need. That'd be literally the same as every other boring MMO in the market right now.
Most of Steven's inspiration comes from Lineage 2 and that game could also be considered "PvX" if that's the case, since they also had a few instances... but there was always a war to get into that instance, haha. The moment you're in the Open World (and everything that matters is in the open world, like contesting elites, bosses and even rare materials) you'll quickly realize it's a PvP game. Also, there's no "endgame" in a PvP game. The social aspect and the new conflicts, drama, egos, etc is what will keep the game fresh. That + whatever content they add that will always be contested via PvP
Lineage 2 was a PvP game, Ashes will be no different.
I considered it and immediately disagreed with it because PvPers already get effective bonuses dying while flagged Purple.
My playstyle is no more niche than yours. But if you scored 100% Killer, we pretty much have close to polar opposite playstyles. Especially, we are going to be on the polar opposite ends of interest in PvP.
My interest in killing stuff is not actually 0%, but my Bartle Score reflects my interests closely enough that it should make it easy for people to understand my general playstyle.
100% Killer is what I would expect for your Bartle Score based on your suggestions/additions to the Ashes design - even if it's not an exact reflection of your interests.
I would expect someone who finds the Ashes Corruption system to be too restrictive to have a Bartle Score with 100% - 85% Killer.
I know that you don't consider a game an "rpg" if its only rpgness is in the fact that people play roles, but to me Foxhole is a meowrpg in a ww2-like setting.
As we've discussed this before, I'll believe it when I see it. Servers could completely stagnate because no one is having wars/siegs or cause there's simply not enough people to push and/or work to start them.
And neverending quests will have to be proven as well. I'd assume you're not talking about quests like "my cows are missing - go find my cows and bring them to me" or "I'm a weak old man and I can't cut trees - cut me down some trees". Cause unless Intrepid manage to implement AI-based in-depth quest creation - I doubt we'll have everquesting.
I play Mihoyo games, which, imo, are the best current representation of "live service games". Big updates every 6 weeks and massive updates every 12. With ginormous ones every year. All on top of extra-media content, tons of musical tracks with each patch and a huge plethora of unique minigames with almost every damn patch.
But even all of that gets consumed almost immediately and still requires huge teams to support. Unless Intrepid get to the size of Mihoyo (and their money btw, which they definitely never will) - I will not believe that they can provide everquesting that's more meaningful than "10 bearasses".
If they somehow prove me wrong - cool, I'll be all the better for it. But right now I see no way for them to do so. Though, as the neighboring thread is discussing, AI is getting to a point where designers might use it to do great things way faster. And considering that we're definitely yeaaars away from release - there's a small chance that Intrepid will implement it to get some good never-ending quests.
I'm not OK with large regions of the map auto-flagging for PvP because I'm at 87% Explorer on the Bartle Score with 0% Killer. So, telling me "Just don't go to that area of the map if you don't want to PvP there," means I'm just not going to play that game.
At that time, in 2018, Steven said the difference with Ashes is there are no areas that do not have Corruption.
So... the introduction of the Open Seas is a deal-breaker for my playstyle - but it makes a great deal of sense for Steven's obsession with Risk v Reward.
PvX doesn't tell me much because I like to flag for PvP sometimes. I enjoyed the Sieges in Alpha One. I would probably enjoy defending Caravans. So, theoretically, I could be a PvX enthusiast.
Large, permanent areas of auto-flag, free-for-all, Corruption-free PvP pushes Ashes over to the PvP-centric category for me. Especially when there are no large, permanent areas that are safe from PvP.
Compared to EQ/EQ2/WoW, Ashes is, at best somewhere in-between playing on a PvP-Optional server and a PvP server. The way Steven envisions PvX, there's even more PvP than on a EQ/EQ2/WoW PvP server because I think even on the PvP servers, there are safe zones in the Starting Areas and major cities.
In the early days, Steven used to say that Ashes is not a murderbox - because of Corruption.
I asked Steven which MMORPGs he considers to be a murderbox. He said he didn't know because he tends to stay away from murderbox games.
I scoffed - How can he say that he's staying away from a murderbox game if he can't list any MMORPGs that are a murderbox?? I said EvE is one for me.
He then said EvE could be a murderbox if you choose to go into certain areas, but Ashes doesn't have that.
He also said that Ashes is different than ArcheAge.
Because Ashes does not have any permanent areas that are free from the Corruption mechanic.
So... to me... adding in The Open Seas places Ashes in the same category as EvE and ArcheAge (and Lineage II) - which I think most people agree are PvP MMORPGs.
One could say there are some other PvX MMORPGs, but then I would want a list so I can ascertain whether I would place Ashes in that same category.
The summary takeaway is usually ‘A2 will explain a lot.’ 😆
My Killer % is relatively low (I’m a HIGH explorer), but I want to explore a dangerous world - players are a PART of that world not separate bystanders - and therefore players need to be a potential threat.