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
An MMORPG's "story" and the "main quest line" are not inherently the same thing
Yes, killing the Lich King was technically the end of that portion of the story (a story that started in Warcraft 3), but doing so was not a part of the main quest line.
It was what I was talking about earlier - post main quest line content.
This whole line of thinking you have here is incorrect - it is built on a foundation that isn't true, and has lead you to an assumption that isn't true.
In deep ocean, if flagging would be enabled, a pirate ship which sees 3 far away ships around it, would have to approach one randomly. That might end up as a non-combatant ship and the pirate might never catch up with the other two.
Having no flagging ensures that any choice can lead to battle.
The problem I see with immunity is that players on water mounts can act as invulnerable scouts to find out if there are other ships around and maintain a large distance from other ship.
How will flagging work for ships in coastal waters?
Somehow I don't see it fit for vehicles. Caravans and it's defenders are also in always PvP mode.
People who play MMOs for story, are not reliable customers to pay monthly subscription.
They'll try to speedrun.
Story can even be watched on youtube or twitch.
Those who pay regularly, I think they do because they like the combat and leveling.
But even that, is more fun when a new game is released or gets an expansion, so players just move between them and speedrun.
Ashes will have The Others and The Ancients. And unless we wipe them all out at the release of the game - their story will probably be the main throughline of the game. And depending on how deep Steven wants to take that story, there might be several huge names who we defeat over several expansions, after which a good chunk of story players (if there are any of them) might leave.
There'll be other quests and some of those bosses might not even be a direct part of the "main quest", but if we get a list of names of the "main antagonists" (which Ancients/Others are) - once we're done with them, that's gonna be the end of the main story for me.
I'm sure Intrepid will try adding new antagonists or find other way to somehow continue that story, but the initial main evil will be defeated, so what comes after will simply be a different story which will have to either hook people in again or attract a completely new playerbase to appeal to (something Mihoyo have just done with their Honkai Impact 3rd game).
Our views on this topic are simply different, as our views usually are
Your view here seems to suggest that you now think Ashes is an inherently different game to what you thought it was last week.
The game you are talking about now simply isn't compatible with the open world, PvP core that is Ashes.
I honestly have no idea how you convinced yourself that you are correct here.
Star Rail is the same and is also making insane money.
Yeah, sure, whales contribute a good chunk of that, but considering that getting a full char only costs a few thousand - you'd either need thousands of those whales or simply an equal distribution of expenditures by normies. And even if it was all simply whales - the characters that make the most money are the ones that are hyped by the story.
If Ashes has an interesting story and is releasing updates as often as they want to - I'm sure there'll be a fair number of people that stay subbed for that.
Yeah, they will exist - but not how you seem to be looking at them.
Nothing about them will be ultimate - people won't be playing Ashes for the story. Most people playing Ashes won't even know there is a story - because there is no real way for the developers to craft a cohesive story in a way that people willing to play an MMORPG for the story will find acceptable.
People that play games for the story absolutely do play games like EQ, EQ2, ESO, WoW, and probably the FF games. Notice what these games all have in common that Ashes doesn't?
If Steven attempts to put any resources that he has at hand in to trying to attract people that play MMORPG's for the story, then everyone on these forums should be really concerned.
Sure, the game will *have* a story. That will be about the end of it. 95% of the peop[le playing the game won't know anything at all about the story - most won't even be aware that a story exists.
There is nothing at all that is "ultimate" about what you are talking about.
I have already said, if there's no one who cares about the story - ok. If there are, and those instanced dungeons contain said story and are easy enough to clear as long as you have a group to do it with (just as wow/ff14's basic dungeons do) - there will be people like me who view that story as the ultimate pve goal in the game.
It definitely won't be you or Azherae or Dygz or, I'd bet, anyone currently on this forum.
So, I was right in that there was a word wrong in your statement, it was just a different word to what I thought.
Where you are saying "the ultimate PvE goal", you should be saying "my ultimate PvE goal", or "our ultimate PvE goal".
This shifts your statement from one that is making an objective claim that is false, to that of a subjective claim that no one else cares about. You even state that this goal of yours wouldn't be the goal for other people, which means you know it can not be "the" ultimate goal, it can only be "your" ultimate goal.
The part of what you have said now that you should reconsider is that you are catagorising games based on the parts of the game you apply importance to, rather than to the game as a whole.
... ... ... and in the end, all of you " WILL " obey and buy into it anyway ... ... ...
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
True. As a general rule, ignore everything Asmon says about MMOs. He's only ever played WoW/FF or games that are mostly PvE focused and this is a guy who hates the idea of dying even while playing PoE. He despises anything that isn't something he can control and he will 100% despise AoC the moment he gets dropped. He will talk about how "to me it's a silly idea when you allow griefers to do whatever you want in your game, it just doesn't make any sense to me" and his army of absolute brainlets will parrot how AoC is a "gankfest" cause their leader has WoW brain and cannot comprehend the idea of fighting to earn something instead of just picking it up or just repeating the same activity 50 times with 0 risk until he gets what he wants. Someone not letting you loot something valuable, making you fight for it? "GRIEFING!". Someone not letting you farm in the best spot and making you fight for it? "GRIEFING!" . Someone not letting you kill the Raid Boss cause they want it for their party? "GRIEFING!"
Reminder that Asmon thinks MMOs should have "Elden Ring" combat (Imagine mass PvP with combat like that, he's absolutely clueless), and that "PvP players are trash who only PvP in MMOs because they can't win in any other game" and that PvP in MMOs is a terrible idea (even though, once again, he never played a single PvP MMO in his life). He's the first to criticize animations, style, graphics, VFX while he plays an MMO that looks like N64's Ocarina of Time with some AA and a higher resolution.
And even a ton of people who play WoW, completely disagree with him, even with his WoW takes. So whatever Asmon says about MMOs, Intrepid needs to do the exact opposite.
I generalized my position based on my conclusions. They can be wrong, but w/o concrete info I wouldn't know for sure. If you have some data to concretely prove your argument - I'd be glad to see it. Cause so far you've simply said that you disagree with the position that a lot of people play games for the story and story only.
I mean... I do.
Don't take my word for it though, go out and actually talk to people that left during Cataclysm. They will usually be happy to tell you the reason they left, and that reason will almost never be because of the games story.
In my years playing MMORPG's, i have known exactly three people that played *for* the story. I've known many others that follow the story, but only those three that are in the game for the story.
Yes, you do.
All of You do.
I myself am even doing the same thing to a certain Degree. (lol)
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
The story part of a game is more true that you know. FF14 in particular has amazing story the deeper you get in to it.
A game can have deep fun engaging endgame. But to get hooked enough on the game to keep up with grind after grind every tier release, the game needs to have a good story for a player to get pulled in to.
Otherwise its just another game of once a week raidlogging on reset day.
And even then, when a game like ff14 has so many addons added to where the endgame is becoming trivialized low effort follow what the addon says to do and where to stand game play, then even the story itself doesnt matter too much.
In the end, the game needs both great story, depth, as well as engaging gameplay to be something players will stick with long term.
Usually in other games.
Most of the ones I talked to about it were people I was playing games with before WoW even released.
As I have always been interested in the design of games I play and enjoy, I've always been interested in talking to people about them. As such, I have a large group of friends - some whom I currently play with but most who now play different games - that I often just chat with about games and their design, and who in turn talk to the people they are currently playing with about game design.
I don't have a single community where ex-WoW players all hang out (that sounds like Asmon chat to me), I just have many, many people I talk to.
And that is also why most of my info comes through aggregated info from streams/videos filtered through surface-lvl googling to check if that info is completely fake or not.
And after that filter and googling I came to the conclusion that I came to. Could be wrong or skewed or limited or whatever. I mostly look to Asmon when it comes to wow info because he has played it his entire life, just as I did L2. And when I see him say something and then see a good chunk of chat reply in some way - I take that statement as smth that a wow player, who HAS in fact talked to thousands of players of that game, believes (+the agreement or disagreement of the chat on top of that, all of whom did the same as Asmon).
You're a hardcore pver, who has played with hardcore pvers, who somewhat likely have also played with the same type of players. So your bubble is similar to mine, just from a different side and definitely larger in scope. Asmon was hardcore pver for a while, but turned into casual, who knows all the game's lore and has good memory about the game's past events. His chat is a collection of people of all types, who don't always agree with his views.
So the rare few times that I do catch a wow video reaction of his or just hear him talk about smth in the context of wow - the overall process, to me, seems like a fairly nice way to get a pulse on what wow players of different involvement think about the game (now or of the past).
And as I keep saying, after having heard stuff on his stream and/or videos of other people that were on that stream and seeing the reaction from the chat and seeing the near-immediate drop of subs in cata - I came to a conclusion that "people left after WotLK cause the overall story of warcraft was done" is a logical thing to think.
And using that conclusion, the next thought step of "if people left cause the story was done, it seems kinda logical that to them the story was the most important part" was also a fairly easy one.
I then compared that assumption with what I've seen from countless streamers/videos/comments about Mihoyo games, and that thought process became even more logical to me.
If you disagree with that logic due to your own aggregated research on the topic - cool. The only way for me to know who is factually correct between the two of us, would be to somehow poll the millions of people who left wow during cata and see the results. Otherwise it's simply small scale anecdotes from respective bubbles (Asmon's chat being the same of course).
Sort of.
Most of the people I know that play MMO's have been too end PvE players.
Have been.
While those in my guild still are, most of the people that I talk to that used to be in the same guild as me are no longer in the same guild as me because they wanted to take a step back from being at the top end.
As such, I talk to more people playing MMO's casually than I do those playing at the top end (although I talk more with those at the top end due to being in a current guild with them).
This is why my opinion on things is often specifically not that of a top end PvE player. It is rarely the opinion of a top end PvP player, but I look at things from the perspective of a casual player as much as I look at it from my own perspective.
You know quite well that I am not one to try and convince others that my perspective is right - I'll argue my perspective, but at the end of the day the person needs to come to their own conclusion. That is why I am happy to tell you why I have the opinion on people playing games for the story that I have, but rather than feed you the information I have, I have simply suggested you talk to more people about it. Not people on a stream like Asmon - streamers and their chat don't talk about things in any sort of truthful way - it is literally the worst source of information you could imagine.
This thread even has a number of people saying that Cataclysm was just a shit expansion in general - so feel free to start there.
I don't know about those games.
So you will play AoC for the story? And then once you finished it you go back to Genshin which rolls out story faster?
I see other possibilities too.
- some players want just the progression of their character, to put those points to some attributes. PvE combat, going and collecting the XP and those drops can offer that. At the very end, the difficult PvE combat could provide the fun, as a challenge to defeat.
- AoC was described as a themebox to suggest that is a sandbox with some story elements which will create the story of your character, like an emergent narrative based on player decision and external factors. That gives replay value to the game. Each alts will have a different story.
- in games which are sandbox, story is just general lore. The character story is whatever the player can do, and many players have indeed limited creativity, yet they become "content creators" on youtube by having funny faces and doing reaction videos
But yes, I will be playing both, Ashes and all of the mihoyo games
And I was enticed by the Meaningful Conflict of Sieges and Caravan PvP; rather than Steven's recent obsession with Risk v Reward.
The better question would be. "Why do you find PvE MMOs boring as hell?"
It's a matter of playstyles preferences and who the target audience is.
When Jeffrey Bard was Lead Game Designer, the target aidience seemed to include more diverse playstyles.
AFter Steven took the reigns as Acting Lead Game Designer, it became clear that Steven is primarily designing Ashes just for his own preferred playstyle.
I have plenty of enjoyable memories I cherish from playing PvE.
PvP gives me memories of playing with assholes. Which are not really the kinds of memories I seek.
I would say that Defending Sieges with other players is much better than repeating Raids ad nauseum for Gear.
The addition of non-consensual PvP with The Open Seas makes all of the above moot and Ashes a game that I really have no interest in playing - other than socially hanging out with friends I've already made in the Forums.
But, it was after Cataclysm ended that I realized I was burnt out of the Endgame treadmill, where you reach the end of that story and then are stuck waiting 2 years for the next expansion. I had no interest in playing Mists of Pandaria or any other expansion before Shadowlands.
I played Neverwinter Online next. Hit Endgame and then realized I was pretty much done with MMORPGs.
A week later, EQNext was revealed and it seemed as though their version of Nodes would put an end to Endgame.
It's because Nodes seems to me to be a lite version of Storybricks that I chose to support the Ashes of Creation development.
Currently, my favorite WoW expansions are:
1: Dragonflight
2: Cataclysm
3: Shadowlands
Caravans have a PvP invite bubble.
Players within that bubble choose to Defend/Attack/Ignore the PvP associated with Caravans.
Which means I can travel alongside a Caravan and remain a Non-Combatant or I can choose to flag Purple.
It's not possible to travel the Open Seas as a Non-Combatant.
Let's see how we will travel alongside a ship with a water mount and what combat spells we can use.
Incredibly easy question to answer. It's static content. It's repetitive, if you have the time and most people who game do, it's absolutely riskless. It's a participation reward. Why the F do I want something if everybody can have it? Where's my motivation? I wouldn't EVER bother to raid unless I knew not everybody will be able to have whatever that RB drops. What's the point if everybody can? It's literally doing the same 100 times over until you get it. Yawn.
PvP + friction + diplomacy is ever changing, wild, impossible to predict and always leads to fun times if you have the willingness to throw yourself into the fire. It's not even a comparison. This is why Lineage 2 had garbage updates and the game still survived for an entire decade just because the social systems were pretty good and everything was setup for a ton of drama, fights, diplomacy, backstabbing, spying, etc. PvE MMOs will never EVER give you that.