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
This is AoC not L2 though and they already have pvp areas ie sea, ruins. So you just look at the potential pattern. Obviously it doesn't mean its for sure but it really wouldn't be surprising.
I don't see it as a murder box though everyone has their own context for their definition. Simply just because its pvp most likely isn't viewed as a murder box because pvp is wanted in the game. Murder box would be more akin to shadowbane where at every point in the world you can be ganked without limit.
When it comes to entering pvp areas (that are limited ie small potions of the map), Guild / node wars for OWpvp. Those are more on the side of viewed as meaningful conflict than just people being randomly pk for no reason.
Open seas will be a murder box sure, but the gameplay loop is different for that and more on the extreme side of risk. Doesn't meant everyone will attack everyone since reputation will be a thing you carry back to land. I'm all for the sea changes because it adds more interesting gameplay loops to the game. Everything being static and the same is kind of boring, and you being a pvper i see no reason for you to say you don't like the change.
Most content people do is going to be on the land I'm sure anyway. Most likely like 95% of your time if not more will simply just be on land for general players.
When I say stomach I mean as in the opens seas not being worth exploring and it just being a boring area compared to other places in the game. So you feel like you aren't really missing out on too much with that content. I don't mean accepting the pvp and struggling past it.
My term is “too PvP-centric for me”.
Naval combat similar to ArcheAge is a hard cut-off.
After Kickstarter, Steven would say, “Ashes is not going to be a murderbox.”
When I asked him to name some MMORPGs that are a murderbox, he said he couldn’t because he doesn’t play games like that.
I asked him how he knows Ashes won’t be a murderbox if he can’t even name any.
Then he said L2 could sometimes be a murderbox, Corruption should fix that because it’s harsher than Karma.
I then told him that EvE and ArcheAge are murderboxes to me.
He said, “But only if you go into the high PvP zones, right?”
I replied, “I don’t know. I don’t play those games because they are too PvP-centric for me.”
Steven said, “Oh. Well…Ashes will be different because Ashes does not have any zoned PvP. It just has the one Corruption flagging system across the entire map.”
So, again, it doesn’t really matter what the label is.
Ashes just now has a ruleset I don’t want to play. Because I don’t want to be flagged for free-for-all PvP when I’m not in the mood for free-for-all PvP.
And, too much of the map is auto-consent PvP just for logging in or just for entering the zone.
And that is not a ruleset I condone for RPGs.
Any part of the map is worth exploring.
There are no boring parts of a map if I haven’t been there yet.
Especially not a UE5 map.
If the sea is flat and generic and not really interesting or much to do id say you have less fun exploring that compared to land with things to do on it? Like if you see a small part of the sea you pretty much have seen everything.
And Ashes has underwater content.
Which means it’s either going to be interesting because it’s a spot on The Seas where I can submerge and explore underwater or it’s going to be interesting because it’s a spot on The Seas where I can’t submerge beneath the surface of the water.
“If you see a small part of the sea, you have pretty much seen everything” is not an actual thing.
Hell, do we even still have underwater swimming? It's been years since they've shown it, right?
It makes sense to say so because that is what Eve was doing and probably Dune: Awakening will do too in the deep desert.
They copy each-other.
But Steven will still have the Alpha 2 and hear the voices of many players and streamers.
The rewards from the mega catacombs would be closer to a PvE experience.
And there are no pure PvP rewards in AoC, like drops generated by the game because we fight each-other. GW2 has such rewards. If you stay on the WvW map, you get drops as if you would participate in the PvE events on those maps.
Player vs Player vs NPC boss, if Steven presents it as PvX, I cannot put it into a pure PvP category. But the area is PvP and if he promised PvE dungeons which only 1% of players can defeat, I think those should provide equivalent drops as the open seas.
Archeage had an ocean that was somewhat worth exploring.
Perhaps more under the ocean than on top, but both were still worth it.
Exploration can be done with faster moving mounts which have small inventory space and attack capabilities.
And using stealth.
The big complains come when resources are being collected and lost. PvE gatherers do not want only to explore but to gather as well and chill. AFK fishing in the deep ocean maybe.
I mean, underwater content isn't something new, it's been done in many games, in many different ways.
They could go the GW2 route where everything is different, or they could go the Archeage route where everything is basically the same other than things like falling and movement speed.
It is an interesting question in regards to which decision they opt for - but they will not be inventing something new with this.
Yes, in one of the interviews Steven mentioned 3D combat, where players must be aware of positioning above and below. It was not explicit to water but as we have no flying mounts, only in water can that happen.
How many years Alpha 2 will last?
We have gliders.
If Intrepid take the basic intend that XL had with gliders in Archeage but actually execute it properly, gliders will be an ever present consideration.
Also, the corrent plan is for there to be up to 6 flying mounts on the defenders side of a castle siege.
Open seas will potentially have the highest possible rewards in the game. The "<10% pve" was not in the context of instances, but just encounters, so we don't truly know if he was talking about pure pve difficulty or just "you'll need to fight both, people and the mob."
Putting highest rewards in the game into an instanced dungeon would defeat the whole premise of the game, even if the dungeon is super hard.
I would definitely prefer if the seas didn't have best rewards, but w/o any concrete info about them it's difficult to say what will even happen at sea, cause if all those rewards are underwater and then there's no combat pvp underwater - it wouldn't be that big of a problem.
The underwater POIs where players are supposed to fight NPCs should be similar to land NPCs in regard to impact onto the nodes. It is a player activity which makes sense to contribute to the growth of a node.
That means the underwater part will be in the coastal waters, in the ZoI of coastal nodes.
The deep ocean ZoI is outside of Node Zoi and if there are NPCs to fight, those are supposed to have valuable drops. I doubt that those will have underwater villages with lore to attract explorers. I will discourage such choices if they ask us. Lore should be on Node ZoI areas.
I'd need to hear that quote to understand what he was referencing, but I'd imagine that this can apply to terrain and elevation (castle/node walls included).
Any reward that doesn't come from instanced PvE is PvP by default. Regardless of the activity, if you need to be prepared and aware of PvP, then it is PvP content.
I don't see the gliders having a big impact onto combat.
Maybe some expansion will bring more air mounts later and with more fighting capabilities.
If the attackers have no flying dragons, then the defends will look always down onto the surface.
Not much 3d complexity.
But because I am familiar with GW2 underwater combat, the way Steven used a few words, it suggested that kind of experience.
The way player feel that encounter and player skill used should define if that is PvP, PvE or PvX.
I can distinguish between area type and content type in that area and the AoC label as a whole.
That depends.
Gliders in Archeage had a variety of attacks built in to the glider itself. Basically the equivlent of guns and bombs in terms of function. They sucked in Archeage and so were almost never used.
If we assume Intrepid take this idea and make it worth using, it means any time you are fighting in an area where there are hills nearby (nearby could mean within 5 minutes horse riding), there is potential that your rivals may send people in on gliders to essentially drop bombs on your rear.
There are risks in doing this, obviously, and there are absolutely counters if this is something people do - but all of that sounds to me like needing to be aware of the battlefield in a 3D environment.
This whole thing depends on if Intrepid intend gliders to be able to be used in this manner or not. If they intend for that to happen, it is fairly easy for them to do. Neither of us know if this is their intention or not, so we can't say whether this is likely to happen or not.
What we do know is that Steven has said he wants players to be aware of 3 dimensions in combat, and we know gliders will be the most common means for players to have access to the third dimension - but we again do not know if these two things are connected or not.
And I plan to only gain whatever xp comes from exploring, so... we'll have to see if that's enough to boost Stealth sufficiently.
And we'll have to see if there are Mounts that have Stealth.
Um. I mean... there is lore just by having water or land to travel across.
It's common for me to spend hours of one, individual, play session just swimming around continents as far as possible... without ever encountering a village.
And I repeat that on most of my alts even when I already know what is or isn't there.
If you use only your PvE knowledge and skills to defeat other players and mobs... it has to be PvX.
If you come prepared for PvP but you become aware that there are no other players in the area, then is just a more challenging PvE.
Passages toward the underground Toulnar realm could have more vertical terrain where gliders could be useful. Ideally players should be able to target upwards too, toward gliders above them.
I think in a recent stream Steven said that mounted combat or combat pets are less likely during Alpha 2.
Underwater dungeons were promised too.
I like peanut butter
I love jelly
I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
But, when I want to eat a jelly sandwich, any trace of peanut butter mixed in utterly ruins that experience.
Also, when I want to eat toast with butter and jelly, any trace of peanut butter mixed in utterly ruins that experience.
I would not be particularly happy if my parents just bought a bottle of peanut butter and jelly and I had no access to a bottle of jelly. That is not something I'm interested in experiencing. Thankfully, I've never had to.
My brother, who is two years older than I am, decided when he was 11 that it was META if, when he made PB&J, he just stuck the knife with PB on it into the jar of jelly without cleaning it first.
Which meant when I made jelly sandwiches, there would be traces of peanut butter in it.
And when I made toast with butter and jelly, there would be traces of peanut butter in it.
Because my asshole brother decided that because he's OK with that, the rest of the family should be OK with that, too.
I like PB&J sometimes. But most of the time I just want jelly without peanut butter. And I need to be the one who decides when I have peanut butter mixed with jelly or even just peanut butter. Rather than a sibling randomly deciding that for me.
So... effectively, I'm likely to perceive traces of PvP mixed in with PvE at least as low key, frustratingly too much PvP.
When Steven mentioned that the Inventory bags are designed such that when you leave town to go Gather Resources you should be thinking about Economic Warfare, that reinforced for me that I'm not part of the target audience. Because I do not want to have to think about pvp Economic Warfare just because I want to Gather some flowers or herbs.
All that being said...
I think that's great for the gamers who love Risk v Reward as much as Steven does.
I'm totally stoked there will be an MMORPG that caters to that playstyle.