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
All we've seen so far has been fairly generic MMORPG fare.
Clearly it's all a broad conspiracy...
You want spoilers?
Or Alpha 2 started only after those area are available?
We will get all biomes gradually. I think we will not even have both continents when Alpha 2 starts.
In my opinion adding layers to a tower like dungeon is almost the cheapest way a developer can add content.
Cheaper than that is to have a central quest hub, you select the mission and you step through a portal or you have a cut-scene flying to the dungeon. Such games are: Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Destiny 2, Warframe ...
I do not deny that a certain type of content can be added by layering vertically.
But that content takes away from exploration. I am not a fan of fast travel or teleportation. Even New World being changed at the outcry of players calling it a walking simulator and asking for mounts made the game worse for me as they increased the number of teleportation points. Having vertical currents, cutscenes or a loading screen is equally bad for me. I don't mind looking to a "Loading..." text but I mind that the walking part through a nice environment is missing. A cutscene showing that nice environment is just a nicer "Loading...".
A better way to add content is to change the map. In GW2 at launch they had a story which was evolving gradually. You would see npc's migrating from a war or dragon attack and having the status of a refugee. Later some bigger event would happen. Lion's Arch, the central hub map had many radical changes. Once as the result of a live direct attack of some story boss, buildings were in ruins for a while, then rebuild differently.
Another issue with layers added to extend dungeons is that those fit for games where the level cap is increased at each expansion. Then the game should be made with a longer leveling phase in mind. For me 45 days is a very short time span. And I don't see the leveling as the intended core experience in AoC.
Finally I was about to say that having a complete new dungeon when the node levels up is also better for alts as they would see something new. If IS will rotate existing content mixing new content into the pool of options is better as sometime I am nostalgic and want the old content again. And of course having the old content with low population is not ok.
So my expectation from IS is that they work hard to keep the world feel live with NPCs, events and environment changes, like ice ages, disasters etc
Imo there's no point in making repetitive actions a chore. Or at least more of a chore than they will already be seen as. That is, probably, partially why NW players hated the running. Cause you would've explored the tiny map really quickly, but the quest/farming/gathering would have you run through the same location over and over and over and OVER again.
This is almost most likely why we'll have location-linked quest events in Ashes, where you can just farm a spot and get random quest-like things along the way.
The risk vs reward can spice thing up. If that is missing then the game is boring anyway.
And my point is, taking a small game world for an MMORPG of 10km² (10,000,000m²) and adding a tower like you are talking about that adds 227,500m² isn't early as effective as adding instancing (which could be 227,500m² * 10), making your world 150km² (150,000,000m²) or making your world 50km³ (50,000,000,000m³).
It is completely different scales we are talking about here.
Could a tower exist? Sure. Is it doing what we are talking about? Not even close.
If you have a better example from EQ that shows an area completely changing in-between quest stages or for any other reason - that would be a good example.
What I'm trying to say here is, you gave an example of "more content in a smaller space" but it simply more content in the same space, so the numbers you give in this comment would not be real. The world wouldn't be that huge, because it would be the same locations multiplied by the variance of the content on them.
I'd prefer if devs put their time towards not only making unique content, but also creating unique spaces for that unique content. You are, seemingly, proposing creation of unique content in not-so unique spaces. And imo, in the context of travel times and it being fun or boring, unique spaces are what's more important than the content.
Different content in the same place is still different content.
How is it any different to a tower that uses the same textures throughout?
I mean, when I go in to a piece of content, I am not fighting the wall or the roof. I'm fighting the mobs. The zone in question here had a skeleton boss, an octopus boss, a dragon boss and a giant boss between the four versions I showed you. That is four distinct and different pieces of content as far as I am concerned.
See, im not proposing anything.
I am stating universal facts.
It is a fact that a game with a small world can't have as much content as a game with a large world can have, unless the game with the smaller world uses instancing.
No proposals, no nothing. Just that basic fact.
As I said, in the context of travel times and caring about them feeling bad - to me, unique locations make traveling feel better, and the final content has no impact on my traveling.
Ok
I don't agree with the idea that travel is a punishment. If you get killed and you want to get back to a place in a specific time for a specific purpose, and the travel time prevents you from achieving that purpose, then yes that can be considered punishment.
But travel is also a way of having a lot of fun, exploring the map, discovering little-known areas, meeting players, looting one or two interesting items, understanding the map's terrain etc...
Still, I understand your concern, which is why I think the best solution would be to have a few strategic teleportation zones called for example Divine Zones or whatever. These zones would be accessible via a skill reserved for High Priests, enabling them to register a single Divine Zone after completing a quest.
Skill: Fast Travel reserved for the High Priest
Description: The caster can teleport himself or his group to one of the 12 Divine Zones in the game. The number of divine zones registered is limited to 1. A change involves tasks in addition to walking to the divine zone you wish to register.
Level 1: The High Priest can teleport to an unlocked Divine zone (randomly appearing in the zone to avoid creating precise teleportation points that are harmful to PvP).
Level 2: The High Priest can teleport his group to a Divine zone (random appearance as for level 1, to avoid rapid regrouping).
Note: He must have only a few Divine zones to avoid a festival of fast travel. At the same time, the High Priest can do business in the divine zone he has chosen by teleporting players.
Especially after 7 years for a game that was supposed to launch 4.5 years ago.
PvP should be icing on an already good cake.
Even though PvP is the cheapest way to obtain the risk vs reward feeling and AoC is relying on it extensively, that is not necessarily the only way.
Probably IS will not alter their their design but assuming they can do some changes (because everything is subject to change) would you like a game-play with NPCs which trigger a "risk vs reward" feeling? I guess you wouldn't.
Anyway, even without risk vs reward, I prefer to walk to a place than fast travel to that place. That is my preference and I know and said it before that we will actually travel quite fast in AoC. Only resources and materials will travel slowly. We will not be able to cheat and avoid the caravan system where it is intended.
That's basically all I meant from that comment. When you die you need to run back to your body, typically the minimum punishment for most games on death.
This thread is not about travelling for new explorations, its about the repetitive travel back and forth along the same trails over and over during both the levelling and post levelling experience. It can get tedious after a while. The whole reason games like WOW migrated to queued dungeon teleports is because the players didn't want to be spending most of their game time travelling and trying to make groups rather than actually just playing the game. Especially after doing it for the 5th time.
By the time the game launches, most of the Alpha 2 people will have explored half of Verra, so if exploration is their primary motive for playing, they will be lucky to get their 6 months worth before they aren't going anywhere "new" on a regular basis. All that will be left is how good the game feels to play in a regular session.
The PVP aspect does help this a bit. For example, you can spend 10 minutes running across a map in Rust, and be on the edge of your seat the entire time because of PVP or even the potential for PVP. This is a big reason for why Ashes has to have PVP in their PVX game play, because otherwise this stuff gets too boring and predictable.
Quests should have some interesting stuff to do. It's nice when Quests also have rewards.
Danger can be interesting.
PvP can sometimes be interesting, too.
Whether I want to slow travel or fast travel depends on why I'm traveling. If the devs or content creators are jumping in to socialize for an hour, I'm going to want to Fast Travel.
If I'm exploring on the otherside of the world and I learn that the City I helped build is suffering a severe storm or monster horde attack and is in danger of being heavily damaged, I'm going to want to fast travel.
Which is OK for PvE content, but would be problematic for PvP content.
Originally, Corpse Run was a punishment because other players could loot your corpse if you didn't make it back. Also, traditionally, you would be naked and very vulnerable to attacks.
Ashes is a dynamic world, rather than a static world, so... the 6th time traveling the same path should be significantly different than the 2nd and 4th times.
If the Nodes system fails, true. A few different systems would have to fail for that to be true.
Helps for those who enjoy PvP. True.
The only reason why Ashes has to have PvP is because Steven loves PvP.
Rust is not an RPG.
Can they create more interesting quests than other mmorpgs?