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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.
The other platforms...
Daranix
Member
Hello fellow AoC enthusiasts,
many people call for other platforms to be added yet there is a good solution to please them all without sacrificing too much effort. I am talking about Geforce NOW. It was WRONGLY said many times before that GFN needs a 3rd party launcher (such as Steam) to run a game, but that is simply not true and Guild Wars 2 is the living example of that. GFN is launching GW2 using their own, self published launcher without every touching Steam at all.
Intrepid please, I beg of you, do not force us to buy 2-3k$ PC only to play one game while we can play all the other happily in the cloud.
It saves us money on electricity bills, it can be used on pretty much every single device and it is not as hard to port to it as to any other platform.
Please...
many people call for other platforms to be added yet there is a good solution to please them all without sacrificing too much effort. I am talking about Geforce NOW. It was WRONGLY said many times before that GFN needs a 3rd party launcher (such as Steam) to run a game, but that is simply not true and Guild Wars 2 is the living example of that. GFN is launching GW2 using their own, self published launcher without every touching Steam at all.
Intrepid please, I beg of you, do not force us to buy 2-3k$ PC only to play one game while we can play all the other happily in the cloud.
It saves us money on electricity bills, it can be used on pretty much every single device and it is not as hard to port to it as to any other platform.
Please...
4
Comments
As far as I know sometimes GFN even pays devs to add their game because they need their library to grow. You've said it exactly as it is - little to no downside for all parties.
+ Unreal 5 will probably be a 5 year old engine on release.
+ Very roughly spoken, 4060s will be around 200€, 4070s will be under 300€, 4080s might be under 800? Maybe there'll be some AI crisis and you'll have to wait a year, but that's about it.
+ You'll get away with a decently built ~1k€ mid-range PC and a decent internet connection, and even high performance won't necessarily cost you 1.5k, if you're willing to make any concessions at all (and if you aren't, GeForce NOW won't fix your issues either...)
I agree with the suggestion, but most people who can afford GeForce NOW (110-265€ / year) can probably technically afford upgrading their home computer.
And I say that as someone who rents his bike. (Repairs are expensive if you use it a lot, and a subscription to a repair shop that can't rip you off because the bike is theirs is kind of a lifehack. At least if you can't do your own repairs, and you're riding entry-level bikes that cost less than their repairs over time.)
Going with their Ultimate plan (I game at 4K), the monthly GFN sub cost equates to roughly 50 hours of the cost of the electricity used gaming on my PC when I am taxing the system, like I would be with Ashes. The PC still uses power with GFN obviously, so let's double it to 100 hours of gaming. For Ashes, that's probably going to be around what I play in 10 days. That still leaves around 200 hours of savings on electricity cost per month. And in the summertime, I don't get a constant 600W of hot air dumped into my room from the PC.
Every use-case is different obviously, but for me, I wouldn't be losing money using GFN, I would actually be saving some, and in the summer I'd be sweating less. Compared to my own system, I might get slightly worse ping, and probably slightly worse image quality, however, so it would have to be down to a trial test for me if the game comes to GFN.
Not exactly. They limit their session length to 6 or 8 hours depending on the sub, but you can start a new session right away after. So, a little annoying if you don't time it right, but that's the extent of it.
edit: so they have a 1 hour session length for free. does that mean I can start a new session every 55 mins and play for free forever any games?
Awww man, reminds me of back in the day when I was trying to play MMOs on a Dial-Up that had a 2hr cut-off.
You'd spend 35mins loading into a dungeon, only to find that you were right near your cut-off, and get kicked out and have to spend another 35mins loading back in again in your new session. That was painful.
This is absolutely correct. Now imagine playing on something like a Macbook, or a Mac mini, that thing consumes close to no energy at all. With that the money saving are insane considering how much time I am planning on investing into Ashes if I can get my hands on it.
I know all that, yet it is still not worth it to get a PC only to play one game, while you have library on every device, including a TV, which you can play pretty much anywhere in the world AND save money with that.
The free option has a queue and at peak times it can be long, so don't expect it to be reliable.
On topic - this was actually my question this month for the Q&A if they could consider GeForce now.
For a comparable £1500-2000 PC, Geforce Now, undiscounted, is £200 per year (£100 per 6 months) for ultimate. Obviously with a PC you get the benefit of having a workstation and browser etc. so you lose that functionality - but you could accomplish that with a cheap workstation and have GeForceNow just for gaming. I think if you could have a competitive gaming rig for 5-10 years at a comparable cost of a permanent one (at which point people might usually look to upgrade) - then it's honestly not all that bad.
I will also note that right now I can get 6 months of ultimate at half price for £50. I believe (someone correct me if i'm wrong) - if they have sales through the year, it might be possible to extend though I think I read about some tweaking between different tiers. Might only be for new members but 6 months for £50 for a high end PC is pretty nuts.
Pros from Intrepid's perspective:
Accessibility. This is the biggest win for me. It just allows more players to access the game. So...
More players.
GeforceNow is anti-mod generally, so that is inline with Intrepid's goals with Ashes.
Cons
Are there any? Are there costs/implications with getting signed up? I wouldn't know. But surely if you open up the game to people who don't currently have a good PC, then these people who otherwise might not sub for the game might consider it.
Pros from a player's perspective:
You get a competitive rig without a high upfront price.
You only need to commit as long as you are happy to. Monthly, or 6 month intervals.
You can run GeForceNow on pretty much any device with a decent internet connection (wired recommended).
Cons:
Latency could be a concern (which for a competitive pvp game is important) - just a consideration based on your own home setup.
You are only renting a PC - it's not a massive con but it's just worth noting.
In short, given Intrepid aren't restricted by a Publisher, I can't see a reason why they would be opposed to it. I'm not saying it will exponentially increase player numbers but it's just a win win to me.