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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.
Ashes will be too ungrounded and NPCs will be too lackluster
PherPhur
Member
Too much sand and sand manipulating toys, not enough props.
I've read much of the wiki and watched countless previews, but there's always been something I felt like was missing or was going to be missing from the game. Something always seemed.. off.
I'd read through the wiki and get so hyped, the game is so well thought out with so many great ideas, so many. It's made by a publicly funded studio headed by an MMO vet who is ready to be patient in development, they take player feedback, the games got no pay to win, no box cost, only sub and cosmetic MTX, how could you not be hyped(genuine question, some people got dropped on their head as a child I'm sure of it, bless their hearts).
But still, something seemed off. I could put what I thought it was into words sometimes, things that have gotten worked on over time like the combat or the seriousness of attention towards and against RMT. But even then it still persisted, I was able to just speak about some issues I could see, but whatever this was I couldn't put my finger on.
So I pretty much just stopped bringing anything up because it's hard to tell if I'm being overly critical when this mysterious issue seems to be obfuscating my view.
Anyways, today I was watching Xillin and Virteks new video about PvE lacking in the game and it got me thinking about this issue, something I personally also think is an issue. I got to thinking you know... what specifically do people think is missing regarding PvE, this umbrella term that encompasses so many aspects of an RPG?
I'm not sure, but It got me to thinking what is missing for me, it's more than just PvE, but it comes back to the PvE. It's that the games too ungrounded, everything is too variable, the game(creating it in my mind from the wiki) will have no vibe. One day you log in and things are one way and then another day you log in and the storyline is different and cities are moved around.
There will be hardly any real notable factions or characters and only a couple static cities(which I don't expect will be very involved). The notable characters that does exist will die and it appears that some won't even respawn(the supposedly major story arch character that initially guards a castle right when the servers are started).
I get it, there is this vision of Ashes that the worlds super dynamic with interdependent systems, which is great, but it's still lacking something, a vibe. That feeling where I step into the game and I feel like I'm stepping into a different world. Yes, visuals do play a part in that, in both style(This has been widely criticized about this game, that it lacks style and it's absolutely true. That's completely fine, unless you have the issue we're talking about and can't fix it) and environmental story telling, but that's not enough IMO.
It needs some substance, some props in the world, some involved relevant static cities, some fun, engaging ELABORATE major storyline arcs(we're told right now most storyline arcs will by the repeatable dynamic sandbox minor arcs). It needs some notable friendly characters that stand out and have character.
And it would do well to have faction NPCs that play a part in the world. Some NPCs that interact with the players and environment and systems. Such as a previously neutral scavenger NPC faction you can temporarily align with by a mayoral commision(an offering to them that also acts like a citizen vote), allowing them to reside in the area and to harvest some your nodes resources for the added benefit of becoming hostile to any non-citizen who gathers resources in your nodes sphere of influence. Permitting them to harvest even more than that will do the same thing except it triple the leashing range and/or aggro radius when they become hostile.(an option for mayor with the commision, or make it dependant on the size of the offering players are able to come up with)
If your mayor doesn't decide to post the commission and align with them, and you have particular gatherables they like, they might come to your node at night and harvest stuff which will further deplete your available resources(immediate loss, but also an increase risk of overharvesting and messing up land management).
I know they want the players to be the content, and they will, especially with the help of all these systems, but players are too dynamic to act any considerable vibe to the world. There's no reason that strong and important themepark elements can't exist in the game without compromising hardly any of the vision Stephen has for the game as it stands. Actually, like the example I gave, it can just add to it in some circumstances.
And in fact we were told this was suppose to be a SandPark, but as it stands it is not, it's 95% a sandbox. They're trying to be that next gen MMO and really bring some unique or improved systems to the table, I'd like to see them do it in this regard as well.
Instead they're talking like NPCs are added to just do things like facilitate basic systems(like a currency converter or a merchant.. wow a merchant), be a body guard, and to make the world feel less empty... that ain't gonna cut it, I'm sorry but I think that's misguided, a bad design decision, unnecessarily basic and potentially extremely damaging.
This is suppose to be a long lasting next gen MMORPG, that means people are gonna need to want to come back many times and spend a long time here, a lot of that time doing slower repetitive tasks, okay that's an MMORPG for ya, nothing wrong there.
Of course the game needs to be fun, but I think a large and underacknowledged part of why MMORPG players will stay on one for such a long time is that vibe that they like or grow to like and become so familiar with which gives them a "home in another world" feeling. I am absolutely undoubtedly sure that is a major major aspect of most long term MMORPG enjoyers.
I've read much of the wiki and watched countless previews, but there's always been something I felt like was missing or was going to be missing from the game. Something always seemed.. off.
I'd read through the wiki and get so hyped, the game is so well thought out with so many great ideas, so many. It's made by a publicly funded studio headed by an MMO vet who is ready to be patient in development, they take player feedback, the games got no pay to win, no box cost, only sub and cosmetic MTX, how could you not be hyped(genuine question, some people got dropped on their head as a child I'm sure of it, bless their hearts).
But still, something seemed off. I could put what I thought it was into words sometimes, things that have gotten worked on over time like the combat or the seriousness of attention towards and against RMT. But even then it still persisted, I was able to just speak about some issues I could see, but whatever this was I couldn't put my finger on.
So I pretty much just stopped bringing anything up because it's hard to tell if I'm being overly critical when this mysterious issue seems to be obfuscating my view.
Anyways, today I was watching Xillin and Virteks new video about PvE lacking in the game and it got me thinking about this issue, something I personally also think is an issue. I got to thinking you know... what specifically do people think is missing regarding PvE, this umbrella term that encompasses so many aspects of an RPG?
I'm not sure, but It got me to thinking what is missing for me, it's more than just PvE, but it comes back to the PvE. It's that the games too ungrounded, everything is too variable, the game(creating it in my mind from the wiki) will have no vibe. One day you log in and things are one way and then another day you log in and the storyline is different and cities are moved around.
There will be hardly any real notable factions or characters and only a couple static cities(which I don't expect will be very involved). The notable characters that does exist will die and it appears that some won't even respawn(the supposedly major story arch character that initially guards a castle right when the servers are started).
I get it, there is this vision of Ashes that the worlds super dynamic with interdependent systems, which is great, but it's still lacking something, a vibe. That feeling where I step into the game and I feel like I'm stepping into a different world. Yes, visuals do play a part in that, in both style(This has been widely criticized about this game, that it lacks style and it's absolutely true. That's completely fine, unless you have the issue we're talking about and can't fix it) and environmental story telling, but that's not enough IMO.
It needs some substance, some props in the world, some involved relevant static cities, some fun, engaging ELABORATE major storyline arcs(we're told right now most storyline arcs will by the repeatable dynamic sandbox minor arcs). It needs some notable friendly characters that stand out and have character.
And it would do well to have faction NPCs that play a part in the world. Some NPCs that interact with the players and environment and systems. Such as a previously neutral scavenger NPC faction you can temporarily align with by a mayoral commision(an offering to them that also acts like a citizen vote), allowing them to reside in the area and to harvest some your nodes resources for the added benefit of becoming hostile to any non-citizen who gathers resources in your nodes sphere of influence. Permitting them to harvest even more than that will do the same thing except it triple the leashing range and/or aggro radius when they become hostile.(an option for mayor with the commision, or make it dependant on the size of the offering players are able to come up with)
If your mayor doesn't decide to post the commission and align with them, and you have particular gatherables they like, they might come to your node at night and harvest stuff which will further deplete your available resources(immediate loss, but also an increase risk of overharvesting and messing up land management).
I know they want the players to be the content, and they will, especially with the help of all these systems, but players are too dynamic to act any considerable vibe to the world. There's no reason that strong and important themepark elements can't exist in the game without compromising hardly any of the vision Stephen has for the game as it stands. Actually, like the example I gave, it can just add to it in some circumstances.
And in fact we were told this was suppose to be a SandPark, but as it stands it is not, it's 95% a sandbox. They're trying to be that next gen MMO and really bring some unique or improved systems to the table, I'd like to see them do it in this regard as well.
Instead they're talking like NPCs are added to just do things like facilitate basic systems(like a currency converter or a merchant.. wow a merchant), be a body guard, and to make the world feel less empty... that ain't gonna cut it, I'm sorry but I think that's misguided, a bad design decision, unnecessarily basic and potentially extremely damaging.
This is suppose to be a long lasting next gen MMORPG, that means people are gonna need to want to come back many times and spend a long time here, a lot of that time doing slower repetitive tasks, okay that's an MMORPG for ya, nothing wrong there.
Of course the game needs to be fun, but I think a large and underacknowledged part of why MMORPG players will stay on one for such a long time is that vibe that they like or grow to like and become so familiar with which gives them a "home in another world" feeling. I am absolutely undoubtedly sure that is a major major aspect of most long term MMORPG enjoyers.
2
Comments
Do we know that this is the case? I was under the impression that large chunks of parts of the node that change would be persistent, and power increases and story archs would mostly only add additional things, and change the horizontal *how* rather than the vertical *what.*
What is confirmed is that nodes retain their node type regardless of who owns them, how powerful the node is, or what story events have passed around it (except perhaps for some massive expansions later where the map completely changes, but that's a unique potential exception). I view that as an indirect assertion that Intrepid wants the world to be recognisable in its core in spite of the story and node progression changes. I haven't seen evidence that there wouldn't be recognisable NPCs recognisable for their quest or world-lore significance in those elements of the world.
I just think there will be *fewer* of those NPCs than in a game where players don't own the cities. That difference is par for the course with a game so different from the norm. But that won't kill the players' connection to the world, as long as the stories, places, and NPCs that do exist are recgonisable enough to get attached to them. So essentially my assumption is that you're seeing a potential danger associated with the innovative parts of the game, and instead of toning down the threat, you want them to be completely overwritten with the concepts you already know, because that's the only way you've seen an MMO working...
This is the other side of Intrepid’s decision to keep the majority of story & lore close to the vest: there isn’t a narrative to connect - or ground - players to their overall role & context in Verra. Which I like, but I can see many players that need a rich story may find themselves in the cold until we get much closer to launch.
I have no reason to doubt that Intrepid has some epic story & lore to blow our minds. I’m happy to not get tired of the lore during A2, so it feels fresh when we emerge from Sanctus on launch day.
If that’s not something you can wait for, I’d suggest playing something else until the game is ready to launch and more of the narrative has been released to chew through & digest.
Yeah I think the above quote sums it up.
They haven't really gotten too much into the narrative but I don't think it will be as narrowly developed as, for example, SWTOR or FFXIV.
They, as far as I can tell, will do the opposite. The players working or not working together is the main event. The background narrative is secondary and used for world building.
I'm hoping this improves the MMO formula. In games like FFXIV after the MSQ is completed there is always a sense of "now what?"
It worked fine in games like Star Wars Galaxies and Eve.
That's all the story I need, cause that's been the Earth's history for thousands of years.
I like how those 2 dudes you mentioned (and you) decided that a game that hasn't even entered a proper alpha yet and its in development, where not a lot of content has been added, and plenty of it its being kept secret and playerscant even access it, including the story, is lacking. which might be true to an extent, but that is to be expected.
Golden Comment, in a way. Jepp.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Yeah, that is kind of the point of Ashes. It doesn't cater to people who've had the entire industry cater to them, it caters to the OW PvX crowd who don't have very many titles in the MMO market to choose from.
Really there is no problem.
Am getting the sense that the OP is the perspective of someone whom is hoping to avoid player-to-player inter-dependency and do 90% of the content solo. We've yet to come to know ANYTHING about the Religion system, and how it will divide us into sub-conflicts. The only lore we have about most of the world's to-be PvE factions is that they were the "first wave" of settlers, preceding us to settle Verra anew, and few hints dropped in the descriptions of the pre-order packs.
I don't know how someone can derive so much concern with so little yet revealed, to us.
Just my 2 cents, I read the OP’s concern as because so little has been revealed that’s evidence that there are no compelling stories, memorable NPCs, and a solid lore knitting everything together.
And for folks with that concern, I don’t think there’s something to argue about here - just come back later.
Breakfast isn’t ready yet because the diner isn’t finished, not because the chefs don’t know how to scramble eggs.
The issue is usually that PCs are too lackluster, so NPCs need to be added to give players a reason to care outside of their small friend groups, but Ashes has a bunch of stuff built in to at least push against that.
When you see someone's statue in the middle of their node or see their name in some 'system' message because they're the mayor or the head of some religious order, then all that's really going to matter is how much their actions get taken by the system to tell a player a 'story'.
For Intrepid, I suggest one thing that has worked for me, give certain accomplished players an NPC secretary or assistant that other players interact with, solves both issues. The player's actions and exploits drive the story, but other players don't need to interact with that player or have them be online, letting you at least somewhat paint a more 'immersive' picture of them even when they don't have time to RP with every tourist that wanders by their node.
And it is "not" like Ashes is still hard in Development and the Developers might be able to buff things up and make it more different and unique everywhere in the Game World anyway ... ... ^.^ ... ...
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
I have to assume you're talking about factions and similar, but I think it's up to the players to make their nodes unique in whatever way.
So I kinda get where OP is coming from, different people go to RPGs for different things.
Most MMOs are full of areas that are different and unique, but getting players to pay attention or care without NPCs doesn't work on everyone.
I was thinking mostly about different kind of "Mobs" (NPC-Enemies) in the wide, wide Open World of Ashes, but damn if People can actually make their Nodes look more unique intentionally - i am for this as well.
The more Options the better.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
The Mobs part is actually the part of the OP that I felt had the least 'substance' so I just didn't remark on it because I didn't want to be overly critical.
That part of the concern doesn't even seem sensible to me. Sure, the mobs that spawn in a particular PoI when it is up might vary according to some things, but there's no reason to expect them to be vastly different and also rapidly changing on the same server, in my mind.
If the Highwayman Hills Bandit Leader is active because of some trade route existing, even if we destroy them, or they get temporarily run out of wherever, they'll probably be back.
If we can 'ally with them' or 'come to an agreement to leave some dragon living in the mines alone in exchange for something', then all Intrepid has to do is make some commission/quest respond to that like most other games that have this level of dynamism.
I could see people having that unanchored feeling for the 'node merchants' who just 'come and go' when the node falls, but PoI probably aren't 'ungrounded'.
maybe having a big central hub related to lore that was built on our return to vera that couldn't be destroyed could be a nice feature in the game,
adding Npc's related to lore I'm not to worried about as i am sure intrepid have plans to put them in the game but i definitely understand your point,
AoC definitley suffers from not having its own style and having a dynamic world that can change definitely has its Pro's and cons, you never really have any attachment to a place in the world
This is what the game offered from the beginning though.
I 'agree' (big asterisk here) that most games trying to do the same 'dynamic world, player settlements' thing, might do better with some central geographical areas, but if they do what they say for the questlines and NPCs, most people will never notice the difference except that things will be memorable 'on their server' rather than memorable 'for every player of Ashes'.
Do we really think the NPC head of a Social Org is going to disappear forever the moment their Node falls? Wouldn't they just pop up somewhere else? Maybe even some dialogue?
"Ah, PlayerName, haven't seen you since $OldNodeName."
I trust that this is not hard for Intrepid.
Having it player focused with npcs secondary it not at all an issue, it's actually for more eventful and chaotic. You use the word "grounded" but really if you ever try a player focused game you might change that to "static". If they design it well and correctly incentivize large scale player combat, then you will never know what any node will look or feel like after any year or two year period. Leadership structure and/or ownership will constantly change in many parts of the map and as nodes built back up they could potentially make different choices opening up different content.
While always knowing what mobs are in what area, like in theme parks, is nice, it also gets stale after a year or two. As for story, player stories are always more compelling and unpredictable.
I am looking forward to seeing and hearing more of the rich story in the game, the pve side of things and what will create depth.
That made me snort on a public train. 🤣
I don't necessarily consider PCs to be lackluster - in MMOs, many players aren't great at RP. And for the last 10+ years - gamers seem to be not interested in RP.
But... I definitely prefer MMOs to be a Themebox, rather than a Sandbox.
It's the natural consequence of most MMORPGs using Europe and Humans for their initial development and the popularity of UE5.
I’ll reserve judgement on the OP’s point to when Intrepid actually unveils things. The “lackluster” character of the play and NPCs to date is intentional I think. But I do understand how players have been burned far too many times putting their faith and trust in a developer only to have them not deliver. The difference to me with AoC compared to all of these other games is that the biggest customer of this game is Steven.
the engine has nothing to do with the style of the visuals T_T