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
They can sell access keys with limited time, which expire in like 5 months. After 5 months the "tester" can buy a new key. And these keys should activate a few weeks after Alpha 2 opens, to prevent login queues.
Then IS would get more money but distributed over the entire Early Access phase.
They can even synchronize these keys with the server wipes which might happen.
They can try to sell the former packages too as you say for those who are decided to stay until release and want some FOMO cosmetics, embers and months of subscription.
When you paid $250, you bought a package containing a boatload of other things. Not just the A2 key. That was your decision at the time. You did NOT just buy an A2 key.
Id be fine with this personally because I completely missed the cut off. Ill take either frankly. I don't buy the argument that re-opening A2 keys at a lower prices is unfair because the Voyager pack was an entirely different bundle of products, not just A2 keys and anyone buying that should have been consciously making that decision knowing what they were buying.
World of Warcraft, played all around the world, has their cosmetic/pet/mount shop in-game without value-obfuscating currencies. Not sure if the window that opens it is essentially an imbedded browser window to an online shop that handles the currency differences for different regions or what, but it works just fine for them. This seems like a made up excuse.
Additionally, when parental settings are turned on, the in-game shop is automatically disabled.
Having up-front pricing and parental protections like this is just common sense. You can't just hide behind the vague statement that "our content is intended for a general audience and not aimed at children", which doesn't actually mean anything - especially when your product is rated T (which Intrepid would be unwise to aim higher than) and therefore technically purchasable and playable by anyone - to justify value-obfuscating currencies only purchasable in set quantities.
Who are you quoting here exactly?
If y'all were in the right mindset about participating in the A2 testing and feedback process from the get-go, you wouldn't even be talking about this stuff. You paid money to support the development of a game before the alpha phase was even over, and Intrepid got the money. Good on you. I'm sure they appreciated the support. Now, as a "reward" for spending $250 dollars, you get to do something most companies pay people to do. Test a highly unfinished game state and give intelligible, meaningful, well-constructed feedback. Not "play a game that you paid for". That's absolutely so, so far from the experience of participating in an alpha test, and neither Steven nor anyone else from Intrepid painted the experience any other way, as far as I can remember. If you impatiently fantasized about A2 being "early access" to Ashes of Creation, then I'm sorry, but you're sorely mistaken, and it's your own fault.
It doesn't matter how much you paid, and it doesn't matter when they ended up releasing the option to buy A2 access on its own. You bought a bundle of products and an experience that you thought was worth the cost at the time. To be very clear, A2 access was not one of the products. The cosmetics, $90 of pre-paid game time, and the $100 worth of cosmetic shop currency were the products. The experience you paid for was testing A2. It's not a product. You don't own it. They can wipe your files at any time, and they'll obviously get wiped before the actual game releases. You paid for the experience of doing a job most people get paid to do. Congratulations.
Now, guess what? Something happened that Intrepid couldn't feasibly anticipate with complete accuracy. The servers are more capable now, so they need more testers. A lot more. They already did an entire month or something of open sales for the last Voyager pack, so I think it's safe to say that they've gotten all the people willing to pay $250 by now that they can. They now need to offer the experience to a wider market. Charging as much as they did last time, even with all the extra stuff from before thrown in, won't get them the numbers they need. They need to lower the cost to fulfill their demand, especially now that they're less than three months from the start of A2, and you're all sitting here suggesting they waste their own time for months without a full testing pool just so you can play pretend that you're in the AoC early access? Really?
Many Early Access games are like that. I was reading that Pax Dei is missing all essential features yet people rushed to play.
However AoC will improve the state gradually and toward the end will be close to the real game. Only the story will be missing to prevent spoilers.
Just venmo them the money for it?
That isn't a reason to complain.
If it were, new car sales would always result in complaints.
Perhaps look in to what you are using as a comparison before claiming other points made are "made up".
I'm pretty sure you can do this, they gift out A2 codes all the time, it's not really breaking T&S, just buy an alpha 2 redemption code and send it to your friend, infact some of the early packs came with codes you could gift out to your friends
If it isn't, why did IS explicitly mentioned they went back and forth to make it fair?
If you buy a game on Steam, And the next day the game is put on 50% off, Will you have reason to complain?
I don't mind having more testers in A2, that's awesome! But just as long as the other perks aren't being given like name reservations, cosmetics etc. However, I do think the FOMO they created around packs and A2 keys was a little bit unnecessary.
I just survived Hurricane Beryl without any power for 4 days in 100+ degree weather... I think i can survive more people getting A2 access lol. No big deal.
The only ones I think deserve something are the folks that have put in the time and effort to test during Alpha 1 and those already doing so on early Aplha 2 (including the 500 “stars” they identified during the live stream that they indicated would be invited - and the lucky 500 random folks).
Perhaps we’ll have more stars coming from the next Alpha 2 key wave. I don’t see that as a negative at all. These folks are just helping to make my purchase a better investment. In addition, Alpha 2 isn’t even a final product so I do not mind a reasonable price for it. They need the optimal number of testers, and Alpha 2 key price plays a role in that. And if Intrepid thinks they need to throw in more perks to those who purchased previous bundles, that would also be fair. Doesn’t necessarily need to be punitive to anyone. And I think multiple options for those who already purchased would be reasonable. Like more months to the subscription, more tokens, or more cosmetics. I think each player has different preferences.
I paid my way into the spotlight,
Alpha Two access, felt so right,
Thought I was special, thought I was elite,
But now it's on sale, and I can't compete.
I grumble and I moan, can't believe my luck,
I thought I had something, now it feels like muck,
Did I waste my money, was it all in vain?
Or can I find a way to ease this pain?
Oh, I bought my ticket, but now I cry,
Alpha Two access, slipping by,
I wanted the glory, the prestige so sweet,
But now it's just another bitter defeat.
I flaunted my badge, my exclusive pass,
But now it's a joke, like shattered glass,
I wanted to be first, ahead of the game,
But now everyone's laughing, and I'm filled with shame.
I thought I was special, in a league of my own,
But now it's open to all, and I'm all alone,
Was it worth the price, the bragging rights?
Or am I just another fool in the city lights?
Oh, I bought my ticket, but now I cry,
Alpha Two access, slipping by,
I wanted the glory, the prestige so sweet,
But now it's just another bitter defeat.
But maybe it's not about who got in first,
Maybe it's about enjoying the journey, not the worst,
I can still find joy, find my place,
Regardless of who bought in, at what pace.
Because not everyone is reasonable.
I'm more inclined to think that it was because they wanted to reassure the people who helped
them make this project possible that what they paid for won't get devalued overnight. And it won't, as they went back and forth on it.
It won't get devalued.
The moment anyone brought a pack with alpha access, everything jn that pack immediately had a value of $0 - because it can not be sold (according to the ToS).
Something that has a value of $0 can not be devalued unless you go in to debt on it. That is not something that is happening, thus there is no possible way for the value of alpha access to go down.
As such, that has absolutely zero to do with Steven's comments. They were purely there to ease the complaints from those that are unreasonable - as while it is unreasonable to complain about this, Intrepid can not only cater to the reasonable - they must also at times pander to the unreasonable.
The problem I have is that in pandering to unreasonable complaints now, the next time something like this happens, the complaints will be reasonable, due to the pandering now.
Shame that 90% of the community here dont see the last paragraph...
I know it won't get devalued, I mentioned that in my first post.
People haven't made an investment and people don't throw their money up for no reason because they work hard for it. They spend it on what they themselves value first, and then market value.
In this case some valued the cosmetics, the game time or the name reservation. Some have valued their sentiment of contribution. And some, regardless of who they are and what they have been through, above all they valued the opportunity to be part of the testing phase, exclusively or not.
Pointing fingers doesn't advance the discussion. Everyone needs to be accounted for because that's how things work whether one likes to admit it or not and especially when promoting the sens of community which, again, I feel IS is being really good at.
Which is why complaining about it is unreasonable.
I'm not pointing fingers at anyone - I am making a very blanket statement that complaints about this are unreasonable. However, from a business perspective, you sometimes need to cater to the unreasonable, as I said above.
The problem is now - next time Intrepid reduce the cost of anything, everyone that had purchased it previous has a perfectly reasonable expectation to recieve the same treatment that Intrepid give to what ever they give those of us that have access to alpha 2 now - this is why I said we shouldn't get anything.
We all still have what we paid for, and that is the bar Intrepid should be setting.
They were very clear in their statement on it that alpha 2 access may well be up for grabs again in the future, the fact that it is does not mean those of us that bought it earlier should get anything.
Maybe I could better understand your point of view if I was someone complaining about this issue.
How is it not pointing fingers when you are dismissing a portion of the community as unreasonable?
I wasn't aware of this, when did they made this clear?
So August 8 2023? That's after the bulk of the packages were sold no?
Thanks love the red