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
It's their product, they can charge whatever they want for it.
The fact that people are paying it shows that they've set it right.
It does feel like a cash grab, and that's ok. We use Capitalism here in the US. They have a commodity (server access) that they decided to sell. You already know that you do not need to buy this. There is also a good chance that at least 1 popular streamer will display the Alpha. You are not going to miss out on anything, unless you feel you NEED to test or at least control the character you are watching.
If you do not feel comfortable spending cash on an Alpha key. Do not spend cash on an Alpha key.
My only defense of this is, they are basically guaranteeing the Alpha testers will take the tests seriously. It would be more traditional to create testing jobs, but this method should be able to reach more serious testers than the previous method.
If my $100+ goes into the development of this game, then TAKE MY MONEY.
Why can't you see it as 'YOU supporting AoC' instead of 'AoC trying to take your money'?
I dunno but it sure seems to me that your perspective on this is way off the mark.
With bottles in their hands
You need one more drop of poison
And you'll dream of foreign lands
Intrepid opens Alpha2 sales again, the same late arrivals complain they aren’t getting a better deal on the keys than the original packs
Someone said earlier they should’ve just left it closed, and I agree. It was not a good idea to open up key sales to some of the late arrivals with warped expectations of the development process.
Sure, don't buy it. I certainly wouldn't. However, we can make a distinction between what is legal and what is reasonable to consumers--what is allowable under our particular brand of capitalism, and what some see as exploitative.
When all is said and done, however, it is really about the way things look... not so much how they are or how we wished they would be, at least insofar as PR is concerned. This situation is illustrative of the old idiom: Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining (I think I put that here somewhere already, sorry for the repeat). Again, make every excuse you want, but that is the impression that many consumers have of this particular business move. Then again, the whole monetization of the development of this game has been somewhat questionable since early on (as others have pointed out), just not to this extent.
Finally, I don't buy the old "guaranteeing serious testing" idea, although I'd admit you may get more people with a higher discretionary income, eg, older adults who can sometimes be seen as having more experience with serious responsibility. Of course, that demo has less time to test.... so yeah, the ol' "brings in more serious beta testers" is spurious at best.
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
nobody is making you pay anything . if you dont like it or agree keep your wallet in your pocket its as simple as that. ive invested a hell of alot more than $100 into this and am more than happy with my investment which btw was over 4 years ago and only now from alpha 2 do i get to access and test but im not complaining about it or the amount ive invested. put in what you can if you want to but if yo cant or dont want to then thats fine but really dont understand why ppl complain about something just because they cant afford it or dont want to pay whatever amount
IDK why you talking about budged, when AOC is fully funded (or so they said).
They mentioned that they have over 100k alpha 2 testers already before some months. I doubt they need many more testers. The primary reason for those key sells is that after the initial hype of launch of alpha 2, there will be some drop in playerbase. So they just compensating with it with this Key sells. And yes, if they put small price for the keys they will end up with 500k players for testing, And this is beyond what they aiming for, since this will require a lot more servers. and those servers will require a lot more Personal to monitor and to collect data.
In the end of the day: Yes other MMO games suck, thats why we are here, waiting with years for a game that we have no idea when will release. And even more so - you shouldnt complain about pricing. If we want the game to be as great as we all hope for - then the 100$ is not that high a price.
Will dear Sir Steven grab us by the cash ? (lol)
Please be aware that nobody is forcing us at Gunpoint to open our Wallets and support dear Intrepid.
Once again i feel like a certain Company called Blizzard is mockingly laughing at me while growing fat yet again with another Expansion - but i am confident in the Years to come a much more friendly and better Community will take at least a Million Players away from it.
Permanently.
I can't wait to see Verra and it being filled with People who thirst for this Feeling of a gigantic, PvX Open World Adventure full of Wonders and an interactive World.
All which a certain Company named Blizzard delivered instead in the last handful of Years and more, were a hate-filled blackwash of Stormwind City and many other Cities in Azeroth because they were butthurt over a Man named Donald Trump,
and they ruined a legendary Character named Sylvanas Windrunner - who accompanied us through Warcraft III and most of World of Warcraft as this cool, mysterious and shady Character that we knew we would always need to be wary of.
Oof. Imagine being old enough to see all of my favourite Franchises go up and down in Flames. All only because a Sickness and Bullshit called "Woke".
I can't wait for Verra to give me the Feeling of true Fantasy back. You know ? Without all that over-the-top Cringe garbage-Storywriting and woke'fied Characters.
Make it happen, Intrepid.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Who the hell spends 60 odd million dollars to make only little over half of that back? A little counter productive don't you think? Has anybody told Steven that he's cash grabs wrong?
This is just so hilariously stupid.
if they would invent a new kind of tv and promise to ship it until november .... and already sold it to you ... you can get a refund if they break their promise .... same here
i live in europe and here the laws are very clear about selling stuff and not deliver. if you sell a tv and a toaster is in the package its very clear that you have to refund the costumer ... i already send a mail to the german institute of costumer protection to look into it.
You do get Ashes has done nothing out of the norm with development. Time line has been pushed back but nothing unusual. None of this is required. You can wait till launch and play with no box price, just a sub. There would be no case for consumer protection lol
I would bet you expecting full gameplay experience on october too right?
When you realize that its true alpha testing we will see you here in the comments again hearing how "they lied to you that you will get the full game, and instead you are tester"
I just looked quickly at my Kickstarter history and remembered few titles I supported outside crowdfunding platforms. I supported several projects in the past, because I liked what they sounded like and knew big publishers are unlikely to invest into those.
Sure that list included some not so successful projects such as: Shroud of the Avatar and Darkfall, but I also put money towards some amazing games: Squad and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
My current supporter list includes: The Wayward Realms and now also Ashes of Creation.
Mainstream game studios hardly ever take risks with new ideas and franchises. All thanks to a lot of companies being dominated by corporate investment interests and being run by career driven corporate execs. All the corporate machine cares for is how much it can milk an established franchise for and often ruin it in the process.
Blown past falling sands…
Use my referal code if u wanna buy a pack : X59KSV33CRMHERDV
haha i kid i kids figured it be funny
Dont get me wrong, I am a fan. I been here since the Kickstarter. You can buy early access into most games for about $50 USD. Im in for A2 for about $150 USD. I will die on this hill till this game makes or breaks but this is a cash grab and thats ok. But it is what it is =-) They have the supply and there is a demand.
having "fully funded the game" and still need to sell it to people is a cashgrab lol .... if it is true that they dont need our money ... why not make it ftp ... they would get all the testers they need instantly lol ... people in this forum are so emotional invested they are blind to this scam lol
obviously attack the person not the issue lol ... poor lad
Obviously you dont even get when you get scammed lol ...
i paid 250$ to get involved directly in the project ... i wanted to fall through the map, clip through walls, find duping glitches and document them and help them fix their buggy mess ... they already sold A2 keys to 150k+ people .... and have yet to proof that they can host servers to hold those people without queues ...
i wanted access ... before other people who didnt want to take the risk of funding this pipedream ...
i want that risk i took to be honored by giving me access earlier then those who didnt take the risk ... that all..
now intrepid is not only make me wait as long as anybody else ... but they make it cheaper to get in ...
if there will be "too many people, therefore we have queues" i will be PISSED af ... this feels like a slap in the face... i want access before other people ... thats what i want ... if they need more people AFTER THEY HAVE GIVEN A2 BACKERS ACCESS im fine with that ...BUT NOT GIVING people like me access beforehand is malicous .....
if they had said, yeah we honor our OG backers by having them :
A2 spottest from Oktober to dezember
and involve us in the process of getting the servers up to speed to hold 5+ days load
and then call it Beta 1/2 from dezember to mai ..... to get them to 24/7
and call it Beta 3 when 24/7 goes live in mai and sell BETA keys for 30$ ...
i wouldnt have any problem with that, my problem is that i get treated like everybody else who just joined the aoc project and can jump in at the last moment for way less than me...
and IMO 150k people are wayyyyyy more than anybody could need for SPOTTESTING ... he didnt give those 150k+ people ANY OPPORTUNITY to give ANY feedback .... so HOW can he tell that he needs more people ????
anybody who believes this "need more testers bs" is delusional... 150k people beeing not enough even though they didnt have any access until now is just a blatant lie
and steven is yet to prove that actually something will be launched AT ALL .....
till this point this is a scam ... until he delivers something .... i dont expect a game... a want to get WHAT HE HAS ... whatever that is ...
obviously you are clueless and write for the sake of writing without making any research.
Those who bought the 250$ keys before start testing on 25 October. THe keys that are sold now are with earliest start date of 8 November. This means you have 6 days head start. Which should kinda fix the Queues problem you talking about also. Tho if you expecting alpha to not have any queues you are delusional.
Next time before talking make a research on how things really stand
And also i doubt you are qualified enough to determine if they need more testers or not. The launch of the game will probably reach million players. So its reasonable to think that they need a lot testers to get ready for everything. Also the world is Huge, with many variations how the server will develop. This means they need many full servers to test everything.
But I agree with at least one part. Overpopulating the Alpha.
I may just be speaking for myself here but if I've paid 250 to take part in something I plan to do so. Given how committed the community is I'd like to imagine they're underestimating the retention and consistency of the testers.
Assuming they've sold at least 100k keys and only half intend to test and only half of those are online at one time. That would still be a 7k queue based on the 3k CCU and 6 realms they quoted at start.
I'm also aware they can create more realms as needed but that's not without cost.
They can also expand the CCU but that has its own limitations and risks.
Personally I think they should've waited to see how full their realms were before selling additional keys but judging how messy the key situation was, I expect a rocky start to Alpha 2.
This is true...BUT... they need testers for the following 1-2 years? How many of the current players will keep logging in every day for 1 year straight? 20-30% of current alpha testers? So ofc the start will be rocky.
Tho i agree that they can just put some more key sells after the initial testers wave diminishes, So maybe they could have removed the first key sells that start from 8 november, and instead put keys for phases 2 and 3
I TOTALLY agree with you, they will likely want more testers over the course of 1/2 years.
I think phase 1 will have the largest population with people wanting to see what state the game’s in. But it's also when they're testing scalability and stability so they'll have the most restrictions on CCU. As it stands they'll end up needing a lot more realms that they need to merge later or long queues.
My main argument is that they should've waited for the 3rd, maybe 2nd phase, that way they get fresh, excited testers when they're most stable. Even if only to avoid people being mad about queues after buying a key.
i am totally aware ...
that i am supposed to get TWO FREAKING WEEKENDS in earlier ....
that is like NOTHING to me ... that doesnt even count as "earlier" .....
that is laughable after all the risk and wating time .... i waited for about 5 years at this point some others did even wait longer .. ...
2 weekends arnt nearly enough ...
2 months ... i would still complain ...
but maybe wouldnt be spamming in forums ...
2 weekends ? that shows that they KNOW it is shady not to give us access first ...
but all we get is 2 weekends .... that is even more shady than no access at all, then they could at least pretend they didnt know ....
so they are aware that it would be shady not to give us earlier access and still wont give us more than 2 weekends ?!?!?! ... dang that feels like a gut punch and an uppercut to finish us off ... lol
Show us on the Stuffertons Doll where the bad man used The Essence on you.