Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Visual Progression & Impact in MMORPG's
Eptackt
Member
Hello Everybody,
First post I do here, I plan on joining this community from now on and I wanted to say that I am genuently interested in this project for the same reasons most of you do.
Now i'll just go to the point and say that Visual Progression has an Impact in MMORPG's. I really want AoC to be the best game it can be, the one that takes us to this "next generation" we have all been waiting for. I just fear that the cash shop is going to break it up for many of us, and will put us back to square one, eventually.
Some examples of how this affects the feel of the game that i experienced directly are ESO, WOW & LOTRO.
In ESO you bought the game, paid a subscription, and they promised they would never sell anything further. One day, they introduced the cash shop, promised only cosmetics. Well, fast forward to now and they have a "surprise box" system, plenty of P2W but, most annoying of all, when you open the game first thing you see is the cash shop with new offerings poping up, new mounts to buy, new armour, etc. That completely gets you off your role playing. It completely detaches you from the fantasy world. The cash shop reminds players that we live in a capital society, pulls you back to reality. Also, everytime i see a person with cash shop items on, i get reminded of it, or everytime anybody is using cash shop perks, especialy effects, whatever it is.
In WOW it was even more fun. I never played retail because i was young, didn't have the money, so i stuck to private servers. Those had a shop of sorts, but it was hidden in the web browser, which helped a lot with immersion since inside the game it was fine. Didn't know it even existed for a while. Each project had it's different shades of cash shop, but nothing crazy. Now, when they closed private servers and opened Classic WoW oficially i actually started paying monthly right, to be able to play, it was a blast and continues to be a nice experience in a sense that there is no cash shop, i just pay monthly. That feels GREAT. Now, what happened is that I went to try retail, like the normal WoW, so I made a new character. First thing when I log, achievements pops up, cash shop pops up, they sent me epics before i could walk, it felt like a faire. So really fake I just didn't go to level 2, I mean, why bother, I can already see how it is. THAT is absolute crap when it comes to IMMERSION.
In LOTRO it was just sad. That game was so nice in many ways, it still is, so faithful to the books, with such immersive visual and settings. One day, it goes F2P, cash shop pops up, they tell you you can't go to the zones you could before, now you have to buy them, spend more money please, and the subsequent expansions and zones were absolute crap in comparison to the past. Such a nice game, destroyed. All of a sudden, everything is behind a paywall, immersion goes to hell, and the good work the developers made making the game immersive, gone. Fact is, they tried to get more money and retain players, and get new players going F2P, and they just went downhill quicker.
Now, I know that AoC devs are promising to not over do it, but, in my eyes (and in the eyes of many), they already did. Seeing what the player wears is important, it makes it feel real. It adds to the role playing game, in my opinion, much more than people realize. I know they need to monetize, just make the subscription more expensive I guess, open donations with web browser or forums icons, steam perks, merchandise like t-shirts, cups or the sort we can buy to support, but cash shop is bad, even if it's kept in it's most innocent form.
If AoC wants to be the game we want it to be (because i know we all want the same in the end: a good MMO) we need to step away from the cash shop. And it's not too late to find sensible solutions for people that were promised cosmetics. But the cash shop has the potential to break it all. I know a lot of people like to mingle with it, but it has reliably converted good MMORPG's into absolute garbage cash grab simulators through time. I don't want this for AoC, and none of you should.
I for once stand with the developer team of this recent drama about the 120€ key for Alpha and all that jazz like, sure it's "expensive" but it's a price for entering a testing ground, if you don't think it's worth it, don't pay for it and wait for the game, in understand the complains too, but this won't have a negative effect on the end product, on the long run. That's where I am coming from. A cash shop definetly will. Cosmetics are a bad thing, we know that to be a fact.
We must protect the fantasy world, role playing feel, whatever you want to call it over everything. And, I believe, this, plus the game's charm, is what will keep the players engaged, and what will keep the revenue and the game systems healthy overtime. Subscriptions and other systems that are kept away from the game in the end.
Visual Progression in MMORPG's has a huge impact on the game period. And we shouldn't let a cash shop go live in any way shape or form inside the game.
Discuss.
First post I do here, I plan on joining this community from now on and I wanted to say that I am genuently interested in this project for the same reasons most of you do.
Now i'll just go to the point and say that Visual Progression has an Impact in MMORPG's. I really want AoC to be the best game it can be, the one that takes us to this "next generation" we have all been waiting for. I just fear that the cash shop is going to break it up for many of us, and will put us back to square one, eventually.
Some examples of how this affects the feel of the game that i experienced directly are ESO, WOW & LOTRO.
In ESO you bought the game, paid a subscription, and they promised they would never sell anything further. One day, they introduced the cash shop, promised only cosmetics. Well, fast forward to now and they have a "surprise box" system, plenty of P2W but, most annoying of all, when you open the game first thing you see is the cash shop with new offerings poping up, new mounts to buy, new armour, etc. That completely gets you off your role playing. It completely detaches you from the fantasy world. The cash shop reminds players that we live in a capital society, pulls you back to reality. Also, everytime i see a person with cash shop items on, i get reminded of it, or everytime anybody is using cash shop perks, especialy effects, whatever it is.
In WOW it was even more fun. I never played retail because i was young, didn't have the money, so i stuck to private servers. Those had a shop of sorts, but it was hidden in the web browser, which helped a lot with immersion since inside the game it was fine. Didn't know it even existed for a while. Each project had it's different shades of cash shop, but nothing crazy. Now, when they closed private servers and opened Classic WoW oficially i actually started paying monthly right, to be able to play, it was a blast and continues to be a nice experience in a sense that there is no cash shop, i just pay monthly. That feels GREAT. Now, what happened is that I went to try retail, like the normal WoW, so I made a new character. First thing when I log, achievements pops up, cash shop pops up, they sent me epics before i could walk, it felt like a faire. So really fake I just didn't go to level 2, I mean, why bother, I can already see how it is. THAT is absolute crap when it comes to IMMERSION.
In LOTRO it was just sad. That game was so nice in many ways, it still is, so faithful to the books, with such immersive visual and settings. One day, it goes F2P, cash shop pops up, they tell you you can't go to the zones you could before, now you have to buy them, spend more money please, and the subsequent expansions and zones were absolute crap in comparison to the past. Such a nice game, destroyed. All of a sudden, everything is behind a paywall, immersion goes to hell, and the good work the developers made making the game immersive, gone. Fact is, they tried to get more money and retain players, and get new players going F2P, and they just went downhill quicker.
Now, I know that AoC devs are promising to not over do it, but, in my eyes (and in the eyes of many), they already did. Seeing what the player wears is important, it makes it feel real. It adds to the role playing game, in my opinion, much more than people realize. I know they need to monetize, just make the subscription more expensive I guess, open donations with web browser or forums icons, steam perks, merchandise like t-shirts, cups or the sort we can buy to support, but cash shop is bad, even if it's kept in it's most innocent form.
If AoC wants to be the game we want it to be (because i know we all want the same in the end: a good MMO) we need to step away from the cash shop. And it's not too late to find sensible solutions for people that were promised cosmetics. But the cash shop has the potential to break it all. I know a lot of people like to mingle with it, but it has reliably converted good MMORPG's into absolute garbage cash grab simulators through time. I don't want this for AoC, and none of you should.
I for once stand with the developer team of this recent drama about the 120€ key for Alpha and all that jazz like, sure it's "expensive" but it's a price for entering a testing ground, if you don't think it's worth it, don't pay for it and wait for the game, in understand the complains too, but this won't have a negative effect on the end product, on the long run. That's where I am coming from. A cash shop definetly will. Cosmetics are a bad thing, we know that to be a fact.
We must protect the fantasy world, role playing feel, whatever you want to call it over everything. And, I believe, this, plus the game's charm, is what will keep the players engaged, and what will keep the revenue and the game systems healthy overtime. Subscriptions and other systems that are kept away from the game in the end.
Visual Progression in MMORPG's has a huge impact on the game period. And we shouldn't let a cash shop go live in any way shape or form inside the game.
Discuss.
0
Comments
Feel free to look up the online definition … to re-calibrate yourself on what the term really means.
Intrepid does plan on quite a few in-game earnable cosmetics (similar to the cash shop ones), however. That’s documented in the Ashes Wiki.
Hopefully, those two pieces of vital information help you curb your enthusiasm for abolishing the cash shop.