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
i would like to add i never said i don't understand development completely, there is quite a bit i do understand and admittedly quite a bit that i don't, however im not really speaking on a ton of topics that i don't understand or have 0 knowledge on
There is a limit to what i can do and say things that are factually backed up, IE if u were reading the conversation explaining why all their money from Kickstarter made it impossible to all go towards Apoc. Regardless if i felt personally money wise it is cheaper to make it, that would be more my assumption. So tis better to bring facts and use multiple of those facts to point towards a direction where its not possible or reasonable to continue to assume that.
This is not the first time he has brought up fake builds as int he past he talked about them using a different engine (which obviously is not true...) showing a disconnect in understanding of things and just saying random things out there. A mod had commented they are working in unreal engine, and I and other people responded about its alpha and in development.
Arguing about they are faking everything doesn't really stand as at this point you can argue everything is fake as its not done. ITs bad faith and trying to create a post around it that was admitted to being a rant and nothing positive feedback wise....
At the end of the day its not my job to change some ones mind, but when wild things are said and being spread constantly, I'd most likely going to comment on it. Do to the clear form of this post it seemed toxic and I'm not going to dance around to paint a pretty picture. I'm going to call it how I see it.
Dammit, another nostalgia bomb...
Right in the feels...
They are the same base model one clearly has more polish, and the older one has more mechanics from what I see.
Both are clearly different fights though, and i wouldn't expect 3 years to be going into a single fight that be bad. I expect a lot of random fights around based on the share amount of bosses and content they need to make for the game.
Id expect to see both dragons in the game of course, on top of many more with different types of fights.
For me i don't see anything wrong, If your complaint is you are seeing the same dragon again that would be a fair complaint to make a thread on. And would have made you reception a lot better imo. I just dont see a need to complain I'll play A2 and judge it more clearly at that point based on it being a alpha though.
I do understand wanting to see tons of new things constantly, and not seeing something similar from before. Though like i said id say they went into full production about a year ago, id say 3 years ago they were not in full production. Though that is my assumption based on their higher and how many people they have working for them.
you definitely have the right to your opinion, the things i said that were facts, are facts, and that is mostly just to do with the cash shop, i did not say its a fact that their Kickstarter money went towards apoc i said it was most likely, also its not just me that have noticed that the graphics have taken a severe downturn in the past few livestreams or the livestreams with live gameplay, the issue to me is, if A2 launches and does not look like the engine or the gameplay that was displayed 3 years ago people will then say, its only alpha we are not using the real build, and this will persist until launch and then there will be another excuse, the other issue is, they are using these livestreams as an advertisement to sell alpha packages, and with the high price tag people should have the right to know what they are Truely buying into, steven can say all he wants '' dont buy this game its not an alpha'' but it loses all meaning when they put marketing tactics on the bundles for people to buy and then advertise the game as a game, whilst using the narrative '' its not a game '' as a fallback.
so many fanboys come out of the woodwork to intrepids defense but if you really cared about this game it would be you asking these questions.
good question, so what i would like to see after this period of time, i would like to see a fleshed out starting area with quests finished with polish to atleast level 10,
i would like to see the character creator in a close to final state,
i would like to see more than one biome, with ATLEAST 1 having polish, the polish does not need to be complete but somewhat resembling a game.
i would like to see the world coming together to resemble a real game, not just a walk simulator with a few area's polished for livestreams,
obviously content wise i would like to see content up to level 25, alpha 1 had quite a bit of content.
i would like to see things that are not palceholder and will remain in the game up until launch, not just assets places for testing after 8 years
i would like to see more than two races
i would like to see some sort of effort to implement the lore of vera into the game, i think the lore is actually fantastic, however it is irrelevant because without steven as a DND dungeon master or what ever they are called, telling us what is actually happening in the livestream, people will have next to 0 idea of what any of it means because the game does an awful job of actually telling you any of the lore
i would love to see some sort of voice acting, ( i know this one is wishful thinking ) but would be nice especially in 2024, games sort of need it and with all the tools to do it, there is no reason not to really
i would like to see more action combat as the game was stated to be, if they have decided to go full tab target or 90%, then an explanation of this in a livestream should be given
if i think of anymore ill tell you
yes it is, i will admit i quite enjoyed alpha 1, i did not however get to play much of it lol
I think your expectations are a bit high lmao. Impossible for content creator to be in its final state until towards the end of alpha 2.
I'm sure there will be content up to 25 but it might be kind of a lot of walking and not super challenging based on the level.
Id agree and expect them to not just be placeholder as that should have been more of a alpha 1 thing with their testing area.
They have 3 races in phase 1 so there is that.
Though i can understand from older people that have backed and wanting to have seen more at this point, and all the classes should have been there as well even if they were not 100% finished. This would be my own assumption but as far as where all the content was, I'm guessing there was most likely some kind of bottleneck. Like a rogue class shouldn't be that hard to make, based on the idea i had for one I would have made a framework so there would be a decent outline of it. Rather then worrying about everything being pretty, it be better to just get it into the game and test it make sure it feels fun. Even more so since you are only talking about lvl 25.
So ignoring points i don't agree with your OP idk (open development and maybe some other bottlenecks in their pipeline) why there isn't more actual content we haven't seen. They could be holding it back so idk I'd just wait to alpha 2 and judge off that.
you have some good points, but i dont think anything i have really requested to see is really outlandish, maybe a bit wishful thinking but nothing that shouldn't be done or close to complete after this period of time.
its not so much the content that i want to see, and other than somethings i don't mind to much if its not in a finished state, but what i would really like for alpha 2 is to start seeing things that resemble a finished product, even if at the very start of A2 its minimal, i don't think after 8 years a starting area with polished quests, npcs, etc up to level 10 is to much to ask for. ( and don't take this the wrong way im not asking for a finished game )
I think if we go into A2 and a majority of the only zone that seems to have been the only zone actually worked on is placeholder then we may aswell just give up any hope of actually playing this game until 2030 +
as it is, the game at the very earliest most likely does not release until 2028, real alpha 2 starting may 2025, probably goes for atleast 2 years, then most likely another 9 months until the betas at the earliest, by this stage the game will either need to be re done in UE 6 or new games made by AI at this point will most likely be better, yes some of the graphics look decent, but they don't really look much better than a game built in the 2010s and at this rate by the time we actually get the game it will be dated, also the graphics can look great but if the game does not have a soul, does it even matter
you may think this is just another rant about when game release, its not honestly at this point i dont care to much but the reason i bring up a timeline is because after 3 years we are seeing the exact same world boss it just brings so many questions, and with all these great devs they have, that have made countless games, someone needs to start making decisions at the studio, if we are still deciding how this 3 year old dragon mechanics should function at this point, something is not right
( also 2 races are confirmed for A2 launch not 3 ), also i obviously don't know for sure but i would suspect that the other two biomes stated for A2 being '' lawless area's '' are just to hide the fact that they have literally not been worked on at all, obviously this is speculation and we will see, but would not Suprise me in the slightest
Like, what you want more of is literally the reason why the game isn't closer to completion.
If anything I want them to focus more on general structures that we can't see. Get the mechanics solid enough to be genuinely fully thought-out and flexible.
To be clear, I don't think it's terrible that they've focused on completing individual designs/encounters/areas, or even that you're asking to see more of it. It's a useful step for practical testing to see if the modules really come together the way it's imagined, before committing to generalisation/mass-production based on potentially flawed blueprints.
But once that's confirmed, I want them to get the modular components so right that they can start implementing versatile, story-arc-adjustable quests/encounters/contested areas/node development features all over the map, and just have them work. And that requires a focus on more abstraction and perfection of the behind-the-scenes components, not a convincing, presentable delivery of individual playable segments.
its crazy that everyone seems to find a need to attack someone's character instead of just giving your opinions, however i do appreciate the time you took to reply, obviously the delays are frustrating but i have not once complained about a delay in this post, i think you have some good points, however i think at this stage 8 years in a little polish is not alot to ask, if you did take the time to read what i wrote, i am not saying i need to see an entire polished node or game, but i would like to see hints of polish being added, especially to the starting area's just to confirm that its not going to be scrapped again
i agree with you that there are more important aspects than polish but as of the time of writing, we have not really seen any of them either, so i mean if we are not going to see nodes past level 3, ( keep in mind there are 85 nodes and we have yet to see one past level 3 ), we have not seen naval content, secondaries, monster coins, systems like bounty hunting, we have seen 6/64 classes, we have not seen biomes, or races in any sort of finished state, its a long list, and seeing a dragon that is the exact same as 3 years ago with almost nothing new is not adding polish to please people like me, and i can almost guarantee that world boss that was copy and pasted from A1 contributed next to nothing to the recent delays.
Nah, it wouldn't go over well.
If Intrepid rushed through trying to tell people where dozens of different things are at, they wouldn't have time to show any of them. People would then complain that all they did was talk, not show. If they did show one thing off each time - well, then they have people complain that they aren't getting updates on things they aren't showing (ie, this thread).
There is no way Intrepid can "win" at this, there is no real reason for them to even try.
was stated in the livestream it will not be at the launch of P1 but maybe sometime through but you are right, lets see
What is the 1 class we have seen?
If your only metric for innovation is combat, sure this MMO isn’t innovative, but in every other category they are improving and innovating. The node system alone is INSANE.
For perspective, sea of thieves was made with over 200 developers and that game had very little content at launch. Ashes of creation is making sea of thieves, but BETTER, inside of a bigger game and that’s only a small fraction of what they want to deliver. You had add in the fact they just reached a team size over 200 this year and you can start to see why things are taking so long.
And don't you think your hyperbole in "we have not seen any of the other important aspects than polish (implemented after 8 years of development)" is a bit ridiculous? You haven't seen any successful implementation of good systems in Ashes? Node Sieges? Node Wars? Events? Commissions?
"6/64" is bad math. If you're measuring in development time, each of those six is one half of 8 total classes, so we've effectively seen the successful equivalent of the time required to design 6*8/2=24 classes. Designing augments will be a hurdle, but each individual secondary archetype isn't going to take up as much time as each class.
Edit: arguably, the current archetypes aren't finished either, not even fishished without augments, so 24/64 wouldn't be good math either; but the point is 6/64 is disgenuine.
@world boss was copied from A1:
1) They didn't just show the world boss, they showed a dungeon and the world boss. And yes, the dungeon wasn't world-changing, but it's yet another thing that got made progress on.
2) You're not being serious about that copying thing. The encounter is very different. Not necessarily better, but it's essentially proof that they're working on introducing variety to fill the world.
3) The streams don't exist to assuage your worries about the progress, they exist to show what was recently done that can be shown off. They were crunching for Alpha 2, which you got a huge update on 15 days before the world boss stream.
In my opinion, the best thing you can do at this stage, since Intrepid has a lot planned for the next year, is to relax a bit and see what the first 3-6 months of Alpha 2 bring. If you still feel like nothing's new after that, yeah, it's probably time to ask for deliverables. But for now, I don't think you have a thorough enough grasp on how much development has moved forward in order to criticise it so harshly. Nor would Intrepid be able to show all of it. Nor should; it's in too volatile of a state of development to show it off now, and then get criticised even more harshly, if it all turns out to be flawed and due for reworks later on. By only showing the things that are actually presentable, they're keeping expectations realistic.
Steven's optimistic schedules aren't in line with that ideal, but I'd argue that's probably because they're closer to internal guidelines, not deadlines. I think they're optimistic because it helps the parts that are moving faster than others to have their next step already mapped out for them, even if another part of the studio needs to go back and flesh out something else that took longer than expected.
I honestly think that's why we've seen so many productive assets pumped out so consistently, in spite of the setbacks in other parts of the world design. I think other studios might make the mistake of waiting too long for everything to move at the same pace, and then in the end wind up behind on the parts that could have moved faster. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's part of why Camelot Unchained stopped making any developments and died, once problems with the engine materialised.
definitely agree here, and forgive me if this has come across as why is it taking so long, thats not what the post is about, its more about the fact that after all this time there has not been any game breaking progress shown in any live stream, other than the ones that were pre recorded
You 100% wrong, thread like this, when they gather momentum, is exactly what causes change, or belter responses, its fanboi comment like yours, that do absolutely nothing to help!
You get your types in every single MMO dev cycle, always jumping on anything you consider negative towards the game.
Blind fanboi's, are often the death of a good game!
The comment you quoted criticizes the backpedaling design changes that have come through. Did you mean to quote someone else?
We have not seen this
He was talking about him saying that this post will do anything to help, and he is right, change doesn't happen from posts that don't bring up the negative parts of the game
The guy was going on about fanboi behavior when the quote is nothing like that.
its just the fact that any time anyone criticizes the game in anyway shape or form, all the fan bois come out to defend the company, wich is not beneficial in the long term for a good game