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
1. You can easily buy either good or the best gear right away as it's gonna be much cheaper for low- and mid-level items compared to endgame items.
2. You already have experience and know what to do, where to go, how to level up faster. More experience also means less deaths and less death penaties as a result.
3. Nodes will be much more developed, so there will more content available compared to the empty servers on launch.
I'm not entertaining private servers, as I said before. They're not representative of the overall MMO population. They are indicative of one specific MMO population, but that's a fraction of a fraction and we're aiming for overall population trends.
So it was generally unpopular as an official release, but the reasons for this aren't clear, and all I've picked up is some talk from players about changes that impacted the open world PvP systems. That would have a much larger impact on appeal than leveling speed. Though I'll give you it's impressive to see 17k concurrent players on a privately hosted server.
If the max level changed in future updates, that's a big difference than it taking 2.5 years of playtime to hit the cap.
Better info for this would be what the original player level cap was, at what point in the game's life it was increased, and by how much.
Because if the cap was raised by five per quarter (20 per year), then it didn't actually take 2.5 years of playtime to hit the current cap, that's just how long they'd been playing in general at the time they hit the new cap, and they'd probably been at the previous cap before it went up again.
Edit: broke quote nesting
I dearly hope they don't add any kind of level skip or booster. The leveling process exists so players can learn what they're doing with their character. People will naturally level faster on future characters anyway because they already know the background systems and will have some resources that can be siphoned from other characters, but the last thing I ever want to see is a 'pay to bypass gameplay'
In any case, I guess you get the idea on what I'm talking about and what's the point that I was trying to make. And that I don't write some random stuff from my head because "OMG someone disagrees with me on the internet, I will do anything to protect my point of view because it's mine and I can't be wrong"
I agree with you on this for sure.
Nothing could compare to how bad ESO's leveling process is. You can hit lvl50 in 3 hours and it absolutely shows in the overall competency of the community there.
I appreciate the actual numbers to look at, even though I'm still not swayed into thinking we need a leveling time of that magnitude because the purpose of leveling is to introduce players into the complexities of their class and the game gradually. Once they have a solid grasp on those things, further leveling isn't really needed, since it's already fulfilled its purpose.
I mean, I gave you the chance to realize that it wasn't me that said what you claimed I did, and rather than realizing you were wrong, you doubled down on your incorrect assumption.
You refusing to realize you are wrong and doubling down on your incorrect assumption is basically the tl;dr of this thread.
You claimed you could break down every point but won't, when really we all know you can't.
You have a preference for a specific leveling speed, and have spent 10 years among a VERY niche group of people that may or may not prefer the same - but nearly all of whom are trying to recapture a feeling from 20 or so years ago.
That means nothing to he MMORPG population at large.
The thing with this is, if you have learned everything you need to know well before you hit the level cap, that is a sign that the leveling speed is too slow.
A 200 hour leveling experience goes well beyond leveling as a learning experience. Extending that leveling experience even more is utterly ridiculous without also adding a commensurate amount of knowledge that needs to be learned (most players are not going to retain 200 hours worth of learned knowledge).
For the first two months of Alpha 2, we won't even have anyone at the level cap due to the downtime schedule for updates and patching during the week. If there's a server wipe in there anywhere, it could be as much as five or six months post-Alpha 2's start date that we even get an understanding of how long it will take to reach the level cap, and longer to grasp how useful it is because everything is going to be in constant flux for balancing.
If I had to put a guess on it, we're not going to get a proper grasp of if the leveling process is too long or too short until another year+ out once the basics are finally settled, but them starting on the high end of the leveling curve in terms of active, public MMOs gives them room to adjust without it being a scenario of 'I hit the level cap and I still don't know what's going on' that can happen in a lot of games.
Part of that is also just that few games actually demand a skill check during leveling. I'm hoping Ashes challenges that and has a significant skill check during the quests for gaining their secondary archetype.
Grow up man
That first time I pointed it out to you - that was me giving you the chance to be the devent person. You didn't take the offer, and instead doubled down. No you didn't, you showed some charts.
Since it is from a private server, there is no obligation at all on their part to provide accurate information. A developer providing information on their product legally needs that information to be accurate, people running private servers (especially those running them from Russia) have no such obligation.
I could show you some charts where MMORPG's with 50 hours leveling time lose 0% of their population over 10 years, and charts where MMORPG's with 250 hour leveling times lose 500% of their population before they hit the level cap. I can do that because just like people running private servers, I am under no legal obligation at all to provide accurate information - game developers (publically traded ones, at least) are.
Private servers do not belong in the discussion of a commercial game. I have told you this already. In that other thread, you state that a thing that happened in L2 without health information being shown will also happen in Ashes even with health information being shown.
The thing is, you did this without any thought at all as to why that thing happened in L2 in the first place. It didn't happen because health information was shown, so there had to be another reason. If that other reason doesn't exist in Ashes, then that entire topic is a moot point.
It is disingenuious to consider the actions of players in one game without looking at the specific reasons behind those actions. Making arguments like that displays a complete lack of sincerity in debate from those making the argument. It isn't actual debate looking for the best answer - because you can not arrive at the best answer without understanding the reasons at the core.
The genetic fallacy (also known as the fallacy of origins or fallacy of virtue) is a fallacy of irrelevance in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other words, a claim is ignored or given credibility based on its source rather than the claim itself.
This perfectly describes what you did in attempt to prove my point wrong. This perfectly describes that you paid little to no attention to the actual statistics. The first two screenshots were from private servers, two last screenshots were from OFFICIAL servers. So once again, there are two possible scenarios:
1. You saw that and once again tried to use cherry picking trick or simply became a victim of a confirmation bias.
2. You didn't pay attention, which means you are not actually looking for the truth, you simply want to defend your point, no matter whether it's right or wrong. Go for it. We need to yoink all info we can possibly get. I don't mind if it proves me wrong. I described why specifically Lineage 2 private servers are perfectly relevant. Go read it or stop talking about the game you know nothing about. Correct. Visible HP bars in the game with identical system will make it much easier. Another random assumption based on absolutely nothing in a desperate attempt to devalue the point that you try to present as a fact. False confidence does not make your argument valid, it shows that you have no better arguments. Period IT WASN'T SHOWN. For the love of god, stop talking about the game you know nothing about. "... there had to be another reason, because I'm so stubborn when it comes to talking about the game I know nothing about, but I still want to find any way to prove my point." - that's what it is. No more no less. All necessary prerequisites for that to happen exist in Ashes of Creation. A broad statement that is totally correct with a subtle implication that I haven't thought or presented the reasons what led to those kind of encounters. Another primitive manipulation attempt.
P.S. Dissecting your mad comments brings me pleasure. You won't learn anything from it though anyway. Thank you for being my patient today.
I've made mistakes on these forums in regards to quotes and such before. When pointed out, I generally fix them at the first opportunity.
When I pointed out to you that you attributed something to me that I did not say, and that I do not believe, you showed the kind of person you are by doubling down that not only did I say the thing I just told you I did not say, but also that I would be dishonest enough to go back and edit a post in order to make it appear as if I didn't say the thing that I didn't say, but you thought I did.
That was you showing us all who you are - at least online. You don't get to do that and then attempt to claim you are a decent person. Your claims about your own qualities do not supercede your actions. You are misusing this fallacy.
I am not dismissing the argument, I am dismissing a single data point. It is perfectly valid to dismiss a given data point due to it's source not being trusted.
The reason for this is simple;
The first chart here is a combined total from all MMORPG's with faster leveling speed. The chart represents the percentage of their combined population (in relation to their launch month population) that they have retained over the given time period (a 9 year chart, so good info).
This second chart is similar to the above, but it is for MMORPG's with leveling times that are expected to take more than 250 hours, displayed as a percent of launch month population. As you can see, they go in to negative population very quickly, and stay there.
Clearly, the above are not charts that should be trusted - you absolutely should be dismissing them.
Likewise, for the reasons I outlined for you, data from private servers should be dismissed. You can disagree with that if you like, but if all you have to support your position is "data" from private servers, then you don't have a particularly good argument even if that data was accepted.
I know it wasn't shown.
I was pointing out that it being shown (and by association it not being shown) is not a valid reason the actions seen and complained about happened. It has nothing at all to do with health information being shown - because if it did have anything to do with that, then that kind of thing would not have happened in L2. We have absolutely no way of saying one way or the other if this is to be true.
If it is true, the game will fail regardless of health shown, because people are no longer interested in fighting others for access to basic content - so I opt to make the argument that this one facet that is required for that behavior to exist won't be the case in Ashes (the argument is pointless if this turns out to be incorrect).
Boom 1: The invincible ignorance fallacy, also known as argument by pigheadedness, is a deductive fallacy of circularity where the person in question simply refuses to believe the argument, ignoring any evidence given. It is not so much a fallacious tactic in argument as it is a refusal to argue in the proper sense of the word. The method used in this fallacy is either to make assertions with no consideration of objections or to simply dismiss objections by calling them excuses, conjecture, anecdotal, etc. or saying that they are proof of nothing, all without actually demonstrating how the objections fit these terms. It is similar to the ad lapidem fallacy, in which the person rejects all the evidence and logic presented, without providing any evidence or logic that could lead to a different conclusion.
Boom 2: Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem, is a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further argumentation. This theory is closely tied to proof by assertion due to the lack of evidence behind the statement and its attempt to persuade without providing any evidence.
The course of events was the following (not precisely, but in general):
> I described the issue.
> You stated that it lacks explanation.
> I provided an explanation.
> You stated this is explanation is irrelevant and doesn't make sense.
> I provided the objective statistics over a representative period of time.
> You attempted to claim tha this statistics is irrelevant.
> I explained why it is relevant
> You said that data from private servers can't be trusted
> I provided data from official servers
> You intentionally ignored it twice
> KEKW
The funny thing is, it would go on and on forever, because you are not able to admit the fact that my point has a valid reason to exist because it is actually based and backed on objective data. Instead, you continue talk about the game that you have played and have no knowledge about despite being called out for that multiple times. Okay, so you can't actually provide any data that you mentioned in your previous message and instead try to turn it into some sort of joke and clownery.
Appeal to ridicule (also called appeal to mockery, ad absurdo, or the horse laugh) is an informal fallacy which presents an opponent's argument as absurd, ridiculous, or humorous, and therefore not worthy of serious consideration. Now, this is where we get to the essence of it. I provided the statistics FROM OFFICIAL SERVERS and it's like what? Second? Third time? That you repeat your irrelevant mantra? This is a direct and obvious proof that you INTENTIONALLY ignore the statistics FROM OFFICIAL SERVERS, because apparently, it's easier to ignore it than to generate a new excuse why stats from official servers are somehow, magically, are now invalid too. YOU don't have. I do. Same as Nikr, Liniker and other Lineage 2 players. The logic "If I haven't seen that, then it doesn't exist" is wrong on levels beyong counting. This is absolutely wrong. The game may live and fail under both scenarios. Yet while it is alive, that issue will affect players, especially casual players that people care so much about it this topic. So how come caring about casual players suddenly becomes irrelevant when your personal preference is at stake? A rhetorical question with an obvious answer.
And I would appreciate it even more, if you enlighten this kind gentleman why visible HP bars might create a perfect environment for griefing in a game with limited resources and open-world PvP. Thank you in advance
It is your actions afterwards that are in question here.
In much the same way I gave you opportunity to correct your earlier mistake as per the above, I also have given you some time to see if you realized the mistake you made with the "data" you posted. To be fair, I didn't point out to you that it was inherently faulty data, but I gave you time.
So, the first charts you posted are from the Telegram page of an L2 guild leader/streamer. There is nothing at all in that to suggest it is valid data. There is no reason at all to assume this person even has access to the data in question.
The second chart you posted was from L2on. It is data from their private servers, not from official servers. Cadmus was a Greek hero, and like most other games, L2's original server names were based on it's own lore, not our lore.
For reference, the original L2 server names (at least, the NA/EU names) were Bartz, Devianne, Erica, Franz, Gustin, Hindemith, Kain, Lionna, Luna, Sieghardt and Teon (note, this is my understanding, I'm happy to be corrected by @Ludullu_(NiKr) ). I'm quite sure other regions had other names, but as far as I can tell, not Cadmus. If you have any other means to suggest that Cadmus was indeed an official L2 server (as opposed to an unofficial/private server) as you have suggested, by all means post it.
That is why I am dismissing that data, not because it doesn't support my argument. My integrity is far too important to me to consider refuting presented data purely because I don't agree with it. However, I will attempt to find the integrity in that presented data before accepting it, again because my own integrity is important to me.
Since I have tried and failed to find the integrity in the data you have provided, and since you have not presented it yourself, my own personal integrity leaves me with no option left other than to not accept that data at present, as data without integrity is not data.
Corruption can lead to taunting because taunting can be done without penalty. The type of taunting I am referring to is the attacking of the non combatant but not killing them in order to get a response. If there was not corruption, this would not happen as the aggressor would just go back to PK'ing.
Here is an a perfect example of you doing it properly:
Cadmus did not belong to EU/NA server clusters. It belonged to russian server cluster and yes, it was 100% official. There are some private communities that might have servers with that name, but the statistics I provided was specifically from Cadmus RuOff. I guess my previous paragraph answers this. Once again, you could have just asked right away whether Cadmus is official server or not. You decided to go the hard way. Ugh... that guy reposted a screenshot sent by one of the admins from Asterios community forum. Theoretically, I could find it, but practically it would be a nightmare, because I don't remember which exactly admin posted it and it would take a lot of time to find their original message. I played at the time when it happened and I remember how we were wondering back then whether CCU number will reach 20k. Wrong. L2on provides data for official servers. Not sure about private servers. I suppose the time to reconsider your opinion has come. Once again, stop complicating a simple process while talking about the game you know nothing about. You keep making false statements with a straight face and I'm tired of dealing with this kind of nonsense.
And it was published by the same people that Steven thought of using for EU publishing (the same umbrella that is).
Also, L2on tracks several servers outside of the official ones as well, but it was mostly used just for the official ones and was a highly trusted source of info. Iirc it used player-driven tracking (potentially with some bots as well), where any info about online and item market was reported to them by the players. So, fwiw, I trusted L2on about its online info back when I was following L2's offcial ru server status.
I want to help, because you seem highly regarded. There is no scenario in which you come out a winner in this discussion 👇
I would leave MMORPGs shortly after hitting a Hell Level, where it felt like the time it took for me to reach my next Class milestone was arbitrarily inflated. And then I would return to the specific game after the Hell Level was nerfed to be quicker/easier and no longer felt like a Hell Level in terms of the time it took for me to reach my next Class milestone. At that time, reaching max Adventurer Level was not even a goal because in Table Top DnD reaching Level 20 (max) could take at least a year. Because we were only playing 4-6 hours per week and sometimes we might only play 4-6 hours per month.
Once MMORPGs got rid of Hell Levels altogether, yes, that created a new problem.
Then the average player could hit max Adventurer Level in 8-12 weeks. But, then we'd have to wait 18+ months for new content. So, the devs focused on how to use Dungeons and Raids to entertain gamers for those 18+ months by having them hunt for BiS Gear and/or with PvP - so there would be stuff for gamers to do while they wait for new dev created content in the next Expansion.
And that's brought us to the era where "Endgame is the real game". Because you only play the Leveling portion for 3-12 weeks, depending on the hours per week that you play. Maybe 120 hours to reach max Adventurer Level. Then you have to wait 18+ months for the next Expansion. So, the vast majority of time in the game is spent doing Endgame stuff. Which eventually gives the impression that that is the real game.
I play RPGs primarily to explore new locations in the world and to live through the dev narrated stories as I progress my Class, hopefully helping to make that world a nicer place to live while I do that.
Once I've completed that a few times with alts, I'm going to leave until there are new locations to explore and new dev created stories to experience and more Class progression.
I'm not going to stick around for PvP or to do the same Dungeons/Raids over and over to acquire BiS Gear.
The kind of PvP I enjoy, when I'm in the mood to tolerate PvP, is town-city defense.
As a hero in a Fantasy story, I like to defend towns and cities. And I don't necessarily care if I'm defending the town/city from a (super)natural disaster, like an Earthquake or Hurricane or from roaming monsters or from NPCs. And I can be in the mood to defend a town/city from other players for maybe up to 1 hour out of an 8 hour play session.
The EQNext concept of Storybricks creating a dynamic world that puts and end to Endgame was excellent.
The Ashes concept of Nodes/Cities/Metros that we build and defend is a watered-down version of Storybricks and also sounds like a great way to create a dynamic world and put an end to Endgame.
Including many alternative forms of progression, like Social Orgs, Religions and Racial and Node progression (in addition to Artisan progression) also gives players more to do after hitting max Adventurer Level.
Or....OR... if individual players want to... they can prolong the time it takes them to reach max Adventurer Level by pursuing those other forms of progression before the reach max Adventurer Level.
Storybricks and Nodes seemed as though they would be the saviors of MMORPGs by ending the Endgame.
And they might have been if EQNext and/or Ashes of Creation had released Before 2020.
But they did not release before 2020.
Now even games like WoW have plenty of fun stuff to do with one character after it reaches max Adventurer Level and max Artisan Level that are not just banging on the same mobs over and over and over again for BiS Gear. Various forms of races, Explorer progression - and Battlepasses. And now they also have new content dropping every 1-4 for months via Seasonal updates... instead of having players wait 18+ months for an Expansion.
Right now, I have 5 games that I wish I could be playing constantly: LEGO Fortinte, Nightingale, NMS, WoW and NW.
But, I can only really play one at a time.
And, by the time I get to a major milestone in one, one or more of the others has a new Seasonal update that I want to check out.
This past week, both WoW and Nightingale have had major updates I want to explore. I really haven't finished the most recent NMS update, but I stopped playing that because Marvel/Dr. Doom storyline dropped for Fortnite and there's some Marvel Skins on the new BP that I wanted for LEGO Fortnite. I just finished grabbing Dr. Doom and the Dr. Doom LEGO furniture two days ago.
Which means I can take a break from LEGO Fortnite to explore the new stuff in Nightingale and WoW.
Currently, MMOs have several other fun methods to retain players that are not as tedious and soul-numbing as arbitrarily, globally inflating the time it takes to reach max Adventurer Level.
As I said in Discord ---
Yes, I have heard other Lineage 2 fans talk about the fun they have grinding mobs.
My Bartle Score is: My bartle score is Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0%
So, it should be easy to see that grinding mobs is not going to be an incentive for me to stick around to play after reaching max Level Adventurer; nor is PvP.
Nodes providing new content and new Story Arcs and new mobs and new NPCs as they rise and fall would keep me playing. New Towns and Cities and Metros to explore would keep me playing. Alternative forms of progression, like Social Orgs and Religions would keep me playing.
Arbitrarily inflating the time it takes to reach max Adventurer Level - which would also basically create Hell Levels for Adventurer progression, would cause me to go play some other game that is not as tedious to play.
And, there are currently lots of other fun MMOs to play besides Ashes - including WoW.
And these are the supposed official social media for the L2 ru servers (I haven't read the whole thread, so I dunno what telegram Flanker linked/talked about)
They'll be self-publishing in EU.
I chatted with Dygz on discord yesterday and it was much more constructive than it was on this forum.
You claim the data is not relevant - based on what exactly? And even if we imagine that it is not relevant, I provided statistics from the official servers as well. Is that not relevant as well now?
But I personally disagree with that, because that activity is a highly required trial by fire for anyone who wants to post on the forums regularly. I myself have had several looooooooooong discussions with both of them (as you can see by my own post count
How will players no where to go when most of the places that were around for the first character no longer exist for the alts?
There also won't be the same mobs and NPCs.
Diamaht says they want to play different Classes, which means they will have to learn what to do each time they start progressing a new alt. New Classes may mean more deaths. Death penalties are irrelevant.
I dunno how Nodes will be more developed when they are destroyed.
There should still be plenty of content, but that is mostly irrelevant for the topic of arbitrarily inflating the time it takes to reach max Adventurer Level.