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.
Node Appearances ! Do Sir Steven and Intrepid need help ?
Aszkalon
Member, Alpha Two
So the first Time since October 25th,
i was around the two Nodes " Joeva " - and " Halcyon " - in the adorable Riverlands of Phase 1 of the Alpha 2.
And i noticed something.
I noticed something that i couldn't un-notice.
Maybe it is because everything in this Game which is not completely fleshed out and polished yet, is more or less a Placeholder for the final Product that will be in it's Place when the Game will release in 2 Years or above that.
But do the Nodes kinda look AAAAALMOST exactly the same ?
There is this Palisade Wall made out of Wood around the Village-Stage Node -> so far so good,
and there is the "Stables" - which is kinda always on one Side/Entrance of the Node,
THEN there is this "long Road" which leads to a Market Place -> where the likes of FIVE more or less huge and longer Buildings are located - which at least around "Two" you can actually go inside. (really hoping they make ALL of them walkable/accessible to walk into),
and then there is this ONE, HUGE Building where the Roof alone is like at least two Stories high,
and then there is this "other", ONE Building -> which looks really cool and has Viking-like Dragon-Wooden Statue-like embroideries on the Roof,
and "THEN" there is this one, "weird", high Cliff/Hill like thingy - which is usually a higher Plateau - where a City-Hall like Building is located,
PLUS a Temple, Church, whatever You call it - > which is sadly not walkable/accessible to walk into - right now.
Okay.
All of these Nodes i mean, are " Kae'lar " Nodes. I have absolutely no Clue, if this is because of the Players playing mainly Kae'lar Humans,
or if the Nodes will always look like this at least currently in the Alpha Two -> even if 100% of all Players would for Example play Vek Orc's or Empyrean Elves who contribute to the Nodes.
But i noticed this " Pattern " of a Look.
-> the long Road leading to and into - and through an adorable Market,
-> the Buildings always aligned in the same Location around the Market,
-> the Road "leading up" to this always Hill/Plateau-like higher Place which is like a Place on a huge Rock of a countryish massif there,
-> the City-Hall -> Temple/Church-Building -> Viking-like Building -> plus the Towers and Entrances ALWAYS be mostly in the same Place. And sadly most Buildings right now being empty inside and nothing but a "Prison" You need to use "Unstuck" to escape from -> if you clip into them.
. .
The ONE Node which was greatly different regarding to how it looked to me -> was the Miraleth Node.
Please nobody misunderstand. This is not a Rant. I am just curious. Is this hopefully still going to change ? And every single Node gets a little bit the own Look to - well - "look" clearly different by a bit from all the other Nodes ?
Because right now - all Nodes have this "Plateau-thingy" like the Winstead Node which is notorious from all the Live-Stream Presentations.
Do Sir Steven Sharif and dear Intrepid itself need a bit of help of the HUUUGE Community perhaps ? The Community which already loves Verra so very much - since the likes of 2018 ?
Help as in Suggestions, Inspirations - of how a Node could look slightly different in Terms of where the Roads and Buildings are and how they are aligned ? I am well aware of Course all the Nodes need to have always all the important Buildings available no matter how different their Structure is aligned.
For Example the "Empty Lots". And i could imagine some of these "INSIDE EMPTY"-Houses which sadly appear a little bit like nothing but an Dummy and Outside-Front of a House - are later on partially or fully the "static Houses" which Players are supposed to have their cool Home without the need of an instanced Room like in an Apartment.
Lastly -> right now i have no Idea about whereever the "Freeholds" are supposed to be. . but this has already nothing really to do anymore with this Topic. 
i was around the two Nodes " Joeva " - and " Halcyon " - in the adorable Riverlands of Phase 1 of the Alpha 2.
And i noticed something.
I noticed something that i couldn't un-notice.
Maybe it is because everything in this Game which is not completely fleshed out and polished yet, is more or less a Placeholder for the final Product that will be in it's Place when the Game will release in 2 Years or above that.
But do the Nodes kinda look AAAAALMOST exactly the same ?
There is this Palisade Wall made out of Wood around the Village-Stage Node -> so far so good,
and there is the "Stables" - which is kinda always on one Side/Entrance of the Node,
THEN there is this "long Road" which leads to a Market Place -> where the likes of FIVE more or less huge and longer Buildings are located - which at least around "Two" you can actually go inside. (really hoping they make ALL of them walkable/accessible to walk into),
and then there is this ONE, HUGE Building where the Roof alone is like at least two Stories high,
and then there is this "other", ONE Building -> which looks really cool and has Viking-like Dragon-Wooden Statue-like embroideries on the Roof,
and "THEN" there is this one, "weird", high Cliff/Hill like thingy - which is usually a higher Plateau - where a City-Hall like Building is located,
PLUS a Temple, Church, whatever You call it - > which is sadly not walkable/accessible to walk into - right now.
Okay.
All of these Nodes i mean, are " Kae'lar " Nodes. I have absolutely no Clue, if this is because of the Players playing mainly Kae'lar Humans,
or if the Nodes will always look like this at least currently in the Alpha Two -> even if 100% of all Players would for Example play Vek Orc's or Empyrean Elves who contribute to the Nodes.
But i noticed this " Pattern " of a Look.
-> the long Road leading to and into - and through an adorable Market,
-> the Buildings always aligned in the same Location around the Market,
-> the Road "leading up" to this always Hill/Plateau-like higher Place which is like a Place on a huge Rock of a countryish massif there,
-> the City-Hall -> Temple/Church-Building -> Viking-like Building -> plus the Towers and Entrances ALWAYS be mostly in the same Place. And sadly most Buildings right now being empty inside and nothing but a "Prison" You need to use "Unstuck" to escape from -> if you clip into them.
. . The ONE Node which was greatly different regarding to how it looked to me -> was the Miraleth Node.
Please nobody misunderstand. This is not a Rant. I am just curious. Is this hopefully still going to change ? And every single Node gets a little bit the own Look to - well - "look" clearly different by a bit from all the other Nodes ?
Because right now - all Nodes have this "Plateau-thingy" like the Winstead Node which is notorious from all the Live-Stream Presentations.
Do Sir Steven Sharif and dear Intrepid itself need a bit of help of the HUUUGE Community perhaps ? The Community which already loves Verra so very much - since the likes of 2018 ?
Help as in Suggestions, Inspirations - of how a Node could look slightly different in Terms of where the Roads and Buildings are and how they are aligned ? I am well aware of Course all the Nodes need to have always all the important Buildings available no matter how different their Structure is aligned.
For Example the "Empty Lots". And i could imagine some of these "INSIDE EMPTY"-Houses which sadly appear a little bit like nothing but an Dummy and Outside-Front of a House - are later on partially or fully the "static Houses" which Players are supposed to have their cool Home without the need of an instanced Room like in an Apartment.
Lastly -> right now i have no Idea about whereever the "Freeholds" are supposed to be.
. but this has already nothing really to do anymore with this Topic. 
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
0
Comments
They shouldnt be affraid of making nodes unique some more defendable and some less. Super defe dable nodes could have one or 2 less building plots where hard to degend ones could have bonus plots.
It could be nodes in same biome will be similiar and nodes outsude will be different but who knows
Ohhh i HOPE You are right and these are just Placeholders. Because i thought the same. They appear to me just like Winstead but rotated and maybe slightly changed with just a few tiny, tiny Differences if at all.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
That square is my assumption the city size if it hits metropolis
Which sounds somewhat bad having all biomes nodes be basicly the same as other nodes in the biomes however it might not be an issue with vassalship coming in the same phase which prevent nearby nodes from ranking past the parent node which will most likly make each biome have 1 t4 node and 1-2 t3 nodes and the rest encampments and dispite the layout being the same between the tier difference might just make the node feel different between the t3 and t4 version in the same biome. so we mightloose some of the samie samie feel we have atm since we only have the one biome
In A1 we had Empyrean architecture in Nodes, and the Nodes themselves looked slightly different both because of that, and for other smaller reasons. Some of that is still there, some isn't. We had more housing, but it wasn't really housing, it was the 'concept of' housing, and a lot of gameplay revolved around racing to get enough money for housing first (if you cared).
I think that games do better when they do what Ashes and other modern MMOs do and focus on experience Phases. Even if I don't agree with some of the Phases that Intrepid is using, I'm sure they have reasons (my concern is the implications of those reasons, not the choices).
I'd be willing to gamble, in their position, that most of the people who are testing now don't care a lot that the Nodes look the same or that the Housing doesn't fit into things. The person working on that can mostly continue without caring about all this stuff we're testing, as long as they know the network solution handles 'being in houses'. So the issue above that of 'unique node layouts' is probably even lower priority.
Ashes is just an Open Development game with highly interconnected systems so it can't use the methods of TL or WoW and release earlier without certain features active while working on integration, except in the Alpha state, which is exactly what they're doing.
Plus, think of all the exposure and stuff for Content Creators to make videos about when they add new things like this. It's a very effective tactic, almost more effective than the method they were using before.
My as well. It's gonna be great.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
That wasn't their focus from this phase of testing. If they're testing other things, it makes sense to keep as much of everything else the same so that they know any problems aren't from interacting with the differences.
Give it time. It'll all come together.
100.000% hoping here You are right. I just have to cross my fingers for Phase Three and that they give Nodes their own, little/somewhat Unique looks. Like with Miraleth in contrast to Winstead.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
They are testing servers and server stability not content.
However.
Most people have never built anything more complex then a paper airplane and thus have no frame of reference on what it take to build large complex projects.
Oh, sweet. I didn't saw this last Comment before. Something to enjoy.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
I promise i am "NOT. TALKING. SHIT. ->" about Sir Steven and his Company/Studio which makes this Game.
But honestly. We might don't see this anytime soon.
In the WOOOOOOOOOOOOORST - Case - not even by Release. But honestly - i don't really care - as long as we get it anytime soon "after Release".
Yes.
I am aware some People call me a Bootsucker for it !
* AGGRESSIVE SIR-STEVEN BOOTLICKING NOISES *
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)