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.
Concerns about the progress we have been shown...
Sathrago
Member, Alpha Two
So over the years we have been shown all sorts of things that looked quite good. but it turns out most of this was just a proof-of-concept. Things such as the character builder. Its been stagnant since the showcase and if anything looks worse. characters look awful. The terrain itself is honestly strange. some of the "castle" pieces are just shoved in at random angles just to block off an area. it looks horrible.
And what is going on with these quests? one of the first quests you get is go stand in a circle around 5 or more spawn locations for a chance every 3 minutes of getting one portion of the quest completed. They made improvements recently from when soda lost his mind over not being able to understand map icons, but these things dont feel designed by anyone who has experience making quests or actually playing through them as a player. Also shame on you inhouse testers for letting them sit there like this just because the quests gave bad experience. You are getting paid to test the game why are you not pointing out such obvious problems?
Dont get me wrong, I understand this is an alpha. the problem im having is with the almost advertisement style monthly updates we were getting that have not really progressed since then. Ashes is supposed to be a system heavy game, right? So why are the mechanics for gathering placeholder? Why am i petting a wolf to skin them? You have a hunting bow item, and an actual bow weapon with attacks. put them together please.
Edit: adding another big issue. the logic to processing materials. not only can you not process a custom amount of items, you are forced to only process one quality at a time. Who thought this was good? let me throw as many as I want in there of all qualities and get the damn ticker ticking. I dont want to have to "stock up" my processing goods of each quality, effectively clogging my storage and inventory, just so that im not sitting there micro managing 1 minute processes.
I also dont understand why talent trees exist the way they are now. They look to be coded by someone who took a store asset and made it worse. not by game devs that worked for 8 years on a project. We were shown multiple biomes, castle sieges, a character creator, the custom tools used for placement of assets, etc. quite a long time ago but they dont look like they have seen much iteration and improvement since their showcases.
Honestly, I feel like the in-house testers you’ve had this entire time have failed to do their jobs—they’ve been too busy playing the alpha like an actual game. I found multiple exploits in just the first few areas close to Samia's hope. Just sitting there in the open being used. People dont care to report these things because they get to quickly level or complete objectives. Then you have these buy to play testers... They see the price tag on the alpha as already contributing enough to the games development that they can now just play it like its a released game.
Sigh... Sorry for the random ass ranting. I am pretty tired from my first day in the alpha and I honestly just should go to bed but here I am. I am worried about the future of the game. With the scant amount of time I have to test it on weekends ill keep reporting bugs and exploits. But I dont think this is enough to soothe my worries. the developers are dropping the ball on features that I thought would be much further along after so much time has passed since their reveals.
Just to end it on a positive note, they have done a good job with two things that are why I am still on the optimistic side of this entire mess. Combat feels good, powerful, meaningful and clean. (my friend says its because this is client side and is a massive issue because we can basically tell the server whatever we want and it will let it happen. but I hope hes wrong). The second is that there is no mini game for the basic form of fishing. Keep it this way. save mini-games for sports fishing.
Ill end it here. Say what ya gotta say. im here for the long run as I have been for many years. Just very concerned now that I have a look at their current progress.
And what is going on with these quests? one of the first quests you get is go stand in a circle around 5 or more spawn locations for a chance every 3 minutes of getting one portion of the quest completed. They made improvements recently from when soda lost his mind over not being able to understand map icons, but these things dont feel designed by anyone who has experience making quests or actually playing through them as a player. Also shame on you inhouse testers for letting them sit there like this just because the quests gave bad experience. You are getting paid to test the game why are you not pointing out such obvious problems?
Dont get me wrong, I understand this is an alpha. the problem im having is with the almost advertisement style monthly updates we were getting that have not really progressed since then. Ashes is supposed to be a system heavy game, right? So why are the mechanics for gathering placeholder? Why am i petting a wolf to skin them? You have a hunting bow item, and an actual bow weapon with attacks. put them together please.
Edit: adding another big issue. the logic to processing materials. not only can you not process a custom amount of items, you are forced to only process one quality at a time. Who thought this was good? let me throw as many as I want in there of all qualities and get the damn ticker ticking. I dont want to have to "stock up" my processing goods of each quality, effectively clogging my storage and inventory, just so that im not sitting there micro managing 1 minute processes.
I also dont understand why talent trees exist the way they are now. They look to be coded by someone who took a store asset and made it worse. not by game devs that worked for 8 years on a project. We were shown multiple biomes, castle sieges, a character creator, the custom tools used for placement of assets, etc. quite a long time ago but they dont look like they have seen much iteration and improvement since their showcases.
Honestly, I feel like the in-house testers you’ve had this entire time have failed to do their jobs—they’ve been too busy playing the alpha like an actual game. I found multiple exploits in just the first few areas close to Samia's hope. Just sitting there in the open being used. People dont care to report these things because they get to quickly level or complete objectives. Then you have these buy to play testers... They see the price tag on the alpha as already contributing enough to the games development that they can now just play it like its a released game.
Sigh... Sorry for the random ass ranting. I am pretty tired from my first day in the alpha and I honestly just should go to bed but here I am. I am worried about the future of the game. With the scant amount of time I have to test it on weekends ill keep reporting bugs and exploits. But I dont think this is enough to soothe my worries. the developers are dropping the ball on features that I thought would be much further along after so much time has passed since their reveals.
Just to end it on a positive note, they have done a good job with two things that are why I am still on the optimistic side of this entire mess. Combat feels good, powerful, meaningful and clean. (my friend says its because this is client side and is a massive issue because we can basically tell the server whatever we want and it will let it happen. but I hope hes wrong). The second is that there is no mini game for the basic form of fishing. Keep it this way. save mini-games for sports fishing.
Ill end it here. Say what ya gotta say. im here for the long run as I have been for many years. Just very concerned now that I have a look at their current progress.
1
Comments
This first phase of testing is about stability and performance. Hence adding new waves of players starting with this weekend.
For example, the Sandsquall Desert and Tropics biomes that we've seen in showcases ... those will eventually drop their "lawless" tag and become new zones later in Alpha-2.
Yeah, I've given up on the vast majority of Alpha-2 testers. They're more interested in playing the game, grinding levels, and doing zero feedback or bug reports. The devs seem fine with that at the moment ... so the in-game data they are getting appears to be passable for now.
There is pretty much no content in it, but the world looks amazing and I have spent way too much time just running around being amazed at what I see. This part of the Alpha is for core systems, not the artisan system or questing. Just placeholders for a lot of stuff.
Sure, what is shown on the streams is in their private server that is optimized, but I see all of the promise already in it.
You may want to wait until Phase 2 or 3 to see it fleshed out more if it feels sparse currently.
Right now, it is pretty bare bones, but those bones are sexy!
im still playing. still reporting bugs as I find them. still finding things that are frustrating and concerning. Like I said before im here to stay im just concerned with what was shown and what is actually the state of the game.
I'm not sure how some of our feedback is even treated at the moment. There are so many things we don't know about. Also I bet a lot of bugs being reported as basically duplicates of known issues, or reported for a system which is nothing but a placeholder. This is probably the reason why Intrepid didn't provide much guidance for bug reporting or testing activities. Most of that stuff its probably limited to professional testers and the actual PTR servers, and we are just acting as bodies to tax the servers more.
Fans of the game's promise are likely going to stay or at least drop in and out, the average Joe Public....I'm not sure if those people can handle the knowledge of how the sausage is made. Especially the social media exposure can be a double edged sword.
Blown past falling sands…
Ain't that the Truth.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
well i hope to feel the same way this next weekend.