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.
First Impressions/feedback: A short but constructive post.
Cyanon
Member, Alpha Two
My MMO experience:
WoW vanilla multi-class player from (2004-2014), GW2 veteran (2012-2018), New World player, Throne and Liberty player.
As a consumer/regular gamer these are my first impressions for the Alpha2.
Pros:
1. Solid basic foundations for questing, crafting, navigating, objects and other visual assets.
2. Early mounts and animal husbandry system has tons of potential.
3. The alpha stage feels like a proper alpha and not an early release for cash grabs (this is an amazing signal for trustworthiness).
Cons:
2. Node system, Crafting, Gathering -> Needs to be a lot more intuitive, perhaps by giving the player quests to guide them to do missions that ensure they learn how to contribute to the node. Resources spawn location should synergize with player level and difficulty of the zones where those resources are spawning.
3. Node system -> This is what contains the spirit of the game, its own identity within this genre, it needs to be a lot more interactive, impactful, easy/simple to navigate and utilize.
4. Audio -> Game audio needs better quality in general, needs to be equal or better than NW or T&L.
5. Visuals -> "Camera zoom out" goes too far, makes the game look dated, I'm assuming graphics are not yet polished enough due to the current stage of testing, but it doesn't even get close to expected UE5 engine graphics, not even better than several UE4 games.
6. Questing -> Game needs to have a story line connecting every aspect of your adventure from lvl 1 requiring/teaching you how to progress trough at least 1 profession, while at the same time keeping the difficulty reasonably hard. People needs to fall in love with it from the very first 10-20 levels.
7. UI -> I'm hoping this current UI for quest windows and vendors is simply placeholder. It needs to turn into something that doesn't break immersion of the player, clean (simple) and intuitive.
7. General progression flow -> mindless grinding mobs should never award 5 times more experience per hour than questing, it should be the other way around. Grinding should be great to find gear, but questing should be the primary means for leveling as it requires more dynamism, while keeping dungeons as a more balanced method.
For example:
-XP per hour while questing = 2X vs grinding POIs = 1X vs Dungeons 1.5X t
-Gear/loot while questing = 1X vs grinding POI's = 2X vs Dungeons = 1.5X
Conclusion,
For Ashes of Creation to even have a chance to become relevant within the mmo genre it needs to feel revolutionary, run amazingly well. Right now (alpha) AoC feels to me like playing an mmo called Rift, a game with potential, fresh concepts but subpar implementation of its systems and generic overall feel. This needs to change, Intrepid needs to keep building on the nodes concept to make it the blood and soul of the game. It needs to feel "revolutionary". It also needs to run like WoW, look like New World or better, and play like Rust where every system is easy to use, combat feels impactful, everything is intuitive and requires no guides to learn the basics. This is very very hard to achieve, but its the only way to ensure this game will become memorable. Also, one last thing (respectfully), please tone down the use of the word Glorious a bit, it feels "in your face" a bit too often.
As a very old follower, supporter and promoter of this project, I wish your team all the success in the world.
WoW vanilla multi-class player from (2004-2014), GW2 veteran (2012-2018), New World player, Throne and Liberty player.
As a consumer/regular gamer these are my first impressions for the Alpha2.
Pros:
1. Solid basic foundations for questing, crafting, navigating, objects and other visual assets.
2. Early mounts and animal husbandry system has tons of potential.
3. The alpha stage feels like a proper alpha and not an early release for cash grabs (this is an amazing signal for trustworthiness).
Cons:
2. Node system, Crafting, Gathering -> Needs to be a lot more intuitive, perhaps by giving the player quests to guide them to do missions that ensure they learn how to contribute to the node. Resources spawn location should synergize with player level and difficulty of the zones where those resources are spawning.
3. Node system -> This is what contains the spirit of the game, its own identity within this genre, it needs to be a lot more interactive, impactful, easy/simple to navigate and utilize.
4. Audio -> Game audio needs better quality in general, needs to be equal or better than NW or T&L.
5. Visuals -> "Camera zoom out" goes too far, makes the game look dated, I'm assuming graphics are not yet polished enough due to the current stage of testing, but it doesn't even get close to expected UE5 engine graphics, not even better than several UE4 games.
6. Questing -> Game needs to have a story line connecting every aspect of your adventure from lvl 1 requiring/teaching you how to progress trough at least 1 profession, while at the same time keeping the difficulty reasonably hard. People needs to fall in love with it from the very first 10-20 levels.
7. UI -> I'm hoping this current UI for quest windows and vendors is simply placeholder. It needs to turn into something that doesn't break immersion of the player, clean (simple) and intuitive.
7. General progression flow -> mindless grinding mobs should never award 5 times more experience per hour than questing, it should be the other way around. Grinding should be great to find gear, but questing should be the primary means for leveling as it requires more dynamism, while keeping dungeons as a more balanced method.
For example:
-XP per hour while questing = 2X vs grinding POIs = 1X vs Dungeons 1.5X t
-Gear/loot while questing = 1X vs grinding POI's = 2X vs Dungeons = 1.5X
Conclusion,
For Ashes of Creation to even have a chance to become relevant within the mmo genre it needs to feel revolutionary, run amazingly well. Right now (alpha) AoC feels to me like playing an mmo called Rift, a game with potential, fresh concepts but subpar implementation of its systems and generic overall feel. This needs to change, Intrepid needs to keep building on the nodes concept to make it the blood and soul of the game. It needs to feel "revolutionary". It also needs to run like WoW, look like New World or better, and play like Rust where every system is easy to use, combat feels impactful, everything is intuitive and requires no guides to learn the basics. This is very very hard to achieve, but its the only way to ensure this game will become memorable. Also, one last thing (respectfully), please tone down the use of the word Glorious a bit, it feels "in your face" a bit too often.
As a very old follower, supporter and promoter of this project, I wish your team all the success in the world.
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