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.
Requirements for the artisan system that seem to have been missed.
RedLeader1
Member, Alpha Two
I am a huge fan of Intrepid, but compared to the rest of the game the Artisan system is a huge failure. So as a long time IT project manager let me lay out the requirements in a way that Intrepid as developers should understand. I should also say, that I realize that this is a test, but with so many "MUST HAVES" missing, it is not worth it. It isn't remotely testable. I would simply, at this point remove the entire crafting system and go back to the drawing boards. It is way to cumbersome, unpleasant and unplayable.
MUST HAVE
1. Artisan system MUST produce enough tools and products to supply whatever (high) % of the players for gear, and for supplying artisans to level up their professions say for 2 weeks. For example copper: just say that is about 30 copper per player. enough for tools, jewelry weapons etc, No heavy armor before level 20. So, that is 2000 players x 30 /14 = 4285 raw copper per day maximum needs to spawn, be gathered, processed and crafted for the first two weeks, and that is just 1 mat. Calculate them all out, it is entirely possible, and then figure out how you are going to make it happen.
2. The Artisans have to produce the material fast enough, to keep up with their customers levelling adventuring. If their customers can level without artisan gear, then no one will level artisanship until they have a demand for goods (Economics 101). Presumably at some point the Adventurers will hit a gear check?
3. Somehow the Artisans have to keep levelling themselves, and level artisanship, so that they can gather the higher level goods for the adventurers as they level.
4. The Artisan system, must offer some reward to players, commensurate with the time investment and risk.
5. The Artisan system has to exist and function with individual players completing end to end production, before division of labor can be expected to kick in to provide efficiency. (Economics 102)
None of these basic MUST HAVE requirements are being met right now. How Intrepid think it is going to be tested without another wipe is beyond my reasoning.
SHOULD HAVE
6. The individual crafts should ALL be reasonably lucrative in terms of entertainment, profit and game advantage. So in other words, if a material is gathered the gatherer/processor/crafter ALL need to end up with a piece of that material, however small, in addition to whatever gold they make, so that over time they can get that piece of gear, to make up for them not adventuring/gathering/processing. No one is going to specialize into professions if it is a disadvantage to do so. Everyone will be gatherers and no one will process/craft, unless they are in a corporation, which is work not fun.
7. Players will look after themselves before their community. Security being a pre-requisite for civilization. So, if you want people to artisan for nodes, then you need to make that doable in the same level of time. No one is going to invest in a node at the expense of levelling and gearing up. This is a test, but come the game, no one is going to do any building unless it is required for adventuring.
8. Adventurers have to be stopped from levelling without artisan gear, and have no content to adventure in without nodes levelling. If there isn't a demand, there is no reason for a supply. The artisan system cannot be optional, and less enjoyable/rewarding than adventuring, no one will do it and will probably quit the game, once they have worked out they have been conned into a waste of time. I don't know if gear is still dropping from adventuring, but as long as players can level and get good enough gear to keep levelling, without crafting, then you wont have demand, and you wont have artisans.
NICE TO HAVE
9. It seems like people thought Artisans were just so desperate to artisan, for very little reward, that not only do they have to work for nothing, they have to work with ridiculously small packs, long levelling times and gathering nodes defended by ridiculously high level mobs. The QoL for gathering/processing/crafting, is not worth it. Right now, I wouldn't spend time testing crafting if I was given an entire set of legendary gear, and 10 levels of adventuring free. You cant pay me to test it, it is so frustrating and unpleasant. Right now the experience has put me off buying the game when it comes out.
10. Really shows the lack of intelligence, when nodes spawn in 2s and 4s, and processing is in 5s and 10s.
SUGGESTIONS
MY suggestions, even though I doubt anyone will read this:
1. Make gathering nodes at lower levels spawn in much higher quantities, like 50 or 100, and be gatherable concurrently by players. Reduce the quantities as the level goes up.
2. Make processing far quicker, and more lucrative. Why does it cost you money/material to process goods? I cant sell the goods for enough to re-coop my losses processing. I realize you got people to pay to test, but normally people don't pay to work.
3. Crafting has to make better goods than adventuring, even at a lower level. It just isn't worth it. Right now it isn't worth the time , if every piece of gear I made was legendary.
Honestly, found testing the game too unenjoyable to keep on doing it. Will be back after Christmas, but right now, I don't believe in the game making it to launch any more. Too many basic development errors, that I have seen too many times in AGILE projects. You need to go back and put the work in, because you moved on and now are putting stuff in on top of garbage, and you are going to have to rip it all out and start over, if you don't go back and fix it now.
MUST HAVE
1. Artisan system MUST produce enough tools and products to supply whatever (high) % of the players for gear, and for supplying artisans to level up their professions say for 2 weeks. For example copper: just say that is about 30 copper per player. enough for tools, jewelry weapons etc, No heavy armor before level 20. So, that is 2000 players x 30 /14 = 4285 raw copper per day maximum needs to spawn, be gathered, processed and crafted for the first two weeks, and that is just 1 mat. Calculate them all out, it is entirely possible, and then figure out how you are going to make it happen.
2. The Artisans have to produce the material fast enough, to keep up with their customers levelling adventuring. If their customers can level without artisan gear, then no one will level artisanship until they have a demand for goods (Economics 101). Presumably at some point the Adventurers will hit a gear check?
3. Somehow the Artisans have to keep levelling themselves, and level artisanship, so that they can gather the higher level goods for the adventurers as they level.
4. The Artisan system, must offer some reward to players, commensurate with the time investment and risk.
5. The Artisan system has to exist and function with individual players completing end to end production, before division of labor can be expected to kick in to provide efficiency. (Economics 102)
None of these basic MUST HAVE requirements are being met right now. How Intrepid think it is going to be tested without another wipe is beyond my reasoning.
SHOULD HAVE
6. The individual crafts should ALL be reasonably lucrative in terms of entertainment, profit and game advantage. So in other words, if a material is gathered the gatherer/processor/crafter ALL need to end up with a piece of that material, however small, in addition to whatever gold they make, so that over time they can get that piece of gear, to make up for them not adventuring/gathering/processing. No one is going to specialize into professions if it is a disadvantage to do so. Everyone will be gatherers and no one will process/craft, unless they are in a corporation, which is work not fun.
7. Players will look after themselves before their community. Security being a pre-requisite for civilization. So, if you want people to artisan for nodes, then you need to make that doable in the same level of time. No one is going to invest in a node at the expense of levelling and gearing up. This is a test, but come the game, no one is going to do any building unless it is required for adventuring.
8. Adventurers have to be stopped from levelling without artisan gear, and have no content to adventure in without nodes levelling. If there isn't a demand, there is no reason for a supply. The artisan system cannot be optional, and less enjoyable/rewarding than adventuring, no one will do it and will probably quit the game, once they have worked out they have been conned into a waste of time. I don't know if gear is still dropping from adventuring, but as long as players can level and get good enough gear to keep levelling, without crafting, then you wont have demand, and you wont have artisans.
NICE TO HAVE
9. It seems like people thought Artisans were just so desperate to artisan, for very little reward, that not only do they have to work for nothing, they have to work with ridiculously small packs, long levelling times and gathering nodes defended by ridiculously high level mobs. The QoL for gathering/processing/crafting, is not worth it. Right now, I wouldn't spend time testing crafting if I was given an entire set of legendary gear, and 10 levels of adventuring free. You cant pay me to test it, it is so frustrating and unpleasant. Right now the experience has put me off buying the game when it comes out.
10. Really shows the lack of intelligence, when nodes spawn in 2s and 4s, and processing is in 5s and 10s.
SUGGESTIONS
MY suggestions, even though I doubt anyone will read this:
1. Make gathering nodes at lower levels spawn in much higher quantities, like 50 or 100, and be gatherable concurrently by players. Reduce the quantities as the level goes up.
2. Make processing far quicker, and more lucrative. Why does it cost you money/material to process goods? I cant sell the goods for enough to re-coop my losses processing. I realize you got people to pay to test, but normally people don't pay to work.
3. Crafting has to make better goods than adventuring, even at a lower level. It just isn't worth it. Right now it isn't worth the time , if every piece of gear I made was legendary.
Honestly, found testing the game too unenjoyable to keep on doing it. Will be back after Christmas, but right now, I don't believe in the game making it to launch any more. Too many basic development errors, that I have seen too many times in AGILE projects. You need to go back and put the work in, because you moved on and now are putting stuff in on top of garbage, and you are going to have to rip it all out and start over, if you don't go back and fix it now.
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