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.
This is not a P2 release just an extended P1 release.
onewingedangelo1
Member, Alpha Two
We have been deceived, (not maliciously), about the release of Phase 2 and this is not okay.
Before you stop reading right away please hear me out. The launch of 'phase 2' has been nothing more than a glorified stress test with the ability to level up desert area, that was already in the game, and the addition of the Befallen Forge Dungeon.
The reduction of servers was specifically meant for us to stress test the new server workers and provide Intrepid the data they didn't get in the stress tests they were running a week before P2 launch. This is how it looks to me and a lot of other people who participated in those stress tests. For those who didn't participate in those stress test on the Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursdays tests, let me explain what happened with them.
Pre-launch testing
Tuesday they opened up a test server for us to test on with the stated goal of the following by Steven himself. "Today we want you to flow through normal progression. No boosts or gold, but naturally moving through the low levels until 5pm pacific. We will be observing and running network profiles." This is meant to get us excited to preview Phase 2 before Phase 2 happened. To draw more people into the test so they can stress these new server workers. The 5pm cut off was not the actual end of the test though. (5pm being discord's conversion to my time zone). That's when the actual testing was to being. At this point almost to the minute, level boosts were given, gold was given to buy lvl 10 weapons and they teleported most everyone over to the desert to do massive pvp on a small amount of server workers to get the stress testing in.
That's not to say the didn't get any important information. The whole reason we had lvl 10 weapons was because in that time, with the low amount of people we had for the test, we were able to get 3 of the 5 nodes to level 2, and the others to lvl 1. This was important for Intrepid to know and is likely why we saw a significant increase in the amount of experience needed to level up a node. (Great change) But it did feel like it wasn't the main focus of the testing. Especially since all this testing went on, in the middle of the week at a time when most people were either at work or sleeping.
Wednesday was more or less a repeat of Tuesday with less players but they were more clear about what they wanted us to test "We may do focused testing later in our day. If we do, we may provide level boosts and gold. Information about focused testing will be here in Discord and/or through in-game broadcasts." This really felt like this was due to what A LOT of people who were trying to test what Steven set out for us, the early level progression, complained about in game when the level boosts happened from out of nowhere and without warning. It also gave us insight on what we thought was the true purpose of the test. They were stressing that they needed more people to test this. The boosts happened earlier this time. And they made posts on the discord to show that they leveled up one of the nodes and where in that node we could buy level 20 weapons and armor (one of the gripes we had about having to test pvp when we weren't given the tools for pvp). Problem here is they didn't give us any bows, so if you wanted to play a bard or ranger.... you were kinda SoL. They also gave us a market place to test out (A very nice sneak peak) This day felt like the testing was premeditated and specific but for whatever reason, they didn't tell us any of this going into the test and just sprung it on us when they were ready to have it tested. We were starting to see a pattern.
Thursday testing happened almost exactly the same way, but this time at a much more accelerated timeline. Servers opened up and gave us an hour and a half to fart around the server with, being told, something specific is happening later for everyone to test. Why couldn't they just tell us right away, they clearly already knew what it was, why do they have to keep everything so close to the chest. We are testing the game for them. The more we know the better we can focus our attention. Mind you, player count at this time was down from the previous two days. We think this due to the node progression based on each of the days. Day one got much farther than day 2 and day 3 you could visibly see there was less people out in the world.
And hour and a half after servers went live they boosted everyone to max, gave them a shit ton of gold, leveled all nodes to level 3 and prepared 1 node, Joeva, with equipment vendors for us to gear up in with lvl 20 gear... but still no bows. Except they made it sound like they did it for all. The only point upgrading all the nodes to 3 was to test their Freehold system. Which is what they wanted us to test... but they didn't tell us how to purchase them, so a lot of testers were running around trying to figure that out, meantime the testers that did figure it out went around and bought as many freeholds as they could and did nothing with them. (Not all people did this but I can speak to all the nodes of Halcyon were bought within the first 30 minutes and none of them were used.) They also had a GM handing out treasure maps for people to test. We also had a GM teleporting people out to do PvP again in the desert for more server worker tests. They also gave us the Befallen Forge to explore an test. The problem with this is we were boosted to 25, we don't have weapon exp, and some of us don't even have the weapons we need to function the same and everyone has Iron Heavy Armor gear. This gear has no magic resistance and we are going into a dungeon that does majority magic damage. Everyone is getting 1 shot if they aren't a tank, or just killed to tank busters because of how laggy it is. If testing the dungeon was the real reason for us to go there like they said we weren't provided with the tools to properly test it. What we believe the real reason was to get a huge amount of players over there to test the server workers for those of us that didn't care for non accurate pvp testing, which also was just another excuse for us to get a large amount of us on a very small amount of server workers to test them out, not pvp. I'm not upset that's what they wanted to test... I and others are upset with the fact that they weren't clear about this, it's an issue of optics.
This day was definitely more structured than the other two and it really felt like Intrepid was feeling the crunch trying to meet the Dec 20th deadline. They needed to get this testing done on their new server worker code done before the launch of phase 2. They actual testing for these pre launch days was stress testing. Later that night our fears were proven that they didn't get the testing they needed to have done before the launch of phase 2 release when they announced that there would only be 1 server for NA and EU.
Dec. 20th
Before we can accurately talk about the launch we have to talk about the bombshell that happened the night before. They announced that there would only be 1 server per region for the testing of phase 2. This enraged the majority of the testers. The discord was a huge dumpster fire of people enraged and concerned with this decision. Some were malicious in their posts and good on the mods to take care of thus, but a lot of us were justly worried. NA had enough people for 3 servers with a health population and having all of us reduced to 1 server was going to be a nightmare (foreshadowing... it was). EU had enough for 2 servers and I heard similar frustrations from them as well. To anyone paying attention to all the testing done this week, this move was clear to all of us that they didn't get the testing they needed stress testing and they were using the launch of phase 2 to do it on a much larger scale, because they knew people would be logging in for the phase 2 launch. Thanks to the outcries of the level headed of us that were protesting on Discord the night before they announced on the 20th that there would be 2 NA servers for the launch of phase 2 but it still wasn't enough. They also said several times that there will be no wipes moving forward.
Ashes, in it's current iteration, is a game of "First Come First Server, those with the most numbers wins". Because of this, the people in the game will endure shitty situations to get to that first come first serve content, because once they have it, they can then relax.
So when time for the servers to go live, we were all patching our game and trying to log in as soon as possible, some got in, the majority did not. These players were getting a huge advantage over the rest. Those of us not in, were refreshing twitch trying to tune into the live stream to see if we could get any information about what's going on, which came late (Understandably there was clearly something going on on there end that they needed to take care of). The whole live stream didn't really give us any new information. The only talked about things we already new about from the weeks testing before. You could argue that it was a confirmation of it but still nothing new. They did announce that they would be wiping the progress of everyone who was able to get in early so that there wouldn't be that vastly huge unfair advantage which was obviously the right call. Servers didn't actually get online until about 8pm EST, which was about 7 hours past their announced launch time. This couldn't be avoided and no one, who is being reasonable, can hold them accountable for this, but it did kill the plans of a lot of people's launch. I remind you, this is a game of first come first server, those with numbers wins, so having the set back of half or most of your group not around is a huge set back for those who might not have the numbers other have when numbers play such a huge role.
Why this isn't Phase 2 yet
The purpose of phase 2 is to test node progression and the economy. The problem here is there was nothing new introduced to us from phase 1. Node Vasseliation isn't here. Something that supposed to be online at lvl 3, not currently in game. So all nodes are progressing at a rate they aren't supposed to be allowed to. Node Wars aren't online to stunt the growth of other nodes to allow people to change the outcome of progress. The desert is still mostly empty. You can level up the node, but it has no POIs, no events, no open world dungeons. There is nothing there to incentivize players to go and level up there. And because it lacks all of this there aren't enough mob groups for people to level out there so you either have to compete for what very little camps there are or leave (spoiler... people just left).
You also can't test the progression of the nodes without the crafting and gathering systems. Problem here is nothing has changed on this front since phase 1. Gathering has and still is in a terrible state. Mining in particular is in the worst state and it bottle necking a lot of the progress. Crafting is supposed to be how you get the best gear, but in it's current state, crafting is ONLY relevant once people are at end game, nodes are already developed to max and people have farmed the right recipes. Because right now, crafting anything other than caravans and tools are absolutely worthless. There is over 5 pages of threads in the Artisan boards giving feedback and none of them have a staffer response and none of those concerns have been addressed in patches. I hope to see a change to this once the team gets back on the 6th.
There weren't any extra mob camps added to facilitate the large influx of extra players on the servers. More often than not people fought over camps, griefed other players, or spent most of their time running around just to find nothing to kill. This created the large influx of people event farming for exp. They would join raids to just walk from event to event. Because there was so many people doing this, most people couldn't actually participate in the event so the just afked, or ran from event to event leaching exp. The real only way to get around this sort of thing was to be some of the sweatiest players who got ahead of the curve early and got access to camps before other players so you didn't have to compete for mobs with anyone else. (And no, I'm not talking about the exploiters, just yet, I'm talking about the few of us who got ahead of the curve and were able to camp at places there weren't others at because they were too low level)
As we saw in phase 1, people exploited their way to the top and then used that advantage to harass other players or impede other players growth in the game. As of the time of this post, no actions have been taken against them, but an announcement has been made that something will happen. This has effectively ruined the progression and economy because of what these people are allowed to do and continue allow them to do it. Since no action has been made and telling them that they will have something done, they have all this time to continuing to do things and ruin the testing for everyone else. "Because hey... if I'm going to get punished already, might as well do as much harm as I can, while I can... right?"
All of this happened within the first weekend of launch. Being told that the large majority of the staff is on holiday (and they definitely deserve it) and won't be back till Jan. 6th makes testing feel pointless because nothing is being done and it's a big game of "hurry up and wait". What a lot of us don't understand is why couldn't they just delay the launch of Phase 2 to Jan. 6th. The launch would have been that much smoother and they could have just extended phase 1 to get the testing they needed.
How this all could have been avoided.
Yes, I know, hindsight is 20/20, but these concerns were brought up before Dec. 20th. While the majority of the testers claim they have 10,15,20 years of experience in the gaming industry, they really don't show it with their words and actions. The biggest advantage game creators have in this modern age, is we get to see the mistakes of those who came before us and we don't have to make those same mistakes, we can learn from other's failures.
The first thing we could have done was delay the launch to Jan. 6th. Intrepid would have their whole team back and can better handle things as they are happening and rooted out these bad actors as things were happening to help preserve the integrity of the server.
"But what would we have done with all this time leading up to Jan. 6th, people were already not logging into the end of phase 1!" That's quite simple. Give us 1 server per region that was basically the build we currently have and it will run from Dec. 20th to Jan. 6th. If you think people wouldn't play on such a server, it clearly shows how little you know about gamers. Especially gamers who play a game like Ashes of Creation. Despite knowing all your progress is going to be lost, there will still be a bunch of people who will flood to these these servers to get their phase 2 launch testing done. Not as many people but enough people will. We couldn't accurately test routes in phase 1 due to how much was actually changed with mob pack location, the desert node, and whats going on over there in the Befallen Forge. We've already established that many of the testers are not here to Q/A test this game, they are here to play the game in the current form, and if these forums are any indication, not nearly enough of them are providing feedback to be able to accurately be called a Tester. These people are here to play the game, get the 'inside scoop' so that when the game actually launches they have the edge over the other players because at the end of the day, this is a competitive game and people will go for as much advantage as they can get.
"But you said 1 server per region wasn't enough for the player base". This is true for an actual launch of phase 2 but this wouldn't be. This is a sneak people and you aren't going to get as many people on there has you would an actual launch so you would only need 1 server...
Please be more open with us about what's going on Intrepid. It's clear phase 2 wasn't ready for Dec. 20th. 85% of your tester base don't care as much about that as they care about being communicated with. Delays aren't a bad thing. But currently you are selling access based on which phase of testing is being done. A LOT of people don't want to test a stress test phase and were waiting for phase 2 to get past that and get into more meaty testing. Communicate with us that a delay needs to happen so you can get your game in a state that it needs to be in to give us a more informed understand of what we are to expect from you. The lack of communication is more harmful than announcing a delay. Help us... Help you.
What needs to happen now.
For the health of phase 2 to get the advertised testing that needs to be done, I and many other feels the following needs to change.
1.) Finish the level design of the desert nodes. Give us a reason to go out there and interact with the zone that so many of us were hyped about. These are bland empty and boring zones that have too much potential
2.) Punish the exploiters. Deletion of a character is not enough slap on the wrist, this is clear to us as it didn't deter them the last time.
3.) Update the gathering system. There are way too many T2 - T4 nodes around when people only have access to T1 gathering. This has been a problem since phase 1 and nothing has changed to address this. You can add a multiplier to the spawn rate of higher tier resources based on the progression of the node, this shouldn't be too hard of a change, it's just fudging numbers. But Tier 3 and Tier 4 resources shouldn't be spawning until we see at least T2 gathering tools (or the ability to acquire, the the player base doesn't build the right buildings, that's on them. So if a node gets to a point when they could make Tier 2 resource, open up the spawn of those resource then, same for T3 and T4, etc...)
4.) After these changes have all been implemented (which I don't think should take you all that long as I'm sure most of this has already been worked on to some extent. Wipe the servers and give us 3 NA and 2 EU servers to test on. I know you don't want to wipe unless it's required but honestly the servers have already gone to shit and we need an actual restart. Especially with the changes suggested above, that would be enough of a change to the status of things to give us a better, more accurate test of what is supposed to be tested in phase 2.
Please agree/disagree with me below and share
I don't have all the answers, and I probably missed something. Talk about it blow, keep is civil and constructive and share this post with others to get their feedback on it. Tell me why I'm wrong, or right... get the conversation going. I know we want to see this game be the game we can invest our time in for years to come, help me and you and Intrepid get to that point.
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Comments
Psychologically I'd think that was best, just give people one more server to play on, all the people who didn't care about the arms race on the single non-Pirates NA server, for example, would just 'restart' there, and we'd get a whole new set of information and interactions.
If somehow, some guild from the existing servers 'decided to swap over so that they could have more/easier/different opposition', that's also a useful data source.
Some Artisanship updates would also be great, ofc. Still looking forward to those systems being engaging for me, if that's actually planned.
I haven’t gone deep into the desert, so can’t comment there.
Agree that communicating simply and clearly, including delays, is much better than over promising to appease the base. I thought it was pretty clear that phase 2 was going to start as phase 1 with dwarves and increasingly build up to the phase 2 roadmap, but I don’t think many folks heard or cared to hear that caveat. I think they see the phase 2 1-pager and expect all of that to be playable/testable on day 1 of that phase. Which we’ve seen in a lot of the negative feedback.
Personally, I log in for an hour or two every few days to see what’s changed. Do some mining / lumberjacking - requeue processing, then go play other games.
🤷♂️
The problem I have with "Just opening up a new server" would be all the the people already at 25 on the current servers could just jump to the new server to get a character there. It took people a weekend to get a server to the state where we already have mayors, people at near or max level and the only thing to do was hurry up and wait for nodes to develop further. Taking a few days or even a week pause from one server to control a 2nd server would be possible if people so choose.
One server seeming kinda dead? Jump to the other server. I will admit I know nothing on how the Lyneth server is fairing, only thing I see if it is Thor's perspective which is very much not the perspective of the rest of the server since he has a whole community funneling his node's progress, and he seems to get whatever he wants. There's no waiting for camps or looking for resources/not getting what he wants for him.
Sure, but that's the natural flow/state of Ashes of Creation.
Almost all PvP games have this as their outcome during their 'alive' period because of the ways one 'needs to' cater to the majority of the PvP demographic.
So I'd say that for me, this isn't 'a problem' that I expect Intrepid to even want to solve. It just isn't a priority issue for the sort of game they're making.
the roadmap clearly states "these are the things that will be seen during phase 2"
that doesnt translate to "here's the things youll get to test on the 20th"
also i dont understand what people are worried about regarding behind ''behind'' there is no content yet. the entire crafting system is locked to apprentice and in many cases still novice because we are sitting on our hands waiting for buildings.
many people are grand master in their professions but cant make an apprentice level tool. nobody is falling behind lol
I don't agree with exploiting but a perma ban is a bit harsh, they are infact breaking the systems that need to be broken and in reality it's doing the server a positive thing for the future, maybe just character deletion and a warning, I will also point out that the devs were fully aware of these exploits for the past two months so seems a bit strange they were not actioned pre P2 launch
LOL you know they aren't doing anything to help the game... if you find an exploit you prove it and then report it... THEN YOU STOP DOING IT. These people literally used it to get an advantage over the state of the game.
Not just one exploit... multiple exploits. This isn't even their first times either. There is a difference from finding an expoit and abusing it
I agree, abuse of exploits should result in account bans.
I didn't say I don't agree that it's an abuse of game mechanics, I also don't disagree that a ban for a period of time or suspension could be on the cards, I do however disagree that a perma ban would be the result for this, for an alpha that we need to pay to access it seems a bit harsh, maybe if it was the full released game and it was there 3rd offence, I also think that intrepid should have actioned these exploits before they launched P2, this was highly reported and intrepid leaving it in the game creates a grey area, where if intrepid don't care enough to action it at the time and allow people to do the same exploits in p1 it paints a picture that this is just intended game mechanics, dont get the wrong idea I don't condone exploits in any way shape or form and agree there should be punishments for this
Not that many people, in their right mind, would have made huge change to the game right before their staff goes on break. That would have been stupid, dangerous and probably unfair for the staff. Personally, if I was the guy in charge, launching alpha 2 before the Christmas break would have meant two thing :
1. A potential money increase since people may buy access to my game - that's fair, we've all thought about it;
2. A gift to the community ;
At this point, I feel like we should be considering this 24h/7 open server as a gift, not as part of the alpha testing itself. I don't know if you think the same, hope so.
That was part of what I was saying. I really think they should have delayed the release of alpha phase 2 when they didn't have most of their staff gone.
Right now the first part is not doable, simple as that.