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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Question about potential life of AoC after sunset/decommission
MeatBeans
Member, Alpha Two
Over the many years in my gaming life, I have fallen in love with many MMO's. Many of which eventually ended support/sunset their game to focus on future endeavors. Some communities result in reverse engineering the server side to continue playing the game. My question is, if/when Intrepid Studios decides to sunset Ashes of Creation, will there be a final release, including server side, so that communities can stand up their own servers and continue to play the game? Even if we have to pay for the rights to the server side, I think that would be acceptable (assuming the price isn't astronomical).
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Comments
Your response seems pretty dismissive and condescending. I’m not suggesting Intrepid SHOULD be thinking about end-of-life now, but I don’t see harm in asking the question. Communities that care about game preservation have raised this kind of concern for many MMO's in the past, and asking early could help signal that it’s important to players. When would be the “right” time to ask? After the game sunsets, when it’s too late? In my opinion, no question is too early if it sparks meaningful discussion and there is no such thing as a bad question...
It is not dismissive. Game is not even launched. Who would know now?
I assumed reps from Intrepid would chime in. This question was meant for them, not the player base. Unless someone in the player base already knows and can fill me in.
And how would they answer? They are focusing in building the game in full crunch time. You expect them to stop, have some meetings about what to do with the game whenit fails. Call in the investors to see how they feel about this
They take the time to do live streams, and answer questions during those and such. I highly doubt every single person in that company is working on developing the game lol. I imagine they have several departments just like any other company. Customer service, outreach, press, etc.
Regardless, it's a question, and a good one in my opinion, whether it gets answered now, in 5 years, tomorrow, or whenever it becomes relevant, if ever.
Maybe this wasn't a good place to ask the question, but as for time wise, I don't think that's relevant. To expect a company to maintain a game indefinitely is ignorant so assuming end of life at some point is just logical, therefore this question is relevant anything from initial proposal to end of life.
I love the game, and it isn't even close to being done yet. I would want it to stay alive forever, but that is just unreasonable. At SOME point in time, it will sunset. When that happens, it would be awesome if the community of players can continue to play the game if they so wish to do so, vs the servers shutting down forever and no one ever getting to play again.
My goal here also wasn't just to get an answer to my question, but to spark a conversation about it too (I probably failed at that in my initial post). I'm curious about if they do decide to come up with a plan to accommodate community servers after sunset, what would that look like? Would they just put the code on GitHub and say, "have fun y'all"? Would they incorporate some sort of free-use license restricting anyone from making money off of the IP? Or maybe even restrict modifications? Is any of this even possible?
MMORPG's for me, are like a second home away from home. It sucks when your community and home get taken away from you, but it's also understandable because if I were to put myself in a company's shoes, I can understand how a game will eventually reach its end of life and continuing to support the game, becomes no longer apart of the companies' goals to move forward. I can also see a possible reason as to why a company would not want to release the server files/code as it could cause friction for a new game they are developing. "Consumer: why would we move to Ashes of Creation 2 when Ashes of Creation 1 is everything we want and need, and we can now play it for free!".
Also, if Steven pops in here and says, "don't worry, if you want to continue to play after its sunset, even if it's just you, alone, on a self-hosted server, we will make sure that's possible". That would be the most badass, inspiring thing ever lol. But also, wouldn't be disappointed if the answer was no or a "I don't know".
It's obviously not a light question, but one I think a lot of players (including myself) wouldn't mind an answer to.
You dont see the harm, yet you state you don't think they should be thinking about it yet?
The harm is on you asking what in time will be a valid question, and getting nothing but silence from Intrepid.
If you dont think Intrepid should be thinking about something now, don't ask them about it now.
Asking a question that doesn't need to be considered for half a decade is ridiculous.