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Why i should play or consider to play Ashes of Creation?
Greetings all.
First off, sry for my bad english its not my nativ language and im struggle sometimes to find the right words.
I follow this project now for a few weeks and i can see myself trying it out somewhere in the future, but what i can't get out of my mind is the question why should i play it?
A littlebit of background. I'm not new to MMORPG genre and play same games for almost 2 decades now. Sure i played all good renown titles like WoW, Lineage, Ultima and newer ones like Age of Conan, RIFT, AION and even recently released ones like Black Desert Online, The Elder Scrolls or Revelation Online and many more that aren't that big in the press at all.
But what is an MMORPG to me personally. Well it's something more difficult to explain i would say. The short answer would be "The World" it self. But what defines the world of an MMORPG? Well, it's the mystery in her.
Back in the early years of this century we got some good games like WoW. But why was this game in particular so good or such a success to us all? I think these are a matter of different aspects. Sure it was something new and of course nothing we saw so far so big. But the Internet also was a relativley new medium for most people. High Speed internet, flat rates and better technologies allows WoW to become so popular. But what kept players playing this game the first 2-4 years. Why i and many other players sucked into this game for hundreds or even thousands of hours of our life? Because there was always something to explore in the beginning. New Areas filled with quests. New Dungeons filled with loot and new Bosses. But now someone already must thinking, yeah but this is true for todays content in these games. New Bosses, Raids and even continents with quests and so on. Yep thats true but lets just think a moment back to 2005 maybe. Me and maybe my friend or guild mate wanna do Dungeon "X". We group up. We meet at the meeting point and start our adventure. We stumbled into the Dungeon fighting our way to the first boss and got slaped on this way maybe the first 1-2 times already. The Boss it self is a real challange and after serveral trys he's going down and the juicy loot is in the end or we get completly wrecked by everything inside and we have to decide if we move on or try to find better gear first. These are just 2 possible scenarios.
Now lets jump to 2k17. Same task we wanna do. Well. pressing some buttons click and check some check boxes and hit the accept button. 2min (or 3h) later we get teleported to the dungeon. We just kill quickly the trash mobs within an eye blink and just role over every single boss while the whole UI is screeming new Record, CRITS, GTFO! or what ever.
The whole boss fight is just a Statistik in the end. Other possibility is that we fail once or twice we decide to take a 5min break and watching a quick guide on YT on how the boss is done right.
Well todays Internet isn't something bad at all. I love my daily dose Youtube and sure i watched also many guides and how to's i inform my self if is a product worth it or not and so on. But in the same time people don't play an MMORPG for its mystery anymore. Everyting has to be done in the shortes amount of time possible with the maximum of possible outcome.
Databases, Addons like DPS Meters, Auctionhouse Manager, Quest Helper route finder, auto pathing and so on puting the player more and more beside his avatar instead of soaking him into.
Games become more and more Analytics and Statistic based games with just good graphics and maybe stunning audio effects but it dosnt help to get an form of relationship to the World it self. When everyone already knows everything before it is already released why should i play it then ?
Why is there absolut no further invention of this genre? Everything follows the "same" pattern over and over and over again.
Questing these days is so generic. Yes there are games they do better jobs on the presentation and i can enjoy the full vocalized quest text and so on. But in the end its just kill some dudes here, bring something or talk to X. It dosnt matter if presentation is spectacular or not when it plays like every other mmorpg in the end.
Its same Formular level from 0 to hero raid to max gear and then buy next addon. Rinse and repeat.
So and now comes Ashes of Creation. Tbh. i have not realy a big idea where the journey is going here. Sure i read some stuff about the game. All the amazing sounding features they wanna add and how aware they are on Guild and Group gameplay how important PvE and PvP is and why they/you choose to make this game.
But what are you guys doing realy to invent this genre, what is it realy that sets you over other games? Is the questing here something new? Raiding? Exploration? Crafting?
Aren't these already well known Formulars of well renown games ?
Yes i know Node system and so on. But tbh, it isnt realy new. Its just another more layerd system that represents the outcome in just a different way but the quest itself for e.g. is in the end the same Kill/Collect/Talk generic type of quest isn't?
I would realy say that i'm hyped for this game but tbh. my expectation is just the same as for every other recently released game.
Yes i would like to have ingame glims on it but i'm not beging for it.
But what i realy would like is to get some answers from Intrepid itself on:
What are you doing to bring back these emotional relationship to a phantasy World
What are you doing that gives me that feeling that i and my avatar realy matters in your world and not beeing just another Statistic
What are you doing to prevent to become just another generic MMORPG in the end?
I realy thank you all for taking the time to read until this point. Just to be clear. I'm not trying to derate this game in any form but instead i just wanna make players and maybe even devs thinking on some things that maybe concerns others aswell.
But anyway thx for reading.
With regards
Trylander
First off, sry for my bad english its not my nativ language and im struggle sometimes to find the right words.
I follow this project now for a few weeks and i can see myself trying it out somewhere in the future, but what i can't get out of my mind is the question why should i play it?
A littlebit of background. I'm not new to MMORPG genre and play same games for almost 2 decades now. Sure i played all good renown titles like WoW, Lineage, Ultima and newer ones like Age of Conan, RIFT, AION and even recently released ones like Black Desert Online, The Elder Scrolls or Revelation Online and many more that aren't that big in the press at all.
But what is an MMORPG to me personally. Well it's something more difficult to explain i would say. The short answer would be "The World" it self. But what defines the world of an MMORPG? Well, it's the mystery in her.
Back in the early years of this century we got some good games like WoW. But why was this game in particular so good or such a success to us all? I think these are a matter of different aspects. Sure it was something new and of course nothing we saw so far so big. But the Internet also was a relativley new medium for most people. High Speed internet, flat rates and better technologies allows WoW to become so popular. But what kept players playing this game the first 2-4 years. Why i and many other players sucked into this game for hundreds or even thousands of hours of our life? Because there was always something to explore in the beginning. New Areas filled with quests. New Dungeons filled with loot and new Bosses. But now someone already must thinking, yeah but this is true for todays content in these games. New Bosses, Raids and even continents with quests and so on. Yep thats true but lets just think a moment back to 2005 maybe. Me and maybe my friend or guild mate wanna do Dungeon "X". We group up. We meet at the meeting point and start our adventure. We stumbled into the Dungeon fighting our way to the first boss and got slaped on this way maybe the first 1-2 times already. The Boss it self is a real challange and after serveral trys he's going down and the juicy loot is in the end or we get completly wrecked by everything inside and we have to decide if we move on or try to find better gear first. These are just 2 possible scenarios.
Now lets jump to 2k17. Same task we wanna do. Well. pressing some buttons click and check some check boxes and hit the accept button. 2min (or 3h) later we get teleported to the dungeon. We just kill quickly the trash mobs within an eye blink and just role over every single boss while the whole UI is screeming new Record, CRITS, GTFO! or what ever.
The whole boss fight is just a Statistik in the end. Other possibility is that we fail once or twice we decide to take a 5min break and watching a quick guide on YT on how the boss is done right.
Well todays Internet isn't something bad at all. I love my daily dose Youtube and sure i watched also many guides and how to's i inform my self if is a product worth it or not and so on. But in the same time people don't play an MMORPG for its mystery anymore. Everyting has to be done in the shortes amount of time possible with the maximum of possible outcome.
Databases, Addons like DPS Meters, Auctionhouse Manager, Quest Helper route finder, auto pathing and so on puting the player more and more beside his avatar instead of soaking him into.
Games become more and more Analytics and Statistic based games with just good graphics and maybe stunning audio effects but it dosnt help to get an form of relationship to the World it self. When everyone already knows everything before it is already released why should i play it then ?
Why is there absolut no further invention of this genre? Everything follows the "same" pattern over and over and over again.
Questing these days is so generic. Yes there are games they do better jobs on the presentation and i can enjoy the full vocalized quest text and so on. But in the end its just kill some dudes here, bring something or talk to X. It dosnt matter if presentation is spectacular or not when it plays like every other mmorpg in the end.
Its same Formular level from 0 to hero raid to max gear and then buy next addon. Rinse and repeat.
So and now comes Ashes of Creation. Tbh. i have not realy a big idea where the journey is going here. Sure i read some stuff about the game. All the amazing sounding features they wanna add and how aware they are on Guild and Group gameplay how important PvE and PvP is and why they/you choose to make this game.
But what are you guys doing realy to invent this genre, what is it realy that sets you over other games? Is the questing here something new? Raiding? Exploration? Crafting?
Aren't these already well known Formulars of well renown games ?
Yes i know Node system and so on. But tbh, it isnt realy new. Its just another more layerd system that represents the outcome in just a different way but the quest itself for e.g. is in the end the same Kill/Collect/Talk generic type of quest isn't?
I would realy say that i'm hyped for this game but tbh. my expectation is just the same as for every other recently released game.
Yes i would like to have ingame glims on it but i'm not beging for it.
But what i realy would like is to get some answers from Intrepid itself on:
What are you doing to bring back these emotional relationship to a phantasy World
What are you doing that gives me that feeling that i and my avatar realy matters in your world and not beeing just another Statistic
What are you doing to prevent to become just another generic MMORPG in the end?
I realy thank you all for taking the time to read until this point. Just to be clear. I'm not trying to derate this game in any form but instead i just wanna make players and maybe even devs thinking on some things that maybe concerns others aswell.
But anyway thx for reading.
With regards
Trylander
0
Comments
If you haven't watched the node overview video yet I would recommend it, because I feel like it's much more complex than you interpreted it. Servers are most likely going to be entirely different from each other with how they develop, including the dungeons that are available.
Also the crafting system sounds great, and will be something that will actually be impactful all the way into endgame, with players supplying some, if not all of the gearing progression, and repairing of the equipment.
Also the caravan system ties the entire server together making pve, pvp, and crafting very intertwined, which I think is a beautiful thing. So many games focus on one of those aspects and leave the others to feel as simple mini games, or even if they are all focused on they always seem to be such separate systems within the game.
If you haven't I certainly recommend Deathsproxy's videos that are in their own thread here, and also intrepid studios YouTube channel for the videos they have released, including the Q&A they did. Those all give a huge idea of the vision for this game. Other than that I hope you get the answers you're looking for :)
But all in all what i can see and read an get informations on are more or less the same phrases like in all other MMORPG pre releases talks.
Yes all have good ideas or visions on there product.
Sure Intrepid is going already another route here in the beginning with there referal system (what i tbh like already).
But in the end i don't have a idea how the game plays it self later on sure pre Alpha and other obvious reasons dosn't allow other ideas.
What me concerns is the "Base Gameplay". And not so much the whole "What is in the Box" discussion.
I mean its not the actual in depth mechanic i would like to get explained. No its more, the fundamental part of the game. Things i have to do all day long like "Moving my Avatar" how important is it for Intrepid to get a motion on Avatars, how is the questing all day long? Ist the same Kill/Collect/Talk task or are Quests more in depth with different results based on performed actions by player? Do we have several Conversation options that maybe results in different endings then?
Is my Avatar having any importance to the World it self or are i'm just another number in the line in the end?
I'm not looking for a Avatar or a story that tells me that i'm Fabulous or something Godlike. I'm more looking forward to a world that response to my action directly. An environment that shows me how it stand against me or with me.
Just a trivialized example. When i rescue a Baby thats fallen into a well will there family respond to that in any way?
If i save a town from a dragon will the people living in that town recognize it in the future?
These kinda things that lets you immerse into the world and gives you memorable feelings.
I hope its understandable what i'm looking for.
I definitely can't tell you much about questing, BUT one example that was in a video or on discord was lasting impacts your character and the community will have. For an example like your baby in a well one, as we log or mine the terrain, and expand the nodes we could cause the land to fight back, whether that be disturbing a dragons nest or the trees themselves come, and they may attack the node, and whether or not the node(player characters) are able to fight off that threat or not will be "remembered" by the npcs.
On the topic of logging/mining, it was stated that it will not be like many games where a resource is on a 3 minute timer and you're able to simply create a gathering loop for resources. Everything you do will slightly change the world, for at least a period of time.
Now if you're speaking of, which I think you are, every single action you make giving you some fame or infamy with npcs, I truly don't know, and I hope you are able to get that answer because I'm curious myself, and in that same thought while I'm sure there will be choices of dialogue and different paths quests and conversation will take, how much that will impact your character in the long run I'm not sure either. However, they seem to want every choice you make to hold some kind of weight.
It was also stated there will be 3 different kinds of quests within the game. I can't remember what they were right off the top of my head but I will edit this with them when I wake up. The basic idea was to make quests not so much the kill/collect/talk loop in every way.
Here, as I was typing this I found the google doc, but I wasn't about to delete all of what I typed lol. There is a plethora of information in here, and if the answers you seek are not in here I hope you are able to get them eventually :)
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/0B7xq-8r9DA_qTlZZOWxyRVR2VUk?usp=sharing
This is why I am fighting against the following.
#1 Streamlining gear like WOW and the rest of the MMORPGs today. I want more SWG/UO style gear where resistances are needed again, different gear is used for different situations instead of having Epic gear that never breaks and is used for everything.
#2 Item Decay and more of a UO/SWG type of gear system where crafting is very important and you do not jump on the Gear Raiding treadmill. Dungeons\instances should be used for much more like crafting mats, Gold, Glamour items, and so on. Not the WOW/FFXIV treadmill
#3 No Automated Group Finder tools because it kills Guilds, Friends lists and Communities. A Group Browser/LFG Browser is fine but no automated tools, force people to message each other from looking at the browser.
I am like you I been playing MMORPGs since 1998. I can tell you this, if Ashes does not do these things above and streamlines shit like every MMORPG has since WOW; I will not play Ashes because there will be 0 point to it. You will only be playing games like FFXIV, or WOW, or ESO or the dozens of other MMORPGs out there. Ashes has to be different to be successful. Catering to the WOW crowd outside of making Tab Target combat will just make that WOW crowd release again they are just playing WOW in a new skin and go back to WOW. Ashes has to be different in these other systems.
I recommend listening to the discord Q&A (the one that is on discord, not the blog one) it's a very personal insight from the creative director about his vision for the game.
Other than that I can just recommend to step back, let the game progress a few months and come back when it's better fleshed out to answer your very specific questions.
My personal opinion I gathered over the last 2 months is that Intrepid is not going for "The next gen MMO" they want to take what we love, build on it, improve it and add some fresh wind into it.
That in itselfe speaks volumes for me. They are not going out of their way to promise us the sky. They simply want to make a great game in a genre they love.