Trading routes and such obviously should not be able to utilize this method of travel.
How do you stop people selling crafted gear? are people going to have to travel naked? are you going to need an empty inventory? what about consumables can you travel with any food? the only way to stop trading using the system would be to make you unable to do content at your destination defeating the purpose of the method of travel, if you can take consumables, equip the gear you want to sell, or have any crafted item in your inventory or how do you propose that the loophole gets closed?
I've mentioned all these systems already and do not think it's enough.
The reason I can assume the gameplay and travel frequency is simple. Content will be split between metropolises. With their own raiding dungeons (both instanced and non instanced), node events etc. These dungeons won't have the same drops which give players a reason to go explore other regions. Not to mention the times you may want to participate in war, do trade routes, and other such stuff.
Many of the things you are listing are time investment activities, and likely things preplanned in advance, if you know your guild is going to wage war on the other side of the map for some reason on Tuesday, why not travel there on Monday, then you are ready and waiting to go to war, Trade routes that is the activity, getting to the destination is the end goal it's the getting there that has the content with potential caravan raiders etc. you can also break this up into multiple days of gameplay today were going from node A-B-C tomorrow C-B-A. If your group wants to do the dungeon on the other side of the map or just explore you want the world to be big because travelling is part of the content. You mentioned Skyrim, as someone who has played Skyrim while ignoring fast travel I can tell you it's still engaging and fun, if all you do is "climb in back and well be off" you will miss over half of the content.
I can understand only having 2 hours a day to play but that is something you need to work around not something the devs should design around. if you have a spare 30 travel to where you plan to game beforehand meet your friends there or join a family and they can summon you to link up when you log in.
For you first point, stopping people from selling crafted gear etc, my proposed solution is the exact same as what you have for airships between 2 scientific nodes already. There are already limits to what you can carry or take on the ship. I see no issue with continuing with the same restrictions already in place (which is what I was suggesting).
As for your second point, I disagree in that the designers shouldn't be designing around such things. Those are exactly the types of things they should be designing around. What if instead of the current travel time it was instead 24 hours to travel between nodes. You would be crazy to tell someone that travel time shouldn't be taken into consideration when designing the game.
Even with my proposed metropolis only airship system there would be the entirety of the over world to explore. And would still be explored because content is still scattered throughout the world.
Heck, I'm the type of person who turns off mini maps in order to be more immersed in the world. I have no intention or desire to trivialize ground content. Heck, if I was told they were reducing map size, then I wouldn't have any desire for a speedier transportation network.
As for your second point, I disagree in that the designers shouldn't be designing around such things. Those are exactly the types of things they should be designing around.
You are correct in that developers should design around travel times.
The thing is, they have.
In Ashes, we have the ability to re-base ourselves closer to the content we want to run. This isn't even all that painful to do. If you find yourself spending a lot of time in an area far away, move closer.
If you want to go to another part of the world to explore, consider it a multi-day excursion.
The problem is in thinking that you can just pick any content on the day and go off and run it.
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As for your second point, I disagree in that the designers shouldn't be designing around such things. Those are exactly the types of things they should be designing around.
You are correct in that developers should design around travel times.
The thing is, they have.
In Ashes, we have the ability to re-base ourselves closer to the content we want to run. This isn't even all that painful to do. If you find yourself spending a lot of time in an area far away, move closer.
If you want to go to another part of the world to explore, consider it a multi-day excursion.
The problem is in thinking that you can just pick any content on the day and go off and run it.
I don't think rebasing is something I'd consider easy to do, unless you aren't talking about changing citizenship. Citizenship is important to aoc and shouldn't be something you just do for a little temporary convenience.
I do not think my thinking is wrong. Perhaps I could think of it as a multi-day excursion, but why would you ever want to lock yourself into that? Maybe I go to one area to do a dungeon/raid with friends. Next day I want to play and they aren't online but I still want to play the game.
I have a different question what demerit is there in adopting my system? Development time? Trivial because they already have an airship system in place between scientific metropolises.
Trivialize ground content? Also false, because I do not suggest instantly teleporting to the destination. I still have to run to my destination after getting to the nearest metropolis, which can take another couple minutes of running.
You want to make traveling to a destination feel like an actual decision? If you don't think a 10+ minutes via an airship doesn't feel like an actual decision, I would have to respectfully disagree.
Do you want to ensure people are actually "exploring"? Fine, let it be unlocked as soon as they discover that node on their own for the first time.
I do not think my thinking is wrong. Perhaps I could think of it as a multi-day excursion, but why would you ever want to lock yourself into that? Maybe I go to one area to do a dungeon/raid with friends. Next day I want to play and they aren't online but I still want to play the game.
If you and your friends decide that you want to have a look at content on the other side if the game world, and then the next day they aren't online and you are, you can use that time to explore the solo content on that side of the game world.
Ashes isnt going to be like other games where all content is sequential, in large zones so that all players of a given range are in a given area. Each metropolis will have content around d it for all level ranges, and for all group sizes.
I have a different question what demerit is there in adopting my system? Development time? Trivial because they already have an airship system in place between scientific metropolises.
Trivialize ground content? Also false, because I do not suggest instantly teleporting to the destination. I still have to run to my destination after getting to the nearest metropolis, which can take another couple minutes of running.
You want to make traveling to a destination feel like an actual decision? If you don't think a 10+ minutes via an airship doesn't feel like an actual decision, I would have to respectfully disagree.
Do you want to ensure people are actually "exploring"? Fine, let it be unlocked as soon as they discover that node on their own for the first time.
The more fast travel is in the game, the easier it is to zerg. The game already has too much fast travel.
As for your second point, I disagree in that the designers shouldn't be designing around such things. Those are exactly the types of things they should be designing around. What if instead of the current travel time it was instead 24 hours to travel between nodes. You would be crazy to tell someone that travel time shouldn't be taken into consideration when designing the game.
Hell, I'd love if it took 24h. That would mean that devs made each node full of unique content. And traveling to another part of the world would feel wonderous because it would be a huge different place that you can explore for days on end.
Your problem is you think the whole world is supposed to be yours, while in Ashes only your node and its neighbors could be seen as "yours". The rest of the world is smth that you can only visit for a short time and that visit should be something special and not smth that you do 20 times a day.
As Noaani has said multiple times - build your playtime around the gameplay you want to experience. Don't expect the devs to build the gameplay purely around your playtime. Because that kind of expectation reeks of entitlement.
Mate, they've had plans for airships to be in the game for a while now. You should really delve into the wiki before being concerned about problems they already have answers for.
Here's some more info:
From one end of a Metropolis (stage 6) node to the other 2.83 minutes 1.67 minutes
From the center of a node to the center of its direct neighbor 5 minutes 3.5 minutes
From the northernmost to southernmost points of a continent 75 minutes 50 minutes
Also, you should keep in mind that they are hoping for Around 8-10k concurrent users per server. Making the map smaller would destroy the world and make many things impossible if not a huge inconvenience.
Pretty sure it was 3.5 minutes for edge to edge, ~5 minutes center to center.
As I have grown older I have had less and less time to be able to dedicate to playing a game. And I am afraid the map size has become too large for people who can't dedicate a TON of time to play per session.
For example, Steven has mentioned it taking about an hour to traverse from one end of a continent to another. So, if I am in the center of a continent it would probably take about 30 minutes to get to any of the edges. Unless there is teleporting (which I am not advocating for), I could potentially be spending 1/4 or 1/2 of my play session just traversing the world to get to the content I ACTUALLY want to do. If I want to hop in and go raiding with some of my buddies on another continent, I should be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time.
What I'd like to see is a sort of shared airship system that goes from one metropolis to another where I could just hop on that ship to more easily go to another area.
You could make this airship make a full cycle around every 10 minutes. This won't trivialize ground content because this ship only goes between metropolises. Trading routes and such obviously should not be able to utilize this method of travel.
What if the best liquor store is 45mins away. Do you go without, or do you plan accordingly?
I really think this is a non-issue and not even worth commenting on until people are actually in-game to test it.
I've mentioned all these systems already and do not think it's enough.
The reason I can assume the gameplay and travel frequency is simple. Content will be split between metropolises. With their own raiding dungeons (both instanced and non instanced), node events etc. These dungeons won't have the same drops which give players a reason to go explore other regions. Not to mention the times you may want to participate in war, do trade routes, and other such stuff.
No one should be doing all the content. That's called HARVESTING and is how you hollow out the corpse of a game to throw away the rind.
Let the citizens there have their Raid. It's not yours.
As I have grown older I have had less and less time to be able to dedicate to playing a game. And I am afraid the map size has become too large for people who can't dedicate a TON of time to play per session.
For example, Steven has mentioned it taking about an hour to traverse from one end of a continent to another. So, if I am in the center of a continent it would probably take about 30 minutes to get to any of the edges. Unless there is teleporting (which I am not advocating for), I could potentially be spending 1/4 or 1/2 of my play session just traversing the world to get to the content I ACTUALLY want to do. If I want to hop in and go raiding with some of my buddies on another continent, I should be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time.
What I'd like to see is a sort of shared airship system that goes from one metropolis to another where I could just hop on that ship to more easily go to another area.
You could make this airship make a full cycle around every 10 minutes. This won't trivialize ground content because this ship only goes between metropolises. Trading routes and such obviously should not be able to utilize this method of travel.
I really don't like to be -that- person. But this has always been the case. Some people didn't have the time. If 30 minutes is 1/4 to 1/2 your playing time, And travel is a part of the game (not to mention dungeon delving)
If you ask me, and I would assume the majority of the MMO playerbase, a large world is important. Players are like locusts, they consume content at incredible rates. If travel is made too fast, the world will feel too small and ultimately fake.
And so, maybe, you've outgrown MMOs. Which is fine. You can still play, there is plenty of things to do nearby you don't have to travel from one side of the continent to the next. Even if you want to, you can just see it as an adventure, as there will be stuff to do, to see, and to explore on the way there.
But please, don't try and let your lack available playtime effect the game for others, adjust expectations instead.
I really don't like to be -that- person. But this has always been the case. Some people didn't have the time. If 30 minutes is 1/4 to 1/2 your playing time, And travel is a part of the game (not to mention dungeon delving)
If you ask me, and I would assume the majority of the MMO playerbase, a large world is important. Players are like locusts, they consume content at incredible rates. If travel is made too fast, the world will feel too small and ultimately fake.
And so, maybe, you've outgrown MMOs. Which is fine. You can still play, there is plenty of things to do nearby you don't have to travel from one side of the continent to the next. Even if you want to, you can just see it as an adventure, as there will be stuff to do, to see, and to explore on the way there.
But please, don't try and let your lack available playtime effect the game for others, adjust expectations instead.
I think the bigger picture to look at here is this: A very large percentage of the video game player base falls between 18-35, with a good chunk of that group skewing more toward 33*. Now think about that for a moment. In your late 20s and early 30s, what life changes are you going through? You're likely done with school and in an established career, potentially thinking of marriage and/or having kids. Do you believe this group of players will have hours to spend daily playing a video game? No, but that does not stop them from trying to play whenever they can. Thus, the primary goal of the game should be to have reasonable travel times for most content by simply making travel between nodes/metropolises faster.
Imagine this: You've been working all day and come home. You want to unwind a bit by doing what you enjoy. You load up Ashes of Creation and you want to go do something that happens to be on another continent. Travelling there will take you 35-40 minutes of real time, but you need to start getting ready for bed in 2 hours or so.
Place yourself in this person's shoes. Do you believe that player will necessarily WANT to spend a good chunk of their time traveling? Very likely not. So what does a player in this situation do? They probably cancel their subscription and move on to a game that respects their time. I appreciate and understand that you as a person may have more free time in your day-to-day life, but try to see the game from another person's perspective. It's very easy to simply tell people "wElL tHiS gAmE iSn'T mEaNt FoR yOu," but take a look at the MMO genre as a whole; it is perhaps one of the least popular genres of games currently available and has been on a downward trend for at least a decade now. Telling people they can simply leave if they don't like it is what stunts MMO growth. Only pandering to the hardcore group is a surefire way to make sure Ashes of Creation suffers a similar fate to all the other MMOs that claim to be for "harcore gamers."
With that in mind, it is completely understandable and expected that hardcore players still be accomodated. Of course, there will be content that is strictly geared to that playerbase, which is perfectly fine. There SHOULD be content that only the top X% of players can do and content that the hardcore grinders want to do. Games need hardcore players as well as casual players to thrive. The problem being discussed, however, is part of the core gameplay loop that every player will experience. Once casual players like the average video game player sees how much of a percentage of their play time is dedicated solely to traveling and not engaging in content, they very likely will leave. In addition, potential new players that see how much of a slog they have ahead of them will cancel their subscription after a month or so.
The state of this game ultimately relies heavily on how well they can intermingle travel time with actual content players wish to engage in. With not enough interesting or worthwhile content to do as you travel throughout your own continent/other continents, players very likely will move on from Ashes.
With that in mind, it is completely understandable and expected that hardcore players still be accomodated. Of course, there will be content that is strictly geared to that playerbase, which is perfectly fine. There SHOULD be content that only the top X% of players can do and content that the hardcore grinders want to do. Games need hardcore players as well as casual players to thrive. The problem being discussed, however, is part of the core gameplay loop that every player will experience. Once casual players like the average video game player sees how much of a percentage of their play time is dedicated solely to traveling and not engaging in content, they very likely will leave. In addition, potential new players that see how much of a slog they have ahead of them will cancel their subscription after a month or so.
You know that this game is owpvp, right? So in that context you gotta realize that your suggestion of "anyone can reach any place on the map within 20 minutes" will just mean that any zerg or strong group of players will be able to go to the same places you want to go to, except they can just run over you and your friends and you'll never experience that content in the first place.
While with meaningful travel time, your local node might have good content (or you moved to a node with one) and there's only one or two local strong groups that can farm that place instead of 20 from the entire server.
And if you're talking about casual content, that shit's supposed to be on every corner of the world due to how Node's progression and design works.
The game is designed with a player anchor. Your node is your home and you're meant to work on its improvement. If all you do is just travel every day - your node will die off. At which point you've failed at the most important part of the game, because you were too selfish and wanted to farm your own content instead of what your node (or the vassal system that you live in) presented you with.
This is a different style of game, targeted at a particular audience. Will that audience be way smaller than smth like WoW or FF14 have? Of course. Do Steven and Intrepid know that and still continue to develop the game in that manner? Also of course. And this is why people on this forum (who're here exactly because they support the current vision of the game) are against your suggestion.
This is a different style of game, targeted at a particular audience. Will that audience be way smaller than smth like WoW or FF14 have? Of course. Do Steven and Intrepid know that and still continue to develop the game in that manner? Also of course. And this is why people on this forum (who're here exactly because they support the current vision of the game) are against your suggestion.
It's nice to look at the game with rose-tinted lenses and say the game is supposed to appeal to a niche group of players and that's all Intrepid ever intended, but that's simply not the reality. Intrepid is a game company. Their goal is to create a product and make money. Steven Sharif has invested ~$43m of his own money into the game. You would be hard pressed to sit there and tell me he and the team plan on creating a game that isn't going to earn back that money and then some.
I'll reiterate my earlier point: without a casual playerbase, MMOs die. Plain and simple. Look at any game that has claimed to be for "hardcore" gamers and pandered to them. Those MMOs are either dead, or shells of their former selves propped up by companies such as Gamigo that only seek to milk the remaining player base for every cent before shuttering the servers. The game can cater to a niche, but it needs to also be appealing to casual players in order to have any chance at thriving long-term.
I'll reiterate my earlier point: without a casual playerbase, MMOs die. Plain and simple.
I agree with this statement
What I dont understand is - why is this relevant?
If you opt to be a casual gamer, you are already restricting yourself from most of a games end game content. Be it due to content needing gear, skill or time.
I dont see how adding "in world location" to that list is an issue.
I mean, if you're casual, it's not like you would expect to see all content anyway. All you should care about is that you have something to do when you log in.
If you consider the in game location to be a limiting factor just as gear requirements are, what is the issue here?
At least with in game location as opposed to gear, you can essentially go on an in game excursion to another area to see that content over a period of a week that was otherwise blocked to you.
To me, that sounds like a boon to the casual player
You would be hard pressed to sit there and tell me he and the team plan on creating a game that isn't going to earn back that money and then some.
I wouldn't be. Steven repeats it every other stream "Ashes is not for everyone". The game has open world pvp (forced pvp. you can die in 99% of the world at any time at the hands of another player). The game will have limited resources. The game will have pve content that's gonna be beatable by only the top 10% of the playerbase. Flying content is meant for the top 10-20 people on a 10k server. Open seas is an auto-flag zone. Caravans, that are the main method of transporting goods, are pvp zones that anyone can attack and pillage. And obviously the meaningful travel.
Those are just the super surface "hardcore" elements of the game. There's a ton of casual-friendly, but it's just that - casual-friendly. If a casual is so entitled as to want to participate in hardcore content w/o putting in hardcore time/effort - the game is not for them.
I think the bigger picture to look at here is this: A very large percentage of the video game player base falls between 18-35, with a good chunk of that group skewing more toward 33*. Now think about that for a moment. In your late 20s and early 30s, what life changes are you going through? You're likely done with school and in an established career, potentially thinking of marriage and/or having kids. Do you believe this group of players will have hours to spend daily playing a video game? No, but that does not stop them from trying to play whenever they can. Thus, the primary goal of the game should be to have reasonable travel times for most content by simply making travel between nodes/metropolises faster.
Imagine this: You've been working all day and come home. You want to unwind a bit by doing what you enjoy. You load up Ashes of Creation and you want to go do something that happens to be on another continent. Travelling there will take you 35-40 minutes of real time, but you need to start getting ready for bed in 2 hours or so.
Place yourself in this person's shoes. Do you believe that player will necessarily WANT to spend a good chunk of their time traveling? Very likely not. So what does a player in this situation do? They probably cancel their subscription and move on to a game that respects their time. I appreciate and understand that you as a person may have more free time in your day-to-day life, but try to see the game from another person's perspective. It's very easy to simply tell people "wElL tHiS gAmE iSn'T mEaNt FoR yOu," but take a look at the MMO genre as a whole; it is perhaps one of the least popular genres of games currently available and has been on a downward trend for at least a decade now. Telling people they can simply leave if they don't like it is what stunts MMO growth. Only pandering to the hardcore group is a surefire way to make sure Ashes of Creation suffers a similar fate to all the other MMOs that claim to be for "harcore gamers."
With that in mind, it is completely understandable and expected that hardcore players still be accomodated. Of course, there will be content that is strictly geared to that playerbase, which is perfectly fine. There SHOULD be content that only the top X% of players can do and content that the hardcore grinders want to do. Games need hardcore players as well as casual players to thrive. The problem being discussed, however, is part of the core gameplay loop that every player will experience. Once casual players like the average video game player sees how much of a percentage of their play time is dedicated solely to traveling and not engaging in content, they very likely will leave. In addition, potential new players that see how much of a slog they have ahead of them will cancel their subscription after a month or so.
The state of this game ultimately relies heavily on how well they can intermingle travel time with actual content players wish to engage in. With not enough interesting or worthwhile content to do as you travel throughout your own continent/other continents, players very likely will move on from Ashes.
If movement through the game is interesting and fun then that can be content too though.
I'd like to see more vertical terrain requiring parkour. . . risk of death included.
MMOs (Games) can appeal to younger and older audiences given it's interesting and rewarding in a basic 'mess around' way, such as movement, and in mature ways such as with intelligent design and room for strategy, tactics, and 'reward to contemplation (thinking about it)' that doesn't require high execution (high execution skill cap or floor can exist but doesn't have to dominate every high-reward aspect of the game).
I really don't like to be -that- person. But this has always been the case. Some people didn't have the time. If 30 minutes is 1/4 to 1/2 your playing time, And travel is a part of the game (not to mention dungeon delving)
If you ask me, and I would assume the majority of the MMO playerbase, a large world is important. Players are like locusts, they consume content at incredible rates. If travel is made too fast, the world will feel too small and ultimately fake.
And so, maybe, you've outgrown MMOs. Which is fine. You can still play, there is plenty of things to do nearby you don't have to travel from one side of the continent to the next. Even if you want to, you can just see it as an adventure, as there will be stuff to do, to see, and to explore on the way there.
But please, don't try and let your lack available playtime effect the game for others, adjust expectations instead.
I think the bigger picture to look at here is this: A very large percentage of the video game player base falls between 18-35, with a good chunk of that group skewing more toward 33*. Now think about that for a moment. In your late 20s and early 30s, what life changes are you going through? You're likely done with school and in an established career, potentially thinking of marriage and/or having kids. Do you believe this group of players will have hours to spend daily playing a video game? No, but that does not stop them from trying to play whenever they can. Thus, the primary goal of the game should be to have reasonable travel times for most content by simply making travel between nodes/metropolises faster.
Imagine this: You've been working all day and come home. You want to unwind a bit by doing what you enjoy. You load up Ashes of Creation and you want to go do something that happens to be on another continent. Travelling there will take you 35-40 minutes of real time, but you need to start getting ready for bed in 2 hours or so.
Place yourself in this person's shoes. Do you believe that player will necessarily WANT to spend a good chunk of their time traveling? Very likely not. So what does a player in this situation do? They probably cancel their subscription and move on to a game that respects their time. I appreciate and understand that you as a person may have more free time in your day-to-day life, but try to see the game from another person's perspective. It's very easy to simply tell people "wElL tHiS gAmE iSn'T mEaNt FoR yOu," but take a look at the MMO genre as a whole; it is perhaps one of the least popular genres of games currently available and has been on a downward trend for at least a decade now. Telling people they can simply leave if they don't like it is what stunts MMO growth. Only pandering to the hardcore group is a surefire way to make sure Ashes of Creation suffers a similar fate to all the other MMOs that claim to be for "harcore gamers."
With that in mind, it is completely understandable and expected that hardcore players still be accomodated. Of course, there will be content that is strictly geared to that playerbase, which is perfectly fine. There SHOULD be content that only the top X% of players can do and content that the hardcore grinders want to do. Games need hardcore players as well as casual players to thrive. The problem being discussed, however, is part of the core gameplay loop that every player will experience. Once casual players like the average video game player sees how much of a percentage of their play time is dedicated solely to traveling and not engaging in content, they very likely will leave. In addition, potential new players that see how much of a slog they have ahead of them will cancel their subscription after a month or so.
The state of this game ultimately relies heavily on how well they can intermingle travel time with actual content players wish to engage in. With not enough interesting or worthwhile content to do as you travel throughout your own continent/other continents, players very likely will move on from Ashes.
U-huh, u-huh. And there are MMOs out there that cater to this. Ashes, however has repeatedly stated to have been influenced by older MMOs. The node of which you become a citizen will have plenty to do in terms of dungeons, and bosses. And if you want to go to the other end of the world. Don't think of the destination as the end all and be all. Instead try and advocate for a world in which the travel itself is the adventure.
If you cater to those that can't commit time any of the seven days in a week, you trivialise the world, and might as well go the WoW route.
You could pay for passage on a sea worthy vessel, maybe/preferably player/guild run transports, liable to getting attacked and all. As we already know ships will be a thing. Or land based caravans. Point is, you see travel as a chore, and that's the problem. Travel should be an adventure in and of itself. And trivialising it the way suggested cheapens the experience for everyone.
U-huh, u-huh. And there are MMOs out there that cater to this. Ashes, however has repeatedly stated to have been influenced by older MMOs. The node of which you become a citizen will have plenty to do in terms of dungeons, and bosses. And if you want to go to the other end of the world. Don't think of the destination as the end all and be all. Instead try and advocate for a world in which the travel itself is the adventure.
If you cater to those that can't commit time any of the seven days in a week, you trivialise the world, and might as well go the WoW route.
You could pay for passage on a sea worthy vessel, maybe/preferably player/guild run transports, liable to getting attacked and all. As we already know ships will be a thing. Or land based caravans. Point is, you see travel as a chore, and that's the problem. Travel should be an adventure in and of itself. And trivialising it the way suggested cheapens the experience for everyone.
Remind me again how a simple expansion of transport availability between nodes "trivializes travel"? The entire purpose is to cut out the fluff of having to run endlessly between nodes. You would still have to run from the node to the actual content out in the world
To counter your point that the game is influenced by older MMOs, that's perfectly fine. Being influenced by MMOs is one thing; adopting archaic mechanics for the sake of "remember the old days guys? ahuehua" is pretty bad design. I remember when Old School Runescape decided it would not include the grand exchange and trading would be done "just like the good ol' days." I think the novelty of it wore off within a few weeks before third party sites created their own versions of the grand exchange because people didn't want to spend 2 hours in game spamming "wave:flash: selling raw tuna 300gp ea ~~~l33tsk1ll~~~". This eventually led to an auto-chat feature being implemented and the ultimate reintroduction of the grand exchange. Old systems can be interesting, but they need to be implemented in modern, refreshed ways or else the nostalgia will wear off and people will loathe the mechanic.
If movement through the game is interesting and fun then that can be content too though.
I'd like to see more vertical terrain requiring parkour. . . risk of death included.
Right, this is the part that the current system relies heavily on, and what I'm afraid they won't be able to do. Just like games such as Rift and FF14, they have "world events," but they are largely ignored simply because there's no reason to interact with them excluding a few rare instances where a quest requires you to do so. It is incredibly difficult to create open-world content that doesn't quickly become useless and seen as a "waste of time" to bother interacting with, returning the player to a travel system with large gaps of nothing excluding trivial content that only serves as an incredibly minor distraction.
Right, this is the part that the current system relies heavily on, and what I'm afraid they won't be able to do. Just like games such as Rift and FF14, they have "world events," but they are largely ignored simply because there's no reason to interact with them excluding a few rare instances where a quest requires you to do so. It is incredibly difficult to create open-world content that doesn't quickly become useless and seen as a "waste of time" to bother interacting with, returning the player to a travel system with large gaps of nothing excluding trivial content that only serves as an incredibly minor distraction.
I do not like the power scaling of MMOs and gear treadmill. It should just be fun to play the game.
MMOs are not fun because they are simply treadmills without any fun or benefit an actual treadmill would provide.
You would be hard pressed to sit there and tell me he and the team plan on creating a game that isn't going to earn back that money and then some.
I wouldn't be. Steven repeats it every other stream "Ashes is not for everyone".
I think you're grossly misrepresenting his words there. As I said earlier, Intrepid is a games company. They, and Steven Sharif himself, have a vested interest in creating a profitable game. Sure, the game doesn't need to appeal to 100% of gamers or even 100% of MMO players, but it NEEDS to appeal to a large enough audience that it can be profitable to run.
Do you know why the subscription model has all but died off and the majority of new MMOs opt for f2p with cash shops? Because f2p with cash shop models for games are significantly more profitable. Paying to host servers is not cheap, and making an MMO that caters to a niche audience of a niche audience is a surefire way to make sure you cannot afford the overhead.
Do you know why the subscription model has all but died off and the majority of new MMOs opt for f2p with cash shops? Because f2p with cash shop models for games are significantly more profitable. Paying to host servers is not cheap, and making an MMO that caters to a niche audience of a niche audience is a surefire way to make sure you cannot afford the overhead.
Oh right, that's yet another "anti-popular" feature of the game.
In other words, literally most of the game's design and features are targeted at a much smaller audience than you want it to be. The game has been in development for over 5 years now. And in that time one of the biggest changes has been the latest open seas change that made the game even more niche. So, unless you're trying to call Steven and all of Intrepid stupid, I'd assume you can see that they know what they're doing and what results those actions might lead to.
Do you know why the subscription model has all but died off and the majority of new MMOs opt for f2p with cash shops? Because f2p with cash shop models for games are significantly more profitable. Paying to host servers is not cheap, and making an MMO that caters to a niche audience of a niche audience is a surefire way to make sure you cannot afford the overhead.
Oh right, that's yet another "anti-popular" feature of the game.
In other words, literally most of the game's design and features are targeted at a much smaller audience than you want it to be. The game has been in development for over 5 years now. And in that time one of the biggest changes has been the latest open seas change that made the game even more niche. So, unless you're trying to call Steven and all of Intrepid stupid, I'd assume you can see that they know what they're doing and what results those actions might lead to.
lol open seas niche. . . You're delusional! PvP is one of the biggest gameplay dynamics around, and Sea Combat is basically 'under-saturated in the market'.
l m a O
Sea of Thieves pretty successful
Seems they made well over close to or over $100 MIL LMAO.
Respawn mechanics and gameplay 'density' important to determining success of course. Balanced game.
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FuryBladeborneMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Even with my proposed metropolis only airship system there would be the entirety of the over world to explore. And would still be explored because content is still scattered throughout the world.
I just want to point out a couple of things. IS did leave a way to connect all metropolis in the game. However, it has to be built by the players. So if the players think that airship travel is the most important then all metropolis can built as scientific. Even 3 would go a long way to making world easier to traverse.
Also, have you considered the fact that it is expected to take about 2 months to build a metropolis? This means that you will will probably be playing for 2+ months before the possibility of using metropolis airships is available. So, by the time metropolis airships get built I wouldn't be surprised if you have adjusted to traveling at the non airship speed. Otherwise I think you probably would leave in less than 2 months.
U-huh, u-huh. And there are MMOs out there that cater to this. Ashes, however has repeatedly stated to have been influenced by older MMOs. The node of which you become a citizen will have plenty to do in terms of dungeons, and bosses. And if you want to go to the other end of the world. Don't think of the destination as the end all and be all. Instead try and advocate for a world in which the travel itself is the adventure.
If you cater to those that can't commit time any of the seven days in a week, you trivialise the world, and might as well go the WoW route.
You could pay for passage on a sea worthy vessel, maybe/preferably player/guild run transports, liable to getting attacked and all. As we already know ships will be a thing. Or land based caravans. Point is, you see travel as a chore, and that's the problem. Travel should be an adventure in and of itself. And trivialising it the way suggested cheapens the experience for everyone.
Remind me again how a simple expansion of transport availability between nodes "trivializes travel"? The entire purpose is to cut out the fluff of having to run endlessly between nodes. You would still have to run from the node to the actual content out in the world
To counter your point that the game is influenced by older MMOs, that's perfectly fine. Being influenced by MMOs is one thing; adopting archaic mechanics for the sake of "remember the old days guys? ahuehua" is pretty bad design. I remember when Old School Runescape decided it would not include the grand exchange and trading would be done "just like the good ol' days." I think the novelty of it wore off within a few weeks before third party sites created their own versions of the grand exchange because people didn't want to spend 2 hours in game spamming "wave:flash: selling raw tuna 300gp ea ~~~l33tsk1ll~~~". This eventually led to an auto-chat feature being implemented and the ultimate reintroduction of the grand exchange. Old systems can be interesting, but they need to be implemented in modern, refreshed ways or else the nostalgia will wear off and people will loathe the mechanic.
Because Nodes are competing.
As such, you most likely have little reason to visit a node other then your own.
If you do want to visit other nodes, you'll have to travel. You'll have a mount. You'll also have a lot of hostile NPCs of varying levels and degrees of danger, the further you get away from a Node's zone of influence, I think is what they said.
the game's content is but one thing, you are not playing in a vacuum however. What this means in terms of Node to Node transportation is that it invalidates players who might enjoy a more pirate/bandit type gameplay.
If you look at Freelancer, for example. It could take a lot of time to jump from a planet in Liberty Space to one of the Omicron systems. This opened you up to attacks by pirates (other players) you could hire protection (other players) which would deter them sometimes, but not always. Now there are a multitude of players involved because of your decision to venture out for whatever reason.
So yes, it trivialises travel, because you forcibly cut out possible interaction with others, wanted or not.
And so your options might include:
My mighty steed/mount and I will pack lightly and run through these zones, if I'm alone it'll be less likely I draw attention. It might take longer though.
You could ask/hire a guild/player to ferry you through the dangerous, pirate invested waters
Another possibility would be, I need to go to Node B, I'm in Node A, is there a caravan going I can join and maybe make some money. Perhaps there are others who want to join in an expedition towards your destination.
As opposed to talk to NPC and be flown/ridden/ferried/teleported to your destination.
PvP is one of the biggest gameplay dynamics around.
Not in MMO's it isnt.
Its third, behind PvE and crafting/gathering.
Yes, more people spend more time crafting and gathering in MMO's than they spend PvP'ing.
This may be true, it depends from game to game, but I could easily argue that MMO's as hold not being able to properly integrate reasonable PvP game loops into their games is why most fail. You need replayable loops and PvE and Crafting no matter how great, are not replayable loops. For AoC to be successful it all needs to work.
But as far as the OP goes, the map seems crazy big, but in reality, with the airships and the server caps it will be very alive and manageable, it's a non issue.
U-huh, u-huh. And there are MMOs out there that cater to this. Ashes, however has repeatedly stated to have been influenced by older MMOs. The node of which you become a citizen will have plenty to do in terms of dungeons, and bosses. And if you want to go to the other end of the world. Don't think of the destination as the end all and be all. Instead try and advocate for a world in which the travel itself is the adventure.
If you cater to those that can't commit time any of the seven days in a week, you trivialise the world, and might as well go the WoW route.
You could pay for passage on a sea worthy vessel, maybe/preferably player/guild run transports, liable to getting attacked and all. As we already know ships will be a thing. Or land based caravans. Point is, you see travel as a chore, and that's the problem. Travel should be an adventure in and of itself. And trivialising it the way suggested cheapens the experience for everyone.
Remind me again how a simple expansion of transport availability between nodes "trivializes travel"? The entire purpose is to cut out the fluff of having to run endlessly between nodes. You would still have to run from the node to the actual content out in the world
To counter your point that the game is influenced by older MMOs, that's perfectly fine. Being influenced by MMOs is one thing; adopting archaic mechanics for the sake of "remember the old days guys? ahuehua" is pretty bad design. I remember when Old School Runescape decided it would not include the grand exchange and trading would be done "just like the good ol' days." I think the novelty of it wore off within a few weeks before third party sites created their own versions of the grand exchange because people didn't want to spend 2 hours in game spamming "wave:flash: selling raw tuna 300gp ea ~~~l33tsk1ll~~~". This eventually led to an auto-chat feature being implemented and the ultimate reintroduction of the grand exchange. Old systems can be interesting, but they need to be implemented in modern, refreshed ways or else the nostalgia will wear off and people will loathe the mechanic.
You are right to an extend on some of people wanting this to be extremely old or worst just for reduced fun experience. Example being some people wanting no global chat to reduce socialization options between people which makes 0 senses.
Comments
For you first point, stopping people from selling crafted gear etc, my proposed solution is the exact same as what you have for airships between 2 scientific nodes already. There are already limits to what you can carry or take on the ship. I see no issue with continuing with the same restrictions already in place (which is what I was suggesting).
As for your second point, I disagree in that the designers shouldn't be designing around such things. Those are exactly the types of things they should be designing around. What if instead of the current travel time it was instead 24 hours to travel between nodes. You would be crazy to tell someone that travel time shouldn't be taken into consideration when designing the game.
Even with my proposed metropolis only airship system there would be the entirety of the over world to explore. And would still be explored because content is still scattered throughout the world.
Heck, I'm the type of person who turns off mini maps in order to be more immersed in the world. I have no intention or desire to trivialize ground content. Heck, if I was told they were reducing map size, then I wouldn't have any desire for a speedier transportation network.
You are correct in that developers should design around travel times.
The thing is, they have.
In Ashes, we have the ability to re-base ourselves closer to the content we want to run. This isn't even all that painful to do. If you find yourself spending a lot of time in an area far away, move closer.
If you want to go to another part of the world to explore, consider it a multi-day excursion.
The problem is in thinking that you can just pick any content on the day and go off and run it.
I don't think rebasing is something I'd consider easy to do, unless you aren't talking about changing citizenship. Citizenship is important to aoc and shouldn't be something you just do for a little temporary convenience.
I do not think my thinking is wrong. Perhaps I could think of it as a multi-day excursion, but why would you ever want to lock yourself into that? Maybe I go to one area to do a dungeon/raid with friends. Next day I want to play and they aren't online but I still want to play the game.
I have a different question what demerit is there in adopting my system? Development time? Trivial because they already have an airship system in place between scientific metropolises.
Trivialize ground content? Also false, because I do not suggest instantly teleporting to the destination. I still have to run to my destination after getting to the nearest metropolis, which can take another couple minutes of running.
You want to make traveling to a destination feel like an actual decision? If you don't think a 10+ minutes via an airship doesn't feel like an actual decision, I would have to respectfully disagree.
Do you want to ensure people are actually "exploring"? Fine, let it be unlocked as soon as they discover that node on their own for the first time.
Ashes isnt going to be like other games where all content is sequential, in large zones so that all players of a given range are in a given area. Each metropolis will have content around d it for all level ranges, and for all group sizes. The more fast travel is in the game, the easier it is to zerg. The game already has too much fast travel.
Your problem is you think the whole world is supposed to be yours, while in Ashes only your node and its neighbors could be seen as "yours". The rest of the world is smth that you can only visit for a short time and that visit should be something special and not smth that you do 20 times a day.
As Noaani has said multiple times - build your playtime around the gameplay you want to experience. Don't expect the devs to build the gameplay purely around your playtime. Because that kind of expectation reeks of entitlement.
Pretty sure it was 3.5 minutes for edge to edge, ~5 minutes center to center.
Still too small lol
What if the best liquor store is 45mins away. Do you go without, or do you plan accordingly?
No one should be doing all the content. That's called HARVESTING and is how you hollow out the corpse of a game to throw away the rind.
Let the citizens there have their Raid. It's not yours.
I really don't like to be -that- person. But this has always been the case. Some people didn't have the time. If 30 minutes is 1/4 to 1/2 your playing time, And travel is a part of the game (not to mention dungeon delving)
If you ask me, and I would assume the majority of the MMO playerbase, a large world is important. Players are like locusts, they consume content at incredible rates. If travel is made too fast, the world will feel too small and ultimately fake.
And so, maybe, you've outgrown MMOs. Which is fine. You can still play, there is plenty of things to do nearby you don't have to travel from one side of the continent to the next. Even if you want to, you can just see it as an adventure, as there will be stuff to do, to see, and to explore on the way there.
But please, don't try and let your lack available playtime effect the game for others, adjust expectations instead.
I think the bigger picture to look at here is this: A very large percentage of the video game player base falls between 18-35, with a good chunk of that group skewing more toward 33*. Now think about that for a moment. In your late 20s and early 30s, what life changes are you going through? You're likely done with school and in an established career, potentially thinking of marriage and/or having kids. Do you believe this group of players will have hours to spend daily playing a video game? No, but that does not stop them from trying to play whenever they can. Thus, the primary goal of the game should be to have reasonable travel times for most content by simply making travel between nodes/metropolises faster.
Imagine this: You've been working all day and come home. You want to unwind a bit by doing what you enjoy. You load up Ashes of Creation and you want to go do something that happens to be on another continent. Travelling there will take you 35-40 minutes of real time, but you need to start getting ready for bed in 2 hours or so.
Place yourself in this person's shoes. Do you believe that player will necessarily WANT to spend a good chunk of their time traveling? Very likely not. So what does a player in this situation do? They probably cancel their subscription and move on to a game that respects their time. I appreciate and understand that you as a person may have more free time in your day-to-day life, but try to see the game from another person's perspective. It's very easy to simply tell people "wElL tHiS gAmE iSn'T mEaNt FoR yOu," but take a look at the MMO genre as a whole; it is perhaps one of the least popular genres of games currently available and has been on a downward trend for at least a decade now. Telling people they can simply leave if they don't like it is what stunts MMO growth. Only pandering to the hardcore group is a surefire way to make sure Ashes of Creation suffers a similar fate to all the other MMOs that claim to be for "harcore gamers."
With that in mind, it is completely understandable and expected that hardcore players still be accomodated. Of course, there will be content that is strictly geared to that playerbase, which is perfectly fine. There SHOULD be content that only the top X% of players can do and content that the hardcore grinders want to do. Games need hardcore players as well as casual players to thrive. The problem being discussed, however, is part of the core gameplay loop that every player will experience. Once casual players like the average video game player sees how much of a percentage of their play time is dedicated solely to traveling and not engaging in content, they very likely will leave. In addition, potential new players that see how much of a slog they have ahead of them will cancel their subscription after a month or so.
The state of this game ultimately relies heavily on how well they can intermingle travel time with actual content players wish to engage in. With not enough interesting or worthwhile content to do as you travel throughout your own continent/other continents, players very likely will move on from Ashes.
*https://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-Essential-Facts-About-the-Computer-and-Video-Game-Industry.pdf
*https://www.theesa.com/resource/2022-essential-facts-about-the-video-game-industry/
While with meaningful travel time, your local node might have good content (or you moved to a node with one) and there's only one or two local strong groups that can farm that place instead of 20 from the entire server.
And if you're talking about casual content, that shit's supposed to be on every corner of the world due to how Node's progression and design works.
The game is designed with a player anchor. Your node is your home and you're meant to work on its improvement. If all you do is just travel every day - your node will die off. At which point you've failed at the most important part of the game, because you were too selfish and wanted to farm your own content instead of what your node (or the vassal system that you live in) presented you with.
This is a different style of game, targeted at a particular audience. Will that audience be way smaller than smth like WoW or FF14 have? Of course. Do Steven and Intrepid know that and still continue to develop the game in that manner? Also of course. And this is why people on this forum (who're here exactly because they support the current vision of the game) are against your suggestion.
It's nice to look at the game with rose-tinted lenses and say the game is supposed to appeal to a niche group of players and that's all Intrepid ever intended, but that's simply not the reality. Intrepid is a game company. Their goal is to create a product and make money. Steven Sharif has invested ~$43m of his own money into the game. You would be hard pressed to sit there and tell me he and the team plan on creating a game that isn't going to earn back that money and then some.
I'll reiterate my earlier point: without a casual playerbase, MMOs die. Plain and simple. Look at any game that has claimed to be for "hardcore" gamers and pandered to them. Those MMOs are either dead, or shells of their former selves propped up by companies such as Gamigo that only seek to milk the remaining player base for every cent before shuttering the servers. The game can cater to a niche, but it needs to also be appealing to casual players in order to have any chance at thriving long-term.
What I dont understand is - why is this relevant?
If you opt to be a casual gamer, you are already restricting yourself from most of a games end game content. Be it due to content needing gear, skill or time.
I dont see how adding "in world location" to that list is an issue.
I mean, if you're casual, it's not like you would expect to see all content anyway. All you should care about is that you have something to do when you log in.
If you consider the in game location to be a limiting factor just as gear requirements are, what is the issue here?
At least with in game location as opposed to gear, you can essentially go on an in game excursion to another area to see that content over a period of a week that was otherwise blocked to you.
To me, that sounds like a boon to the casual player
Those are just the super surface "hardcore" elements of the game. There's a ton of casual-friendly, but it's just that - casual-friendly. If a casual is so entitled as to want to participate in hardcore content w/o putting in hardcore time/effort - the game is not for them.
Yes good content is good.
If movement through the game is interesting and fun then that can be content too though.
I'd like to see more vertical terrain requiring parkour. . . risk of death included.
MMOs (Games) can appeal to younger and older audiences given it's interesting and rewarding in a basic 'mess around' way, such as movement, and in mature ways such as with intelligent design and room for strategy, tactics, and 'reward to contemplation (thinking about it)' that doesn't require high execution (high execution skill cap or floor can exist but doesn't have to dominate every high-reward aspect of the game).
Different strokes.
U-huh, u-huh. And there are MMOs out there that cater to this. Ashes, however has repeatedly stated to have been influenced by older MMOs. The node of which you become a citizen will have plenty to do in terms of dungeons, and bosses. And if you want to go to the other end of the world. Don't think of the destination as the end all and be all. Instead try and advocate for a world in which the travel itself is the adventure.
If you cater to those that can't commit time any of the seven days in a week, you trivialise the world, and might as well go the WoW route.
You could pay for passage on a sea worthy vessel, maybe/preferably player/guild run transports, liable to getting attacked and all. As we already know ships will be a thing. Or land based caravans. Point is, you see travel as a chore, and that's the problem. Travel should be an adventure in and of itself. And trivialising it the way suggested cheapens the experience for everyone.
Remind me again how a simple expansion of transport availability between nodes "trivializes travel"? The entire purpose is to cut out the fluff of having to run endlessly between nodes. You would still have to run from the node to the actual content out in the world
To counter your point that the game is influenced by older MMOs, that's perfectly fine. Being influenced by MMOs is one thing; adopting archaic mechanics for the sake of "remember the old days guys? ahuehua" is pretty bad design. I remember when Old School Runescape decided it would not include the grand exchange and trading would be done "just like the good ol' days." I think the novelty of it wore off within a few weeks before third party sites created their own versions of the grand exchange because people didn't want to spend 2 hours in game spamming "wave:flash: selling raw tuna 300gp ea ~~~l33tsk1ll~~~". This eventually led to an auto-chat feature being implemented and the ultimate reintroduction of the grand exchange. Old systems can be interesting, but they need to be implemented in modern, refreshed ways or else the nostalgia will wear off and people will loathe the mechanic.
Right, this is the part that the current system relies heavily on, and what I'm afraid they won't be able to do. Just like games such as Rift and FF14, they have "world events," but they are largely ignored simply because there's no reason to interact with them excluding a few rare instances where a quest requires you to do so. It is incredibly difficult to create open-world content that doesn't quickly become useless and seen as a "waste of time" to bother interacting with, returning the player to a travel system with large gaps of nothing excluding trivial content that only serves as an incredibly minor distraction.
I do not like the power scaling of MMOs and gear treadmill. It should just be fun to play the game.
MMOs are not fun because they are simply treadmills without any fun or benefit an actual treadmill would provide.
I think you're grossly misrepresenting his words there. As I said earlier, Intrepid is a games company. They, and Steven Sharif himself, have a vested interest in creating a profitable game. Sure, the game doesn't need to appeal to 100% of gamers or even 100% of MMO players, but it NEEDS to appeal to a large enough audience that it can be profitable to run.
Do you know why the subscription model has all but died off and the majority of new MMOs opt for f2p with cash shops? Because f2p with cash shop models for games are significantly more profitable. Paying to host servers is not cheap, and making an MMO that caters to a niche audience of a niche audience is a surefire way to make sure you cannot afford the overhead.
In other words, literally most of the game's design and features are targeted at a much smaller audience than you want it to be. The game has been in development for over 5 years now. And in that time one of the biggest changes has been the latest open seas change that made the game even more niche. So, unless you're trying to call Steven and all of Intrepid stupid, I'd assume you can see that they know what they're doing and what results those actions might lead to.
lol open seas niche. . . You're delusional! PvP is one of the biggest gameplay dynamics around, and Sea Combat is basically 'under-saturated in the market'.
l m a O
Sea of Thieves pretty successful
Seems they made well over close to or over $100 MIL LMAO.
Respawn mechanics and gameplay 'density' important to determining success of course. Balanced game.
Also, have you considered the fact that it is expected to take about 2 months to build a metropolis? This means that you will will probably be playing for 2+ months before the possibility of using metropolis airships is available. So, by the time metropolis airships get built I wouldn't be surprised if you have adjusted to traveling at the non airship speed. Otherwise I think you probably would leave in less than 2 months.
Because Nodes are competing.
As such, you most likely have little reason to visit a node other then your own.
If you do want to visit other nodes, you'll have to travel. You'll have a mount. You'll also have a lot of hostile NPCs of varying levels and degrees of danger, the further you get away from a Node's zone of influence, I think is what they said.
the game's content is but one thing, you are not playing in a vacuum however. What this means in terms of Node to Node transportation is that it invalidates players who might enjoy a more pirate/bandit type gameplay.
If you look at Freelancer, for example. It could take a lot of time to jump from a planet in Liberty Space to one of the Omicron systems. This opened you up to attacks by pirates (other players) you could hire protection (other players) which would deter them sometimes, but not always. Now there are a multitude of players involved because of your decision to venture out for whatever reason.
So yes, it trivialises travel, because you forcibly cut out possible interaction with others, wanted or not.
And so your options might include:
My mighty steed/mount and I will pack lightly and run through these zones, if I'm alone it'll be less likely I draw attention. It might take longer though.
You could ask/hire a guild/player to ferry you through the dangerous, pirate invested waters
Another possibility would be, I need to go to Node B, I'm in Node A, is there a caravan going I can join and maybe make some money. Perhaps there are others who want to join in an expedition towards your destination.
As opposed to talk to NPC and be flown/ridden/ferried/teleported to your destination.
Not in MMO's it isnt.
Its third, behind PvE and crafting/gathering.
Yes, more people spend more time crafting and gathering in MMO's than they spend PvP'ing.
Yes, MMOs are a niche genre with limited appeal because the devs don't seem to know how to make a fun game.
Yes.
great point act man
I'd like the rest of the game to be fun too but the point was that open ocean PvP isn't a recipe for less appeal.
This may be true, it depends from game to game, but I could easily argue that MMO's as hold not being able to properly integrate reasonable PvP game loops into their games is why most fail. You need replayable loops and PvE and Crafting no matter how great, are not replayable loops. For AoC to be successful it all needs to work.
But as far as the OP goes, the map seems crazy big, but in reality, with the airships and the server caps it will be very alive and manageable, it's a non issue.
You are right to an extend on some of people wanting this to be extremely old or worst just for reduced fun experience. Example being some people wanting no global chat to reduce socialization options between people which makes 0 senses.