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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
No just look at the game grounded
Iam scared of deep water, please do a naval-no-water mode 🙄
Should probably remove naval content too
You wouldn't be able to see the behavior of the mob accurately as Ashes requires players to SEE a lot of the moves an enemy makes, so just replacing the model with a slime is absolutely not what would suffice. It would add a ton of work to design a new mob type that is similar enough to show the behavior a player needs to see to react or this "phobia mode" would make players worse at playing as it limits the information they'd receive. And while I get that facing a phobia is a long and stressful process, you have to be aware that hyper complex games like Ashes aims to be for more than one reason cannot make adjustments for these kinds of sensibilities.
Steven has been prominently and multiple times on record stating that Ashes won't be for everyone and I am afraid that people with unaddressed phobias are another group on that list.
But maybe this can serve as a motivation to overcome the phobia through therapy or a way to treat yourself through exposure to get this under control.
There's already enough on the existing development roadmap without having to code every spider-based enemy to appear differently to individual players because they feel like spiders are icky.
Maybe just stay out of the Underrealm and caves?
Ophidiophobia is second with 3% suffers of actual phobia and over 50% increased anxiety upon exposure.
Around 6% have acrophobia in some form or another.
As many as 9% suffer from cynophobia.
So if we have a setting to turn off or block spiders, there's the strong case to be able to toggle off your screen any and all instances of snakes, high places and dogs.
It would be only fair, as a person with fear of dogs, apparently 1 in 10 people nearly, would be unable to play Ashes of Creation given the number of canine cosmetics and pets.
At this point this seems like a diversion of effort & resource that could be better spent elsewhere (e.g. getting Ashes shipped properly in the first place), and this also brings up the where-do-you-draw-the-line problem that could potentially divert even more effort & resource to properly address ......
We're always looking at what makes sense and what is possible regarding accessibility settings! Accessibility options are important to us
We'll also be doing a Dev Discussion on the topic sometime in the future ^_^
Good, then while you are at it, add every other phobia, add a toggle for mouthbreathers, and make sure to add one for the poors who don't want to see others cosmetics and have been trying to get various options turned off in game for years now. I think we should start with pandas first. We know Steven has had some trouble with them in the past and to this day. If we are just giving out stuff and not just placating the masses that is.
kthxbai
I'd argue accessibility and whateverphobia-mode are two different things though.
If I ever become hearing-impaired, I'd appreciate some form of audio visualizer that let me notice that cyclops in the woods, so I don't aggro him by accident, die miserably, and drop a bunch of mats I've just spent so much time gathering;
If I ever lost an arm or something I'd be grateful if Ashes has accessibility aid that lets me control my character to a reasonable degree with one hand.
But phobias...
It comes down to whether ppl should see phobias as an unfortunate incurable sympathizable disability (i.e. merits special treatment), or just a curable state-of-mind that can be overcome with willpower at its minimum, or professional help in the most severe cases. (i.e. does NOT merit special treatment since the person in question should be able to, and therefore is also RESPONSIBLE OF dealing with it by themselves, with or without help)
And this also starts the where-do-you-draw-the-line debate. If there's an arachnophobia mode, then what about other phobias?
What about trypophobia? That's surely common enough, should there be a trypophobia mode that prevents anything in game from forming clusters of holes / tiny objects? (Although any sane designers would avoid unnecesary use of such designs anyway ...)
What about phasmophobia? Surely there're plenty of folks who're scared of ghosts? Should there also be a phasmophobia mode that removes all the undeads, or at least make them look cute?
What about severe socialphobia? Should there be a socialphobia mode that lets a player solo all group contents, master all professions (gather & process & craft), enjoy an mmorpg without ever having to interact with others?
Ok the last case was slippery slope but ... that's also the point. Where to draw the merits-special-treatment line?
As a well written, somewhat succinct explanation of what it would seem most of us here feel, this gets what is only my second or third ever "like" on these forums.
Pretty sure the others were on my posts somewhere. Yep, I definitely remember both of them. You're welcome.
I have scopecreepphobia
/s
cater do phobias? GTFO just play another game, why change this into something else. Get real.
No just look at the game grounded
Thanks for hearing me out only genuine response on the topic I've seen
that's because you are asking for a game that already has an extremely large scope, that was initially supposed to release before 2020 and it's 3 years late to start adding extra settings for a minority of people, and those settings take even more development time and money to make
I don't get why there are so many people saying "no dont make the game better for people that aren't me!". This is a simple problem to fix, doesn't affect you, so why are you guys acting like doing this is gonna ruin your life?
You are acting like digital spiders are going to ruin your life.
Yes that was really rude to say but there are MANY phobias why do you think your Arachnophobia has more importance than others ?
As i said if i really had Ophidiophobie (Fear of Snakes). They will HAVE TO make a Graphic Settings for every single Phobia out there.
If anything, my phobia would make the game come out way faster!
I'll support this because of the changed times and choices made by AoC as a generality.
Other games offered pathways. Whether it be 'play on PC and get the visuals of the mob modded yourself', 'change the way you interact with the mobs specifically', or whatever.
Since AoC doesn't intend to allow any addons and will probably use various methods to ensure that the game client's visuals are not easily modified, and is a game with a 'general mob population density' approaching 'sane' for most things and therefore would make it difficult to impossible to avoid spider mobs like in other games that design with certain player types in mind, they will have closed all the doors and I therefore consider it reasonable to request reopening of said doors with regards to the specific mobs that will have meaningful density.
Seriously, you guys are the worst...