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Important factor for AoC not to die at launch
Sherkus
Member, Alpha One
Nowadays, one of the big problems of the MMORPG sector (apart from the fact that they are not really MMO's, that is to say, they are not massive) is that when they are launched, most of the content of the game is already known.
You know the meta of all the aspects, leveling, builds, professions, how to do the raids, bosses.
Besides the ITEM LVL (that Ashes of Creation should never implement), because in the end the player feels that progressing 1 point is an advance, instead of improving items by stats, achievements in the game, professions, that is, going step by step involves much more than just raising one point your itemization.
That's why it is very important to avoid any DATA MINING, besides that during the Alpha 2, Beta 1 and Beta 2 the content is very cut, I know that Steven already said that they would be short Betas and with less content, even so it should be analyzed very well what can be done and what not.
I say all this being a hardcore player in a hardcore guild, and being a content creator, and although it is information that we are going to use anyway, I think it is not good for the game that pre-release we have all these tools.
MMORPGs are worlds to discover, to explore, and the important thing is not the goal, but the path, if we lose that essence, so many years of work will be useless.
You know the meta of all the aspects, leveling, builds, professions, how to do the raids, bosses.
Besides the ITEM LVL (that Ashes of Creation should never implement), because in the end the player feels that progressing 1 point is an advance, instead of improving items by stats, achievements in the game, professions, that is, going step by step involves much more than just raising one point your itemization.
That's why it is very important to avoid any DATA MINING, besides that during the Alpha 2, Beta 1 and Beta 2 the content is very cut, I know that Steven already said that they would be short Betas and with less content, even so it should be analyzed very well what can be done and what not.
I say all this being a hardcore player in a hardcore guild, and being a content creator, and although it is information that we are going to use anyway, I think it is not good for the game that pre-release we have all these tools.
MMORPGs are worlds to discover, to explore, and the important thing is not the goal, but the path, if we lose that essence, so many years of work will be useless.
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Same can be said for Lost Ark, which recently had a very successful launch and first year (they lost players due to non-related issues) and every other KR MMO and thousands of early access titles that find success when they release.
We have factual data that supports that MMORPGs being released and played by players and content creators in diff regions, does Not affect a global launch at all. TL is another one, I have friends with +500 hours on it already, IF the game is good, players will still play when it releases.
MMOs are not about the first 50~100 hours of playthrough, its not about the "worlds to discover and explore" that is a thing for singleplayer games, MMORPGs are about the endgame loops, communities, and long-term investment and progression, that is the reason why an MMORPG being in early access or Alpha 2 state is not an issue.
Alpha 2 can and should run for as many years as it is necessary for the game to be 100% tested with all the content and systems being tested, whenever it releases, people will still be there and play it, and we have no data or examples to state otherwise, people usually think about games in early access that are fundamentally bad with severe design issues that made people stop playing because the game was not fun, Crowfall is one of them.
BDO is a pay to win model, and you can't compare the release vs now on player population.
When im talking about game dead on the release i mean losing most of the population, New World for example can't even handle 15k of current players... in the release it had 1 million https://steamcharts.com/app/1063730
And no, if you test all the content we already know what is going to happen, the clans will have all the control in an extremely easy way, much more than at launch, casual people will have everything at their fingertips without effort of approach, as they have guides for everything, so the life of the MMORPG you cut it.
That's the way it is whether you like it or not.
Being an alpha player is a double-edged sword, for any game. Even though many concepts are subject to change, you gain an early glimpse into the world rather than being able to jump in fresh from the launch. It's sort of the trade off, I suppose.
There are SO many different archetpyes to mix and match, along with the various biomes and even vassal node options that it's important not to pigeonhole yourself into playing just one character, just one role.
If they want to see the content they'd have to trawl through possibly years of youtube videos from the (at launch, outdated.) Alphas and betas.
I don't think many people will do that.
I think ashes will be fine population wise and still have plenty of unsolved mystery for players at launch. Even with the exposed content through the alphas and betas because honestly a lot of people just do not go digging for that stuff. Not everyone want to sit through a 3 hour lore video on the goddess of creation and why she's important. Particularly when they can just play the game and get the information from that anyway.
In the relaunch of the game APES killed ragnaros in 5 days, in the official launch almost 20 years ago it took 156 days, as you can see the difference is very big.
It is true that APES is an exception, but this is just an example, the rest of the clans also finished all the raid content very easily.
Everyone knew how to get the pre-games, dungeon mechanics and raids, not to mention Builds.
You think that everyone was a new player in the Classic re-launch, not at all, there were a lot of new players who got bored, not to mention that the players who had an experience 20 years ago was very different.
At that time you had to discover EVERYTHING, now you either ADAPT OR FALL.
And whoever wants to be fooled, I think it's perfect, but ask yourselves the following question, if a raider is in a clan that does NOT pull the content of RAIDS and has the opportunity to pull the content with a clan that does play the meta, do you think he is going to stay in that clan? OBVIOUSLY NO.
That implies that clans and communities have to adapt and are obliged to play the meta, using ALL THE KNOWLEDGE available in order not to lose players.
And you're using those examples as arguments against "this testing phase shouldn't show everything". I feel like one thing is not like the others here.
Also, you said it yourself - you're a hardcore player. You CHOSE to play the game in this way. You chose to look up all the info and dive deep into any data mining that will or won't happen. Absolute majority of people simply won't choose that kind of approach, and to them the game will in fact be "a world to discover, to explore, etc".
You also already know that Steven plans to present us with only a part of the game, for the exact reason you pointed out, so I really don't see any issues here.
It's just the way that some players will play. Guides will be rushed out by content creators, before they even grasp the full scope of levelling/world dangers/equipment. Yours truly prefers to play-to-discover, but that's not for everyone. Betas or no, there will still be players who enter the game looking to know everything about it.
Am a fan of the open-development/transparency. IS does a good job in monitoring our input, and we've been given examples of input changing some details. Beta 2 will no doubt be a near-complete game, but SS has stated again and again that he wants us to first experience the lore and most of the world upon launch; I have faith we won't get *everything* in the Betas, at once - even if it means adding/removing content in-and-out to ensure it all gets tested.
I bought this game because I read the wiki.
However, AoC will hopefully also have all of its leveling exploits fixed by release because of this. So we're going to have slow leveling time, even for "AE grind groups" if those are viable.
Also, content for A2 can be gated behind a cap on node leveling. If A2 can't have L5 or L6 nodes, then all of the quests/bosses/zone events/gear that open up with higher node levels will still be new on release.
So @Spif is correct, I think, because there will still be a great deal of unknown content upon release. Personally, I think it would be amusing if enough of the "discovered" early and mid-level content was updated between Alpha 2 and release so that all the 'streamers' and self-proclaimed 'experts' who are revealing the game turn out to be wrong.
theres not gonna be anything like this dropping at the same time this releases so even if it fails hard somehow its still going to be populated for quite awhile after launch
Based. 😎
Now a few things that killed a game for me include stuff like in New World for example, I put up with the lag and the horrible balance between people who owned areas and ones that didn't but what drove me to quit was them re-working systems for balance but then making you get all new gear over again. the RNG in the crafting to get BiS was so terrible they didn't need to up item levels how they did.
FFXI for years when an expansion dropped all the other content would still stay relevant to game progression. out of no where they upped the level cap to make it so people could just solo content. I was one of those people who struggled to get things done cause I didn't hook up with big guilds most of the time, but that was all rite because it gave me something to work for, unfortunately I felt like that work went down the drain with their sudden approach to raise the cap
FFXIV like NW makes gear useless by making the same gear just a certain item level higher, the only thing you do work for in that game is to play dressup. I just don't see a reason to invest any time into it
also one thing i've noticed in games is that the "meta" isn't always the best thing, rather it's a tool to get by without having to do too much thinking, I would rather have people following a meta over them just being completely oblivious to how to play their class or use it in the most effective way
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
This stuff is only known to hardcore players at best. The casuals, the biggest part of any community I believe will never watch guides, or install addon's in those games in which they are possible, or look for any help at all.
That is until they hit either a roadblock of sorts or approach the endgame.
I would call myself a videogame addict that is already beyond recovery and for life.
But even I do not know much about the games I play in general until the moment I play it cause I enjoy the fun of going in blind and let things develop as I go.
Using meta-knowledge acquired by other people for example is something I absolutey loath.
What I desire is an authentic experience and have my character become an extention of only me as much as possible for as long as possible, until I have done everything I could think of, on my own.
Only then, out of curiousity I will start to watch guides, or "OP builds" etc.
I think the level of information we get is just right.
you are forgetting that there will be updates, buffs, nerfs, rebalances etc. you cant predict those. the example you gave is like saying in 10 years ashes opens a classic server then people decide not to play warrior because they know its gonna get nerfed in 3 months, so they play ranger instead.
also, why not let everyone play however they want? if they wanna ue a guide or whatever. everyone plays mmorpg for different reasons, not your reasons. or are you afraid people wont need to watch your channel for guides and builds and you wont get views? XD
I don't think this has anything to do with data mining. Data will be posted online the hour servers are accessible. There is no point in trying to prevent this during testing.
What I would do in order to solve the burnout issue and not revealing everything during testing is to have limited testing periods of specific content. I would rather not see an entire world server open 24/7. I think if that happens and you have a prolonged testing period, you risk turning into Crowfall.
With that being said: The neat thing IMO with Ashes could ultimately be that access to almost everything is not permanent. Sure you data mined the info on this legendary weapon, good luck avoiding being banned and if the Nodes are not set up for you to even access the quest to start forging that legendary weapon, the information becomes somewhat useless "until the stars align". Same goes for "meta" and "guides". How would you realistically write a guide for speed levelling in Ashes with quests constantly shifting between available and unavailable depending on Nodes, weather, seasons and world events? The guides would need to account for a lot and read live data out of the game... which then again I'd say is reason to perma ban anyone involved with this.