What are your Alpha 2 launch expectations?

With Alpha 2 on the horizon, I wanted to ask the community what their expectations are for the release of Alpha 2. Intrepid has shown off a lot of amazing looking gameplay-loops and game mechanics over the past 3 years, but do you think everything we have been shown will be ready to test at the start of A2? If you could follow the format down below, that would make it a lot easier to gauge where the audience is at. All of these questions pertain only to the launch of Alpha 2. Also, please add anything that you think will be important if it is not covered in the questions below. Thank you.

Persistent Alpha or defined testing periods?

How many biomes present at launch?

Which biomes at launch?

How many / which races will be available at launch?

All Artesian classes available?

World bosses?

Highest level node attainable at launch?

Will freehold exist at launch?

How many players can a testing server hold?

How many servers will be available at launch?

Will there be queues?

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Veeshan

KingDDD wrote: »

How many biomes present at launch?
3. They've shown the desert, riverlands, and snowy mountains (unreal 5 annoucement). The original targeted landmass was 220km vs the alpha 1 being only 70km.

Which biomes at launch?
They've shown the desert, riverlands, and snowy mountains (unreal 5 annoucement) .

s

Definitely wont see snowy mountain at start that will come i suspect when naval system comes seeing as there no reason to have a biome that on the other continent without the naval content to go along with the ocean.

Aszkalon

Toothpaste wrote: »

I get what you are saying, but you are just dodging the question. How can you have 1.5k posts in under a year and not have an opinion on what you think will be included at the launch of Alpha 2??

Welp. Thanks for keeping at it. I personally think/hope for the Start of Alpha Two - we get :

- All Races to play. Maybe that or one or two will be hopefully added sometime later. In the monthly Presentations we kinda saw pretty much every single Race already, did we ? Last Presentation even had a Dunir Tank. Now we are only missing the Nikua, or ?

- All different Node Types. Same as with all the Races - > if not at the Launch, then hopefully somewhat later.

- A hopefully mostly or finished Artisan Craft ingame.

- Maybe Freeholds already ? I am aware Nodes would need to be Stage Three at least to have some.

- Shipyards/Dockyards ? Like You know - > a tiny Pretaste and Appetizer to look forward to the later added Naval Content ?

- " Coastal " Nodes ? Nodes which can be Port Cities ?

- Parts of the Underground Realm of Verra.

Toothpaste

darthaden wrote: »

My real expectation is 500k players on the server. I left a comment on a YouTube video about how 10k players was the goal per server for launch but I was quickly corrected by someone who's only knowledge comes from watching big streams like Asmongold. There's only going to be 1 North American server and it's going to hold 500k plus players. How foolish of me to trust the guy who started the company that each server would hold 10k players at launch.

ok we all know that this is not true and not going to happen. These people are just misinformed.

Michael

Persistent testing period will be nice. But I hope there are defined periods where they have the player base focusing on specific things.

Tryol

My guesses:

Persistent Alpha or defined testing periods?
Persistent.
(Although I wish it wasn't because it seems like an unnecessary resource sink from Intrepid's side.)

How many / which biomes present at launch?
3 - Riverlands, Sandsquall Desert and one of Tropics/Badlands/Jundark, with the other 2 probably coming shortly after launch. (Q1-Q2 2025).

How many / which races will be available at launch?
6 - Vek, Ren'Kai, Dünir, Py'rai, Empyrean, Kaelar

All Artisan classes available?
Yes, some in a more basic form than others.

World bosses?
Pass, no idea about this, between 2 and 20, lol.

Highest level node attainable at launch?
4 - Although Steven said stage 5 will be available less than a year ago, but I think that's too good to be true.

Will freehold exist at launch?
Yes.

How many players can a testing server hold?
Concurrently? ~3k.

How many servers will be available at launch?
~20

Will there be queues?
Yes, queues are necessary to mitigate the amount of server merges needed later.
Not having them would be a huge issue.
I hope queue numbers will be displayed BEFORE trying to join a realm, that way you can pick a realm based on how many are in queue.

KingDDD

Veeshan wrote: »

KingDDD wrote: »

How many biomes present at launch?
3. They've shown the desert, riverlands, and snowy mountains (unreal 5 annoucement). The original targeted landmass was 220km vs the alpha 1 being only 70km.

Which biomes at launch?
They've shown the desert, riverlands, and snowy mountains (unreal 5 annoucement) .

s

Definitely wont see snowy mountain at start that will come i suspect when naval system comes seeing as there no reason to have a biome that on the other continent without the naval content to go along with the ocean.

That's funny because snowy mountains were shown 2+ years ago.

Srixun

First couple of weeks, some up and down time. maybe a couple days at a time while they balance and build.

Then strict testing parameters, as in "This is whats currently in A2, go test!" and we leave our feedback, etc. and then it expands as we go.

nanfoodle

I have Alpha tested before. My worry is the masses will not understand what A2 means on a studio making their first game.

Myself I hope to test the Bard on every level. Help find where skills work and don't. Help find feedback to get the Bard to synergize with the other classes. I hope to find at least one exploit

PvPing will be my reward for filling out bug reports

That's just fun.

Toothpaste

Srixun wrote: »

First couple of weeks, some up and down time. maybe a couple days at a time while they balance and build.

Then strict testing parameters, as in "This is whats currently in A2, go test!" and we leave our feedback, etc. and then it expands as we go.

Yes, I definitely agree that there will be some uptime and some downtime in the first couple of weeks.

But I’m talking content wise. From everything that Intrepid has been showing us for the past 3 years, what content do you expect to be at the launch of Alpha 2?

Dygz

Toothpaste wrote: »

I get what you are saying, but you are just dodging the question. How can you have 1.5k posts in under a year and not have an opinion on what you think will be included at the launch of Alpha 2??

Because there's no way for us to guess what the minimum parameters for starting A2 are.
Could be that hitting close to Q3 is more important than the criteria he set down internally in Jan 2024.
So... he's just gonna go with all the stuff we've already seen in the Livestreams.

Srixun

Toothpaste wrote: »

Srixun wrote: »

First couple of weeks, some up and down time. maybe a couple days at a time while they balance and build.

Then strict testing parameters, as in "This is whats currently in A2, go test!" and we leave our feedback, etc. and then it expands as we go.

Yes, I definitely agree that there will be some uptime and some downtime in the first couple of weeks.

But I’m talking content wise. From everything that Intrepid has been showing us for the past 3 years, what content do you expect to be at the launch of Alpha 2?

Oh oh! copy, my mistake.

I suspect freeholds will be in a few months, maybe a year.

Much of it will be just players and some questing, crafting, navigation, cities nav and usage (no metros or player possession yet) some minor PVP potentially. not a ton up front. mostly just a very silo'd push to make sure they get as much feedback as possible on select things.

I dont see any Naval coming in for awhile. Could be wrong though.

Caravans could be in the game, maybe even setup as NPC caravans so we can see the dynamic of it and how itll work.

Veeshan

KingDDD wrote: »

Veeshan wrote: »

KingDDD wrote: »

How many biomes present at launch?
3. They've shown the desert, riverlands, and snowy mountains (unreal 5 annoucement). The original targeted landmass was 220km vs the alpha 1 being only 70km.

Which biomes at launch?
They've shown the desert, riverlands, and snowy mountains (unreal 5 annoucement) .

s

Definitely wont see snowy mountain at start that will come i suspect when naval system comes seeing as there no reason to have a biome that on the other continent without the naval content to go along with the ocean.

That's funny because snowy mountains were shown 2+ years ago.

I know but there no logical reason for it to exist at start of alpha, they said there no boats at start of A2 so unless ur swimming (assuming u can swim threw the ocean (which they also have to have finished then too)) there no way to even get there Snow will come when naval starts to gets added to the game.
It was also shown off as the engine swap videon not a biome showcase which might be they chose that to be the best biome to show off unreal 5 and then did minimal work on it for the video then swapped to another biome. Also having a biome is completely different than having a completed biome. Terrain work gets finished alot faster than adding content to the biomes so i wouldnt be surprised if 90% of the entire map is done terrain wise however only 20% of the game has content in atm

Toothpaste

Dygz wrote: »

Toothpaste wrote: »

I get what you are saying, but you are just dodging the question. How can you have 1.5k posts in under a year and not have an opinion on what you think will be included at the launch of Alpha 2??

Because there's no way for us to guess what the minimum parameters for starting A2 are.
Could be that hitting close to Q3 is more important than the criteria he set down internally in Jan 2024.
So... he's just gonna go with all the stuff we've already seen in the Livestreams.

Sorry, just confused on the last sentence. If you are saying he is just going to go with the stuff we have seen on the livestreams then I agree with you.

willsummon

I plan to take a "take it as it comes approach". Whatever is presented I will do my best to find and report bugs, while offering suggestions on balancing of what is presented.

Toothpaste

willsummon wrote: »

I plan to take a "take it as it comes approach". Whatever is presented I will do my best to find and report bugs, while offering suggestions on balancing of what is presented.

For sure, agreed, we should all agree to test whatever is presented to us. But from everything Intrepid has shown us from the past 3 years worth of livestreams, what do you think will be presented to us to test at the launch of Alpha 2?

arkileo

Persistent Alpha or defined testing periods?
Well it has been advertised as a persistent alpha, but some comments about talking about uptime last stream has me wondering. It seems possible that at A2 launch, it will not be up 100% of the time and be more focused until some later time when it becomes really persistent.

Which biomes at launch?
3-4 - Riverlands, Desert, Tropics, maybe Badlands.

Some people are mentioning the "snowy mountains" as another biome because we've seen them, but I'm not convinced that that was where some people seem to think it was. There are plenty of mountains around the Riverlands, and sometimes it is winter.

How many / which races will be available at launch?
Everything but Tulnar

All Artesian classes available?
Not sure about Animal Husbandry, Arcane Engineering, and Scribing, but everything else seems likely.

World bosses?
Certainly

Highest level node attainable at launch?
Level 5, but with level 4 assets

Will freehold exist at launch?
For sure, it was ages ago that they were focusing on them.

How many players can a testing server hold?
10k with 2k concurrent

How many servers will be available at launch?
~8-10

Will there be queues?
For sure, and they'll be bad. Queues are a necessary thing, unfortunately, but they should drop off within a day or two.

patrick68794

Tryol wrote: »

My guesses:

Persistent Alpha or defined testing periods?
Persistent.
(Although I wish it wasn't because it seems like an unnecessary resource sink from Intrepid's side.)

How many / which biomes present at launch?
3 - Riverlands, Sandsquall Desert and one of Tropics/Badlands/Jundark, with the other 2 probably coming shortly after launch. (Q1-Q2 2025).

How many / which races will be available at launch?
6 - Vek, Ren'Kai, Dünir, Py'rai, Empyrean, Kaelar

All Artisan classes available?
Yes, some in a more basic form than others.

World bosses?
Pass, no idea about this, between 2 and 20, lol.

Highest level node attainable at launch?
4 - Although Steven said stage 5 will be available less than a year ago, but I think that's too good to be true.

Will freehold exist at launch?
Yes.

How many players can a testing server hold?
Concurrently? ~3k.

How many servers will be available at launch?
~20

Will there be queues?
Yes, queues are necessary to mitigate the amount of server merges needed later.
Not having them would be a huge issue.
I hope queue numbers will be displayed BEFORE trying to join a realm, that way you can pick a realm based on how many are in queue.

I don't think it's really a waste of resources, this is supposed to be a very long term test and they'll be gathering data on long term progression of both the world and players. That really can't be done without long term persistence and there will be a lot of balancing that needs to happen to that as they add new mechanics, content, and features.

One of the big things here is the open development and reliance on player feedback. They need that over a longer term to be able to strike a balance that the players are okay with before full release. They also will need to gather a lot of data on the different ways that the world can progress and change over time, which isn't something other MMOs really need to do.

willsummon

Toothpaste wrote: »

willsummon wrote: »

I plan to take a "take it as it comes approach". Whatever is presented I will do my best to find and report bugs, while offering suggestions on balancing of what is presented.

For sure, agreed, we should all agree to test whatever is presented to us. But from everything Intrepid has shown us from the past 3 years worth of livestreams, what do you think will be presented to us to test at the launch of Alpha 2?

Finding bugs in the node system will likely be the most important part because as the node changes the game board (as it were) changes with it.

While archetype bugs will only effect the specific player experiencing the bug, and caravans are group effected, a bug in the node can effect the game play as a whole.

Caeryl

Semi-persistent. I think it’ll be a continuous experience (so no wiping for a good long while), but no consistent. Maybe 75% uptime generally.

Riverland for sure, Desert and Tropics, optimistically a few more added not too long after the preliminary launch.

All but Tulnar.

Proooobably not all artisan classes, and not particularly in-depth systems. I’m expecting the framework for crafting systems and that’s about it.

World bosses yes. That’s one of the core features they'll have to make sure works.

At least tier 4, maybe 5 node progress.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the freehold system since they’re part of sieging and its consequences. So, selecting the freehold area, movement of buildings, storage and destruction/looting of it.

Not a clue on servers or player count. It depends what aspect Intrepid wants to test, but I’ll echo want people have said already, about 3k - 4k concurrent players, but 10 servers max. More doesn’t seem good for testing purposes, better info is gained from more people playing together than less.

Queues on queues on queues. That’s just how it is. Put a movie on in the background lol

Toothpaste

Srixun wrote: »

First couple of weeks, some up and down time. maybe a couple days at a time while they balance and build.

Then strict testing parameters, as in "This is whats currently in A2, go test!" and we leave our feedback, etc. and then it expands as we go.

Ok that’s interesting, what do you think will be the first things that they let us test? And how many servers will there be for 100k testers to test?

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