Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
The alpha 1 out played GW2 and ESO.
Just because the lemmings play enmass does not make it a good game
The strength of a GOOD MMO lies in player interdependence and cooperation. Challenging play not gold stars for logging in.
L2 was killed by it's creators, from what I have read I never played it. They tried to make it like everything else and went P2W.
Tired FF14 and , was sorely disappointed.
But none of those three were made for me and I moved on.
Currently not playing and MMO as I haven't been able to find one that is worth logging into in a long time
Can it be better than those two? Yes, there is potential. Otherwise I wouldnt watch AoC since several years.
So perhaps its the wrong kind of game for you?
Ive played a lot MMOs, and loved WoW, GW2 and ESO. But I‘ve played about 15, to gather experience and make up my mind whats a good MMO. And the conclusio is, in contrast to what you say: If a lot of players like it, than it’s good. If its only you that dislike it, its not the fault of those games with millions of players, which of course all have a wrong view if what a good MMO is.
Cooperation. Thats right. Thats an important pillar. If in every second everything is only competetive and challenging it lacks cooperation, increases toxic behaviour and lots of drama plus more frustration and less rewards due to missing progress possibilities.
L2 is dead because this kind of game is not offering what the majority of players want, and player behaviour (and age) changed. Its always simple to make „somebody else“ responsible. But perhaps that what you said happened.
Players who left WoW said, developer is guilty why they left. Players that still play WoW are saying, the developer is guilty because it still is the one of the best MMOs out there, although 20y old.
The reality is: Players are changing. The 20year old Lineage2 fan is adult now. He playes different. WoW adepted accordingly snd thats why it is still so succesful.
But please, mention 3-4 good pvp hardcore MMOs that work and are successful. Because there is a market, right?
Challenging? Please play mythic raids in WoW or get gladiator in pvp, if you think other released MMOs are not challenging
It's just not particularly fun... especially when not in the mood for it.
Cooperation and competition are both important.
Did mythic raiding in wow a few expansion back
Did wow hardcore servers . That was fun.
Before wow started handing out personal loot. We always did /roll. Main spec> off spec> greed and nobody got more then one piece of gear before everyone got a piece of gear.
Arena is not for me I find it meh. I prefer more chaos and larger battles fun like AV back in the day before it became a raid race to the boss.
Far from being the hardcore super human you think I am but thanks.
GW2 is all DPS all the time WvW is zergball vs zergball. A coworker loves that stuff and is always telling me about how he likes it. Which is great.
Can millions of people be wrong? Yes, yes they can.
Sometimes all popular opinion means, is all the fools are on the same side
Successful pvp MMO can be a very subjective thing. Are you talking about pure numbers of people playing or longevity? Several have private servers where the players rolled back the stuff the devs did that killed it.
I can't name any and I haven't looked. But I didn't go looking for them either. So that would be on you if you want to know more.
My only concern here is Steven presented a vision of what he wanted to make. Several thousand people said" That sounds awesome!" And we started following. Even in the early days people have tried to get them to charge it to make it "main stream".
The question remains if the game play style you like is out there why try to get a company to change their stated goals to match that instead of just going and doing that?
You are right about people's lives changing as time goes on. That is a good thing. Life becomes busy and commitments get in the way. Such is the way of things. Is that a good reason to take the challenge out of life and or games?
I am not even sure if Ashes will be for "Casual" - as sensitive People react to how Hardcore the Open World will be, with the Possibility of being attacked everywhere.
Good Comment. Indeed. In 10 Years much can change for many Fans who followed the Game in Development in lets say when they were around +30 Years old. And now they all approach their Fourties or "ARE" in their Fourties,
-> meaning not everyone will probably stay very long. Will they even have the time still ?
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
The problem is, they can say "this game is not for everyone" all they want, just like many people in the forums will do. They actually need to define who is it actually aimed for, and who is a part of the "not for everyone" crowd.
Because this is just vague, a lot of players will think, "oh maybe he's not talking about me, I like the idea of Ashes".
But I also understand why they DON'T do it. Because it brings them money, the game is being talked about, and keeping it vague, means more people are interested. It's in their best interest not to "alienate" a large portion of followers.
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There have been some great points raised on last page.
They are making a game for those who are nostalgic about old MMOs, but like several posts here mentioned, those people are not teenagers anymore. Most of them have jobs, families... Which means they simply are not able to spend 8+ hours a day playing an MMO, grinding, etc. Obviously there are some adults who are still able to spend whole day playing the game (I've definitely seen many of them in Archeage classic).
They simply cannot be the main target audience. Or maybe they are.
Maybe this game is just for those rich adults (like Steven himself), who have enough money to buy all sorts of packs, Alpha access, etc. Maybe it's for those that don't have a job, who can spend whole day playing the game.
Maybe, this whole game is meant for whales to have fun with, while the rest will suffer - just like most of the P2W garbage MMOs we've seen. Except, we know that it won't be P2W.
I don't want anyone to come in here now saying how I want to change the game, that "it's not for you", etc. because these are just easy copouts for people who don't want to engage in a conversation.
--
With that out of the way, let's actually talk about something.
As in most of my posts, I'd like to use Archeage as an example.
The amount of power gained by people who are no-lifing the game, hardcore players who are very efficient, and who can play for 8-10+ hours a day, is simply too much. More casual players are simply left behind massively, which in turn makes them useless in any sort of PvP. This is an issue with game's design, because of the gearing system and how much power it gives you.
We know gear in Ashes will only account for so much power (40-50%), not for most of it. But this remains to be seen and tested, because this could very much be changed before release.
By taking away power from gear, you have to put it somewhere else. Steven said the balance is focused around a party of 8. The 3rd component is skill.
The issue with this is that if the gear is 40-50% of player power, that same player who has higher gear, who is likely a hardcore player, will also have better skill, meaning they're already way ahead of your regular player in terms of power.
Balance being around a party of 8 also remains to be tested, because I simply do not know how that's going to work in the open-world stuff where you don't have a party of 8.
Again, assuming everyone will always be in a 8-man group, while playing the game, is ridiculous to me
- though I do understand why they'd want to balance stuff around groups.
This means that group content (dungeons, mass PvP) will be balanced, however anything open-world where you don't have a party of 8, instanced PvP, etc. will be unbalanced.
And everything I've talked about brings me back to this whole post/topic. How can a more solo/casual oriented player ever be anything but useless in this game, when they're being disadvantaged at every step? I mean, I've just pointed out yet another system that heavily disadvantages non-hardcore players.
Being more hardcore obviously should also bring you benefits, but not to this extent where basically you will dunk on non-hardcore players in every aspect of the game, from PvP and group content, to economy.
This is exactly my thinking as well.
I absolutely love doing group content, in a group, whether it's dungeons, world bosses, sieges, or any other PvP in general.
But I absolutely will not be doing only group content. At this moment, I just feel like I won't have enough meaningful content to do outside of group content, based on what we've seen so far.
Also, like I've mentioned previously, the game's focus is risk vs reward, yet solo/casual players are basically all risk and no reward. We should be able to choose how much risk we want to take, and then be rewarded accordingly.
I'll also just link my previous post in this thread, that expands further on my last sentence: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/469753/#Comment_469753
Overall, this just makes me feel like the game is meant for sweaty hardcore players, to compete with other sweaty hardcore players, while regular players are just there to populate the world, to make the game seem alive.
Why did we, as young kids, grind our favorite mmos? From what've I've seen/talked about with friends - it's usually cause we were proving ourselves to others (and to ourselves as well). In an mmo you're just a random dude, so if you manage to achieve something big - that's you. You achieved that. And when you're a kid who hasn't achieved shit irl - mmos are a great place to make some achievements.
Now think about an established, relatively successful adult with a family and shit. What and to whom do they have to prove? Unless they're so damn miserable in their real life - there's no reason for them to strive for the same achievements in game, because their irl stuff would always overshadow those pixels.
To me this sounds like the TA of Ashes ARE successful adults, who won't care about some random 0.01% trinket that drops from an epic boss, because the only thing that such a trinket would prove is that you have a lot of free time on your hands.
So the game has to simply be fun to play and you should have places to chill and socialize with other same dudes. And this is where this part of your comment comes in
Solos and casuals have the lowest risk.
They are defended by the corruption system.
They don't have as much invested in housing, so even if their node falls - they won't lose nearly as much as the hardcore sweats.
They're probably not as invested in node dealing, or even the node itself, as someone like me who's gonna be nolifing the game trying to become a mayor. Which means that they're free to move from node to node if they feel like it.
They have all the professions in the game to explore/try and they wouldn't care about the sweat lvls of top lvl processing requiring freeholds, cause it would take a casual player moooooonth to get even near to the top processing lvls.
Casuals have the free market, so they don't need to care about hardcore raids and their guild-related requirements, because the casual player can just chill, farm stuff at their own pace and gear up at the same pace as well. And the more market-savvy players can spend their time manipulating the markets and earn the money for better gear through that. I know several older dudes from L2 that barely even leveled their char, but were millionaires, just because they played the market well.
There's gonna be countless casual and solo friendly guilds out there that will not require anything from the player and will just be a social hub that make partying up easier (I will make one for my node and will be helping anyone who needs helping).
All of that will be in the game, all while sweaties are fighting each other for bosses and castles and are waking up in the middle of the night cause the raid's respawn timer randomed slightly later than it should've. So it all simply comes down to what those older players are looking for. If they're looking for the same experience as they had when they were a kid - that's just a fantasy that would never come true even if Intrepid presented them bosses on a silver platter (which, btw, story bosses will be; literally instanced for your pleasure).
But if your irl is good - you can just log in and chill in a game with other older dudes and enjoy the vibes. And yes, I know, you could pretty much do the same in any other mmo, but how many of those have the same kind of living and changing world that Ashes will supposedly have? What other game could change in one night, where you login the next evening and realize that an entire "kingdom" has fallen apart and there's utter panic going on.
Back in late 00s I played L2 with several older dudes who were playing L2 in the exact way I described. They'd log into the game, open a beer and just chill in guild chat while grinding some mobs on the side. And they'd watch huge pvps happening near them, just as entertainment. Those dudes had wives, kids, houses, etc. They were completely satisfied with their life and the game just provided them with a group of people with a similar interest that they could talk to every day. A true social experience.
So, by your own words the target audience is older people that by choice do not engage with the majority of game systems? And that it’s not meant for time-restrictive hardcore MMO vets who want to engage with all the game’s systems, or that they’re a miserable person irl for caring about getting their mileage from the game?
Sorry, but that’s absolutely idiotic.
So maybe it wasn't that in your experience, but it was that for quite a few people.
I'm saying that both contents exist in the game and can be enjoyed by their relative TAs.
Iccer said there's nothing in the game that solos/casuals can do. I listed things they can do and simply said that it's about each person's ambitions for the game. I sure as hell have seen a ton of "casuals" who are more ambitious than hardcore players, but imo that's a them problem, cause wanting something that you can't really work towards due to not having time is, well...
It's like a homeless person complaining that they're not driving a lambo, BUT THEY DEFINITELY SHOULD BE!
Music.
You could say to all the metal bands out there,"If you stop doing that go make pop music instead you could make a lot more money. Have a larger audience and be more "successful".
By your standards they should give up on what they like to go make more soulless drivel. Just for a larger audience and money.
I say no. Have the courage of your convictions! Sally forth and kick ass. Don't do it because then "people" will like you. No matter what you do someone somewhere will find fault with it. Fuck'em!
Stay Determined Steven...Stay determined.
Sorry, but that’s absolutely idiotic.[/quote]
For some it is. That is how a lot of guys are wired. The thrill of competition. The fight. The chase is all that matters.
This is where the midlife crisis comes from. Guys wake up one day and find they forgot the thrill of the chase. Run off and start doing dumb shit searching for the young man they were. Buy a fast car or go sky diving for the first time.
The fight is the fun. and bragging to your friends about winning or getting stomped in OWPVP the next day is the main reason some guys even log in.
Wanting something fun to do is not ‘proving anything’. It’s competition and a social environment, but no one with a brain thinks they’re proving anything in a video game.
‘Men are hardwired to be stupid batshit idiots at 50’ is also 1) stupid as a premise 2) has nothing to do with MMOs needing to have a clear target audience to engage with all these systems they’re making
Ashes currently doesn’t have a clear audience. It’s not MMO vets, they can’t commit the time required to succeed in Ashes. It’s not the younger players that are familiar with QoL systems Ashes won’t have. It isn’t for cooperative players due to the reward structure within PvX content. We have yet to see any challenging instanced PvE for that demographic. Large scale PvP so far looks like it’ll be a zerg fest which PvP players don’t really enjoy.
So I ask again. Who is Ashes of Creation being designed for?
Your defending a Guild exclusive system, not a group based one. There's a big difference. Think about this; lets say you need to farm one dungeon in particular to get the mats for some set of gear. Guild 1 decides there going to farm that Dungeon for 4 hours on Thursdays, Guild 2 Wednesdays, so on till all 7 days are covered. Now what times are they going to do this? Probably the times that everyone else is on between 6-11pm they have now locked out 60% of the players on the server from ever getting that server while they farm. Not that big a deal once they all have their gear they will stop farming, except they wont because the repair system requires those materials, not to mention they can sell them on the AH.
First of all the corruption system doesn't defend anyone. A defense is a barrier between two things protecting one of those things. Corruption is a punishment system where the punishment is do the thing you were going to do anyways(grind experience). Which isn't a punishment at all. The only way your actually punished is if some other player decides to punish you, and even then there's no guarantee that you will be punished.
That's not including work arounds and trickery to circumvent the system entirely.
It has nothing to do with proving yourself. You were having fun, its that simple. If you were miserable and couldnt get anything done you would have quit the game in less then a month.
Yes, back when your options for social media were Facebook and MySpace, and playing games on the internet was novel that worked. Now, there are about10 times the games you can play and if you want to socialize there's about 10,000 apps to do that with.
Ashes will 100% fail cause casuals and solos won't be getting rewards from bosses, especially considering that casuals and solos won't even play the game because the game has no target audience
All of that is definitely true, factual and will happen
I don’t know what mental afflictions you did or didn’t have as a teenager, but it’s irrelevant to the point at hand.
To ask again: Who is Ashes of Creation being designed for?
It’s most certainly not the people half-afk chatting over discord while they farm some basic mobs.
If Hardcore PvP games that allow guilds to dominate why build another one?
I can say the same thing and it still applies. This game isn't as unique as people think it is. They just don't realize it yet.
No but it does make it a profitable. And if you want this game to stick around then you need to think about that. And if your doing 99% of the work to bring in solo and casual PvP players you should probably do that extra 1% and get their money for a while.
And I'm not trying to prove anything. I am wanting to share my character(s) with other players and see how they've chosen to build and play their characters.
No need to achieve anything big - just great to have fun playing with other people who also enjoy RPGs.
Sure, after college, when gamers have responsibilities, like jobs and families... it's more difficult to play Hardcore Time. And that make it more challenging to complete Hardcore Challenges because completing Hardcore Challenges often require Hardcore Time.
Yes you are not the unique snowflake you think you are. Human motivations are all basically the same. What changes is how you choose to fulfil those motivations. And when those two match up were basically all the same person.
Myself and Nikr for starters.
What do you consider fun?
Cause so far everything you listed sounds fun to me.
Define a clear target audience for me?
So far we see care bears and RP people excited to get in plus all of us that like the idea as given years ago. But it seems to have drawn a wide range of people.
With how the world is laid out and the servers each server will be different. Some maybe more to your liking then you and Dygz can hang out pick flowers and do Shakespeare in the park.
Most look at it as being similar to either L2 or Archeage, with a few other systems thrown in.
Both of those games were commercially successful, even if their popularity over time doesn't really compare to other contemporary more PvE focused games (L2 vs EQ, Archeage vs ESO - no real contest in either case, at least not in the west).
Zerg fests, unrewarding PvX systems, and a lack of difficult PvE appeal to you? I highly doubt that. Not to mention Nikr is already complaining about citizen choices (something the player has total control over) having consequences for sieges.
I enjoy objective based PvP with some permanence to the consequences, difficult PvE encounters that require a lot of skill and coordination within a group (so far have yet to see any sign this), a strong foundation for crafters to be needed at all levels of gameplay, interconnected PvX systems, and detailed world-building with game systems reflective of it.
Ashes will have a lot of this, but it will also require a high amount of time commitment to do any of it. Easiest example, many people will simply never have the option of participating in a siege because they work during the server prime time, unless they shift to a different regional server that will let them play during that time-zones prime time and suffer the increased latency.
The mechanics as they exist right now aren't conductive to getting MMO vets involved, those who have the nostalgia factor appealing to them.
The current design is structured primarily around players with copious amounts of free time. Teenagers, college students, unemployed, streamers, maybe retired folks.
Ashes isn't a game for everyone, true, but they need to then answer who the game is for. If it's for no-life'ing youngsters, then it's on the right course, but it's going to be very niche in that case, and a niche game doesn't make for '10k per server' and sustaining purely off sub costs.
Yeah because making a game more niche doesn't help it succeed. What people are suggesting is make the game less niche. Making it more accessible. So when the game launches more people are satisfied or at the very least not disappointed.
How about PvP in general with a Group focus. I.E. there will be a focus on end game PvP systems for Groups and Guilds, but there will also be stuff for Solo, RP, and Casual people to play, also based around PvP. With high difficulty PvE.
Yeah people HERE, the problem is the majority of people are not here. They came to the website because they watched a you tube video registered and left. They haven't thought about the game since, and when it launches they will buy a copy of the game without looking into it because you tuber x said it was good 3 years ago.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.
If people form an incorrect opinion on the game specifically because they didn't engage in discussion about the game with others, that is there fault and no one elses.
Yes, some people that put no effort in to understanding a topic usually do have a number of misconceptions about said topic. Why would we discuss anything at all about that here?
Also, you have still not answered the question - which MMORPG is it you have played where your claimed 50%+ people are unguilded? Until you answer that, I have to assume you are just another one of those people that make shit up on the internet to support the ill concieved position they have - and we know it is an ill concieved position because they find themselves needing to make shit up in order to support that position.
Will that change the fact that they will leave the game disgruntled probably leave a negative review? No it wont, and if to many people do that you get no fresh new players because no one wants to play a game with a 30% user score.
WoW (first 2 expansions), EQ2, SWtoR, WildStar, FFXIV, GW2, LotRO, The Secret World, Rift, Fallen Earth (not exactly lots of people playing this), Neverwinter, probably others that I can't remember.
Still not sure what your point is.
Yes, there are some people that will purchase a product without understanding what that product is, find that it didn't meet their uninformed pre-concieved notion of what it should have been, be upset by the fact, and then leave a bad review.
This happens in literally every field, with literally every product. Some people just will not inform themselves, and instead will make decisions based on assumptions.
Again, no idea what your point is. It isn't as if Intrepid - or any other product developer - can or should take these people in to account.
With WoW, EQ2, FFXIV, GW2, LotRO and Rift, you are objectively wrong in your claim that 50%+ of the games players are unguilded. That is the list of those games that I have first hand experience in.
The rest I am going to assume you are wrong - simply because you are wrong with every game that I have experience in, I have to assume you are wrong with those I do not, as well.
I get that if you are not in a guild, you are probably doing content that is different to those that are in a guild. As such, it may well even be that you see a higher proportion of players that are not in a guild.
However, a number of the developers of the games you have listed have actually released various statistics on their games population, including how many accounts have characters in a guild.
Your claim of 50%+ in at least one of the games you have listed above is actually less than 1% of active accounts not having an active character in a guild, according to that games own developer.
I'll leave you to find that information, if you like.
The way you did?
The issue is more about is the group content only for guilds and group of people that know each other already ?
And which part of the group content will be designed for random groups with dudes you don't know, you just met on the road ?
Some MMO are very focus on guilds. And members of a guild totally ignore the rest of the players, they communicate only together, play together and almost never invite a random guy because they have everything they need in their guild. So I guess it will depend of the design of the gameplay for Ashes.