Greetings, glorious testers!
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Shows to go people don't care what they hear they will ignore it, and think the game is whatever it is based on their own made up thoughts xD
Granted @Caeryl idk why you are arguing for the op as if you are him, so based on these post i can only assume (not so much you share the exact thought) but you yourself look at this and think these things.
Though i understand they put some (keyword) polish in it, i look at it and i don't view this as a polish stage lmfao. Idk how you view barebones as polish stage kind of wild.
I realize you're mostly a 'stir things up' sort of presence here, but you can't honestly read those posts, use a sliver of critical thought, and come to the conclusion I'm expecting a full fledged complete game from Alpha 2.
Is there a quote where i said you expect a full fledged game?
Me saying you don't care how many times devs tell you alpha does not mean I think you mean its a full fledged game. It just means you don't care what you are told / shown and just believe what you want to believe lol?
Also you are the only one stirring things up I'm just being direct with what I see, 0 reason to dance around a bush.
Ignoring the weird baiting.
The point, as I've already said a handful of times in this thread, is that what is being shown does not match what is being said, and as a result of that, we're going to see a whole lot of people come into Alpha 2 with expectations built around what they were shown, which wasn't actually reflective of the true state of development.
If you can’t comprehend the purpose of their showcase in presenting features and content, I don’t think anyone can help you at this point. As I’ve said before, most people aren’t equipped to handle alpha development, and it’s clear by now that you fall into that category.
The developers have been very clear that everything is a work in progress (WIP) and have repeatedly emphasized that viewers should not expect a finished game. This is a true alpha. If you continue to ignore that, it’s entirely on you.
Expecting them to waste time highlighting every bug or issue just to explain it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of alpha testing. They’ve already spent significant time showing features and giving insight, and they need to focus on getting feedback for the content—not on highlighting or explaining every bug.
Showcases like these are meant to demonstrate specific systems or features in development, not to present an exhaustive, bug-ridden version of the game. The fact that certain features look polished doesn’t mean the game is anywhere near complete. It’s simply unrealistic to expect them to focus on every issue during a presentation, especially when they’ve made it clear that full feedback on those aspects will come from hands-on testing.
No game developer is going to take the approach you’re suggesting. The expectation that a showcase should emphasize every bug is unrealistic and not aligned with how alpha testing works. You’ll experience those issues during actual gameplay tests, as the developers have clearly stated.
It doesn't really do anything for them to show us the parts of the game that aren't ready to be shown and most people aren't going to understand, or will willfully ignore, that the game is heavily in development still and what they're showing isn't representative of the final product. CIG has fallen into that pit a couple of times with Star Citizen and outside of the dedicated few that watch every video, a lot of people see most of the stuff they've shown that's broken/buggy and very early in development and either purposely or ignorantly take that out of context and fuel negative sentiment towards the game and company.
And yeah, there are going to be some people that genuinely want to see the bugs and brokenness to understand just what goes into development but that really only benefits them, not Intrepid. And some of those people are going to be wanting that to purposely try and cast the game and studio in a negative light. It's better in most cases to just not show the bugs and roadblocks they've encountered with a large project like AoC because of that.
I hope you find someone as committed to you as you are to misunderstanding me.
Star Citizen gets most of its bad rap from the macrotransactions honestly.
And yeah I don't blame them for wanting to showcase the good (that's a natural instinct when you're creating something), but they're setting themselves up for a lot of needless drama by not showing any of the heavy WIPs and neglecting to put emphasis on things that are needing to be tested (anti-zerg behavior in bosses, branching quest paths, the mechanisms behind node growth and emergent dungeons, etc)
Phase 1 is going to be testing the barebones server capabilities, and thankfully that's all early backers who know what they're in for (I'm expecting to sit in queues on queues on queues and then have everything breaking when I actually get to log in).
Phase 2 is what I'm not confident about going over smoothly as far as meeting the advertised gameplay. Phase 2 is going to be a lot of people who have had a couple livestreams of info and gameplay, both of which cite lightning (and no particular game systems other than 'we will have quests') as a current focus, and it's going to be a whole annoying Thing because none of the gritty reality has been shown recently, or progress to the underlying game systems.
When someone doesn't agree with you say "they misunderstand you" this shows u have no valid point, or you just don't know what you are talking about lmao. Now you are saying there is going to be people that have hardly watched any live streams like its going to be some new majority in p2 XD. MOST people that will be in A2 will be ones that already have keys and not the new ones. Also people will be able to see the current state of A2 before they buy a key for phase 2
YOUR POINTS MAKE 0 SENSE. You cant even defend them.
I dunno why you think the mechanisms behind node growth are ready to be demoed when they can't even give us the final two articles for the Know Your Nodes series.
I mean... basically A2 got pushed back to May 2025.
But, Steven wants to allow us to test the game again close to Q3 2024, so we have these Phases.
I dunno why you're concerned about not seeing stuff now for what's intended to be in Phase 2, when they haven't even finished the milestones for Phase 1.
Phase 1 has NDA lifted, right? Which means everyone will be able to see the bugs and WIPs a couple months before Phase 2.
You can't blame Intrepid for that. It is clear that it is an alpha that they are buying in to, even if they have seen some curated footage from that alpha, it is still an alpha.
People are going to come in expecting the experience that was shown to them in the livestreams.
What was shown was not reflective of the experience they'll actually be getting.
^ Those two things mean there is going to be needless drama because people took it on good faith that Intrepid, as an open development project, was demonstrating the gameplay experience they could expect in the current development state
There's still over a month to correct that impression, and my hopes is that they'll do that sooner rather than later with a more true to Alpha livestream/showcase of the features slated for Phase 1 testing, but if they don't make it very obvious what sort of state the game will be in, I'm not exactly eager to see how much these forums get bogged down by threads about how 'it's all a scam'.
Why?
Again, the livestreams are showing the parts ot the game that are in a shape to show off - that is showing off for the game, not for alpha testing.
The livestreams aren't there to bring in testers, and Intrepid are very clear about that.
In order for what you are saying to be true, someone would need to;
Find the livestreams without anyone pointing them in that rirection, AND
Ignore the comments in the livestreams about the game being in alpha, AND
Not look in to the game in any other way at all, AND
Go to the website to purchase the game, AND
Ingore the at least 6 times that page says alpha.
If someone is doing all of this, then yes, it is their fault.
By doing what exactly?
Stating the game is still in alpha, and that testing is what people should expect from an alpha? State that people wanting to play the game should wait until the game is released?
The moment Intrepid release a curated livestream that has clear alpha issues in it, there will be dozens of writeups about how the game is going backwards, or is going to still take 5 years before it releases.
Again, the point of the livestreams is to put the games best foot forward.
You're answering your own question here.
People are going to expect the livestreams to be reflective of the gameplay they signed on to test because those livestreams were advertised to be Alpha gameplay. When they say on stream 'this is still alpha', and the only visual reference is the stream and gameplay being showcased, yes, most people keeping up with it casually are going to end up with skewed expectations because they were shown something, told it was the Alpha, and it will in fact not be at all what the Alpha is like.
This is what's going to happen anyway, and it'll be worse if it comes with a slew of people feeling bait-and-switched by the contrast of streams vs reality.
I already gave examples of things they could have done in the most recent stream to showcase things to be tested. They wouldn't have even needed to take the fun game-y bits out, but spending some time of the underlying mechanisms at play and how they work would go a long way in dissuading the idea that the Alpha 2 state is a playable game.
Even games in live states need testing for balance changes, updates, general bug finding and fixing, so on.
The livestreams have given the incorrect impression that the underlying gameplay systems are entirely functional.
Or hell, maybe those systems are entirely functional and all this will have been over nothing because they exceeded all of our expectations, but I highly doubt it.
That's just your own paranoid assumption.
By Phase 2, which is what you say your concerned about, people will be able to compare Phase 1 tester videos against dev demos.
There's nothing that needs correcting since you said, "Phase 2 is what I'm not confident about going over smoothly as far as meeting the advertised gameplay."
Of course, it doesn't really matter what your personal confidence level is.
Bogged down threads will only be because there will be tons more people testing they game - and they will be posting the same stuff new people always post - including how Ashes is a scam and isn't what they thought it be and isn't what they think it should be.
Because showing bugs is not the purpose of the Livestreams.
One thing I’ve always noticed, a lot of people put game devs on pedestals, which in turn (imo) makes those devs start believing they are right in everything they say and do.
Said before I’ve played MMO for years, (over 30) I’ve watched and taken part in so many forums, I post what I think is right, & not what others deem to be right.
To many post what they think the devs think is right.(even if they don’t realise it)
Fanbois are for me the death of good development, or good dialogue between players & devs.
And you will know them as they tend to argue the person, and not what’s being said.
What they never understand is we all want a good game, asking questions, or adding criticism does not mean you want a game to fail. I’ve never known a real gamer who wants any game to fail, the questions & criticism are for the exact opposite.
But getting passed fanbois noise is hard at times, drags every conversation into a attack/defence discussion.
Because, I still want o play the game, and hope is succeeds, I'm not sure why all people tie asking for a refund, and not wanting to play the game? I asked for the refund because of the many red flags, does not automatically mean I don't want to play the game?
At no time did I ever say that, again, people reading into posts what's not there.
And tbc I hope all these red flags are just flags, and the game is what they say it will be.
??? So you don't watch the livestreams but you'll confidently come in here and say the livestreams didn't give a warped impression of the development process?
I'd recommend you go watch them, the most recent 2 at the very least, before returning to the discussion.
It'll be obvious at that point, but it's not going to alleviate the issues brought up here. There's gonna be a lot of controversy due to them not emphasizing aspects of testing in their showcase streams, and there didn't need to be any fuel on the fire. We've got a whole month though, so I'm still holding out hope they'll do a final stream that corrects perception of the outside-looking-in crowd before they discover for themselves that what they bought into isn't what they were shown.
Even more than that, I would like some evidence of the core systems being worked on, especially node growth and relationships between nodes, more functionality of the various types, etc. That's a framework for the entire force driving PvE and PvP, it's gonna be the most important thing to test and we still have no idea what state they're in.
I don't agree here. Intrepid does owe paying customers an explanation to why they cannot hit promised deadlines and roadmaps they have set to get the Alpha version of the product live. The people who have spent money on this product (That doesn't yet exist) are considered investors.
I would definitely like more transparency on roadblocks rather than just hearing the good and the praise.
They don't owe anyone anything beyond the announcement that something is getting delayed. They're not publicly traded and you're not actually an investor in the traditional sense.
And really, what would them detailing exactly what is causing a delay actually do for you? Chances are hardly anyone that's following development would actually understand the explanation beyond "something isn't working as intended" anyway.
Being an investor is something different. Investors generally receive some form of equity and expect a financial return. A backer and an investor are two different things.
none of us are investors what lol?