Is taking too long to develop going to kill Ashes?

With ArcheAge Chronicles releasing in 2026, did Intrepid miss its opportunity?

If ArcheAge Chronicles is not pay to win is Ashes done?

With ArcheAge Chronicles releasing on both console and computer will the player base be so large that Ashes can't compete?

Will it have superior graphics to Ashes being on UE5 and them putting so much effort into graphics?

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Nerror

Yes
or
No
We will find out!

I lean towards no.

Azherae

Nah.

With ArcheAge Chronicles releasing in 2026, did Intrepid miss its opportunity?
TL is out already, and regardless of how you perceive 'success', if a large number of people who don't hate P2W are still interested in Ashes, it's probably not because they're desperately clamoring for Nodes. i.e. those people are here and not in TL for the same reasons they're mostly probably not going to flock straight to ArcheAge (I think TL is technically closer to Ashes than ArcheAge will be, too)

If ArcheAge Chronicles is not pay to win is Ashes done?
Subscription model? Otherwise there's basically no chance, it would end up being New World style. An MMORPG that has no Microtransactions is either going to constantly make you pay for expansions (probably fine) or have only minor content updates. Just the nature of the game type. Unless you're including Battle Pass/Cosmetics charges, the sustainability of the game type is challenging if your definition of "Pay To Win" is even slightly strict.

With ArcheAge Chronicles releasing on both console and computer will the player base be so large that Ashes can't compete?
Console audience does help a lot, but this isn't even a playerbase size 'issue'? If we're assuming that ArcheAge is incredibly attractive to most console players, it would probably be people that... played AA before on PC but prefer to play the next version on Console? I could see this, we console gamers do be gamin'... but no, I have around 20 years of data to tell you that this shouldn't be too big a deal relative to AA, because many of the bigger non-WoW MMORPGs are available on console. You'll find a lot of people who aren't used to console MMOs thinking this will be some sort of change, but this is really just 'how it's been since 2002'.

Will it have superior graphics to Ashes being on UE5 and them putting so much effort into graphics?
Yes. Not even taking 'style' into account, ofc a big studio will have better graphics than a smaller one. But better graphical potential only matters if your artistic direction works well with it, and a lot of players don't care about how well your god-rays bloom if artistic direction is good enough.

So, no doomsaying plz, there are many things that could 'kill Ashes', but 'the release of other MMOs that aren't too similar' (and apparently even one that is kinda similar) probably won't be it.

CROW3

No, but AA2 looks awesome.

Ravudha

For me it's not about competing player base size, it's about competing systems.

Will have to see how AA2's systems pan out, but the idea of instanced housing in AA2 is already a massive turn-off.

Otr

Thread title and OP title don't match.
What I understand from the post is that some people wait for ArcheAge Chronicles and will go and play it.

But the title is about long development time.
Even if no other better mmo is released, player count goes down overtime.
What is pushing people away?
What is bringing them back?
What is keeping them in the game?

People want to try new games out and streamers sponsored to advertise them pull them away too.
Many are here now because they can afford paying and want to see something new.
They'll get bored once they explored everything and they know all the game mechanics.

There will be a core playing but how large will it be compared to other mmos?

Chicago

We will be burnt out of AA before ashes even launches, AA3 may even come out first

Azherae

Otr wrote: »

Thread title and OP title don't match.
What I understand from the post is that some people wait for ArcheAge Chronicles and will go and play it.

But the title is about long development time.
Even if no other better mmo is released, player count goes down overtime.
What is pushing people away?
What is bringing them back?
What is keeping them in the game?

People want to try new games out and streamers sponsored to advertise them pull them away too.
Many are here now because they can afford paying and want to see something new.
They'll get bored once they explored everything and they know all the game mechanics.

There will be a core playing but how large will it be compared to other mmos?

This happens because there is a specific type of player that plays MMOs and lobby games purely for the social 'feel good response'.

Those are the players you will find in the world chat or forums of any game that does not retain 50% or higher of its playerbase, giving some equivalent of 'ded gaem? kek' as their main contribution.

Unfortunately I can tell you, not all of those people are trolling. In my experience, not even 'most of them'. Some people are just not as good at logic.

Devs handle it better now, since YoshiP basically paved the way. "Go play other games and come back."
So now MMORPG devs can focus on making a game that you 'want to log into but don't because there's nothing to do right then', or a game that 'is just comfortable to be in, and triggers nostalgia or has some slow things you can do'.

But those people I mentioned don't care about that, they care about 'wherever the biggest other group of people is'.

So when dealing with those players, the #1 thing you need to maintain to retain them is 'a large population'. If another game takes that from you, those people will 'declare your game to be dead' and then go around making sure 'everyone else knows that'. Because they are informing other people about what they value (and implying that other people should value it).

It does not matter to those people how much fun the thousands of players of Mortal Online II are having, it only matters that there are not 'enough people'.

Otr

You told me what I had to hear. Thanks!

Aszkalon

Nerror wrote: »

Yes
or
No
We will find out!

I lean towards no.

I think Ashes' "Success" will be delayed a bit by the Development still taking the long time it needs -> but Failure ? N~aaahhh. It would have failed already when long Development Time would be a Game Killer.

Caww

AoC will need to fully execute the proposed features or they will face irrelevance regardless of other MMOs current or future.

Dygz

I think it depends on what else releases before Ashes... and also whether Intrepid runs out of funds.
Running out of funds seems unlikely.
And then we will have to see what percentage fo the playerbase was looking for the next decent MMORPG and what percentage was looking for a modern L2/ArcheAge that's not P2W.

EPMAN

Somehow they need to decide, carebear og risk vs reward. Stevens says risk vs reward, but the state of the game atm, is carebear, with only caravans somehow risk vs reward in a f up way.

If AA2 is better and faster to release, aoc need to be something else, like going full carebear.

daveywavey

No. Not taking long enough will kill the game.

Otr

EPMAN wrote: »

Somehow they need to decide, carebear or risk vs reward. Stevens says risk vs reward, but the state of the game atm, is carebear, with only caravans somehow risk vs reward in a f up way.

If AA2 is better and faster to release, aoc need to be something else, like going full carebear.

I want risk of rain

EPMAN

Otr wrote: »

EPMAN wrote: »

Somehow they need to decide, carebear or risk vs reward. Stevens says risk vs reward, but the state of the game atm, is carebear, with only caravans somehow risk vs reward in a f up way.

If AA2 is better and faster to release, aoc need to be something else, like going full carebear.

I want risk of rain

Then go outside, look up, when you see dark clouds, open your mouth and hope for the best.(if someone try to spit you in the mouth, close it fast, its not rain)

Xeeg

Azherae wrote: »

So when dealing with those players, the #1 thing you need to maintain to retain them is 'a large population'. If another game takes that from you, those people will 'declare your game to be dead' and then go around making sure 'everyone else knows that'. Because they are informing other people about what they value (and implying that other people should value it).

It does not matter to those people how much fun the thousands of players of Mortal Online II are having, it only matters that there are not 'enough people'.

This.

People call Starcraft 2 a dead game, but i logged recently and queued 1v1s in <1m.

As far as i'm concerned, if you can get in and play the content you want in a reasonable time frame, the game isn't dead.

Funkychicken

Sometimes you have to think about how big the game is going to be, what the player requirements are, and how complex the mechanics are going to be. There is a lot going into ashes. Considering the development transparency, the player involvement I think its making good progress.

Regardless of other games coming out there is a massive scope for ashes to be successful, part of this coming from the original whiteboard design and now the input from players and the general community to make it a better game. Some games are good when released on day one, others are not. I think the devops are trying to make sure that the Game is as good as it can be on day 1 of the main release. There is the fact of constant development, end game content and releases, expansions that keep players entertained and want to come back that will also need to be included so there is a long loop of making it better as the game matures.

Needless to say, games this big take a long time to make. Even games that are in closed release take years to make. With the added openness of Intrepid studios, processing requests from users who want more features, it is going to add to the release time, but the quality will be there at the end.

SmileGurney

As someone who never played ArcheAge, it was funny to listen to some content overview about it. Ashes is almost a carbon copy of many of their main ideas.

Apok

FFXI released on the PS2 and when WoW came out it was so streamlined and up to date everyone went to WoW over XI, but XI is still going with updates and would probably be doing better if they kept it at 75 cap. games usually just kill themselves with bad updates or lack of.

nanfoodle

Steven has done a good job fostering a community. He already has a base before the game launches. Ashes is rough but is aleady fun. Combat is satisfying and that's a good foundation. Also I hated the way they made money with AA. Many are here to see an end of that kind of mess.

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