Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
An Appeal
Bumin
Member, Alpha Two
-An Appeal-
Dear Intrepid Studio and Steven,
As we know, the target audience for Ashes of Creation is primarily people in their mid-30s to 50s. Many of us have witnessed the MMORPG genre bloom and have grown up with it, developing a certain emotional attachment. Many of us might have earned multiple Ph.D. titles, become CEOs, or perhaps the next Ronaldo or Schwarzenegger. Instead, we played for our lives. It was a completely new world, exciting and thrilling at the same time. We were young, curious, and full of energy! Sometimes playing with computers and internet connections that today we wouldn't even use to send an email, let alone play with 12-20 FPS (like Everquest, for example).
Now, we're older, much older! We no longer have the time, patience, or nerves for unnecessary torment. Many of us have children and face a tough work routine. The little time we have left, we want to use to escape from everyday life as carefree and relaxed as possible. We want to immerse ourselves in foreign worlds, experience adventures, and have a good time with friends or alone.
Back then, we lost ourselves in such games, not necessarily because they were so great, but because they were new and exciting. Looking back, they weren't always good. But they were the best we had, and our tolerance threshold was still high because of that!
With Ashes of Creation, I increasingly get the feeling that you want to copy the nostalgic experience of the past, including the uncomfortable and unfun features. A game should primarily be fun and not replace my life! I don't want to grind or farm for 10 hours to brew 5 healing potions. Or be constantly punished. I want the game to respect my time and offer me quality of life features. How nice was it, for example, when we could look up something on the internet, or when add-ons first appeared that saved me time dealing with unnecessary things. There are certainly some that ruin the gaming experience and offer no comfort, like DPS meters.
I don't want to feel like I'm running to my corpse for 15 minutes, dying again on the way, and ultimately losing my items because a wolf chases me for 3km.
I don't want to run around with the same weapon or armor pieces for 30 hours.
I want a group finder function and fast travel (even if it's griffin towers or group teleportations that need to be crafted).
It doesn't have to be so frustrating and time-consuming. The past wasn't always better; it was just new and exciting, and we were younger. I also don't want to be slaughtered everywhere while farming or questing.
Why can't we at least gain some XP during the alpha? Or create a level 25 character with decent equipment?! Let us play! After all, we've paid for an alpha and write bug reports and test the game. Many are even sacrificing their release experience for this. You can be more accommodating here.
In the end, we want to have fun, like back then - but we don't want the frustration from back then, nor do we want to give up all quality of life features.
In this spirit, I hope that you take this to heart and seriously think about it. This also scares off new players... after all, we don't want to be lonely in this beautiful, big world.
Best regards,
An MMORPG Fan.
Dear Intrepid Studio and Steven,
As we know, the target audience for Ashes of Creation is primarily people in their mid-30s to 50s. Many of us have witnessed the MMORPG genre bloom and have grown up with it, developing a certain emotional attachment. Many of us might have earned multiple Ph.D. titles, become CEOs, or perhaps the next Ronaldo or Schwarzenegger. Instead, we played for our lives. It was a completely new world, exciting and thrilling at the same time. We were young, curious, and full of energy! Sometimes playing with computers and internet connections that today we wouldn't even use to send an email, let alone play with 12-20 FPS (like Everquest, for example).
Now, we're older, much older! We no longer have the time, patience, or nerves for unnecessary torment. Many of us have children and face a tough work routine. The little time we have left, we want to use to escape from everyday life as carefree and relaxed as possible. We want to immerse ourselves in foreign worlds, experience adventures, and have a good time with friends or alone.
Back then, we lost ourselves in such games, not necessarily because they were so great, but because they were new and exciting. Looking back, they weren't always good. But they were the best we had, and our tolerance threshold was still high because of that!
With Ashes of Creation, I increasingly get the feeling that you want to copy the nostalgic experience of the past, including the uncomfortable and unfun features. A game should primarily be fun and not replace my life! I don't want to grind or farm for 10 hours to brew 5 healing potions. Or be constantly punished. I want the game to respect my time and offer me quality of life features. How nice was it, for example, when we could look up something on the internet, or when add-ons first appeared that saved me time dealing with unnecessary things. There are certainly some that ruin the gaming experience and offer no comfort, like DPS meters.
I don't want to feel like I'm running to my corpse for 15 minutes, dying again on the way, and ultimately losing my items because a wolf chases me for 3km.
I don't want to run around with the same weapon or armor pieces for 30 hours.
I want a group finder function and fast travel (even if it's griffin towers or group teleportations that need to be crafted).
It doesn't have to be so frustrating and time-consuming. The past wasn't always better; it was just new and exciting, and we were younger. I also don't want to be slaughtered everywhere while farming or questing.
Why can't we at least gain some XP during the alpha? Or create a level 25 character with decent equipment?! Let us play! After all, we've paid for an alpha and write bug reports and test the game. Many are even sacrificing their release experience for this. You can be more accommodating here.
In the end, we want to have fun, like back then - but we don't want the frustration from back then, nor do we want to give up all quality of life features.
In this spirit, I hope that you take this to heart and seriously think about it. This also scares off new players... after all, we don't want to be lonely in this beautiful, big world.
Best regards,
An MMORPG Fan.
2
Comments
And testing doesn't only come at lvl25. You test the entire progression and everything along the way. I've been on pre-release servers of L2 where people were meant to test out the leveling process and I was also on pre-releases where people were given the ability to just jump to max lvl and get pretty much whatever they wanted to "test".
And in nearly 100% cases of the latter, people would just dick around and do random shit, which usually meant just fighting each other in over-enchanted BiS gear, that no one would be able to get on the proper release.
I don't think Intrepid would get the data they want if they just let us jump to lvl25 and get good gear for no effort at all. Because if they wanted that kind of data - they would've designed the client that way, just as they do on the PTR afaik.
You want fast travel, quick leveling, no pvp while your pveing. Bro, this might not be your type of game...
But please have some patiens and respect for what this game is trying to be instead of promoting for implements that made the modern mmo genre so meaningless.
Im sure you will find enyojment in this game.
That game isn't even actually casual, so even the argument that people don't want to 'have their hands held through an easy game' doesn't make sense. For Guild Wars 2, I get it. For ESO, I get it. For people who are desperately hoping for 'Harder, more PvP oriented World of Warcraft', absolutely.
But for everyone else... we have the 'inbetween' game. I am playing it right now. This is theirs. Let people have this.
See more on the wiki
New World was initially "hardcore" and altered drastically to support the casual because it was not financially sustainable. And even the most casual tester is probably more "hardcore" than the average player that will try the game.
Well, considering boomers as a generation are all in their 60s or older, and the OP said they think this games target market starts at 30, I'm not sure this comment has much merit.
That said, he has the right age range for the target audience for this game, more or less.
The OP referenced "primarily people in their mid-30s to 50s" so that my comment regarding "near Boomers" stands as reasonable, it just doesn't encompass the entirety of a player base.