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.
Verra: When Bigger Isn’t Always Better
TheDarkSorcerer
Member, Alpha Two
Lately I’ve been really into watching Architectural Digest and The Local Project on YouTube. There’s something about seeing how designers work with space that’s been inspiring. I recently watched an AD video about an architect optimizing a 400sqft apartment in Manhattan, and something he said really stuck with me because it made me think about how I feel playing Ashes of Creation.
He said:
“The beauty of space in this proportion is it’s small, but it’s intimate. It’s a relationship to us as human beings, which feels comfortable because it’s also true that there’s a discomfort at some point when the space is so large that it’s just alienating, and you don’t relate to it, and acoustically and thermally it just feels off.”
Full link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHzP1r8JGv8
That really sums up my worry with Verra. The world is massive and ambitious, which sounds great on paper, but I feel like it’s almost too big for its own good. Instead of feeling rich and immersive, the world can feel kind of empty. It’s like walking through a giant mansion that looks impressive from the outside, but once you’re inside, there’s not much that makes you feel connected to it.
When I explore in-game or watch gameplay online, I see a lot of the same vegetation and terrain. The transitions between zones don’t feel gradual or subtle enough, and it all starts to blur together. It’s not that the world is bad. It’s just that it feels unfinished in a way (even Riverlands), like the size is getting in the way of the details that make a world feel alive and memorable.
Honestly, I wish they’d focus on fully finishing and polishing each area before moving on. It feels like they get each part of the world about 60% of the way there, then shift to the next zone, and the result is a world that looks huge but doesn’t feel complete or truly alive yet. It’s like they’re building every room in the mansion at once, but none of them feel done enough to make you want to stay.
I say this because I care about the game. I really want Ashes of Creation to succeed. But sometimes I think less is more when it comes to creating a world people actually want to explore and fall in love with.
He said:
“The beauty of space in this proportion is it’s small, but it’s intimate. It’s a relationship to us as human beings, which feels comfortable because it’s also true that there’s a discomfort at some point when the space is so large that it’s just alienating, and you don’t relate to it, and acoustically and thermally it just feels off.”
Full link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHzP1r8JGv8
That really sums up my worry with Verra. The world is massive and ambitious, which sounds great on paper, but I feel like it’s almost too big for its own good. Instead of feeling rich and immersive, the world can feel kind of empty. It’s like walking through a giant mansion that looks impressive from the outside, but once you’re inside, there’s not much that makes you feel connected to it.
When I explore in-game or watch gameplay online, I see a lot of the same vegetation and terrain. The transitions between zones don’t feel gradual or subtle enough, and it all starts to blur together. It’s not that the world is bad. It’s just that it feels unfinished in a way (even Riverlands), like the size is getting in the way of the details that make a world feel alive and memorable.
Honestly, I wish they’d focus on fully finishing and polishing each area before moving on. It feels like they get each part of the world about 60% of the way there, then shift to the next zone, and the result is a world that looks huge but doesn’t feel complete or truly alive yet. It’s like they’re building every room in the mansion at once, but none of them feel done enough to make you want to stay.
I say this because I care about the game. I really want Ashes of Creation to succeed. But sometimes I think less is more when it comes to creating a world people actually want to explore and fall in love with.
2
Comments
This is why i see everything "completely in the Alpha 2" as a STILL Placeholder of Sorts. The Riverlands itself also, too. Not just with the still missing Weather-Effects.
Who knows ? The desired Goal for Release is to have like 9000 People and above on every Server, right ? But i could imagine a Future in which 20.000 or more are on each Server. Just to fill so many Places so that Nodes have decently huge Populations.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
I am in the guildless Guild so to say, lol. But i won't give up. I will find my fitting Guild "one Day".
The world does seem massive. I've never been a fan of an MMO that lets you take portals to the next section as that isn't a true open world. I do think they most definitely need to add flight paths. This is what gave you that huge open world view in classic wow.
If it takes too much time and effort just to get to a place that is 3 zones away players will get frustrated.
in 2025 the non boomer/gen x generations grew up in a instant gratification world, gaming world included. Adding flight paths doesn't take away from the open world experience in AOC, it enhances it.
I believe that a large part of what changes the way a large area feels is this type of ecology change. Areas without appropriate mobs/NPCs are 'not alive' and therefore can trigger the feeling described in the OP more powerfully.
But we also have to be careful about judging that sort of thing too quickly, because the entire 'point' of dynamic flow in ecology is that some experiences are rare, and for an experience to be 'rare' to an MMO player, they have to experience 'common', which is 'the same thing about 8 times', to me.
Grind-based games often lack the thing that Ashes is intending to add, partly because of 'habit' or the 'inertia' of the genre, and partly because a certain player type has conditioned that type of development 'out' of the genre.
I say let Intrepid do what they do best, reintroducing old, successful, but now upgraded concepts into the genre, or people are just going to keep consuming MMORPG fantasy stories instead of MMORPGs.
I think what you're describing is a natural part of a project as ambitious as Ashes of Creation. Intrepid is building something from the ground up that few studios would even attempt. And while it’s true that some areas may feel about 60% there right now, it’s also worth remembering we’re still in Alpha 2, and their approach seems iterative by design.
They’re laying the foundation first, getting the systems, scale, and structure in place, so they can later breathe life into the details that make each space feel intimate, grounded, and memorable. They’ve already shown a strong commitment to feedback and refinement (just look at how Riverlands evolved since early footage), so I believe these polish passes are absolutely coming.
It’s also helpful to remember that during Alpha, player density is very low. Once population, dynamic events, node development, caravans, and political systems are active, those “empty” areas will begin to feel alive not only visually, but socially and functionally too. Verra isn’t just a world to look at, it’s a world meant to be lived in.
Your feedback is valid and valuable, and I truly believe the devs share that same love and care for what they’re building. It’s not about choosing size or detail, it’s about trusting the process to bring both together, in time.
We’re watching the mansion being built brick by brick. And I can’t wait to walk through its finished halls one day and remember that we were here from the start.
P3 will have "more" content but even then, I think until we've had like a year+ of p3 we won't really tell for sure how barren the world feels until it's filled with the right amount of players and the amount of content Intrepid intend to have in there.
But they definitely want the world to be big, so I think some empty space is fine (and they even alluded to that being a design goal with something like the desert) - but hopefully from a gameplay enjoyment perspective this won't be the norm.
Every time developers boast how huge their worlds are, I grow immediately concerned. The bigger, the more difficult it will be to fill them with memorable content and make players feel immersed.