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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
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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.
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Amending the Node list to include Metropolis without sacrificing Town or City
Viymjr
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Lets make the Metropolis great again! 
The discussion i have been having with guild mates and others in the Ashes community recently have all resulted in the same conclusion. In the current list there is one stage that feels unecessary. It does not bring much to the node development experience and the result of our converations should make Town lovers, City lovers and Metropolis lovers all happy.
Here is my thoughts and those of others i have spoken to...
With stage 0 Wilderness being the intial state of the node, the next stage should be Encampment not Crossroads. In the description of the Crossroads stage it mentions "The Development Area feels temporary at this level, reflective of what a group of people would carry with them - tents, campfires, etc.". In otherwords its a campsite or Encampment.
For the description of Encampment it mentions, "The Development Area feels a little more lived-in at this level, occupied with what people could build with wagons and simple tools - larger tents, smokehouses, and buildings constructed from local materials". A small number of buildings could constitute a Village.
Moving on to the Village the description mentions. "At the Village Stage, the camp becomes a small frontier town.". So its a town right? Maybe a large village? Lets just call it a Town.
With the first active stages set, that leaves the last 2 to be City and Metropolis . Intrepid can still scale the differences in these nodes to ensure each has the diversity they are looking in each stage node development compared to the previous stage development.
Below is the suggestion for the node list with Crossroads replaced with Encampment to allow room for Metropolis.
0 - 🌳 Wilderness
1 -
Encampment
2 - ⛺ Village
3 - 🏠 Town
4 - 🏘️ City
5 - 🏙️ Metropolis
The discussion i have been having with guild mates and others in the Ashes community recently have all resulted in the same conclusion. In the current list there is one stage that feels unecessary. It does not bring much to the node development experience and the result of our converations should make Town lovers, City lovers and Metropolis lovers all happy.
Here is my thoughts and those of others i have spoken to...
With stage 0 Wilderness being the intial state of the node, the next stage should be Encampment not Crossroads. In the description of the Crossroads stage it mentions "The Development Area feels temporary at this level, reflective of what a group of people would carry with them - tents, campfires, etc.". In otherwords its a campsite or Encampment.
For the description of Encampment it mentions, "The Development Area feels a little more lived-in at this level, occupied with what people could build with wagons and simple tools - larger tents, smokehouses, and buildings constructed from local materials". A small number of buildings could constitute a Village.
Moving on to the Village the description mentions. "At the Village Stage, the camp becomes a small frontier town.". So its a town right? Maybe a large village? Lets just call it a Town.
With the first active stages set, that leaves the last 2 to be City and Metropolis . Intrepid can still scale the differences in these nodes to ensure each has the diversity they are looking in each stage node development compared to the previous stage development.
Below is the suggestion for the node list with Crossroads replaced with Encampment to allow room for Metropolis.
0 - 🌳 Wilderness
1 -
Encampment2 - ⛺ Village
3 - 🏠 Town
4 - 🏘️ City
5 - 🏙️ Metropolis
1
Comments
I've also be saying recently that "Crossroads" doesn't even make sense as a name for the first stage of development. When we're just re-entering a world that hasn't seen civilisation for thousands of years, how are we already going to have roads set up before we even set up a camp?
The name "Crossroads" suggests that we've developed the area enough to have multiple roads going between a number of different places, to the degree that some of the roads are crossing, which just doesn't make sense while we haven't even set up a camp yet and there isn't anything important in the area. They should at least be flipped if you want to keep both Crossroads and Camp.
(Also "Encampment" still just sounds needlessly fancy, just call it a Camp)
Expedition/Crossroads can take the hit for the better stages.