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.
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Ofcource, its his vision. But the diners and chef does have sway. Dishes gets changed from time to time.
Steven openly displayed a complete lack of understanding as to what combat trackers are, and what they are not. Worse yet, he made decisions based on his total lack of understanding.
Top end raiders are both the most loyal MMORPG players that exist (they are why EQ, EQ2 and WoW still exist), but are also the least forgiving of outright stupidity.
As a final blow to raiders, the above total lack of understanding, the open show of outright stupidity, was made in relation to a tool that actually is key to top end raiding existing in an MMORPG. If players do not have the tools to be able to actually maximise their own output, the game simply can not create content that requires players to maximise their own output - which is essentially what the definition of top end gameplay in an MMORPG is.
So no, this wasn't a harsh judgement at all, this was a well considered realization that Steven is not capable of running an MMORPG that would be of value to that segment of the player base. He simply does not have the knowledge, yet he insists on being the person that makes the decisions.
My point was, I dont think its going to hold off millions of raiders, even if there is no combat trackers. I think people will find out in time, about, healing/dmg meters, agro meters and the like. People will figure it out eventually, and there will be a meta... Probably just not as sharp as it could have been.
I think you misunderstood my point here, almost entirely.
My point was that if that self-owned CEO makes a game he wants to play, and all of us also want to play it, and the 'suits' realize 'wait these people really wanted weather and dynamic NPCs and build variety and all that?'
Those suits will show up to tell the Devs 'hey! add those things to our game!'
And in many cases the Devs will go 'won't work, we didn't build the base to be able to support those things'.
But what if they did?
Other companies also hold Aces.
I did miss your point then. But I am confused now. You seem to contradict yourself here?
Most of what makes Ashes unique is just 'stuff other companies chose not to do' and it's usually easy to add.
There is almost no 'Intrepid twist on it'.
So, think about what this is saying here.
Steven is saying that he thinks that if players have proper information on their characters, they will have fewer build options than if they didn't actually know what they were doing.
This isn't a fault of combat trackers, this is the fault of a game designer not being good enough at their job to create real and valid options for their players. As such, this is Steven unintentionally telling us that he has little faith in his team, or in his direction of that team, or both. Objective information doesn't limit what builds people will use, poor class design does.
As to Steven saying "he wan'ts people to play the way they want", in doing so he has made it so hundreds of thousands of MMORPG players can't - because we are not allowed to use the tool that allows us to play the way we want.
You may not think it, but those raiders do.
I know first hand leaders of dozens of guilds that stopped paying attention to this game because of that - and not one single raid guild that continued to pay attention to Ashes after his stance on trackers was made clear. From my singular perspective, that is a 100% rate of raid guilds being perpetually uninterested in this game due to his comments - they will not change their mind on this, even if Steven does.
but steven is the one who get to say what dish stays and what dosent , if steven likes spicy lobster and a 100 people came and ate it , 90 of them said they dont like the way its done or just hate it all together and the chefs tell steven 90 people out of a 100 didnt like it so we have to change the way its done or to something else in a way where most people like it but steven refuses to because he likes it done that way even when most people dont.
FF11 has had the Mog House functionality as far as I know since launch. Mog Houses allow you to decorate your private instanced space (the ability to allow visitors was added much later)..
Depending on the Elemental Balances of your furniture, you got a Moghancement, which is a buff to something.
No matter what you do, some players will consider one Moghancement (or some subset group of them) to be the best ones. If those happen to be easy to attain or can be built up gradually with no significant downside, fine. Content.
The moment one of them offers what some vocal influencer (even in world chat) considers an optimal advantage, some set of players will switch from 'this is fun, slowly building up and experimenting with decorating my house, it's like leveling' to 'why is this game gatekeeping the good stuff just to inflate hours/make me RMT?'
It's not that Moghancements are bad, it's that someone hit the wrong switch in players' brains. Originally it was just them and you could only have one at a time. Could you rearrange your entire house to switch from 'Tiny chance of retaining more materials when you fail a synth with this specific crystal' to 'lose less EXP when you die' because you expected to be doing hard content? Yes. Was it worth it? Good question.
Competitive players measure against each other and that's a large part of this trigger. Well-informed players measure against 'obvious optimals' and that is another.
Moghancements had to not be particularly good on purpose to avoid the above. And even within that, it was still talked about in this way. To be clear your overall options were:
"Lose less exp on death." "Gain slightly more money from mob drops in a game where very few mobs drop money and it is a tiny amount relatively" and "gain more Conquest points (Node Exp basically)".
This system is 'not rewarding' on purpose. It is not impactful on purpose. It is tedious to min-max entirely on purpose. Because 'singular, low impact choices' are one of the few ways to keep your playerbase from becoming a toxic separatist column of people arguing over whether optimizing is right.
Ashes needs to have more spaces where Intrepid demonstrates an understanding of this, without it, it will get the usual novelty rush, then the world-chat ignorance phase, then the falloff. Ashes has, so far, made six separate decisions that fast-track it directly into the world-chat ignorance phase.
A lot of the things that make Ashes 'unique' are the equivalent of having powerful Moghancements for players to fight in world chat over. I don't think this is a positive kind of uniqueness for a game to have.
Sure, it is probably his call in the end. But Steven does not strike me as a stupid man. He knows there is a marked for his type of MMO. He has a good idea on what is fun and what is not. If a vast majority of players end up hating something, it will most likely change.
There is a very big difference between someone that is stupid, and someone that is trying to do a job they are ill equipped to do.
Unfortunately, if you put a stupid person and a smart person in a difficult position that they are both equally ill equipped for, the stupid person is probably going to do better because they are more likely to be familiar with situations where they are over their heads.
For the smart person, this may well be new territory, and they may not know how to deal with that at all.
Steven absolutely is smart. However, that isn't an advantage for him here, it is potentially a disadvantage.
As to your last comment, keep in mind that Steven has already made comments that have turned hundreds of thousands of potential players away from this game.
There aren't that many players interested in Ashes as a long term game left - how many people need to hate a thing before Steven changes it?
I guess thats one take on it. There is no way to design a game in such a way, that the dmg is even all over. I am not sure if you see not downsides to having a dmg parser, but I think there is some clear downsides. I can see his argument, agree or not.
What Steven is trying to do, is make more than 1 valid spec. Raiders mostly see a class having 1 spec. So they might need 1 wizard to have this or that spec, and after that, they all pretty much have to be identical, thats what Steven is trying to upset.
The counter argument could be. Are those millions of raiders so pampered, that they cant make a spec themselves? Shouldnt raiders be able to navigate abilities, numbers, rotations - without the extras?
Like most everything else, combat trackers is a coin with two sides. Some like it, some dont. Personally, I am a bit tired of some of the combst trackers. I think some are beneficial in a good way, and some are very dictating. I do not like the dictating ones.
I think you are wrong about raiders though. I think when the game is in a launch state, people will reconsider. There will be a ton of hype and exposure around the game come 6 months before launch, and raids etc. will be front and center. I think when people have a more complete picture, AoC will suddenly become a thing to test and look at. And hey, who knows, maybe Steven will soften his stance on it.
Ohh, but I think there is. Some of the features they are promising in the game is quite unique. We have seen day/night, but seasons like this? City management like this? Thats quite of a twist from other games. Quite easy to add, I think is wrong. Intrepid is taking their time to make a game with a ton of features. Their timspan of making the game is quite long. When shareholders have a say, its usually short. They want money in the bank, and if the game dies after a few years, it does not matter too much, they are on to the next thing. Intrepid is not developing with that goal in mind. Steven would not hurl his own money at this game like this, if he wanted a quick payday. He build something from the ground up, that to me, is respectable. I can only imagine the sleepless nights and worrying that comes with making a company that big. It takes a toll.
I think they are doing so much different, than other companies, that dispite you not liking it, you should acknowledge it. I mean, open development/no NDA... How many does that? The amount of features in this game, thats alot man. You might say, that they are easy to implement in other games, but they havent does it though. Its a huge undertaking for a dude, to make a game for you, from the ground up, starting with a handful of people. Appreciate the effort
Your response to Noaani about "hype around release..." would've worked if people didn't know what the game was about. See Chrono Odyssey for example. People were really hyped for it until they realized that it's just a NW clone. And they only realized that because CO released a beta test.
Ashes is holding a near-permanent ALPHA test, where nothing is done and everything that's being done is moving at a snail's pace. And that is game development for a newer team under an unexperienced leader. But the fact that everyone who's interested in the game can just come and see that the game is barely moving, the design is all over the place and the direction can often contradict itself - none of that will support the release hype of the game.
Every damn scam game that overpromised the world and underdelivered a piece of shit had more hype than what Ashes will have by the time release comes along.
And I would love to be wrong, because I myself believed that we're barely even 1% of the people that will be there on release, so the majority will get hyped for the game, as you say. But the more time passes, the more I feel like my initial assumption was the wrong one.
We already gave examples of the games where these systems were present. And Ashes doesn't even compare to the space games, cause its supposed depth doesn't even reach "you can build your own stuff and other players can interact with it".
I tested an Alpha for a new EVE game and that shit had space buildings that could function as trading posts, as turrets, as stores and had the potential to be coded by the players themselves to be near-anything players wanted. Ashes is nowhere near that kind of freedom.
So yes, it is that easy to add this stuff into a game. Other studios don't do it because it's too much work for too little payoff, when you only care about that payoff. And yes, it's cool that Steven can kinda disregard the amount of work his ideas require, but it's a double-edged sword, which, in the context of "open development", hits the studio more than it benefits it.
Technically Throne and Liberty already has seasons mostly-implemented and they're just taking the path of implementation that Intrepid is now learning. But what is a season in an MMORPG really?
"Trees lose their leaves, ground is snowy, spawns and economy change."
Have you ever looked into BDO's Farming system? BDO simulates the movement of rainclouds over the landscape and the topography of the runoff.
Should we assume Ashes will also implement water tables when Freeholds are released? Because BDO does.
I think you are being a bit bitter. So you dont like the pace of the game, so leave it alone and come back. Is is slow? For a game this size, I dont think so.
I def think there is a lot more hype surrounding the game bexcause of open development. The monthly videos is also something I know ton of people are looking forward to. Hell, I think a ton of people are talking about the game, because streamers can stream with no NDA.
The point about a lot of features is, AoC has taken a ton of features into their game. Some of those features, whole games are made around. They took it as part of their features. If they deliever, which personally I think they do, this will be the biggest MMO that ever launched.
Sound like a lot of you alpha testers are wanting this to move along way quicker than it is. To me, it looks like an unrealistic look at what speed a game of this size is developing at. Step away, take a break for some months and come back. Your annoyance and bitterness will only grow from here.
Steven is unexperienced as a game developer. But he has an age where wisdom comes into play. He has been around, he played a ton of games, he knows what he thinks is fun. He didnt hire all new guys here either, he hired some good devs.
Are there new mobs in the seasons? Is there new harvestables? I dont remember seeing seasons in a game, that actually mattered. Its just graphics. Here though, they play with the weather and seasons and the like. It affects spells, harvestables and the like. Thats is new.
You can mention features other games have. Intrepid took a ton of features that are fun from other games, and made their own twist on it. MMOs have been around for a time you know, I played the first of them. They have to take features already used. What they can do, is make them their own.
You seem to have this idea, that Intrepid is really out of touch. A real dislike. If they are so horrible, why stay in here? Benefits noone, least of all you
It's 'easy' to just keep patting them on the back and downplaying/downcrying other MMOs as if they only halfassed the implementations. It comes from ignorance though, and I'm honestly quite scared sometimes that Intrepid is gonna end up huffing the same development copium as many other failed projects did.
Ignorance of the scope of other games is not basis for dismissing this concern.
I'll continue to hope, to provide my data and counterpoints, and to do whatever I can to help them realize the dreams that they have as developers.
I hope that you can move past the tribalism that leads to dismissing the idea that weather and seasons are a 2002 thing and that people who point out facts are bitter.
I sure hope they somehow magically developed a ton of stuff behind the scenes and there's simply 1-2 systems that are holding it all back (i.e. dynamic gridding), but for now I'm real doubtful about that being the case.
Also, I've already stepped back from the game. I had big plans for it for July, but none of those worked out because game's performance became even worse on my ancient PC and now, with yet another PTR delay, my motivation to be deeply involved became even weaker. I'll still help test big things, but I won't really have the time for much else.
None of that will stop me from voicing my opninions on the game's design direction here, on reddit or discord, because I can give that feedback even w/o directly experiencing it. Well, at least for the non-combat kinda stuff.
Ofcource you should keep expressing yourself
There team is quite big now. Stuff like gear balance have to get done eventually, and there is a team for developing that kind of stuff. I think there is going to be a decent bump in alpha 3, featurewise I mean.
Im a huge believer in the game. But I also buy into more than just a game. A indie dev, who makes a whole company from the ground up, with the exact mindset that I have on MMOs. Im sold on that idea. I have played a ton of MMOs since they came out. All the way from beta testing UO. It was so cool and creative back in the day, but like everything making money, shareholders take over. Money becomes the prime and all devouring factor. This is a chance to turn that stuff on its head. If Intrepid succeed, then they would have changes the genre, in a meaningful way. So I think there is more riding on this project, than just the game itself. We need Stevens in the game genre. In more than just MMOs to be honest, but its a good place to start
This Topic annoyed me already for the first Time when i saw it. No Hate.
Nope.
No Change from Sir Steven's Main Objective and Dream.
A Game for Everyone - is a Game for NO ONE.
✓ 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".
MMORPGs take many years to develop. Nobody is really bitter about it taking 8+ years for Ashes to release.
But, we have to keep in mind that in 2017, Steven kept hyping that his team was sooo excellent that Intrepid would release Ashes Before 2020. Even when those of us with game dev experience told him that was highly unlikely.
Ashes had tons of promise as the next great MMORPG Before 2020. With designs planed to solve people's disillusionment with a lack of focus on PvP and static Endgame loops.
Ashes still hasn't implemented most of the features players were initially hyped about: Node Stages, Node Sieges and Castle Sieges and 64 Classes. Freeholds are barely working.
What Ashes has implemented isn't really much better than any generic UE5 MMORPG - and it's all mired down with some pretty major bugs.
Many long-time fans are just fatigued - and there are now other MMOs that have been released and/or have also reached Alpha and Beta - and are just more fun and eaiser to play/test than Ashes.
In 2017, I didn't really have any games that I was looking forward to playing.
I was burnt out of the MMORPG Endgame loop - and I primarily play RPGs. I don't enjoy repeating Dungeons and Raids. I want to be (for)Ever Questing. So once new Quests dry up, I stop playing MMORPGs. And I would rather not have to wait 12-24+ months for an Expansion.
In the past couple of years - that has been solved by Seasons. Even WoW, which I stopped playing between 2012 to 2021 is now fun to play again.
I now do not have time to play all the games I want to play:
NMS; New World; WoW....
Ashes had features that are not a good fit for my playstyle so, truly, Ashes is not made for me. I was willing to try to compromise with some stuff if Ashes was going to be the next MMORPG released Before 2020.
Now, there is too much competition. There is no reason for me to compromise on the PvP and Steven's obsession with Risk v Reward. And, really, it's just too much of a hassle to try to get the builds to download and install to my laptop - only game I've played that my laptop struggles to install.
Even if Ashes eventually implements everything in their Kickstarter - there will not be much hype for it.
There are too many other games out there now.
Sure, the gamers who want an updated ArcheAge or Lineage II will enjoy the gameplay - if Intrepid can get the Economy working correctly.
But, Ashes probably won't release before 2028. We really do have to hope it will release Before 2030.
But, by then, there will be several more MMORPGs around that also have innovative features. And Ashes will have features that many players now expect to be fundamental - like Building your own villages and homes, similar to Valheim and Nightingale.
There won't be many companies like Intrepid.
But, yes, I invested in Ashes because I want to support devs working on game designs and features that I hope make it into future MMOs I will want to play.
So that it's quicker and easier for them to implement them when they work on other games after Ashes.
Thats true. I dont expect other rich dudes to open companies
I undestand the fatigue, everyone can get that. The trick is to distance youself, instead of turning bitter. We have all been there. Take a couple of months off - go for some Rogue Trader
I dont think I have ever seen an interview, where Steven said 2020?
I think that open development forces this fatigue a bit. Its up to the persons participating, to make sure they control their expectations. Everyone wants to help, and everyone wants to be in it. But its not a game yet, and people need to be absolutely aware of that. You got critique? Great! Make it constructive. You got ideas? Great! I am sure they read the boards here for exactly that.
I think you are wrong about the hype though. It might die out now, but they are not even trying. When there is a launch date set, you will start to see advertisement, streamers, videos, interviews.... It will blow the frag up
Do you only theoretically think raid games are the only ones that can be successful in the market, but are not personally primarily attracted by raids?
Could this perhaps be an indication that many of your peers might equally be pursuing raids because it's the only thing the genre has offered them, not because it's the only ideal solution/activity for them? That it's more a matter of player-driven gameplay not having been designed and marketed well enough, than an intrinsic superiority of the content-machine raid system?
(I'm not tied to these explanations, btw, there are several possible answers that make sense to me.)
Games that need combat trackers need them because their content balancing is so tight that you need to figure out a viable build in order to make it through at all. If the balancing is not that tight, you don't need the tracker; you can figure out a system that makes sense, compare it to real-world experience from other players and trying out alternatives, and use that information to choose if that is good enough for you.
I won't go into that discussion further here, it's been discussed to exhaustion, including between the two of us, but I think it makes some sense to dispel this framing a bit in the context of this discussion, because the way you're presenting thinks makes it look like there's no other possible explanation for Steven's choices than misinformation or stubbornness. I think that's stubbornness on your own part. Which is not to say that combat trackers and the dungeons they entail would necessarily be the wrong thing for Ashes. Just saying that the decision has more game direction aspects to balance than you're willing to admit (key word being my usual: authentic player interaction), and I think Steven's vision for a certain audience could work out in everyone's favour. That might turn out wrong, but I'd rather someone try it properly than constantly succumb to mainstream pressure; we've had enough of that in the last 2 decades.
Which is not to say he shouldn't listen to feedback; that's the whole point of all of this. But too much of the feedback is concerned with reliability and creature comforts over creating an internally cohesive experience/game loop.
This is the biggest thing for me.
We are missing a lot of big "features", "systems" or whatever you want to call it. The game is not going to work the same with, and without those systems being present... Why on earth are they focusing on balancing stuff that doesn't even matter now?
Why do something, that you will have to do again once you implement all the features? Why do something, before having actually functioning systems, and a functioning fun game. Balance, and all that other stuff usually comes last, after you implement all the core systems?
I only see it being done, in order to keep the playerbase playing testing, as otherwise they would get bored/frustrated, and would ultimately end up quitting.
But why do you need an active playerbase testing the game constantly, every day? This all just feels like a convenient excuse, where you "soft-release" a very incomplete project, call it an Alpha to avoid major criticism, and trickle down updates over the years, where the product might or might not become decent after 3-4 years.
But at that point, this is exactly like an early access title going into "full release". It just doesn't make any difference, you are playing the exact same thing you've been playing for years.
It also makes no sense, because they're probably losing money doing this. Unless they find a way to monetize it, beyond selling $100+ access, before release. Btw if they do this, they're done, at least for me. I can see why people like to compare this game to SC so much, and that will be even more true if they decide to further monetize the game before release.
The way things seem to progress, it seems that the actual release won't be a big deal for this game, because all the features they want to implement, will slowly be implemented and tested during alphas/betas.
Alphas and betas do make sense, if you can expect the project to release within let's say 18 months - and if you only test some of the core systems, within a limited part of the world, while most of the game is unavailable. But at that point, what's the point of having a persistent Alpha for months, and months? You could test the core systems in a month or two, and provide feedback on it.
If you do just trickle down updates up to the release, there will be no hype, no sense of discovery, nothing when the game actually goes live. Players are already going to be familiar with the game, and even those who haven't played it during Alphas, were able to watch videos online.
The way Alpha 2 was split into "phases" tells me that this will exactly be how it goes. What's next, phase 4, 5, 6? Even more features introduced, once the devs feel those are in a somewhat playable state? When will be the actual cutoff? Are they going to set up closed test environments, specifically made to actually TEST a certain system, rather than having an unfinished game and saying to players "go test it", where it just looks like they're playing the game, and maybe reporting some bugs that they find on the way?
There probably won't be a game like Ashes on the market, even though I absolutely wish for a 2020s version of Archeage. Most releases won't scratch that same itch Ashes is trying to. But like you mentioned, there are going to be games that will have features similar to what Ashes is planning to do. Even today you have such games.
We have yet to see many of the features being implemented, some of which were (still are) the main reasons why a lot of people even began following the project.
As Dygz said, a lot of us are just fatigued at this point, after following the project for years. Myself, I have been aware of it since early 2017, without following it too closely. In the past 5 years, I've kept up with most news, discussions, etc. and right now, I just don't see a point anymore.
Steven has his own vision, and 4-5 years ago, I might've said it's exactly what I wanted from an MMORPG. Nowadays, things seem to have changed, or rather my excitement has gone down after seeing how that vision is getting implemented.
I am here (now) because I have friends that are making this game. People that I have travelled internationally to be present for major life events and such.
I was originally here because at one point it looked as it Ashes could have some form of raiding game. They used to talk about raiding on stream almost as much as they talked about PvP.
I was also initially quite interested in the games economic gameplay. This seemed to be inspired from Archeage, the game with what I consider the second best MMORPG economy behind only EVE.
Neither of these are accurate now. There is basically no talk about raiding, and what they do say only highlights how over his head Steven is (it used to be mostly Jeff talking about it). In terms of the economy, they have already stripped out of the game the very essence of what made Archeages economy function, so I have no hope at all that Ashes economy will be worth playing at all, let alone good enough to be a primary reason to play the game.
In the mean time, I'm back playing EQ2 on a server with an older ruleset, because no modern MMORPG developer has made a better game.