Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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 Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
I am new new new and know this is an Alpha but...
cyresdogg
Member
...everything in this Game feels unfinished, i know "its an Alpha, of course it is" and yea i was expecting things to be rough around the edges and it being just not even close to be done.
But i did not expect this game after 8 years of Development to be THIS rough around the edges.
Enemies mostly just standing around in their Quest related packs waiting for the player to be killed so they can get their quest reward.
NPCs T-Posing semi naked.
The lightning being completely off and making no sense whatsoever especially in the newer of the 2 starting zones.
No clue what a quest wants from me, where to accept them or turn them in, and yea i read questlogs, checked minimap, it sends me to the middle of nowhere where no NPC can be talked to.
The UI feels horrendous and unintuitive. Everything is so small and hard to read that you wonder if this is Silkroad or Cabal Online from 20 years ago.
And i don't mean that degrading or insulting, but a lot of what i have seen from the game so far REALLY looks and feels like these games from 20 years ago, with the same Mob Structure, the same Quest Design, with cool ideas but not well executed.
The difference is, those games didn't cost me a penny, not for purchase nor to play, yes they were pay to win but in theory i could play them for free as much as i want. This one is asking 100$ rn and after release it wants a monthly subscription fee.
I do understand that this game is in full development, but given this is the first experience players get after they paid a 3 digit sum and then be asked "haha yea be patient" is... well its rough, its really hard to swallow that pill.
If anyone here reads this that is unsure if its a good time to get into the Alpha now or later, my answer is a 100% "later, MUCH later".
From what i heard the games goal is to release somewhere 2027-2028 and i think thats a very optimistic target they set for themselves, if this is the state after 8 years, then i wouldn't release this game pre 2030.
But i did not expect this game after 8 years of Development to be THIS rough around the edges.
Enemies mostly just standing around in their Quest related packs waiting for the player to be killed so they can get their quest reward.
NPCs T-Posing semi naked.
The lightning being completely off and making no sense whatsoever especially in the newer of the 2 starting zones.
No clue what a quest wants from me, where to accept them or turn them in, and yea i read questlogs, checked minimap, it sends me to the middle of nowhere where no NPC can be talked to.
The UI feels horrendous and unintuitive. Everything is so small and hard to read that you wonder if this is Silkroad or Cabal Online from 20 years ago.
And i don't mean that degrading or insulting, but a lot of what i have seen from the game so far REALLY looks and feels like these games from 20 years ago, with the same Mob Structure, the same Quest Design, with cool ideas but not well executed.
The difference is, those games didn't cost me a penny, not for purchase nor to play, yes they were pay to win but in theory i could play them for free as much as i want. This one is asking 100$ rn and after release it wants a monthly subscription fee.
I do understand that this game is in full development, but given this is the first experience players get after they paid a 3 digit sum and then be asked "haha yea be patient" is... well its rough, its really hard to swallow that pill.
If anyone here reads this that is unsure if its a good time to get into the Alpha now or later, my answer is a 100% "later, MUCH later".
From what i heard the games goal is to release somewhere 2027-2028 and i think thats a very optimistic target they set for themselves, if this is the state after 8 years, then i wouldn't release this game pre 2030.
1
Comments
To be fair, the people that act like it's so close to release are the people like those in this thread who are expecting the game to be a lot further along than it is.
We potentially have years left of Phase 3, and then have to get through (maybe a possible Alpha 3?) Betas, yet.
Steven was a bit too optimistic about the time it may take in the very beginning but to have started a company from scratch and having such grand ambitions for AOC i think they have gotten far and are on a good pace right now.
Im enjoying the hell out of AOC atm. Having a blast figuring out the game slowly and playing around with new stuff that gets implemented, reporting some bugs and giving my opinions on stuff. That is the point of this project atm, why dont you take a rethink about what this is and see if you may enjoy it more if you come from a different mindset. If not then you are very welcome to join in again when its further along, wich it will be.
Even tho my criticism or feedback was rather badly worded, it is meant to make this game better.
From the Trailers and such it looked like the world would feel a lot more alive and logical, which having then expierenced myself was obviously quite a bit of a reality check.
I wasn't expecting the most fleshed out, most perfect World ever. But i surely was hoping for more than what it has to offer right now.
Which, in all seriousness, feels like someone just took some (very good looking) Assets from the Unreal store and placed them around in the World with little to no intent to flesh it out further.
I am happy to give this game another chance in the future, but for now i applied for a refund and hope that this game truly becomes as good as it could potentially be.
Also one last bit of feedback, having to press E the entire time to attack an enemy is awful. If you guys want to copy the Guild Wars 2 idea of having a rotating stage base attack, then go all the way and make that one cycle automatically through if no other button is pressed, it feels a lot more fluid and lets be real here, pressing the same button over and over doesn't make it more engaging or hardcore, it just becomes tedious.
Check your Game Settings. There should be one where you simply toggle the Auto-Attacks, and it does it for you.
Alpha = adding features
Beta = tuning/debug features
But it seems they are fine tuning (or attempting to) in alpha before all the features are in. Then when additional unplanned features are tossed in (packs) and planned features are added, the tuning and debugging will be need to be done again. I wonder the lines of new code vs the lines of refactor code.
Thats a fair statement, but at the same time, if i pay 100$ to test (which lets be real is already idiotic enough of any of us), then the systems that are in the game should atleast be semi fun. Which they aren't, atleast not to me.
And again, i don't want to bash the game, i hope this becomes the next major hit, but REALLY don't add features for the sake of features. Add them because they make sense, and are fun.
Complexity for the sake of Complexity makes things worse.
But from what i read and learned, and there is no one to blame but myself for, is that i also got the wrong idea of the game. I thougt this is a Sandbox PvEvP game, but apparently its focus lies HEAVILY on PvP and PvE is more of a side thing rather than an actual pillar of the game.
Which if we are real will be the downfall of this game. The first couple of months when things are new and fun and exciting and mega guilds/groups haven't formed yet will be amazing. But after that it will end like literally every other PvP focused Sandbox game out there.
You will have 1 or 2 Groups that entirely dominate the world, and either you follow their rules or are 24/7 killed. If you follow their rules that usually means the game will then turn into a 2nd job, you aren't allowed to play anymore, you will have to gather ressources to meet your daily quota.
And every single time players said "Thats not gonna happen, the devs have this and that idea to counteract that" and still it happened. Every. Single. Time.
Nah, that's just the wrong people chatting away. I've been testing since November, and I've barely done any PvP whatsoever.
While this is very true, it is worth pointing out that the more involved you get in the game with it's current design intention, the more important PvP becomes.
You can be essentially a nobody (no offense) and no one will notice or care about you. Or you can attempt to be good at the game, be in a good guild, have good gear, actually progress - in which case you are putting yourself in the cross hairs of everyone not in your guild that also wants those things (and a handful of people IN your guild that want those things).
But then, that is the nature of every MMORPG with open world PvP.