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.
Sitting here waiting for my Ashes of Creation installation to finish and....
r4venl0rd
Member, Alpha Two
And while i am waiting, I decided to surf around youtube Ashes content and this recomended video showed up..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gZEH0Z9--g[url="http://"][/url]
And it just hit me like a sledge hammer, in the chest. This is the first MMO in a long time i am actually feeling the same happieness in my body and stomach about as i did waiting at that screen (in the video) so many years ago. And i might ad, Firs time i watched that screen i was 15 years old, Now i am a 45+ year old man.
The feeling that i am about to take part in a huge journey with other true old school MMO players , made by someone that grew up understanding what a true old-school MMO actually is and that i will experience an MMO that for once actually take the name MMO (MULTI MASSIVE ONLINE) name seriously.
What i mean with that: A player driven experience, Not a themepark nor a "story driven" First to the finish experience so i can call myself the best/first on the server But a true "world" where every step you take can create a new experience in the world
I have so many good memories from L2. Guilds holding certain farm areas, Just for other guild people to group up and fight said guild off, starting a massive guild war, But then it turns out a third party smaller guild show up and pay gold to become ally with one of the two bigger ones and now its a 2vs1 guild fight.
That in turn create "political" guild problems in the game with said smaller guild now getting helped and making a name for themsleves that they had one of the bigger ones backing them up as soon as they need. And them beeing a "newbie" friendly guild that not just take in newbies but also help random new players out in the world (killing PK,.ers) now making the situation very dangerous for anyone with a PK mentality and not in a guild that could both defend itself and knew what they were heading into IF they tried to PK someone random.
With said PK.ers now themselves maybe grouping up, creating a guild, or joining one etc etc.. and suddenly you have this political (chat) drama out in the world where every area and everyone you encounter have this mentality that if i PK. It can lead to a bigger guild war that might give the whole guild a problem etc because now every guild allied or friends with anyone that is against PK,ers know who to turn / talk to and that will give the PK.ers a hard time, Everywhere, Even when not in PK mode.
(with that said: a lot of bigger guilds in L2 kicked PK.ers because they created drama between guilds no one wanted)
Or the multiple stories about how some dwarfs in Giran (biggest town in L2 for the ones who dont know) had lines of people waiting in front of them to buy mats etc or get the dwarf in question to create something for them because they had better % of crafting said sword without it breaking its so it was a real community around beeing a dwarf in game. Some dwarfs got famous for beeing just crafters etc selling their gear etc. Actually making a name for themselvs.
(i wil ldo this when i am 50/50 afk) you came across this open world cave and you saw lines of people standing in front of "buffers" that had their main goal that day to just stand there while beeing 50/50 afk and just buff ppl for gold before they headed into the cave (antharas) to get a slightly bigger chance to survive down there. There were almost no one trying to be "first" to anything in L2 IF you werent in a massive guild. You played the MMO like the MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game it was.
After all i have red and heard that people say this is a slower mmo, not a "thema-park ala WOW", Deep crafting system, Player made content, open flagging pvp (L2), Open world caves. I cant help to let those stories from my first L2 experience hit me right in the face and i cant wait to be a part of this alpha journey.
(here is a wish, that i know wont ever happen) But still, Please close down the Ashes Reddit. Its such a doomer place. No one there is actually happy and it dont feel anyone actually understand what kind of MMO ashes trying to be nor that its an ALPHA: People on that reddit seem to be playing ashes if its a full game already and spending thousand of hours in it complaining about every single thing. They want a theme park mmo, They want a "First to the final boss" type of game. It feels they dont want player driven MMO,s they want a themepark they can play solo in an MMO world from start to finish and maybe team up with people IF or WHEN they run into a mandatory raid boss that need to be completed to get to the next part of the "story".
L2 wasent a "theme-park" mmo. You got simple quests. Maybe a "shorter" story quest to get you out of the starter zone, But after that it was always smaller "borderline" zero story quests (ala wow) that took you on a huge journey.
It was more so that you took a quest (Farm this, farm that, deliver this, deliver that) and then headed out in the world with the goal to get YOUR CHARACTER better for the experience YOU were out after while keeping it in a controlled (idea) what you actually would actually be able to do as a solo player. (not to be the first to "reach the end goal of the game").
End content were for massive guilds. Hell, you could not even usually do the smallest of raid boss in L2 with a mid size guild if not EVERY SINGLE ONE of the guild had high tier gear from head to toe and that is with buffers/healers/tanks/rangers etc.
And to get to that point took a long time, Sometimes multiple month. Because farm areas were taken over by diff guilds so you had to fight for every area to farm, Caves where guild controlled so if you were in a guild that were in war, You better had a good group with you or talking in "PM" about a truth to not attack each-other etc or allied guilds following you in. There were so much player driven content in L2 that made it into the beloved MMO it was back then.
Everytime you headed out into the world you knew you were about to often get a whole new experience about what had happened in it sence the last time you were logged in. Guild drama, PK,drama, Open World Cave Drama. And you as a non guild player, never rly had to worry (if they were not PK ofc) but a lot of guilds never were PK, They were in fight with each-other. PK,ers were kicked and newbies could easily "hire" high lvl guild ppl to help them out if they were afraid of PK,ers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gZEH0Z9--g[url="http://"][/url]And it just hit me like a sledge hammer, in the chest. This is the first MMO in a long time i am actually feeling the same happieness in my body and stomach about as i did waiting at that screen (in the video) so many years ago. And i might ad, Firs time i watched that screen i was 15 years old, Now i am a 45+ year old man.
The feeling that i am about to take part in a huge journey with other true old school MMO players , made by someone that grew up understanding what a true old-school MMO actually is and that i will experience an MMO that for once actually take the name MMO (MULTI MASSIVE ONLINE) name seriously.
What i mean with that: A player driven experience, Not a themepark nor a "story driven" First to the finish experience so i can call myself the best/first on the server But a true "world" where every step you take can create a new experience in the world
I have so many good memories from L2. Guilds holding certain farm areas, Just for other guild people to group up and fight said guild off, starting a massive guild war, But then it turns out a third party smaller guild show up and pay gold to become ally with one of the two bigger ones and now its a 2vs1 guild fight.
That in turn create "political" guild problems in the game with said smaller guild now getting helped and making a name for themsleves that they had one of the bigger ones backing them up as soon as they need. And them beeing a "newbie" friendly guild that not just take in newbies but also help random new players out in the world (killing PK,.ers) now making the situation very dangerous for anyone with a PK mentality and not in a guild that could both defend itself and knew what they were heading into IF they tried to PK someone random.
With said PK.ers now themselves maybe grouping up, creating a guild, or joining one etc etc.. and suddenly you have this political (chat) drama out in the world where every area and everyone you encounter have this mentality that if i PK. It can lead to a bigger guild war that might give the whole guild a problem etc because now every guild allied or friends with anyone that is against PK,ers know who to turn / talk to and that will give the PK.ers a hard time, Everywhere, Even when not in PK mode.
(with that said: a lot of bigger guilds in L2 kicked PK.ers because they created drama between guilds no one wanted)
Or the multiple stories about how some dwarfs in Giran (biggest town in L2 for the ones who dont know) had lines of people waiting in front of them to buy mats etc or get the dwarf in question to create something for them because they had better % of crafting said sword without it breaking its so it was a real community around beeing a dwarf in game. Some dwarfs got famous for beeing just crafters etc selling their gear etc. Actually making a name for themselvs.
(i wil ldo this when i am 50/50 afk) you came across this open world cave and you saw lines of people standing in front of "buffers" that had their main goal that day to just stand there while beeing 50/50 afk and just buff ppl for gold before they headed into the cave (antharas) to get a slightly bigger chance to survive down there. There were almost no one trying to be "first" to anything in L2 IF you werent in a massive guild. You played the MMO like the MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game it was.
After all i have red and heard that people say this is a slower mmo, not a "thema-park ala WOW", Deep crafting system, Player made content, open flagging pvp (L2), Open world caves. I cant help to let those stories from my first L2 experience hit me right in the face and i cant wait to be a part of this alpha journey.
(here is a wish, that i know wont ever happen) But still, Please close down the Ashes Reddit. Its such a doomer place. No one there is actually happy and it dont feel anyone actually understand what kind of MMO ashes trying to be nor that its an ALPHA: People on that reddit seem to be playing ashes if its a full game already and spending thousand of hours in it complaining about every single thing. They want a theme park mmo, They want a "First to the final boss" type of game. It feels they dont want player driven MMO,s they want a themepark they can play solo in an MMO world from start to finish and maybe team up with people IF or WHEN they run into a mandatory raid boss that need to be completed to get to the next part of the "story".
L2 wasent a "theme-park" mmo. You got simple quests. Maybe a "shorter" story quest to get you out of the starter zone, But after that it was always smaller "borderline" zero story quests (ala wow) that took you on a huge journey.
It was more so that you took a quest (Farm this, farm that, deliver this, deliver that) and then headed out in the world with the goal to get YOUR CHARACTER better for the experience YOU were out after while keeping it in a controlled (idea) what you actually would actually be able to do as a solo player. (not to be the first to "reach the end goal of the game").
End content were for massive guilds. Hell, you could not even usually do the smallest of raid boss in L2 with a mid size guild if not EVERY SINGLE ONE of the guild had high tier gear from head to toe and that is with buffers/healers/tanks/rangers etc.
And to get to that point took a long time, Sometimes multiple month. Because farm areas were taken over by diff guilds so you had to fight for every area to farm, Caves where guild controlled so if you were in a guild that were in war, You better had a good group with you or talking in "PM" about a truth to not attack each-other etc or allied guilds following you in. There were so much player driven content in L2 that made it into the beloved MMO it was back then.
Everytime you headed out into the world you knew you were about to often get a whole new experience about what had happened in it sence the last time you were logged in. Guild drama, PK,drama, Open World Cave Drama. And you as a non guild player, never rly had to worry (if they were not PK ofc) but a lot of guilds never were PK, They were in fight with each-other. PK,ers were kicked and newbies could easily "hire" high lvl guild ppl to help them out if they were afraid of PK,ers.
1
Comments
If it was a song, it would be playing on the Oldies stations.
Might have miss said. I mean "How people played MMO,s" not the MMO game itself.
People played L2 /way different then anyone did and have ever done after WoW released. Every game after WoW have if not been, Then borderline been a theme park.
Here, follow this quest line from start to finish, When you have finished the final raid, Either wait for new content or move on to the next game and come back when an update is out. You have litteraly run through the game solo, teaming up with ppl in dungeons and in raids and otherwize MAYBE, SOMETIME play in party with someone just for the f** out of it or you know the person irl.
L2 had a "spirit" no other MMO have come close. Because again, It was a real: Player Driven Experience.
There were no theme-park, hand holding, "beeing first" on a server to take down a raid boss.
Your guild did it, Good for you guys. You are remembered on that (L2) server for about 1min. Then the prob is that its only you. Not your 1000x others in said guild having that sword and outside the raid cave is right now 200x other players running down towards your location from a rival guild you are at war with rdy to destroy your guild completely and the buffs you got from the raid boss.
And on top of that, Your guild taking that raid have litteraly pissed off 90% of the other guilds because now you have a dangerous buff that might impact them. So anyone in your guild out in the open now will have to be rdy for pvp. Farming or not.
WoW had not the same level of playerdriven experience as L2 had. It was an MMO for NON MMO players but that opened the eyes for what an MMO could be and was for a new generation of gamers that never rly knew what MMO was but knew what warcraft was. The people that grew up with Everqeust 1/l2(c1-C3) can prob say that WoW was a completely new kind of MMO for the more "casual" market.
Right now tho i am installing L2U (L2 in unreal engine 4) so i will have the best of two worlds.
Also just played this for a couple of hours now. Incredible experience. I hope Steven dont listen to the people that dont want this to become a hardcore MMO like L2 and stay with his idea of what he want.
(There for i also said: shut -down the reddit page (for now)
While I agree with your assertion that people used to play MMO's different, I would be more inclined to point a finger at the internet at large rather than any specific game. The internet i general blew up in the very early 2000's, and average users contributing content started to become a thing around this time (aka, wikis and such).
Players changing the way they play MMO's was - in my observation - a direct result of players having more information available to them, and games like WoW adapted to this.
The notion that players will change back to how they played MMO's back in the day seems fanciful to me. It just won't happen when players have that information available to them.
Ashes is intended to be a Themebox.
I prefer Themepark over Sandbox, but NMS feels like it's a pretty good Themebox right now.
Also as you said the player-driven political world was excellent. After starting MMOs with L2 I despise faction based games. It is so much easier to fight and pk people who actually did or said something to you in the game. Some people just deserve it. I don't see there being as much pvp in Ashes as was in L2 though, because of the simple fact that you drop some of your bag contents on death. In L2 you only had to risk your xp to pvp unless you were red and over the pk limit (this is after C3? when the bots and others were being relentlessly trained by Treasure Hunters/Bounty Hunters using 'fake death' to kill groups and loot their stuff).
Timed world bosses created competition and made guilds want to fight for the boss jewel drop chance. This led to clans changing/disbanding, merging and competing with the top guilds. At that point the game was mostly about leveling up, pvp and human interaction/relationship building.
It would be nice if they shut that toilet down and people had to have conversations in an environment with some integrity like this one.
If they did people would just spool up another reddit that is less influenced by the devs.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.