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.
Comments
I do find it interesting to see people realize for themselves what I first talked about several years ago.
The design of this game is objectively wrong. I can't think of a more direct way of stating the issues this game has than that.
I mean, creating a game for what you know to be a very niche audience, and then having servers with 10k concurrent players needed to make them feel not empty? These two things shouldn't exist in the same game, and this fact should be obvious to literally everyone when it is stated bluntly like this.
A large world and very limited fast travel? Same deal, shouldn't exist together. Even if there are valid reasons for each of these things existing, when it became apparant to Steven that the design of the game made it so that these two things had to co-exist, he should have gone back to the drawing board.
Sure, there are other issues with the game as it is today, but they can technically be fixed. Issues with aspects of the core design that are in direct opposition with each other though, they cant be fixed.
But at this point I'm just sitting in the boiling water and waiting for the inevitable end. Ribbit
Quote from Steven
“Even if you only have a short time to play, we want that time to feel meaningful. Whether you’re gathering, doing a quick dungeon, or helping your node progress, your contribution matters.” – Steven Sharif
“We know a lot of our players won’t have endless hours to play every day. I want to hear from you — what systems or features would help make Ashes feel rewarding for casual players too? Your feedback is really important as we shape this.” – Steven Sharif
Steven Sharif Interview – Golden Feather Tavern Podcast (Sept 12, 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/live/cAABK4_janM?si=xtx_YiTl1X6JmLey
Even the wiki talks about having paths of leveling that would be easier for casuals. This has been said since the start.
There are no "quick" open world dungeons. There are no "quick" PvP dungeons.
When time-limited people talk about logging on to do a quick dungoen, they are specifically talking about doing an instanced dungeon.
Ah yes, the big question from the GFT Podcast.
It's a question with a weird context, isn't it? It's a question where the game's design often disqualifies the answers. So while I have no doubt Steven wants a solution to this problem, either Steven or the design constraints have already eliminated most of them.
As the most basic illustration, if you wanted to make Throne and Liberty more like Ashes in terms of PvP scheming and planning for some reason, you'd limit Fast Travel to X times per day (let's say 3 per character, the game 'only allows 1 alt'), and possibly add more spots to teleport to.
Time-Casuals would almost always 'have enough to get content done'. Time-Hardcore would ofc complain, but their complaint wouldn't usually be 'valid', they don't need tons more Fast Travel. BDO basically didn't have it for really long (stopped studying it, don't know for certain, you'd just use Alts though).
What do we think happens if Ashes says 'we're going to let people Fast Travel Teleport to Embersprings 3 times per day'?
Even if it was 'one teleport charge builds every 8 hours, capping at 3', what do we think the response would be?
What Steven has said will be in Ashes for travel...
Basic Movement
- Walk / Run / Sprint
- Mounts (land-based)
- Climbing / Mantling
Public Transport
- AFK Carriage (uses your mount)
- Flight Paths (node upgrades)
- Airships (scientific cities)
- Taxi System (planned, player-driven)
Fast Travel
- Scientific Metropolis teleport
- Family Summon
- Node-to-node
Faster Travel
- Flying creatures
- Mount speed variants: top 200% speed so far
Design Note
- 75 min to cross continent on foot
- Movement tied to node progress
This is all on the official wiki
That seems accurate to what usually happens.
And therefore, nothing actually changes in terms of the perception.
A lot of the problem is solved with understanding what gameplay you have access to around your home base. If there was a dungeon near you that took 20 minutes to get too and 2 hours to raid you probably aren't doing that in a small time period. But if you knew a cave system 15 minutes away with appropriate rewards that also helped out your guild or node. For a short playtime you could go do that.
AOC is lacking a lot of variety and choice. As shown that everyone still gathers in the Riverlands. Does Steel Bloom or Carphen. Even still at least in P2 you saw a little bit of location awareness with players in the desert not wanting to take the time to go to the Turquois Sea for some events because of the distance. I think a lot of the burn out is because we have done the same thing 3-4 times. I stop
Ok sure, we can go the other way too.
"Ashes should have a considerably smaller world map so that players can travel faster to local PoI and dungeons for content and grouping."
Ah, so it's moreso:
"Ashes Developers should make sure that every Node has a high density of rewarding and interesting content for players of all types, who have limited time to play, to alleviate the problem of no Fast Travel and long travel times."
See, my issue is that I'm too realistic and I don't tend to rely on solutions that rely on Devs being able to do literal magic.
Given what we've seen so far and the constant complaints that they are not doing that magic well enough, I've started to doubt that they are actually magicians.
I think the huge ingame World is okay. It make the Distance between places actually feel like something. And gives travelling more meaning as such.
✓ 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".
Sure, it adds plenty of meaning.
It means that casual-time players don't get to do group content without a large amount of planning and schedule coordination. That's a massive amount of meaning.
Stevens words not mine, I listened to him say that list more then a few times! =-D You have to realize, some of us have been here since the kick starter
" Embrace the suck, Brother !! "
* runs to Cover * .
I feel similar. Travelling is not Fun at all in the Game currently, isn't it ? Especially for Solo Players. I am curious how Sir Steven and his mighty Crew will try to counter that all the Streets are always somehow blocked by Mobs or whole Mob Groups which will attack Players right away.
Because obviously People seem to prefer getting killed than to wait and ask a few Minutes for Assistance in the Chat Box. I know, right ? Social Efforts ? In an MMO ??? What's next ?? Next they demand from us that we form "GROUPS" and actually put Group Teamplay before our very own Ego and Mind, right ?
✓ 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".
Yep, I've learned that the easiest way to stop most of you from being negative is to be negative first so that you fall back to your tribal repetitions.
And since Intrepid Devs should know that I'm always on their side and never truly negative, I can use it as a reminder that y'all aren't either, you're just frustrated, but if a black dragon appears, to arms!
After all, the black dragon hasn't been here since Kickstarter.
In other news, what's up with Throne and Liberty gathering having three different colors of Rocks but only 1 line of materials you get from hitting them?
Well, Early Access.
Unimaginable, really.
What we need is someone who understands how to bring back Ye Olde Days of players working together, in a popular MMO, except niche, because technically that's nearly never really happened in a popular MMO.
A data scientist might try to tell you that it's because interdependence within challenges and progression in games isn't actually popular, but everyone knows that the real reason is because ARAM is just a better game mode for when people are drunk or high.
So I may be naive at times but the ability for each biome to have relatively enough distributed content for a variety of types of players isn't that far fetched. The map size of the Riverlands itself is about 2/3 the size of a WoW region and about the same size to New Worlds launch map size.
If Intrepid with that room doesn't have the ability to even slightly fill up the world with things to do for every player type. Especially including direct neighboring biome area's. Then it's not that they can't do magic, but that they can't make a proper engaging world.
references
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/306052
Around 500 people work on WoW to fill it out with content.
Ashes has around 200 people with 18 BIOMES the size of 1/2 WoW and entirety of NW. In other words, for Ashes to have even an approximate amount of content as either of those games - they'd need AT LEAST 100 people PER BIOME. Because if you're trying to upkeep the value of each biome through the updates - you'll need your devs to work in parallel rather than in subsequence.
This is what Azherae means when she says "magic". And this is also why Steven has already said that we will not have content parity between nodes. Intrepid do not have the manpower to uphold their own ambition. And game will 100% not be popular enough to give them the money that would allow them to match their ambition.
So what we'll end up with will be 1-2 great dungeons per 1-2 biomes (as we do right now) and maaaybe a few good pocket dungeons per biome. Everything else will just be peppered with some basic mobs and hopefully a shitton of minibosses/named mobs.
Oh, and that's just the pure mob side of things. I can't even imagine how fucking much work it would require to fill out alllll of that land with proper npcs, quests, stories, jumping puzzles, etc etc. 100 people per biome might be a real damn understatement (i.e. 500 WoW devs)
A reminder that we were talking about Fast Travel at the time, or at least, I was, maybe no one else was.
I've definitely played enough New World to tell you that New World's launch map absolutely does not have content for each player type within a 10 minute 'slow travel' radius most of the time, nor is it trying to handle things even close to the same way when it comes to that.
To me, that's the equivalent of why 'biomes are falling short' as you said.
Were you there in Alpha-1 before they turned off PvP? When you could be halfway down the road to get out of the Gateway area to attempt to do something else and get ganked and sent back for another 6 minute run to the same spot where your killer was probably still waiting?
Unfortunately you don't seem to be of the club of 'those who have been here since Kickstarter'...
Guild/party/alliance player-set respawn points (again, only working if another mate died within the ZOI) could be interesting, but I'd imagine they could have some crazy exploits related to them.
Still think we need the space but there does need to be local options available for more casual playtimes and is probably one of the biggest current issues we have.
Also though New World Content was pretty lacking in a lot of aspects I still feel the world was more filled in as I wondered about it then what event the Riverlands currently provides. The placement of different interactions and locations or POI's might have made the difference.
I don't know if I know how to explain this though, you'd have to have played games with much bigger maps maybe...
A game normally has about 2k Concurrent Users across the whole map at low pop times. Let's be generous and assume Ashes will reach 4k.
I'd say at least 800 of those people will be sitting in towns 'doing nothing but chatting'. Another 200 will be in their apartments. Ignoring them we get 3k people spread out over at least 30 'Settlements'. 1k per, max. If we even assume for a minute that only half of them are max level, and that the others are the 'casuals', then only 1500. 50 people per area.
50 Casuals out in the world in Joeva node...
I think I still can't manage to explain it without knowing the experience other people have, maybe Ashes will somehow provide that experience to others so they can decide the feeling on their own.
I just know that one could definitely feel the emptiness back in the day in pretty much every other game even if those games had 2k CCU, as soon as the game world got 'too big'. For PvE games this is almost, almost a good thing. Add a little Fast Travel and it's fine. But a game with 8 player parties that are intended to clash with each other?
I barely found opponents in open world in BDO on the most populated server and that's a matter of looking for just one person (I'm talking about actual grindspots other than the absolute top ones, not 'Tenno assassinating me on the road').
But they want to have 6 more 'Riverlands'.
Hard to compare two completed and dead games to a game in alpha. Fundamentally though if you don't like L2 you might not like Ashes. Is too early to tell. I don't know if I'm going to like the game.
If I only have an hour to play I don't normally play. I like to have 2 or 3 hours if not more. That's for basically any game though. I couldn't imagine being able to do anything meaningful in an mmo in 30 minutes. For that to be they'd have to make dungeons with instant joins and other new age instant reward mechanics. I don't think that's what ashes is trying to be. If they did I'd play it for a day or two like T&L, then uninstall.
Lineage was a great game with great following. So was AA. How do you blend those? I don't know, AA was quick, L2 slow progression. L2 wasn't causal friendly, AA was more so with it's quest hubs and exp rewards. I'd take L2 every time over AA, but adding in some AA to L2 would be nice, which is what they seem to be going for. It's just out of balance, buggy, and incomplete.
TL has 8 'player Hubs':
Kastleton, Vienta, Stonegard Castle (slightly diminished), Canina (intentionally(?) diminished relative to others), Herba Village, Outside Bercant Manor, Outside Crimson Manor, Purelight Tower.
Watcher's Post, Sanctuary Oasis and Starlight Observatory count as 'PvP Hub/respawn point at certain times', but should otherwise be counted as similar to Canina (they're just more obviously so).
If the next expansion's Region adds even 3 more, it's almost guaranteed that Stonegard Castle and Purelight Tower will be empty, and the two Manors will drop off rapidly (because they're just prep points for entering the dungeons)
If a design goal of the game was for players to see other players and feel anything by their presence, even just seeing them come and go, they would absolutely have to expand/rework the Dungeons near Watcher's Post, Sanctuary Oasis and Starlight Observatory (they can do at least 2 of these pretty trivially, that's not the point).
Not because 'they are lazy', not because 'they can't afford to create new zones', not because 'gathering together for party content is hard'.
It's because it is a PvX game and if you throw everyone at the cutting edge of content, you will end up doing exactly what Ashes promised to avoid (and imo I have just realized abandoned or utterly failed at?).
Once I leave Lionhold I don't go back. The next chance for a new player to meet me is when they manage to get to Joeva or if they happen to die somewhere in the vicinity of the guard camp I very occasionally pass near. There's no shared experience, no 'hey I've seen you around here and I like this space, maybe you and I would get along' for newbies.
It's just impersonal Guild Recruitment shouts in World Chat, Forum Threads, and Discord.
When we have four Gateways, I am not expecting this to be better. New players will be told by older players 'yeah just rush over here there's nothing worth doing back there', and that's if they are the type to ask.
I hope Intrepid knows that probably 50% of Casual players are not going to ask based on 'wanting to move forward to end content that the hardcores are focused on'. They meet in dungeons, outside of them, at fishing spots, at the O-range.
Maybe the game is not for them, so it's fine for it to be huge and driven primarily by people who are always pushing the envelope, or who already have groups, or who 'just want to be in a group and don't need the vibe of settling into one while they are low level'.
Maybe they will share their dataset relative to that. Mine's too small a sample to be useful.
Welp too bad for them. The World of Verra would be a bit boring if the whole "World" would look only like Riverlands. Even the Anvils which are a bit similar are different and Thanks GOOOOOOD and Sir Steven for that.
✓ 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 entire world looks the same with ai placed mobs, definitely not unique biomes