Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
yeah but you get those things in the game, by spending time doing things in the game, not by swiping.
So literally pay to win, if they are the "good" servers to be on.
There is not much to win when you have 48h head start without the primary game feature being active.
There is infinite difference between "not much" and "zero".
How is having 48h in an incomplete game with the primary feature for character and content progression deactivated anywhere close to a "win"?
I get the concern but only until one is looking at the available sources. What exactly are these people winning nobody else is having access to?
You obviously don't get "the concern". Maybe quit redefining P2W, and we can have a meaningful discussion about it.
This link may help you: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Head_start
I don't get "the concern" at all.
All you are really able to do on head start servers is explore the game world. Thing is, people will have already done that during beta.
3 definitions I found when looking for the term "Pay to win"
"the practice of buying in-game items that give a player a very big advantage over others."
"Pay-to-win, abbreviated as P2W, describes an aspect of a game where players are allowed to get an advantage with real-world currency to purchase in-game items. The pay-to-win structure is prevalent in both multiplayer online games through DLC (downloadable content) and mobile games through in-app purchases."
"P2W is used in gaming with the meaning "Pay to Win," to refer to games that allow players to purchase items or abilities (e.g., more powerful weapons, additional health points) that give them an advantage in the game, either over other players or NPCs (Non-Player Characters)"
No, I get why people would be concerned that having a bit more time before others would lead to a "very big advantage" which is why I went through the information available to see how profound the advantage for such players would be, how widely this advantage applies and what exactly "winning" in Ashes of Creation would mean anyways.
After doing that I couldn't find a conclusive definition of what "winning" meant for people in this game, especially since over just a few days the time advantage could be mitigated by anyone who plays more hours per day.
Secondly, the progress people could make is heavily limited by the Node System not being active during these 24-48h head start. And with the information available about what a Node's impact has on character progression this is a profound limiter.
Third, the number of head start servers is said to be around 3. If we take that number and compare it to just the Alpha 2 key sales of around 300k and assume that we have just as many Beta key sales we get about 600k players, meaning about 60 servers. So the percentage of affected servers is 5% to 10%. If we have 100 servers at launch it is 3% of affected servers - that seems easy enough to dodge.
And that all ignores that there is no RMT which is already being said to be heavily punished when discovered, which includes the item purchased in all the definitions.
So if those factors are not what you meant, then please enlighten me what it is you think people will gain that can be deemed a "very big advantage over others." and why the factors that I considered don't have any meaning for this.
So someone who plays any game in the first year, has paid to win, compared to someone who plays year 2, based on your logic.
This is quite simply a ridiculous take which you obviously haven't even thought about before typing.
actually its not even a close comparison, the difference is having empty servers to play on, let me give you an example how this is pay to win, i will use wow classic as a reference, keep in mind i know these are different games and these features will not be in AOC but its very possible that there are bosses/rares/features like this,
okay, you have 48 hours on an empty server before others join, by this stage you have played upwards of 18 months of alpha 1/2 and betas, you know the game like the back of your hand towards level 25, in wow classic if this was the case you could easily have 10+ attempts at the gurabashi arena trinket, a chest that spawns on a 3 hour time frame in a higher level zone, the reason this trinket is so hard to get is because the server population almost prevents it as its always contested by upwards of 30+ players, another example, the Tidal charm in wow classic, an extremley over powered item that drops off a rare elite ( Prince Nazjak ) the reason this is so hard to get is because again the population of the server prevents it as everyone wants it and this boss is on a 12 hour spawn cycle, now you would have 4-5 attempts at getting this extremley rare trinket before the rest of the server even starts, another example is leatherworking, there are mobs in wow classic called devilsaurs that can be skinned for leather, the reason its so rare is because there are only 2-3 of these mobs on a long spawn timer that is best in slot for crafting for the entire server for alot of the early game, imagine having a 2 day headstart and having 48 hours longer to farm these mats than the rest of the server.. im using these examples because i know this game well obviously they are different games but im sure you can find other examples on other games, it is pure pay to win reguardless how you want to spin it
now i would like to say i am not complaining about people getting a head start that is not what this post is about the thing that i was making a point about is the fact that this game is extremely against PTW features and advertised as such whilst having this pay to win feature bluntly in the game, it is contradictory and that is the reason for my post, im sure other people can add to this with examples from other games how a 48 hour headstart would benefit you in huge ways but as for my self i dont know enough games to give examples, i obviously did think about this post before i made it but each to their own
The only "p2w" here is that some people will just have higher lvls at release. But literally after the first 24h there'll be people who outlevel the headstarters. Mainly because nodes will shoot up in lvls and those new players will have better exping spots. But also because quite a lot of people love to go super hardcore on release, so they'll utilize those farming spots.
Now obviously there'll be headstarters that manage to go insane on both the pre- and main releases, but no one would be able to outpace those beasts even if there wasn't a headstart on the server.
In other words, it's always unfair to someone, so we might as well call "living in your moms basement" a p2w mechanic. But by that measure, I'm probably the p2wiest of anyone on this server.
the problem is most people are missing the point of this post, '' the only p2w here '' there should be 0 ptw on a game that is advertised as 0 ptw
You do have a point there. But that also kinda applies to anything else. The headstarters could just grind lowbie mobs for 48h and then use all that money to buy the houses.
I think this could be kinda prevented by making the T3 node a bit harder to achieve, so that people have more time to gain some money before that. And that money gain would be higher than the headstart one, cause it would come from higher lvl mobs.
Though again, hardcore players would win out either way, so ultimately the headstart wouldn't matter.
mas o menos
I'm also going to mention a lot of people are already in guilds. I have a few kickstarters in my guild but they are probably just going to restart on launch. Otherwise they have to find a new guild.
a casual with head start server only plays 5-6 hours. Meanwhile there is a sweaty who will be gaming 48 hour non stop and out farm, out XP, out level the head start person.
"Let me put down 500$ in this Kickstarter project so that a decade later I can get 48h of head start with the main feature of the game deactivated." Sorry... if that's P2W then buying assets to have a passive income which increases possible free time that one uses to play, building a good PC or having good internet connection to reduce lag is also P2W.
There is better critic to bring forth regarding the whole project than this.
Who wants to log into such servers after 2 days?
We touched on that previously, there are only 19k people with a head start of 24 or 48h in total, there will be only around 3 servers where they can start ahead of time and during the head start the Node system is turned off so there is not much to gain from it really
I agree that paying for a headstart in a new mmorpg launch is p2w but after steven said there will be specific headstart servers and then launch servers it doesn't matter anymore
Lets take your wow example:
If you open up wow classic on launch day and see 3 servers with paid headstart for some and think, oh they already got the gurubashi trinket or the trinket from Nazjak then, just a small tip, choose one of the other 50 servers where everyone will start at the same time.
The headstart is basically just servers for those early backers, i would never go on one of them. But thats just my view on it
I think that such servers will be half empty, because no one wants to play there, except for those who have early access. When the game comes out, everyone will want new servers.
That's right, the queue ... I completely forgot about the queue xD
for most people, even the slightest advantage can turn out to be a terrible tragedy and not justice.