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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Cosmetic Packs
daveywavey
Member, Alpha Two
There seems to have been a gradual shift from the older classy awesome packs to the newer garish more wacky packs.
Is there any chance we can go back to the previous designers who gave us more of a high fantasy feel without having to go overboard on the wacky creature-mishmashes and the outlandish colourings?
If you take a look at the packs over the years, you can see the shift from classy and sleek to the newer weird and obscure: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Pre-order_pack_history
Is there any chance we can go back to the previous designers who gave us more of a high fantasy feel without having to go overboard on the wacky creature-mishmashes and the outlandish colourings?
If you take a look at the packs over the years, you can see the shift from classy and sleek to the newer weird and obscure: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Pre-order_pack_history
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Comments
When I wrote the world, I first obviously had to lay a foundation which had a natural tendency of being more epic, hold greater, partially sinister truths. These events fundamentally shaped the world in which the campaigns take place. As such things surrounding the fundation blocks of the world also had a more serious and epic theme to them. Elements added later, especially characters and factions can be blissfully ignorant of all these things around them and by the nature of that ignorance look whacky and comicly out of place at times.
What I am saying is: Designs becoming less serious is - to a certain degree - natural, if only to not overload on the heavy mooded content of the game/campaign/story. Of course, that doesn't need to be the case, there was a discussion recently of Ashes maybe going more towards a "grim dark" theme, which also works for games like Dark Souls most prominently.
With that being said: Thumbing through the pack list - thanks fpor providing the link - the packs certainly seem a bit more basic and partly more gimmicky (cute tiny pets, I'm talking to you) but for now I'd say it's not too much - i purchased mine during April/May. I could understand if that is an intentional change to reward early supporters with more epic skins. If that were the case however, I would appreciate to know by Intrepid telling us.
That's fine in a scenario where all the previous designs are still available, but when they're all off-the-table and can't be purchased, any new players coming in only get the joke nonsense, and have to look back at all the amazing designs they've missed out on. *cries at the far far away velociraptor mount*
There are quite a lot of players in my guild who want to buy a pack, but because they've come in during the 'wacky phase', the designs haven't been right. And, it's a shame, cos some of the designs are great but are let down by the weird colours, and others that have the right colours are let down by just being odd.
At least 30 in my group. 31 with you too
I want a flying/gliding spider mount.
But bringing it back to the original point: I agree there is a decline in exciting skins, but I am optimistic that this more due to them currently working on more standard assets of the world, rather than the time for cool skins being over. And another aspect to consider might be that they do not want the bad press to continue that they are just producing fancy skins while not working on the game in which to wear them. So toning it down for a while might actually be a PR move in a sense as well.
With that being said: Will skins already be applicable during the A2? I'd hope so to see how good or bad the "armor type indication through icons" actually will work. This is one of my biggest worries for PvP after all
Well, we've seen the Intrepid Staff wearing some of the cosmetics during the livestream videos, so presumably the code for it is already present.
With that said, as Steven announced during the last livestream, we will be making some changes to how pre-order packs and cosmetic packs are delivered in the future
Was Stuffertons designed with this in mind?
What about the firework troll from 2019?
My assumption with both is that they were designed as concept art before the direction of the game world itself had a solid direction. However, I would add that the existence of these two cosmetics kind of point towards there having always been a somewhat wacky side to the cosmetics.
just dont take away being able to get access to alpha 2 with a pack without letting people know this is last chance and so on :P a bunch of people waiting for a pack they like before they buy into A2 access and will feel pretty bad if they missed out without knowing it there last chance expecting another pack will come out next month only to be blind sided
The issue with this approach is that if Intrepid would adhere to it, it would mean or suggest everyone would have to have "equal access to possible content".
- We would need to bring in fast travel because traveling time is not "fair" to people who structured their lives more around the real world, leaving them with 2 hours to game each day or lets say just weekends.
- We would need to make dungeon access (more) persistent because it could be seen as "unfair" that a Node falling would lock the dungeon and its possibly unique loot.
- We would need to reduce the price of the game in total because it could be seen as "not fair" that some people might not have 15$ every month to afford the game.
- We would need to reduce the visual standard of the game because there might be people who cannot afford the type of PC that is required to run Ashes smoothly.
- What about full disclosure of all skills archetypes and classes will have? It is unfair that I have to pick blindly and not be able to know beforehand whether I have fun playing this archetype or class and my time is limited.
- And we had someone demand an arachnophobia mode that changes the models of all archnid type mobs for something else, but the loss of seeing the proper animations that indicate which move the spider will make next was conveniently forgotten.
Suffice to say:
There has to be a clearly established guideline of how the company and the game will be run, which cannot be changed on a whim but only by - to the companys decision makers - significant data points. And I suspect that for now there is no significant reason for Intrepid to end their cosmetic package program.
And lastly I'll might add this: Since these are assets in the world, I think a few (not all) might become available as faction rewards.
The problem with fence sitting is sometimes you get the post in your ass.
This leap in logic is literally insane. How you can go from "Well gee, maybe let's not release never again obtainable content each month before release for a premium price" to "Ashes will give up it's core ideas, gameplay mechanics, and be designed to run on an Commodore 64" is beyond mine, and hopefully anyones understanding.
Yep.
Pretty easy to tell which kids watched the stream and which kids didn't watch the stream.
Well, then let's make it easy for those that have limited search or comprehension problems. You got about 3 months. This Nikua pack was one, you probably got two more. Or possibly 3. Since they will give you "ample time, ahead of time."
??????? Wow. This is the way life works. Should car manufacturers stop selling cars because some might feel bad that they can't afford the nice car that other people have? We can all just ride horses. Oh wait, some people won't be able to afford a horse, so everyone needs to walk. But no shoes, because we don't want the people who can't afford shoes to feel bad.
You could say this about anything. And think about the implications of a society where people don't develop new and better stuff b/c we don't want to hurt the feelings of people who can't afford it. Or where people don't work hard to obtain the new and better stuff.
It's unfortunate that this is beyond your understanding.
Yeah yeah, smug posting when you're literally slipping down the very same slope as the guy I responded to. Actually hilarious.
@Vaknar could you clarify what is going on with pre-order packages please? There is a meaningful difference between "making some changes to how pre-order packs and cosmetic packs are delivered" as you said, and @StevenSharif's comment which was "we will be discontinuing our pre-order packs".
Steven addressed something like this with the crossbow skins they sold way back (there's no longer plans for crossbows in the game). They'll give you in-game currency to buy a different skin if they decide not to implement the one you purchased.
Art style of pre-order packs have been quite consistent throughout since 2017.
"Weird, obscure, wacky" seemed like the less offensive words I could have used. I've seen a lot of stronger words used across various discord servers...
This has no connection to Stuffertons at all. Stuffertons is a mount skin, so unless they take all mounts out of the game...
Vaknar said that cosmetics are being designed with the games development in question, I asked if that went as far back as Stuffertons.
Sorry, I don't think my intention came out clear. You mentioned Stuffertons being concept art. I was simply saying that they may scrap some of their initial cosmetics if they no longer fit the design of the game today, and they have precedent for doing so.
I didnt mention Stuffertons as being concept art, I asked if it was designed with the idea of being used as a part of the game world.
Good job with this upcoming pack. Much better.