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, because sometimes we need to be clear on what Steven himself means, to give feedback on something (or avoid a long argument with someone who disagrees with the feedback given).
But sometimes 'the thing we are talking about' has a really specific definition that would just use too many words every time, and we can probably at least shorten those to the same 'shortened forms' as Steven uses, when he provides them.
I don't wanna write 'The PvP that Corruption is a factor in protecting a player from' every time.
Cool, so call the game a PvP game.
You may recall that this has been a point I have been making for over a year now.
But Dygz ... ... ...
You want to feel the fresh Air ... ... ... ... the different Seasons ... ... ... ... the People squalling in a global Area Chat how their Caravans are permanently sacked by the same People they ask others for Months to help them defend their Caravans against ... ... ... (hihihihihihih
You want to see People trying to recruit People of specific Races for Nodes as Citizens so their Nodes finally have a mostly Dünir, Kaelar, Empyrean, Pyrai or whatever else Infrastructure-kind of Look ... ...
You want to see the eternal Drama as People more or less struggle to finally get the Result they want, while the Rivers freeze and thaw,
while the Sun shines or a breezy Storm rains upon You,
while a World Area Boss might come your way and you know your behind is getting stretched beyond it's normal Limits if you don't move out of the Way fast enough ... ...
What when your Friends you want to hang out with, try to use a stealthy Route for their Caravan but You Guys see Scouts of possible Caravan Ambushers on the Hills everywhere ?
Will You go through the Underground Roads of Mori- umm i mean Tulnar.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
wait, when did anybody say ashes is a pve game ?_?
Hopefully just someone having a HUUUUUUGE misunderstanding of the Game.
When was PvP always Fun even in the soul-less Husk that is WoW ? In the OPEN WORLD !!!
It was always a "Job" in a Battleground. Always. Always a Job.
In the Open World ? It was AWESOME aside from when someone is ganked without 1% Chance of resisting.
But usually, a Game which has everywhere the Chance for Open World PvP, has always the Chance and Opportunity for Fun things to happen. Not just Ganks.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
Ashes was more intriguing when it seemed it would be the only MMORPG to release between 2017 and 2020.
Now, there are plenty of other MMORPGs to play that are not as PvP-centric and obsessed with Risk v Reward as Ashes.
Ashes should be fun and interesting to test, though.
I get it. ^.^;"
But isn't it nice to have for some fresh Change also sometimes an MMO which can provide PvP everywhere in the open World ?
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
Just - I only like PvP for 1/8 of my play session. And abhor non-consensual PvP.
So I always end up moving to PvE-Only servers.
That's not fun for players who don't enjoy non-consensual PvP.
The original Ashes design did not have Corruption-free regions of the map - so everywhere, non-consensual PvP could be punished with Corruption.
Steven says that Ashes is not a PvP game; it is a PvX game.
But, to players who play MMORPGs on PvE servers, Ashes is a PvP game. And the PvX label is meaningless hype... at best.
Hence why i gets clarified again and again, that Ashes of Creation will not be a Game for everyone.
I like the Fact that you have no Problems to join it however if it is to hang out with your Friends.
Yet the Game and the - let's call it - "passive-aggressive Hype" (
I bet safely that many People who usually like only PvE-Games will give Ashes a fair Chance and turn if they can find Guilds which do some protecting for them and they are mostly gathering and doing PvE-Quests and so on.
It will be spicey whenever these People should however get confronted with a Siege onto their own Node, though. When everything they own there, might be on the Line.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
In the original design, Steven said there would be no Corruption-free areas of the map.
Adding in The Open Seas has the same effect on me that adding P2W or Lootboxes would have on Steven.
That change suddenly placed me in the "not made for everyone" camp.
I dunno what that was supposed to mean.
Guilds will have 0 effect on whether people who play MMORPGs on PvE servers tolerate non-consensual PvP.
Has nothing to do with having gamers provide "protection". That is a PvPer flawed perspective.
Sieges are not spicy. Sieges are scheduled well enough in advance. They are not random encounters. And you have to sign up to flag. So.. that's about as opt-in as can be.
Everything we own isn't lost in failed Sieges.
They didn't.
They say it is a PvX game - which means nothing.
If conflict is to be resolved through PvP, and if there is no scope for a player to attempt to resolve said conflict via PvE if the other player wishes it be resolved via PvP, then the game is a PvP game.
what if some conflicts are resolved through pve and some conflicts are resolved through pvp, and sometimes both...how would you call that game then?
If there was scope for a roughly equal proportion of conflicts to be resolved via each, I could get behind that being a PvX game.
The problem is, as long as PvP is a possible resolution method, it is the ultimate decider. Some conflicts not resorting to PvP does not mean PvP was not considered - it just means the player that would have won at PvP also won at the other conflict resolution method. If the player that lost that other method thought they would win at PvP, then PvP becomes the resolution method - thus the winner is almost always the one who would win in PvP even if PvP is not had
As a point that I find amusing - if Intrepid were to literally just turn off the ability for players to attack each other in Ashes at all, your definition of PvP would still see you having to consider Ashes a PvP game - as the basic open world nature of it means that there will always be competition between players for progression.
Essentially, your definition of PvP is completely removed from attacking other players - actual PvP as the bulk of us understand it simply isn't required in order for a game to meet your definition of PvP.
As I revisit this thread and parse through its pages, I'm reminded of this part of the OP from @chibibree
It makes me wonder what elements (perhaps game mechanics or systems) from that spectrum have you all enjoyed in other MMORPGs. Do you have examples of MMORPGs that have a spectrum of PvX? If so, what are your thoughts on them, and those relevant systems?
(And, yeah, I now place Ashes in the same category as EvE - which I won't play.)
The only thing that I have played that comes to mind as potentially a game with a spectrum of PvX would be Archeage.
The only reason one could even claim that there is PvX at all in that game (let alone a spectrum) is because the game had areas that were essentially PvP free - or at least where your faction couldn't be attacked without attacking first.
With Ashes, however, and it's open world PvP, caravan system, sieges, wars and naval PvP, the game has a spectrum of PvP, not a spectrum of PvX.
Eve Online probably. They have hi-sec, lo-sec and nul-sec each with different consequences for PvP, but nowhere is 100% safe except inside stations. Other than that, their PvX is also very much along the lines of "PvE builds the world (universe) and PvP changes it".
An oft quoted saying from Eve - "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose" - is probably also going to be something we end up seeing in Ashes: "Don't carry what you can't afford to lose", be it inventory or caravans. Even in what you think is a fairly safe area.
Elite is just EVE-lite, for people who want to play 'a ship fighter game with Nodes but not as rough'.
Elite is hard to top in terms of matching the PvX that I personally think Ashes should espouse (and even it doesn't do that since you don't have to play in Open mode). But as long as Steven 'wants there to be risk' and ties it to something non-political most times, we're just gonna hit the Fantasy MMO problem, so I doubt there's anything useful that can be gleaned from Elite's well-tuned position on the PvX spectrum.
With passive-aggressive Hype, i mean that since Middle to Late 2023 -> Players have been more and more talking about Ashes of Creation,
since what i think is the Moment at late September when Sir Steven announced the Alpha Two for 2024.
Then there was HYPE for a while.
Then - the Hype ebbed down again, to some Extent.
But all overall -> the Hype didn't "vanish" completely again.
Why ?
Easy. It's the fact that the People KNOW now about Alpha Two coming. It's not like it was after Alpha 1 and then Years of relative Silence.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
Part of this was a shift in audience demographic, though.
For those who trust me, I have the stats, both from here and from other places.
I don't suggest trusting me if you don't know my methodologies, ofc, but ye who do, it's a 'successful shift to the WoW player demographic' contributing here, combined with the general content creator backlash to TL.
By "meaningless hype" I meant it's just a term Steven uses to try to obfuscate that Ashes is a PvP-centric MMORPG - so he can try to entice players from EQ/EQ2/WoW who play on PvE servers to try playing Ashes.
I like cases where by chance 2 teams willing to defeat an ow boss, start using that boss against each-other, as it would agro whoever is closer. But this is more fun when players which die also lose something and cannot rejoin the fight fast. In AoC, players with empty inventory drop nothing. Their only loss at max level is gear durability?
If this case is too PvP then we can imagine other similar cases, where the boss would block a passage, would maintain agro on one team and the other which normally would also want to defeat it, will instead heal it, and keep doing other stuff on their side. Each side is fully aware that a direct fight may happen but they interact with NPCs only.
Another case could be where the passage is longer, two teams advance in the same direction but there are more mobs between and around them. As above, both teams may be aware of each-other and both try to clear their path, one to escape the other to engage in direct combat. Can also be that the team coming from behind is not aware of the team deeper in the passage. For one team the experience is PvE, for the other is PvX as it fights only with NPCs but considers other player's actions, trying to remain undetected.
Finally there could be a case where two teams fighting each other are being unexpectedly attacked by two bosses. If they want to survive, each must take one mob and deal with it. If the fight takes some time, each might decide to pull their own mob further away from the other team. As the distance grows, the chance of PvP decreases. Each can decide if there is a sudden switch from PvP to PvE or a gradual transition through PvX. I feel it as a gradual transition. The assumption is that each team gets information about the position of the other team even when the distance is quite large.
You still get xp debt at max level, which also gives you stat dampening. I think Steven said around 20% dampening at 100% debt.
With that said, gear durability might sting in this game too, what with the material cost for repairs, and even finding a crafter able to do it.
How is this a spectrum of PvX as opposed to just a spectrum of PvP?
Because all the mining, ratting, running wormholes, etc. is the required PvE to build stuff in the universe. So both PvE and PvP in the same space. Funnily enough, nul-sec can be the safest areas to PvE in. If Eve Online was a PvP game, it would be vastly different. I know you have your own personal definition of what a PvP MMO is, but that doesn't make it true
I was about to ask which is safer, nul sec or low sec and send Dygz into the deep ocean.
pvp centric yet players are going to spend 95% of their play session doing pve or socializing. funny how that works.
Yeah, but the PvE isn't on a spectrum, just the PvP.
Can't really call that a PvX spectrum imo.
As to my defining of what a PvP game or PvP MMORPG is - I maintain that my position is the only logical one.
A PvP game is anything akin to Planetside, Tarkov or Overwatch, where PvP is all there is.
As a definition, this doesn't work for MMORPG's, however, as the very game components that make an MMORPG would render any attempt at a PvP MMORPG either not fulfilling the requirements of a PvP game, or not fulfilling the requirements of an MMORPG.
thus, when speaking specifically about MMORPG's, the definition of what makes an MMORPG PvP or not needs to shift, and the only logical way to make this work is to compare all MMORPG's together, and consider those most reliant on PvP to be PvP MMORPG's, and those least reliant on it to not be.
The only other option is to say there are no PvP MMORPG's at all, and that is incredibly unhelpful in regards to discussion.
It is worth pointing out that even game publishers essentially agree with this. Albion - with all its economy, crafting and housing - advertised itself for at least a year as a PvP MMORPG. This makes any definition that would see Albion not considered a PvP MMORPG to be untrue.
Every other definition for PvP MMORPG's i have ever seen either exclude every MMORPG ever made, or include every MMORPG ever made.
Thus, the above definition is the only one that is in any way useful.
Edit to add; in regards to EVE specifically, I've mentioned it on these forums before, but I played it for a year and was not involved in PvP at all in that time.
Well, this is probably the premise causing the "disagreement?", because nothing I say would make sense if you hold that position on this point.
Yes obviously there is competition for resources, but its a matter of which resources are the most desired and how many players want it. There could be 2 different fishing spots, one with the best fish in the game and one without the best fish in the game, and even if you want the bad fish, corruption could disuade you from ganking players for those fish if it hurts your ability to eventually get the best fish from the other spot. It goes back to the optimization topic, but obviously there will be gankers who will attack just because, which I recognized already, but there should also be players deterred from doing this through corruption, based on this, meaning I don't agree with your point about:
"even if from the perspective of the player running the content there is always likely to be someone with a good reason."
Sometimes this will be true but I don't think it will be the norm (at least after alpha 2 ends)
Yea I get that, but thats fine because the actual level is less relevant to the "progression" in terms of what I am talking about in this conversation. I just meant all the content that isn't "the most contested" because the contested content is what would draw players away from the less contested content, which is the content we were discussing in terms of corruption's relevancy. This could be content that is less risk/reward than the best stuff in the game, even if you are at max level it could still provide gameplay for players who want to engage with it, even if its not the best stuff (Which again relies on agreeing on the first point). So, yes content throughout the "progression paths" would be relevant and worth talking about in this context.
Again, this is fine per the fishing example, assuming that there are higher value and lower value resource locations.
Well this is just a discussion about micro-competitions and macro-competitions in my mind. Yes you will have high risk/reward content that overlaps the systems for challenge (macro-competition), but players should still be given the option to engage with less sought after content (per the fishing example) which in that case would allow for corruption to be "more" relevant and create more of a micro-competition for those players that want to focus on "less" overlapping systems and thus "less" interruption.
Which again, goes back to my original post about providing this additional content for different groups of players.
Azherae made a good thread about this regarding macro-competitions and micro-competitions (basically that spectrum of pvx systems).