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.
Why did you stop to play an MMO you once loved?
Dripyula
Member
Easy format. Write the name of the MMO and explain why you cannot look at it anymore.
Which will hopefully lead to Ashes not adopting the same signs of what made you divorce your first great MMO love.
My first and only MMO that made me happy beyond compare was World of Warcraft.
Everything fell into place perfectly. Maybe because I did not had any reference before but everything just felt right.
Leveling was a bit too slow but I didn't care cause the gameworld was immersive and beautiful.
My character, a Paladin I leveled and played as Retributionpaladin, could stand his own in the openworld PvP and casuals were so many that no one bothered my lack of actual controllable dps in PvE instances.
During the 40 man raids during the end of Vanilla I had to specc holy of course since the DPS of a Retripala has always been an uncontrollable russianroullete and who has time for that when the healingcapacity of Palas in Vanilla was one of the most mana conserving in the entire game?
And with AQ40 gear, going to the Alteracvalley battleground was much more fun than going to Naxxramas.
Yes I crushed casuals and I do not regret it a tiny bit. I am a superior being and my character reflected that.
Why I quit playing WoW entirely.
Cause I just did everything I wanted and the game has become something that just cannot interest me anymore.
My last 7 months, 6 by halfyear subscription +1 with the WoW token, was during BfA. With the first 6 months starting and the other 1 month somewhere during the time this landscape had release where we went to Queen Ashzara's landscape.
I did not played Shadowlands.
I sure as hell do not plan to play Dragonflight.
And whatever comes afterwards.
Why?
Because I've unlocked every allied race I was still interested in and dripped them out quite nicely.
And because I can already see what I would do during all of the next expansions.
Grinding more "transmogs" (who cares about itemlevels really) for roleplay reasons... and never be done with it as usual.
You are never done with anything anymore.
The grinds are never ending and this makes WoW feel like a job.
I was once enjoying to be a PvP menace. Then I became a PvE'ler and a RP'ler.
But I never wanted to become a hamster in a wheel and farm stuff forever due to their lifetime disrespectingly low dropates.
And this is coming from me, who has his fair share of 1% drop mounts.
There is only one thing that could make me come back to WoW at this point and that is if I get every single transmog for free now that is in the game and have all new one's automatically unlocked the moment they are added to the game.
Why? Cuz I am a f°°°ing god and I should be treated like a King.
Not even joking these are my genuine feelings.
But I know this will never happen due to the nature of WoW being a grinding & farming game. ^_^
Which is okay of course. But I am someone who takes his lifetime very seriously and I just cannot respect it anymore to not be treated like a demigod at the very least, for having invested so much lifetime into the game already and still not be done with just about everything.
... so that I can focus on the true activities I would like to pursue in the current WoW.
Which are... standing around in random locations in the game world, dripped out and doing ROLEPLAY with likeminded individuals and having a good time.
WoW PvP is dogshit boring since BurningCrusade released the first time.
PvE -> just watch Asmongold, regarding raiding.
And do not even get me started on the storywriting.
A~nd this is why I quit WoW and am happy with it.
So whatever it is that Ashes of Creation will be doing and I hope it avoids.
+ Not too many 1% droprates that are also locked behind a +30 minute instance progression once every week
+ Timelimited stuff that makes people depressed forever for having missed out the timewindow in which it was available
+ Immortal healers in PvP due to damage for some reason laughably nerfed compared to general healing potential
This is all already.
If these three steps are followed I cannot see why I would become unhappy in the future AoC.
Thanks for reading.
Which will hopefully lead to Ashes not adopting the same signs of what made you divorce your first great MMO love.
My first and only MMO that made me happy beyond compare was World of Warcraft.
Everything fell into place perfectly. Maybe because I did not had any reference before but everything just felt right.
Leveling was a bit too slow but I didn't care cause the gameworld was immersive and beautiful.
My character, a Paladin I leveled and played as Retributionpaladin, could stand his own in the openworld PvP and casuals were so many that no one bothered my lack of actual controllable dps in PvE instances.
During the 40 man raids during the end of Vanilla I had to specc holy of course since the DPS of a Retripala has always been an uncontrollable russianroullete and who has time for that when the healingcapacity of Palas in Vanilla was one of the most mana conserving in the entire game?
And with AQ40 gear, going to the Alteracvalley battleground was much more fun than going to Naxxramas.
Yes I crushed casuals and I do not regret it a tiny bit. I am a superior being and my character reflected that.
Why I quit playing WoW entirely.
Cause I just did everything I wanted and the game has become something that just cannot interest me anymore.
My last 7 months, 6 by halfyear subscription +1 with the WoW token, was during BfA. With the first 6 months starting and the other 1 month somewhere during the time this landscape had release where we went to Queen Ashzara's landscape.
I did not played Shadowlands.
I sure as hell do not plan to play Dragonflight.
And whatever comes afterwards.
Why?
Because I've unlocked every allied race I was still interested in and dripped them out quite nicely.
And because I can already see what I would do during all of the next expansions.
Grinding more "transmogs" (who cares about itemlevels really) for roleplay reasons... and never be done with it as usual.
You are never done with anything anymore.
The grinds are never ending and this makes WoW feel like a job.
I was once enjoying to be a PvP menace. Then I became a PvE'ler and a RP'ler.
But I never wanted to become a hamster in a wheel and farm stuff forever due to their lifetime disrespectingly low dropates.
And this is coming from me, who has his fair share of 1% drop mounts.
There is only one thing that could make me come back to WoW at this point and that is if I get every single transmog for free now that is in the game and have all new one's automatically unlocked the moment they are added to the game.
Why? Cuz I am a f°°°ing god and I should be treated like a King.
Not even joking these are my genuine feelings.
But I know this will never happen due to the nature of WoW being a grinding & farming game. ^_^
Which is okay of course. But I am someone who takes his lifetime very seriously and I just cannot respect it anymore to not be treated like a demigod at the very least, for having invested so much lifetime into the game already and still not be done with just about everything.
... so that I can focus on the true activities I would like to pursue in the current WoW.
Which are... standing around in random locations in the game world, dripped out and doing ROLEPLAY with likeminded individuals and having a good time.
WoW PvP is dogshit boring since BurningCrusade released the first time.
PvE -> just watch Asmongold, regarding raiding.
And do not even get me started on the storywriting.
A~nd this is why I quit WoW and am happy with it.
So whatever it is that Ashes of Creation will be doing and I hope it avoids.
+ Not too many 1% droprates that are also locked behind a +30 minute instance progression once every week
+ Timelimited stuff that makes people depressed forever for having missed out the timewindow in which it was available
+ Immortal healers in PvP due to damage for some reason laughably nerfed compared to general healing potential
This is all already.
If these three steps are followed I cannot see why I would become unhappy in the future AoC.
Thanks for reading.
4
Comments
I dial back my time in MMOs I like when they start adding too many 'EasyMode' mechanics that force me to make my own challenge-fun, or when they shut down.
I don't think I ever left an MMO I actually liked, outright, before it closed down or had so few players that it became a single player game.
I've played a lot of MMOs I don't actually like, for 'study' purposes, though. I generally leave those when my 'studying' is over, or when slogging through their playloops to gather firsthand data is literally painful (BDO).
All the QoL stuff, obsessive class balancing (loss of identity) and general dumbing-down of the game killed retail for me, which also contributed to making the game far less social.
Classic saved it for me, but the constant server population issues; migrations, merges, faction imbalance etc slowly put me off.
Also, I've never enjoyed the economy side of things. Soulbound items make the economy feel v two-dimensional to me. Gather -> craft -> trade (once) -> vendor trash.
It always felt so artificial.
The economy was disappointing coming from Runescape, which says something.
Although I do -love- the combat; the pace, complexity, variety of playstyles etc. So this is my single biggest concern/hope for Ashes atm.
The game changed into something completely different. Played on private servers of older versions for years. And with time I got tired of replaying the same game over and over, considering that I had learned all of it several years prior (even got complimented on my knowledge several times
I played other games, like starwars galaxies and elite dangerous, but I have zero recollection of why I quit.
I am acutely aware of it, and yes, thanks
SWTOR always had an issue with content. Every major expansion the game would refresh the endgame with a new raid and made the old raids still relevant to do by scaling them up or keeping the loot the same. So in effect this made every year the same content cycle to do with an additional raid or dungeon in the pool to complete. This came to a head when the game started to slow down its development cycle. There came a time when I got the top gear on my main and quit for the expansion and only came back when friends wanted to game. For the next year and a half, I was the top gear of the game STILL and nothing updated or changed for me to keep playing. There was no reason to give my subscription, I was doing the same content I did for years with no additional content to keep me sated for a year and a half. Even now that the content and endgame is updated again, very little meaningful content is released for me to return to the game.
I try to play it again every now and again but I cant. The game does not offer enough content to merit 15$ a month. Not when the content has been the same endgame content I have played since 2016 and earlier with just a new gearing system and one additional dungeon and bad PVP map. And the worse part is every time I log in, I remember what was rather than what currently is. I cant play without seeing the ghosts around me, and I just cant play it anymore.
RALLY UNDER ONE BANNER AGAIN! PLEASE! FOR GODS SAKE! MAKE A FUCKING GOOD MMO BEFORE I DIE!
The game was great
Good class flavor
Good lore
Good world
Good community
Then developers seemed to lose sight of what makes the game good
Classes homogenize then e-sportify
Lore becomes bland if not cringe
Every expansion turns endgame into an island
Any resemblance of community is replaced with convenience including the ability to replace players in any group
Ha ha ha ha ha ha hah !!
As someone who plays WoW only " every Two Months " from like a 10th Day to a 15th Day, so i have about TWO WEEKS everytime to get my Points full for the Trading Post,
and then take from there would i would think would be nice for my Characters to have -> i am VEEERY excited to say the least, to see World of WoW-Token Craft FINALLY STRUGGLE when Ashes of Creation hits the Stage.
Of Course, the will-less Consumer-Junkies of WoW will keep WoW alive. But i still hope it loses quite a lot of Players. I loved the Game for a long time, but the Company Blizzard is truly such a vile Piece of you-know-what, that i would to see them sweating buckets about not having a mostly MONOPOLY of an addictive Game anymore.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
This is what I did in the first year of WoW's release and it felt right and only natural.
But it is true that it can get very lonely up there on that peak.
Too relatable.
I once had someone who still played World of Warcraft tell me.
" There is tons & tons of stuff to collect in the game. I bet you don't even have 20% of it! "
And he was right actually and then I told him
" There is tons & tons of stuff in the game I HAVE NO INTEREST IN. ", which is of course why most people stop playing a game.
Again too relatable, aaaargh, the pain.
This happened to me only in Vanilla content of course.
I cannot ever enter Molten Core, Blackwing Lair or Ahn'Qiraj, especially Ahn'Qiraj without at least 1/3 of me remembering the past constantly and missing the time when this was the frontier.
Now my characters can all solo this raid.
But there was something special with it to struggle a bit while doing it with others.
When not everyone had the previlige to make it through it.
I was so fascinated back then. Feeling that merely seeing every corner of the instance as a small previlige.
And the music! Uff, so good.
Totally delievered the feeling of being in an ancient, lost civilization bughumanoid empire that is mostly in ruins but still lurking with some residents left behind.
I did have said joy, but it quickly vanished. I was a mercenary healer for the later stage of me playing the game, I did all the raids, and at the time the gear for PVP and PVE was the same so I could do SWTOR's mythic raid equivalent and I wouldn't gain anything but achievements which I had no care for. I got too used to not having a challenge to heal in normal PVP and arenas were to sweaty for me to care for when the rewards got reskinned on the cosmetic shop in a few months.
The issue with SWTORs content was that I did do more than half the game. I did all the raids years ago on hardmode with my raiding guilds, I pushed my arena rating and broke PVP records on my server, I did all the story for every class. But you are correct, the content i had left which I didn't do I had no interest in either. Yea that remaining 80% of the game we don't have we could get... But not everyone finds enjoyment in fighting an old boss on 8 characters for a 0.2% of a mount that you wont use because the developers made better ones to sell on a store. I hope ashes doesn't run into this issue.
A: I've fallen in love with another MMO
Second biggest reason seems to be a lack of endgame.
This is an Answer i read quite often and i think we all can relate.
This is why i say once more - and again and again, if i must.
The - Moment - Ashes of Creation comes out - it's not unlikely a Goodbye to WoW, forever.
WoW grows and grows and grows - > but it never really gets any better.
It doesn't grow better. Only larger.
One of the VEEERY few Exceptions was - > when they introduced Dragonflying/riding, last Expansion.
But otherwise ... ... ? ... ...
One Grind after the other. One more Faction to grind oneself up at, after the Other. It never stops.
And the Droprates for Stuff You REALLY want, never gets any higher. The Thought that some People farm even TODAY Stuff weekly -> that came out like SEVEN. YEARS. AGO. - is absolutely mentally insane.
My Love for the Game didn't leave me. The Game - > left me.
And now it is no longer deserving of my Love. Now it is only just a Game.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
I've never fully quit WoW, but like many, I've played on and off over the years
So the longest game that I played was ESO. Very accessible PvP for solo, small group and zerg. I also weathered 2 separate guild collapses because a couple friends stuck with it too. The 12-man raids were not mandatory for good gearing, and they could be pugged on non-hardmode to get the set pieces you wanted. The large amount of mostly horizontal content (skill points, dungeon soloing, maelstrom arena, crafting, economy, etc) helped too. Gear was account-bound, which made alts another fun activity
World of Warcraft (WoW): Cataclysm and Legion expansions marked my downturn with WoW. Cataclysm altered the game too much for my liking, and Legion’s lack of PvP activities, coupled with repetitive battlegrounds, drained my enthusiasm.
Black Desert Online (BDO): BDO’s endless grind quickly became monotonous. Moreover, updates devalued items that took months to acquire, demoralizing when newcomers could obtain the same items within days.
Lost Ark: The obligation to complete daily quests without fail meant any real-life interruptions like business trips would irreversibly set you back compared to the server's population.
Archeage: The game introduced overly complicated gear and numerous potions, which were oddly usable in arenas. Eventually, all the equipment I had became worthless, diminishing my will to play.
Albion Online: While the game has its merits, the isometric perspective didn’t captivate me. A significant deterrent was the high-risk PvP gear system, where top gear could be lost, discouraging its use in PvP.
A common thread among these experiences is the disenchantment from practices that prioritize monetization over player skill, introduce game-altering updates without considering player investment, or impose tedious gameplay mechanics. As developers create AoC, I hope they take these reflections to heart. The essence of MMORPGs should revolve around skill, exploration, and community rather than grind, pay-to-win models, or punishing RNG mechanics. Here's to creating games that we won't want to leave.
I will never forgive NCSoft for what they did to L2
Aren't we all sinners?
" Bad Companies deserve that You remember them ~ hold onto your rightful grudges ... ... ... ... ... that You DON'T tolerate and wave through the intentional Decisions to ruin what made a Game fun - and insert shitty Alterations and Changes to satisfy their Greed ... ... ... "
... ... ... at last we will have Revenge ... ... "
I have way to much Fun creating Comments like this one. 😁 . 😂
So this is what Withdrawl from monthly Presentations do to you. =P Oh !! A new Presentation is out.
But honestly now,
i see so many relatable Comments and Statements in the last Days. I had such Experiences as well.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
2. Guild Wars 2-Lack of trinity system.Too much casual friendly decisions.
3. Archage-I dont really need to say why...
4. Neverwinter-p2w, lack of open world.
5. ESO-overall rigidity of the animation. Cyrodiil being its own thing, detached from other areas. Lack of dueling.
I agree it is funnier this way. 😁
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
No one ever truly quits WoW, they just take really long breaks 😂
The People who sold their Accounts to others for Prices up the four- or five-digits would differ. But i admit, most People who were once addicted to WoW, stay at WoW.
However,
you might want to observe curiously how many of those People will behave, once Ashes comes out. People who mostly cling only to this Corpse of what they once loved, only because of the Nostalgia.
Only because nothing comparable in a Fantasy-Universe is out. And Gods above and below spare me Everyone with Final Fantasy Fourteen and other MMO's with a somewhat completely different Vibe.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
What would you say to those who are clinging to the current iteration of WoW? Do you think we will be able to adjust to the Ashes play style and get along with it?