Ashes of Creation Alpha One Preview Impressions | MMORPG.com

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Ashes of Creation Alpha One Preview Impressions | MMORPG.com

Ashes of Creation recently held their Alpha One Preview event this past weekend. I had the chance to dive into this small slice of the upcoming MMORPG and came away with some surprised thoughts. What did I think of it? Read on, dear readers.

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Nanfoodle

Thanks for the share. This is a real Alpha so my expectations were low on how people would react. From the game play I saw. Its a real Alpha and we have years to wait for this game to be ready. See ya in 2023 peeps

Scot

Looks good, but then it has for some time, I would give it till 2024 myself, three years is still not a huge amount of time to start a beta and later launch. Fingers crossed till then.

Kyleran

Bunch o' optimists on this site, 2025 and beyond....

Good write up on the world, hoping to learn a bit more next time about some of the gameplay without all of the "placeholder" qualifications.

In many indie previews it's the game world itself which is all place holders (cough, cough Pantheon, CU, etc) but it is looking like Ashes has a solid start on this.

Dattelis

I'm in the 2025+ camp as well. Judging from some of the streams out there, this seemed more like an experiment to test assets and concepts, so it does seem like it will take some time for them to build a 'world' depending on the feedback they get from this and the month long beta thing.

Nanfoodle

Dattelis said:

I'm in the 2025+ camp as well. Judging from some of the streams out there, this seemed more like an experiment to test assets and concepts, so it does seem like it will take some time for them to build a 'world' depending on the feedback they get from this and the month long beta thing.

Could be, Steve has admitted himself they have only built one continent, they only have 4 of the 8 main classes in testing and of the 64 Sub classes, none are in testing. They have one raid being tested if I remember right and only a couple of dungeons. People need to set their expectations. The only positive that it may not take 3-4 years is the fact is their studio is not hurting for money. They hire just about any real talent they can get their hands on.  

Markn

2025 seems right from my experience in the game.

Kratier

my favorite streamer checked it out, he had to pay 500 dollars just to access the alpha, which is insane.

bng28

Kyleran said:

Bunch o' optimists on this site, 2025 and beyond....



Good write up on the world, hoping to learn a bit more next time about some of the gameplay without all of the "placeholder" qualifications.



In many indie previews it's the game world itself which is all place holders (cough, cough Pantheon, CU, etc) but it is looking like Ashes has a solid start on this.

Hopefully they dont spend so much time making the game look beautiful that they end up botching game mechanics. Looking at you eastern MMO market...

Good looking game only gets you so far, shrug.

Utinni

I don't know what to think about this game in the long run. The lead designer did an interview with a streamer (asmon) and went on about living worlds, political systems, DnD campaigns he wanted to recreate. Not sure if he knows that hes talking to the wrong audience for that or not. I get needing streamers for marketing but its really scary to think that such a cool vision will be derailed because of a few hundred thousand zoomer content locusts.  Stay the course please!

Iselin

Good write up Shank.

IDK why and it's always possible that I may be misguided, but I have always thought that Ashes development was a cut above most other crowdfunded MMO development.

CU... April 2013 KS. Pantheon... January 2014 KS. Ashes... May 2017 KS.

Just saying...

BrotherMaynard

Kyleran said:

Bunch o' optimists on this site, 2025 and beyond....

Good write up on the world, hoping to learn a bit more next time about some of the gameplay without all of the "placeholder" qualifications.

In many indie previews it's the game world itself which is all place holders (cough, cough Pantheon, CU, etc) but it is looking like Ashes has a solid start on this.

Personally, I wouldn't expect a true gameplay test for at least one more year. Don't get me wrong, AoC plays fine even in this state and the connection, network and overall performance are surprisingly good even at this early stage.

However, to me it is clear that the game world has been set up as a placeholder for the players to mess around in, so that the background systems can be tested. In some areas you see almost random placement of mobs, from level 2 to level 9 to level 3 to level 5, etc. They were just dumped there, without much thought.

Again, don't get me wrong - it's good that it's done this way, because the focus of the testing is elsewhere. Intrepid essentially built a small sandbox, randomly threw in a couple of toys and told the kids to have fun.

The purpose is really to see how their client and server codes behave when a couple of thousand players start their random playthroughs. What will happen when 1000 mages cast blink at the same time, how will their servers handle all the players from around the world in a single zone, how their game management tools are prepared for the hordes, etc etc. In one of the tests Intrepid discovered that the game performance deteriorated rapidly with time, so the longer the game was active, the worse the servers handled it. That's the kind of stuff they are trying to find out, not gameplay and such  - that will come later.

As a matter of fact, my understanding is that the build available for testing is not the development build. That as far as I know is separate (and more advanced). The test build is really just that - by now probably months old version of the game, while the designers, artists, content team, etc are peacefully working on the main development branch. There have been no major changes that I could see between the test releases - bugs and crashes affecting stability, performance or connectivity were fixed very fast and deployed frequently, sometimes several times per a 5-6 hour long session. But the rest of the test build was always the same.

I believe they are much farther along with their development build than what we see in the test. I would expect gameplay proper to start being tested in 2022, with at least one complete iteration on the combat and animations before that. A full release of the base game then in 2023; more content and zones to follow later on. That's my take on where this train currently is.

Xatsh

Cannot build those until the core systems are working.

Aka the actual server stability and such. Until recently the servers had to be hard reset every so often to prevent unplayable lag. Was just fixed before this last test.

They are simply not at that point yet. The nodes are getting xp, lvling up, and such. It is just bare bones atm.

Tokken

Thanks for the information! So exciting to see some real news!

elc8745

Very good and fair article. You're going to make some heads explode on this forum though.

elc8745

The node leveling/upgrade already works Nyctelios. Node wars aren't in yet, as well as about 90% of the content. It's in alpha. Not marketing alpha, true developmental alpha.

Vrika

BrotherMaynard said:

As a matter of fact, my understanding is that the build available for testing is not the development build. That as far as I know is separate (and more advanced). The test build is really just that - by now probably months old version of the game...

With larger teams the build available for testing is almost never the development build. They usually have one or more internal unstable builds where they do the development, and then a separate more stable build that's used for public testing.

That doesn't mean the build presented to public would be months old. At the start of test it can often be very recent. But you can't have your all your devs updating the public test build directly because that'd just constantly break it down.

blbeta

I too prefer open world exploration. I want to wander into areas that are too dangerous for me. I want to find a fort in the middle of nowhere that has a dungeon in it.

I am fine with quests, but prefer to find my own way and not he the perfect level for an area at all times.

This probably why I like ARK and games like it so much. More of just a living world to explore and adventure in. One friend that I had try it though must be more of a quester. He didn't like it because it wasn't serving up activities for him to do.

I hope AoC has a world withy of the explorer and adventurer play style.

Wizardry

Well i also enjoy exploring but i NEED a lot more than a screenshot,i need to be able to interact and do something with the world.

SO when i play Ark or Atlas i can find a really nice location and build on that location.So the world becomes a part of me and i can enjoy it even further.If all i could do is stare at it and then walk away that is simply NOT good enough,not anymore.

The idea of the non interactive WOWish designs needs to disappear as they are extremely outdated and boring.

OK so this game has the node town idea but i already stated why i am not a big fan of THAT ideas limitations and design.

I want to play a RPG with FREEDOM,be able to build stuff,sail the seas,see an ECO system in play with dangerous beasts feeding off the plant eaters etc etc.I want to feel some DANGER within the world and again NOT just a screenshot saver.

I also find it a bit perturbing that we need to constantly reinforce the EXCUSES with Alpha beta talk.What is the point of testing stability on something that is apparently only a PLACEHOLDER?
I mean geesus this sounds extremely dumbfounded like a complete waste of time.So then what put the REAL stuff in play then start the test all over again from ground zero?
So i call BS in that Steven and company seem to be "controlling"what is being said by content creators and media.So what did they tell you to MAKE SURE the readers knwo this is only a stability test?

goldboyy45

Man you guys should see the smile on my face right now. Where the heck is Mr. Slapshot? LOL, of course you won't see him here after that nice write up, my day has been made.

elc8745

lol yeah I don't expect to see Slapshot in here. Maybe he'll pop in to let us know the game isn't launched yet and it's still a scam. But that's going to get harder and harder to say as time goes on. Sooner you stop saying it, the less silly you'll look in the end.

I mean just look at that rage post by Wizardry. Just going the f off. Because Ashes is in testing. lol. the hell?

Shivreign

I read a lot and barely ever post. I do love scrolling for Wizardry posts though. He gives off the vibe of an angry old man on the porch with a shotgun scaring kids off his neatly manicured lawn. I can’t recall a time there was a net positive review of anything. Sure is entertaining to read though. I for one eagerly anticipate a finished Ashes. Steven even says himself, if you aren’t ready to invest in the development of the game, wait for final release.

elc8745

I joined in 2009. Shivreign in 2013. Goldboy in 2018. I'm not a smurf. You can click people's profile and see their join date.

Slapshot1188

goldboyy45 said:

Man you guys should see the smile on my face right now. Where the heck is Mr. Slapshot? LOL, of course you won't see him here after that nice write up, my day has been made.

I'm too busy playing Crowfall.  Haven't actually watched any of the videos.

Nice to know that you guys think of me cause I don't remember who you or the other guy are.  Just don't expect me to pay rent and it's all good.

Seems like there is plenty of time to dig in when the next test comes.  Think that's tomorrow if I remember right. We will see.  New World Beta next week.

It's actually quite a good month for MMORPG fans.  Been a while since we had multiple games to discuss.

elc8745

Even being a pvp minded mmo player, I tried Crowfall and hated almost everything about it. Glad you like it though. Excited for New World. But yeah it's good to see some decent Western mmo's coming out.

Slapshot1188

elc8745 said:

I joined in 2009. Shivreign in 2013. Goldboy in 2018. I'm not a smurf. You can click people's profile and see their join date.

Every single post you have made has been about Ashes of Creation...

Interesting...

But stick around, join some other forums.  Make some posts!