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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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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.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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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.
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...
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I mean just look at that rage post by Wizardry. Just going the f off. Because Ashes is in testing. lol. the hell?
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.
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Interesting...
But stick around, join some other forums. Make some posts!
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018