don't worry a few years after launch the hardcore raid community will complain that "stuff isn't streamlined enough" and then the game will go the route of WoW. Happens pretty much every time.
namcost, I think it would be great. They could make it so you could either choose to join a mercenary guild or you could be a wandering mercenary, not only would it be an epic concept, it would also be a logical and practical concept that fits in with the idea behind the story as well as the gameplay.
I just rode the hype train to Donation Ville - Early Alpha and lifetime subs :D BRING IT ON! _looks at clock_ _looks at calendar_ _twiddles thumbs_ rinse and repeat
So you want questions? I've got questions Get ready, they can get pretty hard : 1. What is your solution or solutions to a new player coming late into the game and discovering that the servers have turned into advanced civilization, all the good spots have been hogged by the first early birds, all the nodes are fully developed and the whole aspect of building civilisation from the ground up is impossible to explore and experience for that new player because they basically missed out on the early days of the servers? Do you regularly open new servers for people to enjoy the "global early game", do you do server resets, do you expand the game world within a server by opening up new land as the population grows? What are your solutions to make sure everyone gets to enjoy Ashes of Creation from what basically amounts to stone age all the way to high tech fantasy awesome sauce land? 2. You've hinted at the possibility that a highly advanced node might regress back to a primitive state due to conflict. While this could provide a solution to the first question, by making nodes sort of cyclical, or sliding on some sort of "civilisation scale", it implies that months and months of effort to build up a node into something a certain subset of players care about might be ruined by the intervention of others players. I am specifically concerned about the potential "GoonSwarm" phenomenon of awful shitheads banding together for the great of noble cause of making other people's lives miserable for the sake of being douche bags. Basically the second question is, how do you prevent large scale grief and abuse of the node system as I currently understand it? You have to account for the idea that humans can and will behave as horrible creatures born of malice, sins and the feces of Satan himself when the lack of real consequences cannot stop them. Say a player or group of player murder a bunch of key NPCs within a village, regressing the node back a stage or two. Or they attack the village and ruin it, or they do whatever they have to do to keep the node down. They do this consistently every time the local players trying to build the civilization level of the node up make any form of meaningful progress, a form of systemic harassment born from the reality that the harasser is a garbage human being who can only enjoy themselves by making other people suffer. Basically bullies. How do you successfully quell this behavior? In real life, we tend to imprison/execute such sociopaths, but obviously you can't go into the real life homes of griefers and shoot them in the head for the sake of virtual justice, so how do you counteract the problem? Do you ban the offender? Do you permanently kill their characters? Do you give them a "wanted" status and allow other players to kill them, sending the offending avatar in a form of limbo from which they can only arise again by having the player pay up a micro transaction "Asshole Tax" fee? Or do you just let assholes be assholes and allow complete anarchy to reign over the servers when the whole point of the game is trying to BUILD A CIVILISATION!? What restrictions are put in place to prevent a zerg of assholes from ruining everything? Or are you just that naive as to expect the good natured people will triumph over the assholes by the power of virtue and friendship? 3. When can we get an in depth look at combat and what is your vision for it? It is classic "tab targeting stuff" or more skill shot based? Monster Hunter-esque perhaps? How do you scale and balance combat around the idea that hundreds of people might be flinging spells and swords strikes at each other in an all out brawl? Again, going back to the Zerg idea, how do you prevent people from ganging up 20 vs 1 on an unfortunate sod, what incentives are there to spread the population out and balance the PvP encounters and most important of all, make them fun and have skillful players impact them meaningfully in an environment where numbers all too often trump individual prowess. Thinking of EVE here and how it freaking SUCKS to be simultaneously shot down by 50 ships at once because I happened to be running an expensive rig and basically being torn to shreds instantly. That's not exactly fun. If you've ever been on the receiving end of some fleet leader calling you out as a primary target, you know how that's like, and also how drone-like and uninvolved it is to be the guys dishing out the punishment. It doesn't take much skill to auto target a ship and send a single volley their way, only to witness it explode as your other 49 teammates did the same thing. EVE is more of a logistic game, how many people you can organize to show up for a battle, how well you can split their firepower, how quick you can reinforce the ongoing battle with fresh ships as everyone dies instantly in a half day long exchange. Its crazy and fun to watch from a distance perhaps, but I very much despise this style of warfare, where numbers and my leader's ability to organize the fight matter a 100 times more than my individual skill. We play games to feel important and awesome, not to be an entry on an excel spreadsheet. The more you MMO, the harder it gets to be more than a statistic. How do you rectify this problem? 4. Once you've established a base, assuming you retain a hardcore audience that keeps the game going with strong population on servers, once you've managed to fix all of the above issues I have and make the game genuinely fun by striking a balance between what the individual, the LG guilds and the organized troll syndicates can do and everyone is hypothetically happy and content with the game, what are the plans for the "endgame' and possible expansions? Do you expand the game geographically, by opening up new lands, quests, nodes and lore, or vertically by granting the civilisation progress bar new levels that could possibly err on the side of science fantasy? How do you expand from the basic, hypothetically successful structure of the game? 5. Can I get married and have NPC kids and can those kids grow up to be my next player avatars when mine retires from old age? Can I die from old age, a concept rarely explored in video games? Because a game like the one you're designing sounds like the perfect background to explore such a mechanic. 6. Will the game include a sub game like FF14's Triple Triad or something? Possibly a game that could complement the main one. I'm very fond of the idea of a MMO game where you kill monsters in the wild, collect their essence into a card, and build decks to fight other players in a Hearthstone type game. Its a cool idea because it circumvent the need for evil loot boxes while still allowing you a way to progress your decks. I also had ideas for a similar concept but instead of card fights we could have pokemon-like cock fights with levels and moves, the whole shebang. But maybe that's a concept for another game, or a later development of this one, once the main core gameplay is solid. Wouldn't want to strain the effort in too many directions at once. :D That should be enough hard questions for a whole Q&A. I do not envy the job of people trying to address all these concerns at once. This game sounds very much like the one I've been dreaming to build if circumstances would allow it. Unfortunately since I'm not a skillful expert game dev with proper financial backing, I'll have to leave it into your hands for now and hope you do a good job. Looking forward to your eventual release in 2020 I believe? Good luck!
Just registered on your website, please keep us updated! So far I really like your fan interaction and keeping it up and paying attention to it is super nice. The more a company does that in the gaming industry from what I've seen the better they can express their reasons for changes etc. loving the game concept so far
omg... i honestly cant wait for this to be in beta testing alpha testing. i hope i get an invite to test this amazing mmo, hoping for the best with you guys. best of luck.
This game has much potential. It's very small right now but it will become one of the biggest ever seen, after it's out of beta. It has so many things included from animes like log horizon or overlord where you can actually forge alliances,buy big cities and be someone important, a lot of classes etc. and the game seems to be really cool on paper. Looking forward to it.
I'm sorry for the length, but my questions needed a little bit of setup. A bit of insight to one of your possible customers. These aren't all of my questions, and without the ability to ask follow-up questions, this is what I have for now. I love MMO's, but I play solo. I often get asked, "Why would you play an MMO, if you play solo?" I enjoy elements in games like the ability to meet other people, and player driven economies. I like fishing, farming, gathering, crafting, trade-runs, selling, and making in game currency. Only MMO's can offer these elements of game-play. I also like building, but that's not usually a component for MMO's. I don't concern myself about grinding, questing, or even the combat. They are only the means to leveling to get to new areas for new materials. Although, the better the combat, the better the experience. I don't enjoy being forced to meet people, join a guild, form PuG's (Pick up Groups), or miss content because I prefer to be solo in a game. The thing that is the worst is having to do high level dungeons over and over where you need to be in a static group (A group that gets together at specified times) to be able to farm them. I cannot do static groups anymore. My schedule is too sporadic. Solo player concerns: 1 - Are there limitations on solo players? What are the advantages and disadvantages to playing solo? 2 - Is there a need to go into dungeons to get crafting materials? You can make materials rare to find without forcing dungeon crawling. 3 - In areas where the newness of a game wears off, and the need isn't as great anymore to supply new spawns for players what happens to those places in the game once overflowing with players? I have played MMO's where you need to ask for help to get to the next area because the spawn rate is too intense, and nobody is around. General concerns: 1 - Random Number Generating (RNG). Some games have made it so difficult to craft because the risk is far to great for the reward, and only the richest of people can afford the consequences. What is your intent for risk/reward? Broken items, lost level of items, lost materials, chance of success? 2 - Dungeon/Area scaling. As a gatherer, I like to be over-leveled for an area to farm materials. Will there be level scaling? 3 - Is farming only allowed in the openness of the world with limited space and first come, first serve basis? Is there anything limiting farming if I want to farm? Thank you for taking the time to read this and answer my questions. If you didn't get this far, then go (insert expletive here) yourself!!! 8-P
pls, play guild wars 2, or single player games. I beg you. Most of you guys don't belong in mmorpg games and you cry on forums, ask for nerfs, ask for everything to be easier, ask for anti-ganking protection etc. For the love of God, I beg you, if you can't handle playing with other people, don't play mmo
I don't recall asking for the input from an illiterate moron. Not only did you not read my post, but you became accusatory without provocation. Thank you for making my point about the amount of ass-hats in MMO's just by being one, and responding the way you did, and thanks for your dimwitted advice. You may now take leave and look up the big words.
oh I've read your comment very well. "I love MMO's, but I play solo"; "I don't enjoy being forced to meet people, join a guild, form PuG's (Pick up Groups), or miss content because I prefer to be solo in a game."; "I cannot do static groups anymore" - I ask you, what are you doing in a genre that isn't for you? Why can't you already understand it that all those people who are asking you "Why would you play an MMO, if you play solo?" are asking right? You don't belong in mmorpg, that's the truth. And the truth is also that your kind has plagued mmorpgs for far too long. Making them solo player experience
No, you didn't read my explanation why I play solo. This is the last I will respond to you, and I leave you with a quote from Mark Twain. "I don't argue with stupid people. They bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." Enjoy your day on your high-horse.
oh for sure, I've only read first sentence and didn't read rest. How you got all worked up for me telling you the truth you still don't want to accept. I throw quote back at you! ;)
Hey, just wanna give a few suggestions! 1st - Don't skim on the combat and get rid of the hive-techy animations. It will only ruin immersion. 2nd - Make the combat feel more impactful and smaller in scale (Look to Dark Souls). 3rd - look to the new zelda for the magical tools and interactive environment!
the reason this game will be so successful is because the lead of it is a vivid gamer, leading my current guild in Archeage. He knows what players want and what needs to be done to be successful
I love your guys's humor haha, fantastic for developers to be so open about issues before the game is out. I'm only a bit concerned about how the world will be changing so drastically, how aren't people gonna feel they missed out? Like, if a Metropolis is being destroyed, if I'm a citizen of it and I'm not online for the battle, will I simply log in the next day to find out everything I own is gone? It's not so terrible if it's easy to start over, but I'm curious how an ever changing world will work for an MMO. We'll just wait and see :)
I gotta say just about every MMO I've played has had predefined factions and gonna say I'm really intrigued with this whole "player-driven community/player-created faction" system. Certainly looking forward to this game and looking to bring my experience to the game when it comes to the communities.
So basically, from what I've seen thus far. Ashes of Creation will be a great sandbox game. The developers will give us the tool to play the game and we, the players, must play our part and create castle, friendship, stories together and make it long lasting and it will keep on going. I like it, I hope you guys will be able to execute this project. ArcheAge's vision was this, but it did a uturn after alpha.
Since, this will be a community driven game, hopefully, you guys can emphasize more on the economic side of things. We know economy shapes politics and, politics is the main drive that leads to conflicts and even to an all out war. A lot of online games take this for granted. Hopefully, you guys can take a note on this and can even create things to a even more complex level like an ingame tradewar between two nodes for example.
Please for the love of god listen to the community for the best feedback! Also, top guilds/ players that have experience should be talked to as well to forward progression within the game. It would be a definite success.
Love the question about the phoenix haha, and how it's just not known. So keen for this! Going to study the lore. For player locations, I live in Australia right now, but next year I will be in Denmark most likely as well. I know I am only one person but thought I'd mention it haha.
This sounds so promising, what i really miss in mmo's lately is a lot of former Lineage 2 mechanics and especially castle sieges of hundreds players and 300+ ppl fights for dragons for several hours. Please dont dissapoint, i'll definitelly give this game of your's a shot after listening to this Q&A :-)
an old lineage II player here, please enable sub classes like Duelist dual swords, or destroyer 2 handed swords etc, Also large grinding areas like Lineage II and 1 server with no channels that was the best on L2 so you would fight other alliances for the top grinding spots etc.
This game looks pretty good and I hope it will be able to live up to the hype that's been building up. I have a question, how do we join to the weekly drawing? I can't seem to be able to find out where it is.
Awesome questions. Mentioned topics that actually matter and are not always picked up by developers (openly talking about reality of paying systems). Looking forward to next videos from your company. now is my time for little openness PLEASE BE CD PROJECT RED OF MMOS. I AM A SLAVE TO WOW. PLEASE FREE ME.
Is there going to be any ocean based content? Sailing to new lands to find new nodes? Battles between ships on the open ocean? Transporting goods up and down a river between nodes?
0:00 Intro 1:15 How does a game flow if there are no factions? 4:50 If the world is built from the ground up by the players does that mean it't empty? Will there be things in the world or points of interest? 7:41 What do large guilds have access to? 12:29 What can you build in the world (like housing etc.) ? 15:40 Referral system 20:27 Why the name Ashes of Creation? 22:00 Do we plan on having traditional style raids and dungeons? 23:30 Are we considering regional servers? If that helped you and you wanna sign up for the game, would be happy if you use my ref link: ashesofcreation.com/r/ALY8HG9UFTG9ZFDR
So, guilds do level up by the members activities. And thoose levels bring certain skills with it. Does this basicly mean that some features or maybe important buffs are really exclusive for big guilds or guilds consisting out of hardcore players ? I mean hard work should always be rewarded becouse this is the main motivation for non casual players. But this can really backfire at times. Thanks for the great Q&A.
FACTIONS: I need to disagree on this, and here's why. One of the things that I believe makes a game have life, is its lore and story. Within that lore and story, typically lies alliances and factions (which could change over the life of the game, and I would support that dynamic). Factions can be a game within a game as well. It can support certain racial and alliance factions to reveal quests, content, loot, specific to that faction line. Thus, making it so not every player has a 100% equal opportunity to get certain faction benefits. Now, games like Everquest allowed one, with adventure, questing, killing etc to change one's faction on purpose. This activity in and of itself is like its own game within a game. It's by choice. You don't HAVE to change your faction, because your own faction will have comparable items and content, so it wouldn't be anything that's an imbalance. The option to chance one's faction is there, comes with its own risks, pros/cons and adventure. Work in some diplomatic system into the game, similar to Vanguard: Saga of Heros, sprinkle some updates to such a system, and I think you have a winner. I'm all for the player making their own adventure. Though, it's also the background, history and lore of the game that needs to be the baseline from how things can evolve. Factions in my opinion allow for a more rich game world and more content and decisions for players to make.
I don't think factions limit you. I remember playing 4story, taking 30 mins to walk to Keter, the enemy faction's central. And raiding them with 48 other people ( A Raid was 7 teams of 7 each ) but basicly we were arround 49 against 120 people give or take 20 afk people. That was massive, it was a fucking mayhem and it was incredible.....
I'm curious about how much lore and background story will there be? I worry that if there isn't at least a little involvement with an overarching theme, the game will feel empty after a while. Like in game of thrones. The back and forth politics was great, but the mystery of the white walkers is what really brought forth a fascination with the lore. Is there gonna be a big bad that will at least be a presence in the world? Whether it be in presence or just a looming threat.
What can i do to help make this game amazing? Personally, i really need a solid end-game that i can devour and personal power improvements are still my highest motivational factor when it comes to MMO's and its something that fewer and fewer are trying to implement. Is there a suggestion/feedback thread? If i can throw ideas out with the rest of the community and try to get a wider variety of views as far as the "end-game" goal goes so it can be as successful as possible.
Housing is my #1 love in an MMORPG. I especially love designing houses. Are homes prebuilt or are players getting a chance to design their own home/castles? Can PvP take away our homes? Did I understand that right? If so, how vast is the interior design? I spend months decorating a single home in Rift. I can't imagine logging in and losing where everything is placed. I think I may be misunderstanding the way housing/castles work in this game. Could anyone clear things up for me? Can we lose our homes?
When this game does go into testing, will you be going with a soft launch strategy similar to Shards/Gloria Victis/Crowfall and Project Gorgon? Because character progression wipes kill activity and especially for those of us into sandbox MMOs, we won't touch a game until persistence is guaranteed.
Based on everything I've seen, this game looks like it's going to be phenomenal at release, but once the world is stabilized and you have 5 metropolis' in the world it could become a little more bland. I think this game is going to have more cries for "vanilla" and "fresh" servers than any other MMO ever. A fresh world seems so much more exiting. I wonder how they plan to address that.
At the start of the world, in the wilds, we could find ruins of previous civilizations? Also game will include mine/tavern/lumbermill facilities driven by players like farm ones?
So that's what my Guild Master looks like ;) Looking forward to the release date for this game, let's hope it's the next mmo that will suck me in and take over my life =D
How difficult will raids be? . I play wildstar and wow at the same time and can see the massive impact this decision has on the PvE end game. Would love to know whats your position on this problem.
Questions - Will I be able to enslav- I mean hire other players for minimal salary to work on my land and manage a business like that? For example: For a time I had a big farm on a Minecraft mmorpg server and was richer than the adminshop. I hired newbies to dig and farm for me and gave them diamonds, even though they made me 100 times the amount every day. So I bought their lands too. And had them work on it. For months. People are wierd.
I know each node has its own independent auction house, but if a player has a house that they've claimed within a region can they set it up to be a shop: ie can a player that is a weapon Smith sell their goods directly out of their house or do they need to sell it through the auction house
The only thing I ask for in this game is that the horses have good animations for once since in most MMO's the horse animations always look lunky (yes i'm a horse freak) And that the female characters don't look like fking sluts being forced to have revealing outfits and high heals... Like God please no.
Is there going to be a option to be a bard and be friends with monsters sometimes? Do I have to always slay the Dragon? What If I wanna befriend some of them? Is it only going to be humans/elves? Is there somewhere I can read about this?
will players like me that like having or making there own tavern would would we be able to make one for our guild where the guild could socialize and where the person that owns the tavern they have to put time and effort unto to making the drinks and gathering the resources to cook the food that they could then give to the people that enter there guilds land or tavern/bar and if a player wants to or dont want a house yet or cant afford one they could rent a room in the players tavern. the funds from the rent could go to the guilds bank or something?? sorry if this doesn't make sense.
Can you claim a castle peacefully for your self or a small city cos I wonder if you can get something with a deal btw the player that owns it or if no one owns it
let us assume I have a house and it is fitted with many items it has taken me time to gather and collect, some rare etc. If my house is destroyed will all the items within and the items in chests etc be destroyed?
the game will have tab target combat and not action combat(self aim). i don't think it will be flashy. if i'm not mistaken, this week they will upload a video that shows combat
I have a question do you think there would be multiple saves and each time you create a new one it will allow you to make a new username for that save.
Is this game going to be subscription based? Cause the whole idea of subscription based games are kind of iffy to me. Never played an MMO where I had to pay for subscription. If so, is there going to be a free to play option or buy to play option for the game?
Anime Gamer another side to subscription based mmorpg games is it normally means that the games can release more content of quality for much much longer. Not a huge amount of one time purchase games that do that well
i like subscription way more than buy to play and f2p. I like playing good amount of money for constant quality and not paying 20 bucks for 1 stripper outifit. paying daily is like rewarding the work these people put in the game and because maintaining it is an actual work. Referral system is already quite f2p if u get enough people but i am not gonna use it bcs i know a lot will.
I'm so hyped about this! Just... please. PLEASE. Do not board the p2w train. So far this game sounds like the ideal game, really! Has amazing classes (thanks for the Cleric, guys!!!), amazing races, graphics, and so on! I really can't wait to play it! Other than p2w, my main issues in a game would be: - Solo "racism": that is impossibility to level solo at some point because of group-only quests and activities which don't allow a solo players to max level - Legion "mafia": that is, powerful legions dominated game, where you can't get in because "you're not cool enough", and if you're not in a legion you can't go on with the game (you should get bonuses if in a legion but you should still have the chance to go on with the game without one) - Gear obsession: that is "you can't sit with us" style where to enter dungeons you need that specific gear, yet to get that specific gear you need dungeons so you end up in a vicious circle. Or the fact that you can't survive in some situations unless you have that super expensive cash shop gear or that gear you have to grind for day and night for years until you get it (considering we're not all 13 year olds with no job and a lot of time to waste online) - Crafting greediness: where you can't craft unless you pay, you can't craft unless you have X points (which, again, you get by paying, see ArchAge...), you can't craft unless you get that expensive 100% success rate item from the shop, you can't craft unless you have that cool Scarecrow which you can't get unless X and Y (Yes, looking at you again, ArchAge..) and so on - No hack supervision: bots and hackers need to be banned. End of story. - Boobs, Loli and Furry obsession: don't go full Tera, guys. Please. Yes, there are people that only play games for dem bewbs and naked characters, or for the Loli/furry complex. But please, make sure the character creation actually allows you do make a normal char as full of boobs and muscles as one wants (same goes for cash shop skins, no need to go full brothel house on us, we appreciate some full-cover skins too...) So good luck guys! I'm really rooting for you and hope we can get our hands on the game soon enough!!
Not sure how I feel about playing a game where i finally build out my house and then come back and its been razed. lol, at least in ARK I can hide my place. how does that work with stationary nodes and it being treated as a rare resource.
