Ashes of Creation

jayrebb

jayrebb

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Dr.Retarded said:
What do you mean you can't trust ZybakTV!?!
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Well you can either trust him, or trust the AAA influencer guy being paid six odd figures to cover a game that relatively few people are playing.

It's lose-lose either way. Ashes gets the coverage it deserves. And going by the last few pages of this thread, it speaks for itself.

I don't have a dog in the fight-- but I can see the estimates on sales figures and read the room.
 
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Grim1

Grim1

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Daidraco said:
The duping has been going on for a minute. The only reason I believe it wasnt super obvious is because the benches werent high enough to make the high end shit. Never mind that someone gave me 10g for a green wolf mount at the end of the first week. Not only is that a lot of gold for such a short time frame, but for a green wolf mount? Easy af to get? I aint going to say no, but gtfo.

Every single chase / goal for me in the game has been hollowed out with just how… i guess I should say, its Alpha state? Devs poor choices? The cheating is just kind of icing on the cake

When I flew out before my families big Christmas dinner - i was already kind of pessimistic towards crafting. Item drops from mobs being able to drop, plentifully, at blue con (hi2u Ashen gear and similar). But the occasional drops from heroic up to legendary, too. That shit wouldnt be so bad if you, as a crafter, could make similar gear at the same time - but the tables werent even high enough to make similar or better gear yet. You know - during the actual fkn rush period where everyone is in that level range?

Worse yet is the time commitment to make something similar in the first place. How long do you have to gather to get the blue components just to match the quality of the same armor that drops within 30 minutes of solo farming ghosts? Hours at the very least and that’s not including the time commitment in order to get your crafting, processing and gathering skills up to that point.

The little things like no actual LFG tool and the terrible balancing between classes is to be expected in an alpha. And really, the cheating is too - but the streamer is right. Nothing seems to be happening to these people. It took me all of 30 seconds to find a cheat that gives you up to 15% server side attack speed boost. Flying hack that was mentioned. Up to 55% server side movement speed boost, regardless if you have a crate or not. Etc. Everything that walks the tip toe edge of “Easy Anticheat’s” detection.

Sure, itll get fixed and patched out. But lets not pretend that these individual accounts being investigated will fix the economy. Or that with each account they ban, two more dont get brought online in its place. Gold is already 0.77 cents per. Play for an hour and gamble wih crates? Or just spend less than a monster energy drink and get guaranteed gold in an instant? Hrrmmmm (as if crates were even remotely balanced at the moment between caravans and mules).

So I guess the real recourse is just a wipe. I already knew another one would eventually come, but this whole ordeal has likely moved it up substantially. Faith in the system, much like what New World experienced, has crashed quickly.

Again, I know its Alpha - but my desire to play isnt going to peak over casual. Just too much wrong with the current game, like how idiotic flagging is and at the same time… isnt?

I hope that the steam launch netted the company enough money to get the momentum needed to get the game in a solid place eventually, though. So its not all doomer. Just eventually came to the same conclusion that other people had when they said it wasnt ready for steam. .
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Yeah, crafting is very wonky, especially cooking and farming. Tons of fine tuning for them to do in the crafting arena before it is worth the effort.

I spent a ton of time figuring out the different professions, and I get what they are trying to do. And if they tune it right, could be really cool. In hind sight, probably should have leveled instead but at least I'll be ready when / if they get it right. But that kind of grind and complexity is pointless if the game doesn't have a solid handle on mob drops and player exploits.

The steam release definitely exposed some serious issues that will have to be addressed (botting, duping, etc.), and that's a good thing. But you could be right that the only recourse now is a wipe soon. Which I'm sure they don't really want to do so soon after the steam release.

For now I'm not that overall concerned about the issues. Part of the process, but it isn't a good look.
 
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Mahes

Mahes

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I know that if they wipe within 1 month from now, I will be done with the game for a long time(As I expect many would be). I have no intentions of recommitting time into the game again with nothing really added to it.

This game is not for casual players. Everything about it breaks the casual player. No way to solo beyond grinding mobs that if solo, takes a long time to do. Crafting as a solo player can also take a very long time and requires good knowledge of the game for locations and such. Having to commit time to going from point A to point B does not help.

I might would retry the game once they actually have the sub classes and level 50.

As it stands now, there is nothing in the game that does not require improvements or fixing. Not a single system is functioning like it would be expected to for the real release.

All that said, I did get a character up to level 25. Now I am learning about crafting.
 
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Sylas

Sylas

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jayrebb said:
This game sold something like 25k copies right? This is the coverage the game has been getting, and maybe even deserves.

Esfand/Asmon/et al were paid to pretend to care about it for a week-- this is what's left. Ashes might have had an A list budget at one point, but if you have to pay creators to cover your game, and can't get organic quality creators to cover it, the game just might not be all that.
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They sold between 200k-350k on Steam, idk how many pre-steam launch.

 
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Sylas

Sylas

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jayrebb said:
Gangbusters against a AAA budget.

They'll definitely be able to finish the game.
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Idk how much they got left to do to gauge if they'll finish or not but ~10 million bucks after the steam 30% cut for a fucking alpha test game that will have multiple wipes is fucking bonkers to me. Us gamers are all simps or so fucking desperate for something to play we'll throw money at anything. Look at fucking star citizen lol.
 
Muligan

Muligan

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Sylas said:
Idk how much they got left to do to gauge if they'll finish or not but ~10 million bucks after the steam 30% cut for a fucking alpha test game that will have multiple wipes is fucking bonkers to me. Us gamers are all simps or so fucking desperate for something to play we'll throw money at anything. Look at fucking star citizen lol.
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I think you bring up a major point that I'm sure we are all aware of and is my biggest disappointment of all... there is just really nothing to play.

Even WoW for our guild just doesn't keep us entertained very long. We get through normal, then heroic, and quit. The unfortunate piece is that nothing keeps us committed to the game outside of raids and between expansions. At least not very long. Other games our guild plays are very similar. They have a brief moment and done so quickly.

Then you have the Valheims of the world that have such large development gaps that you just consume content so quickly and you're left with nothing. Given enough time, you may play through it again but it doesn't last long. Fortnite kind of the same thing (actually any season-based game), hit and miss each season and it tends to fizzle.

Overall, there is just all this filler time between games and what's available? You hope something pops us but you're left with a buffet of unfinished games, early access, and alphas or go back to the aforementioned. I don't know what addictive substance is missing from games or maybe its just a design approach due to the frequency of gratification expected by the player base but it is what it is.

I say all that to say, I get why people drop the money for things like Alpha/Early Access because those are more available for the masses various downtimes. I hate they/we are feeding that machine but it's what we have. It's been my temptation... TLP's are a ways off, Midnight not here yet, Valhiem announced nothing, no major console games (to my knowledge) and it's Christmas of all times?!

Sorry.... I didn't mean to derail with my rant but its been very frustrating, at least for me, in the gaming world.
 
Mahes

Mahes

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That is where this game is. There is really nothing to do at 25th level.

I guess I could go corrupt and try to be an asshole but that is not my game. One problem is the lack of any kind of carrot for killing a player. You pretty much just have bragging rights. The monsters drop shit for loot given that Ashes of Crafting makes gear so much better. This removes the drive to farm for gear. Add to this the 100's of bugs and the game being far from actually complete with the potential for all progress to be wiped, and the drive to play drops off a cliff at 25th.

I did enjoy some of the drama created in the game, like dealing with an AFK bot farming one mob. The game has a ton of potential but at the same time, I can feel that this game might not make it. There is just so much work left and so many systems that need overhauling or even rethinking. The reason this game has the spotlight, revolves around the real lack of competition in the market. Many people would love to see a new MMO and want this one to be just that game. A lot of dynamic changes will have to occur for this game to hold a descent 100,000+ population. At this stage I would give this game about a 20% chance.
 
Nirgon

Loser Nirgon

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Muligan said:
I think you bring up a major point that I'm sure we are all aware of and is my biggest disappointment of all... there is just really nothing to play.

Even WoW for our guild just doesn't keep us entertained very long. We get through normal, then heroic, and quit. The unfortunate piece is that nothing keeps us committed to the game outside of raids and between expansions. At least not very long. Other games our guild plays are very similar. They have a brief moment and done so quickly.

Then you have the Valheims of the world that have such large development gaps that you just consume content so quickly and you're left with nothing. Given enough time, you may play through it again but it doesn't last long. Fortnite kind of the same thing (actually any season-based game), hit and miss each season and it tends to fizzle.

Overall, there is just all this filler time between games and what's available? You hope something pops us but you're left with a buffet of unfinished games, early access, and alphas or go back to the aforementioned. I don't know what addictive substance is missing from games or maybe its just a design approach due to the frequency of gratification expected by the player base but it is what it is.

I say all that to say, I get why people drop the money for things like Alpha/Early Access because those are more available for the masses various downtimes. I hate they/we are feeding that machine but it's what we have. It's been my temptation... TLP's are a ways off, Midnight not here yet, Valhiem announced nothing, no major console games (to my knowledge) and it's Christmas of all times?!

Sorry.... I didn't mean to derail with my rant but its been very frustrating, at least for me, in the gaming world.
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The people here demand WoWified garbage then refuse to play it. You're yelling into the void with this crowd. Suggesting true dark night times, xp loss on death, corpse recoveries and anything else that creates consequence in the old systems will get you branded delusional, autistic and if you really nail down their bs get you rail roaded.
 
Sylas

Sylas

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Nah you are absolutely right there's a content drought which is why devs can get away with selling access to alphas.

This is my biggest gripe with MNM. Any fucking retard can see there is nothing but money to be made selling EA on steam. The diehards are gonna play regardless you aren't going to lose them whether you self publish ea or do it on steam, but there's literally millions of players out there who aren't gonna know about your game unless you launch on steam. Refusing to launch on steam means you are fucking retarded or you are a fucking scam, and hell even scams can move some units before being exposed as a scam.

You look at the content ( or lack thereof) for games like pantheon (sold 110k units) or ashes (sold 300k units) then you look at games who refused to launch on steam like embers adrift (sold 1,200 units) despite the fact that embers was more complete and had more content than pantheon? Embers is pretty fucking similar to MNM.

You do the little weekend play tests and its not like the whole thing is an elaborate con job/mock alpha, there is a game there, so why not launch on steam?

Obviously they are fucking retarded, so then you begin to question every decision that company makes and ask yourself if you want to invest in a game ran by retards?
 
V

Vinjin

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Part of the problem is that today's MMO player is far more knowledgeable and experienced in consuming content exponentially faster than what devs can put out there. I don't envy those devs one bit because it feels like it will always be a losing battle. Even if some company was extraordinary efficient and smart to develop their new MMO in say 3-4 years time, a good portion of the playerbase can consume that in a matter of months. And then they move on.
 
Fucker

Fucker

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Mahes said:
The game has a ton of potential but at the same time, I can feel that this game might not make it. There is just so much work left and so many systems that need overhauling or even rethinking. The reason this game has the spotlight, revolves around the real lack of competition in the market. Many people would love to see a new MMO and want this one to be just that game. A lot of dynamic changes will have to occur for this game to hold a descent 100,000+ population. At this stage I would give this game about a 20% chance.
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It won't. They are so far away from everything, and they've been working on this thing for 10 years. No content post 25, scarce content up to 25. Broken everything. What isn't broken straight up sucks, and sucks big.

For scale, WoW was in development for 4.5 years. Start to release, and they ended with 60 developers on the team. This one has 200. 200 people doing exactly fuck all from what I can tell. In the time that they've burned doing fuck all, WoW was released, along with all expansions up to and including WoD, with Legion a year out. That's perspective on how fucked these people are. Even worse, if they do manage to release the game, it will never recoup development costs.

It is clear they are starved for cash, and will be forced to release this game early, and in a completely broken state. The game and the company will be dead two months later.
 
Muligan

Muligan

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Nirgon said:
The people here demand WoWified garbage then refuse to play it. You're yelling into the void with this crowd. Suggesting true dark night times, xp loss on death, corpse recoveries and anything else that creates consequence in the old systems will get you branded delusional, autistic and if you really nail down their bs get you rail roaded.
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I'm not suggesting anything of that sort... I'm really just sharing a concern about the flow of available, completed games which is really a more exaggerated issue because your more long-term investment games are not so long term any more. Again, this may be a "me" problem but I have many more gaming holes to fill than ever....and that is even compared to when I was a young, more console-centric player (before the online PC days) and didn't have games like EQ spanning years at a time. I rarely had a lacking of a good game. (Which is even more crazy because we didn't live in a time of DLC's either.) So there is definitely a different approach to gaming and I feel bad for devs. They have to create easily consumed, quick gratification gaming experiences so in turn, there isn't long-term commitment content being developed. It's not what people wants but I also believe this has hurt quality and the need to create a steady flow of funding to support this constant churning out of content is their around the clock job.

The majority of gaming is probably not meant for people like me but I'm also in my mid 40's so I get it. Games like Ashes, Pantheon, and even WoW, has to make the people with the money happy and they're not interested in patience. They want Fortnite kind of money and its hard to argue with that but its difficult to create the revenue structure in a game like that in other games which is why I'm sure we are seeing a constant growth of microtransactions, early access, and a plethora of other nickel and dime-ing customers. Everyone wants the big money.

I'm cheering for Ashes... I'm cheering for all of them but WoW, Fortnite, and other games have given the gaming world a taste of what kind of money can be made and I hate everyone wants some version of that. We either have to pay and put up with the journey or sit around until something finally arrives... which right now is an frustrating unknown.
 
V

Vinjin

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Reading all of the doom and gloom on this game makes me think Steven Sharif is the second coming of Curt Schilling. Super passionate people about MMO gaming but just can't get out of their own way on how to create and develop one to launch even remotely successfully.

Shilling was just outright ignorant of how the real world works outside of baseball and ended up churning through funding with stupidly egregious business decisions.

Sharif might be worse than ignorant because he seems to think he knows how it all works, only to churn through funding with stupidly egregious gaming decisions.

I'm not playing it, and maybe things turn around for AoC, but it doesn't sound like it will.
 
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