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Ashes Of Creation had a little controversy lately and I don’t think it will go away unless they change stuff!
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2024-08-18-alpha-two-roadmap-and-ama
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These are all good points. However, when Steven started this initiative. I doubt he could see hyperinflation in the future from day he began.
This has just been a shambles, does not instill confidence.
I honestly don't think there's anything Intrepid could say that would please the people complaining about paying to test outside of changing the price to free, but I also think there's a massive misconception that the game has a box cost, so a lot of people see this as paying to test but then also having to buy the game.
I agree on the message, support is a good way to go. I do think 100+ k Alpha testers will be allot of voices and the majority will give a review like its a released game. Why not? They did spend a good chunk of money to play. Allot will not see this as testing. Gamers are so used to playing early access na dthat not what this is.
first of all hhose ppl complaining about prices now imagine some1 paying 100$ gets alpha and beta acces meanwhile some1 who bought preorder pack for 150$ has only access to beta is this fair to those who bought preorder pack? 2. in what world do you expect smaller studio without any investors to make money if not selling keys during development? i ideal world for player alpha is free than what? steven will run thousand servers for 2+ years from his own pocket? cuz we already know all those kids crying its expensive they would be the first to cry about queue on a server .. and btw its sad that content creators like asmon can control the game developers soo much and pretty mucxh forcing them to give more with those new keys like beta and other stuff.. he and his army of plebs without their own brains following everything asmon said… clearly pricee of the keys was that fight for reason to earn money to run alpha servers for a while and to kinda limit the players joining cuz u dont want to have milion players in alpha its bad from every point
I agree. Maybe im just pre conditioned from crypto and star citizen, 2 products you make a transaction and get nothing tangible you can hold in your hand in-return and maybe never will. We are all used to geting something in return which is fair. Steven got himself in a pickle, on one hand he says fully self funded…and now basically asking for the comunity to help out with some cash. In reality im willing to bet the gaming comunity would help out in a major way if Steven would have talked to the crowd as if we were 2 friends just chillin vs game studio to customer. I swiped my card a long time ago, im in it for the full ride. Steven chill and talk to us dirrect and straight up, we got your back and have had it for the longest…just dont ever make exclusive perk items/rewards available in some future cash shop like star citizen did to its early backers…items once exclusive are now avail to anyone for some $$$ = A BIG NO NO
I'm an Ashes backer/tester. I ENJOYED TESTING in Alpha 1…it was bare bones, ue 4, not much content. I look forward to TESTING in Alpha 2, all phases. Yes, there will be bugs galore, but over time these will be fixed/resolved and we'll all get a game that many of us can enjoy by launch. If you are interested in helping to TEST the game, join in Alpha 2 if affordable to you. If not, just wait.
So to be clear Star Citizen pulls in over 100 million a year in funding and all that money is spent on development as they release their yearly financials, if you think Steven can afford to fund this game out of his own wallet for the next 3-4 years till completion you are ignorant of the cost of game development, SC spends 30 million a year alone on servers and Amazon web services which means when the alpha kicks off AOC is going to start burning through cash at an enormous rate.
I can see them looking for a publisher in the not so far future someone like Amazon would probably be interested in picking this game up knowing that he will be out of cash soon.
give us the game too in that 120$ then i will buy!
very good points, amazing overall arguments.
My bigger concern than all this alpha key talk is that the game still looks like it has 2+ years of development left, at a **minimum**. It makes me wonder what's going on at Intrepid. As someone who has been gaming online for like 30 years, I'm simply tired of these endless development times on new games – and then watching most of them fail at launch anyway. It's fucking ridiculous. What's next, games that take 15-20 years to make where entire generations never actually play them?
If you want high quality feedback from testers you should pay people to test it.
Finaly ppl start to speak out to the bullshit,and not start being super defensive and offensive,nice vid bro
It's like if I wanted to create a community garden and charged people to get early access to walk around, choose flowers, layout, even plant some of their own etc. people could say "You're chargine people to look round an unfished garden and even create it!!" But you'd be paying because you believe in the indea of the garden being made.
Intrepid are making a game using players to fund rather than a publisher, however because this is a multi-million pound MMO people pay attention because of the amount of the money they are asking for.
so i need to pay 100 bucks to test the game ? na a thats stupid bro nop
make the game and i will pay for the game,and if its 100 now to play alpha 2 what is gonna cost when its out 1000?
They can't keep saying "we don't need money", "the game is funded", and "don't buy this because <insert reason>" but then turn around and come up with new ways to make money . Especially after FOMOing everyone with "buy now or it will go away!". That is exactly what scammy game devs do so every comparison to a scam is warranted and Stephen's history outside of this endeavor should be enough reason for them to avoid any controversy of this sort.
They wouldn't need to change the narrative if content creators would quit farming drama to get views to make ad revenue.
If people are stupid enough to hand over money to test an unfinished game then let them. Maybe one day they'll think about how utterly dumb they have been and will consider their actions. Until then, give the game the radio silence & the lack of publicity it so thoroughly deserves.
stop milking this
I think you make a lot of good points. I like your idea of the narrative being supporting them in creating a game we believe in. The same reason early backers bought into ashes. One thing I don't agree with is that they need more money and that's why they are opening up alpha to purchase again. It is fully funded, they aren't doing this because they are out of money. They are doing this because not everyone got to make the decision if they wanted to support this project or not. If I just found out about ashes and believed in it just like all the kickstarter backers did, I would be a little bummed that I couldn't contribute because I found out about it late. This gives those people a chance to do what you are saying, which is to support an indie studio creating a great game. The cost of the keys are also just to offset the cost of them being on the servers for that period of time. The whole out of money narrative comes from channels that don't know anything about the project and is being repeated by uninformed viewers.
If you don’t want to test it don’t pay and bugger off. Lol clearly you want to just play and cry about it when stuff is glitchy or broken otherwise
I feel like all of it is blown out proportion.
I would like a great game to come out. The noise coming from streamers or kids living off of student loans is annoying.
If you want to create a multi million dollar studio and give A2, B1, B2, and 1month for less than 120, then do it. Make it free.
If not then don't worry about it.
I appreciate your thoughts. I personally feel that opening the alpha access to the community at a comparable price point was nice of them to do. I appreciate that they sweetened the deal for those people. I am happy that there are people who want to support something I support. The more, the merrier. Early support will build more community bonds as well, which will make this community even more special than other game communities. The drama is part of it. Huge hugs to all the angry people.
Keep in mind yall are the very loud MINORITY. Most people don't give a shit and understand what supporting a game development means.
I completely lost interest because of this. And nothing anyone says is going to change my mind.
Testing the game IS supporting the game!
Simple solution is let the player invest into the game and give them a stake in the business if they want to complete the game.
This is basically what ive been saying ad nauseum.
Intrepid needs to be transparent when asking for money.
They need to frame it as supporting the project with the PERK of getting hands on testing in the process.
and If. A developer and dont want all the hassle with the pug people and all their "refund me" bs. How would you do?
I never understood all the fuss. You dont like the game or how they are administering the game then dont play it and move to something else. Giving this much time and emotions just to complain says, in my opinion, that you have nothing better to do with you time. There are 1000's of games out there, find one you like and blow off the rest.
I mean If they Said hey Guys WE want to habe a prolonged ea period and because WE are a small Studio WE need you to Fund IT by playing and playing IT would be okay for me. Its all about the wording.
AoC doesn't need to change the narrative – they need to change their business practices. All this situation has done is call out things that were obvious that people didn't think were obvious until they heard them out loud.
I was a big believer in AoC when it was announced. I lost hope over the years watching the glacial progress and seeing new "supporter packs" being pushed every quarter. The money is running out/has run out, and they don't want to say it. They're INCREDIBLY short on testers, so if they need them that badly, WHY would they be charging – especially THAT much? They're in a hole.
I wanted Ashes to be good. I really did – but I don't think it will be, if it ever releases at all. It's taking so long to develop that by the time it does release in 2-5 years, it's already out of date and behind CURRENT mmos. They spent so much time laying systems for the PvP-drivers in the nodes that they have effectively done nothing for the PvE side of things. It's bare-bones at best. If you need an example of what happens to PvP-driven games with no PvE depth in the MMO space, just look at Steven's favorite game Lineage 2. It's a shambling corpse of a game propped up only by Chinese bot farms.
There is NO substance in Ashes right now. And while they do have some great, grand ideas, none of them are actually playable. There's no value proposition for the game as it currently exists, and they haven't shown any signs that they're even working on the stuff that actually matters. The combat still feels janky and floaty, even after the updates. There's nothing to really DO even when there is testing. They haven't shown a single PvE feature since the initial Asmongold hype video where they killed the open world dragons before the castle siege. At MINIMUM, this game is 3 years away from a full release, and they're already out of money. It's in a death spiral, and content creators are just latching onto it for those clicks before the game dies and falls off the radar.
I was a huge believer and bought into the hype. Now I don't believe. At all. They can prove me wrong and I'll be happy, but it's not looking good.
the fact that there needs to be a "narrative" is the problem. we're just openly acknowledging "oh they need to fib better" about the money. it's sad we've come to this.