Ashes of Creation: Catch All

Very ambitious looking MMO currently on Kickstarter from a team of industry veterans.

Ashes of Creation is a new MMORPG that aims to bring the Massive back to Massively Multiplayer. It takes everything we love about the genre and brings it boldly into the future as a truly next generation title. We’ve all wanted a world that lives and breathes and reacts, where our decisions matter, where the world changes because of what we’ve done. Ashes of Creation is that game: The rebirth of the MMORPG.

Official Site is here:
https://www.ashesofcreation.com

Kickstarter is here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...

They also have a referral system here is my referral link if you want to use it (If this is inappropriate I will remove this):
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/...

The Node system where cities are dynamically developed through gameplay is the most interesting feature of the game:

Was wondering when someone was going to post about this. Im going to Kickstart it - trying to decide on a level. Looks very intriguing if they pull it off.

I backed the early bird Warrior of Old tier. Looking forward to it. Been watching the daily live streams. The class system seems particulary interesting. Your secondary class does not give you new skills, but instead let's you modify the skills of your primary class. Race will also have some bearring on your class skills as well.

An example they have given is the fighter charge attack that let's you dash toward an enemy. If your secondary class is mage you could modify charge with the teleport spell and teleport to enemies and attack when you use charge.

A friend clued me into their Kickstarter. It looks really good and sound promising that they will be returning to the community and multiplayer aspects of MMOs which have been surely missing from recent entries. Hoping it does well.

I added my referral link to the main post. If that is inappropriate I can remove it, thanks!

It sounds interesting, but also reads like a crazy wish list of an MMO. Not sure how it would be remotely feasible to deliver on some of their ideas with a 100 million budget, let alone 3 million (plus whatever they have elsewhere, presumably much more than that).
Am I just too pessimistic?

What makes this different from other high fantasy MMOs? Is the combat action based or stand still and click?

From what they have said combat will be a hybrid of both, kind of like Guild wars 2 but leaning a little closer to traditional MMO on the spectrum. There is a focus on positioning and there will be skills that create physical obstacles to restrict movement.

The bigger focus that sets this apart from current fanasty MMO's is the node system, meaningful player combat and player attachment to the world. They want to get rid of the current trends in MMO's of hand holding and letting every player have everything in the game. The node system let's players settle an area and contribute to it's development. This gives players an incentive to focus thier play time to a zone with a group and feel like they own part of something. This gets rid of the theme park style go from one zone to the next as you level until everyone is at endgame and in the same few zones that are worth playing in for their level. They want players to feel like they have a home an can experience most of what the game offers in the area where they settle watching the node grow and evolve as players devople it and the near by world pushes back on the players.

They want meaningful PvP as well. They are working on systems to get rid of the Zerg mentality you see in many other PvP games. There is no instant travel to summon all your friends or guild to you. Sieging another nodes city might take a week to get the resources needed once a siege is declared. This gives the defending city time to organize and rally other cities and towns to help. There are also systems in place to make ganking in the world unappealing and giving open world PvP encounters more focus on objectives that make sense in the world.

Here is a good blog post that helps explain how they are trying to make Ashes different:
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/a-wo...

To follow up on Arovin's post, one of the big things I am excited about is the removal of a global auction house. Different areas of the world have different goods so if you need something not in your node you have to travel there to purchase it or get a caravan to bring it in. And caravans can be raided by other cities/players.

That sounds similar to things Black Desert is doing.

I've been watching the kickstarter and went ahead and backed it a few days ago. It's been a while since I've played an MMO, and there's something nostalgic about getting into a new world early.

New info today on their monster play system

Nice breakdown of features

I keep going back and forth on backing this at a very high level. MMOS used to be my jam, but I seem to lose interest so fast these days.

The primary reason that i haven't posted about this game is that it's being developed using the Unreal engine.

This is a MAJOR no no for a reliable and stable MMO. It's literally impossible for this

that aims to bring the Massive back to Massively Multiplayer

to happen using that engine.

I'll wait and see from a distance because i like the systems they have laid out, but until they show a reliable build with 10k plus people running seamlessly... yea this is nothing more than a reskinned Mortal Online.

ranalin wrote:

The primary reason that i haven't posted about this game is that it's being developed using the Unreal engine.

This is a MAJOR no no for a reliable and stable MMO. It's literally impossible for this

that aims to bring the Massive back to Massively Multiplayer

to happen using that engine.

I'll wait and see from a distance because i like the systems they have laid out, but until they show a reliable build with 10k plus people running seamlessly... yea this is nothing more than a reskinned Mortal Online.

I don't know enough about game engines to know where the issues are with Unreal. Is your worry with rendering or net code? Intrepid have stated they are building their own net code and not using the code from Unreal.

There are inherent bugs in the Unreal engine and the way it renders objects especially large numbers of them. Check out the threads on PUBG, Conan Exiles for recent games trying it with just 50-100 people at a time. You'll see me and others fussing about performance. The engine can't handle 100 plus people in the same area without issue and considerable rewriting. Not to mention there are uncountable hacking tools for the engine. More importantly was Mortal Online which was the most recent MMO that i know that's tried to use that engine. The Alpha/Beta were barely playable and when it launched it was completely unplayable if other people were in your zone. This was with top end machines too.

It's really one of the worst engines out there to be used for a MMO. It looks good and even runs good with a handful of people, but multiply that out... yea not so much.

I truly recommend anyone on the fence in supporting the game to wait until they show large scale testing actually working with minimum of issues before giving them money. Until they prove they can do that they're just a cash grab unit in my eyes.

Thanks for the info, that is not encouraging to read but I am going to keep my pledge and hope for the best.

There are only 19 hours left in the kickstarter, but it looks like they will hit 3 million and their last stretch goal of an in game stock exchange.

Also some more pre-alpha videos:

I was interested until I saw they were going with a sub model. I prefer to have long term relationships with my MMOs and a subscription just kills that for me.

Badferret wrote:

I was interested until I saw they were going with a sub model. I prefer to have long term relationships with my MMOs and a subscription just kills that for me.

I still can't stress enough for people to wait before giving this group money. They'll be plenty enough time to support them once they've proven themselves.

Subscription makes me more interested than otherwise. Gives the impression of deeper content, and less pay to win.
The game still sounds like a pipe dream though, so staying away.

I had a chance to play it at PAX this weekend and was quite impressed. The combat is a mix of WOW and Guild Wars 2, though still fun. While the classes had very generic sounding names like tank and cleric, they each felt unique. I also liked how different classes had special skills that were needed in an encounter. Eventually they are going to have up to 64 possible base and specialized class combos. I also got a chance to see a node grow from tiny camp to full on town which was super cool.

The staff were great and the alpha build they put together in just six months looked terrific. The only thing putting me off was the expensive alpha ($190) founder's packs they were pushing. I'm cautiously optimistic that this isn't vaporware, but they very well could be too ambitious.

Final point - they had "Make MMOs Great Again" hats that look like perfect copies of the Trump hats. I bought one and had fun walking around downtown Seattle and getting strange looks.

I still want to warn people that you need to wait and see the game under a heavy load. I want this to be successful but won't believe it till I see it in action

I bought one and had fun walking around downtown Seattle and getting strange looks.

Were you with any friends that told you this was probably a bad bad idea?!?

karmajay wrote:
I bought one and had fun walking around downtown Seattle and getting strange looks.

Were you with any friends that told you this was probably a bad bad idea?!?

Most people around the convention center thought it was funny, but going to a party near Pike Place Market was when I realized people might react without taking a closer look. At any rate, it was a way for me to throw money at a cool project I hope takes off.

Phase 1 of Alpha 1 starts in September, phase 2 in Q2 2019.

Our Alpha One is split up into two testing phases.

Phase One of Alpha One, which will be accessible next month, will be focusing on the action side of combat, and will include modes of; Open World Battlegrounds, Castle Sieges and City Defense "Horde Mode". This phase is designed to test the mechanics of our action side of combat, as well as, our castle siege systems, and adaptive AI mechanics in the Horde mode. We will be detailing this phase further in our next stream and at our Panel.

Phase Two of Alpha One, which will be accessible near the beginning of 2nd Quarter 2019, will feature our Hybrid Combat testing of Action/Tab skills that players will be able to customize through their class skill tree. In addition, this phase will include;

  • 4 Playable races
  • Character Customization Suite
  • 8 base archetypes
  • Portions of our housing systems
  • Portions of our crafting/Artisan systems
  • Node Progression to Stage 4
  • 120sqkm of world map
  • Questing and Society/Guild Systems

Phase Two of Alpha One is the more traditional Alpha Testing for an MMORPG, and will have 2 World Servers available. Name Reservations for Alpha One participants will begin during Phase Two. Announcements of the Server Names will be made at PAX Prime, during our panel.

Yea isn't Alpha access a 250$ or 500$ pledge?

For something that still haven't shown off anything significant that's a lot to ask for. Especially since they've still not proven they can do anything but make pretty scenery on relatively empty servers.

It looks like its $500 for access to phase one, and $250 for access to phase two. I made a rare kickstarter donation at $150, which according to the original email will allow me into phase two of the alpha.

I had to go look up what I backed it at. I guess I'm in Alpha 1. I've been playing Fortnite, so I know Epic has made a lot of optimizations to the Unreal Engine for large open environments with lots of players. These are apparently getting incorporated into Ashes. Doesn't look like there will be an NDA, so I'll post my thoughts.

deftly wrote:

I had to go look up what I backed it at. I guess I'm in Alpha 1. I've been playing Fortnite, so I know Epic has made a lot of optimizations to the Unreal Engine for large open environments with lots of players. These are apparently getting incorporated into Ashes. Doesn't look like there will be an NDA, so I'll post my thoughts.

100 players does not equal 1k-10k or whatever the low end of a MMO server needs to be.

https://ashesofcreation.com/apocalypse

Just got an email about this. No clue what it is yet.

Download and Play Apocalypse Now

Glorious Ashes Community,

You are now able to download and play Apocalypse! The servers are up and ready for you to survive the apocalypse of Verra. We are excited to see you in game and getting an early look at the world of Ashes. You can currently collect experience and earn free rewards through completing quests in the matchmaking process. As a free-to-play arena available to everyone, Apocalypse serves as a great early gateway into what will become one of the greatest MMORPGs of our time. And it is a great way to prepare for the soon coming Castle Sieges and Horde modes!

Currently, Apocalypse is in beta and allowing us to collect much needed data that prepares us for the launch of Ashes of Creation's Alphas and Betas for the MMORPG. It is important to follow the account migration instructions below before logging into Apocalypse.

Because this is a beta, you can expect to see some bugs and optimization needs, but this Action-Based Arena is a fun environment for everyone to be a part of, and help in the development of Ashes <3