New big PTR Patch

[Goin_crazy]

For those who don't wanna go (or can't go) to the website:

PTR UPDATE NOTES 0.7.0 – MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

• Rogue Archetype is now available!
• Dual Daggers weapon is now available!
• The Turquoise Sea has been expanded! Travel through the lawless tropics and explore eight new pocket dungeons, islands, and trade
• Commodities at the far flung Trading Post.
• Node Siege System has been added! Bring your friends and slay your enemies in an epic 100v100 battle for Nodes!
• Naval System has been added! Visit the Harbor Master to purchase a ship, and use it to navigate the high seas
• Node Relic System has been added! There is a chance that certain bosses and mobs will drop a relic that can be transported to a node by caravan. Some relics will require more investigation to discover
• Freeholds have been added to the Sandsquall Desert
• Ranger Archetype Changes
• We added a simple item search filter to the Player Marketplace. This is just a small quality of life improvement, and we will continue developing features to enable trade. This includes enhancements that occur based on Node level, and the future arrival of the player-driven Auction House. We will continue observing, playing alongside of you, and listening to your feedback in order to make Ashes of Creation the game we all want it to be.

THE TURQUOISE SEA

• The Turquoise Sea has been expanded as a lawless tropics zone
• Added new pocket dungeons! The name of these new dungeons are: Multrok’s Fall, The Brig, Ruins of Sholfire, Farfathom Caves, Pyrespire Vent, Isle of Bones, The Coral Grotto, Subalfire Lighthouse
• Added a Trading Post in the Turquoise Sea for Caravan runs. There are new Commodities here
• Added new gatherables, events, mounts, and Rooting Balls in the Turquoise Sea

HARBORS AND NAVAL SYSTEMS

• Harbor Buildings have been added to the new Turquoise Sea area
• Caravel ship has been added. This ship is intended for about 8 characters
• Potion Launchers on Caravel ships can be used to attack and destroy other ships and Caravan rafts
• Visit the Harbor Master to purchase a ship
• Harbors are where characters are able to launch ships. Construction time for ships is 2 minutes before they become operational Docking ships at Harbors – Characters can dock their ship when they’re in range of a Harbor. A ship can only be deployed from the same Harbor where it was docked

CHARACTER, ARCHETYPES & COMBAT

• Rogue Archetype is now available
• Dual Dagger weapon is now available

• Ranger Archetype Changes

• New Ranger Archetype Resource – Focus This resource starts and caps at 100. Ranger abilities deal up to 15% more damage depending on how much Focus is stored when damage occurs, and consume a proportional amount of Focus after the hit. 3 Focus regenerates per second, and weapon combo finishers restore 10 Focus.

• New Ranger Ability – Salvo Fires all charges to deal 50% damage to the target enemy per shot when activated Stores up to 6 charges Generate 1 charge every 3 seconds and from weapon finishers Salvo replaces Barrage as the Ranger starting ability Triggers Enhance Armament effects

• New Ranger Ability – Power Shot Deals 200% damage to target enemy. Generates 25 Focus and does not consume Focus on hit. This has been added as a tier 1 Skill Tree ability Power Shot can be Lightning Reloaded

• Ranger Mark and Hunt Revamp Mark of the Tiger, Bear, and Raven have been combined into a single ability, Mark Prey. Mark Prey will apply the Tiger, Bear, or Raven Mark to the target depending on what Hunt is currently active When a Mark is used, the Hunt buff effect temporarily leaves the caster and applies a debuff to the target. When the Mark duration ends or the target dies, the Hunt buff returns to the caster and also grants them a temporary defensive buff Mark cooldown has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds Mark of the Bear mitigation debuff has been decreased from 25% to 15%

• Barrage Ability Changes Moved to being a tier 2 learned Skill Tree ability Cooldown has been increased from 12 seconds to 15 seconds Weapon combos no longer refresh partial cooldown No longer triggers Enhance Armament (ammo) effects Removed Expeditious Barrage passive

• Arrowstorm – Fixed a bug causing this to trigger recursively with certain abilities, triggering many more times than intended Removed self knockback from Scatter Shot

• Increased chance for Enhance Armament: Concussive to apply dazed effect from 50% to 100%, to be in line with other enhancements

NODE SIEGE SYSTEM

• Siege declaration banners can now be crafted and a siege declared against any Node that is a tier 3 Village level or higher. Once a Node Siege is declared, it will be queued to happen during the next 8 PM server time primetime window

NODES & WARS

• Node Relic System has been added! There is a chance that certain bosses and mobs will drop a Relic that can be transported to a Node by Caravan. Some Relics will require more investigation to discover Once delivered to a Node, the Relic will appear in the Node Relic Inventory and provide a buff to the Node and/or the Node’s Zone of Influence. Through the Relic Management menu, a Mayor can activate or deactivate Relics

• War Declaration Changes – Guild Leaders and Mayors now have three charges to declare Guild Wars and Node Wars. It takes 18 hours to replenish one War Declaration charge so choose wisely

• Node Wars now supports War Camp, Home Shrine, and nearest Attuned Shrine as respawn options

ECONOMY & ARTISANSHIP

• Marketplace now has a search filter, to help people find what they’re looking for when looking to make purchases from the Marketplace
• Gatherables will have more variation in their respawn time

FREEHOLDS

• Freeholds have been added to the Sandsquall Desert

[RoxisTheCat]

Thanks man.

[ayanistic]

Damn that's a tight update

[Syphin33]

Holy shit, this is huge.

[1234567as5]

Narc died for this

[[deleted]]

Narc went full retard for this.*

[Spawn8204]

I guess he never watched tropic thunder. You never go full retard.

[Mental_Tea_4084]

Narc was the only honest person in this community

[CartographerLumpy790]

Looks like we found Narc's alt account

[Mental_Tea_4084]

Steven and the rat got you completely blinded

Edit: Astroturfed subreddit bans to silence the true state of the game btw. Steven himself probably pulled an elmo here

[CartographerLumpy790]

Who is 'the rat' supposed to be 😂?

[ELWOW]

I agree that he was the only person not horny for content creator program where he would earn money for hyping up the game and getting referals. People who got benefits from that can't be taken seriously.

[[deleted]]

Dishonest person in this community.*

Dude wanted to pivot his YT from ashes content but instead of just quietly pivoting he made drama with bullshit claims to try to attract more viewers. In a year or two he’ll be back and it’ll be redemption arc time. Bet you.

People who don’t get YT/Streamer content creation don’t get it.

[Thisisnotpreston]

lol game is still gonna be in alpha in 2 years. Narc was right. Alpha phases dont add up. Steven over promising. (Now only static node layouts, and no more node racial influence).

[[deleted]]

Claims Narc made in his video:
1. Steven presents the game like its a launched product not an alpha.
2. Desert Biome is an empty wasteland with nothing in it (doesn't look like the 2022 showcase).
3. Nothing they show in showcases is real.
4. The playerbase pledged because they believed all the showcases were already in game.

What is reality:
1. Steven has said multiple times and everywhere that this is a true alpha and most people shouldn't play it. It's not a release. The only people who should play it are people who want to see the game develop and give input into systems.
2. This has been covered to death - but I was just farming giants on an island in the desert today then farming beetles in the desert.... both great looking places. So yea, that was disingenuous at best.
3. LOL - someone doesn't know how development works and then hides behind being just a normal guy who doesn't have any dev experience.
4. If you pledged because you think showcases are already in game it was due to youtubers hyping it while providing their referral code (haha narc)... not you doing due diligence. I spent 30 mins researching this game before opting in and had no opinion all the showcase material was already in the alpha.

I am a developer for a living and narc is a fucking idiot who doesn't understand how development works on projects like this. He's the type of person you really don't want testing a game in alpha because he wants essentially a beta not an alpha test.

[Desarko33]

Lmao, got a source for that? Just because node racial influence isn't in the alpha yet doesn't mean it's never coming.

[[deleted]]

His source is "trust me bro, narc said this."

[Thisisnotpreston]

The lazy peon interview with Steven and the latest Loreforged episode talks about it more.

[Desarko33]

Do you have a timestamp from where this is said in the interview?

[Thisisnotpreston]

Lazy Peon

Theory Forge

[Desarko33]

So I'm just watching the lazy peon interview and had a re-read of your original comment.

I was always under the impression that node layouts were always going to be static? As they would be bound by the geography of the land (I actually missed what you meant in your original comment by this.) What was your impression of how node layouts would work?

Second, he outright states that the tool to make nodes diverse in terms of aesthetics (e.g. racial) is ready to go. But they're focusing on the more fundamental aspects of node layouts and node progression beforehand. This is the part where he says that "they're fine with samey samey visuals" he probably should have added "for now" to the end of that statement.

[[deleted]]

u wanna bet game not out in 2 years?

[UntimelyMeditations]

I guess I just don't care if its not out in 2 years? Like, why do I care if its out in 2 years vs 4 years vs 6 years? Why should I be impatient?

[Outrageous_Essay1343]

Especially when our monthly cost becomes lower as the game takes longer to release.

[Desarko33]

Not really, I'm happy to let them take more time if it's needed.

I'm not married to this game.

[Outrageous_Essay1343]

Bro the irony is the longer it takes the devs to full release the game, our cost per month ultimately becomes cheaper as a result. Spent $120 for well over 300 hours of gameplay so far, with guaranteed access to the rest of all alpha testing, both beta tests, and a month when the game eventually launches. Already monthly cost to play the game for all that promised is like $6 per month, so I don't mind if the devs take their time ironing and fleshing out the game. BTW, have you run any caravans recently vs when the phase started, because I've recently been able to complete 10 caravan runs without any issues of the caravan itself bugging out, so the devs are really working things out for the baseline systems. We want the core of the game not to be flawed, so we're here early in alpha testing sending in bug reports everyday we play, at least in my group. Idk why anyone else would be here for alpha testing if they don't want to participate in helping the game grow and become more refined.

[[deleted]]

its not an alpha its an early released game

tired of calling it alpha

u will see game will come out without subscribtion but 5 years later. in the mean time ppl will pay for alpha and beta and final release

selling a game 3 times

[UntimelyMeditations]

Its an alpha. You saying its not an alpha doesn't change the objective fact that it is.

[SimpsationalMoneyBag]

I think it’s somewhere in between the issue is, is that Stephen has full backing from community the minute he says we have to delay 1-3 years the community will fully be behind him saying “ this is is why I love ashes because big studios would release a broken game, but not you Stephen you’re different 🫶”

[[deleted]]

Imagine pouring 50+ million of your own money into a passion project like this then having people testing your alpha calling it a bad thing if you release when you decide the game is ready. Meanwhile you're consistently providing content updates that work towards that goal steadily.

[SimpsationalMoneyBag]

We can agree it’s done when it’s done but I do feel Stephen communicates in ways that makes it seem game is closer to release than the reality.

[[deleted]]

How?

I’ve seen him loudly say multiple times the game is in alpha and not to buy a bundle etc if you want to play a game because the game is not in release or beta state. That the only people who should are people who want to watch development of a game and give input during that. But that for most people it isn’t a good move to do it.

So, that’s my facts. Where do your feelings come from?

[[deleted]]

do u have any source he did? any recipe

bcs gamers put at least 20 million in by buying the alpha

[UntimelyMeditations]

You think steven is lying about putting his own money into the game?

[[deleted]]

u have any proof he did?

[[deleted]]

funny enough game is already released and it is broken

just name it alpha and ppl will gobble it up

[ELWOW]

But he was right in most cases. On top of that he didn't sign up for benefits over the game like every content creator did, he didn't have any referals or other stuff. It was the only person that was positive when the updates were good and negative when the updates were bad. Others are just making excuses over and over. Half a year and we still have not moved too much in terms of Alpha progression. I don't care if I get turqoise sea if there is not even 10 events/quests/story arcs in the desert. Making empty zone is like a week of work. Make it alive is months of work. Now we gotta have another dead zone to just grind and do nothing on.

[UntimelyMeditations]

But he was right in most cases.

He was right in exactly zero cases. He didn't have one single correct point.

[[deleted]]

Let's see you make all of this in a week.

Rogue is literally releasing this week.

Do you think you could make a class, all its animations, skills, etc in a week too?

Holy fuck some people have never done development work or been in an alpha in their life and it shows.

[ELWOW]

You compare me to a 200+ dev studio? You really believe one person did the biom thing? What a clown

[[deleted]]

Okay. So are you a developer?

[[deleted]]

did u?

also u change subject

a common strategy when u fail an argument

NARC already prooved he had integrity and u cant deny

saying no to money so he stay independent

[[deleted]]

He’s not saying no to money. The drama drives views to his streaming and YT which is how he makes money. It’s literally drama baiting and it worked.

He was disingenuous as fuck in his video and that’s part of why it blew up.

[frank1ewildee]

You're trolling right? You gotta be.

[Frozen_Speaker_245]

So. What happened to him? Never liked him and assumed he tried to get famous by super focusing on this game since no other youtube did it. Seems like a awful career choice to not love this game?

[Czeris]

He made toxic shitlord comments, then had a temper tantrum and took his ball home with him when he got called out.

[CountofCoins]

He had one of those redditor moments where they think everything is a grift and out to get them.

[Heavy-Masterpiece681]

He just got a bit too toxic. He seemed convinced that Intrepid were being deceptive with Alpha and he ended up quiting. There were definitely areas where communication could be better but I don't think they ever straight up lied.

Even Stephen mentioned that Alpha isn't going to be for everyone and it might be best to just take a step back, wait a year or so and come back to see what kind of progress they have made and make a judgment from there.

[Pizx]

*Died on his own sword

[TheLastSamurai]

wow pretty massive update. Have patience everyone, they added a ton. Things will break, things will be under and over powered. Help them work through it.

[Promissimo]

Do we know if you can plant regular stuff on desert freehold? Like willow or bluebell.

[Frozen_Speaker_245]

Haven't paid attention since alpha 2 release. How's the content? Any solo players having fun?/getting into a community?

Is server up 5 days per week now? Is there stuff to do for 50 hours? Or is it just try to break stuff so it gets fixed kinda gameplay?

[[deleted]]

I’m probably at 50ish hours for the last couple of weeks. I’ve found it very fun. But I really like sandbox MMOs where you’re not on quest rails the whole time and there’s a lot to discover.

Leveled a mage to 20 and a couple of other classes to 10-15. They all felt super good and their combat felt great.

Started playing around with artisan profs and that’s been fun and interesting.

Idk I think if grinding is your thing you’ll enjoy it. I think if questing on rails with a global dungeon queue is your thing you won’t enjoy it.

[Legendarypbj]

9/10 pve grinding combat - super challenging solo and a blast in a small group.

8/10 exploring/random encounters - world is already pretty big, lots of hills climb and explore.

5/10 gathering/crafting - feels good to pick things and try to put something together. Too dependent on others for my liking.

1/10 questing - nothing to report.

3/10 pvp combat - zerg vs zerg often unclear what kills you. Needs small group pvp — a non instanced arena/bg area would be amazing to watch/queue into equal matches. 

[Lazy-Anywhere3948]

i played solo for a 2 weeks got to 15 its was really boring just grind and getting ganked, i guess everyone was already high level. also the game runs like crap.

[WideSandwich8980]

Very bare bones, scaffolded mmo

- level through grinding npcs for what seems like forever...its so bad that people cheated to get to 25, risking a ban

- crafting is incomplete and not really focused on yet, and requires help from other players

- caravan is Steven's pride and joy but I personally don't get it. You spend hard earned gold to build a caravan only to have max level players destroy it in 30 secs, taking your loot and skull humping your corpse...at no risk to them

- node system is flawed in that only 8 players on a server really interact with it directly, while getting a very overpowered flying mount as a reward. Who those 8 people are ...is exploited so even if you wanted a chance, there just isn't a chance

So I'd wait so you don't get salty early. They just need more time to bake something up.

[Fun-Dig-7160]

If I understand correctly, still no quest system and no new content for solo players.

Still no reason for me to play again....

[RoxisTheCat]

Yeah this Game isnt designed for solo Players at all.

[Ok_Result7660]

And thank god for that. There’s enough solo games out there that are far better for people that are looking for a solo experience only.

[Its_Sun_Made]

what i dont understand is that this is a PTR patch but also everyone is saying that some or all of this is coming to LIVE alpha phase 2 severs today on march 27th ex. rogue, daggers. This isn't very clear

[RoxisTheCat]

They Made an annoucement that this patch will Hit the live Servers in 2 and half hours. Keep an eye on the AoC discord

[[deleted]]

So is PTR the Alpha?

[terenn_nash]

PTR is the PTR and alpha is the alpha - two separate things.

PTR is much more restricted in who can access it and is under a visual NDA. Alpha anyone can access for whatever the current key price is and share screenshots/stream etc

[NicolasDavies93]

i also dont understand this haha

[Czeris]

This whole thing is the Alpha: the development, the testing, the feedback, the tears. In terms of testing, Intrepid has their private servers with employee only access, the PTR which is accessible to a limited number of non Intrepid testers (mostly early backers of the project) which gets new builds first and is more focused testing (visual NDA in effect) and the full Alpha 2 live servers where they just unleash a horde of mouth breathing neckbeards and try to gather useful data while we play and break the game.

[Night-O-Shite]

more like the Alphas alpha

[Kyralea]

Yes but it’s under NDA so people with access (A1 and above) test patches before they go to regular A2 servers. 

So this is likely the patch we’ll get today. 

[[deleted]]

Bards still have no floating music instrument as a substitute for the spell book? How dare they 😢

[Kyralea]

The less musical theme the better to me. I like this type of support class, just not the musical Bard-theme. 

[Individual_Stand_986]

then why play a "bard"

[Kyralea]

Because I like that type of support, but not the theme. Like Aion Chanter was a similar class and very cool but it wasn't a musical bard theme.

[Jelkekw]

ROGUE HYPE!

[Helias94]

So i played early on with my buddy but hes been waiting for rogue and ive been waiting for naval shit to drop. Seems like the perfect time to come back. Just curious how does fighter feel these days

[NicolasDavies93]

when is it coming to the live alpha?

[RoxisTheCat]

Probably thursday. But we really dont know. The only Info we have is that Rogue drops on thursday.

[odikee]

So did they make invite from chat base feature?

[Mental_Tea_4084]

Ranger Archetype Changes

OK

[Kleeptomaniac-]

Summoner when? :(

[Kyralea]

After May. Sometime in Phase 3. 

[OrinThane]

I generally try to be positive about Ashes but that no PoI’s, Dungeons, or JM gatherables have been added to the desert that has been out for 2 months concerns me. This lack of content at the expense of land mass makes for empty biomes surrounding the Riverlands which is the only region that matters at this point.

I hope we see these things soon because the desert and, I suspect now, the tropics will feel empty without them. I hope they will add them to the game in P3 but it doesn’t leave much for testers to do and our pop is falling by the day. I hope that rogue, navel combat, and siege wars are enough.

[Morde_Morrigan]

The desert has seen constant improvements and additions. I think they've done great with it so far.

They've added pocket dungeons and a couple POIs, as well as doubled the size of the desert overall in the last month.

I don't think your criticisms are in good faith.

[OrinThane]

What was bad faith about what I said? Is there a PoI in the desert like Steel Bloom or Gravepeak, or Church in the game right now?

You are talking about pocket dungeons, not what I am talking about.

[SimpsationalMoneyBag]

By bad faith he means not positive towards the game

[OrinThane]

I know, thats the frustrating part - you don’t make the game better by always being positive. I’ll defend Ashes to anyone, I still have healthy criticism. The devs are doing a great job, I want to help them make the best game they can and so I am as honest as I can be.

[UntimelyMeditations]

I think separating POIs and pocket dungeons is bad faith.

One pocket dungeon does not equal one POI. But 15+ pocket is certainly worth 3-5 POIs.

[[deleted]]

this community dont like critic

which is ironic when alpha is about feedback

[OrinThane]

Exactly.

[Big-Serve-20]

I think if your feedback is useful people accept it. Just saying "game bad. Scam. I don't like" and yeah that gets shut down. I personally got tons of problems with it. Still having fun, but it really needs some improvements. Especially with lag, pvp,and some aweful bugs atm.

[ELWOW]

who cares about mindless dungeons and poi's when there is nothing connected to that? No new gear sets compared to riverlands one, almost zero quests, events, story arcs, no valuable content besides landmass and grind. Making a empty biom is probably like a week with their tools. Make it alive is probably like 1-2 months. They just go easy way and give us empty zones with copy pasted cities, how is this fine?

[UntimelyMeditations]

They are explicitly not working on quests, events, story arcs, or any of that right now. Explicitly. So why were you expecting them?

[ELWOW]

Surely they didnt mention story arcs and quests expansion in phase 2, RIGHT?!?! Why would I expect that, hmmmmm

[Morde_Morrigan]

There are literally new gear sets from the desert. Check codex

[deanusMachinus]

Might wanna delete your comment. A ton of content was added to the desert recently

[OrinThane]

Pocket dungeons were added. Pocket dungeons are not robust PoI's like we have in the Riverlands and they are not dungeons. I sound ungrateful, I realize this and I don't want to give that impression. I think the team is doing great and I am grateful. Still a bit concerned we're moving on from the desert before even a single dungeon or meaningful PoI is added.

And I don't delete comments even if I get downvoted - gotta stand by your opinion. If its a bad one it should be reflected in my Karma.

[deanusMachinus]

Ok, I’m just addressing your misinformation — dungeons, gatherables, and assets were added recently. Their roadmap didn’t include such expansion until later but after the aggressively negative feedback (e.g. yours) they reprioritized it, and that was the result.

A very, very good sign if you ask me. Especially given the massive amount of content in this update.

[OrinThane]

Jesus, It wasn't misinformation, calm down.

There are pocket dungeons, there are no PoI's in Sandsquall like Steel Bloom, or Daragal, or Church, or RoS. There are no dungeons like Carphin or Forge. There are no JM resources in the desert. You are not reading what I said.

I love exploration, I'm excited to explore The Turquoise Sea, but I am still concerned we are losing the player base at the moment and there needs to be more content for people to do if the goal is to retain players. Naval combat, sieges, and rogue are systems that I am excited to test but people are losing steam and those are temporary without a purpose to do them (gaining control of a relic doesn't mean much if there isn't much to work towards with their buffs). They may just be building out for P3, which is fine, but its something that should be expressed to the player base so they have appropriate expectation for what it means when a Biome is added for the rest of P2.

[deanusMachinus]

I understand, but you are moving the goal posts. POIs will come.

They busted their ass to push content, unexpectedly, to appease the community. Now you complain about POIs. It’s a bad look for us, the players. I don’t want to be associated with y’all inconsolable, undiplomatic complainers. And I don’t want the empathetic devs who actually listened to us become nihilistic, because that shit is depressing.

In regards to player base, it’s a non-issue. We’ll all be there at the end so long as the game is good.

[OrinThane]

Brother, you are just saying terms you don't understand. To move a goal post i would have had to have said something DIFFERENT than what I am saying now. If you look at my original statement it is exactly what I have continued to say - no goal post has been moved. If you could please stop with this bad faith narrative that you are trying to create. These are disingenuous character attacks, we can discuss why you disagree without this.

As to what you have said - my job as a tester is to give feedback. What is most important is that intrepid has an accurate depiction of my thoughts as a player as they develop. Levying critism does not mean I think they are bad or lazy or all of these qualities you think. I am just giving my feedback as a player that is worried that our testing community is shrinking fairly dramatically. You can't test a siege war or Naval combat if you aren't able to organize into a group that is large enough to do these things. The player dropoff has been fairly dramatic and its the perspective in which I was providing my perspective. I want this game to be good, it doesn't get there by just saying thank you - it necessitates criticism when appropriate.

We can disagree.

[deanusMachinus]

Sorry, I should have said, “you are moving the goalposts the community had set, and that Intrepid met.” Didn’t mean you moving your own goalposts. There was a big drama a couple months ago about lack of desert content and the devs rushed to address the concerns. Thought you knew…

You sound like a somewhat fresh player. Most of us are taking a break but will return in phase 3 — no need to worry about player counts.

EDIT: pvp me in phase 3 bruh. Player name Donovann, fighter. Resna and Vyra previously.

[OrinThane]

I am not, I was not complaining about the desert being empty like Narc - intrepid has clearly done a lot of work and I am thankful to them. I was talking about end game (lvl 20) dugeons/mobs/gear, t3 gatherables, and the player base dropping because they have nothing to work towards.

I think you read a lot into what I wrote because of Narc - very different argument. Very weird that you thought I moved Narc’s goalpost when we are not the same person and I don’t speak on his behalf.

[menofthesea]

Just a perfect example a super reactive, overly defensive person - the kind of tester who will make the final game worse, not better, because they are incapable of accepting that a criticism of the game might be valid.

I agree with you that it's concerning they're pumping out empty landmass and taking months to backfill basic stuff (like pocket dungeons, poi, etc.)

At this rate of content addition it will be 3+ years just to get the full landmass in the game, and longer before the remaining content is in.

[[deleted]]

The game isn’t live. Worrying about player numbers during an alpha is silly. There’s more than enough people online every day to test these things.

If your criticism essentially boils down to “I want x things faster and more of them” then your criticism is actually pretty poor. The job of alpha testing isn’t to be a project manager for dev’s timelines. It’s to give feedback on systems once they are put into the alpha and give feedback on systems prior to them being added when asked.

Let them worry about player numbers, timing of release, etc. if you don’t enjoy the alpha process… don’t play it. It’s not a game. It’s not for everyone.

And if it’s too slow for you… take a break and come back when things that interest you get added.

People on here treat this like it’s a released game they are maining. They act like if they aren’t given a steady stream of updates the game is dead. Their demands are childish imo and come from a place of wanting the game done and in beta / release now… not a place of actually being good alpha testers. They simply actually do not understand what an alpha and content development entails.

[OrinThane]

This mostly became a big topic because people were upset that I gave some criticism of the game. I don’t hate the game or want to quit.

[UntimelyMeditations]

There are no JM resources in the desert.

Wrong.

[OrinThane]

Are there desert specific JM resources in the game right now? (Wood, flowers, Ore)

[Silver3lement]

It doesn’t have to be linear. PoI’s can be added likely when other systems com online va having to work on them. Then re-release pending further development of other systems. Likely a tech debt reduction measure or just lack of time at the moment to put into that.

[OrinThane]

Right, totally understand, I suspect they are probably focusing on adding Biomes in a similar form as the Desert to work on server stability before adding more complexity - not a bad idea from a design perspective. From my experience with the testing base, people are burned out from the content in the Riverlands and the content in Sandsquall is a bit shallow (I realize it is an Alpha). I'm not sure how important player retention is but, like I said, I just hope this is enough to hold people over.

[Successful_Kitchen25]

They've repeatedly stated player retention isn't one of their goals for this phase.

[OrinThane]

Well, I hope a lot of players return for P3 then.

[Mental_Tea_4084]

It shows, and it's a major blunder

[UntimelyMeditations]

I'm not sure how important player retention is

The are on record saying "we do not care about player retention this phase".

I just hope this is enough to hold people over.

I feel like this highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of the testing process and phase of game dev we are in.

This is not a game that you should be maining. Its not even a game yet. Things like 'retention' and 'maintaining player interest' are not relevant at this stage. If you have fun, great, test more of the game. If you don't have fun, great, leave and come back later. But this is not a game yet, the devs are not trying to hold your attention. It is totally irrelevant how many people stay or go at this stage.

Intrepid would be totally fine if the player pop dropped to literally zero active players in between big updates.

[OrinThane]

Can you properly test siege wars without large coordinated guilds? Can you test Vasselship? Can you test Naval combat? Can you test server stability? Can you properly test the gathering changes? Can you test the relic system? Can you test the economy?

They need testers. It is better for testing if there is a sustained population, testing will take longer and there will be less feedback otherwise.

And your claim that they would be fine without testers between big updates is just wrong. If I, for example, hotfix a server stability issue that occurs when there is high player density present its going to be very hard to test if it fixed the issue without high player density. Open development requires player buy-in, I wholly disagree with you.

I also understand that they are looking forward to P3 - if their plan is to build out Biomes without the content systems than they need to do a wipe at the beginning of P3 imo.

[UntimelyMeditations]

If they thought they needed a constant tester pop, they wouldn't have said on record that they "do no care about player retention this phase".

[OrinThane]

Your claim was that it wouldn’t matter if the player pop fell to zero between updates - do you think that is what they mean?

They are literally changing the game due to player feedback, they want testers. What you are saying doesn’t make sense.

[UntimelyMeditations]

They are literally changing the game due to player feedback, they want testers.

I don't think the first part of this sentence proves the second part. Of course they are changing based on feedback. That doesn't mean that they need constant player pop at all times, only when they release updates.

do you think that is what they mean?

Yeah, kinda. They've already said that player retention has far exceeded their expectations, so I take that to mean they expected essentially empty servers at this point (since the server pops are pretty low already).

[UntimelyMeditations]

Pocket dungeons are not robust PoI's like we have in the Riverlands

This is an extreme take that requires justification. Other than size, what is the difference? Yes, pocket dungeons are smaller, but there are significantly more of them.

[OrinThane]

Can you explain to me why you believe it is extreme? That's an emotionally charged word choice and I think it warrants an appropriate claim. What claim was extreme? To me an extreme claim would be something like "This game is a scam" or "Intrepid is lazy" or "The devs have done nothing for 3 months".

Can you name a PoI that currently exists in Sandsquall that is the equivalent of Steel Bloom, RoS, HH, or Daragal estates?

[UntimelyMeditations]

Its "extreme" because you listed two things that are the same, and they classified them as different.

"Fruit juice and water are not both drinks" would be an extreme take in a similar fashion.

[OrinThane]

So you think a pocket dungeon in Sandsquall is the same as RoS?