MMO - General Thread

[The Kid 24]

Re: MMO - General Thread

I've had my eye on this one for awhile, and I love the idea of what the game seems to be, but it is definitely a case of weird marketing turning me off from the game, or at least really tempering my expectations. A company like Rockstar can be quiet and secretive with their projects because they have a reputation of delivering. That is not the case with The Day Before, but I really hope it turns out to be a polished and deep game that's as fun as what little we've seen makes it out to be.

Agreed, guess we'll see... I see this game as a The Division style meets zombies, yep hell yea sign me up for that.

Just hope its released on consoles as well come 3/1.

[KSUowls]

Re: MMO - General Thread

Despite getting back into FF14, I don't really have anyone to play with so decided to take the plunge into WoW to join a friend of mine.

I've tried it out for a day or two multiple times since it's release, but I've never stuck with it.

Well I've been playing it a good bit for the last week, got a druid up to level 58. I'm shocked by how much this still feels like a mid 2000s MMO. I had to install like 3 add-ons just to make the interface look good. Also noticing a lot of minor bugs around quest turn ins, nothing major but not something that I've experienced in any other MMO in the last decade.

Combat is pretty fun, but there are some serious QoL features missing from the game that can't be fixed with add-ons, especially around questing.

I really wish that there was more emphasis on the dungeon finder built into the game and providing an introduction to new players. Definitely spoiled by how good FF14's system was. I've only been in 2 dungeons so far and neither of them really felt like I was learning anything, and I entered both without warning (I was kind of shocked when I went to talk to a quest giver and suddenly I was in a dungeon party).

This has also left me a bit anxious joining raids. I understand almost nothing about the game's non open world mechanics, and so I'm going to be a major liability for any content that I join where everyone isn't overgeared.



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[KSUowls]

Re: MMO - General Thread

City of Heroes fan server is getting officially licensed by NC Soft. (no more grey area)

City of Heroes has had kind of an interesting story since the servers were sunset in 2012. (see spoiler)

Spoiler

After the game shut down, there was a lot of support from the old players for some kind of fan server. Messaging within the community was that it couldn't be done for some reason. Then in 2019, someone spilled the beans that a secret server was and had been in existence for some time.

Once the cat was out of the bag, the development team of the fan server released the source code and eventually we wound up with some servers that the community could jump in and enjoy the almost decade old game.

Short story aside. CoH was a solid game. It's character customizer top on the market for its time, and it had a pretty cool atmosphere. IMO it is still the best super hero MMO to have been released. I did try the fan server when it first went public a few years ago. It ran well, but it definitely felt like a decade old game.

Anyway, if you played it back when it was a live game or just interested in checking it out then you can try it out now as an "official" game. Just look up City of Heroes project Homecoming. I'd bet that server population is pretty decent right now too with this recent announcement.

[studbucket]

Re: MMO - General Thread

I've been following the development of Ashes of Creation since 2020. I have not drank enough Kool-Aid to become a backer and pay for access to the Alpha testing phases, but I've really enjoyed following the monthly development updates and hearing about the game from folks like Lazy Peon, Copium Clinic, Nyce, and Narc.

The game is still a long ways off and there's a full graveyard of false hope MMOs, pay-to-win garbage, and just plain bad games. But I'm optimistic for this one.

Here are some videos about the recent Alpha 2 phase.

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[KSUowls]

Re: MMO - General Thread

Every time I hear the devs talk I want to like this game. I was one of the first people to join the original forums in early 2017. As someone who loves sandbox PvP centric MMO's, especially team/siege based MMO's. This one had some great ideas back then and it does seem like they have done a good job at delivering on some of those ideas from what I have seen from the various Alpha impressions.

Admittedly much of the game does look really good. There is one aspect that kind of kills it for me, but I know I will be in the minority on it. When you kill a player who is not flagged for PvP, you will go "red". Meaning you will be easy to identify for other players. This by itself I think is a good system to discourage ganking. What I don't like though is that not only do you become identifiable, but the game will actively debuff your character as you go into this red player status.

I do hope that it delivers on its other promises. It is one of the last MMO's that I really have big hopes for.

[studbucket]

Re: MMO - General Thread

I understand. It seems they've been tweaking the corruption system quite a bit, and I imagine that's a big part of what they'll work to get right over the next few years of testing.

Really cool that you knew about it in 2017! I learned about it from LazyPeon's video during Covid.

[KSUowls]

Re: MMO - General Thread

I think someone on the crowfall forums back then referenced it. It is interesting to think about the excitement that this game generated among the people who became aware of it back then even knowing how early they were in development.

There was so much speculation about how some of these systems like caravans would play out among a group that only has a few thousand registered people on the forum. Nearly 8 years later the game is still in development but it has become one of the most hyped mmos that I have seen in a while.

In the early early days they did a weekly or monthly raffle for registered users and gave out alpha access promises to them. Would have been nice to get one of those seeing the cost to play now lol

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[KSUowls]

I came here to report on some recent news and sadly noticed that it was also the most recent topic of discussion in this thread from a year ago.

Ashes of Creation "released" on Steam this week. It released to "early access", in what people are calling an alpha version of the game (I think it's the official Alpha as stated by the devs, but I haven't fact checked that). The price for this playable alpha is $50 and includes an in-place cash shop.

The game's steam reviews have bounced between "mixed" and "mostly negative" for the reasons I already mentioned, plus what people are saying has been wide spread banning of posts and users in their more official forums (for criticisms).

So a lot of shady stuff or at least peculiar decisions (ie: Cash Shop in an alpha state game) from a business perspective. But then the game itself is reportedly barren. Which makes sense for an alpha game. Makes less sense for a game that's being in development for nearly 10 years and even less sense to be charging $50 for players to participate in. The industry needs to go back to when alpha and beta tests were truly that. I'm speculating, but this screams like a cash grab before shutting down for good. They had to know that this was going to be hard to recover from long term.

[studbucket]

I had been following this news and process prior to the Steam release, a few notes.

1) The game has been in Alpha for 1-2 years.
2) Many fans and current players thought going to Steam was a bad idea, because the general public will not be understanding of an alpha.
3) Intrepid decided to do this in order to continue to help raise capital to pay the hundreds of employees working on the project.
4) It is not at all surprising the game is getting terrible review scores. Very predictable given the above.

I disagree on the perspective that it is a cash grab + shutting down for good. They've been pretty open about their process and intentions and folks like Nyce and The Copium Clinic regularly discuss the game, it's state, what's going well, poorly, and their ETA for a full release (most people predict 2028-29).

I don't think going to Steam was a good idea at the moment. But at least I understand their reasoning. I'll be interested to see if Nyce, Copium Clinic, or someone like LazyPeon posts a video.

It looks like RitchieSH (who has been on the Alpha for 1-2 years) and Esfand (who just interviewed the creative director) both have videos up.

[KSUowls]

I'm obviously speculating on it, but it was apparent to everyone that a Dec 2025 early access release was going to be a bad idea for the game's health (I've seen many fans of the game skeptical of this decision since it was announced). That's why I call it an attempt at a cash grab, not necessarily as a conspiracy. Mot likely they needed the cash. Because they had to know like the rest of us that this was going to be hard to recover from, but they did it anyway (on top of having an in-game cosmetic shop for an alpha game). Just a really bad look that unless they were buried under a rock they had to know this would hurt the long term momentum of the game.

I watched Ritche's video to try and catch up. I would describe it as informative but skewed towards biased. I think he starts off with acknowledging some good points but quickly reverts some arguments that seem disingenuous. Some of the people with 10 minutes of game time that he criticized leaving reviews have certainly been playing it prior to it going live on steam, and that should be obvious. He justified some of the negative responses while dismissing the obvious negative troll reviews which is totally fair, but he also never touched on any of the unhelpful "positive" reviews like "it's alpha stop crying". Defending cash shop cosmetics in an early access game to me is wild on principle, but the games he made analogies to were also further along in their development at the time too which is important context imo.

I don't remember the specifics, but Crowfall did something similar. It was released in like a beta version of the game, and it never recovered. Arguably it was doomed for failure prior to that, and they just needed funds to keep the lights on. That's what this feels like to me too though. Not that I have any skin in the game, just unfortunate that MMO's have such a hard time getting going, and to me practices like this hurt the perception of the genre.