Ashes of Creation - new open world MMORPG

[alturic]

@Rorke Do you have any proof or just lunatic ramblings ?

While no-one can confirm it's a scam (until it's proven to be a scam, duh) you have to at least be a little skeptical at this point? It's been what, 8+ years at this point, with numerous changes/upgrades/additions being added pushing things back further and further.

From what I gather, for a game in development (with a/multiple community managers at that) there is little communication to users, with some/majority of said users have also funded the thing.

The very little I have followed in the past 2 days, it seems like they like to release these sizzle reels to keep people interested when, at this point in time, these sizzle reels should be almost fully-fledged gameplay videos. It's been 8+ years of development!

So they said something along the lines of the last sizzle reel they wanted to release wasn't coming out well (or something to that affect) so they scrapped it and their roadmap sucks, so they are working on releasing a roadmap of the original roadmap.

When you take all of this, and even the broader industry as a whole are making fun of you for making a "roadmap of a roadmap"... it doesn't look good. Scam? To be determined? A laughing stock of the industry, that can't seem to produce anything worthwhile after 8+ years of development? Absolutely.

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I'd assume that price for getting into the alpha/beta is there so that people CAN do it, if they want to. To be part of the process. Its just that.

I don't think they require anyone to come and pay it. It is just an available option. I assume they can well enough handle the testing process at this point by themselves. With that price I dont think they even expect lot of people. Its that high price because they probably dont want huge amount of people yet when its pre alpha(?).

Now, if they were asking something like that much closer to release, I'd start to question it more, but now? Nope.

Unsure if you are referring to AoC or SC, either way neither may expect that many people to pay the crazy alpha fees, but they (in the case of SC) sure did bring in over $300 Million to-date.

[Ethas]

AoC didn't even hire their first team members to begin development until 2015, whereas Star Citizen has been in some sort of development since 2010.

SC being completely revamped in ~2015 doesn't change that as a concept and as a team, it's been worked on since 2010...not to mention SC has received over $250 million dollars for it's development and the supporters still have an extremely buggy and incomplete pre-alpha version game to show for it. That means, the game will almost certainly reach over $300 million in total funding before it's even in Beta.

AoC in comparison, is only expected to take ~$30 million to complete and implement every feature they've discussed about the game....that's literally a 10 fold difference in cost.

And on top of that, AoC was even able to release a fully functional battle royale version of the game to help them with testing classes and overall game play functionality. Yes, that's not how the game is intended to be played, but having a fully functional version of the game is still a lot more than SC can say.

Them both being crowd funded is about the only thing they have in common at this point, IMO.

SC beta? Why would they go beta? They are making big money right now doing nothing and have a great business model.

[Vorkreist]

While no-one can confirm it's a scam (until it's proven to be a scam, duh) you have to at least be a little skeptical at this point? It's been what, 8+ years at this point, with numerous changes/upgrades/additions being added pushing things back further and further.

From what I gather, for a game in development (with a/multiple community managers at that) there is little communication to users, with some/majority of said users have also funded the thing.

The very little I have followed in the past 2 days, it seems like they like to release these sizzle reels to keep people interested when, at this point in time, these sizzle reels should be almost fully-fledged gameplay videos. It's been 8+ years of development!

So they said something along the lines of the last sizzle reel they wanted to release wasn't coming out well (or something to that affect) so they scrapped it and their roadmap sucks, so they are working on releasing a roadmap of the original roadmap.

When you take all of this, and even the broader industry as a whole are making fun of you for making a "roadmap of a roadmap"... it doesn't look good. Scam? To be determined? A laughing stock of the industry, that can't seem to produce anything worthwhile after 8+ years of development? Absolutely.

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Unsure if you are referring to AoC or SC, either way neither may expect that many people to pay the crazy alpha fees, but they (in the case of SC) sure did bring in over $300 Million to-date.

What industry man ? Fortnite and Roblox? Diablo Immortal ? Shall we go through what happened with every other mmorpg?
Do you understand how complex and time costing mmorpg development is ? Your beloved blizzard trash of an expansion eats 2 years alone.
You are talking as if there is a record of super fast release super high quality mmorpg releases in the last 10 years.

[Katchii]

Crowdfunding games, products, etc is the scourge of web 3.0.

Why/what was completely revamped in 2015? Because we're now in 2020 and it's going to need to be revamped soon again if I wants to not look like Runescape compared to current-generation games.

What I'm trying to say is that the longer and longer it takes to release the more and more they will need to change to bring it up to current "standards" - at least if they want to capture the mass market of gamers.

They changed the engine they were building the game on in 2015. And honestly, I doubt they'll need to revamp it/ update the graphics much because even today the game is so bonkers when it comes to visuals and systems that it takes a beast of a machine to run it.

SC beta? Why would they go beta? They are making big money right now doing nothing and have a great business model.

You're right, and after reading the current TOS for pledging to it, that's probably what they'll do. My main point though was comparing AoC to SC as far as level of "scam" is simply not fair at this point. SC is so much worse, not to mention it's headed by a man with a track record for not being able to get shit done.

[alturic]

What industry man ? Fortnite and Roblox? Diablo Immortal ? Shall we go through what happened with every other mmorpg?
Do you understand how complex and time costing mmorpg development is ? Your beloved blizzard trash of an expansion eats 2 years alone.
You are talking as if there is a record of super fast release super high quality mmorpg releases in the last 10 years.

The entire gaming industry that called it vaporware for a while now, and is completely trashing them for their "roadmap for the roadmap" post they just made. Perhaps it was just bad wording on their part and they really just mean "we need to take a second look as our roadmap because we're not hitting targets". But, and of course this is if I was a backer that had interest in the project, if there is *THAT* much left on your roadmap, 10 years after development, there's another red flag imo. How many people are on this development team exactly? On one hand there can't be many - but on the other there has to be a lot since they have to keep cash grabbin'? Hell, if they paid 50 developers, $150000/year, for the past 10 years, that's $150 Million only. Where is all this money going? Why do they keep needing to cash grab?

Even if I did think the game should be released by now, a fucking ALPHA should surely be? Hell, they are something like 6 years beyond what their expected release date was. They are further behind in their expected release than their entire development time was expected to be. Either way, their original timeline was extremely lofty but enough with that jab.

After 10 years of development, you have to agree at least an ALPHA should be playable? And even at that, from the videos I've seen dabbling around a hanger, showing ship flight, etc, it would be way more than an alpha that people would expect from an alpha release.

That's the thing though, keeping in mind I fully admit I haven't followed or watched all of their sizzle reels, the ones I have watched thought ~10-30 second snippets of something spliced together to seem like a lot of progress is being made and not an extended "let me show you the full size of this hanger" or "let's fly from here to there" and that is concerning from an outsider perspective.

All I'm trying to say is that 10 YEARS after development started there should be a LOT more to show than what I've seen. Perhaps I'm confusing this game with another crowd-funded game - one where they kept releasing cash grab items while in development to try to keep funds coming in.

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They changed the engine they were building the game on in 2015. And honestly, I doubt they'll need to revamp it/ update the graphics much because even today the game is so bonkers when it comes to visuals and systems that it takes a beast of a machine to run it.



You're right, and after reading the current TOS for pledging to it, that's probably what they'll do. My main point though was comparing AoC to SC as far as level of "scam" is simply not fair at this point. SC is so much worse, not to mention it's headed by a man with a track record for not being able to get shit done.

Yea, it looked pretty friggin nice on one of the videos I seen last night.

[apelsinjuice]

Steven is a really good salemen, which is why he could start in MLM companies as a young adault selling "nutrient" drinks and supplements, then move over to real estate investments and then retire by 29 as a multi millionare living in a mansion.

He knows exactly what to say and to who, he talks with people like Asmongold/summit/timthetatman on stream just throwing shade at blizzard for action too much "corporate in suits", most of the interviews was just anti blizzard/wow talk. So much about how they will do everything differently and everything will work out and be so great. He knows what people want to hear that are fed up and bored of WoW, pandering to the "wow classic" audience pretty much, even tough most of them already stopped with Classic WoW after hyping it up for over a year cough*asmongold*cough. Remeber this is Stevens first time ever in game development as well.

[StevenSharif]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chime in. I see a lot of misinformation and while I think skepticism is always healthy, Outright lying does a disservice to the hard work my team and I are trying to put into making an mmorpg that will make our genre proud.

There are a lot of industry veteran developers working on Ashes. Tirelessly and it can be pretty hurtful to read the “scam” BS that people spew. I have said in the past, and will say again. Do not preorder the game if you are skeptical. There is no box cost on release, no p2w items in the preorders... so you are missing out on nothing if you just sit back and watch us deliver this mmo.

Open development is a double edged sword. On one hand players have to give the devs patience as we finish features and content. And on the other hand you get to see stuff early in its unfinished forms in order to be part of the conversation. To give feedback and ur thoughts etc.

Just don’t let skepticism turn into cynicism, or even worse, cynicism turn into outright lying.

We have a lot of philosophies and practices of how the game industry needs to change to respect the players more. If you like those ideas then consider using ur voice (not ur wallet) to support our ideas and efforts in making Ashes.

Anyways. Just my thoughts ❤️

[Katchii]

The entire gaming industry that called it vaporware for a while now, and is completely trashing them for their "roadmap for the roadmap" post they just made. Perhaps it was just bad wording on their part and they really just mean "we need to take a second look as our roadmap because we're not hitting targets". But, and of course this is if I was a backer that had interest in the project, if there is *THAT* much left on your roadmap, 10 years after development, there's another red flag imo. How many people are on this development team exactly? On one hand there can't be many - but on the other there has to be a lot since they have to keep cash grabbin'? Hell, if they paid 50 developers, $150000/year, for the past 10 years, that's $150 Million only. Where is all this money going? Why do they keep needing to cash grab?

Even if I did think the game should be released by now, a fucking ALPHA should surely be? Hell, they are something like 6 years beyond what their expected release date was. They are further behind in their expected release than their entire development time was expected to be. Either way, their original timeline was extremely lofty but enough with that jab.

After 10 years of development, you have to agree at least an ALPHA should be playable? And even at that, from the videos I've seen dabbling around a hanger, showing ship flight, etc, it would be way more than an alpha that people would expect from an alpha release.

That's the thing though, keeping in mind I fully admit I haven't followed or watched all of their sizzle reels, the ones I have watched thought ~10-30 second snippets of something spliced together to seem like a lot of progress is being made and not an extended "let me show you the full size of this hanger" or "let's fly from here to there" and that is concerning from an outsider perspective.

All I'm trying to say is that 10 YEARS after development started there should be a LOT more to show than what I've seen. Perhaps I'm confusing this game with another crowd-funded game - one where they kept releasing cash grab items while in development to try to keep funds coming in.

All fair, but what does this have to do with AoC?

Yea, it looked pretty friggin nice on one of the videos I seen last night.

That's about the only positive thing I can say about SC, SQ42 and the overall project.

[Ausr]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chime in. I see a lot of misinformation and while I think skepticism is always healthy, Outright lying does a disservice to the hard work my team and I are trying to put into making an mmorpg that will make our genre proud.

There are a lot of industry veteran developers working on Ashes. Tirelessly and it can be pretty hurtful to read the “scam” BS that people spew. I have said in the past, and will say again. Do not preorder the game if you are skeptical. There is no box cost on release, no p2w items in the preorders... so you are missing out on nothing if you just sit back and watch us deliver this mmo.

Open development is a double edged sword. On one hand players have to give the devs patience as we finish features and content. And on the other hand you get to see stuff early in its unfinished forms in order to be part of the conversation. To give feedback and ur thoughts etc.

Just don’t let skepticism turn into cynicism, or even worse, cynicism turn into outright lying.

We have a lot of philosophies and practices of how the game industry needs to change to respect the players more. If you like those ideas then consider using ur voice (not ur wallet) to support our ideas and efforts in making Ashes.

Anyways. Just my thoughts ❤️

Hey, found the game dev.

[Wildmoon]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chime in. I see a lot of misinformation and while I think skepticism is always healthy, Outright lying does a disservice to the hard work my team and I are trying to put into making an mmorpg that will make our genre proud.

There are a lot of industry veteran developers working on Ashes. Tirelessly and it can be pretty hurtful to read the “scam” BS that people spew. I have said in the past, and will say again. Do not preorder the game if you are skeptical. There is no box cost on release, no p2w items in the preorders... so you are missing out on nothing if you just sit back and watch us deliver this mmo.

Open development is a double edged sword. On one hand players have to give the devs patience as we finish features and content. And on the other hand you get to see stuff early in its unfinished forms in order to be part of the conversation. To give feedback and ur thoughts etc.

Just don’t let skepticism turn into cynicism, or even worse, cynicism turn into outright lying.

We have a lot of philosophies and practices of how the game industry needs to change to respect the players more. If you like those ideas then consider using ur voice (not ur wallet) to support our ideas and efforts in making Ashes.

Anyways. Just my thoughts ❤️

Didn't you guys make a test mode BR with purchasable stuff? How is that even respecting players lol?

[Erous]

PvE never happening. They dove head first into the battle royale money machine and we'll never see the PvE component.

[StevenSharif]

Didn't you guys make a test mode BR with purchasable stuff? How is that even respecting players lol?

Correct. We made an instanced test platform with a br mode and our mmo castle sieges in order to test backend infrastructure and action combat mechanics, using the mmorpg assets and developed tech.

The br and castle sieges were free to anyone so we could stress these systems. The purchasable stuff was also given out for free through the compendium to anyone who was a backer or owned a package.

The purpose of the cosmetics offered in the test mode was to help pay for the servers in order to run the testing, though purchasing any cosmetics was not required. Additionally the cosmetics if purchased during this testing were granted to the player’s account for the mmorpg as well. I’ve been an mmorpg player for 28 years, my core desire is to build a game and company that respects the players.

Yet again I’d say, skepticism is healthy. But if you hear our principles and philosophies and you agree with them, you should join the community and watch the development and lend ur voice and experience. We are trying to build something that is different than what we’ve grown accustomed to over the past decade in our genre. ❤️

[Aeluron Lightsong]

There are plenty of people, that for some inexplicable reason, dream about "the good old days", of games that require absolute no-lifing and where you can only reasonably advance if you have an attention hungry stream at your beck and call. The sad part, most of those are not streamers themselves and don't make money off playing games either.

Depends what no life means, Having a lot of time to play a MMO is fine just depends. If people are expecting to be playing it past midnight...I stopped doing that 5 years ago.

[[Apok]]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chime in. I see a lot of misinformation and while I think skepticism is always healthy, Outright lying does a disservice to the hard work my team and I are trying to put into making an mmorpg that will make our genre proud.

There are a lot of industry veteran developers working on Ashes. Tirelessly and it can be pretty hurtful to read the “scam” BS that people spew. I have said in the past, and will say again. Do not preorder the game if you are skeptical. There is no box cost on release, no p2w items in the preorders... so you are missing out on nothing if you just sit back and watch us deliver this mmo.

Open development is a double edged sword. On one hand players have to give the devs patience as we finish features and content. And on the other hand you get to see stuff early in its unfinished forms in order to be part of the conversation. To give feedback and ur thoughts etc.

Just don’t let skepticism turn into cynicism, or even worse, cynicism turn into outright lying.

We have a lot of philosophies and practices of how the game industry needs to change to respect the players more. If you like those ideas then consider using ur voice (not ur wallet) to support our ideas and efforts in making Ashes.

Anyways. Just my thoughts ❤️

The hard work you're trying to put into?

So you aren't actually putting hard work in, just trying to?

[Kyanion]

The hard work you're trying to put into?

So you aren't actually putting hard work in, just trying to?

If we can even believe this poster is who they claiming they are, which I am doubting.

[[Apok]]

If we can even believe this poster is who they claiming they are, which I am doubting.

I don't know seems to have the same attitude as sharif and also the habit of calling any interpretation he doesn't agree with an "outright lie".

I mean it's entirely possible even if its not probable.

[Vorkreist]

The entire gaming industry that called it vaporware for a while now, and is completely trashing them for their "roadmap for the roadmap" post they just made. Perhaps it was just bad wording on their part and they really just mean "we need to take a second look as our roadmap because we're not hitting targets". But, and of course this is if I was a backer that had interest in the project, if there is *THAT* much left on your roadmap, 10 years after development, there's another red flag imo. How many people are on this development team exactly? On one hand there can't be many - but on the other there has to be a lot since they have to keep cash grabbin'? Hell, if they paid 50 developers, $150000/year, for the past 10 years, that's $150 Million only. Where is all this money going? Why do they keep needing to cash grab?

Even if I did think the game should be released by now, a fucking ALPHA should surely be? Hell, they are something like 6 years beyond what their expected release date was. They are further behind in their expected release than their entire development time was expected to be. Either way, their original timeline was extremely lofty but enough with that jab.

After 10 years of development, you have to agree at least an ALPHA should be playable? And even at that, from the videos I've seen dabbling around a hanger, showing ship flight, etc, it would be way more than an alpha that people would expect from an alpha release.

That's the thing though, keeping in mind I fully admit I haven't followed or watched all of their sizzle reels, the ones I have watched thought ~10-30 second snippets of something spliced together to seem like a lot of progress is being made and not an extended "let me show you the full size of this hanger" or "let's fly from here to there" and that is concerning from an outsider perspective.

All I'm trying to say is that 10 YEARS after development started there should be a LOT more to show than what I've seen. Perhaps I'm confusing this game with another crowd-funded game - one where they kept releasing cash grab items while in development to try to keep funds coming in.

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Yea, it looked pretty friggin nice on one of the videos I seen last night.

What 10 years after development? Are we in 2026 and I just missed it ?

[Deferionus]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chime in. I see a lot of misinformation and while I think skepticism is always healthy, Outright lying does a disservice to the hard work my team and I are trying to put into making an mmorpg that will make our genre proud.

There are a lot of industry veteran developers working on Ashes. Tirelessly and it can be pretty hurtful to read the “scam” BS that people spew. I have said in the past, and will say again. Do not preorder the game if you are skeptical. There is no box cost on release, no p2w items in the preorders... so you are missing out on nothing if you just sit back and watch us deliver this mmo.

Open development is a double edged sword. On one hand players have to give the devs patience as we finish features and content. And on the other hand you get to see stuff early in its unfinished forms in order to be part of the conversation. To give feedback and ur thoughts etc.

Just don’t let skepticism turn into cynicism, or even worse, cynicism turn into outright lying.

We have a lot of philosophies and practices of how the game industry needs to change to respect the players more. If you like those ideas then consider using ur voice (not ur wallet) to support our ideas and efforts in making Ashes.

Anyways. Just my thoughts ❤️

Hey Steven,

I've followed your game dev for ~2 years now and I like the ideas and vision you have, but the execution is of course always the hard part. Ultimately, I ask that you change the industry first and foremost by taking care of your employees, because if they are taken care of, then your players will be taken care of them by. Blizzard has always been synonymous with quality, until they started to try and min/max stock values under the Activision umbrella. They gutted their customer support team and I never had an issue with their support until I recently contacted them. First time in 14 years of playing WoW feeling as though my issue was not taken care of, and the first time I've contacted them since the mass lay off.

And as you started to hear their employees complain about work place issues the quality of the game has decreased. I do not think its coincidental there is a correlation there.

These guys go into the game dev industry because it is something they are passionate about only to quickly feel as though they are doing a 9 to 5 grind and they just clock in looking to go home.

I think if you can be different and a leader in this area you will find your game become a leader in other areas of the MMO genre as well. Hopefully you are able to bring a new era to this genre, it has felt stagnant for a long time.

[Katchii]

What 10 years after development? Are we in 2026 and I just missed it ?

The guy is confusing this for Star Citizen, apparently.....

[RichKiddey]

looks like old school games but with a better graphics.