Yes, "hardcore" players, minmaxers, theorycrafters, guide creators, and "content" creators putting out videos do in fact ruin the experience of game, because it all contributes to the identification, propagation, solidification, and stagnation of a metagame. It is directly and without any question a negative thing, and it is a huge portion of why the old feeling of the release of a game is so horrendously short nowadays. It does not matter if you don't personally watch it, because other people are going to, and they are going to act on it. The metagame will exist before the game even comes out thanks to A2, and content creators will milk it for as much as they can, meaning it will spread far and wide.
Completely agreed. The heyday of MMOs was pre-wiki and pre-YT and Twitch. We had in-house secrets and group builds and unknown camps and resource spots.
FFXI, WoW and even EQ have forums amd websites dedicated to lore, quests, and guides. Video is just the new format, it's how it's always been. BiS, raid guides, ffxi had complete quest guides. You can avoid these videos, and experience the game without it. I blocked everyone listing videos to ffxiv cause I didn't want to be spoiled. Play how you want, it's an mmo.
The only way that everything will be explored and everything will be done is if by the time the game launches every single node has been leveled to metropolis with some massive coordinated effort across servers and for all nodes/content to be accessible well before release. The way i see it, the only way everything is explored or done is if the node system is ultimately a very shallow system where all content and harvestable materials are accessible from lvl 0 wilderness or at least lvl 1 expedition stages without any meaningful changes to the nodes landscape. Also we have to take into consideration easter egg or potential node combination events no matter if that is just optimistic cope or not. One example would be if all nodes with volcanos were leveled to and kept at metropolis at the same time, a server wide event started. Would take a considerable amount of coordination just to test things like that unless Intrepid showed or hinted the community beforehand. TLDR. Theres no chance youtubers or streamers can show off 100% of the games content unless the games systems are incredibly shallow or Alpha/Beta last for 10 years with all the release content available
You are aware about amount of creators that will stream/video record AoC? There propably wont be a single server free without at least couple of cc guilds
I think we need to test every mechanic but not every piece of content. Bugs found in open testing can be extrapolated to other content and covered by potential NDA testers. This may not find every bug but I think would cover all major game breaking bugs.
My personal guess is Intrepids will give us full map, but not the full content. Most of the events and bosses will stay hidden and maybe even some nodes will be unavailable for leveling them up
My hope is, that they treat the pre launch period like BG3 did. They tested everything in there chapter 1. They don't have to reveal the whole world. They can test almost everything in a limited game. They can test some mechanics for a while and then take them back out again to polish them.
Considering alpha 2 is just a test map and not the real Verra, I'd say no. We'll test core mechanics in Alpha 2, but we won't see the actual game. As you put it, what they shared during a live stream is all we're getting, and even Steven has said he doesn't want to spoil the game before launch. Phase I is all about testing a single region to see how many people they can fit in one area, especially at the portal. It's a login server and mesh test. It's something they cannot test in-house. This last stream even proves it's just a test map with Lionhold, a preexisting town that won't exist in the real game. Remember Verra is bare and we're one of the first legal people through the portals
The moment a new patch or update hits New World, it is aggressively data mined with a fine toothed comb looking at everything within the code that has changed. Anything that can give an advantage is sought out by people who often understand how the game works better than the developers. This will absolutely happen with Ashes, only there will be even more eyes on every single line of code and obscure feature given the size of the audience. Knowledge is power, so of course there will be highly intelligent and motivated groups of people ever seeking the edge.
The way they will be phasing in the world a little at a time over the course of alpha 2 means there will be lots to explore as alpha 2 go's on, however the people coming in after alpha 2 will have alot of spoilers get them. That being said nobody knows how the wars will play out, and how people will develop there nodes and what they will unlock because of there choices. One thing I can tell you is that this game so far is a cafters dream, like if your into crafting this is gona be your game, hands down. Dont ask me how I know ;)
well u make a good point about some contnet being lockez cuz of node lvls but i dont see much contnet staying hiden with 2+ years of alpha ideal would be when they have left island finished thats it for alpha they cant build other one whcich can bee testeed during betas they if stuff on 1 side works they will 99% of the time work on the other side too its gonna kinda suck if we get to play everything and see everything before game even launchees in my opinion
Thanks Doc, excellent discussions and topics, as always. Amount of class customization: I'm with No1 Ross, the more customization, the better. That's also the best way to balance things, in my humble opinion: give us enough options to explore and find ways to beat our opponents.
*Intrepid isn't going to let us test the entire game, zero chance.* *They're not gonna show us the node type locations either, they'll make every node the same type,* *and rotate through all 4 types for testing.*
look at Baldurs gate 3 the early acces for a couple of years and let us play up to lvl 5. was a great way of getting the game more attention. and it was a huge success i think it will be the same here. they will see a bit of the game hopefully more of the mechanics around nodesetc and what pvp ers and pve oriented people can coexists and work towards the same goal. but its just a little part of the game thats gonna be alpha 2. the beta probably will be NDA
I plan to go into the Alpha/Beta completely blind, and only look stuff up once I feel like i'm done with most of it. Kind of like I played BG3. Only looked up stuff about it once I finished a playthrough, and then you can check out a lot of stuff you might have missed on another playthrough. Best of both worlds.
TH-cam ruins everything except how to do things like build a bench, how to clean label gunk etc, showing or revealing game play spoils the game for the player, all the joy of discovery is gone
I hope, somehow, Intrepid will keep majority of story and lore secret. What I am scared of is what route the story will take... Will we be fighting God level entities from the get go? That would kill a game for me, so I will spoil the story for myself out of fear that it sucks. Dragons and maybe Lich King demigod level of end game bosses-Thats all I need. Not fighting literal Titan on a space goat spaceship.
that was my point all along i hope they dont even show the other island untill its finished they can test everything on 1 island and leave the other one for actual launch there will be short betas to test it it gonna suck for players who will see everythng before they even get hands o nthe game
Guides don't spoil games. Anie was spot on that we aren't going to see a lot of things in the testing. Why am I not surprised that Jay states "there will be a meta"? - wrong. What do you expect from a New Worlder ;) That's a different conversation though. You know how all the Doomers are crying about how long it's going to take to make the other biomes (as an example)? They base their timeline on how long it's taken vs how we're only getting Riverlands right now. That argument loses all credibility when you realize that the thinking we're going to see all of the biomes before launch is 100% baseless assumption. Shout out to No1 for bringing up the difference between servers!! I think it's funny that people still don't get that 1 - Steven has thought about this game is FAAAR more depth and detail than all of the TH-camrs combined. 2 - People are really thinking things without actually paying attention to Steven's statements, comments and behaviors. Min/Maxing - it's like Meta - it's a lie. What can be called Min/Max is different for different content and different preferences. There isn't a single build that can't be countered. None. Period. No1 gets it yet again!!
If you seek the content, you spoil it for yourself. My friend and I are both looking forward to AoC. He hasn't looked, read, or spoiled anything about ashes. He only asked for me to let him know the dates. While I research and document everything. People just need to decide how to consume content.
The idea that lore itself will be withheld from us is ridiculous, if you ask me. I don't doubt it'll happen, but I think why it is is silly. I'm going to be playing in Alpha 2, and I'm going to try my hardest to roleplay. I'm choosing Vek. I want to roleplay as a member of a race *whose culture doesn't exist.* Let that sink in for a second. What is the utility in withholding this information from me?
I think people will learn less from the testing of AoC than they have from other games in the past. First of all, a lot of the live content wont be revealed. Second, a lot of the content that is revealed, wont necessarily appear on your realm, or in the combinations revealed in the testing. Thirdly, we won't see the high level content that will actually stress the players. Finally, I am pretty sure the the most important part of AoC will be Nodes, and i don't think we will get enough of a trial and error shot at developing competing Nodes, to discover how that will pan out. For example if a military node with 80% strong PvPers and very few economic or production buildings, comes up against a religious node of 80% PvEers with a lot crafting buildings, who will win? That is the main competition in AoC, and whether the PvPers end up being just a rag-tag group of pirates and brigands, confined to eking out a living in the wild, or the PvEers end up as serfs, under the thumb of mighty Lords and their knights, is going to be undecided. And it may well be either or neither, depending on the realm in which you live, and how each realm develops.
We are a motley crew of foolish souls where most of us seem so self-centered and full of themselves. LOL I personally don't think Any "given server" will even be able to be "fully explored/understood" for at least the first two years after Live. This is just based on things we KNOW Steven has said AND things they have showed us so far. Something as "simple" as Unique Weapons changes things on a per server basis. ALL THAT SAID, everything "open to the public" is GOOD, because there are 3655 ARTICLES on the wiki, people NEED to learn something about playing this game before they actually do. Otherwise, they spend the first three or four months trying to sort themselves out. You CAN do that, go in blind, but at some point, a good portion of those people feel disappointed. LOL
With the number of combinations of archetypes, I'd say no way it would be possible. Regsrdless of the number of content creators no way a meta couod be established in any sort of speed
I think yes alot will be spoiled. U can stop watching the videos but lets face it were not gonna do that we wanna see if this game continues to be what we want it to be. That was the beauty of WoW back in the day. No youtube to spoil it, we just kind of winged it and jumped into this massive beautiful world. You just appear as a dwarf in this massive snowy mountainous landscape and accidentally walk into ironforge for the first time… wow what a time to be a gamer. Or you appear as an orc, desert barrenous land. You have no idea what you’re doing, oh wow a troll village! U keep walking down the beaten path to orgrimmar, the music plays, no idea at all that it was here.. Every race had a beautiful unexplored city, the world was so open and expansive and untouched. The mystery the smallness you feel as an individual. It was just magical. I imagine in ashes we will know whats coming. It happened for me with gw2 but it didnt take away from exploring or doing things my way. Min/maxers are a bigger issue. Ive never ridden the coat tails of someone elses work or ideas in a game but im so shocked at how many people just copy someone elses success and think thats fun? Then you get over half a game of people all doing the same thing. Im the person who makes my own weird niche setup to deal with the min/max builds that makes them rage when they die to it. Thats the thing is they need multiple routes to how combat works. And min/max meta may cover alot of ground but make sure it can be undermined as well. The min/maxing meta has destroyed gw2 pvp. Everyone runs the same exact thing because theres no reason not to. And there are no better options. The gw2 dev team gas actually seemed to work hard to purposely make it that way by nerfing everything else. Its a failed game pvp wise. 0-2 years after release it was amazing then they made all these unnecessary changes and made the path to success more and more narrow. U stopped seeing diversity entirely
You could always not watch and play with people that don’t watch spoiled stuff if it bothers you. It’s unavoidable to try and prevent spoilers imo. Haven’t watched the video yet.
I would also delete youtube and would prefer to discover everything by myself while playing or at most read some info here and there from reddit conversations for example.
with the size and scale of ashes you would have to invest more time in watching video's about the game then playing the to be spoiled and at that point your where trying to be spoiled
The meta stuff @ 3:25. Rubbish. There'll be a meta near launch ofc, probably a few competing metas! None of them will be meta a year later. So anyone following any "meta" in early game really is just being a sheep and ruining the experience for themselves.
On one hand excited to learn as much as possible, on the other hand would prefer to dive into the game without foreknowledge.
Yes, "hardcore" players, minmaxers, theorycrafters, guide creators, and "content" creators putting out videos do in fact ruin the experience of game, because it all contributes to the identification, propagation, solidification, and stagnation of a metagame. It is directly and without any question a negative thing, and it is a huge portion of why the old feeling of the release of a game is so horrendously short nowadays.
It does not matter if you don't personally watch it, because other people are going to, and they are going to act on it. The metagame will exist before the game even comes out thanks to A2, and content creators will milk it for as much as they can, meaning it will spread far and wide.
Completely agreed. The heyday of MMOs was pre-wiki and pre-YT and Twitch. We had in-house secrets and group builds and unknown camps and resource spots.
FFXI, WoW and even EQ have forums amd websites dedicated to lore, quests, and guides. Video is just the new format, it's how it's always been. BiS, raid guides, ffxi had complete quest guides. You can avoid these videos, and experience the game without it. I blocked everyone listing videos to ffxiv cause I didn't want to be spoiled. Play how you want, it's an mmo.
The only way that everything will be explored and everything will be done is if by the time the game launches every single node has been leveled to metropolis with some massive coordinated effort across servers and for all nodes/content to be accessible well before release. The way i see it, the only way everything is explored or done is if the node system is ultimately a very shallow system where all content and harvestable materials are accessible from lvl 0 wilderness or at least lvl 1 expedition stages without any meaningful changes to the nodes landscape. Also we have to take into consideration easter egg or potential node combination events no matter if that is just optimistic cope or not. One example would be if all nodes with volcanos were leveled to and kept at metropolis at the same time, a server wide event started. Would take a considerable amount of coordination just to test things like that unless Intrepid showed or hinted the community beforehand.
TLDR. Theres no chance youtubers or streamers can show off 100% of the games content unless the games systems are incredibly shallow or Alpha/Beta last for 10 years with all the release content available
Depending on how servers play out, there may be some stuff that we don't see, due to creators not being on those servers.
You are aware about amount of creators that will stream/video record AoC? There propably wont be a single server free without at least couple of cc guilds
I think we need to test every mechanic but not every piece of content. Bugs found in open testing can be extrapolated to other content and covered by potential NDA testers. This may not find every bug but I think would cover all major game breaking bugs.
My personal guess is Intrepids will give us full map, but not the full content. Most of the events and bosses will stay hidden and maybe even some nodes will be unavailable for leveling them up
They literally list everything in their stream as well as on their wiki.
My hope is, that they treat the pre launch period like BG3 did. They tested everything in there chapter 1. They don't have to reveal the whole world. They can test almost everything in a limited game. They can test some mechanics for a while and then take them back out again to polish them.
Considering alpha 2 is just a test map and not the real Verra, I'd say no. We'll test core mechanics in Alpha 2, but we won't see the actual game. As you put it, what they shared during a live stream is all we're getting, and even Steven has said he doesn't want to spoil the game before launch. Phase I is all about testing a single region to see how many people they can fit in one area, especially at the portal. It's a login server and mesh test. It's something they cannot test in-house. This last stream even proves it's just a test map with Lionhold, a preexisting town that won't exist in the real game. Remember Verra is bare and we're one of the first legal people through the portals
The moment a new patch or update hits New World, it is aggressively data mined with a fine toothed comb looking at everything within the code that has changed. Anything that can give an advantage is sought out by people who often understand how the game works better than the developers. This will absolutely happen with Ashes, only there will be even more eyes on every single line of code and obscure feature given the size of the audience. Knowledge is power, so of course there will be highly intelligent and motivated groups of people ever seeking the edge.
Woot! 6am upload. Thanks Doc 😂
Btw, great video as always. Thank you guys for your efforts. I wish RU lang community and CCs could be half as great and invested as EN
Another great episode! Really cool answers and opinions between the creators.
The way they will be phasing in the world a little at a time over the course of alpha 2 means there will be lots to explore as alpha 2 go's on, however the people coming in after alpha 2 will have alot of spoilers get them. That being said nobody knows how the wars will play out, and how people will develop there nodes and what they will unlock because of there choices. One thing I can tell you is that this game so far is a cafters dream, like if your into crafting this is gona be your game, hands down. Dont ask me how I know ;)
you don't know, intrepid can miserably fail at their vision
well u make a good point about some contnet being lockez cuz of node lvls but i dont see much contnet staying hiden with 2+ years of alpha ideal would be when they have left island finished thats it for alpha they cant build other one whcich can bee testeed during betas they if stuff on 1 side works they will 99% of the time work on the other side too its gonna kinda suck if we get to play everything and see everything before game even launchees in my opinion
It's hard for most people to understand but we are the content. *brain glitches, connot comput*
The complicated breeding system were you need irl note books on note books. Probely won´t get spoiled unless dataminers.
Thanks Doc, excellent discussions and topics, as always.
Amount of class customization: I'm with No1 Ross, the more customization, the better. That's also the best way to balance things, in my humble opinion: give us enough options to explore and find ways to beat our opponents.
I have a strange urge to pick up painting now, no idea why.
*Intrepid isn't going to let us test the entire game, zero chance.*
*They're not gonna show us the node type locations either, they'll make every node the same type,*
*and rotate through all 4 types for testing.*
Steven has said Ashes will be feature complete by the end of Alpha 2, that means metropolis.
look at Baldurs gate 3 the early acces for a couple of years and let us play up to lvl 5. was a great way of getting the game more attention. and it was a huge success i think it will be the same here. they will see a bit of the game hopefully more of the mechanics around nodesetc and what pvp ers and pve oriented people can coexists and work towards the same goal. but its just a little part of the game thats gonna be alpha 2. the beta probably will be NDA
I plan to go into the Alpha/Beta completely blind, and only look stuff up once I feel like i'm done with most of it. Kind of like I played BG3. Only looked up stuff about it once I finished a playthrough, and then you can check out a lot of stuff you might have missed on another playthrough. Best of both worlds.
TH-cam ruins everything except how to do things like build a bench, how to clean label gunk etc, showing or revealing game play spoils the game for the player, all the joy of discovery is gone
Another great episode just before the Bengals game, It is a good day my friend!
I hope, somehow, Intrepid will keep majority of story and lore secret. What I am scared of is what route the story will take...
Will we be fighting God level entities from the get go? That would kill a game for me, so I will spoil the story for myself out of fear that it sucks.
Dragons and maybe Lich King demigod level of end game bosses-Thats all I need. Not fighting literal Titan on a space goat spaceship.
that was my point all along i hope they dont even show the other island untill its finished they can test everything on 1 island and leave the other one for actual launch there will be short betas to test it it gonna suck for players who will see everythng before they even get hands o nthe game
TH-cam surprised me how cute Burns is
Guides don't spoil games. Anie was spot on that we aren't going to see a lot of things in the testing. Why am I not surprised that Jay states "there will be a meta"? - wrong. What do you expect from a New Worlder ;) That's a different conversation though. You know how all the Doomers are crying about how long it's going to take to make the other biomes (as an example)? They base their timeline on how long it's taken vs how we're only getting Riverlands right now. That argument loses all credibility when you realize that the thinking we're going to see all of the biomes before launch is 100% baseless assumption. Shout out to No1 for bringing up the difference between servers!! I think it's funny that people still don't get that 1 - Steven has thought about this game is FAAAR more depth and detail than all of the TH-camrs combined. 2 - People are really thinking things without actually paying attention to Steven's statements, comments and behaviors. Min/Maxing - it's like Meta - it's a lie. What can be called Min/Max is different for different content and different preferences. There isn't a single build that can't be countered. None. Period. No1 gets it yet again!!
If you seek the content, you spoil it for yourself. My friend and I are both looking forward to AoC. He hasn't looked, read, or spoiled anything about ashes. He only asked for me to let him know the dates. While I research and document everything. People just need to decide how to consume content.
The idea that lore itself will be withheld from us is ridiculous, if you ask me. I don't doubt it'll happen, but I think why it is is silly.
I'm going to be playing in Alpha 2, and I'm going to try my hardest to roleplay. I'm choosing Vek. I want to roleplay as a member of a race *whose culture doesn't exist.* Let that sink in for a second.
What is the utility in withholding this information from me?
You cant have it both ways. Either there is a NDA, and we bitch about that, or there is not, and we bitch about that.
I think people will learn less from the testing of AoC than they have from other games in the past. First of all, a lot of the live content wont be revealed. Second, a lot of the content that is revealed, wont necessarily appear on your realm, or in the combinations revealed in the testing. Thirdly, we won't see the high level content that will actually stress the players. Finally, I am pretty sure the the most important part of AoC will be Nodes, and i don't think we will get enough of a trial and error shot at developing competing Nodes, to discover how that will pan out.
For example if a military node with 80% strong PvPers and very few economic or production buildings, comes up against a religious node of 80% PvEers with a lot crafting buildings, who will win? That is the main competition in AoC, and whether the PvPers end up being just a rag-tag group of pirates and brigands, confined to eking out a living in the wild, or the PvEers end up as serfs, under the thumb of mighty Lords and their knights, is going to be undecided. And it may well be either or neither, depending on the realm in which you live, and how each realm develops.
We are a motley crew of foolish souls where most of us seem so self-centered and full of themselves. LOL
I personally don't think Any "given server" will even be able to be "fully explored/understood" for at least the first two years after Live.
This is just based on things we KNOW Steven has said AND things they have showed us so far.
Something as "simple" as Unique Weapons changes things on a per server basis.
ALL THAT SAID, everything "open to the public" is GOOD, because there are 3655 ARTICLES on the wiki, people NEED to learn something about playing this game before they actually do.
Otherwise, they spend the first three or four months trying to sort themselves out. You CAN do that, go in blind, but at some point, a good portion of those people feel disappointed. LOL
Within the first 100!? Woot!
getting close now, I can taste it
With the number of combinations of archetypes, I'd say no way it would be possible. Regsrdless of the number of content creators no way a meta couod be established in any sort of speed
I think yes alot will be spoiled. U can stop watching the videos but lets face it were not gonna do that we wanna see if this game continues to be what we want it to be.
That was the beauty of WoW back in the day. No youtube to spoil it, we just kind of winged it and jumped into this massive beautiful world. You just appear as a dwarf in this massive snowy mountainous landscape and accidentally walk into ironforge for the first time… wow what a time to be a gamer.
Or you appear as an orc, desert barrenous land. You have no idea what you’re doing, oh wow a troll village! U keep walking down the beaten path to orgrimmar, the music plays, no idea at all that it was here..
Every race had a beautiful unexplored city, the world was so open and expansive and untouched. The mystery the smallness you feel as an individual.
It was just magical.
I imagine in ashes we will know whats coming. It happened for me with gw2 but it didnt take away from exploring or doing things my way.
Min/maxers are a bigger issue. Ive never ridden the coat tails of someone elses work or ideas in a game but im so shocked at how many people just copy someone elses success and think thats fun? Then you get over half a game of people all doing the same thing.
Im the person who makes my own weird niche setup to deal with the min/max builds that makes them rage when they die to it. Thats the thing is they need multiple routes to how combat works. And min/max meta may cover alot of ground but make sure it can be undermined as well.
The min/maxing meta has destroyed gw2 pvp. Everyone runs the same exact thing because theres no reason not to. And there are no better options. The gw2 dev team gas actually seemed to work hard to purposely make it that way by nerfing everything else. Its a failed game pvp wise. 0-2 years after release it was amazing then they made all these unnecessary changes and made the path to success more and more narrow. U stopped seeing diversity entirely
You could always not watch and play with people that don’t watch spoiled stuff if it bothers you. It’s unavoidable to try and prevent spoilers imo. Haven’t watched the video yet.
Thanks again Doc!
I would also delete youtube and would prefer to discover everything by myself while playing or at most read some info here and there from reddit conversations for example.
with the size and scale of ashes you would have to invest more time in watching video's about the game then playing the to be spoiled and at that point your where trying to be spoiled
The meta stuff @ 3:25. Rubbish. There'll be a meta near launch ofc, probably a few competing metas! None of them will be meta a year later.
So anyone following any "meta" in early game really is just being a sheep and ruining the experience for themselves.
yes. I do. So Im specifically avoiding all of em :D
Epic M.M.G.A hat haha 🇺🇸 🦅
Woot!
Oh yeah, we definitely will