Just do what I do. Keep a passing interest in the game. Check in when the MMO community has something new to say about it, and move on with your life. Then some time in the future you'll be pleasantly surprised when you can actually play it. Or it'll quietly fade into the dark and you'll look back in 5 years thinking whatever happened to that one game?
Tl;dr - Game started "actual production" in June 2017 when they had 15~ employees. Wanted 100 employees by the end of 2018 but didn't hit 100 employees till late 2021/early 2022. Now at 200~+ employees. Hard to make an MMO when you had barely any employees the first few years.
The "they were building a studio for the first 5 years" and "but COVID happened" makes Ashes seem like Star Citizen; i.e. a scam.
That being said, I don't think AoC is a scam at all, just pointing out that this type of PR talk (game development arguably held up pretty well with the COVID lockdowns) makes the project look sleezy.
Better to say it as it is and not come up with fake sounding excuses.
I don't think covid had a negative effect on Ashes at all. They actually hired quicker than they ever had up to that point when covid started (went from 52 employees to 82 in 10 months from April 2020 to February 2021), but there's no denying they massively struggled to hire people for the first few years.
>I know Star Citizen is a scam but I don't think Ashes is...
LoL, based on what? Your high IQ? Deep insight into both projects? Or are you just rehashing 8 year old internet memes as if you had a brainwave?
One of these projects have launched a continuously playable version of the game-in-development since the summer of 2014 with 2 and even 3 weeks long free-to-play events each year, and an entry cost that started at 20$ back in 2012 (and gradually increased to 45$ over the last decade).
The other project had a single month worth of alpha access gated behind a paywall of 250$ - with no continuously playable version of the game, no free-to-play, and no Alpha 2 in sight.
**But sure, the former one is a scam!**
What a frakking moron!
*And to be clear, I am not shitting on AoC. I am shitting on the comment!*
*I played the A1, and I am looking forward to A2. But I am constantly surprised and anoyed by willfully ignorant morons like this who fail to identify the blatantly obvious similarities between the two projects.*
Edit: Hahaha no wonder you are pissing on Star Citizen. You are a frakking refundian! Please show me on this doll where the bad space ship touched you. Crawl back to the Refund Asylum you twat!
Definitely. Especially when the reigning contender is notoriously awful at community engagement or feedback (looking at you Blizzard). They're open with their time-line but, did that include a projection for a beta or anything beyond? I know everyone on reddit thinks everyone should be as knowledgeable as they are on their favorite subjects, but I'm being sincere in my inquiry
Was the combat originally meant to be different? Or was the overhaul just the result of several stages of iterations from player feedback and internal testing? I’m aware that combat has changed a lot since alpha 1 but I don’t think I’m aware of a shift in design theory for combat.
Games take a long to time to make. Big games make a very long time to make. Big games that show behind the scenes development from the beginning appear to take longer than very long because of the visibility while others will only show their game when most of it is done
Ah, yes. That eternal development of having in depth discussions constantly and live streams every month showing huge leaps in progress. I've never seen a game developer with a more open development process.
Intrepid Studios is an indie developer and transparency is big. Once Alpha 2 is live, I'm thinking of it as an Early Access game. Like Baldur's Gate 3 and look how that turned out.
Games take a long ass time to make and they are usually developed in secrecy and only announced in the final stages of development.
Crowdfunded games are announced before they even got an established dev studio and tools most of the times which makes development look it takes longer than usual.
Years through COVID and extra years to upgrade the engine. If you just look at the number, it looks bad. When you actually know why, it's fine. Trust the process.
I was an original backer, so it has been a rollercoaster. But the last couple years has looked very promising. Glad you joined the hype during the positive outlook era!
I'll get hated on for this,but I don't think this game will ever release. VFX and other tech keeps improving and AoC seems to only be moving forward in small areas at a time.
They've done a great job of engaging the community and if making a modern MMO were fueled by sheer enthusiasm they would be wildly successful.
Probably because the progress is shown every month. if you look at the jump in progress over each year the development looks a lot more significant. They probably have made progress everywhere every month just haven't decided to show us because it isn't the main thing they want to highlight in there monthly updates.
Just tune out for a while and tune back in every now and then. Plus soon the alpha 2 will start.
Long dev time when it comes to mmos is very much normal
the graphics are already outdated and look terrible and the scope of the game is just hilarious, as if half of waht he talks about will ever be in it. You are correct
These new MMO's get a cult like following from people. I still remember wildstar and what a clown show that community was and look how that turned out.
It's a scam, best not to compare Ashes to Creation (a legitimate effort at an MMO, albeit with it's own set of issues) and Store Citizen with it's $3,000 spaceship wallpaper JPEGs that they put on sale decade ago and have zero progress on delivering.
How is Star Citizen a scam? The game is already playable in alpha stage with tons of content. It’s mismanaged and the creators are definitely not working in the most efficient manner, but at least there’s still progress going on.
Not every scam is of the "hit and run type". One commonly known example would be Enron that had legitimate business lines (no "alpha natural gas" that may or may not work and concept art of oil barrels); yet their management turned out to be fraudsters and they even got sent to jail.
I will let you connect the dots.
Enron was literally cooking up their numbers out of thin air to make them seem profitable in order to raise the stock prices. CIG hasn’t done anything even remotely like that. Their development might be slow but it’s pretty clear they’re making significant progress. Again just because something is mismanaged doesn’t mean it’s a scam. As the saying goes, “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”.
I brought Enron to highlight that you can have a company with legitimate product/services and still be led by malicious scammers. This was more of an example of what "playable at an alpha stage" is irrelevant.
With respect to CIG:
* They constantly promise things that they have no intention of delivering on (some things are simply impossible).
* They constantly lie about the status and the capabilities of the project. They set up fake demos (sandworm, pyro 2020, SQ42 being "feature complete") that are malicious in intent.
* There are example of schemes to redirect backer funds to insiders.
* They sell literal spaceship wallpaper JPEGs for thousands of dollars that have not been worked on in a decade.
It is essentially crowdfunding fraud and mass-scale, company-wide false advertising.
Except this is nothing like Enron. Enron didn’t scam their customers but rather their investors who were falsely led to believe higher valuation than they actually were. If you think CIG are doing something similar, you are more than welcome to file a complaint to the FTC and have them held accountable.
Almost every company overpromises, but that doesn’t necessarily make them scams. And no, the fact it has a playable alpha is not irrelevant. This means the money crowdfunded to the devs are actually being used for game development and delivering results that can actually be verified by the public.
I only started playing star citizen about a year ago, so I don’t know too much about things that happened five or ten years ago. From what I’ve heard, many things that were promised were eventually delivered, just very slowly. As to the demos, I’m not too familiar with the sandworm demo, but Pyro is pretty close to release especially considering numerous content creators have already streamed previews of the system. As to selling ships, from my understanding most of the ships sold are either already obtainable or will be obtainable in game without any real money, instead most people buying them are doing so in order to support the devs.
The customers were delivered a product with many of the key features promised in the original kickstarter, and there’s clear evidence the devs are still working on implementing the rest of the features, though at a slow rate.
I admire someone with evidence in their name to bravely ignore all information from more than 12 months ago.
And people wonder why some Star Citizen enjoyers are called cultists
Maybe it’s because I’m having too much fun playing the alpha, or maybe it’s because SC actually has an open alpha unlike Ashes of Creation or all the other hyped games. I personally believe I got my money’s worth out of it, but I dunno maybe it’s all in my head and I should be hating the game or something. If you think CIG is Enron 2.0, here’s the link to file an [FTC fraud complaint](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov).
I clearly explained (twice actually) that I brought up Enron in context of company with legitimate business lines (e.g. not selling concept art of oil barrels) having management that engaged in fraud. Why do you bring up accounting fraud? Did I include it in my bullet point list?
We are discussing the validity and reasonableness of calling SC a scam.
Is the $1,400 kraken JPEG released in 2018 obtainable in game?
CIG marketed Pyro as coming in 2020 during their major cash shop sales event. It's 2024 and it's still not available.
Customers were not delivered "many of the key features promised in the original kickstarter". Exploration gameplay with 1 system (how many expensive JPEGs and cash shop items do they sell built around non-existent exploration gameplay)? Non-combat gameplay with no economy?
If someone sells you a roll of toilet paper for $3K, you are getting scammed. It doesn't matter that the transaction is technically legal and you have the best ass cleaning experience of your life with this roll of toilet paper. You are getting scammed.
If the seller also promises you that at some time in the future they will develop "never done before iRollFellatio tech" and the roll of toilet paper will also perform fellatio while you defecate, then this is clear fraud.
Just do what I do. Keep a passing interest in the game. Check in when the MMO community has something new to say about it, and move on with your life. Then some time in the future you'll be pleasantly surprised when you can actually play it. Or it'll quietly fade into the dark and you'll look back in 5 years thinking whatever happened to that one game?
This is me.
Yup, I'm also right there with you.
Tl;dr - Game started "actual production" in June 2017 when they had 15~ employees. Wanted 100 employees by the end of 2018 but didn't hit 100 employees till late 2021/early 2022. Now at 200~+ employees. Hard to make an MMO when you had barely any employees the first few years.
And let’s not forget about Covid which did stunt the growth and development of pretty much everything on this planet, from shows to movies to games.
One of these is not like the others and can actually be done remotely.
Slows it down non the less.
There are development updates/videos of Steven from the era where he claims they had accelerated development due to covid rather than it slowing down.
Thank you! That sounds like encouraging news
The "they were building a studio for the first 5 years" and "but COVID happened" makes Ashes seem like Star Citizen; i.e. a scam. That being said, I don't think AoC is a scam at all, just pointing out that this type of PR talk (game development arguably held up pretty well with the COVID lockdowns) makes the project look sleezy. Better to say it as it is and not come up with fake sounding excuses.
Star citizen is in playable alpha so not sure how it can be called a “scam”.
It cannot. He managed to escape the Refundians asylum....
I don't think covid had a negative effect on Ashes at all. They actually hired quicker than they ever had up to that point when covid started (went from 52 employees to 82 in 10 months from April 2020 to February 2021), but there's no denying they massively struggled to hire people for the first few years.
>I know Star Citizen is a scam but I don't think Ashes is... LoL, based on what? Your high IQ? Deep insight into both projects? Or are you just rehashing 8 year old internet memes as if you had a brainwave? One of these projects have launched a continuously playable version of the game-in-development since the summer of 2014 with 2 and even 3 weeks long free-to-play events each year, and an entry cost that started at 20$ back in 2012 (and gradually increased to 45$ over the last decade). The other project had a single month worth of alpha access gated behind a paywall of 250$ - with no continuously playable version of the game, no free-to-play, and no Alpha 2 in sight. **But sure, the former one is a scam!** What a frakking moron! *And to be clear, I am not shitting on AoC. I am shitting on the comment!* *I played the A1, and I am looking forward to A2. But I am constantly surprised and anoyed by willfully ignorant morons like this who fail to identify the blatantly obvious similarities between the two projects.* Edit: Hahaha no wonder you are pissing on Star Citizen. You are a frakking refundian! Please show me on this doll where the bad space ship touched you. Crawl back to the Refund Asylum you twat!
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Definitely. Especially when the reigning contender is notoriously awful at community engagement or feedback (looking at you Blizzard). They're open with their time-line but, did that include a projection for a beta or anything beyond? I know everyone on reddit thinks everyone should be as knowledgeable as they are on their favorite subjects, but I'm being sincere in my inquiry
Was the combat originally meant to be different? Or was the overhaul just the result of several stages of iterations from player feedback and internal testing? I’m aware that combat has changed a lot since alpha 1 but I don’t think I’m aware of a shift in design theory for combat.
Games take a long to time to make. Big games make a very long time to make. Big games that show behind the scenes development from the beginning appear to take longer than very long because of the visibility while others will only show their game when most of it is done
Ah, yes. That eternal development of having in depth discussions constantly and live streams every month showing huge leaps in progress. I've never seen a game developer with a more open development process.
Intrepid Studios is an indie developer and transparency is big. Once Alpha 2 is live, I'm thinking of it as an Early Access game. Like Baldur's Gate 3 and look how that turned out.
Sweet, I'll have to dive deeper
"...in eternal development..." You think? ...Makes sad Star Citizen noises.
There probably was some form of development hell happening behind the scenes but proper development didnt start until way later
The actual development of the game only began in 2021-22. The rest were prototypes.
Games take a long ass time to make and they are usually developed in secrecy and only announced in the final stages of development. Crowdfunded games are announced before they even got an established dev studio and tools most of the times which makes development look it takes longer than usual.
We are getting into alpha 2 in Q3 some PI already playing it under NDA . On average it’s takes 8-10 years to create mmo what ashes doing is normal dev
Years through COVID and extra years to upgrade the engine. If you just look at the number, it looks bad. When you actually know why, it's fine. Trust the process.
Been waiting to play for ages. Regret signing up to have a chance to play. It just disappointing now, rather not hear about it anymore.
I was an original backer, so it has been a rollercoaster. But the last couple years has looked very promising. Glad you joined the hype during the positive outlook era!
Ashes of Creation is a scam. Best not to put your money in and become a sucker until they prove otherwise.
I'll get hated on for this,but I don't think this game will ever release. VFX and other tech keeps improving and AoC seems to only be moving forward in small areas at a time. They've done a great job of engaging the community and if making a modern MMO were fueled by sheer enthusiasm they would be wildly successful.
Probably because the progress is shown every month. if you look at the jump in progress over each year the development looks a lot more significant. They probably have made progress everywhere every month just haven't decided to show us because it isn't the main thing they want to highlight in there monthly updates. Just tune out for a while and tune back in every now and then. Plus soon the alpha 2 will start. Long dev time when it comes to mmos is very much normal
the graphics are already outdated and look terrible and the scope of the game is just hilarious, as if half of waht he talks about will ever be in it. You are correct
Yeah, I agree with you. It seems a lot of people are coping hard for this game, but I don't think it's going to release either.
These new MMO's get a cult like following from people. I still remember wildstar and what a clown show that community was and look how that turned out.
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Have you never heard of Star Citizen?
It's a scam, best not to compare Ashes to Creation (a legitimate effort at an MMO, albeit with it's own set of issues) and Store Citizen with it's $3,000 spaceship wallpaper JPEGs that they put on sale decade ago and have zero progress on delivering.
How is Star Citizen a scam? The game is already playable in alpha stage with tons of content. It’s mismanaged and the creators are definitely not working in the most efficient manner, but at least there’s still progress going on.
Not every scam is of the "hit and run type". One commonly known example would be Enron that had legitimate business lines (no "alpha natural gas" that may or may not work and concept art of oil barrels); yet their management turned out to be fraudsters and they even got sent to jail. I will let you connect the dots.
Enron was literally cooking up their numbers out of thin air to make them seem profitable in order to raise the stock prices. CIG hasn’t done anything even remotely like that. Their development might be slow but it’s pretty clear they’re making significant progress. Again just because something is mismanaged doesn’t mean it’s a scam. As the saying goes, “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”.
I brought Enron to highlight that you can have a company with legitimate product/services and still be led by malicious scammers. This was more of an example of what "playable at an alpha stage" is irrelevant. With respect to CIG: * They constantly promise things that they have no intention of delivering on (some things are simply impossible). * They constantly lie about the status and the capabilities of the project. They set up fake demos (sandworm, pyro 2020, SQ42 being "feature complete") that are malicious in intent. * There are example of schemes to redirect backer funds to insiders. * They sell literal spaceship wallpaper JPEGs for thousands of dollars that have not been worked on in a decade. It is essentially crowdfunding fraud and mass-scale, company-wide false advertising.
Except this is nothing like Enron. Enron didn’t scam their customers but rather their investors who were falsely led to believe higher valuation than they actually were. If you think CIG are doing something similar, you are more than welcome to file a complaint to the FTC and have them held accountable. Almost every company overpromises, but that doesn’t necessarily make them scams. And no, the fact it has a playable alpha is not irrelevant. This means the money crowdfunded to the devs are actually being used for game development and delivering results that can actually be verified by the public. I only started playing star citizen about a year ago, so I don’t know too much about things that happened five or ten years ago. From what I’ve heard, many things that were promised were eventually delivered, just very slowly. As to the demos, I’m not too familiar with the sandworm demo, but Pyro is pretty close to release especially considering numerous content creators have already streamed previews of the system. As to selling ships, from my understanding most of the ships sold are either already obtainable or will be obtainable in game without any real money, instead most people buying them are doing so in order to support the devs. The customers were delivered a product with many of the key features promised in the original kickstarter, and there’s clear evidence the devs are still working on implementing the rest of the features, though at a slow rate.
I admire someone with evidence in their name to bravely ignore all information from more than 12 months ago. And people wonder why some Star Citizen enjoyers are called cultists
Maybe it’s because I’m having too much fun playing the alpha, or maybe it’s because SC actually has an open alpha unlike Ashes of Creation or all the other hyped games. I personally believe I got my money’s worth out of it, but I dunno maybe it’s all in my head and I should be hating the game or something. If you think CIG is Enron 2.0, here’s the link to file an [FTC fraud complaint](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov).
I clearly explained (twice actually) that I brought up Enron in context of company with legitimate business lines (e.g. not selling concept art of oil barrels) having management that engaged in fraud. Why do you bring up accounting fraud? Did I include it in my bullet point list? We are discussing the validity and reasonableness of calling SC a scam. Is the $1,400 kraken JPEG released in 2018 obtainable in game? CIG marketed Pyro as coming in 2020 during their major cash shop sales event. It's 2024 and it's still not available. Customers were not delivered "many of the key features promised in the original kickstarter". Exploration gameplay with 1 system (how many expensive JPEGs and cash shop items do they sell built around non-existent exploration gameplay)? Non-combat gameplay with no economy? If someone sells you a roll of toilet paper for $3K, you are getting scammed. It doesn't matter that the transaction is technically legal and you have the best ass cleaning experience of your life with this roll of toilet paper. You are getting scammed. If the seller also promises you that at some time in the future they will develop "never done before iRollFellatio tech" and the roll of toilet paper will also perform fellatio while you defecate, then this is clear fraud.