This one snuck up on me, but open beta for combat (basically a battle royale, with castles, seige, etc) started 12/18/2018, with the full mmo beta scheduled for next year. It’s a medieval open world sandbox MMO with PvP and substantial PvE, based around building nodes that can be upgraded/crafted to spread civilization. There can only be 5 of the largest nodes in the world at any one time, so there’s a reason for PvP conflict aside from lamentation. When nodes begin to get large, the local monsters start to take notice and will raid the settlements for PvE goodness. Sounds like it could be the Shadowbane successor so many of us have been waiting for.
I believe $75 is for early access to the full MMO beta test phase plus other pre-release goodies. I’m not sure what the monetization scheme will be on release. The current combat/siege battle royale beta is open.
This will have a $15/month subscription at launch. Any money spent now just gets you into one of the test phases before launch along with some goodies at launch including one or more months of the sub price.
The Apocalypse (battle royale) is free and open to all now although the servers have been going up and down a lot since it just launched. Castle sieges will be added to Apocalypse some time later (~Jan '19), and Horde mode (players defend against onslaughts of NPC’s) will be added some time in the Spring.
Ashes has continued development of the MMO side at a good pace and is entering alpha-1, where some early backers will have access to brief testing periods. Alpha-2 does not have a date yet, but I wouldn’t expect it until winter or spring, and will have persistent servers. With New World being delayed, this may be the next big MMO. Here’s a recent video with a lot of good info about how the game will work, as well as lots of gameplay video that looks pretty great for pre-alpha. There is not going to be an NDA, so there should be plenty of information coming out over the next months. The design of the world is very interesting and will make each server different, including where the cities and towns develop, what their architecture will be, which quests and even endgame raids are available.
Huh. Interesting but it also looks super-ambitious, which I’m not sure is a great thing for a new studio’s first game. I wish them luck…it all sounds great, but my guess is only a fraction of that stuff ever works.
Heh, I saw that video last week and it definitely piqued my interest.
While it’s good to be skeptical @charmtrap (and I am too) it sure sounds like they are doing things the right way. That said, is there still a place in this world for an MMO where you pay $15 a month for the privilege of logging on? I guess we’ll find out in a couple of years (I don’t know the official launch date or if there even IS one but given they are in the Alpha 1 timeframe right now my guess is it won’t come out before end of 2022, if then).
From my experience, there are a non trivial number of gamers who are still amenable to the firm “this is what you get” nature of that up front subscription. There are right and wrong ways to do FTP, most companies do it either wrong or don’t balance it well enough and wind up somewhere that’s still medicore or on the wrong side of it. Ashes is going to have cosmetics for sale (which makes sense, IMO), but there’s an attractiveness for some to the no frills aspect of “15 bucks a month and all the content is yours”.
And there are more than a few people who want an MMORPG that’s not WoW or a direct WoW derivative, I think.
They’re having a couple of 3-day targeted alpha tests in December and February, a one week “preview” alpha in March, and a month-long Alpha One in April. The last two are not under NDA.
I believe people got access to the Alpha by backing them on Kickstarter a few years ago. Alpha One backer packs are no longer available but their webstore does sell different packs, including some that offer Alpha Two and Beta One/Two access (the packs include cosmetics, prepaid game time and other stuff, so you’re not simply paying to get into the Alpha/Beta).
Has there been a successful entry in the “Kickstarted, sandbox MMO with a long alpha” genre? Not poo-pooing it at all, I was just curious if there was a previously successful model to look to for comparison.
But realistically I’d say no, if only because a MMO needs way more money than a kickstarter campaign is going to give them, so if the team has enough money they don’t need kickstarter, and if they don’t have enough money, kickstarter ain’t gonna be enough.
Of course the jury is still out on many. I’m sure there are a number of them but the only other one I can think of is the successor to Dark Age of Camelot, Camelot Unchained. I haven’t kept up with that one so other than hearing there is some drama now and then, I’m in the dark on it.
Count me in as someone who would happily pay to avoid F2P stuff. For me, there are so many good games destroyed by intrusive F2P mechanics. Even when they are done fairly and well, they are a huge intrusion to your suspension of disbelief. The last thing I want to be reminded of when I play games like this, is the real world and money.
