Ashes of creation. Legitimate passion project or massive scam.

[The News Crews]

Ashes of creation is an upcoming crowd-funded MMORPG. While this should be a cause for major alarm, the game has made considerable progress compared to other crowdfunded games. With monthly developer updates, and the company regularly hiring new employees. There are several red flags however. Despite the game not even being released yet (and supposedly fully funded), it already has a FOMO cash shop with monthly cosmetic packs. The creative director has also been involved with an MLM company. Possibly worst of all is them losing their lead game designer.

It would take forever to explain in autistic detail all the systems they promise so here is a quick rundown
>Node system. The map is separated into that evolve the more people gain experience in it. Further it levels more dungeons and raids are accessible. Nodes change visually depending on which race contributes the most. Leaders can be elected.
>8 primary classes, after you reach a certain level you select a 2nd class, making 64 combinations
>most raids and dungeons aren't instanced
>dynamic weather system, seasons will change dungeons, mobs, and recourse amounts.

 

[Lady Adjani]

Red flag after red flag

- studio has zero games under their belt
- cash-shop

A lot of what we experienced in games that usually come before us is that many things are account bound and they're soulbound to your character... Instead very little here is character bound. Very very little. The vast majority of gear- yes you will get quest related gear as rewards- but it won't be let's say one set in one dungeon and you must run the dungeon over and over. Instead we want to really emphasize the reliance on the economy and crafters and gatherers and processors to support a majority of the gear structure in-game, combined with that of world raid bosses and dungeon bosses; not a repetitive quest line through a single dungeon.[111] – Steven Sharif

So I can just swipe my CC and get the brand new DragonKiller 3000? Great.

Over all I think the game does very little to set itself apart from other franchises, generic orcs, elves and dwarves high fantasy setting.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

If Richard Garriott couldn't launch a successful mmo independently neither these people can.

 

[Nathan Higgers]

If Richard Garriott couldn't launch a successful mmo independently neither these people can.

Chronicles of Arcadia people did. I mean, they stole the source code from the Runes of Magic team (a once successful WoW clone), however they fixed a lot of the issues of that game AND added new contents to it. It's actually kind of amazing what they managed to do with that game.

 

[Agarathium1066]

I'd love for a game like this to actually do well but I've seen nothing but continual failure from crowd funded games, especially with MMOs that are saying they're totally gonna do a great thing. They never do and instead just take the money then split apart because none of them have the ability to actually get shit done.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Why can't it be both at once? Like Star Citizen or date rape.

 

[The Man With No Name]

"If the crowdfunded MMORPG is not currently a scam, it will be a scam." - Sun Tzu

 

[Queesechake]

I may be in the minority but I'm very excited/hopeful for AOC. The guy making it was a big Lineage 2 fan which I had more fun with than any game ever made back in 2006-2013ish. Really seems like he's trying to make a game to scratch his own itch. I haven't found an MMO since L2 that really got me excited except for AOC. Even if it's p2w, which it hopefully won't be and doesn't seem like it will be I'll still be excited for it. Every private Lineage 2 server I played was p2w and I still found ways to have a great time with it without spending a penny.

 

[Wry]

Having done due diligence over the past 5 years, I can confidently say that Ashes of Creation is on the right track. That said, I still can't recommend it unless you are suffering from severe MMO withdrawal. The devs aren't shy about citing their inspirations and are pretty much admitting that they have aped SWTOR, Archeage, BDO and the likes. Or at least the good, non-P2W parts of them.
The only way this can go tits up is if all the people responsible for The Vision get assassinated or their ""revolutionary"" sharting tech doesn't work as well as they hope. After all, the biggest incentives for player interaction are nodes and the endless player conflict accompanying them and it takes a lot to have hundreds of concurrent players in a single area on a single "server". This is why I don't recommend buying Alpha access since the node war showcase was pretty inconclusive and small scale.
Then there's also the issue of repeated Alpha 2 delays but this one I can understand since they would get negative reviews from retards who think they are playing the final version and also go in the red by hosting test servers for several years with no sub to pay for them.
Overall I'd say it's about a 3 on the scam scale where Star Citizen is an 8 (infinite scope/feature creep and release date: never) and The Day Before is a 10.

 

[Karen]

I’m huffing massive amounts of copium hoping this game actually comes through. With all the KMMOs dying at once I don’t have much to play anymore.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

There's been a bit of a controversy with this game going on as of late.
I know of it from the PirateSoftware thread found here:
Because he constantly shills for it.
E: (He shills for it because they have an affiliate link for him that he directly benefits from)

Talked to a friend today about it and what's going on.
It reminded me of a situation back in 2005 with Dark and Light

What is going on?

A former fan is pissed at the game basically being a money hole with nothing in it.

The Dev Responded:
(More toward Asmongold who covered the above video, but still relevant)

Long story short dev claims everything is fine even though players are fed up and judging from this thread... its been about 3 years already and probably will be 5 more before anything viable is actually released. IF it is ever released.

Looking at this got my old man brain going and I remembered another game from 20 years ago that was in the same boat.
They overpromised and underdelivered too. Player controlled cities, towns, and economies, etc... LEGENDARY crafting with lots of people involved. The list of pie in the sky ideas goes on and on and on...

Same kind of shit 20 years ago

 

[ZMOT]

Dark and Light

that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...

however, it DID come out at some point.

 

[Quioui]

The game released on steam an hour ago, since the announcement last month the community of the game has been dooming about it.
r/AshesofCreation

Spoiler: screenshot of top monthly posts

Screenshot-as-archive as I didn't manage to archive the monthly page, ?top=month get ignored
https://archive.md/X9NBo

I started with the Steam forums when I learned about the game today through a friend, and it was about the same amount of dooming, a mix of people repeating scam, and people whom actually played the game a lot saying to not expect much, which tingled my curiosity. (I don't have archive or screenshot of it)

It's $50 (currently 15% off from the fresh release discount) for full EA access, one month of 'free' subscription once the game releases, and a cosmetic cloak

From what I've been reading around (I could be mistaken) the available content is level 1-25, 8 classes and about 2 biomes for a game which raised 3.2 million dollars off KickStarter in 2017 before selling 'exclusive' alpha access at $500 a pop. (Then $250 then $125 in later years).

Once again the Steam Early Acess 'release' is $50, and is said to include a rotating in-game MTX shop for constant FOMO, and the content past lvl10 is said to be very bare bone and repetitive (bashing static monsters?). The game is advertised as planning for 18 biomes, max level 50, 8 secondary classes to combine with 8 primary for 64 combinations, and much more.

Yet their own community is very anxious about the premature Steam release forever tanking the game's rating and appeal to new comers. Some naysayer in that community straight out call it a last attempt at a cash grab before disappearing.

Oh wait I was slow to type this up, the Steam review are finally available!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4124950/Ashes_of_Creation/

EDIT:

People are only talking about the issue of linking Steam account to game account on their (down at release) website, real salt will take a few days to pop up I guess.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

The steam reviews pretty much summarize it.
They're charging people 50 bucks for a barely functional alpha of a game that is entering 9 years since the kickstarter.
A shame,

 

[Thiletonomics]

Everyone apparently has been laid off at the studio and the company Is No More, so the game is done for:



Steven Sharif has also resigned:



They're trying to blame "California Labor Laws" for the layoffs, but the money has probably gone dry and they have no more ways to milk suckers anymore.

 

[gay]

Ashes of creation. Legitimate passion project or massive scam.​

the latter apparently.

 

[Dr Cruel]

 

[00R-Gundam]

Well thats a waste, i should feel bad for the suckers that got their money swindled, but you niggers clearly havent learned shit. Idk why people keep falling for this Kickstarter mmos. I read that that the project would refund people if the game didnt launched on steam, but since it launched, ill assume they shit out of luck.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

I read that that the project would refund people if the game didnt launched on steam,

I guess that's why it launched in the sorry state it ins last year.
Funny stuff.