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Creative director's letter #2
Gigabear
Member UncommonPosts: 63
Intrepid finally decided to give up the goods and drop the letter which you can read here: https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-07-16-creative-directors-letter
I say finally because it was slated to be given in June, then early July, and then finally mid-july. But, delays are expected so I'm not going to get too hung up on it. HOWEVER, in the prior letter Intrepid committed to not giving dates they weren't confident in, and obviously they failed on that front.
Additional issues with the prior letter include providing less than half of the weekly MMO updates(but lots of cosmetic spam masquerading as MMO 'content'), missing some of the stated dates for the monthly streams given in the letter, and not providing nearly enough content on nodes in that month. It took 3 months to get a decent amount. This is only a big deal because it pushed housing and any other info off the table, so we haven't seen any of that yet. Also, Xsolla is still their payment processor, a commitment to move from them was given, and I'm sorry but it's been over 3 months. They must not be trying very hard. Xsolla is VERY disliked among the community(and most people who know of them)
The prior letter's issues are relevant because they sets the stage for how much credibility this new letter can be taken with. In short, dubious at best.
Reviewing the actual letter, I can confirm CS ticket response times are way down from the abysmal wait times back in December and January of SEVERAL MONTHS. Now they seem a paltry few days. So, that's a positive.
But then we get to the next heading "ASHES OF CREATION APOCALYPSE - THE TESTING GROUND," which isn't really a fair characterization of a monetized BR game(and possible future modes) which are intended to be a standalone. The claim of it being primarily for testing despite the battle pass and Fortnite style monetization scheme strains credulity, and that's putting it charitably.
Moving on, a large section of the letter is taken up by a fluff poll for kickstarter backers, which had no place in such a letter addressed to the entire community. It's simply not relevant to the vast majority of readers and has little impact on the state of the game.
The Mayoral Caravan system vid was good, and gave us our first glimpse of a system working organically(except we didn't see the caravan actually spawn in). This is a pretty important system for the game as a whole, and I'm glad it seems to be somewhat working.
However, this system was due in March along with 4 of the races, freeholds, limited crafting and a whole other bevy of features for the original start time of alpha 1, now delayed for the foreseeable future.
TLDR: Ashes of Creation MIGHT still pan out, but there are many reasons to consider it may be slipping into vaporware as timelines are stretched and stretched. Can you believe up till March, Intrepid's official stance was "release before 2020?" Yeah, we may not be in alpha by then
I say finally because it was slated to be given in June, then early July, and then finally mid-july. But, delays are expected so I'm not going to get too hung up on it. HOWEVER, in the prior letter Intrepid committed to not giving dates they weren't confident in, and obviously they failed on that front.
Additional issues with the prior letter include providing less than half of the weekly MMO updates(but lots of cosmetic spam masquerading as MMO 'content'), missing some of the stated dates for the monthly streams given in the letter, and not providing nearly enough content on nodes in that month. It took 3 months to get a decent amount. This is only a big deal because it pushed housing and any other info off the table, so we haven't seen any of that yet. Also, Xsolla is still their payment processor, a commitment to move from them was given, and I'm sorry but it's been over 3 months. They must not be trying very hard. Xsolla is VERY disliked among the community(and most people who know of them)
The prior letter's issues are relevant because they sets the stage for how much credibility this new letter can be taken with. In short, dubious at best.
Reviewing the actual letter, I can confirm CS ticket response times are way down from the abysmal wait times back in December and January of SEVERAL MONTHS. Now they seem a paltry few days. So, that's a positive.
But then we get to the next heading "ASHES OF CREATION APOCALYPSE - THE TESTING GROUND," which isn't really a fair characterization of a monetized BR game(and possible future modes) which are intended to be a standalone. The claim of it being primarily for testing despite the battle pass and Fortnite style monetization scheme strains credulity, and that's putting it charitably.
Moving on, a large section of the letter is taken up by a fluff poll for kickstarter backers, which had no place in such a letter addressed to the entire community. It's simply not relevant to the vast majority of readers and has little impact on the state of the game.
The Mayoral Caravan system vid was good, and gave us our first glimpse of a system working organically(except we didn't see the caravan actually spawn in). This is a pretty important system for the game as a whole, and I'm glad it seems to be somewhat working.
However, this system was due in March along with 4 of the races, freeholds, limited crafting and a whole other bevy of features for the original start time of alpha 1, now delayed for the foreseeable future.
TLDR: Ashes of Creation MIGHT still pan out, but there are many reasons to consider it may be slipping into vaporware as timelines are stretched and stretched. Can you believe up till March, Intrepid's official stance was "release before 2020?" Yeah, we may not be in alpha by then
![[Deleted User]](http://w6.vanillicon.com/v2/6b5da5a72b39acc7c0957178efa21ccc.svg)
Comments
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
Before 2020 was one of the few points of contention in the community prior to the failed launch of the battle royale in December. I don't think hardly anyone believed it lol.
As to being what kickstarter promised, they have a lot of work left to do to get there. We'll have a better idea when alpha decides to drop.
However, the use of a bunch of poor word choices forces the issue to be brought up that his opinion is biased. Being a twice banned member of the community as well as his behavior being the reason why his refund was denied.
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Still a fair point tho, just leaving out the facts as usual.
And on the Xolla, they've already stated why nothing's been done on that part, another thing you again left out. Reason why it has not been changed is because it's integrated into their systems at the moment, and they've been busy remaking their networking from scatch after they found issues that made it unuseable, focusing on the core systems needed for the MMO over things like Xolla.
What OP again fails to mention about this so called "Monetized BR" is that it is a testing ground.
Thanks to this "Monetized BR", they found out that their previous networking backend was not usable and had to recreate it from scratch, something that would potentially be wasted development time when they would've figured out that their previous backend was useless later in development, so the "Monetized BR" which was made as a testing ground, is working as they intended, finding issues early on.
TL;DR ^ Biggest "Left out info" in his rant
Now for the next section.
"Moving on, a large section of the letter is taken up by a fluff poll for kickstarter backers"
I checked, the letter is
1065 words (6168 letters)
The part he is refering to is
183 words (978 letters) (17,18% of words, 15,85% of letters)
(After "Glorious Ashes Community!" and before "Steven Sharif")
So.... I don't see how this is a "big section". Maybe the two pictures showing the poll choices confused his mind about the size.
TL;DR
OP is again going on a new rant (lost count of how many times)
after saying he's dropping this game (lost count of how many times)
and leaving out most info except for that which supports his opinion (lost count of how many times)
But yeah, except the info left out, removing objectivity and turning it into a rant (again), its a good summary.
Twice banned member, tens of dozens of times alt banned member.
Devs have been more than ever figuring out ways to scam us,lie to us,deceive us of our money.
This was NEVER about a passionate game himself wanting to make a great mmorpg,this was ALWAYS a business first game second,just like all the rest of them.
This was going to be about funding BEFORE the game was really set in stone.The days of devs going into massive debt,relying on a good product to recoup losses has long passed.This says one thing,developers are NOT confident in their own work,they want to take no risk,well we will risk gamer's money is how they see it.
I weighed in on the entire gaming market over the last 10 years,saw where all the designs were going,the new marketing tactics and realized NOBODY is going to make a AAA mmorpg>>NOBODY,at least not for a very long time if ever.
What i see happening is a simple change in game genres,design ideas,all of which will be to put out very low cost effective games that garner very little risk,that is the gaming market for the next 15 years or more.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Beyond that, your engaging in ad-hominem and I doubt much would be gained replying to you. If you think a "test" requires a battlepass and a cash shop on it, then I don't think there's much hop to convince you.
Finally, Intrepid seems to have retaliated against me over this thread, and is now closing all of my CS tickets without comment. Though that may a simply misunderstabding and I'm trying to get some info on what exactly their reason was for doing so.
jahlon said:My refund was denied, sure, because they don't give refunds beyond 30 days(well after anyone who bought into the incoming alpha 1 test learned it was a Fortnite clone). My supposed behavior had nothing to do with it, although I think your own bias may be showing here.
Full disclosure about how much referral money you're being paid by Intrepid, subject to being forfeited if the account is banned(like for an opinion as mine was) would seem to be in order here.
Intrepid responded to my refund request
"We will not be providing a refund as you forfeited any right to a refund by breaking the rules and being banned. "
On your Twitter page?
https://imgur.com/8SgXbkj
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Ashes 101
Here is how you do a factual response to a Creative Directors Letter:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=15Jfit9KIjM
And Steven didn't ban you for an opinion, he banned you for throwing a temper tantrum. He also didn't ban your account from playing the game or from gathering referrals, he banned you from all their social media platforms, because you like to lie and not tell the whole story.
Unless your account has been terminated and you haven't said anything, but I imagine you would have bellowed that from the mountaintops if it had occurred.
Edit:
As far as a disclosure of how much referral money I'm being paid. I've been paid exactly $0 by Intrepid. I even had to buy my own hat and hoodie.
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If you read again, you'll see I wrote
"So.... I don't see how this is a "big section". Maybe the two pictures showing the poll choices confused his mind about the size."
So didn't leave it out as you claim oO
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
No that's not what I am doing. That's what you are doing as you cannot attack my position with facts. I am merely attacking your position by providing the facts you left out.
If you look closer you will see that I never said a test needs that, I am merely pointing out that the test is doing what it is supposed to.
And it's simply a choice not to pay for anything, I'm not paying for anything and I am doing just fine with the test (APOC) *shrug*
"Finally, Intrepid seems to have retaliated against me over this thread, and is now closing all of my CS tickets without comment."
*Looks around for Intrepid people attacking you in this thread*
Can't find them, need halp, I'm even wearing my glasses!
And your tickets are most likely getting closed because, as you posted on Twitter, they've already denied your refund request(s). (Also info you left out again)
"bought into the incoming alpha 1 test learned it was a Fortnite clone"
Again information left out:
APOC, which was not part of the original Alpha, was set as part of the Alpha for free.
People like Giga here then complained about it being named "Alpha" as it was never a part of it in the beginning.
It was then separated from Alpha and moved to be its own thing and yet here he is, still complaining about it.
Tho now he's complaining about the "Alpha", which isn't really Alpha btw which he should know as he complained about it being Alpha when it wasn't originally part of Alpha,
is a fortnite clone.
(Without the guns and skills and theme as they're different to be technical).
"My supposed behavior had nothing to do with it"
That's not what it said in the reply you posted on twitter o_O
I quote:
"We will not be providing a refund as you forfeited any right to a refund by breaking the rules and being banned. "
And followed up in reply to own post with
"Sure, AFTER the ban? I did plenty of stuff I wish I hadn't."
Archived for purposes as OP has habit of deleting anything used against him later:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190729212658/https://twitter.com/Giga_Bear_/status/1153441355185709056
The monetization of APOC has been detailed numerous times, and we can get back into that if necessary.
The fact they were willing to change the naming shows that Intrepid does listen to the community and makes changes when it matters.
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All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
They're arguments against your statements, you've always denied anything that goes against your opinions
Nah you're not, you're just egosentric and try to paint a picture only with the colors of your choosing. I'm just adding in the missing colors.
Indeed, there wasn't much in terms of updates, tho I don't really understand how it can lack credibility as it was only informative. Unless you mean the only 'promise' date which was given for new test date for APOC. But I guess when you don't see thing objectively even just information can be uncredible? oO
If people need to be aware of what they may be getting into, why are you leaving out so much info in regards to your statements? Shouldn't you cover everything if you're trying to be informative and not just the aspects that fits your perspective?
Where did you measure this "Hope"? I didn't even know an official measurement unit of hope existed, not to mention that one can check other people's hope in things oO
Personally tho, I think Steven has more hope in this project than you do considering he started the whole thing and funded 30$ million himself oO
Indeed we are, which is why original schedule was scrapped, which is good.
Means they're taking their time making things right instead of rushing it out incomplete like some games
Tho why they never considered that they might need to scrap the new technology for backend they are developing is beyond me, as a progammer, not expecting that to happen is just weeeeeeeeeeird.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
1) The Creative Director's letter gave us plenty to go on. Specifically it gave us the next mile marker on the journey. We know that August 20 at 1100 PDT action combat testing will resume. Now, is this a long time in the making? Yes. However, when you have to totally rebuild your entire back end from square one, its going to take time.
In your original post you said Intrepid "finally decided to give up the goods"
Factually yes the letter was late, but you seem to want to skip over the point where they informed the community that it was going to be late.
Yes it was due in June, however, they stated on the June livestream it needed to be delayed to Early July, and then within the a few hours of the Stream Steven corrected that to the first half of July. The night before the letter dropped they said they would need into the afternoon to get it pushed out, which they in fact did.
Now, could/should they have pushed out a letter in June with an update to follow in July? Yes, they could have and probably should have, but for a guy who says "so I'm not going to get too hung up on it" you certainly made sure to spell out every single thing that went wrong along the way. So which is it, are you concerned about the delivery time or the substance? I mean we can get into either discussion, but you have to have some substance to your own argument.
The next question is: What exactly are you expecting beyond the next testing date? If you believe they need the data to make the MMORPG better, then only the next testing session matters because they need that data before they can populate a timeline. If you don't believe the data matters, then this additional FREE testing mode isn't relevant to you.
Besides, you paid-to-win your way through the testing in order to get the cosmetics, and although you had some relevant feedback to give, any positive value you earned was soiled with your antics, including chat bombing the discord during the Extra Life Charity Event where you, with no less than 13 accounts, came in and starting throwing @s towards Steven and the rest of the staff. Your disruption was so bad they needed to put the chat on a 10 minute lockout for new accounts.
2) In your original post you made mention that "this system was due in March along..." I hate to inform you, but you are, as usual, factually incorrect.
Alpha 1 Phase 2 was which was to be the first MMORPG testing, to include progression to level 20, nodes to 3, four of the nine races, all eight base classes, etc was slated for the Second Quarter of 2019 from a timeline projected at PAX. So a window range allows them the flexibility of up to and including 30 June 2019.
Factually, yes they are late. They are, however, only 29 days late from their original timeline, and they aren't late at all from their adjusted timeline which was shifted on 7 March 2019.
3) You said "I don't see how anything you and Jahlon have said is relevant to this thread or my topic" but then you also said
If you want to approach it objectively, you could say they are 8 months behind schedule, but you'd have to include the caveat that they did in fact release the APOC testing mode within one day of when they said they would on 19 December 2018 and that they gathered 7 days of data before realizing their back end was inadequate for the 250 vs 250 all the way to 500 vs 500 battles they are aiming for in the MMORPG.
It is mighty fine that you want people to be aware of what they might get into. You have taken up the crusade of making sure nobody is duped by Steven or Intrepid. This is a mighty fine goal to have.
As I have said, you have a habit of at best of bending the truth and at worst flat-out lying.
You've lied in this very thread about why your refund was denied. You said here it was because they don't do refunds over 30 days, but on your Twitter you claim they told you it was because of your past behavior. So which one is the lie, because one of them is certainly a lie.
So while you feel it necessary to tell people what they may be getting into, I feel it necessary to tell people the truth behind your jaded and biased lies.
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Whether this has affected you or not, I can't say. You've been pretty negative. In fact, reading you is close to reading myself back in October. But then again, plenty of people now criticize the BR, and Intrepid on transparency. They can do little, or they'd have to ban the entire discord. It was easier to censor when I was alone in taking that stand though.
As to the "year behind schedule". We are literally relaunching the BR a year from the first time we launched the BR. AN ENTIRE YEAR, where no discernible progress has been made on any system(I guess caravans might be a slight exception). All we have is their word that netcode is better, but we have no way to verify any of this.
Intrepid statements are not facts. This is where we had issue before, like when they kept saying the date the NDA would be lifted, and people stated it as fact to "win" an argument with me. The NDA was not lifted until they blew by several timeframes, and by then their record of transparency was severely damaged. And their reputation as a studio went from being 'the last hope' to being .hope it even launches' among myself and others.
So, I have a financial stake in reigning in my criticism? While I have a financial stake in Ashes of Creation launching, again I'm going to call you out on your bullshit that your ACCOUNT is not banned. You are banned on their social media. You are banned from their community, but you are not banned from their game.
They have not taken adverse action against your account, your access or your cosmetic purchases. For you to even insinuate that Steven would balk at paying me is a low-blow since he hasn't even done that to you, but you want to paint him in the worst possible light because you think it somehow makes you look better.
Let's run down your viewpoint. I have a vested interest in reigning in my criticism. Ok. Now, show me where I have ever reigned in my criticism? Show me where I had one opinion about Ashes of Creation and then it suddenly changed because of financial interest.
I've done what I've always done, I take what they say, I balance it against common sense, logic, and other previous statements. I call Steven out all the time for the bullshit.
While Steven was on my stream, I went after him pretty directly about staff numbers, continued to stay after him about staff numbers, and I still continue to stay after him about staff numbers but you know what? It gets answers. That's not being negative, that's going after the truth.
Negative is what you do, when you lie. You either lie to the MMORPG community about why you didn't get your refund, or you lie to Twitter about why you didn't get your refund. You cannot have 2 different stories and they both be true. So, which one is it?
A year behind schedule, the BR launch was in December its basically August. That's not a year. Now, if you want to paint the WHOLE picture and say its been a year since BR went into Closed Stress Testing, then that would be closer to the truth. However, you don't get to just toss "a year" around like specifics aren't determinable.
"Were no discernible progress on any system", hold on are we talking about the BR or the MMORPG. You can't argue both points at the same time. So are they a year late? Are we talking the BR? Or are they 29 days late on the MMORPG testing? Just because they haven't shown YOU stuff doesn't mean its not there.
As far as the NDA thing, again that is probably the only real point you've ever scored because you found a reference where Steven said he would lift the NDA by a certain point in time. However, all the other times you reference, the quotes are he was "considering" or "thinking" about lifting it.
To actually blow a deadline you have to say "I'm going to lift the NDA on this date" and then miss it. Which yes, they have missed that deadline once to my knowledge. Maybe twice if you factor in they never actually let anyone showcase Alpha 0.
When they finally got the product to a point where it was shareable, guess what...the NDA was in fact lifted. It lifted for the Open Beta of APOC. In fact, it lifted well before the APOC Open Beta launch, it lifted sometime in October 2018, right around the 14th.
I mean it really must suck for you to be perma banned from all their social media, but what do you expect when you lie your ass off? Maybe if you told something that even remotely resembled the truth from time to time you wouldn't be in this situation.
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All i did was ask for some EVIDENCE of what they accuse me of, mainly because I know it doesn't exist. They refuse to provide any at all, which pretty much acknowledges I was wrongly banned.
Think I'm going to just drop the issue? I sent MK a business email fifteen minutes ago. I deserve due process considering the amount of money at play here.
I know I'm innocent, or I'd not be fighting it at all.
Well considering that you continue to put in tickets about your ban, when everyone knows both your bans were justified, what do expect? You are creating bullshit tickets that someone has to use touch-time to clear out of their system. Then when they close your tickets, by your own words you
"Intrepid opted to close my customer support ticket while making no move to assist me. Wasn't about a subject I had previously heard anything on either.
I'll presume it was in error until I receive resolution on a new request I submitted."
So, two things here
1) You are in fact abusing the ticket system
2) In your original post in this thread you said their ticket response time was days. Must not be days if they quick turned it.
As far as your bans, you were banned, you had your ban personally reversed by the CEO, then you got banned for ignoring 2 mods, a Senior Mod, and the CEO. You caused a disruption and you got rebanned.
You ban evaded, disrupted Discord during Extra Life, ban evaded some more. You've said on your own Twitter that you did things "after your ban"
You did get due process, sorry you feel you are entitled to more, but what is MK going to do? Your were banned before she ever arrived.
You aren't innocent, but I mean if you REALLY want to open that can of worms have at it.
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Steven banned me for reasons beyond the rules. It was within his power as CEO, but it does not make the act legitimate.
I was far better behaved as far as the rules went than many who are still active. Even you have more infractions that I do for actual guideline breaches.
This is mostly false. I ignored no moderator instructions. When they asked to change topic, I responded faster than most. Sometimes even stepping away for a time to let things cool down.
I was never instructed, at any time, to NEVER discuss any specific issue on the discord. Rather, a change in topic was sometimes requested. In fact, I wasn't even the one bringing it up each time. Others wanted to troll me with certain screen captures and such, opening the floor to their discussion.
It wasn't a one-shot permaban.
You got banned in late October 2018. Not sure of the exact dates, I was traveling.
You got your ban overturned.
You then caused a disruption in Discord. Two moderators, a Senior Moderator and the CEO all told you to stop during your tanget about why you weren't considered for moderator. When you wouldn't, you got banned.
After that you ban evaded repeatedly.
Sadly I'd prove it to you, but when you got banned all your messages got deleted
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As for ban evasion, that is not even possible to occur during a period of good standing. As such, it is obviously irrelevant as a basis for a ban, nor upholding any ban hat had no original legitimate basis.
Especially to someone who never had a chance to agree to the new terms.
I tried, but paypal wouldn't allow it because by the time I knew we were getting a BR and not an MMO alpha test, it had been too long. They give you six months, and I didn't ever conceive of wanting a refund until I got the sad truth of things.