My list of problems I see in the game

A good chunk of those is definitely solvable through a few design choices that don't veer too much from the core principles of the game. A few will just be hard lines cutting off some players who won't be ready for the game's design.

Valid list but we have so little info on most of those things (and have done 0 testing on all of them) to really say how they will all end up on release.

We have not received permission from Strevi to share the quoted post.

He will definitely get over a million players on release. The question is how many of those stay in the game for future months. If the game is good enough I think a few hundred thousand will stay and enjoy the game for what it is, corruption and all.

Eh, I think Steven is right about a specific thing that will really contribute to Ashes' success.

One of the biggest 'sells' in the current 'Live Service' games market is just to be able to say 'they listened to the community and took action'.

Sentiment analysis (treat this as anecdotal, though) seems to support this. Live service models seem to be heavily based on 'taking action' based on the consumer feedback. Whether that leads to a good thing or not relies on the initial design of the game, I think, and the type of player it manages to retain (basically if the game initially attracts a lot of instant gratification people, and then takes action based on feedback, it'll get more like that).

Intrepid's 'whole thing' is 'We are listening and adjusting based on feedback' which I would expect to ramp up heavily in Alpha phases. The only thing I want from them is to define their audience more clearly so they can get a less varied initial group, or the feedback will be all over the place.

This game's design screams that it needs a specific type of player dedication to work, the FF14 model of 'come and play it when something interesting is happening' ain't gonna fly here, obviously. So your list of problems can all be viewed through one lens.

"Are the dedicated playerbases (solos, 'consistent' casuals, avengers, and glory seekers) going to fall off because of flaws?"

I don't see any reason that Intrepid won't get that data from Alphas.

Is that "(banned)" a self-imposed status/nickname or did Strevi just get banned?

Move Along, Nothing To See Here.

Damn