Post by Azherae on 2022-05-06 18:41:11
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Completely valid, but at the same time, Intrepid isn't giving us this as 'We're starting on this and we're eventually hoping to make this great', because that would just be 'Alpha-2 and Beta iteration' for some things. That's why it's an unfair reason, if anything. They're still working.
I take Nodes and Events for granted because if one promises innovation, I feel like one must at least equal even those games which have had years to develop similar concepts. If not immediately, then it would have to be 'in the plan' (not that this is a requirement for the game, but for me to not take the feature for granted, moreso).
I can get that same feeling of dropping off materials and harvestables in varying degrees in multiple games I play now. Ashes isn't a game saying 'we will be at least as good as some other things you play so try us out' (maybe I am misinterpreting their marketing?). And we don't receive enough information to see how these things would be innovative or different, anymore, mostly because they're still working on it, I guess.
I don't find Ashes' development to actually be transparent anymore, and I consider that a good thing, but they're in a tough spot now. Can't show off everything because negative people will tear it down, can't stop showing anything because other negative people will take that poorly.
If I had to suggest or care, I'd tell them to put out another Nodes video based on their progress with the assets/art in Nodes. That one, after all, is pretty innovative, and still a core part of this. "No two nodes will look the same". They're working on this so there's probably some progress to see.
But 'Sometimes NPCs will attack your node' or 'your node's status will be affected by a random event' is such a barebones aspect of a 'Node based game' to me that I just feel the need to know considerably more before it feels innovative. And to be clear, I don't much care if it is. I don't even think it should be as detailed as Elite's, since they built that game entirely around that. There's just no reaction to have, yet.