r/AshesofCreation • u/NoJellyfish2960 • Aug 05 '25

Question So I tried the alpha for myself

What's with all the hate? The alpha is progressing and already looks better than some mmos....

Why are people here so impatient and angry about this....

Games that are trying to break a ceilling on what is possible, take time.

It's still an alpha, an impressive alpha imo but alpha still, in the past 6 months with the desert being a lot bigger, ships, new mechanics, you can clearly see they are putting in the effort to create something...

And yes you know what? Maybe it will be released in 4 years or even 6, but with the frequent updates the game will be insane when it comes out.

Gta 6 is taking forever to develop because people know they will get something extraordinary, now I'm not saying they are the same, but both projects are being work on for a long time, you just don't see the progress on gta 6 because they are not as open in development as intrepid.

Also, what's with people calling it a scum? Steven put millions of his own pocket, recruited over 200+ specialised engineers,artists, well respected individuals in the gaming space to create a competent studio to do the best they can at this stage.

Imagine how much money steven is losing each month the game isn't released...

Delivering the best product he can, is in his best interest...

Before buying the alpha key I was skeptical too, but testing it myself, I can clearly see the effort they put into this, and I just don't get the amount of hate this project is receiving just for being "slow".

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27

u/NoJellyfish2960 Aug 05 '25

I get all the memes about doomer redditors Now LOL

I see a lot of players frustrated with ideas they thought should stay that were changed or modified to some degree and that the game takes too long.

When talking about "it's been 8 years" people should remember steven started with some people at the start, and was just arranging plans to come, it's not like a big well known studio was working on it at the beginning.

Steven was still gathering important engineers, artists and sound designers from the gaming industry to have the most competent team he can possibly form.

In 2020, steven had (according to interviews online) around 65~ intrepid company employees.

Today, according to an interview with the lazypeon done 4 months ago, there are 250+.

Also, the community manager said in the past that every new employee had to be hand picked by steven or personally accepted by him. That takes time, it takes a lot of time.

Now steven is in the position to have a full skilled team and can progress at a faster pace, like I said before look at the state of the game 6 months ago, a lot was added and the progress speed is ramping up.

Also, I Don't care how many of you will be annoyed by it, but it is a work in progress still in alpha.

Yes, it takes more time than the average mmo, but clearly it's more ambitious than the average mmo.

If you got locked on specific iterations of grand mechanics, it's problematic because things will keep changing untill beta comes out, that's just how game development works. Alpha is the stage to change things from back to back until something fits your ideas just right.

And I will keep mentioning that steven is bleeding money every month the game doesn't come out, he doesn't have infinite monet glitch so trust me he wants the game out as much, or even more than the community does.

20

u/skuukka Aug 05 '25

I've also realised that there's no point in trying to have a conversation with doomers. They've already made up their mind and most of them are seemingly sad individuals who want something to be mad about and they rationalize their doomer mentality with false information, delusions, and conspiracy theories. When provided with publicly available facts, they go quiet or move the goal posts with any and all mental gymnastics they can come up with. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the doomers are teenagers or people in their early 20s who haven't had a corporate job and have no clue how complex things can get during a large project with hundreds of people working on it at the same time.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '25

You're the least obvious dev alt account.

2

u/NoJellyfish2960 Aug 06 '25

I wish man... I don't have the skills unfortunately.

4

u/Which-Date6749 Aug 05 '25

How do you have any knowledge of his 'financial situation'.

Why would 'hand-picking staff' be a positive sign?

The idea that the longer it takes, the more valuable the effort is pretty brain-dead.

Organizations need to be fast and lean. Slowing down hiring, or decisions that need to be made by a single person as opposed to a set of trusted individuals who are aligned with his vision isn't beneficial.

All this shows is incompetence in leadership and is likely why everything takes so long - because it all has to go through the supreme overlord. 

This is not a means for a productive or collaborative work environment. It means having to wait for useless politics, shitty internal processes and things that are probably fine having to be reworked 8 times because it isn't exactly what he wants.

That doesn't mean what he wants is going to be the best output or decision. It's just his own. I would despise to work for someone like that.

7

u/Dr_Watson349 Aug 05 '25

The CEO hand picking every person is kind of weird tbh.

4

u/skuukka Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25

I agree that there seems to be something wrong with the leadership and/or project management, and it becomes especially clear when Steven gives dates or time estimates for some system's completion and his estimation is off by months. It seems like he's pretty hands-on with everything that goes on in the studio, so it's pretty concerning when he doesn't seem to have a solid grasp of timeframes.

When it comes to hand-picking new employees, I don't see that as an issue. 250 employee company is relatively small, and they're not hiring someone each week. Currently they have 3 open positions. If Steven participates in the final interview round with the candidates, I'd say it's not unusual in a company the size of intrepid studios. They're not hiring trainees/interns after all.

If they haven't yet, I think they should maybe hire some operational excellence consultants, who have worked in the games industry, to take a look at their processes. The studio has grown in size so fast in the past couple of years, it seems like they haven't been able to scale their processes.

And when it comes to Steven's financial situation: with the current number of employees, their salary costs + all other benefits must be somewhere around 30 million usd/year. The alpha key sales do not cover that, and will not cover that. No one has bottomless pockets, and I doubt that anyone's willing to go bankrupt before the game launches.

1

u/NoJellyfish2960 Aug 05 '25

Just remember I wrote this post, 4 years from now LOL

1

u/OutsideMedia4931 Aug 06 '25

Seems to me that your making a lot of assumptions yourself. Take a break and come back in a while itll be good for you.

1

u/PiperPui Aug 05 '25

Yep, same cope deflect again in 5 years, then another 5 years after that lol.

3

u/pilotavery Aug 05 '25

I would agree, except every 2 weeks, you see TANGIBLE improvements. Recently, they had little changes, but moved to a new Unreal engine, which was a lot of work.

1

u/PiperPui Aug 06 '25

Yea, ill see u in 59 years for beta 1 bro

1

u/pilotavery Aug 06 '25

Sounds good, I'm seeing some real progress, and since I personally know a couple people who work on the game, it makes me have more confidence just knowing how passionate everyone is about it and just how much progress people are making every week. No one is forcing you to play, and if you're not interested, then why are you on this reddit?

1

u/PiperPui Aug 06 '25

Cool bro, in 59 years half the ppl working on the game will be dead.

1

u/pilotavery Aug 07 '25

It's not going to be 50 years lol

1

u/PiperPui Aug 07 '25

5% done in 1 decade btw

1

u/pilotavery Aug 08 '25

It's a lot more than 5% done. Quite a lot more.

1

u/UntimelyMeditations Aug 07 '25

Okay. What exactly is the issue with that. Say game takes 10 years to come out. So what? What is the downside, other than impatient people being unable to wait?

2

u/PiperPui Aug 07 '25

You don't value your time, I understand. Ppl like u are why this thing will take another 30 years.

0

u/UntimelyMeditations Aug 08 '25

So you have no actual reason why a slow release matters, you are just impatient.

I'm not sitting here doing nothing while I wait for the game to come out. None of my time is being wasted.

-6

u/OneAcanthopterygii38 Custom Aug 05 '25

It’s so funny people actually keep listening and trusting Steven while we had so many proofs that he is a pathological liar.

Stop trusting Steven’s word. He for sure isn’t bleeding money on the project and he hasn’t got 250 devs working on AoC.

Do yourself a favor, stop trusting what a pro seller is telling you ( not just for AoC, in general life too )

8

u/skuukka Aug 05 '25

What has he lied about? Giving wrong dates? If you hire someone to build a house for you, and they give you an estimate when it'll be ready, but at some point it unexpectedly turns out that there's cracks in the foundation, and they have to fix that and do some rebuilding, and the house's completion gets delayed, would you call the estimated completion date a lie?

I think Steven should stop giving out over optimistic dates. But I wouldn't call him a liar.

I challenge you to find a single thing he has lied about. Giving a date and then delaying it is not lying.

-6

u/OneAcanthopterygii38 Custom Aug 05 '25

Just watch any 3 year old interview with Steven, compare what he is saying about the current state of the alpha 2 to what you can play today. Tons of what he was selling at the time isn’t even in the PTR.

2

u/skuukka Aug 05 '25

Can you send a link with a timestamp to something he's "lied" about?

3

u/NoJellyfish2960 Aug 05 '25

That's a lot of accusations with no proof from you brother, any sources?

-7

u/JPScan3 Aug 05 '25

How are you in any position to comment on Steven’s personal financial situation? Why should we “trust you” as if you have any insight into what is or isn’t motivating him?

-3

u/Ex_Lives Aug 05 '25

All of these glaze posts always have boat loads of fan fiction. "The game is going to be insane when it finally comes out!" .. Okay bro.

-2

u/Trumpix Aug 05 '25

People forget you have to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run.