Back in June 2018, I gave my brief opinion about Intrepid Studio’s Ashes of Creation. In a nutshell, it’s something that didn’t interest me and still doesn’t (now that more game play concept footage has been revealed). Additionally, I have a difficult time trusting someone that used to be involved with a MLM pyramid scheme (XanGo amounted to selling overpriced fruit juice) that later ran afoul of the FTC for its false health benefit claims. He and his family may have no longer been associated with the MLM when that lawsuit was filed BUT it’s the notion of knowingly selling these products at hyperinflated prices… But there is a reason why I am wasting time writing this piece of opinion for something (Ashes of Creation) that I am not interested in.
Some background: When I was initially approached early on by a colleague to become involved with this miracle health tonic, I did my own research (which revealed XanGo LLC was in fact an MLM) and that this miraculous Xango Juice was this concoction of different fruits including mangosteen. I knew I would’ve been near the top of the pyramid (and thus knew the potential to make what would be, a lot of dirty money). But my personal disdain for such schemes as well as my own personal ethics, meant there was no way that I could in good faith conscious, becoming a mouthpiece for products with claims that weren’t based on actual factual (medical and/or scientific) evidence. The Sharif’s made a lot of money as a result (he, his mother, his siblings and their spouses showed up frequently in several MLM high earners lists making six figures a month); they later put some of that wealth into real estate and grew it even larger. He eventually became a known P2W whale in ArcheAge (effectively being part of the problem with how the game industry has chosen to monetize a lot of these titles). The poor state of MMO’s in recent years is why he decided to open up his own studio and create his own dream MMO that in his own words, is about “creating the greatest MMORPG”.
I have some choice words for that (going on a short tangent here) because there will NEVER be “the one MMORPG” to rule them all that so many players are hopelessly looking for. It’s a fallacy because every player has their own set of personal preferences when it comes to aesthetics (art style) and game play choices and there is no way one single game can do it all without turning into this unfocused mess. I like to use myself as an example of someone who has their roots in solo adventure role playing games that in an odd twist, managed to find some MMO’s that I’ve been able to sink hundreds (MapleStory 2 at 500+ hours) or thousands (Devilian and TERA) of hours into while not playing the actual meta endgame in each of them. None of these have been issue free or close to what I would consider my own perfect MMO either (and I still don’t consider myself the typical MMO player) and likewise, aren’t considered great ones either (one of them is no longer even in existence). I can see Torchlight Frontiers eventually being the same where the artistic design and it being an MMO-lite (where its over world doesn’t feel as vastly open compared to most MMO’s) doesn’t necessarily appeal to me BUT there are other parts that do (like the forts, or how its itemization and combat do feel like an ARPG plus lot of the other parts we haven’t seen yet like the crafting). By the same token, the art style, the movement/combat, and many game play aspects of Ashes of Creation do not appeal to me at all; this accounts for the other reason of why I have no interest in it. But I digress…
Despite my disinterest, avoiding seeing news about it is difficult since Sharif (using his MLM expertise) does a good job at making sure the game media covers the studio and its game. So I knew that in recent months, the company rolled out a battle royale mode (jumping on the now overdone BR bandwagon) called Ashes of Creation Apocalypse which the company said was linked to the kickstarted MMORPG. Negative feedback ensued since there were people who felt this was taking away focus from work on the MMO. The company then claimed the battle royale mode was created as a means to test the games combat to which I say bullshit since they simply could’ve taken a small zone in the actual game to use as a test bed for not just the movement/combat, but also for both PvE and PvP mechanics. But this is what I meant by not trusting someone who was successful at marketing in an MLM because they are good at creating these sort of narratives (and hopefully getting a lot to actually trust in what they are saying so they can peddle their wares to you). What I see are convenient excuses with wanting to take a side stab at this battle royale trend which is making money hand over fist and that they didn’t expect the negative backlash.
In the meantime, the company had technical issues with their backend systems including their forum which was used as part of their account system for players; they still haven’t been able to get their official forums back online. Now I do realize there is going to be a different group of employees dealing with that specific backend infrastructure (versus the actual MMO development) and this letter covers the fact that he hired a new web team. What doesn’t look good are the optics (developing and promoting this battle royale while portions of their community frontend went kaput). Then last month, the company noted they were working on a directors letter where players were expecting there to be delays in the previously noted roadmap.
Sharif put out that letter Friday confirming there would be delays to the first alpha as they “refactor their infrastructure”. This of course comes after several paragraphs of fluff that cover the growth of the studio including the inability to meet their hiring goals (80-100 developers) while also outgrowing their existing location (entailing the construction of a new 21,000 square foot studio). That sort of capital investment tends to come with a hefty price tag and they haven’t even shipped a final product that can begin recouping this investment yet. The target dev numbers are boggling because I am comparing this with studios that had smaller staffs that managed to release MMO’s; original Bluehole Studio for example with TERA and Ginno Games with Devilian before being acquired by Bluehole. And larger number of designers and developers don’t necessarily translate into a project being completed faster unless everyone is on the same page with the goals and objectives of the design (it’s the too many cooks in the kitchen syndrome).
Finally he covers the state of the game repeating what they’ve had to say before to appease the detractors of them not focusing on their original kickstarter goals of creating an MMORPG, by now separating Ashes of Creation the MMORPG from Ashes of Creation Apocalypse, the battle royale mode. The jist being pushed is that it was always this testing ground for their combat system but even with that narrative, people were still skeptical (though Sharif attempts to paint it as those who weren’t as informed about the game or the project, being the ones who are unclear about this objective which might be true for some, but there were still many who were original kickstarters being displeased about the general optics of the teams focus).
What he doesn’t seem to grok is the initial implementation of it still took actual resources away from what should be their priority which is what they kickstarted, the MMORPG. And now they have no choice but to continue painting this picture of it being this testing ground while also pushing for its actual 24/7 release since it is something they can quickly leverage for the purpose of marketing and monetization.
Sharif then goes on to state that Apocalypse revealed “the need for architectural refactoring” which requires rebuilding from the ground up (basically their entire backend including account services, forums, customer service, and most importantly, the monetization platform which requires a robust implementation of the other backend systems). “No shit Sherlock”…
For whatever reason (I’m stating this in the rhetorical sense), their initial foundation wasn’t up to snuff. IMHO, this is what happens when you have someone who was primarily a whale, suddenly getting involved in creating something like this and leading it as “creative director” without having a solid background in the actual backend design of something the scale of an MMO. Sure, he hired several “MMO veterans” early on and is getting OJT in what it takes to actually design them; my point is the player facing stuff was then hyped early on as opposed to maybe focusing/prioritizing some of that early money into a properly designed backend foundation. And then most recently, part of their time was spent on creating this battle royale mode… the lack of priorities should be telling.
Using a different analogy, you can have the most awesome looking house but if the infrastructure (electricity, water, sewer) isn’t in place and the foundation it is built on is thrown together without properly taking into account the requirements of what is going to be built on top, that awesome structure can collapse if the foundation can’t handle what sits on it nor be the most pleasant experience without connection to electricity, water, or sewage. And that is a fundamental rule of thumb with developing these games…. the underlying plumbing (networking, business systems, database normalization, social functionality, connections to ancillary systems, etc) isn’t sexy at all but that part should be the core focus before putting the hype train into overdrive with the things that players see.
This is also a hard lesson in why many studios have found trying to be transparent a double-edged sword; people will go through everything with a fine tooth comb and pick it apart. The last thing people want to see is another term (in this case, the word transparency) being utilized as another marketing tool (like how the terms alpha and beta test have become bastardized by a lot of game companies for marketing and PR purposes). And it doesn’t help in this case with Sharif’s MLM background adding to the cynicism as people see the company making the same mistakes that they previously mentioned they wanted to avoid.
The basic tl;dr of this directors letter is that this refactoring will delay the first alpha which they are working hard on (Captain Obvious moment here: what else is he going to say?) but now rather than throwing out some date that they may need to change again, will leave it open ended until they are certain they will be able to meet that date. One can then ask why this approach wasn’t taken before? The answer to that is simple… when people are handing over money, they want some type of ball park estimate as opposed to something vague. The kickstarter would not have been successful so he had no choice but to dangle such estimates early on. But this is the same old over promise and under deliver aspect which is why I decided against getting involved with venture capital in gaming (since you’d have to sift through a lot of overblown proposals and sales pitches of ideas that sound good but aren’t realistic). I again know this blog entry comes across as me wasting my time on a game that doesn’t even interest me BUT my point is the principle of why I’m skeptical of this whole kickstarter/early access shenanigan (more so when you have someone who was a good mouthpiece at promoting an MLM).
