*EDIT: I just want to say I greatly appreciate the overwhelming ammount of support and positivity. Last time I tried to express my feelings openly (less than 2 months ago) the comments were filled with 99% negativity which kinda made me feel like shit. I'm happy to see that you guys still support me and my passion for content creation. Thank you.* Making videos for Ashes of Creation has been a life changing experience for me, it's allowed me to realise that making entertaining videos is something that truely brings me joy. Sadly, the format of "entertaining" and "Ashes of Creation" do not seem to mix anymore, no matter how hard I try and with the direction the tests seem to be going it's going to be harder and harder for me to continue trying to make videos that genuinely bring people joy like I did in 2022. The people who still follow and lead the game do not seem to want genuine critique or entertainment, they just want overwhelming positivity. It's been 2 years since I felt like i was proud of a video and with the alpha actually out for all to see, it's become impossible for me to continue trying to make this game seem exciting, however, there are plenty of other content creators who cover the news and updates for you. I no longer want to do this, I want to get back to following my dream of making people laugh with my creative expression. I wish Intrepid the best with their development and I hope Ashes of Creation becomes the MMORPG it was advertised as. Feel free to follow the streams over at Twitch.tv/narciverse and I hope you all look forward to the returning to the old format where we can make some genuinely entertaining videos about games that actually exist.
Does this mean you'll start doing those skits again? You always seemed to have fun with making them. Plus, it was why I subbed to you in the first place and I, and I'm sure many others, have missed them. Maybe with the money you've now got from Twitch you can up the production quality if that's something you were unhappy with. While I have had you mainly as my source of Ashes of Creation news and will be sad to not have it anymore I'll try to see whatever direction you decide to take your videos and other stuff. Thanks for everything you've done. I know it's just entertainment but it's been fun.
@@brainstormsurge154 100% yes, the skits are coming back in full force and infact, we have already begun the scripting and storyboarding process for the first upcoming video :) i am looking forward to getting into them again. It's less about "money" and more about "i wish they reached more people" Hopefully though, in 2025, we'll reach an audience who actually enjoys and wants them :D Thank you for your support over the years
I've certainly missed your skits, but I will also miss your criticism of the game as well. I hope you can find a way to do both. But at the end of the day, you've got to do you. :)
Yeah there was lethal levels of copium in the community. I said it many times. I said it to narc many times. Because he thought we were all as high as him. We were not. But still, for a scam, I had a lot of fun for 120$. But the game is just too lacking, too incomplete and too buggy to enjoy it for a long period of time. Not to mention, I really hate progress wipes, so alphas are usually a massive turn off. I like the game as it is but not enough to play it over 3 months because of how restrictive it is. How chaotic. A full player-driven economy makes the game unfun for many people. etc Oh, also, the character movements still feel stiff since the streams years ago. They still haven't fully fixed it!
@@QueeferSutherlands the game has been in development for over 10 years, is nowhere near release, is charging people to test it, and you’re still making excuses for it. You’re weird
It's because none of you understand game development. A "vertical slice"/"beautiful corner" isn't optimised for mmorpg gaming. The servers and most of your pcs wouldn't be able to run it. Optimisation is at the tail end of the project. Because there's no use in optimising something that's work in progress. Yes yes, copium and all that, I'll eat my words if they don't release those versions later in the project.
@@jesperburns if most our pc's wouldn't be able to run it, it would be because of how the game is not wel optimized, not that our pc's are not well optimized.
@@TheJasps Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. In fact, it's barely optimised at all at this stage in development. The real question is whether they ever be able to do that. To make the worlds they created run well enough for usage in an mmo type game. I think they got graphics like that working well enough for the Battle Royale type game they made though? I haven't played that.
@@jesperburns nope, the problem is communication. Everyone can understand what a vertical slice is, but in the montlhy video the guy says what will people see in the alpha 2, and then points to the showcase video. If the vertical slice could not be used in the test server, why say that?
You have my respect for doing this. Your channel has been my window into AoC development for the past 4 years and while I quite often had different opinions on specific decisions, and I was a lot more hesitant if they will be able to develop the game the way they showcased it throughout the years, I always appreciated your honesty and you trying to stay true to your principles (like the referral scheme). You are a creative soul Narc, so I know for a fact that if you put your heart into your content, there will be audience for it. You don't need AoC any more than AoC needs you. I hope this decision will work out for you. We can all continue to watch the development from sideways and if in the end the game turns out great, I'll be happy to buy it. Until then, all the showcases they are presenting should be seen as just that. Good luck!
@@SttravagaNZza That's unironically is the single upgrade players want from gw2. Update its engines and cross-platform it. no need for new game when current one is near-perfect.
I am not a regular as I am not a big fan of your style, but I still respected you as good source of AoC information. This makes me happy I didn't cave in and decided to wait, so I guess I will just keep waiting =P Good luck on your refreshed YT journey ^_^
MMOs require a level of financial commitment the industry just isn’t willing to commit anymore when they can just do another flavor of the month asset flip with MTX and make millions
Good for you mate! I'm sticking around for your great content! I'm still hopeful for Ashes, but I think you have a good perspective. Wishing you all the best! I can't wait to see your creativity unleashed!
I don't mean this as a gotcha, but honestly, you played yourself. You set your expectations way too high on a promise and while your concerns are valid, they were also expected, there were many signs, which we all joked about. I kept my distance even before A2 launched and hoped for the best, but i'm not slightly surprised by state of affairs.
I don't closely follow the channel, but every 6 months or so, I catch up on the AoC news, and usually that includes watching some of your videos. I was waiting for you to make this video. It took 2 years longer than I thought it would but here it is. Thanks for being real and having common sense.
Yep, I'm in the same boat: about every 6 months or so. I'm just vaguely aware of this game and it's either never coming out ...or if it does it won't be for me, even though it's the type of game I would have played several years ago.
@@VoiceULove for real, this is the reason why devs dont do open development, people hype themselves up, and then get demotivated in the same day when its like a blip in the development time and nothing is even close to being ready. Steven should have just done the radio silent approach for the game and started dropping Nodes 1 and 2 vids in the next few months.
@@bjni Well, I enjoyed Alpha 1 and I enjoyed Alpha 2 phase 1, but I decided to sit out on phase 2 because I'm only interested in trying out the Summoner now. At no point in any point of testing was I disappointed. As I keep saying, most of these people clearly do NOT understand game development
@@VoiceULove well when you see "alpha testers" crying about lack of content, stability or whatever... yeah they do not understand what they signed up for... or actually... paid for. Which is even more hilarious. Hopefully they'll learn from their mistakes.
You mean he's finally showing his true colors? People seems to forget all the anecdotes from gamers who played with him years ago and the type of person he is...
I found your old videos because of Ashes, but was captivated by your extremely creative intro movies, well written scripts, and ability to entertain. Excited to see the skits come back! I believe you are an artisan level creator.. cheers to the future :)
Ok so this is why developers don’t usually show you the development process. Because it’s a mess. That’s the way it’s always been. I’m not saying this a fanboy or anything I have no steak in this game. But I think people need to reel in their expectations and wait for the game to reach a beta state.
Long time subscriber and consumer of Narcisodes (Narc Episodes) here. I'm actually rather impressed by your honesty and willingness to break the AoC chains that you've been lugging around for awhile now. I'm excited to see what new content lies ahead for you and I wish you the best in those endeavors. I'll definitely stick around to see what shenanigans you get up to. :)
I was sort of halfway in halfway out of the hype for ashes since the unreal update showcase, but the recent Desert situation completely removed me from it. It was just a blatant, forward facing lie that Steven was pretty unphased by. Good luck Narc, I don't blame you at all for this move. Hopefully in 5 years we see something promising.
@@bjni The desert biome showcase from two years ago was presented as though it was already complete. Saying "oh it wasn't real and this is a normal practice" is HIGHLY disingenuous on the part of Steven.
@@bjni It is indeed a lie, I am sorry you sunk so much money into the lie. The game isn't going to release in 2 years either. Alpha 1 was 4 years ago -- in 4 years they managed to partially finish 1 biome and throw a desert together in unreal as their second? And they have 16 other biomes to go? You are looking at least at another 4-6 years minimum.
@@iamcerealman102 Who cares what Roblox devs have done. The ashes team made significant server stability progress during the phase 1 test. Almost daily massive gains with constant changes and adding more things to make areas denser. If the game is in this state in betas then it makes sense to be upset but all the systems they have in place are as stated by them to be barebones and there to just give testers something to do. People deciding to grind to high levels to do "End Game" content are idiots.
I called this out as soon as alpha 2 launched. I was seriously unimpressed, and learning that so many showcases were scripted set pieces sent alarm bells ringing in my head. I went onto narcs discord to voice my concerns and even in there people just lauged at me. Have fun playing ashes of pantheon or whatever.
Its wild man, I say anything about the game not feeling right in this or that area and suddenly I have all sorts of people threatening me with KoS. Ashes has fostered a community who is willing to die on it's hill even if it means the death of their own game.
What's really sad is like - watching the alpha two general chat - Steven is supportive of this behavior? Like his comments are really scummy? And those of us that are begging for answers are just...getting made fun of. Constantly. Why?
@azyrsharp8602 Two reasons: They think if they ride their meat, they'll somehow get social credit score in the game/community. and Because you cannot go against their desired worldview. It shatters their fake little world they've made for themselves. It's like showing Leftists who want open immigration Cartel videos, they can't let these true fact be true in their world, otherwise their eorld collapses. Aka Huffing Copium
This is why games with always on pvp will almost always fail, because everyone has these foolish ideas that they will have some sort of scrappy emergent gameplay and team vs team skirmishes out in the open world. Then reality sets in and you realize it will simply be abused by edgy neckbeards to grief you mercilessly and rival mega guilds to blacklist you for any sort of imagined slight against them and their virtual hegemony. The only game that uses this model of pvp and hasn't been a total failure is EVE, and that is also helped by the fact that EVE is basically an anarcho-capitalism simulation where everything including pvp is fueled by supply and demand. Putting the EVE pvp model into a geeky high fantasy game will never work and I wish people would stop pretending that it can, if you want pvp in a fantasy mmo the only one to do it right was dark age of camelot.
@@Kngly1 Genuinely I've never even heard about Narc until this video was posted. I don't honestly care about him or his followers, what I care about are the valid points that were made and weren't addressed, as well as the really inhumane way people have been aggressively taunting those that want answers and accountability.
Glad to hear you are going back to the skits. That is how I found you and kept watching for a while. Can't wait to see what you have coming out in the future. As for AoC, I stepped away prior to Alpha II. My concern with it was it was going to turn into a zergfest and wanted to just wait and see what might happen down the road. Very much disappointed to hear that all the showcases were just concepts of what is to come. I truely believed that the showcases where what were already in game and would be available for testing during Alpha. Was expecting alot of issues, but damn, missing entire assets and biomes!
when i came on this channels a few years back Narc overglorified AoC and at the same time spread hate against other titles, called Pantheon a scam and so on.. and tbh you can see that Narc has also hate against himself with all the coke and pizza.,. so this channel was a big turn off ... and now Pantheon is in Alpha and Narcs AoC dream comes to crumble .. lol, Narc is sucha laughable sad troll
steven: "lets make a beautiful desert concept and spend tons of time making a beautiful desert valley" us: And we'll use it right?.... Steven:"....." us: Right....?
When your game relies almost entirely on an external community of hypetrain content creators, your devs probably shouldn't insult them for turning it into a frenzy or propagating negative reactions in the community. These "naive content creators" are your steady flow of income. They are not children to discipline for risking spoiling the whole thing with a slight air of critical accountability and a call for more transparency.
major star citizen vibes now. There's fixing that PR and there's grifting, you can't just explain away the public perception as "gamers being ungrateful and unfamiliar with the dev process", that's grifting.
insult him? he said game is not for everyone and all narc been doinf lately is spreading misinformation about the game because his ego is hurt, fact check what hes saying here and see for yourself
This video gave me chills. I have watched you for a loooooong time. And I actually have cut back on watching you because of Ashes release. Mainly I wanted to experience the in -game stuff myself, but then because I have burnt out on it. Playing it and seeing how poorly optimized it is, and how little there is to experience (and now with your points here) I almost regret even getting hyped for Ashes. That said I am really looking forward to watching every upload again as you upload them! LFG!!! Bring on the 2025 laughs!
Thank you so much Narc! I almost bought into the alpha 2 myself but since its a lot of money I conditioned myself to wait until what phase 2 will bring and your opinions on it. My plan was to buy in for phase 3 but seeing the direction they took for Phase 2 I will most probably won't do so (we will see what will happen until mid 2025 but I am not too confident it will be enough). While not really a stream watcher I am very much looking forward to the content you will bring to youtube, I was very sad when the skits disappeared tbh so hopefully something similar to it will come back as well. Wish you best of luck!
Been watching since inception of your channel. The writing has been on the wall over the past 4-6 months. Terribly sad to hear this, but most of saw it coming. Shall be here for your triumphant return! Hope to see some other content possibly?
sadly for fantasist unhinged people unfinished games are the only ones they can support because they can imagine it's going to be perfect and finally make them happy (they are unwell nothing will make them happy)
I am very excited! we already have the first script storyboarded and i'm editting it this weekend!! it feels great to be motivated to make videos again! :D
@@lionelwhiskerknot I think he did say on stream, that he might be playing MH Wilds. He also considers playing MH World&Rise with Expansions before the new one releases.
This is pretty heartbreaking to hear. I bought into the alpha phase 1 but I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to play. I was excited about phase 2 and still haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but was looking forward to diving in after the holidays. Now after seeing this.....I feel scammed.... Seeing Ashes biggest supporter walk away from it after 4 years is a major blow.
Don’t be…game is fine but early Alpha…it is a lot of fun to play now as long as you have a group of friends to play with. This is just a point of view that doesn’t jive with the Aloha experience. This is such a “true” alpha, that it will scare off some people. Use your access, have some fun, and make your own decisions.
As someone following you since the start, this makes me sad! Thanks for all the great coverage, looking forward to your new videos and looking forward to trying ashes when it's ready
@@rosscurry3862 alot of what he's saying here is misinformation. So if You we're ever excited about The game go check from other sources what's he's saying here. You will see how it really is
6:00 it is funny that he said that they got MORE assets for desert than for tropics, but like 2 years ago he said that they got assets done for half of the bioms KEKW
TFW Pantheon launches into early access before AoC and is sitting at a daily peak of nearly 5k players on steam and 81% positive reviews lol. I am not rooting for AoC to fail, but after Narc having his weird little vendetta against pantheon it would be pretty hilarious to see pantheon make it to a full release before AoC just to rub a little salt in the wound. I only occasionally come to Narcs channel to hate watch because I think he is an absolute clown with horrendous takes and seeing him make this video made me laugh.
@@StinkMMO Smaller team who had to literally restart the mmo from scratch after the original visionary died and UNity scandal made them create their own engine from scratch. Has released into EA in less then 2 years. With more zones than what Ashes has.
Im a software engineer and i agree with you Narc. Dont let people tell you that you dont know what youre talking about. An 'alpha' is no excuse for showing vertical slices and proof of concepts as if they were a finished product. They 100% knew what they were doing by misleading people
or any game with 'transparent' production and open playtesting really. If the concept is good and the studio is competent it can fully release to the public and succeed.
People throw around the word "scam" way too often on the internet, especially with crowd funded games. If you are investing money into a crowd funded project and the game flops or never reaches a full release you didn't get scammed, you simply invested into a project that didn't end well. The only time you could genuinely claim a crowdfunded game is a scam is if the developers just dip out after getting the money and running without putting any real work or effort into making a finished project, or doing any other sort of deceptive rug pull tactics. If there was no intent to deceive people to convince you to give them money there is no scam, and no amount of people throwing a hissy fit about it on the internet will change that.
I think with the extremely undercooked P2 launch, more and more people come to the realization that there is something really disingenuous about the way Intrepid and Steven communicate. Even some of the "It's an Alpha"-spamming weirdos seem to slowly understand why a lot of people get upset whenever what we're getting does not align with what was promised. Yes, things can change during development, but it's hard to shake the feeling that something is off when these blunders happen all the time and in a lot of cases are seemingly calculated. At this point people should only believe what they can actually see in the playable test environment, because based on Intrepid's track record everything else is just words that hold very little to no weight. I highly recommend everybody to rewatch the Pre-Phase 2 stream and compare what was guaranteed to be in at the Phase 2 launch with what we actually got in the end.
what will make you powerful in this world of content creation is FREEDOM. Don't take sponsorships, don't take money to lie, and don't sell out. What makes you unique, as you know and said yourself, is the ability to give a normal unphased, truthful, and honest opinion. It will take you longer to reach the top this way but all good things take TIME.
The juxtaposition of what Steven was saying about the desert with clips of you standing in the worst desert area since The Old Republic is basically all I needed to see here. I knew AoC was going to end up being too good to be true and I started getting bad vibes about Steven in particular a while back. And my god, the amount of coping in the subreddit....I genuinely hope this game flops now. Unacceptable. Basically showing concept art and passing it off as what is already in the game is beyond scummy, and they know it. Then again, so too is having people pay that much money to test your game for you and obviously capitalizing on FOMO as much as the brainwashed crew in the subreddit disagree. Ah, well. I'm giving up on there being an actually good MMO anytime soon. It's just not going to happen, not in the next few years. Thank you, Narc, for being a man of principle and giving unbiased, honest feedback on the state of the game and the discrepancies between what was promised, what is, and what likely will be. From a fellow nerd also just wanting a good fucking MMO, you are very much appreciated and I wish you all the success in the world going forward.
My alarm bells were ringing when they started banning griefers to protect the "authentic" roleplaying experience. It's like nothing was real, no game systems to facilitate anything, it's all stage play.
As a 5 year Star Citizen backer all I can say is: First time? :P On a serious note tho, sorry you have to go through this ya'll. I believe both games will pull through and are not a scam but the nature of such projects is that they often fall victim to not so great marketing decisions. Neither of them are in "open development" - which in my eyes simply doesn't exist and is unachievable for publicity reasons. Both just show you a little more in-progress work than the big devs and both are guilty of making things look better in the trailers than they actually are on release. Money is the key unfortunately. As long as the product is not released and there are still hundreds of devs working on it day and day out, it would be a lie to call the project "completely funded" or "paid for". Star Citizen is just those few playable years ahead of AoC and we're slowly starting to get... somewhere I guess 😅. Good luck to you Narc and all AoC and SC enjoyers. May 2025 make our dreams come true!
That's a lot of optimism is all I'll say. Development hell exist for a reason because tech rapidly increase and once things take too long you start having to go update existing game while trying to finish a game and its not a good cycle. That's going to be a interesting time once that bubble bursts.
So you want to beleive narc who ego got hurt by steven for saying he should take a break so hes mad about it instead of pirate whos always been a reliable content creator.... ok...
@@Kngly1If you think Pirate is a reliable content creator then you're probably just a glazer. Guy has been caught lying constantly about his experiences at blizzard, embellishes his stories with clear bullshit, and has been disingenuous with his takes on games if it forwards his channel.
@@Kngly1 You can't convince someone unwilling to believe what they see with their own eyes. You literally are seeing what is happening and still refuse to believe it is happening. Alphas of Creation is never ever going to be a good game. It is destined to fail and the only people Steven is targeting are people already invested in it. You guys have sunk cost fallacy all the way down. This game won't launch in a finished state for another 10 years -- maybe you can throw a few hundred more dollars at Steven between now and then.
"One thing I can promise you is that I never ask my clients to judge me on my winners, I ask them to judge me on my losers because I have so few." Rugpulled and pilled as the kids say.
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Time to start your own crowdfunded mmo Narc. It's simply the circle of life.
I dont really care if this game is good or bad I'm not a pvp guy I just like watching your videos about what felt like something that was never gonna come out. i'll be watching either way
yeah, and it's the "never coming out" hook that I used to base all my jokes around. I had alot of fun poking fun at it and my audience also found it hilarious, sadly though as the jokes have become reality, people no longer find it funny and it lead me to stop trying to have fun with my videos. Well, NO LONGER!! :D 2025 will be a return to format and we'll have alot of fun going back to the old entertaining format
The embers of Ashes of Creation flicker faintly in the void. Once, the vision burned bright-a promised realm of wonder, whispered through the digital ether. But now, as the bard’s voices fade, I fear the dream may slumber too deeply. Perhaps, like the phoenix, it awaits its time to rise anew... or perhaps, its ashes shall scatter to the realms of what might have been
Can you just admit you drank the koolaid too early? The testing process includes making sure the progression works for the average player. It’s an Alpha. It’s a test. This wasn’t for you.
when i first heard about ashes of creation in 2017 with an expected release in "late 2018" i thought oh ill google it again in 2019 to see where its at. to this day the only thing ive enjoyed from occasionally checking in on the state of the game is your content. thank you for putting all the work in. and please give me a heads up where you are going/thinking about going. im desperately in need of a good mmo.
I want to grow up to be like Narc, and somehow believe that a game that had the cojones to ask for funding and make a goddamn Battle Roayle instead on a different genre, format and systems and then claim it was totally used to further it's development (and also never use anything from it) and wait until NOW to break away. My relationships would be much much longer lasting if I could be so colorblind to redflags. I envy him, truly.
I learned my lesson after Starcitizen, no way was I going to pay anything until I saw a final product. Always loved your vids though bruv, il still be here no matter what you steer into
I realized this weeks ago tbh. Its such a fuckin letdown that they would put in all the effort to make fake showcases when it was supposed to be a showcase of their PROGRESS. not concepts of progress. what a joke.
I enjoyed your AOC update videos and was seriously considering getting into Alpha2 (including Pirate Software). But I guess I'm glad I didn't... Better to wait a couple more years to see how this turns out of anything. Best of luck with next haha
First saw the guy when the stop killing games initiative came out and since then I always get him recommended and have to click the 'do not recommend'. I'm sure he is a smart guy but almost all of his takes I heard so far are just bad.
I'm glad to see a distaste for him from fellow gamers. He has always made me feel "off" about him, and his recent takes I've been seeing are finally explaining that feeling.
@@GoldenEagleXTND I wouldn't even say most of his takes are bad when it comes to non gaming related stuff, but it's very obvious that he is an industry shill and a nepotism baby. His dad was one of the senior developers on the Blizzard dev team at it's peak.
I warned people about this "server meshing" tech as they refer to theirs. I've been coding for 26 years, working for some of the biggest companies that exist right now. I've worked with groups of engineers building the exact same tech for these companies, but it's not possible for it to function the way they're trying to force it to function. Anyone with expert coding knowledge would be able to explain that data traversal for a real-time data feed, which is needed for an MMO with active-time combat and real-time movement, just can't work with a system like that. I mean you experience occasional lag and rubberbanding in games like WoW with meticulously wired and interconnected server infrastructures, and they're trying to blitz data between infinitely more wires and ports? There is a reason why this kind of tech hasn't be implemented into online games, and one reason is because in most cases it's highly unnecessary and incredibly expensive, and the other is that the amount of data that needs to be streamed in the infrastructure loop to create a coherent presentation for the game just isn't possible. Technology still needs to catch up with what they're trying to do for both Star Citizen and Ashes of Creation. To be completely honest, Ashes of Creation doesn't even need that kind of technology, but games like Star Citizen absolutely require it. I keep seeing people using the concept of one cell going down and all other staying live and that's even more of a nightmare. Who wants to be battling someone across server boundaries and one of them goes down and suddenly your target, all mobs, some world elements and such just vanish and if you try to cross over into it, your data and connection is then compromised? You want them all to go down simultaneously for the same of data continuity and security. These people are basically just experimenting with people's money. There is a reason they keep saying they don't need anymore money yet they keep accepting more. They're basically doing R&D with people's money. People will see soon enough though.
i agree ashes doesnt need server meshing..the creator is playing with peoples money ashes is not a big game to need something like that normal server stuff will do they spending time now creating servers meshing and wasting time on develeopment of the real game..and what people paid for all other game development seems to have come to a halt and with only a few thousand potential players for the game .....server meshing is a real waste of time
@@starofeden9277 Yea, and it's crazy because I watched the video where they aired it and they literally said, "We saw people saying it can't be done, so we did it." It was really odd to hear someone say that because they seemingly admitted that it wasn't a necessity, but just them trying to buck some challenge. I worked for Google for a bit and we build a similar system that was used while server wiring was being done and it allowed queue of data across a server until the server could be fully wired into the infrastructure. It's not a system that you ever want to use for anything requiring real-time or active-time data streaming because of how data traverses networking. They showed off some videos of 3-4 people testing it which is obviously a lite amount of data that in no way equates to even a basically MMO experience. Now that they've announced it and have been saying it's coming, they're trying to figure out how to pull it off instead of just saying, "We tried it and it just doesn't work out given modern networking technology." The good thing is that I think it's going to be a great lesson to future developers. I told people the same thing about SpatialOS after talking to the lead developer of it, asking why their company assumed that indie developers would need or be able to afford the same infrastructure of WoW. There is a reason Blizzard is able to afford and require such an infrastructure. I watched multiple indie devs go bankrupt trying to utilize the platform for their releases, and I feel SpatialOS will bankrupt soon having a massive infrastructure and no one to use it.
I've been highly skeptical about the server meshing, anyone that has worked intimately with client side prediction would know that sharing the state required to do this correctly between servers would be a nightmare. Client side prediction is possible because the (single)server is the source of truth but adding up to two servers (if you stand in a corner of two boundaries) would be challenging and I would argue impossible to do accurately since the source of truth also has it's own added latency with multiple servers. With a group of HIGHLY talented people i don't think it would be impossible to create smooth gameplay but it will never be perfect IMO.
@@goosus Yea I've never been great at explanations so I often try to generalize, but this is the perfect example. As you said there is this "perfect" target you're trying to hit even though it's never really "perfect". It even has a window to it that you can say, "Ok this is acceptable". The more interconnectivity you add, the less and less acceptable the implementation and execution becomes. In order to smooth it out, you start to do absolutely unreasonable amounts of extrapolation and interpolation to make the client-side rendering look appropriate. That kind of extrapolation and interpolation would make things like active-blocking, dodging, and such impossible to accurately represent. You'll see your character swing and hit someone and 2-3 seconds later it'll say "BLOCKED". Projectiles would have to arc and follow you with such intensity that you'll use the dodge function and the projectile will be forced to follow you significantly more making it almost impossible to avoid the trajectory. There is just so much they don't seem to have considered given the type of game they're making, but they'll see soon enough.
Happy to actually RE-subscribe to your channel excited for whatever new content comes. AoC got stale for me personally a while ago when it felt like your heart might not have truly been there anymore. Hope you are happier in 2025.
@@EloyBushida whiney commenters with no real input on anything annoy the shit out of me, sorry. I’m sure you have plenty of homework you need to get done for your 5th grade mathematics class. my fault for thinking you commented to have some sort of dialogue other than weh scam weh
I funded back in 2018. My only goal is to try and have a little fun with the crew while it's possible. I feel like they want star citizen funding. Empty planets / empty desert
*EDIT: I just want to say I greatly appreciate the overwhelming ammount of support and positivity. Last time I tried to express my feelings openly (less than 2 months ago) the comments were filled with 99% negativity which kinda made me feel like shit. I'm happy to see that you guys still support me and my passion for content creation. Thank you.*
Making videos for Ashes of Creation has been a life changing experience for me, it's allowed me to realise that making entertaining videos is something that truely brings me joy.
Sadly, the format of "entertaining" and "Ashes of Creation" do not seem to mix anymore, no matter how hard I try and with the direction the tests seem to be going it's going to be harder and harder for me to continue trying to make videos that genuinely bring people joy like I did in 2022.
The people who still follow and lead the game do not seem to want genuine critique or entertainment, they just want overwhelming positivity.
It's been 2 years since I felt like i was proud of a video and with the alpha actually out for all to see, it's become impossible for me to continue trying to make this game seem exciting, however, there are plenty of other content creators who cover the news and updates for you. I no longer want to do this, I want to get back to following my dream of making people laugh with my creative expression.
I wish Intrepid the best with their development and I hope Ashes of Creation becomes the MMORPG it was advertised as.
Feel free to follow the streams over at Twitch.tv/narciverse and I hope you all look forward to the returning to the old format where we can make some genuinely entertaining videos about games that actually exist.
Does this mean you'll start doing those skits again? You always seemed to have fun with making them. Plus, it was why I subbed to you in the first place and I, and I'm sure many others, have missed them.
Maybe with the money you've now got from Twitch you can up the production quality if that's something you were unhappy with.
While I have had you mainly as my source of Ashes of Creation news and will be sad to not have it anymore I'll try to see whatever direction you decide to take your videos and other stuff.
Thanks for everything you've done. I know it's just entertainment but it's been fun.
@@brainstormsurge154 100% yes, the skits are coming back in full force and infact, we have already begun the scripting and storyboarding process for the first upcoming video :) i am looking forward to getting into them again. It's less about "money" and more about "i wish they reached more people"
Hopefully though, in 2025, we'll reach an audience who actually enjoys and wants them :D Thank you for your support over the years
Skits ate back yay! Thnx ashes 😂
Happy new year 🎉🎉🎉!
I've certainly missed your skits, but I will also miss your criticism of the game as well. I hope you can find a way to do both. But at the end of the day, you've got to do you. :)
your intros are what sold me i use to love the mini movies u put in the beginning
So what you're saying is, we were truly high on copium this whole time.
you maybe. this game smelled like scam from the start
Yeah there was lethal levels of copium in the community. I said it many times. I said it to narc many times. Because he thought we were all as high as him. We were not.
But still, for a scam, I had a lot of fun for 120$. But the game is just too lacking, too incomplete and too buggy to enjoy it for a long period of time. Not to mention, I really hate progress wipes, so alphas are usually a massive turn off. I like the game as it is but not enough to play it over 3 months because of how restrictive it is. How chaotic. A full player-driven economy makes the game unfun for many people. etc
Oh, also, the character movements still feel stiff since the streams years ago. They still haven't fully fixed it!
Some with Copium masks, some with a can of.... *tsscluck* Copa Cola.
@@cjerpyeah i wanted to spend the money so bad but it was too ridiculous. I think honestly mmos are scams anyways
@@cjerpgame truly gives off those Star Citizen vibes
I sense the balding one is going to react to this.
It's only a question of time, Asmon is the wielder of the React-bringer after all
Alot of these long time streamers are dropping like flies.
😂
The Swamp Lord will make a 45 minute video out of a 15 minute Narc video, and get an order of magnitude more views.
the Baldemort
The alt-tabbing between the desert biome presentation and the flat, empty, and barren actual desert biome is fucking hilarious.
You mean the desert Biome in an alpha 2 years from releasr that ALREADY has been updated since you posted this dumb comment?
@@QueeferSutherlands the game has been in development for over 10 years, is nowhere near release, is charging people to test it, and you’re still making excuses for it. You’re weird
@@QueeferSutherlands I don't play this game, and this video was released just the other day. There's no context that it was updated.
so the creation went to ashes...
Underrated comment brotha...
i am sure at some point it will release in a state like new world lmao
it was all Ashes and never Creation.. big scam!
@@alejandronunez7650😂 yes
The comparison between the desert showcase video vs. the desert ingame is simply WTF
It's because none of you understand game development. A "vertical slice"/"beautiful corner" isn't optimised for mmorpg gaming.
The servers and most of your pcs wouldn't be able to run it.
Optimisation is at the tail end of the project. Because there's no use in optimising something that's work in progress.
Yes yes, copium and all that, I'll eat my words if they don't release those versions later in the project.
@@jesperburns if most our pc's wouldn't be able to run it, it would be because of how the game is not wel optimized, not that our pc's are not well optimized.
@@TheJasps Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. In fact, it's barely optimised at all at this stage in development.
The real question is whether they ever be able to do that. To make the worlds they created run well enough for usage in an mmo type game.
I think they got graphics like that working well enough for the Battle Royale type game they made though? I haven't played that.
@@jesperburns nope, the problem is communication. Everyone can understand what a vertical slice is, but in the montlhy video the guy says what will people see in the alpha 2, and then points to the showcase video. If the vertical slice could not be used in the test server, why say that?
its not like that place represents the general state of the desert , he chose on puprose to make it look like a tragedy
People complained when this guy "talked shit" and told him to take a break and now they will call him drama queen for listening to them lmao
Classic
That's the typical MMO boomer shill, their opinion does not matter
Cult: Take a break you are mentally unwell.
Narc: I'm stepping away from Ashes.
Cult: *Shocked pikachu face*
Maybe, just maybe, it's not the same people.
do you swallow after you're done riding Narc so hard?
You have my respect for doing this. Your channel has been my window into AoC development for the past 4 years and while I quite often had different opinions on specific decisions, and I was a lot more hesitant if they will be able to develop the game the way they showcased it throughout the years, I always appreciated your honesty and you trying to stay true to your principles (like the referral scheme). You are a creative soul Narc, so I know for a fact that if you put your heart into your content, there will be audience for it. You don't need AoC any more than AoC needs you. I hope this decision will work out for you. We can all continue to watch the development from sideways and if in the end the game turns out great, I'll be happy to buy it. Until then, all the showcases they are presenting should be seen as just that. Good luck!
At this point im just waiting for GW3.
Just remaster GW2 and multi-platform it.
@@SttravagaNZza That's unironically is the single upgrade players want from gw2. Update its engines and cross-platform it. no need for new game when current one is near-perfect.
@@Cp2n Remkae GW1 with an updated engine. Far superior story than GW2
yeah you were never interested in ashes if you are waiting for GW3 instead lol....
Lmao GW1 does not need an updated engine, it can run on a potato
I am not a regular as I am not a big fan of your style, but I still respected you as good source of AoC information. This makes me happy I didn't cave in and decided to wait, so I guess I will just keep waiting =P
Good luck on your refreshed YT journey ^_^
The tab back and forth of him in the desert and Steven showing off the fake one is so funny.
This is false
Sadly you have that backwards. Narc is showing off footage thats months old at this point, and not current game footage
You'll do great in anything you decide to do. You've shown that with your consistency over the past 4 years.
hey Stoopzz :p
Gayge sus
hes him !!!!!
says the guy that promote P2W games
@@thedaeron3877 I like them :)
Damn we will be stuck with WoW forever
MMOs require a level of financial commitment the industry just isn’t willing to commit anymore when they can just do another flavor of the month asset flip with MTX and make millions
@@xersys yeah, MMO genre is kinda fked, we have what we have, thats it. No new good games on the horizon.
Play new world.
Dude this is an alpha. It is 3 years from being released. Give it time people.
@@jmets112 xD
Good for you mate! I'm sticking around for your great content! I'm still hopeful for Ashes, but I think you have a good perspective. Wishing you all the best! I can't wait to see your creativity unleashed!
GIGABASED.
Looking forward to Narc 2.0 Content.
Best of luck out there!
I don't mean this as a gotcha, but honestly, you played yourself. You set your expectations way too high on a promise and while your concerns are valid, they were also expected, there were many signs, which we all joked about. I kept my distance even before A2 launched and hoped for the best, but i'm not slightly surprised by state of affairs.
I don't closely follow the channel, but every 6 months or so, I catch up on the AoC news, and usually that includes watching some of your videos. I was waiting for you to make this video. It took 2 years longer than I thought it would but here it is. Thanks for being real and having common sense.
Yep, I'm in the same boat: about every 6 months or so. I'm just vaguely aware of this game and it's either never coming out ...or if it does it won't be for me, even though it's the type of game I would have played several years ago.
LOL, the one guy who doesn't have a clue about game development and you claim he's the only one with common sense.
@@VoiceULove for real, this is the reason why devs dont do open development, people hype themselves up, and then get demotivated in the same day when its like a blip in the development time and nothing is even close to being ready. Steven should have just done the radio silent approach for the game and started dropping Nodes 1 and 2 vids in the next few months.
@@bjni Well, I enjoyed Alpha 1 and I enjoyed Alpha 2 phase 1, but I decided to sit out on phase 2 because I'm only interested in trying out the Summoner now. At no point in any point of testing was I disappointed. As I keep saying, most of these people clearly do NOT understand game development
@@VoiceULove well when you see "alpha testers" crying about lack of content, stability or whatever... yeah they do not understand what they signed up for... or actually... paid for. Which is even more hilarious. Hopefully they'll learn from their mistakes.
The irony is Steven seems to be becoming exactly the type of developer that he states he got into making this game to get away from...sad
You mean he's finally showing his true colors? People seems to forget all the anecdotes from gamers who played with him years ago and the type of person he is...
He’s a real-estate millionaire. Anyone that thought he was an honest, upstanding person was being foolish to begin with.
Most of the bad behavoir by game developers is caused by financial pressures. Sadly Steven wasn't immune.
@@voldemort008There’s tons of honest millionaires. As a matter of fact there’s more dishonest poor people.
the guy earned his money from pyramid schemes and scamming people LOL
I found your old videos because of Ashes, but was captivated by your extremely creative intro movies, well written scripts, and ability to entertain. Excited to see the skits come back!
I believe you are an artisan level creator.. cheers to the future :)
Ok so this is why developers don’t usually show you the development process. Because it’s a mess. That’s the way it’s always been.
I’m not saying this a fanboy or anything I have no steak in this game.
But I think people need to reel in their expectations and wait for the game to reach a beta state.
Long time subscriber and consumer of Narcisodes (Narc Episodes) here. I'm actually rather impressed by your honesty and willingness to break the AoC chains that you've been lugging around for awhile now. I'm excited to see what new content lies ahead for you and I wish you the best in those endeavors. I'll definitely stick around to see what shenanigans you get up to. :)
I was sort of halfway in halfway out of the hype for ashes since the unreal update showcase, but the recent Desert situation completely removed me from it. It was just a blatant, forward facing lie that Steven was pretty unphased by. Good luck Narc, I don't blame you at all for this move. Hopefully in 5 years we see something promising.
No its not a lie, give it a chance (come back in 2 years when the game releases and give it a chance when its actually ready)
@@bjni The desert biome showcase from two years ago was presented as though it was already complete.
Saying "oh it wasn't real and this is a normal practice" is HIGHLY disingenuous on the part of Steven.
@@bjni bot?
This is really sad, because Narc has actively lied about the game's state and presented something that isnt current as though it is
@@bjni It is indeed a lie, I am sorry you sunk so much money into the lie. The game isn't going to release in 2 years either. Alpha 1 was 4 years ago -- in 4 years they managed to partially finish 1 biome and throw a desert together in unreal as their second? And they have 16 other biomes to go? You are looking at least at another 4-6 years minimum.
I just ran in a circle for three hours looking for weeping willow trees then I decided, wtf am I actually testing?
Server stability is what the current test are for not really any specific systems besides broad stroke stuff
@im1085 Roblox devs say shit like this all the time though, and it usually ends with a scam or lackluster release.
@@iamcerealman102 Who cares what Roblox devs have done. The ashes team made significant server stability progress during the phase 1 test. Almost daily massive gains with constant changes and adding more things to make areas denser. If the game is in this state in betas then it makes sense to be upset but all the systems they have in place are as stated by them to be barebones and there to just give testers something to do. People deciding to grind to high levels to do "End Game" content are idiots.
@@im1085 Never trust a CEO, they love to lie, that's all.
@@im1085Paying money to server test is what the idiots did.
Steven lived long enough to become the very thing he once hated.
Lol he was always scum. Stop giving this cockroach more credit than he deserves.
Good to see you stop drinking copa cola. That stuff's bad for you.
The desert makes me feel like even Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has more content already 😅
Happy new year Narc! hope u can always keep doing what you love!
I am looking forward to a getting back to what I loved about making videos :D happy new year!!
Good on you Narc! I was here since the moment of 4k sub era and I expect the return of " What a Joker" meme. :)
I called this out as soon as alpha 2 launched. I was seriously unimpressed, and learning that so many showcases were scripted set pieces sent alarm bells ringing in my head.
I went onto narcs discord to voice my concerns and even in there people just lauged at me.
Have fun playing ashes of pantheon or whatever.
Thank you for making this video. I am glad you're speaking out and informing us about this! Keep up the good work mate!
I appreciate your transparency and I look forward to whatever direction you take your content. Best of luck to you.
Its wild man, I say anything about the game not feeling right in this or that area and suddenly I have all sorts of people threatening me with KoS. Ashes has fostered a community who is willing to die on it's hill even if it means the death of their own game.
What's really sad is like - watching the alpha two general chat - Steven is supportive of this behavior? Like his comments are really scummy? And those of us that are begging for answers are just...getting made fun of. Constantly. Why?
@azyrsharp8602 Two reasons: They think if they ride their meat, they'll somehow get social credit score in the game/community.
and
Because you cannot go against their desired worldview. It shatters their fake little world they've made for themselves. It's like showing Leftists who want open immigration Cartel videos, they can't let these true fact be true in their world, otherwise their eorld collapses. Aka Huffing Copium
This is why games with always on pvp will almost always fail, because everyone has these foolish ideas that they will have some sort of scrappy emergent gameplay and team vs team skirmishes out in the open world. Then reality sets in and you realize it will simply be abused by edgy neckbeards to grief you mercilessly and rival mega guilds to blacklist you for any sort of imagined slight against them and their virtual hegemony. The only game that uses this model of pvp and hasn't been a total failure is EVE, and that is also helped by the fact that EVE is basically an anarcho-capitalism simulation where everything including pvp is fueled by supply and demand. Putting the EVE pvp model into a geeky high fantasy game will never work and I wish people would stop pretending that it can, if you want pvp in a fantasy mmo the only one to do it right was dark age of camelot.
@@azyrsharp8602 narc minions talking about toxicity thats rich!
@@Kngly1 Genuinely I've never even heard about Narc until this video was posted. I don't honestly care about him or his followers, what I care about are the valid points that were made and weren't addressed, as well as the really inhumane way people have been aggressively taunting those that want answers and accountability.
250 for an alpha key? You can buy lets say ten games and play those until this crap came out
GTA 6 will be worth more as an "MMO" then this game if the dishonesty continues.
@@iamcerealman102 If this game manages to release the same time GTA 6 releases, you'd already know that it's a dead game.
250 for being a test resource for them its hilarious
@@fritzschnitzmueller3768
happy new years bruddah! hope you enjoy this year.
happy new year!! :D 2025 will be a great year for the channel (hopefully)
Glad to hear you are going back to the skits. That is how I found you and kept watching for a while. Can't wait to see what you have coming out in the future.
As for AoC, I stepped away prior to Alpha II. My concern with it was it was going to turn into a zergfest and wanted to just wait and see what might happen down the road. Very much disappointed to hear that all the showcases were just concepts of what is to come. I truely believed that the showcases where what were already in game and would be available for testing during Alpha. Was expecting alot of issues, but damn, missing entire assets and biomes!
Massive respect for making this video
when i came on this channels a few years back Narc overglorified AoC and at the same time spread hate against other titles, called Pantheon a scam and so on.. and tbh you can see that Narc has also hate against himself with all the coke and pizza.,. so this channel was a big turn off ... and now Pantheon is in Alpha and Narcs AoC dream comes to crumble .. lol, Narc is sucha laughable sad troll
It would make sense for him make vids glazing the scam & keep making the YT money
steven: "lets make a beautiful desert concept and spend tons of time making a beautiful desert valley"
us: And we'll use it right?....
Steven:"....."
us: Right....?
When your game relies almost entirely on an external community of hypetrain content creators, your devs probably shouldn't insult them for turning it into a frenzy or propagating negative reactions in the community. These "naive content creators" are your steady flow of income. They are not children to discipline for risking spoiling the whole thing with a slight air of critical accountability and a call for more transparency.
major star citizen vibes now. There's fixing that PR and there's grifting, you can't just explain away the public perception as "gamers being ungrateful and unfamiliar with the dev process", that's grifting.
insult him? he said game is not for everyone and all narc been doinf lately is spreading misinformation about the game because his ego is hurt, fact check what hes saying here and see for yourself
We don't blame you for wanting to step away from a situation that seems to be gradually growing more toxic by the devs. We stand with Narc!
Who's "We"? Dont include me in your stupidity and your ego.
This video gave me chills. I have watched you for a loooooong time. And I actually have cut back on watching you because of Ashes release. Mainly I wanted to experience the in -game stuff myself, but then because I have burnt out on it. Playing it and seeing how poorly optimized it is, and how little there is to experience (and now with your points here) I almost regret even getting hyped for Ashes.
That said I am really looking forward to watching every upload again as you upload them! LFG!!! Bring on the 2025 laughs!
I trust this man because he has valheim music in his video. And valheim is a great game that isn't a scam.
Thank you so much Narc! I almost bought into the alpha 2 myself but since its a lot of money I conditioned myself to wait until what phase 2 will bring and your opinions on it. My plan was to buy in for phase 3 but seeing the direction they took for Phase 2 I will most probably won't do so (we will see what will happen until mid 2025 but I am not too confident it will be enough).
While not really a stream watcher I am very much looking forward to the content you will bring to youtube, I was very sad when the skits disappeared tbh so hopefully something similar to it will come back as well.
Wish you best of luck!
Been watching since inception of your channel. The writing has been on the wall over the past 4-6 months. Terribly sad to hear this, but most of saw it coming. Shall be here for your triumphant return! Hope to see some other content possibly?
Well all of you should just quit playing so I can finally farm willows.
Thanks for making this video. I really do hope development goes well from this point forward
Simple rule: NEVER support a not finished development.
Or, support it and enjoy the experience. Use your money to vote, it's pretty simple.
sadly for fantasist unhinged people unfinished games are the only ones they can support because they can imagine it's going to be perfect and finally make them happy (they are unwell nothing will make them happy)
F Valheim? u mad
@@gonmordevol7245 People loved Valheim? I don't understand your comparison?
Happy New Year!
Thanks for all the Ashes content, looking forward to your variety arc! :)
I am very excited! we already have the first script storyboarded and i'm editting it this weekend!!
it feels great to be motivated to make videos again! :D
@@Narc I'm looking forward to it. I think I speak for most when I say you getting excited to create your videos again is all we could ask for! :)
I'm hoping he might cover Monster Hunter Wilds.
@@lionelwhiskerknot I think he did say on stream, that he might be playing MH Wilds. He also considers playing MH World&Rise with Expansions before the new one releases.
@@ChrisLurch That's cool. I'd love to do some hunts with him and his discord buddies.
This is pretty heartbreaking to hear. I bought into the alpha phase 1 but I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to play. I was excited about phase 2 and still haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but was looking forward to diving in after the holidays. Now after seeing this.....I feel scammed....
Seeing Ashes biggest supporter walk away from it after 4 years is a major blow.
Don’t be…game is fine but early Alpha…it is a lot of fun to play now as long as you have a group of friends to play with. This is just a point of view that doesn’t jive with the Aloha experience. This is such a “true” alpha, that it will scare off some people. Use your access, have some fun, and make your own decisions.
It is not fun right now lmao. Have you seen the group play.
Zerging elite mobs and clicking 1,2,3 over and over for the whole session
@@fftcg.online5189 yes go fact check for yourself and see if anything narc is saying isthe truth lets see how that turns out
Narc is about to become a Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen UA-camr
I respect and understand this take. Thank you for this Narc. Looking forward to watching your journey!
As someone following you since the start, this makes me sad! Thanks for all the great coverage, looking forward to your new videos and looking forward to trying ashes when it's ready
Fact check this for yourself and you will see how hes lying
@Kngly1 what do you mean?
@@rosscurry3862 alot of what he's saying here is misinformation. So if You we're ever excited about The game go check from other sources what's he's saying here. You will see how it really is
6:00 it is funny that he said that they got MORE assets for desert than for tropics, but like 2 years ago he said that they got assets done for half of the bioms KEKW
Pantheon rise of the fallen
TFW Pantheon launches into early access before AoC and is sitting at a daily peak of nearly 5k players on steam and 81% positive reviews lol. I am not rooting for AoC to fail, but after Narc having his weird little vendetta against pantheon it would be pretty hilarious to see pantheon make it to a full release before AoC just to rub a little salt in the wound. I only occasionally come to Narcs channel to hate watch because I think he is an absolute clown with horrendous takes and seeing him make this video made me laugh.
This game is even worse. Like are you getting paid to promote that horrible game? It's dreadful
@StinkMMO no I dont. Guess what; different opinions exist. I like that game.
Pantheon is great.
@@StinkMMO Smaller team who had to literally restart the mmo from scratch after the original visionary died and UNity scandal made them create their own engine from scratch. Has released into EA in less then 2 years. With more zones than what Ashes has.
I'll stick around for the skits and your creative content, I loved that stuff. Do whatever you want to do man.
Im a software engineer and i agree with you Narc. Dont let people tell you that you dont know what youre talking about. An 'alpha' is no excuse for showing vertical slices and proof of concepts as if they were a finished product. They 100% knew what they were doing by misleading people
yeah if you of all people are out, im out too. i'll try it when its fully released but my cope is at 0
How many more times people have to be scammed by crowdfunded MMO's?
or any game with 'transparent' production and open playtesting really. If the concept is good and the studio is competent it can fully release to the public and succeed.
He literally stated he feels this is not a scam, just poor practices.
People throw around the word "scam" way too often on the internet, especially with crowd funded games. If you are investing money into a crowd funded project and the game flops or never reaches a full release you didn't get scammed, you simply invested into a project that didn't end well. The only time you could genuinely claim a crowdfunded game is a scam is if the developers just dip out after getting the money and running without putting any real work or effort into making a finished project, or doing any other sort of deceptive rug pull tactics. If there was no intent to deceive people to convince you to give them money there is no scam, and no amount of people throwing a hissy fit about it on the internet will change that.
@BoneFrossil it's literally a scam...
@@daledelatte9607 incorrect, not sure you understand the definition of literally.
I think with the extremely undercooked P2 launch, more and more people come to the realization that there is something really disingenuous about the way Intrepid and Steven communicate. Even some of the "It's an Alpha"-spamming weirdos seem to slowly understand why a lot of people get upset whenever what we're getting does not align with what was promised.
Yes, things can change during development, but it's hard to shake the feeling that something is off when these blunders happen all the time and in a lot of cases are seemingly calculated. At this point people should only believe what they can actually see in the playable test environment, because based on Intrepid's track record everything else is just words that hold very little to no weight. I highly recommend everybody to rewatch the Pre-Phase 2 stream and compare what was guaranteed to be in at the Phase 2 launch with what we actually got in the end.
Question, what is different with AOC and SC?
@@mercifulterros5030 AoC might actually release something they call a game. SC will be a game our grandkids talk about coming out some day.
what will make you powerful in this world of content creation is FREEDOM. Don't take sponsorships, don't take money to lie, and don't sell out. What makes you unique, as you know and said yourself, is the ability to give a normal unphased, truthful, and honest opinion. It will take you longer to reach the top this way but all good things take TIME.
The juxtaposition of what Steven was saying about the desert with clips of you standing in the worst desert area since The Old Republic is basically all I needed to see here. I knew AoC was going to end up being too good to be true and I started getting bad vibes about Steven in particular a while back. And my god, the amount of coping in the subreddit....I genuinely hope this game flops now. Unacceptable. Basically showing concept art and passing it off as what is already in the game is beyond scummy, and they know it. Then again, so too is having people pay that much money to test your game for you and obviously capitalizing on FOMO as much as the brainwashed crew in the subreddit disagree.
Ah, well. I'm giving up on there being an actually good MMO anytime soon. It's just not going to happen, not in the next few years. Thank you, Narc, for being a man of principle and giving unbiased, honest feedback on the state of the game and the discrepancies between what was promised, what is, and what likely will be. From a fellow nerd also just wanting a good fucking MMO, you are very much appreciated and I wish you all the success in the world going forward.
Pantheon is out - you now have the chance to do the funniest thing.
At 40$ you need copium to play pantheon in its current state.
@@MypersonalURLit’s more polished than this game and people are paying over $100 to play. Pantheon is just lacking some qol and content.
@@defixon lmao at using polish and Pantheon in the same sentence. The game doesn't even have basic collision.
@@amaru5858wut. Collision? Who the fck determines if a game is polished from collision? What kind of nerd sht
I only knew about AoC because of this guy. So to hear the dev talk shit bout constructive criticism tells me this game is a scam & the dev is a prick.
Just play pantheon ;)
Been watching you for a few years now, will be excited to see your next adventure!
My alarm bells were ringing when they started banning griefers to protect the "authentic" roleplaying experience. It's like nothing was real, no game systems to facilitate anything, it's all stage play.
As a 5 year Star Citizen backer all I can say is: First time? :P
On a serious note tho, sorry you have to go through this ya'll. I believe both games will pull through and are not a scam but the nature of such projects is that they often fall victim to not so great marketing decisions. Neither of them are in "open development" - which in my eyes simply doesn't exist and is unachievable for publicity reasons. Both just show you a little more in-progress work than the big devs and both are guilty of making things look better in the trailers than they actually are on release. Money is the key unfortunately. As long as the product is not released and there are still hundreds of devs working on it day and day out, it would be a lie to call the project "completely funded" or "paid for".
Star Citizen is just those few playable years ahead of AoC and we're slowly starting to get... somewhere I guess 😅.
Good luck to you Narc and all AoC and SC enjoyers. May 2025 make our dreams come true!
That's a lot of optimism is all I'll say. Development hell exist for a reason because tech rapidly increase and once things take too long you start having to go update existing game while trying to finish a game and its not a good cycle. That's going to be a interesting time once that bubble bursts.
Only 5 years?
@@Cypher84X That's where the optimism comes from it seems. I ain't ran thru like that yet ;)
Man... I'm 10 years in SC. Mu copium and hopium tanks are in the negative. @@marcin_piechocki
Also an SC player so I kinda knew this would happen to AoC as well.
I've been saying that the Ashes subreddit is a cult for a long time. You simply cannot express any negativity towards the game there.
But Pirate Software told us this is the best game ever and steve is our god and savior of the MMO community...
Indeed, PirateSoftware is shielding hard for the game... and don´t forget to click the link to check out the game "he says" :D
U mean the guy who cheated his way to the top by manipulating algorithm and their viewers
So you want to beleive narc who ego got hurt by steven for saying he should take a break so hes mad about it instead of pirate whos always been a reliable content creator.... ok...
@@Kngly1If you think Pirate is a reliable content creator then you're probably just a glazer.
Guy has been caught lying constantly about his experiences at blizzard, embellishes his stories with clear bullshit, and has been disingenuous with his takes on games if it forwards his channel.
@@Kngly1 You can't convince someone unwilling to believe what they see with their own eyes. You literally are seeing what is happening and still refuse to believe it is happening. Alphas of Creation is never ever going to be a good game. It is destined to fail and the only people Steven is targeting are people already invested in it. You guys have sunk cost fallacy all the way down. This game won't launch in a finished state for another 10 years -- maybe you can throw a few hundred more dollars at Steven between now and then.
"One thing I can promise you is that I never ask my clients to judge me on my winners, I ask them to judge me on my losers because I have so few."
Rugpulled and pilled as the kids say.
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Time to start your own crowdfunded mmo Narc. It's simply the circle of life.
Narc is a smug elitist neckbeard with bad taste in MMOs, his game would most certainly suck.
You just earned more respect in my eyes. Big ups for speaking up and standing by your values.
The worst part is, Steven getting massive Upvotes on Reddit for his "Statements", which kinda shows that the Ashes Community is lost af
lol thats just reddit. reddit is a lost cause.
star citizen doesnt seem as bad of a project now eh?
Looks essentially the same "server meshing is coming next update guys i swear
Based video, excited to see what the future holds for you brother.
Great choice man. Don't hold yourself back.
I dont really care if this game is good or bad I'm not a pvp guy I just like watching your videos about what felt like something that was never gonna come out. i'll be watching either way
yeah, and it's the "never coming out" hook that I used to base all my jokes around.
I had alot of fun poking fun at it and my audience also found it hilarious, sadly though as the jokes have become reality, people no longer find it funny and it lead me to stop trying to have fun with my videos.
Well, NO LONGER!! :D
2025 will be a return to format and we'll have alot of fun going back to the old entertaining format
Can I have your gold?
This is sad. But I totally understand you.
Keep doing fun content, dude.
The embers of Ashes of Creation flicker faintly in the void. Once, the vision burned bright-a promised realm of wonder, whispered through the digital ether. But now, as the bard’s voices fade, I fear the dream may slumber too deeply. Perhaps, like the phoenix, it awaits its time to rise anew... or perhaps, its ashes shall scatter to the realms of what might have been
Can you just admit you drank the koolaid too early? The testing process includes making sure the progression works for the average player. It’s an Alpha. It’s a test. This wasn’t for you.
He made his money from MLM. Now he's pushing MLM with the game. How is anyone shocked?
Total support to you Narc, you're doing the right thing.
It's a scam
when i first heard about ashes of creation in 2017 with an expected release in "late 2018" i thought oh ill google it again in 2019 to see where its at. to this day the only thing ive enjoyed from occasionally checking in on the state of the game is your content. thank you for putting all the work in. and please give me a heads up where you are going/thinking about going. im desperately in need of a good mmo.
I want to grow up to be like Narc, and somehow believe that a game that had the cojones to ask for funding and make a goddamn Battle Roayle instead on a different genre, format and systems and then claim it was totally used to further it's development (and also never use anything from it) and wait until NOW to break away.
My relationships would be much much longer lasting if I could be so colorblind to redflags. I envy him, truly.
I learned my lesson after Starcitizen, no way was I going to pay anything until I saw a final product. Always loved your vids though bruv, il still be here no matter what you steer into
I realized this weeks ago tbh. Its such a fuckin letdown that they would put in all the effort to make fake showcases when it was supposed to be a showcase of their PROGRESS. not concepts of progress. what a joke.
I guess it's time to cover Pantheon LOL
FYI The last Game Margret Krohn did communications on was Ever Quest Next and Landmark. if that gives you any idea were this game is headed.
I enjoyed your AOC update videos and was seriously considering getting into Alpha2 (including Pirate Software). But I guess I'm glad I didn't... Better to wait a couple more years to see how this turns out of anything. Best of luck with next haha
Time to pivot into Pantheon
LOL
LOL stop
dont worry, Thor The Clown is actually saying that the devs are good, so nothing to worry about....
First saw the guy when the stop killing games initiative came out and since then I always get him recommended and have to click the 'do not recommend'. I'm sure he is a smart guy but almost all of his takes I heard so far are just bad.
I'm glad to see a distaste for him from fellow gamers. He has always made me feel "off" about him, and his recent takes I've been seeing are finally explaining that feeling.
@@GoldenEagleXTND I wouldn't even say most of his takes are bad when it comes to non gaming related stuff, but it's very obvious that he is an industry shill and a nepotism baby. His dad was one of the senior developers on the Blizzard dev team at it's peak.
@@GoldenEagleXTND Such as?
I rather take thor opinion on games than this fake btthurt creator
I warned people about this "server meshing" tech as they refer to theirs. I've been coding for 26 years, working for some of the biggest companies that exist right now. I've worked with groups of engineers building the exact same tech for these companies, but it's not possible for it to function the way they're trying to force it to function. Anyone with expert coding knowledge would be able to explain that data traversal for a real-time data feed, which is needed for an MMO with active-time combat and real-time movement, just can't work with a system like that. I mean you experience occasional lag and rubberbanding in games like WoW with meticulously wired and interconnected server infrastructures, and they're trying to blitz data between infinitely more wires and ports? There is a reason why this kind of tech hasn't be implemented into online games, and one reason is because in most cases it's highly unnecessary and incredibly expensive, and the other is that the amount of data that needs to be streamed in the infrastructure loop to create a coherent presentation for the game just isn't possible.
Technology still needs to catch up with what they're trying to do for both Star Citizen and Ashes of Creation. To be completely honest, Ashes of Creation doesn't even need that kind of technology, but games like Star Citizen absolutely require it. I keep seeing people using the concept of one cell going down and all other staying live and that's even more of a nightmare. Who wants to be battling someone across server boundaries and one of them goes down and suddenly your target, all mobs, some world elements and such just vanish and if you try to cross over into it, your data and connection is then compromised? You want them all to go down simultaneously for the same of data continuity and security.
These people are basically just experimenting with people's money. There is a reason they keep saying they don't need anymore money yet they keep accepting more. They're basically doing R&D with people's money. People will see soon enough though.
i agree ashes doesnt need server meshing..the creator is playing with peoples money
ashes is not a big game to need something like that
normal server stuff will do
they spending time now creating servers meshing and wasting time on develeopment of the real game..and what people paid for
all other game development seems to have come to a halt
and with only a few thousand potential players for the game .....server meshing is a real waste of time
@@starofeden9277 Yea, and it's crazy because I watched the video where they aired it and they literally said, "We saw people saying it can't be done, so we did it." It was really odd to hear someone say that because they seemingly admitted that it wasn't a necessity, but just them trying to buck some challenge. I worked for Google for a bit and we build a similar system that was used while server wiring was being done and it allowed queue of data across a server until the server could be fully wired into the infrastructure. It's not a system that you ever want to use for anything requiring real-time or active-time data streaming because of how data traverses networking. They showed off some videos of 3-4 people testing it which is obviously a lite amount of data that in no way equates to even a basically MMO experience.
Now that they've announced it and have been saying it's coming, they're trying to figure out how to pull it off instead of just saying, "We tried it and it just doesn't work out given modern networking technology." The good thing is that I think it's going to be a great lesson to future developers. I told people the same thing about SpatialOS after talking to the lead developer of it, asking why their company assumed that indie developers would need or be able to afford the same infrastructure of WoW. There is a reason Blizzard is able to afford and require such an infrastructure. I watched multiple indie devs go bankrupt trying to utilize the platform for their releases, and I feel SpatialOS will bankrupt soon having a massive infrastructure and no one to use it.
I've been highly skeptical about the server meshing, anyone that has worked intimately with client side prediction would know that sharing the state required to do this correctly between servers would be a nightmare. Client side prediction is possible because the (single)server is the source of truth but adding up to two servers (if you stand in a corner of two boundaries) would be challenging and I would argue impossible to do accurately since the source of truth also has it's own added latency with multiple servers. With a group of HIGHLY talented people i don't think it would be impossible to create smooth gameplay but it will never be perfect IMO.
@@goosus Yea I've never been great at explanations so I often try to generalize, but this is the perfect example. As you said there is this "perfect" target you're trying to hit even though it's never really "perfect". It even has a window to it that you can say, "Ok this is acceptable". The more interconnectivity you add, the less and less acceptable the implementation and execution becomes. In order to smooth it out, you start to do absolutely unreasonable amounts of extrapolation and interpolation to make the client-side rendering look appropriate.
That kind of extrapolation and interpolation would make things like active-blocking, dodging, and such impossible to accurately represent. You'll see your character swing and hit someone and 2-3 seconds later it'll say "BLOCKED". Projectiles would have to arc and follow you with such intensity that you'll use the dodge function and the projectile will be forced to follow you significantly more making it almost impossible to avoid the trajectory. There is just so much they don't seem to have considered given the type of game they're making, but they'll see soon enough.
Happy to actually RE-subscribe to your channel excited for whatever new content comes. AoC got stale for me personally a while ago when it felt like your heart might not have truly been there anymore. Hope you are happier in 2025.
"you were meant to destroy them not join them" moment here for real
Coverage on the shitty scam game is over? Nice.
Lmk how it’s a scam other than, I don’t like what they are doing
@@quest1524 I don't take homework assignments from random weirdos on youtube sorry.
@@EloyBushida whiney commenters with no real input on anything annoy the shit out of me, sorry. I’m sure you have plenty of homework you need to get done for your 5th grade mathematics class. my fault for thinking you commented to have some sort of dialogue other than weh scam weh
Ashes of Desert
I funded back in 2018. My only goal is to try and have a little fun with the crew while it's possible. I feel like they want star citizen funding. Empty planets / empty desert
I look forward to seeing what you cover next, Narc.