So this past weekend was the non NDA Ashes
of creation Alpha 1 preview test and I had the chance to play the game for a few hours
and see how things are progressing along, Initially I recorded this video as a first
impressions style format but all 9 hours of my facecam footage got completely messed up
so you'll have to settle for a voice over video instead. Today's video has no sponsor but if you're
interested in Ashes of creation and wanna support the channel then you can create an
account for the game using my referral link in the description below and I'll be rewarded
for it once the game is eventually fully released. Also bare in mind this is the first non NDA
testing phase for the game and it's still a long way out from a full release so don't
take this as a final product. So starting out there was 4 playable races
with male and female options for each as well as 3 different classes for this Alpha test,
for the full release of the game there will be 9 different races and 8 base classes. The character creation right now is super
limited with only a few presets but we know this is something that'll be added to later
on. I decided to play a Kaelar Male Mage called
"Big Damage" After that I logged into the world and read
a notice that basically explains that this is not a content test or one of those marketing
alphas that games like to do 2 months before full release, this is a legit Alpha designed
to test the backend, core systems, fix bugs and gather feedback. I zoned into the world through one of the
divine gateways and the first thing I noticed was the enchanting background music that you've
probably heard in some of the games trailers. I got familiar with the controls, Shift to
sprint, the Z key switches between tab and action camera mode and control is dodge, there
was no obvious giant exclimation mark or intructions telling me where to go so I followed the path
to some NPCs and spoke to a sergent to see if he had any tasks for me. I went through the dialogue and was given
multiple choice answers when talking to the NPC, he sent me to go kill some animated armor
mobs. Before doing that though I spoke to another
NPC and going through her dialogue options resulted in me being given a level 15 quest,
this immidietly gave me the feeling that questing and zone layouts in Ashes would be non linear. I got to work killing the animated Armor and
it was very quickly apparent that the combat has been improved for the mage class since
the last time I tested the game a few months ago, previously the fireball ability locked
you in a static long animation and felt extremely clunky, now the animation is spead up and
it can be cast on the move, it felt pretty good, additionally the wand felt a lot more
impactful that in the past, previously you could hardly see any projectiles or hit effects
when using the wand but now it looks and feels much more impactful. I killed the mobs, handed in the quest then
was introduced to some merchents where I could sell my loot and buy gathering tools, I grinded
some mobs for money, got to level 2 and went back to the merchent to buy one of each tool,
I then spoke to the blacksmith to get a quest to craft a new magic wand. At this point I ran around exploring the area,
killing mobs and looking for gathering resources to collect so I could craft this wand however
unbeknown to me the gathering resource spawn rates were bugged during this Alpha so gatherable
trees, stones and plants were very rare. Eventually I decided it would be better to
do the resource gathering whilst cracking on with other quests so I went back to the
sergent to see if he had anything else for me to do, after going through some multiple
choice dialogue options the NPC asked me what kind of task I'd like, I could deliver supplies,
go hunt monsters, go on a patrol, hunt a world boss or do some research and discovery, I
really loved the feeling of freedom I got when the game gave me all of these choices
so early on and I didn't have to sit through some 2 hour tutorial holding my hand like
in other MMOs, I decided to try a patrol task. For this task I basically had to run around
the parimiter of the camp to the red dots on the mini map, I returned, completed the
quest then selected the supply run option, I left the camp and followed the road until
I reached a camp to hand in the supplies. Once I handed in the supplied I spoke to another
NPC and after going through his dialogue options I was given a quest to go find 2 missing scouts
at a nearby cave, The cave was fairly vast and had a few dead ends with a lot of mobs
so I had to fight my way through, the quest indicator didn't give me an exact location
for where to find these NPC just a general area so it certainly required a bit of exploration
and observation, during this I ran into another player who saw my name and assumed it was
me, I was pretty surprised anyone recognised me with this name so shoutout to MagicaDeHex. After trying to run through the cave to skip
mobs and dying I eventually found both NPCs, one dead and one paralized, the quest took
a fair amount of time and was quite enjoyable due to the exploration aspect of it, I handed
it in to the NPC and that appears to be where that story ends for now. After completing the starting area quests
I decided it was time for a bit of exploration, I climbed a nearby mountain to look around
and the view distance of this game is just amazing, being able to see these giant mountain
peaks and points of interest from so far away makes you want to go there, the world has
this epic sense of scale and freedom about it that sparks your excitement for exploration
and this Alpha 1 area is only around 17% of what the full sized game world will be at
launch, with this in mind Ashes of creation could feel like one of the largest and most
expansive worlds we've seen in the MMO genre at full release. Next I ventured into a 2 different biomes
north of the starting area, one was dry and dusty and the other was more of a swampy marsh
area, both of the nodes here were at encampment level so I returned to the forest and found
a node at the village stage. The village stage node looked pretty cosy,
there were a few plots of land for sale, quite a lot of NPCs around and it seems as though
players could vote for a mayor who could set a tax rate at this stage, I also had the option
to become a citizen of this node via purchesing an apartment for 2500 gold. I left the node and continued exploring and
automatically picked up a quest upon visiting a lake, there was a lot of brood mother mobs
and the quest appeared to be bugged, I died due to pulling a group mob and lost half of
the gathering resources in my inventory which felt pretty brutal, I also had a bug where
the game thought I was swimming when I was walking on land so I couldn't dismount. I decided it was time to make some progress
so I travelled to the north of the map to the tropical biome and spent the next few
hours grinding mobs, experimenting with the combat and making selling loot. I actually found monster loot in Ashes Of
Creation to be fairly boring, monsters only seem to drop essence of varying rarities that
can be used for crafting or sold, they don't seem to drop anything else, on one hand my
inventory wasn't filled with useless junk and crafting is more important due to not
getting gear from mob drops but on the other hand I just focused on grinding the mobs that
had the highest level but lowest HP to maximise my grinding efficiency, there was no real
reason for me to kill high HP mobs when the exp and loot rewards for killing a low HP
mob of the same level is the same. During this grinding I did die one or two
times due to mobs respawning on me, it seems like every death you lose 50% of your essense
and gathered resources, this actually feels pretty brutal but kept things tense and had
me playing like it was an ironman challenge, imagine grinding for 3 hours and getting 1000
essence for which you could sell for 5000 gold, then a mob spawns on you and you lose
50% of that, feels rough man. Additionally one of my deaths resulted in
-20% exp debt in addition to losing half of my stuff, such a feeling I'd imagine is only
comparable to divorce, whilst I do like that you're punished for dying I think the exact
values probably need some balancing. After a fair few hours of grinding I eventually
reached level 10 and got a big damage lazer beam ability, overall the mage combat in Ashes
so far feels pretty decent by tab targeting standards, however if you're an action combat
fan you might not be too impressed with it, it felt like a cross between Archeage and
Guild Wars 2, Still a lot of work needed but for level 10 Alpha combat not bad at all. Upon hitting level 10 I did a bit more exploring
and came across this rather amusing horse bug. I found a castle full of group mobs that killed
me from across the map Then I started making progress with a level
10 main quest I'd had for some time where I had to follow an apperition across the map,
eventually it lead me to a raid entertance that has a dragon for a main boss, I didn't
have a group to experience this content with though. I returned to the Village node that I'd visited
the previous day to find that the building archatecture had changed from Kaelar to Empyrean,
I thought this only occurs when a node levels up but maybe I'm wrong about this, either
way it was cool to see the node evolve. I spent the last few hours of the Alpha 1
weekend focusing on the questing, Quests in Ashes are dotted around all over the place
and you really need to look for them, they're not obvious, for example I came across a camp
of NPCs and just decided to talk to them to see if there was anything I could do, there's
no quest market, some NPCs had nothing for me whilst others had multiple stage narrative
quests that would lead me to multiple locations across the zones. As someone that's a big fan of Sandbox MMOs
I love how quests are designed in Ashes of creation, for the most part they're self contained
stories but they don't usually stop after one step, you don't kill 10 bears and hand
it in there's usually a few more stages to each quest that feel like their own little
mini adventures. In terms of rewards questing feels less efficient
exp wise compared to grinding and I think there's probably not enough quests to level
up via questing alone, you'll need to do a bit of both, quests do however reward you
with weapons and armor and due to these things not dropping from mobs, obtaining them via
questing does feel rewarding. The last thing I did was find a weapon vendor
and experiment with different weapons, every class can equip and use every weapon in Ashes
however some classes are better with certain weapons for example a mage will do more damage
with a wand than a tank and vice verse with swords, after messing around with the melee
combat for a bit I think currently it's lacking compared to the mage combat, I don't like
how attacks move you forward and it feels a lot more clunky and animation locked compared
to the free flowing, unrestricted movement of the mage. But that was pretty much it for my time playing
the Ashes Of Creation Alpha 1 weekend, overall I had a great time playing the game and by
video game Alpha 1 standards it's very impressive, performance wise the game ran surprisingly
well, visually it looked great and all of the core features seem to be working as intended... Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to participate
in a castle siege yet as they always seem to take place in the morning of my timezone
but hopefully during the next non NDA test this week I can give it a try and do a live
reaction style vid like normal if my camera doesn't mess up again. As always let me know your thoughts on Ashes
Of Creation so far based on what you've seen from the Alpha 1 livestreams and click my
link in the description below to sign up for Ashes of creation with me as a referral if
you enjoyed the content, thanks for watching, I hope you all had a successful day and I'll
see you again really soon.
