Guest Review: Ashes of Creation – Breathing New Life into MMORPGs 

Ashes of Creation is currently in alpha testing and our resident MMO fan, Liam, is part of the process! 

With its focus on player-driven stories, community, and tough levelling, Ashes of Creation has the chance to bring back the glory days of MMOs. Creating stories of friendships, rivalries, and tales of battle, Ashes of Creation is set to breathe new life into the MMO genre. 

Guest Reviewer: Liam Bould 

OcUK Computer Technician and Support Assistant Liam Bould reviewed Ashes of Creation on his Ryzen-based gaming PC. 

Ashes of Creation

Welcome, adventurer, to the world of Verra… At least what is ready for testing. 

Upcoming MMO Ashes of Creation, currently in alpha testing, is being developed by Intrepid Studios, a new studio making waves by starting their journey with a hardcore MMORPG. The world they’re creating, Verra, is rich and ancient, packed with history, untamed lands, plenty of risk, and even more reward. Everything you do within the game will have an impact, so will you tread carefully or charge headfirst into the adventure? 

Combat

Ashes of Creation will use a mix of targeted abilities and some skill shots. For the targeted skills, you swap between enemies using TAB, like in a lot of other MMOs, to make sure that you’re hitting the right foe. 

The skill shots are riskier, because you can miss them. But when they hit, they deal a lot of damage. Even this early on in the development cycle, the skills in Ashes of Creation have synergies, such as lightning shattering the frost on frozen enemies for extra damage or tripped enemies taking more damage from big ground slams. I can’t wait to see what else the team at Intrepid can come up with, and if there will be any play between classes for effects cast on opponents. 

Classes

As of 25/11/2024, in the Ashes of Creation Alpha 2 you can play as your choice of class: Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Mage, Ranger, and Tank. Rogue and Summoner will be added for testing at a later date. 

My first choice was to play a tank. I have played tanks in MOBAs, hero shooters, and MMOs previously, so it made sense to me to keep up with taking all of the damage for my fellow adventurers. 

As a tank, your role is to keep enemies focused on you so they can’t hurt your allies. This is where two of the other classes come into play. Bards and Clerics are there to keep the tank alive. Bards play soothing music to shield, heal, and buff you, whereas Clerics focus mostly on healing but also use spells to deal damage to enemies when needed. 

However, damaging enemies is mostly done by the Fighters, Mages, and Rangers, who all want to hit as hard as they can using their weapons, spells, and arrows, respectively. Fighters are in the thick of it with the Tanks, swinging their swords and slamming the enemy whilst avoiding anything that could potentially harm them. Mages fling spells from a distance, from summoning lightning to freezing enemies in a cone in front of them. Mages excel at dealing high amounts of damage but at the cost of not being able to take as many hits as the Fighter or escape as easily as the Ranger. Using speed and agility to their benefit, Rangers move quickly through a fight, slinging a barrage of arrows or weaving in and out of close quarters to confuse opponents. 

Unique Parts

Ashes of Creation is trying new things to make its name compared to other MMORPGs, using a system called “nodes” to drive players interactions with the world and each other. Using this system, they plan for wars between different nodes, with each citizen defending not just their lives but their hard-earned items. 

The game is a PvX MMORPG, which means that players can fight other players out in the world not just NPCs. Thankfully, there are smart systems in place to prevent players from abusing this. 

Quests 

In the first wave of Alpha 2, quests have been very limited so far. There are commissions that are repeatable to gain XP and currency but don’t offer any lore or noticeable interactions in the world, and what quests you do find are often very basic. 

I can understand why this has been done; for an Alpha, they are testing the gameplay and systems for things like how they work with each other and to find as many bugs as possible. It is likely that not much has been completed in terms of lore or questlines. If they will be completed to the standard of what is in the game currently, I would be more than happy. 

Crafting and Artisan Skills

Spread across the world of Verra is a variety of different collectable materials. You can mine stone and metals to make better weapons, armour, and tools. Along the way you will find other gatherables, from picking a meadow of flowers to felling entire forests. 

Using these newly gathered materials, you can dive into making potions, enchantments, and even taming animals to have as mounts. There is so much that I have only been able to scratch the surface of the crafting! 

Final Thoughts

In the weekends that the servers have been opened, I have levelled up in different ways, solo, in groups, and I even joined a guild! Along the way, I’ve met nothing but happy people excited about the prospect of a new great MMO. The guild I joined is already a tight-knit community helping each other in and out of the game. 

I think that Ashes of Creation has the chance to be something truly marvellous. It has some great ideas with already well-executed, well-polished aspects. This is definitely one MMO fans and fantasy game fans should keep their eyes on. 

Ashes of Creation Specifications

Best PCs to Play Ashes of Creation

Whether you’re an eager Alpha tester or waiting for the full release, you’re going to need to make sure your gaming PC can keep up. We have an extensive range of pre-built and configurable PCs at Overclockers UK, just waiting to explore Verra with you! Check out our full range by clicking the button below. For now, we have a spicy highlight from our Refract Gaming range. 

Refract Gaming Celeste Pre-Built PC

• Pre-built gaming PC – fully tested and ready to ship!
• AMD Ryzen 7 7700X CPU
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU
• 32GB DDR5 RAM and SSD storage
• Covered by our three years parts and labour warranty

Buy Now

Ashes of Creation Alpha

Are you also part of the Ashes of Creation alpha testing? Let us know what you think of this upcoming MMORPG in the comments below! 

PC specs are subject to change.