The Alpha Two realms are now unlocked for testing, with this usually five-day session running. As part of Ashes of Creation‘s Alpha Two Phase II, test servers will be available five days a week, with potential downtimes for fixes and updates.
Critical Issues and Emergency Downtime
Unfortunately, this test session has encountered quite a few issues since the start of the phase, including a critical economic bug affecting drop tables for humanoid monsters. This issue caused treasure maps to drop from 100% of kills, leading to an unintended increase of high-value loot.
To resolve the issue, Intrepid Studios has taken the servers offline for a full rebalance of the game, with realms expected to be back online by Friday, February 28, at 08:30 AM PT. Additionally, a rollback has been applied to Monday at 10:00 PM PT to prevent economic imbalances.
As compensation for the downtime, servers will remain online through Tuesday, March 4th, and Wednesday, March 5th, next week instead of the usual five-day schedule.
Below, you can find the patch notes for this update.
Added to Known Issues:
- Sometimes characters may appear to be invisible in the character select lobby or when they log in game. A workaround for this is changing graphics settings, or restarting your game client
- Some dungeons lighting is much too bright during daytime in game on high and ultra graphics settings. Changing graphics setting to medium or low is a workaround. This impacts Scarabsong Hollow, Lost Hero’s Sepulcher, Befallen Forge, and the lower levels of the Tower of Carphin
- Notifications for accepting some quests are not displaying as intended
ALPHA TWO UPDATE NOTES – THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2025
HIGHLIGHTS
- New Pocket Dungeons! These are Apothecarium Dreadmire, Communion, The Gypsum Outpost, and Stone Hold
- Added an outpost in the Sandsquall Desert to accommodate the future Squall’s End Node, with new unique commodities
- Added two new lawless ZOIs, for future Djinna and Squall’s End Nodes
- This expanded area in the Sandsquall Desert is a work in progress
ENEMIES & NPCS
- Sandsquall Desert dungeons have new rewards from named mobs
- Fewer NPCs will spawn under the ground or in the air
- Crystal Golems have been renamed to Djinnbound
- Increased the respawn time of Djinnbound to 120 seconds
- 1 and 2 star Fire Skeletons can now spawn
- 3-star armored bear elites and a unique armored bear boss have been added
- Bandit Captain and Bandit Healer elite star ranks have been adjusted
- The NPC enemy population has been updated in Befallen Forge, Snakebite Stash, Tower of Carphin, Brood Pit, and the Sandsquall Desert
- The NPC enemy population has been updated in and around Aithanahr and Azmaran
- Visual effects have been updated for for Skla’risha, Bellowsmasher, Flaming Skeletons, Rock Elementals, Bears, Hippos, and Ostracon
- Animations have been updated for for Skla’risha, Rock Giants, Rock Monsters, Rock Elementals, Skeleton Reapers, Tortoises, and Hefty Caplings
- Enemy behavior for Forgelord Zammer, Hippos, and Undead Dünir has been updated
- Snakebite Stash – Adjusted the speed of scorpions here
CARAVANS
- Caravans should no longer have issues with the event to join as attacker or defender after server restarts
- Caravan owners can no longer abandon their Caravan event
- Caravans have been changed, so their status as a target isn’t related to their Caravan owner
- Caravans can no longer be helped or harmed without first joining the Caravan event
- Leaving a Caravan event and logging out will no longer put a character back in the Caravan event
CHARACTER, ARCHETYPES, & COMBAT
- Healing a character that’s in a PVP event you are not part of will now flag you as a combatant
- The PVP force function or settings override is now needed to heal a character that is inside of a PVP event
QUESTS, EVENTS, & COMMISSIONS
- More Commissions are available in the Sandsquall Desert
- Staunch the Blood Blade can now be completed
- Ostracon Hunt event has a reward added to the end
- Updated many events so that they can now be completed and their markers have been updated to reflect their actual locations
ECONOMY & ARTISANSHIP
- Processing professions experience is now based on the quality of resources being used
- Fixed some huntable animals that did not give the correct amount of Hunting experience
- Fixed a large number of floating gatherables
- Adjusted the Marketplace list item pop up to display the pre-tax listing price
- Fixed a bug causing Commodity tooltips to show Commodities as being worth 0 copper
- Ancient Dunzen Longbow and Shortbow recipes have been fixed
- Obsidian Jewelry recipes have been fixed
- Forsaken Spellbooks will now be crafted at the correct rarity
- Recipes that were supposed to use dried acacia and date palm have been fixed
USER INTERFACE
- Updated icons for quest delivery, quest completion, PVP flags, Node icons, and empty artisanship gear slots
- The inventory background has been updated
- A 10 second pop up will appear when receiving a friend request. If this request is timed out or closed, the invite will not be declined. The friend request will appear in the social menu
- Chat window styling has been updated
- Save changes will now work after using the restore defaults button in the loot setting menu
- Adjusted the color of toggled general action buttons
- Added a storage button to the Commodity vendor to open and close the storage window
- Fixed a bug causing default text to sometimes show up in menus
VISUALS
- Sandsquall Desert environment and visuals have been updated
- Sandsquall Desert Dungeon environments have been updated
- Sandsquall Desert world map has been updated
- Tower of Carphin has updated visuals
- Updated lighting pass for the Tower of Carphin, Ursine Caves, and Brood Pit
- Removed a green light that would appear during sunrise
- Fixed a bug causing foliage to appear under the world near Nodes
AUDIO
- Rain sound effects have been updated
- Idle music will now fade out as intended
- General audio cleanup passes
GENERAL
- The Rebel’s Reward bracers have been updated to have a heavy set bonus
- Fixed a bug that would cause characters to be attacked by soldiers if they died in the Sandsquall Desert
- Fixed a bug preventing a character from being able to respawn at their home choice Embershrine
- Fixed a bug causing the citizenship dues alert to happen even after dues have been paid
- Fixed a number of server and client crashes
- Updated a variety of descriptions on items and equipment
- Fixed a bug that would prevent gender selection after race selection had been completed during character creation
- Updated animations for the Daystrider Mule
- Fixed some issues with floating Freeholds
