Alpha-1

Alpha-1 Teaser.^[1]

This is a true development alpha. This is not a marketing alpha; and what that means is as you know part of the process here in developing Ashes of Creation is being open with that development so you guys can see that progress; and it is a double-edged sword. There are going to be a spectrum of people that exists who are very involved with the game's development and those who are just completely at an arm's length away in understanding the process; and they may look at alpha one- the people who don't really understand the development process or haven't been a part of it- they may look at it and they may think oh you know this is trash, looks like trash, you know whatever it's the end-product. But at the end of the day what's important for us and what yields the best possible product is for us to include as much as possible the community in that development process with no NDA so that you guys give valuable feedback; and as we go through the iterative process in further defining the game and fleshing out that content were doing so with the player in mind and their voice in our ear. That is I think one of the key distinguishing factors between our development and many developments that you guys may have seen in the past.^[2] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 preview ancients mobs.^[3]

What this experience for Alpha one is going to be- that month-long experience- it is not intended to be a content experience... It is not intended to be a game experience. It is not intended to be a fully-fledged content experience. So keep that in mind.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 PvE combat.^[5]

Alpha-1 is a testing release of the Ashes of Creation MMORPG.^[6] Alpha-1 will test:

World
- The Alpha-1 map (Alpha island) consists of a mainland area and several islands. This was approximately 70 km² of playable area.^[7]
- Alpha-1 takes place in the north west part of the map.^[8]

Character
- Progression to level 15.^[9]^[10]
  The composition of class skills or archetype skills has to tread a fine line between two roads: One we wanted to be representative of skills not just that would traditionally be found 1 through 15 but we're actually introducing some skills that might be found later, because we want to test those particular ideas and how the skill functions.^[9] – Steven Sharif
- Character creator (basic).^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]

Archetypes
- Cleric, Mage and Tank archetypes.^[15]
- Ranger may be added later in Alpha-1.^[16]
- Fighter, Bard, Rogue, and Summoner archetypes will follow in later in development (after Alpha-1).^[16]^[15]
- Secondary archetypes will not be present in Alpha-1.^[17] These are planned for Alpha-2.^[18]

Races
- 4 playable races Kaelar, Vaelune, Dünir, Empyrean.^[19]^[12]
  A lot of times people ask well why haven't we seen the other races and stuff? We want to establish the quality bar and process with these races first and then when we move into further content production for the other races we have have those pipelines in place and we have the processes in place and we know how to approach them.^[20]

Combat
- Hybrid action/tab combat.^[12]
- Revamped combat systems will be rolled out during and post Alpha-1 testing.^[21]^[22]^[23]

The weapon attack is an important component of the combat system, so we want to make sure that as we're doing this combat revamp that we are essentially taking into consideration player feedback and sentiment about how they want a reactive and more mobile weapon attack system.^[21] – Steven Sharif

Nodes
- Node advancement to Village (stage 3).^[24]^[14]
- There are 9 node locations in Alpha-1.^[24]^[25]
- Normally there would be 18-20 nodes in the same area.^[26]
- A basic vassal system is in place.^[24]
- The node ZOI's is larger than the final map.^[27]
- Node locations are subject to change prior to Beta-1.^[25]

Economy
- The economy present in Alpha-1 is not reflective of the final state of the game.^[28]
- Merchant systems and player to player trading.^[28]^[29]
  We have an economy but it's not really going to be reflective of the final how the economy is going to work. It'll work for alpha one and there'll be plenty of things to trade and buy and exchange, but it's not going to be really super representative what the final state is. So keep that in mind as well it's a stubbed-in system. It's not a complete or really finalized system at all.^[28] – Jeffrey Bard
- Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system.^[10]^[30]
  - The core basics of the artisan gameplay loop is facilitated via the merchant (NPC) system.^[10]^[30]^[31]
- Gathering, Processing, Crafting is expected to come online in Alpha-2 and the Betas.^[30]^[31]
- Previously this was targeted for Alpha-1.^[32]^[12]
  What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting.^[31] – Steven Sharif

Gear
- Approximately 49 unique gear sets.^[10]
- These are unique sets with different stats, but some may be similar in appearance.^[10]
- Daggers (Dual weapons).^[33]

PvE
- Approximately 6 or 7 dungeons with one almost raid-level difficulty.^[34]
- Two world bosses requiring party-sized groups.^[34]
- One true 40 person raid boss.^[34]
- Over 200 quests.^[10]
- Questing is placeholder until Alpha-2.^[35]^[12]

Guilds.^[36]^[12]
- Alpha-1 castle sieges and Castles are in a zone accessible via a NPC teleporter.^[37]^[10]^[36]^[38]^[39]^[40]
- This zone includes three Elder dragon raid bosses.^[10]^[36]
- These bosses also appear in the open world (outside the siege zone) with slightly different mechanics.^[10]

Naval content
Ships for "island hopping".^[41]^[42]
- Temporary teleportation points are present in early tests until ships are introduced later in the alpha testing.^[41]

Other
- There is no instancing in Alpha-1.^[37]
UI and tutorial systems are placeholders until Alpha-2.^[43]^[35]

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Alpha-1 availability

Pre-order pack upgrades are possible for current pack holders for the difference in price.^[45]^[46]^[47] Upgrades to Kickstarter and Summer crowdfunding packs are also available in the store for the difference in package price.^[48]

August 15, 2018 was the last day for purchases of Alpha-1 through Intrepid pre-order packs (History).^[12]

Sales of Alpha-1 resumed on May 5, 2021 through the Adventurer pre-order pack.^[49]^[50]^[45]^[38]

August 13, 2021 was the last day for purchases of Alpha-1 through the Adventurer pre-order pack (History).^[49]^[50]^[45]^[38]

Alpha-1 playtest schedule

Hail and well met glorious Ashes of Creation testers. My name is Sean Farrens. I am the manager of quality assurance on Ashes of Creation and on behalf of the Ashes QA team I would like to extend a deep and heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated in testing Ashes of Creation during the weekend of May 14 through May 16th for our Alpha 1 build. In spite of instability and uncertainty you have all proven to be invaluable in regards to your feedback and bug reports; and for that I cannot express my gratitude enough. As many of you know, developing an MMORPG is an epic endeavor that is filled with trials and tribulations that no other kind of game will ever encounter; and your illustrated dedication has proven to our team that we are on a high road to the best MMORPG gaming experience to date. During this most recent testing period we received over 2,600 bug reports, which have been an absolute boon to our testing process. We review each report individually and I continue to be impressed with how detailed and helpful each of these reports has been. Like seriously you guys give repro steps and everything. Super duper handy. I greatly look forward to your feedback in the future and hope you enjoy our content so far, so thank you so much everybody.^[51] – Sean Farrens

While we will have specific spot tests for certain systems as we develop them post the Alpha one month, it should be expected and understood that after this Alpha one month there will be probably a significant amount of downtime where there won't be spot testing as we kind of break apart a lot of systems, take what we learned from alpha one month and implement and iterate upon those learnings. So there's gonna be several months probably worth of significant downtime where there will not be access to spot testing, where we are going to go in and really rejigger a lot of systems^[52] – Steven Sharif

Phase	Release	Estimated/Actual date
Alpha-1	Alpha-1 early preview livestream.^[53]	March 27, 2020.^[54]
	Alpha-1 limited QA testing (NDA).^[55]^[56]	May 28, 2020.^[57]^[58]
	Alpha-1 preview pre-test 1 (NDA).^[35]	Dec 18 - Dec 21 2020.^[35]
	Alpha-1 preview pre-test 2 (NDA).^[35]	Feb 19 - Feb 22 2021.^[59]^[60]
	Alpha-1 preview intermittent spot testing (NDA).^[61]^[62]	Mar 19 - Jul 9 2021.^[61]^[62]
	Alpha-1 preview weekend (no NDA).^[61]	July 9 - July 11 2021.^[63]^[64]^[61]
	Alpha-1 (no NDA).^[61]	July 14 - August 15 2021.^[65]^[49]
	Alpha-1 spot testing.^[52]^[66]	After August 15 2021.^[52]^[49]

Alpha-1 testing goals

Server deployment and performance testing

Stress-test our server deployments and player concurrency numbers with high volumes of player activity and interactions.^[61]
Stand up multiple world server deployments across different geographical regions.^[61]
Soak test server grid health over a continuous period of production use.^[61]
Evaluate current networking architecture, and identify non-performant code and areas for additional optimizations or refactoring.^[61]
Test our build strategy and hot-fix deployment procedures, account services, web-based systems, launcher and patcher stability, and cloud-based infrastructure.^[61]

System functionalities and behavior testing (in their core state)

Node features (In their core state).^[61]
Experience collection – The ability for nodes to collect and store accrued experience from players in their Zone of influence and for this data to persist in a global hierarchy of the node matrix.^[61]
Propagation – The ability for nodes to advance in stages, reflecting the appropriate advancements in the following: culture, layout, quest hooks, spawners, crafting and processing stations, NPCs, service buildings, merchant tables, prop placement, housing, citizenship, government systems (election, appointment, terms, admin interface) and taxes, |points of interest propagation and advancement, public projects, and parenting/vassal hierarchy.^[61]

Player character systems (in their core state)

Experience collection and persistence, experience debt, death effects, corruption and flagging, inventory systems, character paper doll and equipable items, property ownership and player storage, stats and waterfall derivatives, combat and ability systems, tab and action states, race and class selection and their customization, movement and character states, looting and party management systems.^[61]

Ancillary systems (in their core state)

Caravans, drop, spawn, and reward table adaptations, player trading, mount and vehicle systems, raid and party functionality, guild progression and persistence, guild hierarchy, chat systems, customized AI behavior trees, boss functionality, harvesting prerequisites and procedural resource spawners, recipes and craft station systems, interactable containers and objects, global event manager, siege and battleground systems, open world traversal and dungeon design, quest and narrative dialogue setup.^[61]

The above is not a comprehensive list of everything being tested in Alpha One, but it hits the primary points. There are many other data metrics being collected for our approach to the content production pipelines, system definitions, and refactoring as well. Not to mention a plethora of technical art implications and optimizations, but you get the gist. This is a very fundamental test that will impact the direction of development post-Alpha One, so you can understand the importance of testing and its need for player participation, attention, and feedback.^[61] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 participation

Alpha-1 testing is available to the following participants:

Anyone who won and claimed an Alpha-1 Key through a giveaway.^[50]
Adventurer pre-order pack and Intrepid pre-order pack owners.^[50]
Braver of worlds, Leader of men, Royalty, Hero of the people, and Avatar of the phoenix Kickstarter and summer campaign backers.^[50]
Official content creators.^[50]

There were approximately 9,600 participants in Alpha-1 testing as of August, 2018.^[67]^[68]

As of May 31, 2021, just under 5k additional participants have been added since Alpha-1 sales resumed. Less refunds and unclaimed codes, leaves a total of slightly over 13k testers.^[67]
The weekend test of May 27, 2021 saw 5,300 unique logins over the 3 day period.^[67]

There were roughly 9600 if I recall A1 participants prior to my closing the preorder packs in 2018. Since opening them up again there have been just under 5k additional participants added. And prolly around 300 refunds give or take. Of the roughly 14,000 a1 testers, there are still about 1k unredeemed ks codes which leaves a little over 13k testers? The weekend test saw 5300 unique logins over the 3-day period. And I think discord flags stand around 4k roughly?^[67] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 servers

Alpha-1 servers are provisioned in the following regions.^[69]

US East.^[69]
- Resna.^[69]
- Norlan.^[69]
- Eradal.^[70]
- Denaris.^[70]
- Grenlaw.^[70]
- Pelune.^[70]
US West.^[69]
- Lyneth.^[70]
- Kal.^[69]
- Shol.^[69]
- Nimaneer.^[69]
- Solunea.^[70]
- Donale.^[70]
EU East.^[69]
- Tenok.^[69]
EU West.^[69]
- Kaelun.^[69]

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Alpha-1 servers will support 1,500 concurrently connected users per server.^[71]^[72]^[73]

Server wipes

Alpha and Beta servers will be wiped prior to launch.^[74]

Servers may be wiped between individual tests.^[75]^[76]^[77]

As a general rule, if the testing phase contains the word Alpha, it is safe to assume there will likely be wipes.^[77] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 NDA

Alpha-1 testing prior to the full release of Alpha-1 was covered by NDA.^[78]^[56]

NDA review and acceptance is done via the game client.^[79]
The text and voice NDA was lifted from the PI QA testing phase on May 28, 2020.^[78]
The verbal NDA was lifted from Alpha-1 preview testing, and future testing, on May 17, 2021.^[80]
The NDA was lifted on July 9, 2021 for the three day Alpha-1 preview weekend test.^[64]^[61]
The NDA was lifted on July 14, 2021 for Alpha-1.^[81]

We are extremely excited to invite folks to this glorious milestone of our development journey with NO NDA as we want everyone to be able to provide feedback unfiltered. During Alpha One testing, we'll be looking for your feedback specifically on the following things: download and installation process, client performance, and server performance.^[81]

Alpha testing system requirements

Alpha-1 stress testing, March 17, 2021.^[82]

Funny story; So yesterday as we are stress/density testing with our NDA testers, I accidentally summoned 5k bears around our few hundred players. But hey, it didn’t crash! Can you spot Lt. Toast here?^[82] – Steven Sharif

These are fully operational NPCs. They have behavior trees, they have AI blackboards; you know they are functioning as an NPC would; and to my surprise, to everyone's surprise actually, the server handled it quite well: 5000 entities all within a very dense area.^[83] – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation alpha testing minimum system specification.^[84] These system specs have not changed for Unreal Engine 5.^[85]^[86]

Operating System: Windows 10 64-Bit
Processor: Intel Core i3-2125 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 3.3GHz
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti or AMD Radeon R9 270
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 50 GB of available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card

Recommended specification.^[84]

Operating System: Windows 10 64-Bit
Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz / AMD FX-9590 4.7GHz
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon R9 Fury with 4GB and DirectX 12
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 50 GB of available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card

Alpha-1 testing zone (Alpha island)

Map of Alpha-1 testing zone.^[87]^[88] Image credit: Axiom: Angelcry

The Alpha One map including nodes, dungeons, quest givers, POI, teleporters, and camps will be explorable! Note that this is only a small portion of the world of Verra.^[81]

Alpha-1 testing tropical zone featuring a war beast and a tribe of pigmy goblins.^[89]

This is a rather large tropical area; and what we use some of the creatures for is kind of like establishing character for different parts of this tropical place. So that even though it's the same biome, it feels different when you are going from place to place based on what's there and how those things are interacting with the environment.^[90] – Jeffrey Bard

Alpha-1 testing takes place in a zone to the north west of the world map.^[91] This zone has many islands and a mainland area.^[92]

The Alpha-1 starting area is set in the ruins of an Pyrian divine gateway.^[93]
There are 12 different (sub)zones in the Alpha-1 testing location.^[90]
The Alpha-1 map was approximately 70 km² of playable area.^[7]
- This was previously estimated to be approximately 100 km² in size.^[90]^[92] This was about 17% of the total world size.^[94]
- Previous estimates range between 20-25% of the map.^[90]^[72]^[95]
- Traversing the width of the zone (10 km) on a mount would take about 30 minutes.^[96]
Alpha island (also called Alpha-0 island) was the first open-world testing zone for Alpha-1 participants.^[97]
There are approximately 4 biomes in Alpha-1: Flood plains, Desert (Desert), Snowy mountains, Forest.^[98]^[99]
- A tropics biome was added for the December 2020 Alpha-1 preview tests.^[91]^[89]^[90]
Temporary teleportation points will be present in early tests until ships are introduced later in the alpha testing.^[41]

Castle sieges in Alpha-1

Alpha-1 preview castle.^[100]

Trebuchets in the Alpha-1 preview castle siege attackers headquarter camp.^[101]

Alpha-1 preview castle siege gameplay.^[102]

Alpha-1 castle sieges are based on Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges.^[36]^[38]

Players will be able to join guilds. These guilds can register for the siege events.^[101]
Castle siege events will be 100v100 battles that occur daily and will last for three hours.^[101]
Attackers will start on the opposite end of the map (from the defenders).^[101]
Attackers will be able to use trebuchets to drive to and assault the castle.^[101]
- Trebuchets have a single primary fire that does a small amount of damage to players and heavy damage to buildings.^[101]
- Trebuchets will be fully physical when they are being driven.^[101]
When the attackers have breached the castle they will be able to channel a cast on the relic in the throne room to try to capture the castle from the defenders.^[101]
The victors of castle sieges will receive benefits, such as cloaks, flying mounts for guild leaders and potentially also for guild officers.^[101]
Alpha-1 castle sieges are in a separate zone that is accessible via a NPC teleporter.^[37]^[10]^[103]
Currently the siege zone is actually in the open world, but separated by mountains and off in the sea a bit. There is actually no instancing in A1, although the siege zone will only be accessible in A1 through a registration NPC teleporter.^[37] – Steven Sharif
- This zone includes the following raid bosses.^[36]
- These bosses will also appear in the open-world (outside the siege zone) with slightly different mechanics.^[10]
The opposing team is notified when these raid bosses are being attacked.^[36]
Teams who get the last hit on these bosses will receive buffs that will help them in the siege battle.^[36]

Last year, I spoke of attempting to incorporate sieges into the Alpha One experience. This has obviously been a goal of mine because it provides considerable data and a consistent event within the world that players can participate in to help stress test the deployment. Well, I am happy to say that it is appearing more and more likely by the day! Initial implementation of the Apocalypse siege code has been migrated into the Alpha One client, and we should begin internal testing next month. I will caveat this expectation with the fact that we are cutting it a bit close from an internal QA standpoint, but I have some confidence that the system will be online and capable of inclusion for the Alpha One test in the month of June. The siege component will obviously not be representative of what the siege system will be at launch, or even in Alpha Two.^[38] – Steven Sharif

Destructible structures (such as walls and gates) are present in Alpha-1 castle sieges.^[104]
- The ability to repair structures (and siege weapons) is a long term design goal that will not be present during Alpha-1.^[104]

Alpha-1 player flagging/corruption

Player corruption was implemented in early Alpha-1 tests but was subsequently disabled.^[44]

Alpha-1 PvE content

PvE content in Alpha-1:

There are over 200 quests in Alpha-1.^[10]
- Questing will be placeholder until Alpha-2.^[35]^[12]
Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system will be online in Alpha-1.^[30]^[31]
There are approximately 49 unique gear sets obtainable in Alpha-1.^[10]
- These are unique sets with different stats, but some may be similar in appearance.^[10]
There is no instancing in Alpha-1.^[37]
Approximately 6 or 7 dungeons with one almost raid-level difficulty.^[34]
Two world bosses requiring party-sized groups.^[34]
One true 40 person raid boss.^[34]
Alpha-1 castle sieges occur in a zone that is accessible via a NPC teleporter.^[37]^[10]^[103]^[38]
- This zone includes three Elder dragon raid bosses.^[10]^[36]
- These bosses will also appear in the open world outside the siege zone with slightly different mechanics.^[10]

There's over 200 quests in the game right now. There's a bunch of dungeons. We've retooled all of the boss fights. Those dragons that you see in the siege are also in the world- part of the open-world too. There will be a slightly different- there are some extra mechanics in the siege versions versus the ones that are in the world, but there's plenty of cool things to get on both of them, so make sure you check them out and hunt them down.^[10] – Jeffrey Bard

Artisan classes in Alpha-1

Artisan classes (Gathering, Processing, Crafting) will come online fully in Alpha-2 and the Betas.^[30]^[31]

Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system were online in Alpha-1.^[10]^[30]^[31]

Crafting honestly will not come online in any sense of its true form until Alpha-2. Alpha-1 has essentially what are intended to be the core gameplay loop of crafting, meaning the collection of materials, the translation of those materials into processed goods, and the use of those processed goods into item acquisition. That's the core gameplay loop that is currently present in Alpha-1. But those are mostly facilitated kind of piggy backing the merchant systems right now and not actually using the real crafting system; and that's because crafting hasn't been completed in a form that can be implemented in Alpha-1, but will be for Alpha-2. What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting.^[31] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 name reservation

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Name reservations were slated to begin during Alpha-1.^[12]

Two-factor authentication

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Token-based two-factor authentication (2FA) may be in place for Alpha-1.^[105]

Alpha-1 easter eggs

Easter eggs in Alpha-1.^[106]^[107]

Creative director Steven Sharif's portrait is present as a painting in-game.^[106]^[108]

Creative director Steven Sharif's sandals are present as a painting in-game.^[106]^[108]

The Alpha island map is present as an in-game map prop.^[106]^[107]

The Alpha island starting area quest giver Sergeant Landry is referred to as an "easter egg throwback to the original".^[109]

Testing phases

Alpha and beta key concept art.^[110]

Ashes of Creation testing phases.

Alpha-0 was the invite-only "raffle" friends and family alpha test phase.^[111]^[112]
Alpha-1, Alpha-2, Beta-1, and Beta-2 were available for purchase during the Kickstarter and Summer crowdfunding campaigns.^[110]
Alpha-1 was available in the Intrepid pre-order pack and the Adventurer pre-order pack.^[113]^[114]
Alpha-2 and Beta-2 were available during PAX West 2017.^[115]^[116]
Alpha-2, Beta-1, and Beta-2 are currently available in Pre-order packs on the cosmetic store.^[117]

The game will be feature complete before Beta... Beta really is intended to identify last minute bugs to make sure that everything is ready for launch; it's important that all features are complete by Beta-1. Alpha-2 will not be feature complete at the start of Alpha-2. There are going to be updates that are going to be incorporated as part of the Alpha-2 process and there are going to be additional features that come online that get fleshed out between that time and Beta-1. There's going to be regions of the maps that aren't going to be accessible of course during Alpha-2.^[118] – Steven Sharif