Alpha-2 starting area

You'll be seeing more as we get closer to Alpha Two but this will give you a little bit of insight to the capital city of the Aelan empire prior to the Exodus. This is one of the starting areas that players enter into. This will be this one of the starting areas in alpha 2. – Steven Sharif

• The Riverlands biome houses the Aelan divine gateway in Alpha-2.

Divine gateways

Empyrean divine gateway concept art.

When you play the MMORPG you're going to be stepping through what are called these divine gateways from a planet called Sanctus and Sanctus was really a safe haven that was forethought by the Goddess of Fate and Creation as a sanctuary to provide the people of Verra who could survive the fall, the apocalypse, the exodus essentially. – Steven Sharif

Divine gateways are portals located in the ruined cities of the four ancient races of Verra.

• Divine gateways are where players first arrive in Ashes of Creation.
  • Each divine gateway is in proximity to one or more starting area.
• Players can choose their starting gateway. This choice is not restricted by their choice of race.
  • Tulnar characters have the same option of starting at any of the divine gateways as other races.
• The divine gateways were created by the Goddess of Creation in response to a warning from the Goddess of Fate that The Ancients and The Others would return from exile and seek retribution for their defeat at the hands of The Seven gods.

Where players start, they enter this portal from another world called Sanctus. Sanctus is a place of no magic, low technology; and players are the first expeditioners that are coming through this portal into the world of Verra. – Jeffrey Bard

World map

Updated Ashes of Creation map.

The new world map in all its 1,200 square kilometer glory. So you're gonna see some names here- a little bit of a reveal of some of these locations in these areas- and you're also of course seeing similar biomes that are present as well. But more importantly what you are seeing is the orientation of these continents and these islands that are facilitating specific types of inter-continental trade gameplay; and they support the relevance of these caravans moving across the land mass to locations that will now incorporate these harbor areas, which aren't identified on the map here... But the important part was providing a lot of coastal naval gameplay between these zones and trade routes between land base. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 work-in-progress map UI.

The world of Verra features an in-game viewable world map. This map is not randomly generated, and begins covered in a fog of war. Players will not be able to see the world until they have explored it or gathered information about it. The world is also full of imperfect information, which will require the player to act on it for verification.

For example, you may hear a rumor in a tavern that tells you the location of a cave full of weak Kobolds, but this was not accurate as the rumor was started by well-equipped bandits in order to waylay overconfident adventurers.

When information is gathered, or the player has successfully explored an area, points of interest are marked on the map.

• These points of interest are determined by Node progression; and not every server will share the same map, as player decisions will vary server to server.

• The map UI will potentially incorporate player created location markers that are visible by other party members.

In addition to node progression being a factor on map generation, zones in Ashes of Creation will cater to all levels.

The map will have geographical choke points caused by non-traversable obstacles (such as Mountains).

Even though we're an open-world that doesn't mean that from a design perspective, especially with the way our economic systems work, that we will want to create Geographic choke points. – Steven Sharif

Visuals

- None -

See also

• Alpha-2
• Starting areas
• World map