Buildings

Alpha-1 Aela (human) housing concepts by Michael Bacon.^[1]

Buildings that offer goods and services, as well as purchasable housing are created when a node reaches village stage.^[2]

Node buildings

Node layout and style

Racial architecture of the same Village (stage 3) node on different servers. Dünir Dwarven influence (top). Kaelar Human influence (bottom). Screenshot from non-NDA Alpha-1 preview weekend testing.

The layout and architecture within a Node’s development area are determined by influential race. For example, a stage 3 Node with the majority of player contribution being Py’rai would have a Py’rai village with Py’rai architecture. Most NPCs would be Py’rai elves, and offer questlines within the Py’rai narrative.^[3] – Margaret Krohn

Each player’s contributed experience is flagged with their character race and other identifiers. When a Node advances, the race with the highest experience contribution determines the Node’s style and culture. This style and culture change can happen at every Node Stage. For example, if a Node advances to Level 2 - Encampment Stage and 51% of all experience was earned by Ren’Kai players, the Node will be a Level 2 Ren’Kai Node. If that same Node advances to a Level 3 - Village Stage Node, but the Py’Rai contributed 62% of all the experience earned, then the Node will be a Level 3 Py’Rai Node.^[4] – Margaret Krohn

Node layout and style is determined by several factors:^[5]^[6]

Environment and location of the node.^[5]^[6]
- Nodes will adjust the local topography to fit the aesthetic and mechanical requirements of the node.^[7]
- Local topography also has some influence on node construction.^[8]

Currently the way that the platform system is set up, is it's capable of adjusting the topography of the node's footprint, regardless of the surrounding terrain. So the reason for that is we want to have flexibility in the presentation of the node's layout and how it is essentially both from an aesthetic standpoint as well as a mechanical standpoint with node sieges- how it's constructed and that construction should have the ability to take on a variance of different types of topography. So it shouldn't be dependent on the surrounding area. Now that's not to say that the surrounding area isn't going to have some influence over. So for example... we're experimenting a little bit with the platform tech and putting up a node up against the side of a mountain or on the edge of a cliff or something that has a beautiful vista. Those are things that we're going to test out obviously as we continue to work on the node tool and how that platform system works, but the idea is to have the node independent of the surrounding terrain.^[8] – Steven Sharif

Node type.^[6]

Some parts are determined by the area it's in. Some parts are determined by the type it is. Some parts are determined by the race it is; and then the rest of it is determined by the mayor.^[6] – Jeffrey Bard

Race that contributed the highest percentage to the node's advancement will alter the racial appearance of its buildings and NPCs.^[9]^[5]^[4]^[6]^[10]^[11]
- Parent races do not combine their cultural influences. For example, Py'Rai and Empyrean count as different cultures. Their parent race, the Pyrian, no longer exists.^[12]
- This style and culture change happens at every stage.^[4]
- This applies to all nodes, including castle nodes.^[13]

All nodes whether they're associated with a castle or associated with normal node structure has cultural influences that replicate over to the buildings that are produced and the NPCs that are present.^[13] – Steven Sharif

The rest is determined by the node's mayor.^[6]

Racial influences

Alpha-1 Village node layout.^[14]

What has kind of been unlocked is the ability to do things more dynamically and more procedurally so that when a node spawns there is the opportunity to have different layouts and have different buildings and have different architectures; and each node starts to feel like its own place, so it's not the same node over and over again. Now we've got a node that kind of evolves and changes depending on where it's at and what the environment is and what race has procced it.^[5] – Jeffrey Bard

Cultural influences bring more than just the aesthetic and storyline changes - benefits are granted to the dominant culture within that node's Zone of influence.^[15]^[4]

These benefits apply to citizens of the dominant culture but they also apply to mechanics of the node and can also be of benefit to members of other races.^[15]
There is an attrition mechanic that affects experience and influence to curb a single race from dominating the entire world.^[16]

There is an attrition and that attrition on experience and influence is heightened based on the performance of the race in the world. So if all these nodes are Orc nodes then their attrition rate is very high to compete with the cultural establishment of new nodes because they have more influence in the world and a popular opinion is against them in their outlying regions that they do not have influence in.^[16] – Steven Sharif

Constructible node buildings

Alpha-1 mayoral node building user interface.^[17]

Alpha-1 node building construction early preview.^[18]

Node governments decide the location and types of constructible node buildings to be constructed within sectors of a node.^[19]^[20]^[21]

These are buildings that the mayor has agency over determining whether or not they should be a constructed project. Constructible buildings can be selected at open plots that are gained as the node advances. If they elect to begin construction of one of these types of buildings- one of which is the marketplace- it'll grant certain trade benefits as well as some stalls that the citizens may participate in.^[22] – Steven Sharif

When the building types are determined, the community will then need to bring resources into the node (using caravans) and come together to construct the buildings (via quests and the like).^[19]

Materials contributed toward building a node building are lost if the mayor decides to scrap the project.^[23]

The government decides how to specialize their node. Once they choose certain things they won't be able to choose other things.^[19]

Different governments may change the buildings within a node.^[19]

And there could be regime change... If somebody doesn't like the fact that a market was built and they want to re-elect a new government next cycle, they can do so... and that market could be destroyed and a new building take its place.^[19]

Pre-defined parameters limit the number of buildings at in-node locations.^[20]

Unique node buildings

Alpha-1 Node buildings.^[24]

Each node type has a unique node building associated with it that can be activated at the Village stage of node advancement. The unique building plays a central role in the progress of civilization for a server.^[25]

City hall

Kaelar node buildings.^[26]

City hall is a government building within a node.^[27]

We want the City Hall to be the place where big decisions are made for each Node. It should be where the “ruling class” comes together and decides what to do (these decisions can quickly make them the “old ruling class” too).

Mayors and node governments use City hall to visualize and control activities within their node. These capabilities will also be available via mobile/web inteface.^[28]

Status of the node's economy.
Status of upcoming elections.
Status of trade agreements.
Status of caravans.

Players can interact with the node board to get a list of its citizens.^[29]

Clicking on a citizen will reveal information about their guild, society, religion, and property ownership.^[29]

Freehold buildings

Velkor's Eye pre-order pack cosmetic Vek freehold skin.^[30]

Freehold buildings can be placed on a freehold plot.^[2]^[31]

Buildings will require blueprints and materials.^[32]

Basements in freehold buildings are to be decided.^[33]

Freehold buildings will not change in terms of footprint (within a specific tier of that building) but may increase in height.^[34]

Certain buildings will have multiple tiers, with different footprint sizes. For example: Small, medium, large, to mansion-sized homes.^[34]
- A mansion sized home may occupy up to 50% of a freehold plot.^[34]

Freehold building architecture is based on the blueprint for the building.^[35]

Cosmetics can also be applied to a blueprint based on the type of building.^[35]
Players are not locked into any particular race for freehold blueprints.^[36]

The way we look at it is the freehold is your space so we want you to be able to make it look the way you want it to.^[35] – Jeffrey Bard

Freehold building placement

There may be a grid-based system that freehold owners can use to place items/props and buildings on their freehold plot.^[37]^[38]

Players will need to manage how these are arranged to maximize adjacency bonuses.^[38]

Depending on where your place you're freehold, you're gonna have different environmental tiles available to you and those will kind of enable or buff existing structures that you place in your Freehold... I don't know that we would put like fish farming just for a freehold that's on a river. What we would probably do is give you a buff to fishing in that area. That kind of a thing. So there'll be more buffs for existing things rather than necessarily a special buildings just for that area. But again we're not fully baked in on that system yet, so it's very possible though we end up going down that direction.^[39] – Jeffrey Bard

Naming buildings

Ships and Buildings will be able to be named. The custom name will appear as floating text when it is targeted.^[40]

Destructible environments

Destructible castle.^[41]

This is the castle siege destruction props. It's variable areas of exploded stuff. You can't completely destroy the castle or you wouldn't be able to get to the top of it.^[41] – Michael Bacon

Destructible environments in Alpha-1 castle sieges.^[42]

Destructible environments will be a core element of how players interact with the world, in both Ashes of Creation Apocalypse and Ashes of Creation the MMORPG.^[43]

We want destruction to be a very core element of how players make their way through the world.^[43] – Steven Sharif

Attackers may not be capable of destroying a node during a siege. Instead they may carry out precision attacks to disable specific service-oriented buildings within the node. These buildings can be targeted with siege weapons and bombs.^[44]
Node buildings (including player housing) have hit points and can be damaged during sieges. If buildings suffer more than approximately 25% damage, any NPCs or services offered by that building will not be available until the building is repaired.^[45]
If the node still exists after the siege has ended, citizens will need to obtain the resources needed to repair and rebuild any damaged infrastructure.^[45]^[46]
- Larger more advanced buildings will require more resources to repair them. In-node housing will likely require the least resources to repair.^[47]
Player housing that is destroyed during a node siege can no longer be sold.^[48]
- Furnishing and decorations are retained and can be placed again later.^[48]^[49]^[50]

There will be ways to repair destructible structures (such as walls and gates) and also repair (or re-craft) siege weapons that were damaged during sieges.^[51]

This is a long term design goal that will not be present during Alpha-1.^[51]

You could be more precision oriented in the decision to attack a city. Let's say it's a rival node that's trying to reach you know a node stage five or something and you want to disable their ability for the religious system to progress so you target the temple during the attack, or you want to disable their scholars academy from reaching a higher level so that your nodes can; or you want to disable multiple buildings that allow for experience and quests to be undertaken by its citizenship, which prevents them from keeping up in pace of experience gained with your node. These can be more precision oriented and don't have to effectualize an actual takeover of the node.^[44] – Steven Sharif