Talk:2018-04-08 Livestream (PM)

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Transcript

1:32

T-bone asks: Is this going to be another Star Citizen?

Well, no. Star Citizen, more power to them I hope they succeed. They have a sci-fi based persistent world. They do sell I believe star ships that if you were a certain backer you could get some type of insurance on them so if they got destroyed you get them back. That may be considered pay-to-win, well it is pay-to-win. We have absolutely zero pay-to-win whatsoever and we will not be selling you $2,500 ships on the ocean.

Chaotic waffle says Stuffingtons is pay-to win.

Well, is it though? Is it pay-to-win. I don't think it is.

So how has the Twitch stream been so far?

itsZiz says: How can I win an alpha-0 key?

Do you not have an alpha-0 key? I like your content. I think I will give you an alpha-0 key. Congratulations Ziz, you have won an alpha-0 key.

Raffling keys Steven? Talking fish we will raffle some keys today. So yes.

3:56

Is nebula asks: Will NPCs do idle actions to make the world feel alive?

That's something I think that Jeff spoke to me early on. Oh my gosh almost like a year and a half ago during our pre-production kind of planning phases and excuse me I was not against that idea, so we will see what happens with that.

Kayles85 I would love you if you gave me a key.

Well hey I love you anyways and you just might get a key. We'll see what happens with the giveaway.

4:42

Vatitor I faith in you and your team Stephen.

My name is spelled with a 'V'. Thank you though.

Even just the developer interactions is almost as good as playing the game. Thank you for pointing the MMO genre back in the proper direction.

Thank you Vatitor I appreciate that. I cannot tell you guys just honestly how much it means to not just myself but to the team as well to have such support from you guys and the community in general.

Bioexile says I don't want an alpha key, I just want a good playable game within my lifetime.

Well how old are you Bioexile? I will let you know if you will have a good playable game within your lifetime.

5:37

Steven lion mounts. Bioexile says 34. Alright Bioexile as long as over the next under two years under two years you don't do anything too risky. I know I took it over. As long as you don't do anything too risky over the next couple of years you will be fine.

Unolord asks thanks- You know what we needed? We needed-

Are we like on on?

Oh yeah we're on [cross-talk] we need headphones so that we can hear yeah. We should have done that.

Next time. Next time definitely.

Steven and Bacon sitting in a tree. Hey, there's no trees here. Oh wait there is a tree behind us. Tree.

Supernova Stream asks what are your biggest concerns with this game's development and what are you guys doing to avoid it coming to pass?

That's a toughie. My probably biggest concern that I think I have had is probably the decision I made early on to have an open and transparent development process. I wouldn't say it is necessarily a concern as much as it was a risk and reward and I can understand why some studios do not open development with the community seeing something that is so work-in-progress like you see the content that we've put out and I mean it looks nice, it looks good, but it's not polished. We are in a production state, so in game development it tends to be that polish occurs near the end cycle of production right? And typically the downside, the concern with open production, open development is that people some percentage of the audience is either viewing the game for the first time and not knowing what it's about and seeing play and thinking that is the game - that is the final product - and they make their decisions about it at that point. Now, the counter-argument to that is, that when you have the final product ready a year later or whatever - it takes time to get it - they'll see that again and say okay I like this. But the sometimes the truth can be that they don't see the product again later and you have missed your "user acquisition point".

Not to mention you run the risk of someone running around talking about how this doesn't, you know, I didn't like that [cross-talk] It's already cemented.

It is cemented and they go on the reddits and they you know they say things that are either untrue or just you know they feel compelled to spread their opinion, which is fine, you should spread your opinion, but it should be informed. And oftentimes it's not. But that's that's I guess the greatest "concern" I had but I think the rewards outweigh the risks. And the reward is that even though we have those individuals, some percentage of the viewership, that will do that what we've gained is far greater; and that is having an active development community that watches progress and is invested from an early stage and can [cross-talk] exactly they are our family and can give us real-time feedback and we can use the real-time feedback. So, you know, we are taking the risk of showing something work-in-progress but gaining the benefit of seeing the faces of the fans, going to the panels, coming to events like this, having our alpha, being on Discord; all of those things, in my opinion, outweigh the risk. But that is, otherwise from a development standpoint, I don't have that much concern. You know, the team is so veteran. They have done these MMOs before. Our systems are not technologically challenging. They can be done. We know how to do them. We are doing them now. So, it's not as though I have many concerns or even my team has many concerns from a development standpoint.

And it doesn't hurt that our stuff works looks good.

That's true. This is true. That is absolutely true.

Okay what other questions do we have? Oh this is going very fast. How do I stop this? Not like this!

Yeah I

Can I just stop the chat?

11:27

How much evils are going to be in the game?

How much what?

Evil

There is a great deal of- well, what is evil?

Well they are talking about shadow knights and that kind of stuff. Necromancers and stuff.

There is, well because we are non-faction based you want to grant the user the ability to either do things that are "evil" or good, so there has to be a plethora of choice on the evil side for them to participate in. So, that could be the shadow knight kind of thing, the necromancer type of thing. Now necromancer though we are taking a little bit of a twist on how necromancers are ident- their identity. A necromancer traditionally is evil in the sense that they corrupt death for their service right, to serve some type of necromantic lord.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they are not nice people [laughter]

No what I mean is that I view the necromancer as a master of life and death and the way I kind of want to implement our necromancer is you can choose to be a necromancer for good or necromancer for dark and twisted things, either is viable. If you want to work with spirits that aid you can do that. If you want to summon zombies and skeletons and other type of undead creatures you can do that as well; and then you can use them for your will.

What other questions do we have?

Questions for PvE raids. Oh my god it's going so fast. Hold on I'm gonna try to stop this.

Yeah it's hard to catch when they start rolling.

Wish you could pause.

13:39

Alright question: Hi Steven from Scardygamer. Hi Steven loving the streams and how well you are getting involved with the community. Could you please tell us a little bit about character creation and how in-depth we will be able to go; for example will we be have to say an elf with blue skin really long ears?

With blue skin no, so character creation. We want there to be a lot of room for people to manifest their own identity, to role play how they want to from even an appearance standpoint. But there's going to be parameters within which you will be able to customize a character per se. For example: You said an Elf with blue skin. No I don't think our elves are going to have blue skin. We want the culture and the identity of the races to exist in a range that makes them easily identifiable from other players and other cultures. So, because of that, we have to have a spectrum you can exist on. And that spectrum for elves will not involve blue skin, but there will be a lot of hair variants you can do, body art tattoos that you can apply. You'll be able to play with the scales of the facial structure, the bones, the height, width, the body fat percentage. You'll be able to add body hair on different parts of the body. You'll be able to- That sounded rude. But, I mean like, if you want to have hair on your feet, you can dial that up.

Oh, female dwarven beards

Female dwarven beards. That is something that we are absolutely looking at doing.

There you go. There you go.

It will not match the dwarven beard of the male, it will be more of a braided option that is not as volumescent I guess. But it is facial hair that we do want to identify the Dunir with, not the Nikua.

Oh okay got you, got you.

Hashtag giveusblueskin. Hashtag james cameron's avatar. Hastag copyrighted, sorry retract [laughter]

16:03

Okay question from Malgus. Will you come to the UK in future? Please confirm.

I don't know if we will go to the UK, but we will be going to Europe, and we have not announced when that is. So, it's not to far away from you.

Centaur mounts. That would look really strange. A centaur mount.

Yeah that would be weird.

By the way, have you ever seen centaur babies ever done?

No

Like, just like having a baby on top of the horse body and like it can't hold it's head up so it [laughter] hangs back.

That would be messed up.

I've never seen a baby centaur. I'm just saying.

There's a reason for that.

There's a reason. Maybe they- yeah.

Cambiguous asks: Did you guys enjoy the donuts?

We did! Who gave us the donuts? Was it Cambiguous?

Yeah I think so.

Thanks buddy. We enjoyed the donuts. Very much so.

Wait a second. We got donuts?

Oh I'm sorry I ate some of them [laughter]. I actually got to have breakfast this morning because of that.

Oh nice nice.

Speaking of breakfast, is there lunch in there?

No I don't think so.

I thought John went to get lunch. Okay.

There is a spread of something in there, but I didn't catch wether that was lunch.

17:38

Okay question. Evenso will you try to make book combat actually feel like using a book as a weapon? I love books as weapons, but most just use them as a catalyst of magic instead.

So, funny thing, when we were creating the book we have for alpha-0 one the ideas floating around was to have a large tome with a chain that held the tome, and you could swing the tome to hit your targets as a melee book.

That would be cool.

And whether or not that comes to fruition we will see, but it was an idea on the sketchboard.

Very cool.

OragamiSkys please put chocolate covered bacon as a food buff item.

Have you ever had chocolate covered bacon?

No

You haven't had them at the Del Mar fairgrounds?

No

Or like a deep fried twinkie?

No

Oh my gosh. Chocolate covered bacon is really good because you've got like the sweet outside with the bacony little bit of salty perhaps if it's cured.

Oh wow

Oh it's good

Wow I'll have to check that out

18:48

Alright question: Will the monthly closing items from the store be dyeable?

Will they be dyeable? Will they be dyeable? That is actually a good question. I don't know if the full body costumes will. I don't see why they couldn't be dyeable, because what we do with dyeable items, dyeable assets is we tag the portions of the character armor or cosmetic the asset itself we want to be adjustable, right, to change colors; and when that tag is present and you use an item in game, it affects only those tagged meshes, so I don't see why they won't be dyeable. Outside of wanting to keep maybe some identity from a lore perspective; for example if you have like a white lion's suit of armor, you know you may not want that white lion suit of armor to be black or blue, so it's possible. It depends on the costume itself.

20:07

A question from from Raisler: Do you have an idea how we would go about changing augments on skills if we want to test other options?

Yes Raisler. So, as we have said. Are you leaving? Good bye. Good bye friends. We'll see you next time. So, what was the question?

I don't remember.

Oh changing augments. Sorry. So we don't want you to be able to change your secondary class or the augments you have applied out in the open. We want you to have to make a conscious choice somewhere at a NPC. Bye bye. In order to go out and adventure with those chosen augments and skills. So, yes you can change it, but it function in a way where you must speak with some NPC somewhere in order to do so. Now, that becomes relevant because the level of node necessary for that particular NPC to be available will likely be either at the Village stage or above. So, if you are far out in the wilderness exploring and we have no instant teleportation in the world, you need to be conscientious of what your choices are; and not be able to change them on-the-fly.

21:50

Ligger asks what was your nickname as a kid?

Did I have a nickname as a kid?

I don't think I did. What was your nickname as a kid?

It probably was baconator

Was it?

The baconator. Yes! That is totally cool. I love that. I wish I had a nickname like that. Mine was Stevenator. No I'm just kidding it wasn't. Be like bacon. No I don't think I had one.

22:17

Talking fish: Is alchemy confirmed as a profession?

Alchemy is indeed a profession. Yes.

Good that was a question I couldn't answer.

Really? Yeah it is a profession. All professions are housed within a specific Artisan path. So we have three Artisan paths. Those are Gathering, Processing and Crafting. Now depending on where you want your professions to, no excuse me, depending on which professions you wish to utilize will probably be taken into account when you choose which path you want to master.

23:03

Arcosis: Loving what I've seen of the game so far. I hope you guys keep up the amazing job and make this amazing MMO can be. My question's involving the Tulnar. What can be said about them? What variety of design will be included in them? And what will they resemble?

So, the Tulnar are a race in Ashes of Creation that were added as a stretch goal during our Kickstarter. They are a combination of the minor races of Verra that existed before the fall; and the major four races that were present kind of commingling in the Underrealm of Verra as a means to survive. Their designs include influences from mammalian, reptilian and humanoid features; and their character creation process will include the player being able to dial those features up in one of those categories.

24:11

Okay Demon Chicken of Doom asks if I were a summoner main class with a mage secondary could I summon an animal and enhance it with an explosion spell or something so that it will explode when it dies or after a set amount of time?

So, evocation is an explosive school of magic in traditional Dungeons & Dragons; and again that is copyrighted, retract, we're not using Dungeons & Dragons, but just to give you an idea: If your mage secondary class included an augment school that reflected evocation with another school that maybe reflected elementalism and another school that reflected teleportation, your summons could be applied one of those augments; and in their skill use, you could utilize those new augments. For example: If your summon had a sweeping attack with a claw, or had the ability to bite an opponent, or rush an opponent; and you took teleportation, you could rush them similar to how I've given an example with the tank: Teleporting to a target instead, or its claws could combust on impact on a target dealing some burn damage that persists. Or, perhaps you could create your, let's say your summon traditionally was some type of bear or bear cat, you could apply an elemental augment and now it could be a transparent flaming bioluminescent cat; and it's damage would be fire based. So, that's how we want to influence the active skills with how augments apply. And that's how it would apply with Summoners.

26:19

I had an interesting question earlier.

Yes

I had a question about being able to compound skills from two different players.

You mean playing off each other as mechanics?

Yeah

So yes, skills from different, can I put my feed forward here or is it all blocked off?

It's all kind of blocked off

Oh okay skills excuse me skills from different classes will have synergy. They will also have combination effects as well. So, for example, when we get into the elemental side of things – and I know some people think that elementals have been drawn out, you know mega mage was something different – there will be options outside of elemental influences; but elementals are traditional. Magic is- the idea behind magic is you're manipulating the elements, right. Now they don't just have to be fire, ice, water an air, you know they can be darkness, they can be light, they can be planar; a lot of different types of "elemental influences". But, say for instance, I am a Ranger that has a charge bolt ability as my primary active skill and I've chosen Mage as my secondary, applied the elemental to it, I now have a frost charge bolt, and if I fire that frostbolt and hit a target, they may be freezing for a period of time as a debuff and that might slow their speed. If a wizard applies a nuke on a target and that nuke is a frost based nuke, those two stacking elements might then either further snare (slow the target) or paralyze and freeze the target. So, there are combination out effects that build up, so you're taking about build-ups where you you can do two separate skills that cause an ancillary effect: A primary, secondary and some ancillary effect occurs when those are combined. That as well, yeah.

Nice

28:38

That's a good question. Very good question. Another good question from Alexandra: Steven how the- oh my gosh. I can't see this. Steven how the crafting mechanics will work? Will you get a recipe for a rare, epic, legendary weapon/armor? Do we them from bosses or buy them from [garbled]?

So, that's a very good question. There are many different ways to achieve recipes. Recipes can be granted through a lot of our progression paths. While levelling in your level progression, you can find recipes as drops from monsters. You can get recipes from quest lines. You can achieve recipes in your societal stature, if you become Mayor you might be able to add specific recipes that the node can achieve as a community to your recipe book. If you are a member of society, like the Thieves Guild or Scholar's Academy, your progress within the society may unlock recipes to be granted for your recipe book. If you succeed in killing some legendary boss, or gaining a title, that may achieve certain recipes. If you have become a land owner and you are building up your processing power through establishing infrastructure. Those conditions can grant certain types of recipes through the buildings you build. Your religious devotion can grant holy recipes based on your stature within the church your are a part of. We want to take crafting and house the location of those recipes throughout different progression paths, so that not everything is pigeon-holed into one way forward. Multiple play styles should be relevant and viable. Additionally, you have a spread between casual players and hard-core players; and most of us exist somewhere on that spectrum: Not on one side, but somewhere. We may have only time during the month for one of these months that we're playing the game, to log in several hours a week, and the progression path in a society or religion is more conducive to the time we have to play. Whereas, someone else may be playing several hours a day, and they have a better opportunity for the raid/level progression that might require some more dedication. So we want to have these different progression paths available to accommodate the different times in our lives that we have to play the game. And all of those types of progressions will make us relevant in some way shape or form to the general world.

31:40

Somebody said: As someone said earlier, balancing is going to be hell.

Well, when is balancing not hell? When you have a very boring game [laughter]. If you have a game with a lot of moving parts, obviously balancing is going to be a primary objective; and that is why we have a lot of planned testing phases because early on in the development we have incorporated many metrics to to watch player activity in the world in live time; and that will grant us an added benefit of being able to see these balances in action during testing phases and iterate upon them so that we can make sure that when we go live we have a very tested, tried and true balanced system. What's up Jeff Bard.

Ah there is someone in the press room who wants to talk to you.

Oh very good. Would you like to take him?

Sure, just wanted to make sure.

Sounds good. Good luck. Bon chance! Alright today is my stream day. I'm going to be trying to spend as much time with you guys answering a lot of questions because I know that sometimes in our development cycle we get our heads down and you know you may go a couple of weeks or slightly longer before you get a lot of drop of information; and then it all comes rushing out sometimes too; and you know that's part of being on a project that's developing, is we have events like GDC and PAX that happen a week apart and we have a pretty strong sprint towards them and things happen. But, I'm going to spend as much time as I can, so, handing off all the press stuff to Jeff. Let him take the wheel. Jesus take the wheel [laughter].

Nice.

33:55

Okay question from BossOne: Have you hired another community manger yet? I'd love to help in that role. Your culture sounds great.

Thank you Boss, we do have a great culture, and we are hiring. We have some job postings on LinkedIn. Those of you who are out there in the industry, I will say that for me, Community Manager is an important role, because in my experience. Hold on let me sign this real quick. Where should I sign here? There we go. Thank you. Bacon Bacon. So, Community manager is a very important role. Why? Because I want to make sure that the tone for the Ashes community is not a overly strict one; and it has become somewhat pervasive in the MMORPG genre from a community standpoint that moderators/managers feel it's necessary to be overly strict, so it's difficult to find a talented and experienced community manager that both understands the MMORPG genre and coincides with my views on how the community should be regulated/run. That's just from a moderation standpoint. Additionally, I want to make sure when we bring on, and we will be bringing on a community manager, but when we do bring on a Community Manager that there is a lot of fun for some team building activities in the community, guild-oriented, just a lot of mechanisms that bring you guys together to support not only the game and its development, but also each other because ultimately, all rivalry aside, if it weren't for each other we wouldn't have a game; and we want to make sure that any type of rivalry is healthy.

36:21

Question from let's see: Do you plan to make cross-server PvP modes, something similar to WoW battlegrounds?

WoW battlegrounds, yeah. So, one of the games that I played long ago Lineage II there was like a event, they had this cross-server event and you had teams join up, fight each other and get chosen as a server rep team to go fight other servers. I thought that was really cool and I enjoyed that; and I know I spoke earlier with Jason and Kevin about implementing a cross-server arena where we could have perhaps monthly competitions and then the winning server gets some type of buff if they won for the month; and the teams that won it for them get some type of buff as well that's beneficial. That is something, you know like a trophy buff or whatever. That is something that I like and I think we will try to find a way to implement. Again, we have a lot on our plate from a development standpoint; and if things like that don't make it into our launch build, they are more likely possible to be implemented in our updates and expansions.

37:57

Let's see Nexuzium: I personally get bored with tab-targeting combat, will it be possible to use more challenging mechanics only abilities and will it be worth it (other than entertainment)? Like a charge that has to be aimed and not just auto-target.

Yeah, so I've said this a few times, but skill progressions, skill point allocation is determined by the player. The player will be able to choose either more tab-target oriented skills or more action-based skills and customize their playable experience to what accommodates their preference and you know from a balancing standpoint for us developers, we need to make sure that certain abilities house certain functions so that there's a balance between skill shots and tab-target abilities, like we don't want to have lock-downs and CC effects housed in the CC, excuse me, housed in the tab-targeting area because if you combine the added damage that may be present in a skill shot balance system with another player who might be a tab-targeted CCer, then the added complication of the skill shot is diminished by the fact that the tab-targetable person can just CC a person and the skill shot can just land it. So, we want to make sure we don't house a lot of CC abilities with the tab-targetable skills because we want to avoid that kind of thing. But, that's just an example of balance that's necessary between those two different houses of gameplay: Action and tab. Additionally, you may not be able to fully spec into just action or tab. You might have a max differential of 75-25 for those skills.

39:48

Solemn_FaceMan: Steven, Do you aspire for the PvP/Arena to become Esport eligible?

Do I aspire for it, right now it's not necessarily an object of our focus. I feel as though if we make the game play compelling, competitive and fun that naturally it will move in that direction and then we will find the ability to support it afterwards. So, our first objective is to make it fun. Our second objective is, if it is, then we'll see how we can apply it in that arena.

40:23

Warriors, what are they going to be like I need to know, from thebrosafini.

He needs to know.

He needs to know. We must tell him. Warriors. Warriors are really going to be the melee, well not necessarily they don't have to be melee, but they are going to be the DPS equivalent and counterpart of a Ranger, but moreso in the way that dealing burst damage for physical, as opposed to consistent damage over time that an Archer might be doing. So, what we want the Fighter/the Warrior to do is we want them to be able to cut through enemy lines, get to the support area of a raid perhaps and take out healers and stuff like that with some quick DPS burst damage. We want them to be masters of different weapons. We want them to be able to be versatile in whether or not that want to choose to be a ranged fighter or melee one. It's going to be up to the player.

41:44

What kind of combat are you guys going for?

We're going for strategic and also dependent on movement and location, basically we want combat to be engaging, fun. What you're seeing in our pre-alpha we honestly have not spent a lot of time on combat. Most of this pre-alpha has been spent on establishing core technical features for our proprietary back-end solutions for making a MMO in Unreal; as well as connecting many players into a single zone with 4,000 NPCs, getting good server framerate performance, making the connection through our launcher end, establishing the core node system collection of experience, specifically cultural experience. You know combat has not been at the forefront of our development, we have – I don't even know if we've had anybody specifically working on combat, I guess maybe Akil with skills – but when we right now we've begun the sprint toward Alpha-1 first phase deployment, so we're really looking into the action side of combat right now; and we're building systems for that. And the reason why we are doing that is because tab-targeting has been a staple of MMORPGs for a very long time, even though there's a large interest now in action for MMORPGs and there has been some successful titles with action-oriented, like TERA and BDO, we want to be able to really delve into that development so that we can better understand how to merge tab and action together in the same game, because they are vastly different play-styles, tempos that exist between those things, so we're spending the time now to play with those things.

44:11

Yes SeriousDOMO asks any reason for giving braver of worlds alpha 1 but not alpha 0?

So, sorry, the answer to that is pretty simple actually. When getting real-time feedback, we want a wide sample of opinions from people that cannot afford to spend four or five hundred dollars on the Braver of Worlds, to the people that can. So, that is why we set up a tiered raffle system, so that we have entries from people that are in Kickstarter and entires from the different tiers of our pre-order and we raffle from there. Additionally, I don't want to sell alpha-0. A pre-alpha experience isn't something really than can be sold in my opinion. It's often times bug ridden, it's not dependent on the play sessions, you know can be impromptu. It's not an experience that should be sold, it's something that should be in my opinion, I guess just raffled out basically. If you are a supporter of the game we want to give you an opportunity to join, we want to be able to use that as a tool to keep the audience interested in coming back and learning and participating; and I know what you're saying: you know I paid $500 for an Alpha-1 key. Well yeah, Alpha-1 is going to be awesome and you're going to be the only ones in it, but at least at that stage I feel confident, the team feels confident that you're going to be satisfied with that experience. And we don't want to upset our Alpha-1 backers, so you know that's why we are doing the raffle. We want to get a wide, diverse audience from a purchase standpoint, even people that aren't even invested in the game at all, that's why we raffle out to registered users, or just on stream.

46:11

Okay what else we got? Everyone is asking for Bard info, please stop the torture.

I feel like I need Jeffrey Bard here to answer the Bard question. He did go to Bard College.

It's true.

Yes, okay Bard information. So, Bards are intended to really amp- sorry, just killed you. Bards are intended to amplify a party or raid's ability to perform within their own class. That amplification isn't just intended for DPS, but also for support, for healing, for taking damage, for movement and what we want the Bard to do is not just- you know Bards have often been portrayed as a musical class and while they can be that, many Bard applications may exist in just telling a story. Telling a story is going to be the thematic component of how the Bard interacts with the party. And that story is going to enhance player's abilities to perform. Very similar in a way to buffing up a party, but you are not going to see him as a "buff bot" that you might have experienced in previous games, where they are only good for their buf and then you kick em out of party and they sit in a corner and come back in 30 minutes. Those buffs are going to be related to how they perform. If they are engaged in combat and they land a skill shot against a target, allies within a certain range of that Bard are going to be granted a temporary buff that relates to the skill that the bard used against a target. So, let's say they, let's say the Bard is using a weapon, has a sword out and slashes a some performance action, does some gladiatorial looking performance attack and it looks so great, it inspires his friends around him to increase their multiplier on critical damage, and now they deal additional damage against targets for the next 10 seconds or 8 seconds. So, you're going to need to be active. You're going to worry about your position, the relation of the position of your party members to you in order to accentuate really what you offer the party.

That's cool.

Yes, so that's kind of my idea of how Bards should work.

49:05

Alright, let's see question from, question from, can you tell us about. Someone says Steven, can you tell us about your childhood?

Oh no.

Want to tell us about your childhood first?

No. You don't want to know.

Come on I wanna hear.

I can't do it out here.

I haven't even heard. Oh come on!

Wait, we'll have to tick the mature audience button.

That would be most appropriate [laughter].

Tell us a little bit. Where did you grow up Bacon?

I grew up in Portland Oregon.

Portland Oregon. How long did you live there before you moved?

Up until my first game gig.

Really?

Yeah yeah.

And what took you away from Oregon?

A job, a job. That's when I went to Florida to work on the Duke Nukem stuff.

Nice nice pretty cool. Did you like Oregon?

Yeah yeah. I miss the rain.

I love rain.

I love rain.

One of my favorite things if I'm waking up in the morning is to hear that it's raining outside. And I'm not even kidding like.

Oh totally.

I have skylights at our house. Have you been over to our house before?

No.

You haven't? Oh my gosh you need to come over for dinner.

Alright.

But it has skylights in the house and they have windows on top, so when the rain hits you hear it loudly through the house, so yeah it's pretty good.

That's very nice.

I grew up in San Diego. Actually, I was born in San Diego.

Really?

And I lived there 'till I was five. Then we moved. My mom was single mom, I had two brothers. We moved to Indiana in Indianapolis for eight years until I was 13 then I came back with my family to San Diego and I lived in San Diego ever since.

Oh really.

Yeah.

I thought you were in Vegas at some point?

Well, I went back-and-forth. I bought a house in [cross-talk] when I graduated high school and went to college I bought a house in Vegas to go back-and-forth but I really hated Vegas.

Really.

Yeah, I don't know, I'm sorry anybody who lives in Vegas. It was always dry. It was either super cold or super hot; and there was always just people travelling in and leaving. I mean I didn't have any time anyways when I was younger to really focus on what was going on around me but, alright.

51:49

More questions. Let's see. Space Dragon asks can you say anything about dragons?

Yes I can. So, dragon mounts are intended to be a class of royal mounts. Royal mounts means that people who have access to royal mounts are people that either mayors of a metropolis or kings and queens of a castle. Now there can only ever be five metropolises and five castles in the game. Additionally, royal mounts can be dropped from legendary world bosses. If they are dropped from the legendary world boss they will have a life-span that those royal mounts can exist within; and that life-span will likely be between two weeks and four weeks, after which the mounts will pass away, sadly. But, dragons are a class of these royal mounts you can get different types of royal mounts. They don't have to be dragons. They could be some other type of legendary mythical creature and you can- Our mount system kind of works in a way that there's really going to be classes of mounts; and you will be able to achieve skins in the game or you will be able to achieve different types of those classes and summon them, so the dragon will have a lot of capability in PvP. It's primarily its purpose, because as it relates to Castles and the sieges they're in, or Nodes and the sieges they're in, we want dragons to have large scale ramifications against player raids. So, they'll be able to fly. They'll be only mounts- The royal mounts will be the only class of mounts that can fully fly in the world; and they are going to be- they will be, needed to be mounted while in a royal stables. Royal stables are a building that can be built in a node if elected to be built by the mayor and supported by the community building it up through the quests to do so; and castles come with a royal stable as well. So once you have a royal stable and you become that Mayor or King or Queen, you may then mount the creature there and then take it wherever you wish. Will there be a flight timer associated with it? There will be a flight time associate with it, but the flight time will be considerable. We're thinking probably between 20 and 30 minutes. So will that limit the range of effectiveness? Yes it will limit the range of effectiveness for that particular mount. But it will be an epic looking large-scale creature and people will notice you and it while you are approaching.

55:31

So will there be dragons in the game that are untamable?

Yes. There will be dra- there will be legendary world bosses that are dragons and you cannot tame them. You may only defeat them for their treasure horde.

55:49

XR asks how are you guys planning to make legendary weapons feel legendary but not overpowered?

Well, part of a legendary weapon is its visual appearance, you know, what it looks like. It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some, some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, you know they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon. Additionally, the amount of effort needed and interdependencies across the different types of players – between raiders and PvPers and crafters and even role players and the taverns and businesses: the processors and gatherers – all of those systems will likely have a component that lended toward creating or crafting that legendary item. So, because there will be such an in-depth process to gather those things- you know it kind of- there's two ways that games tend to make a curve with gear. Either it is super RNG oriented or super time-consuming. Sometimes if you are unlucky, it's both time-consuming and RNG oriented. But, we want to stay away from the highly RNGd system, and instead take our multiple progression paths that we are offering the players and put the construction components for achieving these legendary items within them so it encourages communities to work together because it's going to be difficult for just one person by themselves to gather everything. Not to say that they couldn't in an economic sense, by buying those components, that's possible. But achieving them from a time investment standpoint we want it to be considerably less RNG focussed, so that you know that if I spend that time, I'm going to get this thing and it's not going to blow up in my hands and I'm left with nothing.

58:29

So, yes. Let's see. Question: Will there be an achievement. I just saw this and it flew away. Oh achievement reward system that can earn you titles, mounts and wardrobe sets for various accomplishments?

There will absolutely be an achievement reward system. That achievement reward system is actually prevalent in a lot of systems. So, that is our mechanism for rewarding time, rewarding risk, rewarding accomplishment. We have that is both title oriented, it can be cosmetic oriented. I mean you know we have some games out there you know and I don't want to throw them under the bus, but it rhymes with CDO. It rhymes with CDO, the acronym. I don't know and you know the first letter pollinates flowers and stuff.

Oh really?

Yeah.

Oh okay. I think they call those bees?

I think that's vague enough.

Okay. It's vague. It's very vague. But I don't like how this game that should not be mentioned or heard of – I didn't say it – has really bad looking cosmetics that are achievable in game; and you are forced to purchase the cosmetics from the shop if you want to look at all good whatsoever. It's not to say the game is bad, I mean the game has a lot of fun components. It's successful, but I think that from a monetization standpoint, it's pretty sad that they feel compelled to offer nothing from in-game achievement and only something for dollars. Especially when you have a subscription component. So, my philosophy on our cosmetics is, you know, I want to incentivize purchase in the cosmetic shop for sustainability of what expansions we have intended, since we are not a box cost. I want to incentivize purchase by offering limited items: limited time, limited quantity, so you have confidence that when you purchase them, they won't be offered later down in some other way. However, I want to make sure that equitable cosmetics both from a quantity and quality standpoint are achievable through in-game achievements. Time, effort should let you be happy with what you can accomplish. So that is important.

1:01:28

Alright let's see. What else? Here we go. We have a question. My gosh I just can't stop this thing. It goes so fast. I need to be a better streamer, I'm so sorry. Will Nodes be landlocked (i.e will there be Nodes on islands so we can make sea faring communities/kingdoms?)

So, there will be nodes on the coast. There will be nodes even on islands. There won't be nodes underwater or in the water, but the nodes along the coast and islands, because they are along those things, they will have specific water oriented influences and abilities, services, quest lines, that relate to the seas. Yes.

1:02:27

I like you Steve to talk like truth like it is and do make your MMO the best it can been. Not like these MMOs that just cash-grab with a player-base like Archeage, BDO – I didn't say it he did – you are my hope for the MMORPG genre.

Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it, you know it's interesting. Obviously you – and this is just a discussion about the industry in general – and you know I have the unique perspective as being an outsider before I became an insider; and I can tell you that you know there are many, well let's be honest, making a MMORPG is a large risk. It is the largest risk that any developer or publisher can make in the gaming industry, because it is the largest possible project. It has the most moving components. It is a highly massively multiplayer that can break in so many ways you can't even count. So, traditionally over the past decade or so, when you have titles out there that command such a large share of the market, like the Final Fantasies and the Warcrafts or the you know these franchises. They have gravity. It is difficult to pull players away from them. Not that that should be the objective, but just the harsh reality is, their gravity commands such a large portion of the market share. So that means that when you couple that from a performance standpoint with the risk associated with it from a development standpoint, then the risk versus reward, the opportunity becomes a difficult equation to balance. So, you see developers shy away, publishers shy away from innovating; and the market becomes stale because no one is willing to risk or innovate. The benefit that we have at Intrepid, with myself funding the project and the added crowdfunding that we did for Kickstarter, which was great, but with myself funding the project I have noone to answer to outside of my creative vision. And my creative vision aligns with my experience as a player. What did I experience that destabilized the communities of other games? What did I experience that accentuated the communities of other games, that added to the integrity of the communities. You know I played many games where there was a highly pay-to-win aspect, and if you wanted to be competitive – and I always want to be competitive – I don't like to lose [laughter]. I'll admit it, some people can handle it. I really can't. But-

Like the James T. Kirk [cross-talk]

Exactly yeah, I would cheat the Kobayashi Maru if necessary! But, I'm sorry where was I? I've seen those systems and I have been forced to pay-to-win as well because I wanted to be competitive, but if the game was made in a way where that wasn't the atmosphere, it would have been a much more enjoyable experience if there weren't predatory practices from a monetization standpoint of the developer or the publisher of that game then the communities would be better stabilized. But I feel like perhaps some games go in with this idea that their monetization practices need to grab as much money as possible as quickly as you can because retention will never happen with those larger franchises that exist out there in the world and the gravity they command. So let's go in, let's burn it all down and retention is not in our minds, we know we cannot compete with the attrition, we just get as much as possible. That's a really unfortunate happenstance; and I'm not trying to cast shade on other developers. I'm just saying how I saw it as a player. So, my objective with Intrepid is to build something that is sustainable, that will be retention-oriented, that will answer the call of what players want. Now, I read, I've read the Reddits, I've read- I gotta tell you: The MMORPG community has been so burned in the past with just different projects and different companies, that they are like a hurt dog. And if you want to like pet it and offer him some food, they will bite your hand off.

Oh for sure, for sure.

Even if you're giving them the like best piece of meat you got, they'll bite your hand off on there; and it's understandable. I understand! I was like that. I was- I still am. I am skeptical if I hear of a project that tells me something I want to hear. But the bottom line is, that the principles that we as a studio are trying to convey needs the support of the community because if we want to change the direction of thought within the minds of the publishers and of the developers in our space, we need to show that the community is behind these thoughts and not the wallets that get behind the pay-to-win or predatory cash-grab thoughts. Because, in the eyes of a board member only the bottom-line counts. I have no board members. I'm my board member, so my concern is creative direction. And if the community can support that creative direction, verbally, vocally on the forums, on Reddit, at the MMORPGs and MassivelyOPs, at the mediums where people listen, then we can move forward from this stagnant state as a MMORPG genre. So, I know I went on a little bit of a tirade there but you know that is how I feel about it.

No I mean, that enthusiasm, sense of community you generate because of that philosophy is something that's refreshing.

Thank you.

1:09:37

Okay, other questions.

Steven preach it.

What else shall we answer? Steven, will there be a trophy system not only for PvE monster/world boss but also PvP? I dunno... like Stufferton pelts?

Awesome. That is hilarious. Stufferton pelts. Gigabear look out. Okay I would like that. That trophy system we discussed with cross-server PvP. I would also like it to be for legendary world bosses. When a server downs a legendary boss, I want it to cost time, resources, dedication; and when you do that I want everyone to benefit from it. And that could also include that trophy system that will allow players to benefit from it so it's similar yes.

1:10:45

Alright what have we got? Weekly fishing tournaments?

I think fishing tournaments would be awesome. I'll admit I played a game called Archeage as some of you might know, and fishing was some fun in that. I didn't necessarily like the AFK fishing but the sports fishing was okay, but I really liked how you would go and have fishing tournaments that would yield rewards and stuff for your performance and I'd like to see some fishing style tournaments in Ashes.

1:11:20

Yes, a question from Chitaris: How are notifications about selection got alpha 0 keys from social media like Facebook or YouTube delivered?

So, if you are following on social media you get additional entries into our raffle system. If your social media account is selected, because we have all of our subscribers followers downloaded on a list, depending on which social media account you are on you will receive a message on that social media account. If you are registered on the site and own a package or a kickstarter pack or a summer backer then you will receive an email from your registered account on the website. Be patient with those guys. We only have at the moment a very small CS team. Sometimes I help with that as well, but as we move into our, getting closer to our alpha 1 date, we'll bring on additional CS support so it won't be as difficult. Those keys will be sent out likely Wednesday and Thursday of this next week. We are raffling 300 keys for the PAX event and we also gave away a bunch of keys at the panel.

1:12:33

Yes. Thank you come here come here, say that on stream! [cross-talk] What you got to say?

That was probably the funnest PvP I have ever played!

Very nice. Very nice.

Love it! Thank you buddy.

Thank you very much.

Some of the players. By the way guys for those of you watching. At PAX we have had a non-stop line around the booth every single day from Thursday to Sunday has been a 3-4 hour wait to play the game and I'm telling you right now, this is a no BS moment: I would say upwards of 90% of the people that walk away are completely ecstatic and excited about what we've shown here and what is intended to be the game when we launch. So, it is, guys, this is no longer just a hype train. This is a full on train! We are a a moving bullet down this railroad to greatness and you guys are on for a fun ride.

The railroad to greatness.

1:14:01

Yes. Question from SBootZ: How difficult will PvE content be in terms of how much percentage of the playerbase should be able to clear the hardest content?

That's a good question. So, I wanna say that there is going to be a lot of PvE content for all portions of the playerbase. Now, you throw in a very interesting variable when you use the term "hardest content", well what does hardest mean? Hardest means, your time spent to even be able to access it and additionally the time spent for you to be successful in completing it. So, the challenge of the combat itself will be pretty intricate mechanics-wise. You know, we're going to have different phases of the bosses, there's going to be a lot of adds stuff, there's going to be random oriented skill usage. We're not going to have telegraphed templates on the ground, but we will have telegraphed animations, so it's going to be location, mobility strategic. It will be something that can not be repeatable in the exact same way from raid to raid, but has a variance between the combat, so raiders are going to have to be fluid in thinking on their feet. But, what percentage of the population should be able to successfully complete the hardest content? I don't even know if I want to put a number on that but it should be somewhat small. I mean from a philosophical standpoint, if it not somewhat small, then the players who are playing have nothing to strive for. Where's the goal if you can complete anything? So, part of that risk versus reward: Your risk is your time you're putting in to having a chance at getting the reward and successfully completing; and that should feel good based on how much time you devote. Now I know that there's a spectrum of casual and hard-core players in the time there, what we can do, but that's why we have many different content paths that play towards how you affect the world around you.

1:16:30

Briseris asks: Please make ultra rare items dropable in solo PvE

There will be ultra-rare drop chances in zones that are solo centric; and you know; some people- a lot of people hate grinding. Some people like to grind. I mean it's true. There is a portion of the population of gamers that enjoy those old-school grindy MMOs. You just want to vege out and go into a zone and smack away at monsters; and if there's no, I don't want to say gamble, but if there is no opportunity of like rare reward then you feel like you're doing it for nothing and that's not fun. But if there is an opportunity to get a mega sack of loot or some ultra-rare item or whatever, then that gives them a tunnel of light where they can get to.

What time are we at? 2:20 how long have we been discussing this, when did we start?

A little over an hour.

Little over an hour that's good. Alright closestghost420 you won an alpha key yesterday and you want to receive it. We have your email address. You'll be getting an email about it on Wednesday or Thursday this week.

1:18:07

Alright oh, The talking fish: I like where you head is going at with regards to fishing pole progression.

I thought it was a cool idea the whole fishing pole thing, where you can have a cosmetic kind of fishing pole through achievement or purchase or whatever it is. You can change the rod, the real. You can get bobbers. I kind of mind blanked there.

1:18:37

Will bards be able to sing and play instruments outside of the skill of course?

I'd like to include- you know something interesting, again referring to Archeage, one of the things I liked that they did is they had a musical composition profession where you could take your, you could either take custom music that you created, or songs that you like in the real world and you could take that file or whatever and try to create the music – and sometimes there would be errors depending on your proficiency – but then you could play it on an instrument in the game like a sitar or violin or whatever. I thought that was interesting. I brought it up a year and a half or two years ago in one of our discussions. I think it's somewhere in our confluence. That's an interesting thing.

1:19:37

Okay I'm going to do one last question and then we're going to do a raffle.

Better make it a good one.

Okay.

Do you like pie?

Okay.

Something very benign.

1:20:03

Can other player's ships be temporarily hijacked? Can their cargo be unloaded by enemy players? Will it be similar to caravans?

So, ships can be hijacked. Additionally the cargo on a trade ship will be similar to caravans in that you must destroy the caravan. A trade ship can not be hijacked. You must destroy it in order to capture the loot to create a wreckage.