Talk:2019-04-15 Steven Sharif Interview - Paradox Gaming Network
Raw transcript
Jahlon: Okay so my community has an expectation and that expectation is that I go right to dates, but I know people want them and I've beaten you up about dates but I understand the quote and the quote you guys gave was we give this commitment going forward to the community that when we give you a date we are going to be confident 100% that we can hit that date so I'm like I'm not gonna ask you about dates because I know you want to give them you don't have the game done but what I do want to ask you about is the forum's you said 11 April at 11:00 Pacific I was in at 1113 that I would say was successful how was it on your end how it's the forum launch bin for intrepid?
Steven: I would say it went pretty well actually we definitely saw some hold on one second let me bring this there are so many technical issues today it is crazy next time I'll just fly out to San Diego I know my gosh okay that should now be working I would hope alone okay no the forum lunch went went well so I mean it was something that we discussed obviously Angeles the stream was that you know we weren't spending the passes you know three months trying to get the point right those are deep prioritized in order to get the single sign-on solution feature integrated into the new web platform in order to accommodate several different services that we have planned moving forward with that new website so we had to make sure to get that those features fixed and actually even before we worked on the single sign-on solution we needed to address several databases a cloud infrastructure migration you know there's a lot of stuff that the platform team was working on so that was kind of the you know that is looking weird in the background so let me turn that off and turn this sorry about that
Jahlon: oh it's okay right you're in a completely different setting than you thought you were gonna be in I know so the other night on the dungeon-crawler podcast you said a lot of things like that was a that was a pretty in-depth podcast but one thing that stuck out was you were talking about the back end and you said quality assessment needs to be done half Sean and Ryan gotten ahold of the battle royale mode yet or is it still kind of laid out on the table still being put together?
Steven: oh no I mean even even as back and work continues on apocalypse and on the alpha-1 preparations QA continues to work on environment QA on Matt QA on items and different art you know character art the ability of the intersection between you know different pieces on the character there's a lot of QA that can be done without needing to work on specifically what's still being torn apart and built together again with the backup
Jahlon: so a lot of people know that a lot of people may not realize that you wear two hats you were two very large full-time heads you're the CEO of intrepid Studios but you also are the creative director so we're gonna put that CEO hat on oh I lost you.
Steven: did you lose me
Jahlon: hold on there you are there you are. So one of the things that's changed recently is that originally it was a 100 - 100 goal for 100 in house employs 100 contractors
Steven: Right
Jahlon: recently you said 140 in-house employees at the San Diego office but you still want to have those hundred contractors of what what
Steven: Actually the hundred contractors might even increase from a hundred to probably around a hundred and fifty so we're going from a 200 hands-on project to probably around a 300 hands-on project
Jahlon: What caused that forty percent jump in in-house employees what capabilities you're gonna try to bring in-house are you just trying to do more
Steven: Well you know we had some experience already and in having you know out of the office contractors kind of working on the project and from a creative control standpoint I just felt communication is better had on certain key roles when it's in-house obviously and made the decision that we would bring you know several of those positions that were planned for out of the office back into the office
Jahlon: all right I just want tell the chat I I have seen you guys I am knocking the volume down as we go it's just we're doing this on discord so I'll keep bumping it down a little bit
Jahlon: I'm gonna do some public math which I'm not good at you know this "480 thousand square kilometres."
Steven: Sure okay.
Jahlon: But one of the things I get all the time is the numbers don't quite add up. So back in December the number of people working on Ashes in the San Diego office was 52. Since then you've on-boarded Margaret, Sarah, Jonathan, Shawn, Ryan, Danielle a bunch of other people. The website has 44 pictures on it Plus Bear McCreary.
Steven: Yeah we need to- there's still people that need to take pictures. That's part of what Margaret is making sure to coordinate.
Jahlon: I wanted to give you the opportunity to say that sound bite so we have it just because people want sound byteable quotes. How many butts in chairs do you have working in San Diego right now?
Steven: In San Diego in this office I believe we have just over 60 that are working in the studios and then we also have people who work remotely out of San Diego as well.
Jahlon: Oh okay well that's new.
Steven: That's because we don't have seats in the studio right now.
Jahlon: And you've told that story- that was actually the community liked that story knowing like hey it's not your fault, the building's just keep getting sold on you.
Steven: Yeah that was another fun point. We are adapting so it's not an issue. Movement still continues forward and you know we have amazing talented developers who are capable of working around even the oddest of obstacles let's go back to December let's talk about the other side of that equation we had a number that was 115 people working on hashes 52 in San Diego 35 in Malaysia and 28 in France mm-hmm are the 28 people in France working on ashes accretion directly or are they from storm answer so a lot of them are from storm answer and storm answer is an integral third party component to our back-end solution for the MMORPG a lot of their work has to do with interfacing with our grid solution for how we can make seamless travel between the zones and an open world and storm answer as a third party is capable of integrating with our custom back-end solutions for that the Malaysia team we actually that was an art outsource team and we have actually disengaged with that team and are implementing another solution with a different studio Oh excellent and I was going to ask you if you wanted to talk about those two groups but you've already did all right so that's all the business stuff I want to talk about because that's just some sound bytes I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about let's put your creative director hat on notes three I'm not gonna I'm not going to ask you a date on it more along the lines of have you done it a few times and scrapped it not been happy with it have game change designs has the game design changed a bit and that's been the delay so notes three really relates I mean the date for notes three really relates to a couple things and I don't want too much time in it but it has to do with these this series is is it very marketing heavy kind of series it gives a lot of information on the core game loop of Ashes of Creation and we want to make sure that when it goes out because it will be in front of so many eyes that it's representative of the key marketing points and dates that we have for the project now we could put something out you know yesterday or months ago but it wouldn't be to what I believe is the quality necessary both from a gameplay perspective actually showing the mechanics in the alpha-1 presentation that I want nodes 3 to have so I view that four-part series as kind of being indicative of certain release points for the testing periods going forward and I see nodes 3 being released when alpha 1 is out and I see nodes for being released probably closer to beta Wow ok good
I like that major design changes there has been one that a lot of people haven't been following all this time they may not understand that we go all the way back to April 2017 you talked about castle sieges in those castle nodes were gonna undergo an automatic CG tweak and then fast forward to now and you change that and I still get a lot of people saying no there's gonna be a siege at each Castle each week and I'm like no but what was the driving force for that particular game design change?
Steven: So I think there are two designs that your design changes that you're talking about there the first one with regards to events to stabilizing a node into a siege we moved away from that fairly early on I think probably just right after we discussed that right and the reason for that was is we felt it was punitive enough for an event to result in the disabling of services and/or NPCs that affect the amount of experience capable the experience loop capable within that zone should those be disabled to have attrition take effect so that was the that was the first reason and then the second thing I'm sorry did you mention castles when saying that
Jahlon: you it was remember the the castle has its three military nodes yes an original originally those three nodes we're gonna get sieged each week
Steven: Yes that still occurs so that still happens I think yeah I think the first one would even talk about April is if an event occurs like the raid bus comes down and attacks the node and the node can't defend that at Mike d-level that what that was one yes but maybe I'm wrong here the castle nodes I thought the current design is that each Castle ownership period I thought those three nodes those three military nodes got reset and the the guild owner had to rebuild them as so what so what happens with the the castle nodes is each castle comes with three nodes and the castle a period is one month so you see two Castle you own it for a month the first week node a of the ABC nodes you have a the guild has a week to establish the defenses of that node to build it up and get ready and the following weekend of the siege that had just previously happened there will be an event where attackers can come and try to destabilize siege that node and taken down thereby disabling some of your defenses for the incoming next siege and then node B gets the next week in node C gets the weekend after that depending on your performance during those three weeks preceding the next siege cycle will determine how many ancillary defense bonuses the guild can utilize during the siege in the fourth week is then when the actual siege of the castle happens because it's not a month cycle perfect you know what I actually for as much as I dig into it I didn't actually realize that it was two things I thought the event had become that build so
the event is purely with regards to nodes so events such as you know hordes of monsters coming out and attacking the stables and or NPCs those can react to the development of the node itself if a raid boss comes out of the mountain and attacks the node it can disable services now previously we had mentioned that it could also deliver a node that's what's been changed a node cannot be delivered through an event however the event can disabled services building structures that all feedback into the apostle experience that players can give I know perfect let's I'm going to share something that you shared with the content creators because I thought this will give some people some insight about how your mind works and that you said your mind doesn't always take into consideration the ancillary knowledge that you have of all the mechanics and it's pretty easy to tell you love giving leaks and that since Margaret came on board you live in fear of your life but uh the community loves leaks how hard is it for you to share stuff because you know that if you share a snippet then you're gonna just have to keep going with with more and more stuff I mean if the question is how much I love sharing to share things probably too much right not probably to the project detriment I would say but you know now that Margaret's on board and has the ability to kind of take a more in-depth look at the marketing and community involvement aspect of what we're doing here you know she's putting it together in a neat you know regular update kind of format that allows us to share things moving forward and not kind of sporadic events like my leaking so I can respect that obviously you know leaks were easy for me because when I'm not doing the creative director stuff or the you know business side of things I can jump on discord at night and get a few leaks well that that type of spontaneity isn't you know something that can be consistent and I think what Margaret is doing is making it more consistent so that the expectation level the community is kept appropriate how many times a day do you want to jump into the discord when we're arguing between each other and we're wrong how many times do you want to jump in and make clarification I mean I you know I love what discord has to offer from a community engagement standpoint I think that it's it's a great kind of real time place where you can interact with the mind of developers and/or project that was hasn't been seen before you know outside of discord obviously there downsides to discord you know it's it's a live feed so you know it's unless you have some be on the ball with keeping quotations and then posting on a more you know formatted kind of place like the forums you know that can be an issue but having those things in synchronicity is definitely a good thing I'm glad we have our forums back up because that gives more permanent presence to what is discussed on this Court yes and we need to get you your second account so that you can come in and engage and not have your message is all spanning across we fixed we actually fixed that was it attended to per message per comment now it's based only on staff created threads so those staff created threads will be highlighted not necessarily the individual comments well that's good then yeah how much of the iceberg are we seeing I know you've said that you don't want us to know everything about ashes before day one but how much of the iceberg are we seeing how much is still under the water and then i really want to frame it as would you say we have like five percent of the information eight three where we at so are we talking visuals are we talking patient uh either take it any way you want so from an information standpoint I would say that you're getting I would say the community is getting a pretty good amount of information to contextualize a lot of the game systems and mechanics and understand what the world is going to look like from the lore standpoint I would say you're getting a very little amount I want the story to kind of be you know related to an individual's experience inside the game rather than having to read you know websites and kind of in-depth you know posts about the game from a visual standpoint I think that when alpha one hits there's going to be because it's not under NDA you're gonna have a lot of you know a lot of a pretty in-depth look of the game so yeah I would say you know all at all I followed a lot of developments I think our our kind of approach to a kind of transparent development is definitely indicative of what's been coming with a lot of other independent developers over the last you know five six years and I'm glad to see that in the industry now I think it's and that players get a kind of in-depth look at what's happening on the projects that they follow but yeah I think that the the idea there is to make sure the community gets involved and has an ability to kind of voice you know their opinions of what what the developments showing yeah I I've been gaming for so long I miss the days where you just you got it on day one and that was that was it nobody knew anything because the indie agency it's like there was there was no go online and get your quest answers absolutely so I think the key there like I miss those days to sort of write I think there's there's a there's a comfortable blend between the two worlds like on one hand not seeing it on all until day one you can end up with some you know completely off the ball mechanics and or systems that are not you know well thought out or don't engage what with the community and that's the downside of not having kind of an open more open development where the community kind of gets to have the ability to get feedback and on the flip side yeah I agree I don't want to step into a game and know everything about it before I step there but I think that that what will will provide from a story aspect and what we're limiting and telling about the story that's going to be the engagement that players want to find also the exploration like alphas and betas those are going to be those are going to be limited to certain areas so keeping the Explorer version aspect of what the world has to offer kind of tucked away until players get to jump in that's going to be good let's let's start classes and art types and what most people know is that there's eight archetypes which is your job or your role and then sixty-four classes now I'm sure you hear it all the time you see it no monk no druid what what some people may not know is that you originally had a plan for 12 art types but we never really did find out the other four do you want to share anything about the four that you cut well it wasn't specifically for I think there was a oh there was a long list of potential art types that could have fit those four spots okay um and and what we wanted to do was just you know obviously every any archetype you add with the subclass with excuse me with the augment class system the secondary class system multiplies the amount of balance necessary by a large amount so really I think from a scope perspective we wanted to make sure that you know we're biting off not more than we could chew from a design balancing standpoint let's touch on races and this is for the Tull 'nor fans out there the players will have dials to adjust the reptilian mammalian humanoid and other attributes of their telling our character in the character crater I've been asked for two specific insects and amphibians there well I hate to say but there will not be insects or amphibians or yeah in in the Tull are spread so the way that the tall R is intending to work is you know you you have those three influences that kind of beast eale and then the reptilian and the and the humanoid features right when you select one as a base template you're going actually the toner is three races essentially and when you select one as the base template you're going to have the dials of the other two available to you so you know a beastial kind of creature that mammalian one is going to have like snout features gonna have two triangular head kind of a with the ears it's going to have fur on the skin it's might have inverted knees you know those are going to be kind of the influences at the base mesh level and then when you incorporate you know humanoid features have you dial up the humanoid bar you're going to pull the snout and you're going to take the triangularity down you're going to pull the inverted knees up a little bit more you're going to influence more skin with the hair you know that those are the types of ways you're going to change the base the base mesh appearance if you were to dial up the reptilian and the eyes are going to go more circular the head might become more circular you're going to see scaly scaly skin influences with the hair you know the idea there is to is to give the player kind of influence over that mixture of of those core races so sorry guys no insects no frogs
Jahlon: let's touch on probably the most controversial topic in ashes the corruption system hmm now it's up to the viewers to go get educated on the corruption system but the big one is why is it that a noncombatant can attack a corrupted player and maintain that non-combatant status I mean is it non-combatant mean I don't engage in combat
Steven: yeah I mean you would view the you would view the corrupted player as part of the environment and almost like a monster so to speak so from a faction standpoint you're not flagged against a member of your fellow you know non faction right instead you're killing something that is innately corrupt they've gained that corruption score so there's no need for you to be flagged what would happen from a mechanical standpoint that's just that's just the kind of you know explanation from not Laura but from a in in the world but from a mechanical standpoint what would happen is you would see groups of players of guild perhaps or party having one person go red so to speak and then whenever somebody tried to kill that red player they would flag and then there would be no penalty for the rest of that group flagging and killing the the person that tries to kill the player what we want is in the flagging system it is not impossible for you to kill other players without their consent however it is extremely detrimental and your disincentivize to do so so we're not taking away the choice of the player necessarily but we are making sentence of all penalties for gaining that corruption and part of that sensible penalty is that if they're going to go red and you want to defend yourself you're gonna have to keep gaining corruption keep gaining corruption until your soul is so corrupt that you can no longer effectively defend yourself
Jahlon: now if you're or when your corrupted in people gotta remember it's a chance the deeper into corruption you go you can drop loot your weapons your arm or not you will you can for it but who gets to scoop it the people in the fight anyone random sir by the person who delivers the kill blow
Steven: anybody can scoop it so if you if you go down while you have a corruption score depending on how much of a corruption score you have will determine what the chances of dropping the item and the potential of dropping multiple item so the idea there is that you go down you know anybody can pick up your gear now some might say well if you have friends nearby they'll just be waiting to spam the pickup and then that person doesn't lose anything well that meant that may be true but ideally what's going to happen is no there's still a great risk for somebody to decay because anybody can pick that loot up you could run by and grab it yeah
Jahlon: let's talk personal caravans I know we've talked about the node caravan system a lot do personal caravans share the same attack defend ignore mechanic as the node driven caravans
Steven: personal caravans can go beyond the driven so you have the the system-generated caravans from the nodes and or from even particular quests that can happen and then you have the personal carrots the personal caravans can go above and beyond and the reason why is because the personal caravans rely on a construction effort of pieces that create this Caravan and players can can create better priests of pieces through different professions and or artisan ship aspects so that's kind of I would equate that to like the crafted version of caravans which in which case you have best-in-class there and yeah you can you can create stronger caravans through the crafting
Jahlon: but do they still work on that attack defend ignore mechanic when you
Steven: oh yes yes
Jahlon: so is there a reward for defending a personal Caravan and if so yes who pays the reward
Steven: so the system so there's going to be advancement these that exist from a quest standpoint of has a defender or as a brigand so to speak to highwayman if you participate in one of those trees the more successful participation you gain the greater rewards and unlocks you'll have in those quest lines so there's not gonna be any way to like farm that per se you know like I mean you could create the shortest caravan like from one node to the next but those distances of the caravans and the and the successful defenses will also be measured in these paths as well so there's benefits there also the the caravan sponsor the person who certs the caravan they can list their own personal rewards for individual ever join such as a portion of the return up to a person you know number of personnel and then if you reach that limit when another person the interface message to join in the defense they won't see the reward list
Jahlon: excellent that's actually what that goes way deep into a couple of questions people had asked in the forum's today a personal Caravan can be launched from any point of storage does that include storage at your freehold?
Steven: Yes it does include storage it's a field
Jahlon: so when a caravan is destroyed it drops those redeemable certificates not the actual item where do you redeem a certificate if I launch a personal caravan from my field
Steven: so the caravan becomes a wreckage upon destruction and that wreckage is an interface of --all item that players can come up to and they can receive certificates for course with the goods inside the caravan now the idea what that certificate is that it must be taken back to the point of origin or at least a region within that port of origin actually we'll see about that last part because what there's a few things I want to test in the Alpha from a gay mobility standpoint the idea and the reason why for this is because what might happen is you may have some type of collaboration within a guild to kind of game that system right hey I'm gonna reach this caravan just to the border of the region and then we're all destroy it collect the goods and take it to you know that region's warehouse and have to skip out on the last half of the way so it must successfully reach its destination before the goods can be considered a part of that region yet
Jahlon: somebody had asked me how would you claim it from a freehold that I was like I don't know good question I don't know
Steven: you could take it to the city per se and claim it from can't claim it from a node as well you don't have to go back to that if the freehold was the origin point and there was a node nearby that freehold but still in the same economic region you could claim it back at the node
Jahlon: what happens to a personal caravan when it's destroyed do you repair it is it permanently lost is there a cool down timer before you resummon or is that something that you're still playing with?
Steven: So there's a few ideas on that some of the ideas relate to you know if you have higher grade components as part of a caravan and the caravan is destroyed in the wreckage there might be those component pieces if they survive and then players can can salvage those and use them to create you know their caravans or something on the flip side of that coin if your Caravan is destroyed as some of the other thoughts that we've had is that you'll take the you'll be able to salvage from your wreckage you personally some of the component pieces of that you put into the caravan but that's something that we're going to test a couple of those design prototypes in alphas and betas so not like that other game were four minutes and 59 seconds later your ship magically repaired itself oh that was you know that's kind of counterintuitive too I think you know when when players spend a lot of time investing in creating a ship or or organizing a raid or organizing a PvP session or whatever and you can just willy-nilly kind of repair and redeploy that creates non definitive and successful scenarios where you should be rewarded for the risk you took in attempting to win this fight and that reward should be a destabilizing loss per se to the other faction or to the other group you know that's that's kind of I think the the finality that players want to see in their you know large raid interactions that when I win I actually won something I'm just not going to see the ship come back in a minute
Jahlon: I think that's why everyone likes your stance on ships that ships can only be spawned from land so you win out in the ocean that's it the other team doesn't have a ship now that's right yeah so if you're if you're out in the ocean at droid you know it is it is actually a definitive defeat
Jahlon: let's talk notes sieges we know that the instance department building can be targeted independently during node sieges we know free hopes can be looted after a successful siege what about in node housing are there any special rules or quirks for in node housing during sieges I'm sorry give me one second I just got a document that unfortunately has to be signed before 3 o'clock so I have to sign it on streem with you with a 15 that's okay we can see the individual in the TV screen oh nice sorry guys you you only wear two major hats at a company so how dare you how dare you interrupt yes okay so repeat that question so what it is is that the instance department buildings can be targeted independently during node sieges three Holt's can be looted after a successful siege during the two-hour window what about in node housing are there any special rules or quirks during a siege or is the end node housing safe during a siege any building within a node during a siege can be damaged and when a building is damaged its services accessibility and pcs can become interrupted for a period of time there is a repair function and feature that the city and/or citizens may participate in in order to bring that building back into good standing once the stage is complete so that applies to any building including in half in housing so I'm gonna go off my script for a second because you just brought up something interesting if I don't think I can win my siege I'm running the they've managed to run the clock at me I could just run through the housing district and be just as big of a nuisance as I can I lost the siege but I'm gonna I'm still gonna miss your your your personal holdings up for sure I mean that was a valid tactic in in you know in ancient history that's right even if you didn't feel you could hold a city destroyed disabled as much of it as you could and that's kind of you know a concept that we don't want to stray too far from when it comes to our sieges in the node system is that there is a possibility that should the attackers make entrance into the city and the defenders prove not prevent them from entering that anything is you know at risk let's talk airship travel I know a lot of people are stoked about this is it going to be an instant loading screen from port to port or is it gonna be like Final Fantasy 11 where it's an actual ship ride in real time mm-hmm the goal is to have it be an actual ship ship ride in real time I think you know some of the some of the great experiences and very immersive in fact that I've had as a player is being able to see you know the world that you're playing in but from a very different perspective it can be it can be quite a fun experience and I think that's something we should try to aim for when it comes to the airship travel will people be able to see the airships overhead like moving moving around will there be the potential for events on the airship Angry avian people dragons sky pirates we talked about that I love have certain events right now that's not a part of the plan but that could be something that happens you know post-launch as a as an additional feature for an update or something alrighty speaking of pirates I know you played that other game that had really good naval content but other than a handful of monsters in the ocean it was pretty empty will it be pirate NPCs roaming the waters there are not really plans for pirate NPCs there is a lot of plans for actual creatures that are in the water the other game you know there was outside of like sea bugs there was really nothing I just that was present unless you ran past the Kraken a couple of times yeah but yeah crack in every 48 hours right yeah exactly now I think the first time that I alive sir I ran a first I think was like the first I think was like the fifth or sixth day we were the first ones to complete like a full trade ship worth of packs or whatever and we were taking it to the center island and I was piloting it and and I ran past the Kraken it killed I destroyed our trade ship and all of our packs fell to the bottom the ocean just sitting under the Kraken and we had no idea about his mechanics and whatnot so like my whole guild was down there swimming like drowning to death as we're trying to like just run over and killed about run over but that was a great experience I love that let's talk about the last blog in the the word legendary it appeared a lot and you cleared that up a little bit on the DCN podcast but do you think that the difference between legendary and legendary unique is gonna cause confusion and do you think that cheapens legendary unique a bit if it's no longer like the top hmm it's potentially yeah that could potentially be the case I would say one thing of clay Chur is that you know in our in our game design document right the GDD we have our nomenclature but it's it's possible as we do a review moving closer to alpha 2 that some of those names will change and as a matter of fact it might even be on purpose that some of the names that we reveal through talking to the community about systems and designs purposefully change so that you know this whole give-and-take on information kind of gets reset a little bit when we move into beta because I mine xed question would would you be open to the idea of a community contest to rename legendary unique to something even more grandiose no I I don't know but contest but I would say that you know as as as we approach the testing phases you may see the community will probably see some changes in the nomenclature of specific mechanic systems and/or items and things
Jahlon: let's talk about the number of abilities previous statement was the number of skills on the action bar will be contained fewer than 30 any update mmm no still still the goal right now we know that the it's gonna be 75 25% but either action tab tab action any amount you want do you have a ballpark for how many abilities a character will have to choose from
Steven: We do have a ballpark in fact we do have you know some specifically gauged out class and skill trees but you'll probably hear more about that as we approach alpha - I am - yeah when we have those actually presented in a testable format that's when you'll get info on those now there's been a lot of
Jahlon: There's been a lot of discussion of what's an action skill what's a tab skill. Unfortunately the genre doesn't have set definitions because you've got skills that appear in both action and tab games that aren't specifically targeted. How do you classify a ground targeted ability like the grimoire? Is that action or is that tab?
Steven: I would consider that an action ability. I would consider any placeable template as more action than tab. So a tab targeted ability is something that you must have a target for so in order to utilize the skill. You must have a target for the skill. That's I believe what a tab target definition is. An action, where that skill is anything that can be utilized through placement of the player, whether that be placement on a reticle placement on a ground template, a directional placement - those I consider skill-based action skills.
Jahlon: Perfect because when you're talking what is action but his tab mean ask the creative director and that's now what it means for Ashes hmm people have asked me about endow life any chance that it will restore some of the negative XP that's gained on death so there's a few there's a few resurrection abilities that will allow for augments to restore some negative x video gained we're going to test that obviously we want to make sure that it can't be gained to subvert what is intended through the flagging and negative experience systems but the idea there is to create relevance within those classes that house these types of skills and that makes sense for controlling life and death so to speak let's talk healers for one second the lifeline skill from alpha zero it did both damage and healing a lot of healers are wondering if they're gonna see a shadow priest flavor or a claw romancer from rift flavor where you're gonna be able to do your healing by doing damage is that you said earlier I just want because people begged me for this question I'm gonna I'm gonna answer it for you we're gonna find that out closer to alpha 2 right no I think that actually it safest be you know vampiric spells that create damage and as a result of that damage give some type of life steal and those will be spread out amongst a few classes
Jahlon: I think artisan classes because people want to know they want specific sound bytes for stuff you've never confirmed is their lumberjacking and tree harvesting we saw it in the notes video but you've never actually said it
Steven: I can confirm they're gathering skills yes
Jahlon: the fishermen are hoping I can reel them in something any any any nibble any nibble you want to give on fishing I think that fishing is a great vehicle for specific material gathering as well I think that you can find out chemical agents among fish that you are able to catch I think that from a sports fishing so to speak atmosphere I kind of like the duality that some other games have utilized in fishing where you know you have two forms of fishing you have more mundane fishing that can be done at like legs and smaller game and then you have kind of the sports fishing element that's done out you know deep sea kind of stuff I think that's a cool dynamic to fishing and that's something that we're trying to aim for in our system design let's talk mechanics the fog of war on the map still the plan you won't see the whole map that you'll have to actually travel places so you'll see in the most recent scientific node that there was actually components of libe the unique building that's present in that node to offer some features that address the fog of war and those other there are other features that exist with other node types that also address certain aspects of the fog of war so it's beneficial to be an active citizen within certain communities in order to avoid you know the perils of that fog of war presents from from a navigation and or exploration standpoint one thing from the blog that you mentioned locations and inhabitants of new dungeons or point of interests that sounded not only like the location of the dungeon but also maybe some sort of a bestiary because you had mentioned that the bosses are going to change their abilities based on how many metros and what types of metros so I got the mm-hmm so yes go to the library and study yes so not only is it a bestiary type of interaction with with certain unique buildings like the library but it also could potentially provide players who are very active in giving information back to the library to disseminate amongst other citizens those types of players they can receive certain buffs for a period of time should they choose to hunt or engage in a dungeon or point of interest where they know the types of monsters that await them so they can receive buffs when they engage with them that benefit kind of armour piercing and or a higher chance of landing certain you know control effects whatever they can receive those buffs from the library if they're a part of that system as well
Jahlon: One point you mentioned the idea of player made maps still in gone by the wayside not ready to talk about it so we just did a review on player made six months ago or something and
Steven: For now I've kind of I pulled that out of the design for a little bit we'll revisit that after alpha-1 and determine whether or not something that could be implemented but right now player maps for the moment are shelfed.
Jahlon: Battle maps and taverns from the mighty beard blog mm-hmm still?
Steven:like no those are still on the roadmap still in the roadmap mmm
Jahlon: let's see there's one final question because I know that we had technical difficulties but there's been a phrase I've seen in a lot of places because you know I get I go way into I put all the pieces together you've talked about castle sieges node sieges node Wars caravans but I keep finding this phrase open-world battlegrounds but it's always in after Castle sieges node sieges node Wars is open-world battleground the heading and all those things fall underneath it or is open-world battleground your reference to V there is PK options in the open world like the it's nothing safe
Steven: oh no I would say open world battle breath to the first part of that where basically these types of systems where you have objective based gameplay contained within a area that is what I would consider open world kind of battleground I know sometimes my my terminology might be different than others obviously but you know I I consider a battleground to be a location that typically used to be kind of instanced or you know within a particular zone that has an end that has an end objective for a group of players and all of those systems that you have just mentioned those those have end objectives right a lot of other games have instituted like you know guild war or systems that are just player kill count and a period I think those are those are really lackluster when it comes to strategy where you know when you have a group of players together and you're engaged in either a raid or you're engaged you know PvE events or PvP events whatever the whole purpose of rallying the troops is to come together and effectively accomplish a plan right and that plan should have some strategic elements so I wanted to move away from just a simple body count and move into you know objective based gameplay now obviously if you're going to be winning engagements you're going to have a high body count losing engagements you're unlikely to accomplish your in-game objectives but I think those are those are the those should be the integral part of any system all rightie objectives mostaza morton because i keep getting asked when people see the quotes they're like well what are what about the open-world battlegrounds and I keep saying no open-world battlegrounds is the heading all those things go underneath it and they're like but it says it I'm like okay okay I'll get it clarified and that's that's it I know we started a little late but you're running a business you're developing a game you got any final uh I'll keep you on time and you can you can leak us something tonight to make up for now I think I think I'm not gonna stay for do you have a question that's fine I know I came on like uh if you want okay then I will ask the last of the bits and pieces that I had gotten about PvP okay did be has the twenty man free-for-all stayed above the cut or is that fallen below the cut or it's still too early to know
Steven: I would say it's too early to know right now I would like to have that above the cut so we'll see and
Jahlon: then the other night you had to clear up I don't know where the the confusion came in with the community the difference between node wars and node sieges but then somebody asked the question what are the victory conditions for a node war we know that obviously a node sieges pull down their flag put up your flag but what are the victory conditions for a node war?
Steven: so the No war canoe objectives kind of depend on the type of the node the stage of development of the node and the patron guilds or societies of the node so for example if you were to have a guild that was a patron guild of a node and it was a stage 4 node and that guild had some type of building that was or statue that might have been dedicated to it within the city it's possible that one of the objectives of ending a node or would be to destroy the statue right so you could see like a Midnight Run against the city and who's ever present from a citizens standpoint would need to defend that particular statue if you had an organization like the thieves academy and they had a relic that golem successfully as part of their quest line with their with their members that relic might be situated within the Thieves Guild inside the node and it might be one of the objectives to try to steal that object and take it back to your node so like casting a you know two-minute spell on the object to secure it and then having a slow kind of can't thing on top of my head sorry my brains a little slushy today having an encumbrance that's on the they're holding the flag so to speak and taking it back to the node you know these types of of interesting kind of small gameplay loops that exist from an objective standpoint in these wars makes it interesting fluid dynamics something that is not just you know cookie cutter every time there's a war but kind of a situational on the progress of that particular node it's patron organizations and/or player run communities now you did mention something in there that that was actually my last question but you mentioned something there that on make sure we clear up because you said a midnight run but that would be for a node war that no grudges the node sieges in the castle sieges those are still at set times for the server's right time for the project of that server yeah I thought you were asking about node words I was I was but when you said when you said the night run I don't want somebody to grab this soundbite and say well sieges can happen all all day sieges are set times correct yeah so sieges are always sieges are always reflective of the server's time zone so there is a window in which a siege can't be can be declared and that window is reflective is respectful of the server's time zone and then castle sieges are set times that are also respectful of the time zones alrighty well that is a very very long list of questions I didn't I didn't shine it I didn't try to get new stuff from you because you guys that last blog you guys did was amazing don't tell Margaret I said that don't tell her I said that um I'm still busting her chops she she put her frog on the bottom of one of your comments to me so not nice yeah but anything you want to say to the community before we let you get back to work no just other than you know everybody at intrepid loves you guy cannot express enough our appreciation for you following the project your enthusiasm your support it means the world to us from a development standpoint we're here working out it's off to make you guys happy and proud and it means everything to us when we can have content creators like Jalan and all of our other concentrators and you guys who are sitting on discord our forms you know keeping up to date with with the project and where it's going you know that that support means a lot to us so we appreciate it alrighty well you get back to work and I do apologize to my chatters I did leave them a message today that said I was going to be taking questions from the chat because we spent the weekend developing questions but uh I think you're doing an interview Wednesday right I believe so I'm not sure my ID I haven't checked my schedule that far ahead usually myself I go through it a day on a day-by-day I take it and what I'm hearing from Ashes of Creation in the chat you're doing a interview Wednesday 1 p.m. Pacific with smirk right Oh submerge yes Mary so they need to make sure to get the questions I didn't get to to him there you go you take it you take care of Stephen we'll see you next time thanks guys appreciate it bye guys I do feel like I said I do apologize that I didn't get a chance to get all those questions from chat asked but I am gonna do right now as I am gonna go back through the chat I am gonna look at your questions and I will accumulate them on my side I will accumulate them on my side and I will try to get answers you guys have seen the the ashes 101 product if you guys have it be bopped over to it yet if you're looking for a lot of information we have a ton of quality content creators in the ashes community but what I recommend is the link that I just put up I will be putting up ashes 101.com as a domain for right now it just redirects to my site if you guys have any questions go ahead and ask him to me I'm retired I don't do anything all day so if you have a question go ahead and ask me I can do the legwork for you and then I'll get it incorporated into other products I did see the straw hat question come up a couple of times straw hat I am gonna get that one answered yeah you saw I was able to link you a character with a straw hat it's important to me too yeah it's important to me too so I will I will get that there no this isn't that other game you will notice that you know did not talk about we had a little bit but you got to remember Steven comes from lineage 2 he comes from it comes from our cage so wherever a creative directive creative director comes from those games are going to influence them as far as the rest like I said you guys can ask me questions direct on discord I will get them to you I will get you the answer if somebody asked me a bunch today I got them a bunch of answers and you guys are great I really do appreciate it I I want to share the story now at the end 4300 by 4300 was such an important number to me my YouTube just rolled over 4300 people Steven took a chance on me last year actually last April 21st he said Jalan I waive all the previous requirements the prerequisites for your channel size I'm making an official content creator well I wanted to double my size in one year and we did that in my community and the paradox immunity we went from twenty one fifty to forty three hundred how can you play Ashes of Creation apocalypse you can't right now it is down they are rebuilding some of the server architecture but as soon as it's up you will see it anyway guys this is my second show for the day my voice is starting to go I have children waiting to come home I didn't think you guys wanted to hear my kids yelling in the background so I will talk to you guys on the discord in just a few minutes if you guys have anything for me and then I got to start getting to work with Chaz Chaz you guys so you know the IOD has pinged me so the transcript on Stevens end is done I need to go ahead and fill in B questions side of that so she has this fingers don't break you guys take care and I will see you next time I get to do one of these hey where are you going we're not done yet see these videos this videos up here to watch you got to go over here hit the chippy subscribe to the channel check out the web page and I'll see you guys on Twitch