Talk:2022-10-14 AMA Livestream with Steven Sharif

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Intro

• 0:22

and welcome to another stream that we are bringing to you today I'm

• 0:27

super excited we had one of these last year I believe sometime before I think

• 0:34

it was before our Alpha One test that we did and I had a really enjoyable time

• 0:40

actually doing that ama because there was a lot of fun questions and obviously you know we have our monthly live

• 0:46

streams and we show a lot of things there and we try to dedicate as much time as we can at the end of those live

• 0:52

streams for Q a but obviously there's just so many questions that get asked

• 0:57

from the community and it's and it's really a great thing that you guys are so involved those of you who are tuning in that you ask these questions and you

• 1:05

give us feedback and so it means a lot to us to be able to kind of have this exchange with you to kind of answer

• 1:10

these questions but from these answers it spawns a lot of conversation in the

• 1:16

community across the forums across Reddit and it's really great for our team to kind of go

• 1:23

in and take a look and our team does go in quite often and look at the reddits

• 1:28

look at the forums you know read the threads and the responses the experiences that all of you have had

• 1:34

across different games and obviously a lot of these ideas a lot of these systems are very familiar to many of you

• 1:42

out there and you know we don't have to reinvent the wheel to make a really good MMORPG and a lot of our Concepts come

• 1:49

from the games that we've played in the past and we've kind of brought them together as many of you know in one

• 1:56

single game that is Ashes of Creation so um really excited to kind of go through this we've we've obviously as many of

• 2:03

you are aware we had a thread on our Reddit and for those of you who went and posted

• 2:09

questions there you had an opportunity to upvote the questions that you thought were most pressing or that you wanted to

• 2:16

get answers for and the community team has put together these questions in a list of 50 that you know we'll see how

• 2:22

many we get through today um but has put them together I haven't had much of an opportunity to kind of

• 2:28

look through them so I'll be answering them a bit off the cuff just obviously from my knowledge and if there are some

• 2:37

things that I can't answer of course I will say that we'll be reserving the answers for later but I don't expect

• 2:43

that we will have that issue so I have my trusty iPad here I'm going to um to take a look at some of these

• 2:49

questions and we will begin so the number one upvoted question that

Server Merges

• 2:57

was present on the on the Reddit thread um was

• 3:02

since ashes will need a healthy and active player base on each server do you

• 3:08

have a plan in place to deal with server merges um and that was asked by hybrid PS2

• 3:15

so to answer that question yes we do have a plan in place for how we would

• 3:21

want to go about conducting server merges for all of us who have played MMORPGs we're aware that over time you

• 3:30

know populations can dwindle on a particular server new user acquisition isn't usually the strongest aspect of

• 3:37

MMOs typically you see a large portion of the population start on day one and a

• 3:43

lot of MMOs suffer a bit of attrition going forward from that and of course there are opportunities to recoup the

• 3:49

population during expansions and during updates But ultimately

• 3:54

most MMOs that we've played fall into needing to have server merges now that

• 4:01

can become a little bit complicated especially when you're dealing things with things like property ownership and

• 4:07

owning homes and and having Mayors and castles all of

• 4:13

those things contribute to kind of a complication how server mergers are conducted for Ashes of Creation

• 4:20

excuse me I might cough a little bit during this AMA but I apologize in

• 4:25

advance brAshes of Creation we have also an element of World building and that's

• 4:31

how these cities obviously come up now we know that Ashes of Creation will

• 4:38

facilitate uh regionalized server locations and this means that Prime

• 4:43

Times in those regions will adhere to the associated time zone that they're in

• 4:49

and as such server merges will be conducted within those particular regions between servers that share that

• 4:56

prime time zone so that we're not mixing populations with different regions as we

• 5:01

do the merges that's one aspect of the of the merge strategy that we have is um as part of our

• 5:07

solution for Server merges in the future in addition there is something that we would

• 5:13

consider a weak and strong server when we think about pairing servers into those merges we think about how the

• 5:20

populations have progressed at the time the decision gets made to make a server merge and we would have the weak server

• 5:26

merge into the strong server depending on what that means from the player's

• 5:34

perspective of things like usernames and the ability to change those names because names are unique on a per server

• 5:41

basis there would be an opportunity for players to make name changes who are coming from the weaker server and then

• 5:48

when it comes to land ownership and property ownership the weak server that's merging into the strong server

• 5:55

there's there's two potentials there one it would be a reset on those land ownerships and and homes for both

• 6:01

servers and and they would conduct the opportunity to to re-establish their

• 6:08

ownership when that merge is complete or the alternative if there's a much stronger server then the weak server

• 6:15

would be coming in with an opportunity to make that population reacquire those those houses this is something that is

• 6:23

of course important and you guys giving feedback on on kind of the types of strategies you've seen in the past would

• 6:30

be super beneficial to comment on and talk about how you would foresee server merge is working best in ashes of

• 6:37

creation the second question that we have next up is

Milestones Before Alpha 2

• 6:43

what work or Milestones still need to be completed before Alpha 2's launch and

• 6:50

this is from judgment dismal a large portion excuse me a large

• 6:55

portion of what we are doing as you guys saw in Alpha One a lot of core systems

• 7:00

were stood up that's progression that's AI behaviors that open World

• 7:08

Tech that's distributed Services distributed servers that the ability to

• 7:14

maintain persistence to acquire and progress combat stats and the skill

• 7:20

trees nodes leveling collecting experience all that stuff we saw as

• 7:26

there was no NDA present for Alpha One so those are kind of core mechanics right and when we think about how alpha

• 7:34

2 kind of steps up further a lot of that is putting in content for those core mechanics adding additional classes

• 7:41

which of course come with different types of feature requirements on an ability system basis

• 7:47

adding content to the quest systems including events adding aspects of the naval systems the

• 7:57

professions and Gathering and artisanships you know a lot of that is is what is being worked on currently

• 8:04

towards Alpha 2's end and of course each time we have a monthly live stream we

• 8:10

show you guys progress in some of those systems a large portion of which was our combat revamp which of course has has

• 8:19

taken a lot of player feedback as we go into iteration phases for that stuff but when we talk about you know what is

• 8:26

outstanding uh work Milestones that are required for Alpha 2 much of it is

• 8:31

content because Ash's of creation intends to be a very rich content game we've always talked in the past about

• 8:37

how we combine the elements of both the theme park and a sandbox element to

• 8:42

create decisions that matter to open doors that have actual content behind

• 8:48

them as opposed to putting that kind of responsibility on player driven

• 8:53

mechanics that a lot of sandbox type games have utilized in the past so much

• 8:58

of it is content related number three

• 9:05

so the number the number three voted question how many abilities will be made or are planned to be made for each

Number of Abilities per Archetype

• 9:12

archetype and this is from Sanic explosion well

• 9:19

um first it depends on the archetype some archetypes will have some more active

• 9:24

abilities available or some less active abilities available than others it also

• 9:30

depends on combination of passives as well and how that interchanges with the

• 9:37

active skill sets and the acquisition of those skill points and distribution of those skill points that's important but

• 9:43

when we think about on average what is each archetype going to have from a um uh from an ability standpoint it's

• 9:51

roughly going to be about 35 to 40 right and of course that doesn't mean that a

• 9:56

player will have the opportunity to spec into all of those abilities you're going to have a limited selection of skill

• 10:02

points available in order to spec out your class and that's going to be

• 10:08

important because it provides not only agency to the player to kind of make those types of decisions but it gives a

• 10:13

diverse excuse me and gives a subset diversity within that archetype where

• 10:20

decisions kind of choose specialization paths within the skilled tree for that

• 10:25

particular archetype and we've talked about how you know we don't want to have

• 10:30

um what we a lot of us have experienced in other MMORPGs obsolete or not

• 10:36

utilized abilities right so we kind of keep that selection relatively Limited

• 10:44

um next question number four question I'm not sure if it's a good thing that it's number four or number one no I'm

How are you Steven?

• 10:49

just kidding um but this is a simple question how are you Stephen

• 10:56

um I'm doing great I'm doing very good you know we've we've had an awesome um year this year and we have some still

• 11:02

fun activities and streams that are planned um in October November and December

• 11:07

um and I'm looking forward a lot uh to uh I think this is our fifth year doing

• 11:14

Extra Life which is going to be next month um you know that that's always a fun

• 11:19

time um but more importantly I think you know what keeps my heart warm

• 11:26

um over these years having you know building and building games is difficult

• 11:31

um building an MMORPG is probably the most difficult type of game that you can build

• 11:37

um and our MMORPG is a particularly ambitious one so

• 11:43

um there's a lot of work that goes into it and um you know watching the team

• 11:51

work hard at creating something that they want to bring to to make you guys

• 11:58

proud to make me proud to make each other proud um it takes a it takes a toll it's it is

• 12:04

it is a difficult job um making games and um you know with

• 12:10

that being said we've built an amazing team at Intrepid and it feels very much like a family so getting up each day and

• 12:19

and going to into the office and working with you know the colleagues at Intrepid

• 12:25

um is a delight and it's something that I've thoroughly enjoyed over these years and also being able to interface with

• 12:32

you guys in the community who are fellow mmrpg lovers and enthusiasts you know

• 12:37

who have who have confidence and faith in us to deliver a product that is going to answer the call that that many of you

• 12:43

have um that is a very exciting prospect and it keeps me

• 12:49

um it keeps me very motivated so that's always great you know I just I guess I'll touch on this a point real quick

• 12:56

you know recently I've I've heard some discussion um

• 13:02

you know from different parts of MMORPG genre and audiences about

• 13:07

um you know why why follow a development process why not wait until the product

• 13:13

is complete and you know try the product then and talk about it then

• 13:18

um and I just want to stress that as consumers of this

• 13:24

product as consumers of this genre as players of MMORPGs many of us have felt that the genre has

• 13:33

gone in a direction that doesn't represent what the player base wants

• 13:39

and one of the very important aspects of our development process is that by

• 13:46

having this following of the development this interaction this opportunity to

• 13:51

provide feedback this opportunity to get a look under the hood and watch development over time and see things

• 13:57

progress and communicate with the developers and give your thoughts and opinions and experiences that's a very

• 14:05

rare opportunity for the consumer to dictate the course to a degree to

• 14:11

dictate the course of what a company or a product provider is giving you and

• 14:18

it's a rare opportunity because oftentimes these developments go for

• 14:23

years without ever touching the consumer base from a feedback perspective and the

• 14:29

opportunity to provide iterative feedback during that process is lost and

• 14:35

when the product gets completed there's not much you can do at that point other than hope to update in future expansions

• 14:42

and correct and iterate in that regard but as we know a lot of products only

• 14:48

have one chance at launching sometimes that's not the case they're of course you know there are of course examples

• 14:54

where that's not the case but the opportunity to get involved early and during development is a very important

• 15:01

consumer responsibility and I think that that demonstrating that as part of our

• 15:06

development process has brought in a considerable amount of benefit to what

• 15:14

Ashes of Creation hopes to be as a product so I want to thank you guys for

• 15:20

participating in that those of you who are watching those of you who comment those of you who interact with us on a

• 15:25

monthly basis for our live streams I know that it is it is something that

• 15:31

takes a lot of patience to watch something you've dreamed about or that you have a strong desire to play

• 15:38

and and it is something that's difficult but we really appreciate it at the studio

• 15:45

all right number five question when can we expect to see how secondary

When to Expect Secondary Archetype Demo

• 15:52

archetypes work in game from The Dictator

• 15:57

so I've answered this in the past um we will be experiencing uh secondary

• 16:05

archetypes and you will likely be seeing them very soon in some upcoming streams but you will be experiencing them in

• 16:12

Alpha 2 to some degree um this is really what makes a class

• 16:20

feel different from an archetype and to make sure we're clear on kind of what

• 16:25

that terminology differential is archetypes are the base eight versions that you select classes

• 16:32

are the combinations of the secondary archetype you select uh halfway through your leveling process and it can

• 16:39

dramatically change both the role as well as the active abilities that your

• 16:44

primary archetype provides you and so we want to make sure that Alpha 2 has a healthy amount of those secondary

• 16:51

archetype choices especially when it comes to augmentation of abilities because that is an integral role in

• 16:59

defining um what these classes represent so Alpha 2 is the answer to that

• 17:05

number six next question can we expect to get any pre-alpha spot

Pre-Alpha Spot Tests

• 17:12

tests this year or early next year and would those be

• 17:17

on NDA from lineker 180. um yes we will be having spot tests

• 17:26

um well we are technically we're already doing spot tests internally we do that uh

• 17:32

right now but we will be including spot tests with some of uh individuals from

• 17:38

the community as part of the next several months um and the those will likely be under

• 17:46

NDA and that's because there are specific core systems that are part of

• 17:51

Alpha 2 that we want to test these will be very short geared tests likely hours

• 17:57

long starting first with some portions of the community that are present from Alpha One and for Alpha two but when we

• 18:05

have uh dates uh solidified for those tests you will be receiving communication from our community team

• 18:12

and that will be through email of course to the accounts that you have registered with us and you will be made aware uh

• 18:20

well in advance of when those tests are upcoming

• 18:25

uh and to remind you of course Alpha 2 is not under NDA so when Alpha 2 starts uh that will not be under NDA

• 18:33

okay question number seven number seven top voted assuming that

Differences Between Orbs, Wands, and Spell Books

• 18:42

staffs are melee weapons could you explain briefly what are the

• 18:47

main differences going to be between orbs wands and spellbooks as magical

• 18:53

ranged weapons from lisp Plus um so

• 19:00

some staffs actually will be ranged uh interesting note um some steps will be anyway

• 19:07

um the main differences between what orbs wands and spell books represent as magical ranged weapons are going to be

• 19:13

in their weapon skill trees and it's important to note and remember that weapons themselves have their own

• 19:21

bespoke skill trees that through using these weapons will provide you passives

• 19:28

as well as proc-based type benefits that you can spec into as you are progressing

• 19:35

within your experience of that particular weapons skill tree

• 19:41

um so that's the primary difference but in addition obviously attack speed attack range

• 19:47

um different types of stat bonuses and waterfall stats that can be present on those types of weapons those are all

• 19:53

differentiators between um not just ranged weapons but melee weapons as well

• 20:00

okay question number eight what are your plans to make healing

• 20:08

skills fun deep and effective in action camera and this is actually a question I'm not

Healing Skills and Action Camera

• 20:15

going to answer it in too much detail and there's a reason for that we have an upcoming stream where we're

• 20:21

going to be talking about the cleric in Alpha 2 and demonstrating some of the abilities and gameplay from the cleric

• 20:29

and that's going to be coming up relatively soon but

• 20:34

you know what what is what makes healing fun

• 20:40

um for a lot of healers um for me personally and I play healers uh

• 20:46

often in MMOs for me personally it is almost like a little bit of a

• 20:52

whack-a-mole type of game right where if I'm in a party and I am the dedicated

• 20:58

healer in that party um I'm very conscious of obviously conserving my Mana for any Spike

• 21:05

situations that might call for me to be able to to pinch heal but I'm also kind

• 21:11

of swapping and making sure that my rotations are timed appropriately and

• 21:17

that I'm only utilizing skills from a minimal Mana perspective that I need to and I'm clicking across different

• 21:23

members of the parties to kind of heal them as they need it right so a little bit of a whack-a-mole gameplay when

• 21:30

you're thinking about how to incorporate action as part of that right you have certain types of skills that you can use

• 21:37

that are able to heal others but are more skill based such as aiming that

• 21:43

skill in a line type template or proximity based ensuring that I myself

• 21:49

em near other members of my party and that they're aware of my location and I'm aware of their location in order to

• 21:57

confer the benefit of that healing effect because it's proximity based also

• 22:02

formation based type effects for example there's a really cool skill that we just

• 22:09

began working on for the tank where you have a you have a

• 22:16

vector required for players to be within behind that tank that mitigates damage

• 22:22

in coming from a different direction so there's directional based type situations that require location of of

• 22:30

players in your party to be cognizant of those locations I think all of those

• 22:36

things lend to a compelling and engaging type of combat situation where if

• 22:44

players are heavily synchronized in their gameplay it feels really good and

• 22:49

getting off those types of abilities in in maximum efficacy is the highlight of

• 22:55

different types of combats for people right being able to achieve those things so

• 23:01

proximity based template based the ability to do more skill based type

• 23:08

abilities is one of the ways that we make the healing type class and abilities more fun

• 23:14

what do you okay now question number nine excuse me question number nine I apologize again for coughing so much

Primary Leveling Systems

• 23:20

um question number nine what do you envision as the primary leveling systems

• 23:27

or ashes from Cato Ricks the primary leveling systems

• 23:34

so that's a bit traditional um in the sense that when you are in the

• 23:40

game and you're talking about leveling your adventuring class right and that's your archetype and your secondary

• 23:46

um questing and grinding are the two ways that are primary right now of

• 23:53

course you can achieve uh experience for your adventuring class through PVP

• 23:59

through artisanship and professions through exploration uh through writing

• 24:06

but the primary methods are going to be a bit traditional in questing

• 24:11

um story arcs events as well as through grinding mobs and

• 24:19

you know when I talk a little bit about kind of what that experience entails

• 24:25

my experiences that I've enjoyed in games is where a portion of your level does require you for at least the

• 24:33

adventuring level to go out and interface with General populations or to find a group and friends and level in a

• 24:40

dungeon or in a group setting I do not personally enjoy when the entirety of a

• 24:48

level can be achieved through simply questing where you move from quest to Quest station and you just do that the

• 24:55

entire way and that will level you up to max level there's a beautiful world out

• 25:01

there in Ashes of Creation and while questing can show you some of that world there is also an element of that world

• 25:07

that is Wilderness and explorative right where by going out and grinding and

• 25:13

killing General population monsters as part of your leveling process you are

• 25:18

helping lend towards the development of civilization you're helping bring nodes up and and that unlocks additional

• 25:25

questions bus lines and story arcs and events right so there's a little bit of an equilibrium between that in a more

• 25:31

traditional sense all right question number 10 and this

• 25:38

will be the top 10 questions that were voted up what are some of the biggest challenges

Biggest Challenges Before Alpha 2

• 25:45

at this point of time before releasing Alpha two

• 25:50

now that is a good question what are some of the biggest challenges

• 25:58

well one of the challenges of course is

• 26:04

going to be the QA process right and

• 26:09

um you know we have a lot of Rapid development at Intrepid Studios which

• 26:14

means that you know we will test things and iterate on those things fast

• 26:21

um and sometimes that can be a really good thing because we get an immediate you know

• 26:27

um uh Hands-On look and feel Touch of a particular system or feature

• 26:34

and sometimes I can introduce that pace of development can introduce bugs and I

• 26:39

can introduce um just a lot of things that need to be kept track of as you're as you're

• 26:45

creating you know the game and that can be a tough process to find all those bugs and to make sure we fix those in

• 26:52

time for a front-facing or public display of the product and that's one of

• 26:57

the dual-edged swords the kind of thing of a transfer parent development process is we're wanting to get things out there

• 27:04

quickly and iterate on those so we can get feedback and iterate on that feedback and in doing so sometimes you

• 27:11

know we can have bugs that are unintended so that's one difficulty another challenge

• 27:16

um is the sheer scope of the content right there's a lot of there's a lot as

• 27:21

I said before there's a lot of content in Ashes of Creation um and that development

• 27:27

um you know is a is a big effort um and obviously we have a lot of talented individuals on the team that

• 27:33

have talked about many times in the past you've seen them we've talked about with them uh on live streams

• 27:39

um but that's a that is a big effort to create a lot of that content I would say one other element from probably a

• 27:46

technical perspective when we think about big challenges is we

• 27:51

have lofty goals when it comes to player density um and being able to have a customized

• 27:58

Network solution that handles the type of player density we want to achieve and

• 28:05

you guys saw in Alpha One as we gave you a preview of that Tech and that um

• 28:12

that Network capability through the sieges that we've done and you if you haven't seen them before you can go on

• 28:18

to our YouTube and you can take a look at some of the alpha one sieges that we had and it performed it performed well

• 28:24

it performed very good um you know a lot of the MMOs that I played in when you have over 50 people

• 28:31

in an area things don't start you know things start to get a little bit choppy

• 28:37

and I believe in alpha one we had a test with almost 300 people

• 28:44

um and I might be off on these numbers a little bit maybe it was higher than that but we had a test with over with about 300 people and it was smooth I mean it

• 28:53

was smooth there wasn't you know aside from perhaps some people in their machines and rendering right on the

• 28:59

network side it was pretty smooth those the servers FPS was good and there

• 29:04

wasn't rubber banding you know of course we had bugs every now and then that would come up but during those those sieges it was a pretty good performance

• 29:11

but it's always a challenge because you're you're creating a game in an open world and so there's not restriction on

• 29:18

player movement right anybody can move across the world and they can move into particular areas and of course we have

• 29:25

Network contingencies for how we handle when the server starts to go above what our intended density Benchmark is that

• 29:33

that we want to test both as part of Alpha 2 and moving forward but being able to achieve that high player density

• 29:39

is an integral component of what the systems designed for Ashes of Creation is in a castle Siege setting in a

• 29:47

caravan setting and Naval battles and in node sieges all of those can lend themselves towards having a large

• 29:54

portion of player density within a particular area so that's always a challenge as well

• 30:00

all right question number 11 and I apologize I you know hopefully this isn't going you know too fast for you

• 30:07

guys I want to try to get as many questions as we can um within the hour um so question number 11.

Render Distance When Out at Sea

• 30:15

how is the render distance Vision on the C and will an item like a spy glass be

• 30:22

acquirable to a uh in order to get a zoom in and this is from maisie0819

• 30:31

um so render distance on the C the character render distance is going to be similar to what the character

• 30:37

render distance is on land so that's not going to change on C what however will

• 30:43

be available to you that isn't um that isn't uh that is going to be

• 30:48

much further than the character distance is the ship viewable distance so when

• 30:54

you see other ships depending on the class and size of that ship you will see

• 31:00

them on the horizon at greater distances just from your character's view Port

• 31:05

right however when you incorporate apparatuses like spy glasses which we do

• 31:12

have available and it depends on whether or not the ship has that type of attachment both one available to it but

• 31:18

two equipped to it because these are interchangeable attachment slots that you can choose to spec your ship out

• 31:25

based on the classic vessel you have what type of attachments it can contain because of its class and then what

• 31:32

you're able to acquire as as well thank you those are going to be available to you

• 31:39

and now those will provide you more of a overview radar perspective of the

• 31:47

surrounding area around your ship and the distances of that of that radar

• 31:52

essentially will be also predicated on the class of ship and the type of

• 31:58

spyglass or type of instrument that you are using and it is important to note

• 32:05

that you have an element of what's up above the water what types of ship are

• 32:10

above the water but also as we know we have as you know we have aquatic mounts

• 32:17

also which are capable of going under the water and some of those mounts have abilities that affects ships that you

• 32:25

can acquire and as such there will be other types of tools that ships can have

• 32:31

in order to detect movement under the water as well so that's important

• 32:38

okay question number 12.

• 32:44

can we get a concrete list of professions

List of Professions

• 32:49

and which Artisan classes they belong to that is a good question

• 32:57

and the answer is yes we can get that actually let's do it live

• 33:03

I can access and tell you what those are here

• 33:09

so I'm sure the art The Artisan team is

• 33:16

likely like oh my God we're doing it live we're doing it live okay so we have

• 33:23

three types of branches that exist within the artisanship system as you

• 33:29

know we have Gathering we have processing and we have crafting and each of those as you guys know have

• 33:36

different Realms of applicability gathering of course is out in the wild it's predicated on having the available

• 33:43

tools those tools come from vendors and you need to have supporting node

• 33:50

structures in place around the world at certain levels in order to acquire certain tool sets that will allow you

• 33:56

access to higher tier gatherables out in the wild in the Gathering profession

• 34:02

we have mining we have lumberjacking or logging we have

• 34:08

herbalism we have fishing and we have hunting

• 34:14

so those are the Gathering professions in the processing we have metal working

• 34:21

stone masonry weaving tanning

• 34:26

Lumber Milling farming animal husbandry

• 34:32

Alchemy and cooking and in the crafting we have

• 34:38

weaponsmithing carpentry Arcane engineering

• 34:45

armor smithing leather working Tailoring

• 34:51

Jewel cutting and scribing a scribe

• 34:58

so is that the first time we've released I think this is the first oh okay all

• 35:05

right so uh there you go there's there there is a concrete list of professions

• 35:12

um excuse me of professions in the game

• 35:18

um and many of those will be available uh in Alpha 2 as well um and actually as as a point as a note

• 35:25

um something that we'll be collecting more feedback on

• 35:31

is there is a gameplay layer to crafting

• 35:36

and those professions that I listed for the crafting when you go to create a

• 35:42

particular item you will have the opportunity to interface with that gameplay layer and for example and this

• 35:50

is something you guys will be testing um this will be probably one of the spot

• 35:55

tests actually that's coming up before Alpha 2. uh for example if you're creating a

• 36:02

sword and you're crafting that sword you will have an interface a gameplay layer

• 36:07

that you will see and you will uh begin to hammer actually that sword into an

• 36:14

appropriate outline and your performance there can help

• 36:19

um influence the outcome of your craft in that sense now this is something we

• 36:25

especially want to give feedback or get feedback on um you know what is it like to interface

• 36:30

with that type of gameplay layer is that something desired by Crafters are designers Corey Brian Mike have done

• 36:39

an awesome job in kind of detailing out what each of these professions within the crafting Realm

• 36:46

um will utilize from a gameplay layer perspective when completing these these crafts

• 36:53

um and I think it's interesting I think it's cool uh but getting player feedback on that because this is something that

• 36:59

is a bit different than what we're accustomed to and a lot of MMOs that we played especially from the traditional Crafters perspective

• 37:05

um getting your guys's feedback on that is something that's going to be important so keep a lookout for that

• 37:11

okay question number 13.

• 37:18

laughs how many active play how many active players monthly Subs are necessary for

Active Players at Launch

• 37:25

the game to survive that's a interesting question uh and at

• 37:31

how many active players would I consider the game to be a success

• 37:37

well that is a good question um I don't have a specific number

• 37:44

um of what is necessary for the game to survive what I would tell you is that

• 37:51

we have millions of pre-registrations for Ashes of Creation and it has been

• 37:57

absolutely phenomenal to see the excitement that exists out in the

• 38:03

community and in the genre itself of of old school players Legacy MMO players

• 38:09

who have wanted to see these types of systems merged into a single title

• 38:15

um for a while now but more importantly also a dedication and commitment from a

• 38:23

company to ensure that the Integrity of the game is not broken by pay to win

• 38:31

monetization strategies or by pay to convenience monetization strategies and

• 38:37

I believe that has been a a primary motivation for a lot of

• 38:44

players to be excited about Ashes of Creation and to follow its development

• 38:50

when I think what the active player count will be on launch based on

• 38:57

forecasts and projections that we internally create that are predicated on pre-registration

• 39:05

growth on average revenue per paying user that we've acquired so far and

• 39:11

those of you who have wanted to pre-order the game um you know I believe that we will launch

• 39:18

uh with a million plus concurrent users um that is my expectation uh at at

• 39:25

almost a minimum um and to to qualify that that that projection when we think about the types

• 39:33

of titles that exist within the MMORPG genre um we can observe uh what is this almost

• 39:44

window of opportunity to present a Next Generation title that is utilizing a

• 39:50

Next Generation engine like Unreal Engine 5 that has the visual fidelities

• 39:55

that we are showcasing as part of our monthly live streams and you guys can see the quality of the artistic

• 40:01

development that our team has and that espouses the types of Design Systems and

• 40:07

philosophies that Ashes of Creation the spouses right and when we think

• 40:13

about watching at least just this year's development updates and the execution

• 40:18

behind many of those systems when we talk about the Character Creator and we

• 40:24

talk about weather and systems and we talk about combat reiteration that we've done

• 40:29

um and still what's to come this year I think many of you will agree that that

• 40:35

execution has been pretty good um and you know let's just take the

• 40:41

character creator for example it's been a goal of ours since 2017 since we first

• 40:47

launched the kickstarter to we verbalized our desire to have a Next

• 40:54

Generation MMORPG character creator something that lives up to a particular

• 40:59

standard from other games that we've seen like a you know BDO has an amazing character creator and you know that was

• 41:08

talk that was goals and it's great to kind of verbalize what those things that

• 41:13

we want to achieve are um and this year you got to see the first iteration of that character

• 41:18

creator and I think to many people surprise there was an execution there

• 41:24

um that held up to what our desires were and what our verbal goals that we

• 41:30

stipulated were um so in that regard when we think about executing on the designs and systems

• 41:37

that we've talked about for so long and we've seen as part of the the core feature set available in Alpha One

• 41:45

I believe that Ashes of Creation will be one of the most popular MMOs and that

• 41:50

belief is a healthy belief it is not a bad thing it's not over hyping you know it is you want people who are working on

• 41:58

this product to have a goal to achieve something great and when you have those goals that

• 42:06

creates pressure it creates excitement it creates motivation all of those

• 42:11

things are ingredients in the recipe for Success um so that's something that's an

• 42:18

important and healthy thing to have um so I hope that answers your question

• 42:23

okay question number 14. how far along with completion of class

Progress on Class Combat

• 42:30

combat are you is that like a percentage percentage

• 42:36

base are we going to see the Summoner cleric Mage Rogue Bard before Alpha 2.

• 42:42

yes we will see some of those before Alpha 2. um how far are we along with that classical completion well there's a lot

• 42:49

that goes into making a quote-unquote class right when we talk about what the

• 42:56

Crux of that is it's the ability system right it is creating these unique

• 43:02

abilities that have sometimes very bespoke mechanics that are involved

• 43:08

um that uh Margaret's like hey you gotta smile like I know I forget sometimes I

• 43:14

get to a little clinical when I talk about design so I apologize for that but

• 43:19

um yes so uh to answer that question a lot of it is ability system a lot of it is the combat feel the movement

• 43:27

um you know the the the weapons that you're using and we've made a lot of progress as part of defining what those

• 43:34

weapons are how they feel how they look doing implementing the actual Mechanics

• 43:40

for them uh that are present in game now um and taking what we've learned from

• 43:45

each of these and taking them on to the next class and to the next ability and we constantly are building up that kind

• 43:52

of repertoire of mechanics that are available in the ability system Keenan and Adam have done an amazing job in

• 43:59

supporting from an engineering perspective what capabilities are provided to the design team in order to

• 44:05

create these abilities but then there's a lot of art that's required to sell the ability as well it's not just the design

• 44:13

and Engineering that's necessary it's Jim and John and Matt and the VFX team

• 44:18

and the technical art teams that are accompanying the visuals and the effects

• 44:23

for those types of abilities and it's the sound effects requirement from cat

• 44:29

and her team to um you know to create that tactile feeling that auditory really important

• 44:36

component that Associates with the visuals selling those types of abilities so even when in a pipeline line you have

• 44:43

design completing what the mechanics of the ability are there is still the

• 44:48

following steps which are finalizing the visual effects for those abilities and then handing that off to

• 44:55

um to Auto to audio to to incorporate the sound effects that accompany the visual effects and before those can even

• 45:01

begin it's also animation it's also animation work that's required

• 45:06

as well because you know that that pipeline is a long one um so when we talk about how how are we

• 45:12

doing in completion um we're doing pretty good we're doing pretty good on that front you guys will

• 45:18

continue to see updates as they uh become available and are prepped for a front-facing perspective so that you

• 45:24

guys can give your feedback and we have another one that's coming up relatively soon um to Showcase as well

• 45:32

question number 15. what is the intended leveling

Travel and The Leveling Experience

• 45:40

progression experience considering node citizenship and the

• 45:46

lack of much fast travel from Landshark 10 or X sorry

• 45:54

the intended leveling progression so we know that we don't have a lot of

• 46:01

fast travel when we think about faster travel and what's available to us we do

• 46:07

have node to node travel and that starts out as land travel so essentially

• 46:16

you can visit a building within a node and you can pay a fee and you can take a

• 46:23

faster travel route across roads that we know that Vera has an ancient roadway

• 46:28

system that was present uh prior to the fall and that's utilized as part of

• 46:34

these nodes when they pop up they create connection points to these arteries these these Road arteries essentially

• 46:42

within the world and the very basic building that you'll have access to starting at a node

• 46:47

Village stage of three is to jump on one of your land mounts if you have a land mount

• 46:54

pay a fee and take a faster route to a nearby note now you can upgrade that building

• 47:03

at later stages and that can now become a flight path as well and that flight path can have longer direct connections

• 47:12

to other nodes that also have a flight path upgrade in addition

• 47:18

we have scientific nodes that when a metropolis is achieved provide within

• 47:24

Network within network of that metropolis's vassal structure the ability to teleport two nodes as well

• 47:32

so there is some faster travel that becomes available as the world progresses so the intended leveling

• 47:37

progression experience will start out different than it likely ends right when

• 47:44

the world is new when things are fresh when there's not much nodes or or development that's occurred much of your

• 47:51

experience will be localized unless you choose to spend the time and there must be meaning behind that choice I'm

• 47:57

assuming right so that travel is Meaningful when you choose to spend that time

• 48:03

traveling you can leave that locality but early in the games experience will

• 48:09

likely be very localized and as the world progresses and options become more available for you to have faster travel

• 48:16

across large swaths of land then that experience might be less localized and

• 48:21

there might be more travel towards far away lands or dungeons or points of interest in order for you to capitalize

• 48:27

on so I would trying to answer this question best the intended leveling progression is intended to be something

• 48:35

that changes over time and that's predicated on the state of the world that's

• 48:41

the best answer I can give there okay question number 16.

Nameplate Obfuscation

• 48:48

if I'm a ranger and I'm 50 meters away but I'm prone or

• 48:55

crouched you won't be able to go prone just an FYI

• 49:00

and the jury's still out on the crouched uh we're still talking about that that's

• 49:06

something that will require player feedback in a bush will my name plate be visible

• 49:13

will Ashes of Creation lessen the visibility of nameplates based on the above so the players can stalk their

• 49:19

prey um so

• 49:25

in this in a sense excuse me in a sense

• 49:30

there are ways for you to obscure your nameplate much of that

• 49:37

obscurity will come from line of sight related obstructions if I'm behind a

• 49:43

tree if I'm in a large Bush those are ways that you could potentially obstruct the visibility of your nameplate however

• 49:51

with that being said the spirit of what I believe this question is attempting to

• 49:56

achieve is the ability to reduce visibility of

• 50:02

your character and your presence within an area and in that sense because we are more traditional in the sense of the

• 50:09

number of skills that are afforded each archetype we have particular skills that

• 50:14

are intended to do just that those types of skills are things like camouflage they are things like stealth and

• 50:21

invisibility um they are things like disguises that

• 50:26

can be used to perhaps even change your nameplate and visual appearance

• 50:31

we really want to be able to leverage utility-based skills

• 50:38

in your skilled tree composition so that if you would like to spec into this type

• 50:44

of role there are particular archetypes that Excel better at those things and

• 50:50

that helps sell class fantasy right and there are really cool mechanics that you can incorporate as part of that we have

• 50:57

a lot of objective based gameplay your ability to move unseen on the battlefield is an important component of

• 51:04

objective based gameplay so I would delegate a majority of that

• 51:09

functionality you're attempting to achieve in this question outside of the realm of just in World obfuscation and

• 51:17

more into the realm of class role and class kits and yes the answer is we do

• 51:22

have those abilities okay question number 17.

Tanks and Bards in Small Scale PVP

• 51:29

will archetypes like the tank or Bard be as viable as DPS or healers in

• 51:39

small-scale PvP such as ranked arenas from gorilla

• 51:45

and I apologize but the last question was asked by legitimate device 33. and

• 51:51

if you have to say you're a legitimate device are you a legitimate device no just kidding um okay the answer to this

• 51:56

question is uh tanks and bards will be viable in PvP yes they will be

• 52:02

um and the reason for that is is the design philosophy of a rock paper

• 52:08

scissors type of relevancy across our Trinity of class systems right

• 52:14

and that is the ability for you to have opponents that you are naturally better

• 52:21

against because of the types of class composition skill compositions you have available to you in your class kit

• 52:28

um so short answer that question yes

• 52:34

um question number 18.

Ruins of Destroyed Nodes

• 52:39

if a node gets destroyed in a Siege or due to atrophy

• 52:46

um will it leave behind any evidence physical ruins NPC dialogues in other

• 52:54

towns and this is from yawa no see or yamanak

• 52:59

sorry um when a node gets destroyed uh there actually is a period of time in which

• 53:06

the node exists in a ruined state and during that ruined State the node

• 53:13

proper which is the footprint of the node and this is something new that we

• 53:19

changed a while ago but I don't think we've ever discussed yet

• 53:24

um that footprint of the node the actual grounds of the node itself this the city

• 53:32

becomes ruins with treasures inside of it and those Treasures are essentially

• 53:39

derived from certain things that the node accomplished either Through The

• 53:45

Relic system or trophies or Goods that were brought there into the warehouse or

• 53:51

can come from certain types of service buildings and those those ruins exist

• 53:57

for a number of days equal to the node level and during that time

• 54:04

it's doing a few things one it is an open PVP ground anyone who chooses to

• 54:10

enter the city proper ruins can try to find treasures in that area

• 54:17

right and it takes time to kind of dig up the treasures it takes tools to dig them up you this is something you're

• 54:23

opting into doing and during that time other players might be in the area as well and they might

• 54:29

choose to take advantage of the fact that you're there and kill you and take those things or you can take their

• 54:35

things and kill them but it's an opt-in Zone the second thing it's providing is an

• 54:40

opportunity for the nearby nodes that perhaps were prevented from advancing in

• 54:45

level due to that previous node having been there they have an opportunity to

• 54:51

kind of progress before that node pops up again as a Crossroads or as a as an encampment

• 54:58

that's another thing that it's providing um and so to answer the question shortly

• 55:05

there is evidence that's left behind in those physical ruins essentially that a

• 55:10

Siege was successful and was completed here okay question number 19. that is so

• 55:17

funny it is so funny because Margaret and I were talking yesterday and we were saying there was a list of 50 questions

• 55:25

I wonder how many we'll get through in an hour and we said we'd probably get through 20. and we're on question 19.

• 55:31

okay question number 19. when a node develops into a city if I am logged in

Viewing a Node Level Up

• 55:37

24 7 and I'm staring at the node what is it doing

• 55:43

to answer that question when a node has a level up event

• 55:49

it tells the server tells one of the managers on our server and it says Hey

• 55:55

I've reached the requirement necessary to level and when that message that notify goes

• 56:00

up the manager then says awesome we're going to spawn some system driven

• 56:07

Caravans at a nearby starting portal and we're going to send that

• 56:16

um Caravan off to the node and that Caravan is not destructible can't be destroyed it's just a visual appearance

• 56:23

right and you have this a bit of fanfare with new supplies coming you see NPCs that

• 56:29

are starting to construct hammer on the buildings there they have supplies that spawn around different

• 56:36

areas of the node and you if you're just staring at it what

• 56:41

will happen if you're outside of the node you will see an event occur where the node pops

• 56:48

into existence essentially there'll be some animations and visual effects that are associated with it and you will see

• 56:55

the new facade of the city appear if you're within the city you will be

• 57:00

teleported to a safe location likely a respawn area

• 57:07

that's near the city and you'll be able to watch as the Caravan approaches the

• 57:13

city it advances in stage and to I see that there's a question

• 57:21

um of what is a world manager a world manager is a technical term to define a

• 57:27

server process that kind of lives alongside the game server and when the game server needs to do things that it's

• 57:33

communicating with other game servers within the the grid it tells that

• 57:39

manager and that manager sends it down to the appropriate server so that's essentially what a world manager is

• 57:45

okay I think this might be our last question number 20.

How Many Skills Can We Slot

• 57:52

should I choose 20 or should I choose a good one 20 might be a good one

• 57:59

in order yeah that's true how many active skills we kind of already answered this one how many active skills

• 58:04

will we expect to be able to slot that's really up to kind of I mean it's going to be different it depends

• 58:10

um it's going to be based on how you allocate your skill points between passives and actives and how you uh

• 58:17

might invest in more active skills because those can have additional investments in them so it just kind of

• 58:23

depends a rough shot there is going to be around probably 15 to 20ish I would

• 58:29

say is is where it's going to land let me see if I will ask one more question I'm just

• 58:36

going to do a random one here real quick and this

• 58:42

will be our last one okay will there okay this is from Yin Kirby

Castle Sieges Near the Ocean

• 58:51

question number 31. if you want to bring that up

• 58:56

will there be any castle sieges in the ocean

• 59:02

Coastal nodes where ships can be involved and the answer is yes

• 59:09

there are specific casts there is a specific castle and some nodes

• 59:16

that are within range of ships

• 59:22

um now on the Node front the ships really wouldn't be involved directly in the siege assault however

• 59:29

there will be some nodes that have ownership over certain points of interests such as harbors and those points of

• 59:36

interest during Siege will have some objective-based gameplay that can be interfaced with from a naval's

• 59:43

perspective um from a castle perspective there are certain castles I believe there's just

• 59:49

one that can be affected and is intended to be affected purely by the Navy

• 59:57

um and then when you're on foot and you go into the castle that's a different story

• 1:00:03

um so that was our last question I hope that you guys enjoyed the AMA I

Outro

• 1:00:10

know that um you know getting certain questions answered um can be a lot of fun especially when

• 1:00:16

there are some updates we had some updates here I'm glad you guys were able to get a definitive profession list I'm

• 1:00:23

sure that will uh have a lot of conversation I know that Margaret and her team are going to be ready to pump

• 1:00:28

out some articles perhaps in the future for that and that's going to be kind of fun to hear you guys chat about we'll be

• 1:00:35

doing more of these again in the future especially after probably Alpha 2

• 1:00:40

another thing that's important that I want to remind those of you who are watching is that we do have an extra

• 1:00:47

Life coming up you will be getting some information about that with uh this within this month

• 1:00:53

and that date is November 5th so look forward to that we're going to have a

• 1:00:58

lot of fun it's always a lot of fun Margaret comes up with some really cool ideas to kind of torture everybody who's

• 1:01:03

at the who's at the uh who's at the the um the charity event but

• 1:01:11

once again guys I want to tell you how much we appreciate you how much we appreciate you guys tuning in and and conversing with us and giving your

• 1:01:18

feedback and being part of this development following a development journey is not for everyone that is for

• 1:01:25

sure a thing um you know we we're very excited about what we're doing we know you guys are

• 1:01:30

excited about it too that excitement is great fuel for us from a motivation standpoint as a team and it's something

• 1:01:38

we love to see every time we watch a video from a content creator or we're perusing the forums or on the reddits or

• 1:01:45

in in on the reddits on the Googles um but when we're just out there kind of

• 1:01:50

you know reading what people's response and thoughts are about our designs and ideas and and implementation and

• 1:01:56

creation of this game so um we have much love for all of you out there in in the

• 1:02:02

community and we appreciate you guys tuning in today I have a always enjoyable time answering these questions

• 1:02:07

and I'll try to jump on Discord perhaps after for this later tonight or this weekend and chat with you guys a little

• 1:02:15

bit more about some of these questions that we didn't have an opportunity to get to so if you're not on our Discord make sure you jump in there the Ashley's

• 1:02:22

discussion channel is always filled with other knowledgeable community members who can help answer any questions that

• 1:02:27

perhaps didn't get to today with that being said thank you all for tuning in I thoroughly enjoyed it and I

• 1:02:34

hope you guys have an awesome weekend and I will see you all on our next stream at the end of this month