Talk:2023-01-27 Livestream

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Raw transcript

Intro

• 00:00

Yeah.

• 00:20

Hello and welcome to our

• 00:21

glorious ashes of creation.

• 00:23

January development update.

• 00:25

It's our first stream of the

• 00:28

year.

• 00:30

Isn't that crazy?

• 00:32

That is very crazy.

• 00:34

I was just talking with you the

• 00:36

other day actually about how it

• 00:38

feels so long since we've had a

• 00:40

live stream.

• 00:42

Yes, it has been, well, it's

• 00:44

because the months, so we have

• 00:46

like a little bit of a

• 00:47

situation whenever it's

• 00:48

December and November, it's

• 00:50

like everything is so fast and

• 00:51

they're back to back.

• 00:52

And then when it gets around the

• 00:54

time for January, everything

• 00:55

feels super long because we

• 00:58

have been doing this for a long

• 01:00

time.

• 01:01

And when we were doing our live

• 01:02

stream, it was making me sad.

• 01:03

I went like the week beyond the

• 01:05

normal cadence for me and I was

• 01:07

just like something feels off.

• 01:09

Well, now you're back and

• 01:11

everyone gets to see our faces.

• 01:14

But that's not why you're here.

• 01:16

You want to see the tank.

• 01:18

You want to see some tanking and

• 01:20

some spanking.

• 01:22

We'll definitely be showing you

• 01:23

some of that.

• 01:24

We'd like to thank everyone

• 01:28

who's been watching us.

• 01:30

I was like, thanks for joining

• 01:32

us.

• 01:34

But of course, you know, as a

• 01:36

reminder, like we're here again.

• 01:38

I'm Margaret Crone, I'm your

• 01:40

director of communications.

• 01:42

I got a title of achievement

• 01:44

unlocked.

• 01:46

And then of course with me as

• 01:48

always is Stephen Sharif, our

• 01:50

creative director.

• 01:51

I hope you're doing well.

• 01:52

It's been, you missed

• 01:53

everybody.

• 01:54

They've missed you.

• 01:55

I know.

• 01:56

Yeah, I've been doing great.

• 01:58

I'm glad you're here.

• 01:59

This has probably been our most

• 02:00

productive January I think

• 02:01

we've ever had as a company.

• 02:03

A lot has happened a lot.

• 02:05

I know.

• 02:07

Especially I'm just like, it's

• 02:09

Yeah, usually sometimes for

• 02:11

studios, it can take a week to

• 02:13

get back in the saddle again.

• 02:14

But I feel like we hit the

• 02:16

ground running.

• 02:18

Day one was like, let's go.

• 02:19

Yes.

• 02:21

But I think everyone was

• 02:22

refreshed.

• 02:23

We got a lot of cool stuff to

• 02:24

show off.

• 02:25

And of course, we're working on

• 02:26

a lot of stuff that you're not

• 02:28

going to see here.

• 02:29

And we'll give a little teasers

• 02:30

of some stuff that's coming up.

• 02:31

But of course, to remind you of

• 02:33

what you're going to see today,

• 02:35

we are going to go through some

• 02:36

quick reminders.

• 02:37

They're super quick.

• 02:38

And then we have our tank

• 02:39

update.

• 02:40

We'll get right into it.

• 02:41

We know that's why you're here.

• 02:42

And then we have our character

• 02:43

art and studio update and

• 02:44

questions and answers.

• 02:46

And look at this overlay.

• 02:47

Mike Vecchio bringing it in.

• 02:49

Some new overlays for the new

• 02:51

year.

• 02:52

It's getting, you know, little

• 02:53

Ashes of Creation fantasy

• 02:55

vibes.

• 02:56

We hope that you like it.

• 02:58

Let us know what you think.

• 02:59

We always try to take the new

• 03:00

year, at least my team.

• 03:01

We do like a refresher.

• 03:02

So you'll see a lot of cool new

• 03:03

assets coming down the line for

• 03:05

all of our social stuff.

• 03:07

And I know they're working on

• 03:09

some fun things.

• 03:10

So stay tuned on that front.

• 03:12

But with that, we're going to go

• 03:14

over our comment spotlight,

Reminders

• 03:16

which I think we need to grab

• 03:19

from the thing about quick.

• 03:22

Let us see.

• 03:28

We have our cosmetic swap over

• 03:30

that's happening.

• 03:31

So I'll just remind you guys

• 03:33

that the Featherstone Royal

• 03:35

Expedition goodies are

• 03:37

available.

• 03:39

They will be swapping over soon.

• 03:40

So if you would like them, make

• 03:42

sure that you get them before

• 03:44

11 a.m. Pacific on February

• 03:45

8th.

• 03:48

And those ones I got to design,

• 03:49

which was really cool.

• 03:51

Reminder that these are kind of

• 03:52

NPCs that you'll see in the

• 03:53

world, creatures that you'll

• 03:54

see in the world.

• 03:55

They are, you know, tied with

• 03:57

the lore that we have going on,

• 03:58

which is pretty exciting.

• 04:00

And of course, we had our

• 04:02

comment spotlight, which I'm

• 04:03

going to swap over to.

• 04:04

If you would like to be our

• 04:06

comment spotlight, you can head

• 04:07

on over to our YouTube channel,

• 04:08

subscribe and leave a comment

• 04:10

on this development update.

• 04:11

So it's going to be January

• 04:13

development update, the one

• 04:14

that's titled that, which will

• 04:15

go live on Saturday.

• 04:17

But our question here, well,

• 04:18

it's not, it's a comment plus

• 04:20

question.

• 04:21

I have been wondering how you

• 04:22

will capture the storytelling

• 04:23

from a casual point of view.

• 04:27

A lot of the times where people

• 04:29

reflect on what has happened in

• 04:31

the MMO is by watching trailers.

• 04:32

Arguably, in this person's

• 04:34

opinion, one of, if not the best

• 04:36

trailers out there is the Star

• 04:38

Wars, the old Republic one,

• 04:39

where they spend tons of money

• 04:40

on capturing an audience through

• 04:42

some phenomenal trailers.

• 04:43

Are you looking to do the same

• 04:44

or what kind of trailers can we

• 04:45

expect from Ashes of Creation?

• 04:47

And this is from Actually E-Pod,

• 04:49

which, yeah, I have thoughts on

• 04:51

this, but I'll leave it to you

• 04:53

first, Stephen.

• 04:55

So, Sotor, I thought did a

• 04:56

great trailer and story and

• 04:59

voiceovers.

• 05:00

I thought all that was great

• 05:01

with Sotor.

• 05:04

You know, we're an independent

• 05:06

studio.

• 05:07

We'll start there.

• 05:08

We'll just start there.

• 05:09

With that being said, there are

• 05:11

certain budgetary requirements

• 05:13

in order to afford very, you

• 05:15

know, high-end cinematics and

• 05:18

voice actors.

• 05:19

Probably not getting a blur

• 05:21

trailer, if that's what you're

• 05:22

asking.

• 05:23

But we're going to be using

• 05:24

that money to do that.

• 05:26

Exactly.

• 05:28

And what that means is how we

• 05:30

want to implement on that front

• 05:34

is really going to be in engine,

• 05:36

in game, how we capture those

• 05:38

scenes, how we capture those

• 05:39

elements of story.

• 05:41

And the good thing is, is that

• 05:42

from a lore narrative and

• 05:44

questing perspective, we have

• 05:45

some functionality and tools

• 05:47

that we're going to be utilizing

• 05:49

to help tell the story from the

• 05:53

story.

• 05:55

And that story is derived from

• 05:57

player action, from community

• 05:59

engagement, from the social

• 06:01

interactions and decisions made

• 06:02

along these different story arcs

• 06:04

that can occur.

• 06:05

And each server is different.

• 06:06

So not, you know, spending that

• 06:07

amount of money or that amount

• 06:09

of resources on creating these

• 06:13

bespoke, very well-done

• 06:15

trailers, we would have to

• 06:17

create a lot to kind of show how

• 06:18

certain story arcs, what the

• 06:20

outcome looks like in

• 06:23

different ways these story arcs

• 06:24

can end, depending on what the

• 06:25

players do.

• 06:26

So we're going to leverage tech

• 06:28

that captures kind of at the

• 06:30

moment when something server

• 06:32

first is done in the story arc,

• 06:33

and those will be recorded on

• 06:35

these memory fragments that

• 06:38

players can collect within the

• 06:40

game through their experiences

• 06:42

and relive potentially through

• 06:44

the cinematic that would be in

• 06:46

game recorded, how an event went

• 06:47

down, how a boss was killed, how

• 06:49

a story arc ended, and how

• 06:53

that story arc ended and how

• 06:55

that story arc ended.

• 06:56

And they can collect those

• 06:57

things throughout that server's

• 06:59

life and history, which I think

• 07:01

is a really cool way to tell

• 07:02

the story of the server, the

• 07:04

history of the server.

• 07:05

I think that's super cool.

• 07:07

And that's kind of how we're

• 07:09

going to acquire it.

• 07:10

It's really going to be meant to

• 07:12

portray in-game and also based

• 07:14

on what the players did.

• 07:16

Margaret, I don't know if you

• 07:18

have thoughts on that.

• 07:19

That's more like in-game

• 07:20

cinematics.

• 07:23

We're going to be doing some

• 07:25

fun videos for Alpha 2 and Beta

• 07:27

1 and Beta 2, and of course our

• 07:28

launch is going to be a big

• 07:29

deal for us.

• 07:31

We will be doing lots of video

• 07:32

snippets and goodies that we

• 07:34

will be sharing and showcasing.

• 07:35

So we'll definitely have

• 07:37

trailers.

• 07:39

They might not be blur level

• 07:40

trailers, but we will do our

• 07:41

best to make some really sick

• 07:43

stuff that gets people hyped.

• 07:44

And we'll probably, you know,

• 07:46

from a marketing perspective,

• 07:47

advertise in some spaces in

• 07:49

order to get people excited

• 07:50

about certain content pieces

• 07:53

that we're going to be doing.

• 07:55

So we will definitely put, we're

• 07:57

saving our marketing budget for

• 07:58

the right spaces, for the right

• 07:59

places.

• 08:00

We'll be doing a lot of content

• 08:01

creator stuff, as you all know.

• 08:02

We do have a content creator

• 08:04

program that is open.

• 08:05

It's currently in application

• 08:06

phase.

• 08:07

We will let you know when it

• 08:08

switches to invitation phase,

• 08:09

which will probably be closer to

• 08:11

Alpha 2 because we, you know,

• 08:12

you kind of need content to be

• 08:14

able to make content.

• 08:16

So for us and from our

• 08:18

perspective, it makes the most

• 08:20

sense for that to timeline

• 08:23

because we have a bunch of

• 08:25

content creators who are working

• 08:26

with us, but they don't have

• 08:27

content to share.

• 08:28

Yeah, and we have a pretty good

• 08:29

budget that's been allocated for

• 08:31

marketing trailers and marketing

• 08:32

endeavors.

• 08:34

We haven't even utilized any

• 08:36

budget towards marketing thus

• 08:38

far.

• 08:39

And we've, you know, from a

• 08:40

project's perspective,

• 08:41

obviously we've garnered a lot

• 08:42

of attention because we have

• 08:43

this transparent process of

• 08:45

development where we keep you

• 08:46

guys updated on a monthly basis.

• 08:47

But as we grow closer to testing

• 08:51

launch where those marketing

• 08:53

dollars get a good return on ad

• 08:55

spend, that's when we deploy

• 08:57

those things.

• 08:59

And I think you're going to be

• 09:00

seeing just through the

• 09:01

production quality that you see

• 09:02

that Margaret and her team

• 09:03

provide on the monthly cadence

• 09:04

with our development updates,

• 09:06

that is going to be met same

• 09:07

course on the marketing side.

• 09:09

Oh, for sure.

• 09:11

Like, we will be doing very cool

• 09:12

things on, and obviously for us

• 09:14

launch is going to be really

• 09:15

exciting, especially for my team

• 09:17

because that's when community

• 09:20

is going to be really important

• 09:21

to us.

• 09:22

We're going to be able to get

• 09:24

to the service and, you know,

• 09:26

GMs and things like that so we

• 09:27

get to have a little bit more

• 09:28

fun because we get to interact

• 09:29

with you guys.

• 09:30

And we also get to utilize

• 09:31

things that you're doing in

• 09:32

game like Stephen was talking

• 09:33

about, those big moments on

• 09:34

servers where we get to

• 09:35

interact with them or maybe

• 09:36

we'll have like a news live

• 09:38

stream where we work with

• 09:39

different people from all the

• 09:40

different servers to bring us

• 09:41

information.

• 09:42

Like, we're going to do a lot of

• 09:44

cool, fun things.

• 09:46

You know, guild programs is

• 09:47

something that we've talked

• 09:48

about in the past too, which is

• 09:50

really cool.

• 09:51

And if you've seen stuff that

• 09:52

I've done at previous companies

• 09:53

in regards to that, you'll know

• 09:55

that I'm a big fan of that

• 09:56

stuff.

• 09:57

So we will have a lot of fun,

• 09:59

don't you, Larry?

• 10:01

And when it comes to trailers

• 10:02

and videos, we will have plenty

• 10:03

of them.

• 10:04

Right now it doesn't make sense

• 10:05

for us to make a ton of videos

• 10:06

because, you know, we're in

• 10:08

development.

• 10:09

We want to make sure that we're

• 10:10

not making too much content

• 10:11

where we have to keep up with

• 10:12

stuff that doesn't make sense

• 10:13

while we're heads down trying to

• 10:14

make the game.

• 10:15

Especially when those things can

• 10:16

change.

• 10:17

Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:18

Exactly.

• 10:19

And so, Larry, what is Ashes of

• 10:20

Creation?

• 10:21

Well, we need to make that game

• 10:22

first so that we can make that

• 10:24

video.

• 10:25

Yes.

• 10:26

And we need to go through the

• 10:27

iterative testing loops, which

• 10:28

is where the game can really

• 10:29

change, right?

• 10:30

That's the very most important

• 10:31

part is, you know, we have

• 10:32

well-defined systems and

• 10:35

features that we've built thus

• 10:36

far, but really how those

• 10:38

features survive and in the way

• 10:40

they survive comes after the

• 10:42

testing environment.

• 10:43

And that testing environment is

• 10:45

most applicable with a live

• 10:46

audience.

• 10:48

So, you know, our efforts, our

• 10:49

endeavors are always to work

• 10:50

towards that next live audience

• 10:51

testing, which of course is

• 10:53

Alpha 2, that we've made some

• 10:54

significant progress towards.

• 10:55

We'll have some pre-Alpha 2

• 10:57

testing, too, that we're going

• 10:58

to do to make sure that we're

• 10:59

ready to open the floodgates

• 11:00

because Alpha 2 is a lot of

• 11:01

players.

• 11:02

Yes.

• 11:03

Whereas Alpha 1 was, I mean,

• 11:04

it's a good amount of players

• 11:05

Alpha 1 was, but we want to kind

• 11:06

of make sure that we're ready.

• 11:07

I think our Alpha 2 has over

• 11:09

100,000 people that have

• 11:10

purchased into it, so it's a

• 11:11

pretty significant testing

• 11:12

environment.

• 11:13

Yeah, we were originally going

• 11:14

30,000.

• 11:15

And obviously that explodes.

• 11:16

I know.

• 11:18

Obviously that explodes when we

• 11:19

get closer to Alpha 2 testing.

• 11:23

But yes, so a lot to be said

• 11:25

there.

Tank Update

• 11:26

But I know people are waiting to

• 11:27

want to see this tank thing.

• 11:28

Yes.

• 11:29

Let's go ahead and switch over.

• 11:30

That's where we're at next.

• 11:31

We were just trying to answer

• 11:32

that question for you guys, so

• 11:34

thank you so much.

• 11:35

And with that, we'll swap over

• 11:36

to the tank, goodness.

• 11:38

So, Stephen, let's do a little

• 11:39

prefacing before people watch

• 11:41

this hour-long video.

• 11:42

I apologize.

• 11:44

I know.

• 11:46

I'm sorry.

• 11:48

I'm sorry.

• 11:49

Everyone is always aware of

• 11:50

this if you tune in, but you

• 11:51

have to be partly the messenger

• 11:53

for us with the broader

• 11:54

audience that isn't as engaged.

• 11:56

That is a responsibility of not

• 11:58

just us, but also you guys as

• 12:00

our loyal, loving, amazing,

• 12:02

beautiful, glorious followers

• 12:04

who are waiting for this product

• 12:06

to sit in your hands.

• 12:08

It's helpful if you guys comment

• 12:10

that this is a work in progress.

• 12:12

Art is a work in progress.

• 12:14

Design is a work in progress.

• 12:15

All of this stuff is meant to

• 12:18

help us make that progress

• 12:20

towards the end goal, which is

• 12:22

delivering this.

• 12:23

So keep that in mind.

• 12:24

That's a rapport that we've

• 12:25

established with the community

• 12:26

I feel really comfortable with.

• 12:27

And because of that, you are

• 12:29

going to see in this recording,

• 12:31

I had to use a few GM cheats.

• 12:36

I apologize.

• 12:38

That was what you did, Stephen.

• 12:39

What did you do?

• 12:41

I had to use some GM cheats,

• 12:43

specifically because there is a

• 12:45

particular item that I needed

• 12:47

to get.

• 12:48

We had a few bad cheats.

• 12:50

We died a few times when we

• 12:52

shouldn't have.

• 12:53

There was too many creeps that

• 12:54

we pulled.

• 12:55

We were under manned in an area

• 12:56

that was designed for eight man

• 12:58

groups.

• 12:59

So, you know, there's just stuff

• 13:01

that happens.

• 13:02

And I just want to give you that

• 13:03

up front that there's a little

• 13:05

bit of GM cheating.

• 13:06

If you see that, please take it

• 13:08

with a grain of salt.

• 13:09

We feel comfortable sharing that

• 13:10

stuff with you.

• 13:11

This isn't marketing oriented.

• 13:12

This is development oriented.

• 13:13

So you guys are getting to see

• 13:17

the tank archetype.

• 13:19

It is what it is.

• 13:21

With that being said, you're

• 13:23

going to see the tank archetype.

• 13:24

It's important to remember the

• 13:25

tank archetype, this is I think

• 13:26

it's level 12 or level 13.

• 13:28

There's a few abilities that

• 13:30

we're going to be going over.

• 13:31

The biggest thing to take away

• 13:33

here is November we showed you a

• 13:35

cleric live stream.

• 13:37

There were three big points of

• 13:40

feedback from the community with

• 13:41

regards to the cleric live

• 13:43

stream that related to combat.

• 13:46

The first one was the animations

• 13:48

from the NPCs when they're being

• 13:50

attacked.

• 13:52

It was hit visual effects on

• 13:54

impact from a weapon when that

• 13:56

weapon contacts and making it

• 13:58

feel substantive, making it

• 14:00

visually apparent that you've

• 14:01

made contact with the enemy.

• 14:02

And the last was going to be the

• 14:04

animations and the root motions

• 14:06

around the mace combat.

• 14:08

Now, Brian Ferguson did a lot of

• 14:10

work on fine tuning up that mace

• 14:12

combat.

• 14:13

I think it looks great.

• 14:14

We took a lot of that feedback.

• 14:16

It's great.

• 14:17

It feels very connected.

• 14:19

And then Jim, Matt, and John did

• 14:22

a lot of work on the hit impact

• 14:24

effects with Adam and Keenan

• 14:25

supporting on the directionality

• 14:27

of those hit impacts.

• 14:28

And then in addition with the

• 14:30

animation team, Brad Constantine

• 14:32

providing some significant

• 14:36

adaptation to the hit reactions

• 14:38

on the animation side with these

• 14:40

particular creatures that you're

• 14:41

going to see improvements on.

• 14:42

Where your point of feedback is

• 14:46

going to be on the hit impact

• 14:48

effects.

• 14:49

So those three things.

• 14:50

But in addition, talking about

• 14:52

the role, the functionality of

• 14:54

the abilities, you're going to

• 14:55

see what about the tank have you

• 14:56

enjoyed in previous games, that

• 14:58

particular role, and what do you

• 14:59

like what you see here?

• 15:00

There's some cool tech you're

• 15:02

going to see involved in this.

• 15:04

You're going to see some wind

• 15:05

force actors that get applied

• 15:06

to abilities when dealing with

• 15:07

the surrounding foliage.

• 15:08

I think that's super cool.

• 15:10

It really is immersive.

• 15:12

And of course it adds.

• 15:15

I think we've seen a lot more

• 15:17

in the background yet.

• 15:18

They happen in the morning.

• 15:20

Oh, look at that.

• 15:22

They always do it every other

• 15:24

Friday.

• 15:26

We've made it.

• 15:27

We're going to see some active

• 15:28

blocking as well.

• 15:29

I know in the past we've talked

• 15:30

a little bit about how active

• 15:31

blocking as a mechanic might

• 15:32

leverage a separate energy

• 15:33

mechanic called stamina.

• 15:35

We haven't yet really nailed

• 15:36

that down yet if we're going to

• 15:38

go that route or if we're going

• 15:39

to have active blocking consume

• 15:41

mana based on mitigated

• 15:43

additional mitigated damage.

• 15:45

That's across all classes.

• 15:46

Some classes will have the

• 15:47

ability to spec into passive

• 15:49

skill trees that might reduce

• 15:50

the cost of that mana down to

• 15:52

very, very small when active

• 15:54

blocking.

• 15:56

So it's geared towards certain

• 15:57

types of archetypes.

• 16:00

So with that being said, you're

• 16:02

going to, oh, one other thing.

• 16:03

Audio levels might be a little

• 16:05

high with combat and voices.

• 16:06

That's an issue we're going to

• 16:08

have fixed the next time we do

• 16:09

some development live streams by

• 16:11

separating out the audio.

• 16:13

We've got some new equipment for

• 16:14

Steven.

• 16:17

It will make it so my team can

• 16:18

edit a little bit easier.

• 16:19

Absolutely.

• 16:20

Right now it's like the audio

• 16:21

and the game player are mixed

• 16:22

together so we can't really edit

• 16:24

that as easy.

• 16:25

Yeah.

• 16:26

So just be aware of that.

• 16:27

But without further ado, we

• 16:29

would like to show you the first

• 16:31

look at the Alpha 2 Tank work

• 16:33

and progress archetype.

• 16:35

Enjoy.

• 17:04

Hello, everyone, and welcome to

• 17:07

another Ashes of Creation

• 17:08

update.

• 17:10

Today we are going to be

• 17:11

sharing with you a preview of

• 17:13

the Alpha 2 Tank archetype.

• 17:15

Now, I want you guys to keep in

• 17:17

mind as you're watching this

• 17:18

preview that everything is still

• 17:20

subject to change, especially

• 17:21

considering that the Alpha 2 is

• 17:23

going to give us a lot of

• 17:24

feedback both from the players

• 17:26

as well as data-driven that

• 17:28

we're going to utilize in order

• 17:30

to get the most out of the

• 17:34

game to improve the design

• 17:36

features.

• 17:37

But your feedback from this

• 17:39

video is very important.

• 17:40

And I am joined today by three

• 17:42

of our absolute glorious

• 17:44

developers, one of our

• 17:46

engineers with whom you've

• 17:47

spoken with in the past.

• 17:48

Keenan, how you doing, buddy?

• 17:50

I'm doing great.

• 17:52

Thanks for asking.

• 17:53

Welcome back again.

• 17:54

We are here at it again.

• 17:56

For those of you who watched,

• 17:57

by the way, on the live stream,

• 17:58

you saw a previous iteration of

• 18:00

this recording.

• 18:01

We're doing a little bit of

• 18:03

a preview of the game.

• 18:04

And also I just wanted to give

• 18:05

a little bit more in-depth

• 18:06

detail around the specific

• 18:08

abilities, the area that we're

• 18:09

fighting in, and the encounter

• 18:11

design.

• 18:12

But also we have with us two of

• 18:13

our glorious senior designers,

• 18:15

Brian and Trad.

• 18:16

How you guys doing?

• 18:17

Doing great.

• 18:19

Happy to be here.

• 18:20

Yep.

• 18:21

Let's do it again.

• 18:22

Ready to...

• 18:23

We got a lot of practice on

• 18:24

this by now.

• 18:25

Yes, let's do it again.

• 18:26

And this time, you know what

• 18:27

we're going to do?

• 18:28

We are going to perform

• 18:29

flawlessly.

• 18:31

There's not going to be any

• 18:33

more of that.

• 18:34

So, before we get started,

• 18:35

first, let's talk about the

• 18:37

area that we're in.

• 18:38

This is the Riverlands.

• 18:39

As many of you know, the

• 18:40

Riverlands is one of the

• 18:42

predominant areas in Alpha 2

• 18:43

that players will be exploring.

• 18:45

This was home to the once

• 18:47

ancient Aelin Empire, a human

• 18:49

race nation that was formed at

• 18:51

the apex of Vera before the

• 18:53

fall.

• 18:54

And we are here to collect some

• 18:56

gear.

• 18:57

We're going to be using the

• 19:01

Titan Bark set.

• 19:03

I believe that I am looking for

• 19:05

the remaining pieces of the

• 19:07

Titan Bark set.

• 19:09

Is that right, Brian?

• 19:10

Yes.

• 19:12

Awesome.

• 19:13

And also, there's a weapon and

• 19:15

the shield available for you.

• 19:17

Okay.

• 19:18

So, the weapon and the shield

• 19:19

are going to show us a little

• 19:20

bit of the iteration that you've

• 19:21

been working on since our last

• 19:22

livestream with the cleric

• 19:24

update, specifically around the

• 19:25

attack animations and root

• 19:27

motion for the mace and shield.

• 19:31

Yeah, and not just me, but also

• 19:33

the glorious animators and FX

• 19:35

artists, Meadow and Myers on the

• 19:37

animation side have been a

• 19:39

pleasure to work with on this

• 19:40

iteration over the past month.

• 19:42

Yeah, we all knew that the mace

• 19:44

was in a kind of rough first

• 19:46

state in the cleric livestream,

• 19:48

but took another look at it, and

• 19:49

we focused more on pose holds

• 19:52

and quick transitions and an

• 19:54

overall satisfying cadence.

• 19:55

And I think the end result is

• 19:57

pretty good.

• 20:00

Yeah, and it matches with the

• 20:02

great sword.

• 20:03

It's in kind of the same

• 20:04

universe, and I think we're

• 20:05

starting to find our rhythm with

• 20:06

weapon creation, and it should

• 20:07

be pretty straightforward from

• 20:08

here.

• 20:09

Absolutely, and a lot of that

• 20:10

feedback from the community was

• 20:11

with regards to the animation

• 20:12

hit reactions from the enemy

• 20:13

NPCs, as well as the hit effects

• 20:16

on weapon impact to make it feel

• 20:18

a bit more substantive and

• 20:19

connective, which I think the

• 20:20

VFX team and the animation team

• 20:22

has done great jobs on both of

• 20:24

those fronts.

• 20:26

And then, let me talk a little

• 20:27

bit about the setting.

• 20:30

So, before we get into what our

• 20:32

objectives are, you'll see a

• 20:34

little bit of update here on the

• 20:36

UI.

• 20:38

So, we're taking a look at our

• 20:39

new quest journal.

• 20:41

The area that we're in, we're

• 20:42

going to be heading towards is

• 20:43

called the Oakenbane Keep.

• 20:44

And the Oakenbane Keep is once

• 20:46

military academy before the fall

• 20:50

of the Aelan Empire during the

• 20:52

Exodus, and it was used to kind

• 20:54

of train up recruits, but now

• 20:56

those recruits and perhaps some

• 21:00

of the other recruits are

• 21:02

going to be sent to the

• 21:04

military academy, and we need to

• 21:05

take care of them and dispatch

• 21:07

them with haste.

• 21:09

You'll see some of the updates

• 21:11

on the itemization and the

• 21:13

inventory here with some of the

• 21:15

tool tips and icons, and also

• 21:17

you'll see a little bit of the

• 21:18

update to the world map, which

• 21:20

is still a work in progress.

• 21:21

Everything you're going to see

• 21:23

here, as I said, is a work in

• 21:24

progress that is deserving of

• 21:26

your attention and feedback so

• 21:30

that you can run through of the

• 21:32

abilities.

• 21:33

I don't want to get necessarily

• 21:34

engaged with any enemies, so I'm

• 21:36

just going to kind of use the

• 21:38

abilities without an enemy kind

• 21:40

of in my targeting.

• 21:42

Let's talk about this first one.

• 21:44

We have a shield assault.

• 21:46

Now, does this require a shield

• 21:48

in order to use?

• 21:51

I would hope so, hence the name.

• 21:52

Yes, absolutely.

• 21:54

Now, of course, I have the

• 22:00

ability.

• 22:05

I'm going to use that ability

• 22:06

without the shield, but I'm not

• 22:08

going to for the purposes of

• 22:09

this demonstration.

• 22:10

Tell me a little bit about the

• 22:11

shield assault.

• 22:12

What is its intent as an

• 22:13

ability, guys?

• 22:14

Yeah.

• 22:16

Yeah.

• 22:18

So it's got a few things going

• 22:19

on with it.

• 22:20

I would say the primary intent

• 22:21

of it is that it is how you

• 22:23

engage and encounter.

• 22:25

It's got a bit of mobility.

• 22:26

It's not like a super far charge

• 22:30

attack, but it's basically a way

• 22:32

to engage with the enemy, get

• 22:33

some damage out, and also grab

• 22:35

some threat.

• 22:36

It applies a pretty good chunk

• 22:38

of threat in a small area in

• 22:39

front of you, so it's really

• 22:40

good at grabbing snap threat on

• 22:42

some high-priority targets.

• 22:43

And it looks like that this has

• 22:45

a variable distance that's

• 22:46

traveled, so essentially if I

• 22:47

have a target that's directly

• 22:48

in front of me right now, it's

• 22:50

not predicated on having an

• 22:51

actual target, but it is a

• 22:53

templated attack.

• 22:54

And if that target is

• 22:55

immediately in front of me, then

• 22:56

the distance traveled will be

• 22:57

shorter.

• 22:58

Is that correct?

• 23:00

Yeah, that's correct.

• 23:01

Right now you're seeing the

• 23:02

full distance.

• 23:03

It's, again, a pretty short

• 23:05

range mobility skill, but,

• 23:06

yeah, you can also just use it

• 23:08

point blank on something, and

• 23:09

it's not going to make you

• 23:10

overshoot the target, and then

• 23:11

you have to reposition because

• 23:12

that can be kind of annoying

• 23:13

with some of those skill types.

• 23:14

Awesome.

• 23:15

And you said that this generates

• 23:16

threat, but I see we have a

• 23:17

second ability as well called

• 23:18

inciting strikes.

• 23:21

And if I use that ability,

• 23:22

that's a forward cone AoE attack

• 23:24

that generates additional threat

• 23:25

and damage on targets impacted.

• 23:27

Is that correct?

• 23:28

Exactly.

• 23:30

And it's a forward cone AoE

• 23:31

threat, so it's got a bit of a

• 23:32

wider hitbox, good for grabbing

• 23:34

multiple targets and cleaving

• 23:36

them all.

• 23:37

So that'll be what you'll be

• 23:39

using if, like, there's a pack

• 23:40

of stuff on us and you want to

• 23:41

just get them all off of us.

• 23:42

But not quite as much threat as

• 23:44

the shield assault for one

• 23:46

target.

• 23:48

So each of them kind of has

• 23:49

their utility there for aggro.

• 23:50

Awesome.

• 23:51

Now, obviously, as part of our

• 23:52

kit design, we want to

• 23:53

encourage synergies, especially

• 24:00

with the party, and I see that

• 24:06

we have two abilities,

• 24:07

specifically shield assault as

• 24:09

well as tremoring bellow.

• 24:10

And tremoring bellow applies a

• 24:12

status condition that can be

• 24:13

promoted if there is an existing

• 24:14

status condition on the target.

• 24:16

So it looks like I can create

• 24:18

the shaken condition, and then

• 24:21

I can trip shaken targets with

• 24:23

the tremoring bellow.

• 24:24

Is that correct?

• 24:25

It's actually a snare.

• 24:26

Oh, god.

• 24:30

There's two components to that

• 24:32

ability.

• 24:33

It's got a shout component,

• 24:35

which is a forward cone, and

• 24:36

then it's all, yeah, as you can

• 24:37

kind of see there, that shock

• 24:39

wave that flew out, it kind of

• 24:41

extends past the second element

• 24:42

of that, which is a PBOE around

• 24:44

Steven.

• 24:47

If you use that ability again,

• 24:48

you'll see kind of like the

• 24:50

ground kick up, and that's like

• 24:51

the earthquake element of it.

• 24:53

And that does damage, and that

• 24:55

does what Steven was alluding

• 24:58

to, which is that it will knock

• 25:00

enemies down, which is our trip

• 25:02

effect.

• 25:03

And one thing I forgot to

• 25:04

mention on the shield assault

• 25:05

ability is it does apply a

• 25:06

snare, so you've got a little

• 25:07

bit of insert hit synergy going

• 25:08

on there.

• 25:10

It's a pretty satisfying combo

• 25:11

to charge in and knock them

• 25:12

down at the stop.

• 25:14

Yeah, it looks pretty good.

• 25:15

And then also after that, we

• 25:17

have another ability.

• 25:19

Brian, talk to me a little bit

• 25:20

about grit and its purpose.

• 25:22

Yeah, grit is some of your

• 25:24

bread and butter mitigation

• 25:28

stuff.

• 25:30

If you're really getting some

• 25:32

heat, you'll want to pop that.

• 25:33

And if you haven't had it on

• 25:35

for a bit, you're going to be

• 25:37

generating stacks of courage,

• 25:39

and the more stacks of courage

• 25:40

you have, that'll give you

• 25:42

increased damage mitigation for

• 25:44

a certain number of hits.

• 25:46

And I notice that I'm slowed

• 25:47

when I used grit, so really

• 25:49

it's a very situational ability

• 25:51

usage, depending on what type

• 25:53

of situation you find yourself

• 25:56

in.

• 25:57

This can be activated mid-swing

• 26:00

in another ability, right?

• 26:02

Yep.

• 26:04

The way I always refer to this

• 26:05

ability is you can think of it

• 26:07

kind of like an off GCD ability

• 26:08

where you can use it even

• 26:10

though you have another ability

• 26:12

activating so that it's really

• 26:14

responsive and can be popped in

• 26:15

like an emergency.

• 26:16

You don't have to wait for that

• 26:17

animation to complete or for

• 26:19

that global cooldown to finish.

• 26:20

You just pop it in instantly.

• 26:22

It applies on and off, and it's

• 26:23

a toggled ability, so you can

• 26:26

use it to get a lot of

• 26:28

damage and get a lot of

• 26:29

disclosure.

• 26:31

Nice. Very cool.

• 26:33

And I see this Aegis is causing

• 26:35

essentially an area of effect

• 26:38

that our party members can live

• 26:41

within, and if they do, I'm

• 26:43

absorbing a portion of their

• 26:45

damage taken pre-mitigation.

• 26:47

Is that correct as well?

• 26:49

Keenan?

• 26:50

Yeah, that's right.

• 26:52

It forks some percentage of the

• 26:56

damage, but it's not the

• 26:58

party members.

• 27:00

Nice. Very cool.

• 27:01

Very cool.

• 27:02

All right.

• 27:03

Well, this kind of gives you

• 27:04

guys a comprehensive overview.

• 27:05

I'm sorry.

• 27:06

In addition to that, we have a

• 27:07

grapple, but that will require

• 27:08

a target, and the grapple is

• 27:09

missing some of the effects.

• 27:10

As I said, we're in progress,

• 27:11

but we can still use it in order

• 27:13

to kind of do certain types of

• 27:15

engagements.

• 27:17

So with that quick kind of

• 27:18

demonstration of these

• 27:19

abilities, let's see what we can

• 27:20

do to acquire that mason shield

• 27:26

as a party.

• 27:30

How cohesive can we be?

• 27:32

So I would ask, given that we're

• 27:33

low level, and just so you guys

• 27:35

are aware, because we're lower

• 27:37

level, we're about level 15, our

• 27:38

access to our class kit is a bit

• 27:40

limited, as you would expect.

• 27:41

You want to have that ramp and

• 27:42

kind of class progression, and

• 27:44

as a result, I'm going to ask

• 27:45

because we have such strong DPS

• 27:47

users here in the fighter and

• 27:49

in the ranger that you give me a

• 27:51

moment with the larger monsters

• 27:56

that are kind of a threat.

• 27:59

Let me pull this guy to us.

• 28:00

Does not compute.

• 28:02

Does not compute.

• 28:12

Oh, yeah, okay.

• 28:14

It's feeling good.

• 28:16

I love the little stream, the

• 28:18

ambient sound effects that Kat

• 28:20

has done.

• 28:22

Yeah, the stream is really nice.

• 28:25

I'm just kidding.

• 28:26

I'm just kidding.

• 28:28

AFK BRB.

• 28:29

There we go.

• 28:31

Got that knocked down.

• 28:33

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

• 28:35

All right, now as you guys will

• 28:36

see, these guys are relatively

• 28:38

easy to dispatch.

• 28:39

You probably saw them in our

• 28:40

ranger showcase.

• 28:41

These are some of the minotaurs

• 28:42

that are out in the early parts

• 28:43

of this river land area.

• 28:45

We're trying to reach the Oak

• 28:46

and Bain Keep.

• 28:48

That is the location of our

• 28:49

goodies, and the quests that we

• 28:50

have, they deserved better,

• 28:54

but we're going to have to go

• 28:56

back to the people that died

• 28:58

there, which is really sad to

• 28:59

think about.

• 29:01

Oh, my God.

• 29:03

Got him.

• 29:08

Back it up.

• 29:09

Did you pull that rain collar

• 29:10

in?

• 29:16

That was just smash in space.

• 29:20

Easy peasy.

• 29:22

What do we got up here?

• 29:23

Looks like a destroyed boat.

• 29:25

What was a boat even doing here

• 29:27

in the first place?

• 29:29

Could have been a big flood.

• 29:31

Probably.

• 29:34

Maybe we're in a drought.

• 29:41

Nice.

• 29:42

I love the effects on the staff

• 29:47

and their little bubble shield.

• 29:50

Yeah, these minotaurs are

• 29:51

awesome looking.

• 29:52

Yeah, they are.

• 29:53

I like their size.

• 29:54

Just the general size.

• 29:55

All right, looks like we got

• 29:56

somebody over here to the right.

• 29:57

Let me see if I can pull that

• 29:58

guy as well.

• 30:01

And these are more seriously

• 30:02

tuned for...

• 30:04

All right, get behind me.

• 30:09

Yeah, these guys are more tuned

• 30:10

towards that group.

• 30:11

Now, this is intended for a full

• 30:12

group.

• 30:15

Of course, we are a party of

• 30:16

four, and I am losing a bit of

• 30:20

aggro on this guy.

• 30:22

There we go, got him back.

• 30:23

Knock him down to the ground.

• 30:32

A little bit more deeps.

• 30:34

Let's see.

• 30:37

I could probably avoid that

• 30:38

other guy over there.

• 30:40

Let me grab this Echo.

• 30:43

Oh, he's coming toward us.

• 30:45

Aggro.

• 30:45

Uh-oh.

• 30:47

All right.

• 30:48

We're good.

• 30:55

Good.

• 30:56

Here we have this other one.

• 30:57

I'm going to activate some

• 30:58

shield for us.

• 31:03

Oh.

• 31:05

Oh, I'm coming down.

• 31:07

No, Manta.

• 31:09

Oh, whoa.

• 31:10

No.

• 31:12

Flawless.

• 31:14

I'm back up.

• 31:15

It's okay, that's it.

• 31:17

As long as the party up and the

• 31:18

party's done.

• 31:22

Okay.

• 31:24

Let me see here.

• 31:28

We are okay.

• 31:29

Let's get our...

• 31:30

Oh, where did you guys go?

• 31:32

We're kiting.

• 31:34

I think they're leashing.

• 31:35

Okay, okay, let's let them leash.

• 31:37

I see, um, 4GM Ferguson is here.

• 31:42

Maybe we can get him up.

• 31:45

Let's just avoid the guys to the right real quick.

• 31:48

Yeah, I think he patrolled over as you were moving up there.

• 31:54

All right, I'm going to come back.

• 31:55

Oh, there's one up there too.

• 31:56

Let's pull him back here.

• 31:57

Let's pull him back.

• 32:00

All right, going for it.

• 32:03

All right, I got the boss.

• 32:04

Just the boss.

• 32:06

All right.

• 32:08

Okay, we got just the boss, so we should be good.

• 32:13

He's on me.

• 32:15

Knock him down.

• 32:21

All right, we're going to be killing some heroes.

• 32:24

He's out of range.

• 32:29

All right.

• 32:31

I'm going to go for the boss.

• 32:33

I'm going to go for the boss.

• 32:35

All right.

• 32:37

I like the, uh, I feel like it was a pretty strong, uh,

• 32:43

damage mitigation from the RIP.

• 32:48

Yeah, especially if you build up a bit of courage beforehand.

• 32:57

Doing okay on mana.

• 32:59

All right.

• 33:00

Knock him down almost.

• 33:03

This guy should have a mace for me, right?

• 33:06

Yep.

• 33:07

Ooh, he's got the hammer of Korin.

• 33:09

Okay.

• 33:10

Looks like it has some physical penetration.

• 33:13

Of course, these stats you'll see here are not the final

• 33:16

step, I won't quite reveal that just yet.

• 33:19

But let me see if I can, ooh, okay.

• 33:21

So in the group loot, obviously there's a lot of functionality

• 33:25

here that parties have the ability to customize.

• 33:28

There can be loot master, there can be round robin, there can

• 33:32

be need, greed, pass that's applied on a per rarity basis,

• 33:37

depending on the parties' choices.

• 33:41

Some materials.

• 33:42

And now I should have the ability to use.

• 33:46

So the Lorik of Indicta Shield, that's not the shield I'm

• 33:49

looking for.

• 33:50

I'm trying to get a tower shield, but in the meantime, I

• 33:53

can use this shield, which works, I think.

• 33:57

But it's not going to be as good as the tower shield.

• 34:00

But it'll help.

• 34:01

So now let me see what happens when I use my shield rush with

• 34:04

this.

• 34:06

Nice.

• 34:07

Ooh, that felt very cool.

• 34:19

All right, stay on me, little Echo.

• 34:22

Little baby Echo.

• 34:28

Hey, look at that.

• 34:29

Not too bad here.

• 34:32

So talk to me a little bit about kind of some of the differences

• 34:36

that we had between the tank archetype in Alpha 1 and the

• 34:40

tank archetype that we will be having in Alpha 2.

• 34:43

Yeah, I can speak to that a bit.

• 34:46

So for those of you that were part of Alpha 1, where I've

• 34:50

seen some of that footage, you might have noticed that the

• 34:53

tank felt very much more like an offensive melee type,

• 34:57

something you'd almost expect more from a fighter.

• 35:00

And part of that is because we didn't really have any other

• 35:04

archetypes at that time to fill that role.

• 35:07

So you're going to notice a lot more defense and control

• 35:11

and threat mechanics on this version of the tank that you

• 35:15

didn't necessarily see as much of prior.

• 35:18

So as we've kind of already gone over a lot of the building

• 35:22

mechanics, you probably already noticed that you've got a lot

• 35:25

more reliable mechanics that you can use pretty frequently

• 35:29

to defend your party and also defend yourself.

• 35:35

And what is the type of tank role we're looking to achieve

• 35:38

with this particular class fantasy, this class kit that we have?

• 35:42

I would say we're, you know, Ashes of Creation Sink will be

• 35:46

a pretty classic one, one that tank players are familiar with.

• 35:50

And I think that's what people want.

• 35:53

We don't need to necessarily redefine what the tank is,

• 35:56

but I think we can improve it.

• 35:58

There's some things that obviously you'll have your

• 36:02

expected mechanics like threat management and generation,

• 36:07

mitigation, control, battlefield control, CC effects.

• 36:11

But then, you know, we'd also like to see more direct ways

• 36:15

of protecting your party members too, exploring just like Aegis.

• 36:19

That's just scratching the surface of that kind of thing.

• 36:24

But being able to actually actively take damage for your

• 36:28

allies that isn't just manipulating the AI.

• 36:31

Because another thing about tanks that I think a lot of

• 36:35

people deal with other games is they're pretty bad in PvP.

• 36:39

Like when threat is removed from the equation, what am I

• 36:43

doing as a tank when players just ignore me?

• 36:46

And so we want to offer more direct mechanics that force

• 36:50

even players or encourage players to attack the tank to make

• 36:54

it so that the tank can't protect their allies against you.

• 37:01

Yeah, I think, you know, traditionally I like playing a

• 37:05

combination of tank healer.

• 37:07

I mean, I've also played, of course, mages and DPSs.

• 37:11

But I like the role of kind of the control aspect, the mitigation,

• 37:16

the kind of protective nature, the ability to kind of route

• 37:20

enemies in a fashion that is most conducive to the engagement

• 37:23

of the encounter.

• 37:24

That's what I really like here.

• 37:26

So as you can see, we're making good progress here.

• 37:30

A lot better than the first round.

• 37:35

Once we get up here, I want to showcase a little bit of the

• 37:38

wind actors on this grass that you guys kind of see around us.

• 37:53

These guys are pieces of cake.

• 37:55

We're doing better.

• 37:56

We're doing better.

• 37:57

In small numbers.

• 37:58

In small numbers.

• 37:59

Yeah, we're going to have some challenge ahead of us because

• 38:02

this is a very intense area of these enemies and we're not

• 38:05

careful with the positioning.

• 38:06

We can end up with a big fight on our first.

• 38:14

Come over here, buddy boy.

• 38:15

Yeah, what you got?

• 38:23

See, sometimes when I like to play from a showcase

• 38:28

perspective, I do so in the realm of like a new player,

• 38:33

persona wise.

• 38:34

Of course, but of course I see I'm ticking for 50.

• 38:42

I don't know what that ticking for 50 is.

• 38:45

Sit for mana if you all need it.

• 38:48

Yeah, I think communal restoration or something applies

• 38:52

a hot.

• 38:53

Oh, yeah.

• 38:54

Let me sit down.

• 38:55

No, that's cleansing.

• 38:56

Oh, you're right.

• 38:57

Take a seat and get some restorative mana.

• 39:00

So you guys are going to see here ahead of us.

• 39:01

This is a pretty grassy area.

• 39:05

It's a beautiful area.

• 39:07

I'm liking it, but I want to showcase a little bit of how

• 39:11

abilities interact with the grass and with the foliage.

• 39:15

So you'll remember that we have that kind of forward shout

• 39:18

and watch what happens when I use it here.

• 39:21

Boom.

• 39:22

Oh, it's like a heart shape.

• 39:24

It's like a heart shape little a we of anger and malice.

• 39:30

I think that's a really cool touch of just like visual

• 39:34

tech that a lot of a lot of games haven't explored.

• 39:38

Absolutely.

• 39:39

It's grounded in the world.

• 39:40

Yeah, I agree.

• 39:41

It's very immersive.

• 39:43

I would like to kind of move in this direction guys kind

• 39:46

of if you want to stay close to me.

• 39:48

I'll see what we can accomplish here.

• 39:51

This way and I'm going to grab this guy over here.

• 39:59

Sit down.

• 40:03

Let me know if you see any targets moving towards us.

• 40:09

And we'll maybe approach this.

• 40:23

Let's go this way.

• 40:25

Stay close.

• 40:28

And I'm going to pull this guy over real quick.

• 40:34

There we go.

• 40:35

I think he resisted you.

• 40:37

Good.

• 40:38

He did.

• 40:39

But he is on me.

• 40:42

That means.

• 40:43

Got on it.

• 40:44

Add.

• 40:45

Okay.

• 40:46

It's okay.

• 40:47

Just stay near me if you can.

• 40:49

He peels on me.

• 40:50

I got shield up.

• 40:51

Let's focus down that one target.

• 40:53

Target's dead.

• 40:59

We'll switch over.

• 41:00

On me.

• 41:02

And knocking him down.

• 41:04

All right.

• 41:05

Good, good, good.

• 41:07

Now this is a pretty dense area.

• 41:09

That's a problem.

• 41:11

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:13

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:15

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:17

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:19

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:21

That's a problem.

• 41:24

Let me see.

• 41:25

Let me try to pull this guy one at a time.

• 41:28

Hold on.

• 41:29

Let me get people topped off.

• 41:30

Get close if you can to me.

• 41:31

All right.

• 41:32

Here we go.

• 41:34

Okay.

• 41:35

Knock him.

• 41:38

Nice.

• 41:41

Focus him down.

• 41:45

All right.

• 41:46

Nice.

• 41:52

Nicely done.

• 41:53

Nicely done.

• 41:54

Let's grab this guy right here.

• 41:56

Nice.

• 42:14

Nice.

• 42:17

The effects on these guys.

• 42:19

The animation did a great job as well.

• 42:24

All right.

• 42:25

Let's move up over to this rock area.

• 42:27

I need to sit real quick if we can sit before the respawn occurs.

• 42:32

Just grab some.

• 42:33

Yeah, just line of sight.

• 42:36

It's a beautiful zone.

• 42:39

Serene.

• 42:40

I know.

• 42:41

I couldn't even hear the sound of the birds.

• 42:43

There's so many ghosts and shades in this area.

• 42:46

It's kind of sad.

• 42:47

Now, I believe in this particular Okanbaen keep area,

• 42:54

there used to be these old magnificent kind of essence-ridden trees,

• 43:00

but they were all harvested to produce kind of magical artifact-y items,

• 43:08

and now only one remains, which Lord Okanbaen himself guards.

• 43:12

All right.

• 43:13

I think I'm good.

• 43:14

Let me grab this guy here.

• 43:15

I'm just going to body pull him.

• 43:17

Come on, buddy.

• 43:18

There we go.

• 43:27

Okay.

• 43:30

You guys finish him off.

• 43:32

I'm going to grab the next one.

• 43:40

Okay.

• 43:40

I'm going to knock the boss as well.

• 43:42

I'm going to activate my grit.

• 43:45

Try to focus the little dude first.

• 43:51

I'm going to try to knock the boss down.

• 43:56

I'm going to put up a shield just in case you need it.

• 43:58

Oh, I went down.

• 43:59

Cool down.

• 44:00

I went down.

• 44:02

I'm coming back up.

• 44:03

I'm coming back up.

• 44:07

Knock him down now.

• 44:10

Trying to drop some aggro.

• 44:23

Trying to get him off.

• 44:36

Nice job.

• 44:38

Keep it up.

• 44:39

Almost.

• 44:41

Boom.

• 44:43

Not bad.

• 44:44

Only one death.

• 44:45

Yeah, that wasn't too bad.

• 44:46

It wasn't too bad.

• 44:47

We got a tower shield now.

• 44:49

I need that, of course, as the tank.

• 44:54

You get all the loot this run.

• 44:55

Yay.

• 44:56

It is the tank showcase.

• 44:57

It's the tank run.

• 44:58

All right.

• 44:59

Let me put on this glorious tower shield, and let me compare it, actually.

• 45:03

Oh, I can't compare it.

• 45:06

There we go.

• 45:07

I'm loving it.

• 45:08

That is a true tower shield.

• 45:10

Now, I'm, of course, to having a medium-sized tower shield as a dwarf in most tabletop RPGs that I play so that I just have complete cover against my enemies.

• 45:20

But this isn't bad either.

• 45:22

I like it.

• 45:23

It's very polished metal.

• 45:27

Yeah, it fits with the armor from this area.

• 45:34

Yeah, I like this.

• 45:36

That's nice.

• 45:38

Now, we have how many more bosses are in here?

• 45:44

We have a couple of legions and a chest piece.

• 45:46

Now, we really, in that live stream, did not perform well against the main boss dude.

• 45:51

But again, this is an area intended for eight people with pots and other supplies that we don't necessarily have access to.

• 46:02

I'm going to knock them down into one.

• 46:07

Yeah, like a lot of other classic inspired MMOs, you can still do it with lower numbers.

• 46:13

It's just going to take a while.

• 46:15

You've got to be more careful.

• 46:16

Yeah, and tell me a little bit about our decisions around allowing content to get experienced by lower level players.

• 46:23

What type of safeguards do we put from power leveling or twinking?

• 46:28

Obviously, we adjust experience based on level differential between the target enemy and the group.

• 46:38

How do we do that?

• 46:43

Obviously, we take the difference in the party max level and the party's lowest level.

• 46:49

Those things can indicate the modifier that is applied to incoming experience based on the number of participants within that party.

• 46:59

Those help safeguard those things.

• 47:04

We're all coming.

• 47:06

Oh, god.

• 47:08

In addition to that, we also have experience bonus for grouping up.

• 47:17

That's pretty cool.

• 47:19

It's higher and higher the more people you have in your group to really encourage those full groups.

• 47:25

Yes.

• 47:27

Obviously, the way that we designed the encounter for these types of areas is that certain monsters will have certain types of strengths and weaknesses.

• 47:37

Those, of course, will correlate to certain types of class kits.

• 47:40

Some areas might be more beneficial for you to kind of experience versus others.

• 47:44

A big role in that non-solo gameplay, of course, is going to be group composition, right?

• 47:49

Yeah, that's one thing I really love about our diverse class kits that we have available to us in Ashes.

• 47:56

The diverse content that comes along with that, right?

• 47:59

An optimal group for one area might involve three or four ranged DPS,

• 48:03

but another area you might want to stack fighters for all the CC that they can bring.

• 48:08

Different groups for different areas.

• 48:21

Easy.

• 48:24

How far? Oh, we have to go just up this way, right?

• 48:28

Just up here and around the hill.

• 48:30

Yeah, that's a good idea.

• 48:34

And then the other area is on some ruins in the back.

• 48:43

Come on over here, buddy. Come on.

• 48:47

Hey, Tread, can you change the loot rules to drop the rarity from what it's at right now, like one level, so that greens are rollable?

• 48:55

Oh, good call. Good call.

• 48:58

Hold up, Steven.

• 49:01

All right. Stand by. Tank is standing by.

• 49:05

I'm saying what? Need a grid?

• 49:09

Yeah, yeah.

• 49:11

So, common and uncommon, need a grid.

• 49:15

Look at this party. So powerful, so strong, so diverse.

• 49:22

Oh, voting change, huh? What do we got here?

• 49:26

I will accept that.

• 49:30

Accept.

• 49:34

All right. Let's see here.

• 49:38

I really love that system, by the way, the voting to accept loot change rules.

• 49:43

Oh, you don't like the ninja party loot change?

• 49:47

You have to trust your group leader.

• 49:49

I know. You mean reputation, right?

• 49:52

Hey, I was in this group and a ninja changed the loot right before the boss go. That guy's on our KOS list.

• 49:58

It creates conflict. It's a good thing.

• 50:00

Soft friction.

• 50:03

It's going to be funny whenever they try to do that in our game and then the vote window pops up.

• 50:07

I know.

• 50:12

I love the lightning attack on this guy.

• 50:16

Oh, whoops, guys. I accidentally went into my settings and changed some very deep stuff. Whoops.

• 50:23

Oh, no.

• 50:25

Whoops, totally an accident.

• 50:27

I had no clue and it just happened before this legendary drop. I don't know how that was possible.

• 50:35

We call those ninja looters.

• 50:40

I don't know. This kind of impacts on my ranger fantasy.

• 50:44

Aren't you all about nature and being one?

• 50:49

Oh, yeah, yeah, but also loot.

• 50:51

Oh, but also loot. I think that's the road.

• 50:56

Definitely rangers. I feel like rangers and rogues sometimes are the same people.

• 51:01

Just a ranged rogue.

• 51:05

Pretty much.

• 51:07

To me, sometimes the ranger is always the first that's like, huh, this engagement isn't looking so hot.

• 51:14

Let me use the advantage I already have from a distance to kind of leave here.

• 51:17

Okay, hold on. I'm going to grab this guy.

• 51:20

Like he's about to do now.

• 51:22

No, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't a dangerous situation.

• 51:29

Look, it's survival of the furthest.

• 51:32

Nice.

• 51:33

Nice.

• 51:35

I like that. Survival of the furthest.

• 51:41

All right, let's go kill this guy over here first. I think he has leggings. Yeah.

• 51:47

I'm going to grab this guy. Get over here.

• 51:56

I do like the old school feel of carefully navigating through the space.

• 52:01

Oh, absolutely.

• 52:02

Trying not to pull too many things at once.

• 52:04

Oh, yeah. I'm not about that lawnmower combat at all.

• 52:08

Yeah, Jeremy, Doug, and their teams did a really good job on the encounters here.

• 52:13

Yeah, that can be a problem when you move into an area and it's just like overwhelmingly dense.

• 52:19

And sometimes those areas you like are happy if there's other parties that are nearby and you're like, okay, cool.

• 52:24

You're keeping the spawn rate down for me a little bit.

• 52:26

Oh, we got somebody here. Oh, God. Let me see if I can actively block that. Boom.

• 52:31

What's up, buddy? What's up?

• 52:32

Nice.

• 52:32

Let's go get skills.

• 52:37

I'm just going to take that one. I need some mana.

• 52:40

I want to get them to shoot me again. Boom.

• 52:43

I'd like to explore like a block thing where if you time it perfectly, you get an additional bonus.

• 52:48

Oh, that would be great. Like a kind of almost Gears of War where you have that active reload.

• 52:53

The engineer in me is now crying.

• 52:58

We'll have to be somewhat a little forgiving for it, but I've been playing Valheim lately and it's really fun to do their perfect block.

• 53:05

I'm feeling it. I'm feeling that block.

• 53:07

And it's just so good with the sound effects that are associated with that cat did on that bolt. Oh, it feels so good.

• 53:13

Okay, it looks like we're grabbing two. Let me get Agro on the boss first. I'm going to need some heals.

• 53:18

We'll focus the add.

• 53:19

Yeah, you guys focus. I'm just going to build up hate here on the boss. You guys focus down that add.

• 53:28

I'll try and keep you both up.

• 53:30

I should be good. I have my grit active and I have my active block. You just keep Keenan alive. He looks like he's taking some damage.

• 53:36

Working on it.

• 53:39

He's almost down.

• 53:45

How dare you? How dare this guy?

• 53:50

Crucial coming up.

• 53:54

How dare him? The arborist Historia.

• 54:01

That was way more.

• 54:03

Knocked him.

• 54:05

Let me pull him over here a little bit. Come on over, buddy. Come on. Come to me.

• 54:11

Crucial coming up again.

• 54:12

Pulling him.

• 54:19

Knocking him.

• 54:21

There we go. Let's go. Let's go.

• 54:28

Easy.

• 54:32

Nice. What has he got? Titanbark leggings? Sweet. We're almost there.

• 54:37

I need that, of course.

• 54:40

I need Nate.

• 54:43

All right. We handled that guy with ease. Maybe we'll be okay with the Lord Okunbeng.

• 54:48

I think if we just clear carefully, we'll be fine.

• 54:51

Let's keep on clearing. I'm going to pull the left side first.

• 54:57

Standby. Standby.

• 55:00

I would pull him back over here because we'll have mobs on both sides of you.

• 55:04

Let's go over here, actually. Let's go to the right.

• 55:08

I don't know if I can. I think they're socially aggro.

• 55:11

I'm just hoping I'm not going to...

• 55:15

I would do it now because the other one is patrolling away.

• 55:18

There we go. Okay. Oh, God. We've got three. Just stand behind me. Let me roll it up.

• 55:23

Don't go yet.

• 55:27

Don't go yet. Hold on.

• 55:30

All right. You guys can go now. Focus one target.

• 55:37

Putting a shield up.

• 55:42

I don't think we want to stand in that because then we just get hit by cleaves.

• 55:47

Knocking. Oh, my God.

• 55:50

All right. Yeah. Don't stand in that.

• 55:52

One on me.

• 55:54

Dread, keep yourself up. I'm okay for a little bit.

• 56:01

Okay. Dread's almost down. Okay. Good.

• 56:05

I'm down. All right.

• 56:10

Get yourself back up.

• 56:13

Get up. Get up.

• 56:20

There we go. There we go.

• 56:25

There's another one near you.

• 56:27

Yeah, don't back up any further. Come back this way.

• 56:30

Almost.

• 56:36

All right. We got him.

• 56:39

Yeah, three of those guys is tough.

• 56:41

That's a lot. That's a lot for a party of four.

• 56:44

Adds. I know. I did.

• 56:46

Okay. We got one add.

• 56:47

Two in the back.

• 56:48

Did you hear that?

• 56:51

Of course the ranger would say that.

• 56:53

I'm still alive.

• 56:59

I'm going to focus the echo.

• 57:04

Now we've talked about this in the past, but the active blocking might be an ability that it's universal.

• 57:14

It's universal, but it might be consuming mana and you'll be able to adjust that mana consumption based off of your passive spec into your skill trees.

• 57:23

In addition, it might also consume stamina. That's something we're going to be testing as part of Alpha 2.

• 57:29

Sorry, sometimes when I talk I don't get it.

• 57:38

All right. Let's move up.

• 57:42

Should we go up to the left?

• 57:43

Yeah. Let's go up to the second at the top.

• 57:47

Yeah. Let's take this guy.

• 58:05

I'm going to have to get some mana after this.

• 58:14

Nice. All right. Maybe we can just sit right here for a second.

• 58:18

Just looking down. Oh, there's the tree.

• 58:22

The tree in all its glory.

• 58:27

It's beautiful.

• 58:31

I think Scott Allen did that one.

• 58:36

I wonder what kind of wood it gives.

• 58:41

That's a good question.

• 58:44

Only one left and you want to chop it down.

• 58:48

I feel like I'm having – are we having an earthquake?

• 58:52

Like my table's moving.

• 58:55

I'm going to get some sleep, Steven.

• 58:57

I know, right? Oh my God.

• 58:59

Time for all of us to get some sleep.

• 59:01

I know. All right. I'm going to pull this guy up here and stand by.

• 59:17

Okay. We're doing good there.

• 59:19

Keep focusing him.

• 59:20

I'm going to grab this next dude.

• 59:27

Sit down.

• 59:36

Very dangerously close to a resident on the left.

• 59:40

All right. All right.

• 59:42

I think he's moving away, so we're good.

• 59:49

That's perfect.

• 59:52

All right. So after that guy –

• 59:56

I think we should clear all three of these, to be honest.

• 59:59

Yeah.

• 1:00:01

Watch the angle on the pole.

• 1:00:03

Don't want to pull in front of Oak and Bane.

• 1:00:05

He does a big AOE, so we're going to have to spread out,

• 1:00:07

and then we're going to aggro if we do that.

• 1:00:09

Okay. Stand right here on me in this position.

• 1:00:13

Don't deviate from this one. Hold here.

• 1:00:16

And then let me see if I can grab this echo first.

• 1:00:23

And if I can – there we go.

• 1:00:26

I've got the boss.

• 1:00:27

Okay. I'm going to grab the boss.

• 1:00:28

You guys kill the echo.

• 1:00:29

Yeah.

• 1:00:30

Take the boss back to his room.

• 1:00:32

Okay. Stand by.

• 1:00:34

Don't attack that boss.

• 1:00:36

All right. Good.

• 1:00:43

Oh, God. It hurts. It hurts.

• 1:00:49

All right. I've got the boss on the ground.

• 1:00:51

Keep keening up. Oh, God.

• 1:00:53

I'm trying.

• 1:00:55

I'm holding the boss down.

• 1:00:56

No, I can't keep up with the –

• 1:00:58

Okay. I'm good. Ignore me now.

• 1:01:00

Oh, man.

• 1:01:01

Oh, so close. I'm going to knock him down.

• 1:01:04

All right. Good, good, good. We're good.

• 1:01:06

Dropping the chains.

• 1:01:09

Nice.

• 1:01:14

Oh, thank God for this active block.

• 1:01:17

Knocking him.

• 1:01:21

All right. Holding aggro.

• 1:01:24

I'm going to pull him inside of his mausoleum

• 1:01:27

where he should be laid to rest appropriately.

• 1:01:30

Come here. Follow me into your final resting place, Lord Oak and Bay.

• 1:01:38

Oh. He didn't like that.

• 1:01:42

Oh, he's going to sleep.

• 1:01:44

Shh. Just go to sleep. Go to sleep.

• 1:01:47

Do it.

• 1:01:49

Rest.

• 1:01:50

It's happening.

• 1:01:53

I commit you to the ground, Lord Oak and Bay.

• 1:01:59

Well done, ladies and gentlemen.

• 1:02:02

That was a good fight.

• 1:02:03

That was good.

• 1:02:04

I'm grabbing my need on the Titan Bark chest plate.

• 1:02:10

And now it is time to reveal the glory of our pursuits.

• 1:02:17

I am going to equip said things.

• 1:02:35

Oh, it looks so good.

• 1:02:38

Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:39

It looks so glorious.

• 1:02:42

Jelly.

• 1:02:43

How's our art team so good?

• 1:02:45

I know.

• 1:02:46

The art team is unbelievable.

• 1:02:47

I mean, really.

• 1:02:48

They're just so good.

• 1:02:50

Well, everyone, I hope you guys enjoyed this brief demonstration of our Alpha 2 preview for the Tank archetype.

• 1:02:59

Of course, as we said, this is all a work in progress.

• 1:03:01

There are many things that will change.

• 1:03:03

Testing is very important.

• 1:03:04

Your feedback is incredibly important.

• 1:03:07

Make sure that you leave all commentary possible within the YouTube video on our forums, on our Reddit, on Twitter, everywhere possible.

• 1:03:14

We always take that stuff very seriously, and we iterate upon it, as you've seen between November's livestream and this month's livestream.

• 1:03:21

I hope you all enjoyed it.

• 1:03:23

Keenan, Trad, Brian, thank you very much for joining us.

• 1:03:27

And we will see you all next time.

• 1:03:31

Cheers.

• 1:03:32

Cheers, everyone.

• 1:03:33

Well, we hope that you guys enjoyed that.

• 1:03:47

We will have some of that video playing in the background.

• 1:03:50

I know that there's a lot of questions.

• 1:03:53

I tried to grab some of them as best I could.

• 1:03:56

But of course, we won't get to everything today.

• 1:04:01

But if you have any other questions for us or if you have thoughts, which I see a lot of thoughts from you all.

• 1:04:08

We have a couple threads up, one regarding tanking and one regarding UI and looting.

• 1:04:13

So if you have thoughts on those things, definitely go give us a feedback over on our forums, forums.ashisofcreation.com.

• 1:04:19

We super duper appreciate it.

• 1:04:20

We put a lot of reports together for our developers, and then we present those and we discuss them.

• 1:04:24

And a lot of the times, we're all on the same page.

• 1:04:27

We're already thinking those things.

• 1:04:28

So I'm going to go through some of the things that you guys had questions about here, which is first and foremost, there were a lot of concerns about threat.

• 1:04:36

A lot of people didn't understand how holding threat works because you were holding threat at some point.

• 1:04:42

I know.

• 1:04:43

I know.

• 1:04:44

Well, it's important to remember that these previews are done at a very low level, right?

• 1:04:49

So these are low-level skills and abilities that the archetypes have available to them.

• 1:04:54

And so because of that, some of the functionality from these abilities, they don't necessarily perform as well as you would want them to in a later stage of the game for that role.

• 1:05:07

Now, also keep in mind that balance is a perspective that needs to be incorporated also.

• 1:05:15

So threat is generated based off of a few factors.

• 1:05:18

It's based off of damage done.

• 1:05:19

It's based off of healing done.

• 1:05:21

It's based off of threat generation modifiers that are on abilities.

• 1:05:27

Now, the tank in this situation, I believe, has two abilities that are going to generate additional threat.

• 1:05:34

They have the number two ability, and then they also have the shout ability.

• 1:05:43

Both of those are creating additional threat.

• 1:05:45

But with that being said, we need to tune probably those abilities up a little bit to contend with the DPS that's coming both from the Ranger and with the heals that are coming out of the cleric.

• 1:05:56

All right.

• 1:05:58

And the next questions here are in regards to blocking and dodging.

• 1:06:03

Will all classes be able to have active blocking?

• 1:06:06

And then also, can you active block without a shield?

• 1:06:09

Because mostly we only saw you doing that when you got the shield afterwards.

• 1:06:14

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:06:16

So active block will not be as performant in mitigating the incoming damage with weapons that aren't using a shield.

• 1:06:23

However, you will be able to active block with that currently as it stands in the design.

• 1:06:27

And then the other question about active block was, I'm sorry.

• 1:06:30

It was the shield one, and the other one was will all classes get active block?

• 1:06:35

So it's like can you active block without a shield?

• 1:06:37

Oh, so you can active block without a shield, and all classes can active block.

• 1:06:41

But it's not a universal ability at the moment.

• 1:06:45

And then are there iframes in dodges when you're dodging?

• 1:06:50

We aren't using iframes for dodging.

• 1:06:52

However, we are toying with the idea of a dodge increasing certain stats that are opposed to checks,

• 1:07:00

such as accuracy versus evasion, and potentially boosting mitigation

• 1:07:07

by spec into certain passives that augment their dodge ability.

• 1:07:11

And then there were a lot of questions regarding UI stuff.

• 1:07:16

But yeah, I'll start with the performance thing, which was people were saying that it was really cool

• 1:07:21

seeing the grass get knocked down and stuff like that.

• 1:07:24

But people are worried about GPU drain, and they were curious if they'll be able to toggle that off.

• 1:07:30

Yeah, so there's a lot of bells and whistles that are intended on the client rendering side

• 1:07:36

for these types of features that players will have the ability to scale up or down or off from a performance perspective.

• 1:07:46

And then I think people are wondering if this video is with UE 5.1,

• 1:07:53

because we've been talking about the fact that we are going to be swapping over to that.

• 1:07:56

Right.

• 1:07:57

No, our 5.1 is not scheduled to be complete until probably another week or two.

• 1:08:03

We're moving over to that.

• 1:08:05

Cool.

• 1:08:07

And then we have UI stuff, which is, will there be an auto-loot option?

• 1:08:12

A lot of people saw that you were manually looting things, and they were curious if there would be an auto-loot,

• 1:08:17

or they could have some kind of pet that would auto-loot for them.

• 1:08:20

No, not a pet that can auto-loot.

• 1:08:22

However, we are toying with the idea on the interact of double tapping or some other type of keystroke input

• 1:08:29

that would not require you to interact with the loot container itself, but would just grab everything off of it.

• 1:08:35

Especially if there's multiple loot piles within a proximity radius,

• 1:08:38

it would have to be very close proximity radius.

• 1:08:41

You could double tap to interact with all those and pull them in.

• 1:08:44

And then there were a lot of thoughts on the nameplates and how it's kind of hard to tell mobs versus your party

• 1:08:50

because everything was like red.

• 1:08:51

I know their nameplates aren't complete yet, but I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about the direction of where that's headed.

• 1:08:56

Yeah, so nameplates really actually require a big refactor on our end that we haven't done yet.

• 1:09:03

However, that is something that TechArt and engineering, as well as our UX UI team,

• 1:09:09

are going to be doing over the course of probably the next month to month and a half.

• 1:09:14

It's a big refactor both from performance reasons, how we're going to be able to occlude those nameplates

• 1:09:19

with in-world obstacles in line of sight, as well as prioritizing and clamping their sizes and distances

• 1:09:28

that need a bit of a refactor and of course their visual appearance.

• 1:09:33

So that's work that's still outstanding.

• 1:09:35

And I think that kind of ties in line with being able to tell whether an enemy is in a lead or not

• 1:09:42

and also just kind of different types of mobs.

• 1:09:45

Yeah, that's general UX treatment of the nameplates that's going to include, which has already begun a little bit,

• 1:09:51

but is going to include, as you said, those indicators like resistances, buffs that are present,

• 1:09:57

whether they're elite or not, they'll have probably a star format to indicate that with their hit point allocation.

• 1:10:05

There's a lot of treatments from a UX perspective that needs to be included in the artwork.

• 1:10:09

Is their power level over 9,000? That's the question.

• 1:10:12

Right.

• 1:10:12

And then of course we have, will bosses look different than regular mobs?

• 1:10:17

Or is this kind of just a placeholder to show that, hey, the boss in this area is a little bigger than the other ones,

• 1:10:24

but they kind of look similar?

• 1:10:26

Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:27

So it kind of depends on the types of bosses we're talking about, right?

• 1:10:30

We have regional, we have hunting ground, we have elites, we have mini bosses, we have dungeon bosses, we have raid bosses.

• 1:10:38

There's a lot of different types of creature types.

• 1:10:41

And these in particular are more really elite spawns for this location.

• 1:10:46

They're not really probably considered bosses because they can be handled by a single party.

• 1:10:50

But the rare spawns obviously have a longer respawn time.

• 1:10:54

And so sometimes you'll see that they're scaled up from a size perspective,

• 1:10:59

but most of the time you're going to see if it's a named mob that it's going to have a unique character appearance.

• 1:11:05

And then will there be range indicators for abilities?

• 1:11:09

So, for instance, like if I have ability that can be used within X amount of meters,

• 1:11:15

can I kind of see that as I'm using it versus just hitting it and then seeing that it does it?

• 1:11:23

You mean from like a...

• 1:11:27

Like if I have a grapple that has like a range of 60 meters, right?

• 1:11:33

Can I see that distance a little bit more obvious?

• 1:11:36

It depends. If it's a targeted ability, the indicator when targeting will tell you,

• 1:11:43

great out or not, that the ability can be used based on distance.

• 1:11:47

If it is a templated ability, which means it's a skill kind of skill based use,

• 1:11:52

you'll need to get a feel for those distances.

• 1:11:55

And that's kind of some skill based learning where you get an idea for what those distances are.

• 1:12:03

Some of those will have template indicators, but they'll be very in world and immersive.

• 1:12:10

We're not utilizing more UI centric looking indicators,

• 1:12:15

but generally the AOE templates are meant to be kind of skill based.

• 1:12:20

And then when it comes to tanking, will it be primarily the tank archetypes that will be able to tank?

• 1:12:28

Or can other people tank?

• 1:12:30

No, I mean other people can tank. It really depends on the setting, right?

• 1:12:35

If we're talking like high end rating or done engineering

• 1:12:39

and playing in these areas that require a main tank,

• 1:12:43

that role and responsibility lies to the tank archetype.

• 1:12:46

Now, tank archetypes can obviously take secondary archetype selections

• 1:12:49

and they can hybridize across different roles.

• 1:12:52

That'll give them a bit of horizontal utility or horizontal progression to the augment system.

• 1:12:59

And the best tanks are going to be the tanks that double down in that role.

• 1:13:04

But the game here is agency, player agency and providing that kind of unique build options.

• 1:13:13

People want to use a wand and a shield, Stephen.

• 1:13:15

Right. Well, I don't know about a wand and a shield.

• 1:13:19

But yeah, no, it's something that is intending to allow players to have agency over that.

• 1:13:25

And for those of you wanting to hear more about augments and stuff,

• 1:13:28

we'll be talking more about that in the future. So stay tuned.

• 1:13:31

And then also people are wondering about how are you designing encounters around active blocking?

• 1:13:35

Will it be situational use or what I expect to be laying on my block keybind for most of the fight

• 1:13:42

to prevent getting deleted by bosses?

• 1:13:44

Kind of like they're wondering if the gameplay,

• 1:13:46

because obviously seeing the gameplay right now it's in its core loop,

• 1:13:49

which is a little bit more simplistic.

• 1:13:51

Absolutely. Yeah, it depends really on the type of adversary you're facing.

• 1:13:56

Some of them are going to have indicators or tells that a big attack is coming.

• 1:14:01

It's an animation windup where you'll have an opportunity to use active block

• 1:14:06

in very unique situations that are based on timing

• 1:14:10

and mitigate additional mitigation for those incoming one-off attacks.

• 1:14:14

In other occasions, you'll be able to use it off of rotational cooldowns

• 1:14:19

or if you're waiting for a particular ability or, you know,

• 1:14:22

during the use of your Aegis, right?

• 1:14:27

There's different situations for when active block is a relevant use case.

• 1:14:32

Yeah. And of course, we are still in development.

• 1:14:35

There's many things that will be changing along the way.

• 1:14:37

So if you follow the journey and if you've been following us so far,

• 1:14:40

you've probably seen some very strides in what we've done,

• 1:14:43

especially from Alpha 1 to moving towards our Alpha 2.

• 1:14:47

But I think I'm going to wrap up the questions here.

• 1:14:48

I know there are some forum questions that we'll do in the Q&A section.

• 1:14:52

I just wanted to grab a few that were, I noticed were pretty vocal in the chat.

• 1:14:56

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:14:57

There were a lot of comments about Stephen's gameplay.

• 1:15:00

So I do want to comment on that real quick, though.

• 1:15:03

Just so you guys are aware, you know, I do take a certain persona

• 1:15:09

when kind of showcasing this because, again, it is intended for an audience

• 1:15:13

that's not core per se, but sometimes might be tuning in for the first time

• 1:15:17

and seeing what the development of the game is all about.

• 1:15:19

And, you know, it's much more fun to be kind of a participant in that exploration

• 1:15:25

rather than a recipient of knowledge and information

• 1:15:28

if you're seeing it for the first time.

• 1:15:30

So there's a bit of duality in kind of that streamer-esque persona.

• 1:15:34

However, with that being said, what I want to do with this particular video

• 1:15:40

is I want to upload a 4K version of it after the stream,

• 1:15:43

but I'm going to rerecord it because of the audio issues that we had,

• 1:15:47

and I'm going to be a bit more descriptive and definitive in the demonstration

• 1:15:51

so that, you know, we can try that and see how that feels.

• 1:15:55

But I would say that that'll take probably a couple of hours or so.

• 1:15:59

All right.

• 1:16:00

And we'll use some of our other equipment that we have now, which is exciting.

• 1:16:04

So with that, we're going to head on over to look at character goodies.

Character Art Update

• 1:16:09

I always love the character art updates.

• 1:16:11

Character art updates.

• 1:16:14

So first and foremost, we have some really neat Cyclops goodies,

• 1:16:19

which if you've been following along with us,

• 1:16:22

you've probably seen that we are going to be showcasing some Cyclops action.

• 1:16:28

And we've shown a little bit of the Cyclops over the months,

• 1:16:33

if you've kind of gone back and look.

• 1:16:35

But now we're showing you the weapons that are getting 3D modeled,

• 1:16:39

which looks very cool.

• 1:16:41

There's a variety of Cyclopses.

• 1:16:43

Cyclops-I? Cyclops-y?

• 1:16:46

What's the Cyclopses?

• 1:16:48

What's the plural?

• 1:16:50

Cyclop-I?

• 1:16:52

But we have some really cool looking.

• 1:16:56

Yeah, those look great.

• 1:16:58

Who modeled these?

• 1:17:00

These ones were modeled by a variety.

• 1:17:02

So the spear is Chris, and then Manny did the staff, the mace, and the shortbow.

• 1:17:06

Love it.

• 1:17:07

Looks great.

• 1:17:08

I wrote them down this time so I don't forget.

• 1:17:10

Yay.

• 1:17:12

I was like, Stephen's going to ask, and I need to have the answer.

• 1:17:17

Next up we have the tank and hammer that you saw, or the tank and hammer,

• 1:17:23

the sword and hammer that you saw.

• 1:17:25

The tank and hammer.

• 1:17:26

Stephen playing with the tank.

• 1:17:28

Wow.

• 1:17:30

In Alder glory.

• 1:17:32

Quite beautiful.

• 1:17:35

And then I got a little teaser for you.

• 1:17:37

Teasing something that's coming up.

• 1:17:40

But this is called, well, it's like our shield, our carfen shield.

• 1:17:44

That's not the full name of it, but that might tease a little bit of what might be coming.

• 1:17:48

Oh, carfen.

• 1:17:50

Carfen.

• 1:17:52

And Danny worked on this one.

• 1:17:54

Looks great.

• 1:17:55

Looks very good.

• 1:17:57

And then we've got, you guys have seen the Najash being worked on quite a bit,

• 1:18:03

but this one is the enforcer model.

• 1:18:06

Looking pretty cool.

• 1:18:08

And then we actually have the 3D turntable for the shaman,

• 1:18:13

which I believe we showed the shaman model in work in progress previously.

• 1:18:18

But now you're seeing.

• 1:18:20

Love it.

• 1:18:21

The 3D one.

• 1:18:22

It's sick.

• 1:18:24

Some snake people.

• 1:18:26

And then you also see their staff, which is awesome.

• 1:18:30

I can't wait to see the animations for these.

• 1:18:33

Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:34

I loved seeing the animated armor today with like their little, their lightning zap thing.

• 1:18:39

That ability looks so cool.

• 1:18:42

And then we've got the boulder stone bulldog, which Jinsei worked on.

• 1:18:51

I love his little face.

• 1:18:53

I know.

• 1:18:54

He's like a ram and a doggo had a baby.

• 1:18:57

Yeah.

• 1:18:58

And he's a mount.

• 1:19:00

He's a bull goat.

• 1:19:01

And bull goat.

• 1:19:03

And bull ram.

• 1:19:05

Very cool.

• 1:19:08

And then we've got the oak stout.

• 1:19:14

I can't wait to see the animations.

• 1:19:17

I know.

• 1:19:18

They're going to be awesome.

• 1:19:21

It's utterly adorable.

• 1:19:24

And I know I'm the worst.

• 1:19:27

And then we've got our risen guardian,

• 1:19:30

which is just disgustingly awesome.

• 1:19:34

That's nasty.

• 1:19:36

Nasty.

• 1:19:37

This is the mount that you want to ride into battle to scare your enemies.

• 1:19:44

Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:45

It probably has like just an aura of rotting flesh.

• 1:19:48

You need to make some will saves or fortitude saves when you get near it.

• 1:19:52

Imagine the stench.

• 1:19:55

This is where we need like smell-o-vision.

• 1:19:58

I'm just kidding.

• 1:19:59

And then we have some new stuff for you for Vec hairstyles.

• 1:20:04

So brace yourselves.

• 1:20:06

It's pretty awesome.

• 1:20:08

So we're going to start with the Vec.

• 1:20:10

This is a short hairstyle, a little knobbin.

• 1:20:14

Love it.

• 1:20:16

So good.

• 1:20:23

I like the second ponytail that's going forward.

• 1:20:29

And then we've got the reverse ponytail.

• 1:20:32

The mohawk plus some beard action.

• 1:20:36

Nice.

• 1:20:38

Did we grab some reference images from Ryfy?

• 1:20:43

I don't have some reference images, but Ryfy does have a sick mohawk.

• 1:20:49

He's one of our producers.

• 1:20:54

And then we've got the long beard, which kind of reminds me of Zach's beard a little bit.

• 1:21:02

Zach, yeah.

• 1:21:03

But like more scruffy.

• 1:21:07

And then, you know, we got to rep.

• 1:21:09

We got to have the ladies.

• 1:21:10

So we have a short hairstyle for our Vec ladies.

• 1:21:15

We will have many, many, many hairstyles, homies.

• 1:21:18

So do not fret.

• 1:21:20

These are just a few we're showing for the Vec.

• 1:21:25

And I think this next one's my favorite, but it's the long pony for the Vec.

• 1:21:32

Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:33

That one's cool.

• 1:21:34

I can cosplay this one.

• 1:21:35

I can't wait to see the physics, the physics sim on that.

• 1:21:38

Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:39

People are going to be like, that better not be going into my clothing.

• 1:21:42

Good luck with that, animators.

• 1:21:44

And that is the wonderful character art update.

• 1:21:50

And always they do so many amazing things.

• 1:21:52

We can't show everything.

• 1:21:53

We'd be here all day.

• 1:21:54

But we do like to take bits and pieces that are really cool.

• 1:21:57

And we do want to keep some things as surprises.

• 1:22:00

So with that, we're going to swap over and do a little Q&A from the forums.

Studio Update

• 1:22:06

If you submitted your questions, thank you so much.

• 1:22:08

We super duper appreciate it.

• 1:22:11

Actually, Stephen, do you want to do a quick studio update before we do Q&A?

• 1:22:17

Yeah, no.

• 1:22:18

January has been an awesome month so far.

• 1:22:22

Like I said, we started off pretty quick.

• 1:22:25

We have some pretty ambitious hiring goals for this year.

• 1:22:34

And I think you guys last year in the community

• 1:22:39

have helped us spread awareness for the studio and for the project

• 1:22:43

on all the socials.

• 1:22:45

And of course, we've seen, as most of you are aware,

• 1:22:50

some turbulent times in the tech industry in general,

• 1:22:53

as well as across the games industry specifically.

• 1:22:56

Intrepid Studios is hiring.

• 1:22:59

We can be a resource for those individuals who have been impacted

• 1:23:02

by those recent layoffs.

• 1:23:03

And our heart goes out, of course, to all of them.

• 1:23:06

If you know anyone who's been impacted, direct them to IntrepidStudios.com

• 1:23:10

where we have all of our current jobs postings listed

• 1:23:13

and make sure that they know there's going to be updates coming

• 1:23:16

over the course of the next 30 to 60 days for additional positions

• 1:23:20

that will be listed as well.

• 1:23:21

And of course, if you don't see a position listed there

• 1:23:23

or you know of someone who you think would be a great fit

• 1:23:26

for the team and the project, you can direct them to just send in

• 1:23:29

their resume, even without a position listed.

• 1:23:33

So that's going to be good.

• 1:23:35

And then in addition, there's a lot of feedback that we need

• 1:23:42

and that we share with you guys, especially in these updates.

• 1:23:45

And the community team does a great job at collecting that feedback.

• 1:23:48

So make sure that you guys are posting and giving us all your thoughts

• 1:23:51

because that stuff is very important, especially as we get into this year

• 1:23:55

specifically, where we have a lot of things planned.

• 1:23:59

A lot of things.

• 1:24:00

A lot of things.

• 1:24:00

A lot of things are happening.

• 1:24:04

With that, we will go to our Q&A.

Outro and Q&A

• 1:24:06

I was looking through my run of show and I was scrolling down.

• 1:24:09

I hit the button on the overlay and I was like, oh, no.

• 1:24:12

But with that, we will chat a little bit about the Q&A.

• 1:24:17

So the first question here from our lovely forum folks is from Symex.

• 1:24:21

We have a few that are actually tank related.

• 1:24:23

So thanks, guys.

• 1:24:24

You kept everything a little bit on topic and then we have some that are not.

• 1:24:27

So we will start with the tank ones since we got it on our mind right now.

• 1:24:31

The first one is about damage mitigation.

• 1:24:33

Should a skilled tank be able to prevent all damage to their party

• 1:24:36

or should there be situations that no matter what your skill,

• 1:24:40

the party will take some damage?

• 1:24:42

Yeah.

• 1:24:43

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:24:44

There is a few ways that that gets accomplished, both from an ability creation

• 1:24:49

perspective with regards to the class kits and what they are capable of doing,

• 1:24:53

but also in the encounter design and how we want to structure the AI

• 1:24:57

and behavior tree of our monsters not to be very simplistic in their engagement.

• 1:25:02

So that is important.

• 1:25:05

It's cool to, as a tank, have some control over the encounter,

• 1:25:11

but it's also not cool if the control creates an entirely predictive gameplay loop.

• 1:25:17

So with that being said, we want to introduce that element of chaos

• 1:25:26

because that makes things kind of fun and reactive

• 1:25:30

and reactive gameplay is skill based gameplay and that's a good thing to have.

• 1:25:35

All right.

• 1:25:36

And the next question is from Immortality.

• 1:25:39

This is about general tank play.

• 1:25:41

Will tanks have some form of stances to swap between that increases damage

• 1:25:46

dials at the cost of defenses?

• 1:25:49

Yes.

• 1:25:50

So those are some hybridization options that should be available as part of the class kit.

• 1:25:55

They can be further expanded upon with access to augment systems

• 1:25:58

and depending on your secondary class choice.

• 1:26:00

But again, the idea here is player agency.

• 1:26:03

So we don't prescribe what that class fantasy or class role is.

• 1:26:07

There's a lot of directions that players can take as part of that agency

• 1:26:10

and that comes down to how they compose their skill trees.

• 1:26:15

All right.

• 1:26:17

And then we've got damage and aggro from Super Waffle Fry.

• 1:26:22

I like that name and it's making me hungry.

• 1:26:24

Tanks need to do two things, mitigate damage and hold aggro.

• 1:26:28

How will tank weapons, shields and armor balance these two dynamics compared to other gear sets?

• 1:26:36

Well, I think it does so in a few ways.

• 1:26:39

I mean, obviously stack composition and your itemization choices are important,

• 1:26:43

making sure you're driving up your constitution-based stat allocation

• 1:26:48

through selection of certain set bonuses and or stat modifiers.

• 1:26:52

But in addition, a big portion of that is not just through itemization,

• 1:26:55

but also through your skill tree selections.

• 1:26:59

And, you know, they don't have to be diametrically opposed.

• 1:27:02

The ability to kind of garner additional threat is predicated on your rotational selection

• 1:27:09

and how you are leveraging certain types of set bonuses that are catered towards that role specifically.

• 1:27:16

So some set bonuses will have specific very targeted benefits like additional threat generation.

• 1:27:22

But in addition, you know, if you're going to mitigate damage,

• 1:27:25

you need to make sure you're focusing on your health pool.

• 1:27:27

How much health pool do you have available to you?

• 1:27:29

What type of damage are you mitigating?

• 1:27:31

Because we have different types of damage mitigation from magic to physical.

• 1:27:34

And that's predicated on who your opponent is, where your adversary lives.

• 1:27:38

You know, both of those are viable strategies.

• 1:27:42

All right.

• 1:27:43

And then we have Orbificator, and they want to know about being unkillable.

• 1:27:47

Will I be able to fulfill my fantasy of having a ridiculously large health pool

• 1:27:52

at the cost of other attributes?

• 1:27:55

You will have significant agency over the allocation of your stat progression.

• 1:28:01

Yes.

• 1:28:02

Some of that will be baked in based on the archetype selection.

• 1:28:06

But a large portion of that will come down to your itemization selection,

• 1:28:09

your selection of tattoos and other ancillary types of augments

• 1:28:12

and or benefits you can apply to specific items such as socketing.

• 1:28:15

But generally, if you want to make a very con-heavy HP-focused tank, you can do that.

• 1:28:24

All right.

• 1:28:26

The next one is PvP gameplay.

• 1:28:28

And this one's from Nice Gaming, but not spelled like nice.

• 1:28:31

What steps are being taken or considered to make the tank archetype viable in PvP engagements?

• 1:28:40

Well, there is a whole host of things that are taken.

• 1:28:46

It's important to note that in a lot of MMOs that probably many of us have played,

• 1:28:50

PvP can feel like a slapped-on design consideration.

• 1:28:55

And our approach is very holistic in the sense that we take into account the fact

• 1:29:00

this is a PvX game.

• 1:29:02

So when we're designing the class kits, we are making sure that mechanics and designs

• 1:29:07

are targeting applicability both in PvE settings as well as PvP settings.

• 1:29:13

That's very important.

• 1:29:16

There are also special mechanics like how threat is used in PvP,

• 1:29:20

how taunts are used in PvP.

• 1:29:23

Those things, I think, require testing.

• 1:29:26

But we have some ideas that will make them relevant so that you don't have abilities

• 1:29:31

that have no relevancy in PvE or PvP but have some cross-application.

• 1:29:38

All right.

• 1:29:40

And then we've got the off-tanking.

• 1:29:42

And this is from Sago.

• 1:29:44

And they want to know how will off-tanks remain useful in raids or dungeons

• 1:29:48

when they don't need to tank for a specific fight?

• 1:29:52

There's a few cases in which off-tanks, of course, are relevant.

• 1:29:59

I mean, when you're fighting in a dungeon, you have the occasional adds that come in

• 1:30:03

where the primary tank might be focused on keeping your party's target aggroed

• 1:30:12

and the off-tank has the ability to kind of hold aggro on adds

• 1:30:15

until the main tank is finished with their target.

• 1:30:18

In addition, you have certain types of abilities like taunts that are immediate redirects on threat

• 1:30:25

without having to acquire or accrue the appropriate threat to hold that aggro

• 1:30:29

that can utilize those taunts situationally based off of the threats that are appearing to the party.

• 1:30:36

There's a lot of, I mean, there's a broad scope of applicability

• 1:30:42

that applies to these types of roles like off-tank

• 1:30:45

that I think are relevant and part of our overall kit designs.

• 1:30:50

And this next question is one I feel like many people internally have also talked about,

• 1:30:56

which is from MyoSotis, and they want to know about the name.

• 1:31:05

Have you considered renaming the tank archetype?

• 1:31:10

Yes, we have considered it.

• 1:31:14

There are a few thoughts on that.

• 1:31:20

The tank is a clear communicator.

• 1:31:23

The tank name is a clear indicator kind of of the role

• 1:31:28

that is more common in our average MMO vernacular, right?

• 1:31:33

Now, from a role-play perspective, there are questions about keeping that name in world,

• 1:31:42

in lore, so to speak, and not necessarily adopting the vernacular that the community has adopted.

• 1:31:49

I think those are valid concerns, and it's something I'm not diametrically opposed to reconsidering.

• 1:31:55

But I would say an update on that is not coming in the immediate future.

• 1:32:00

All right.

• 1:32:01

And then we're moving away from tank stuff, so it's gone.

• 1:32:05

Barab wants to know about naval mechanics.

• 1:32:08

Will there be a mechanic on ships that allow players to hire or install NPCs to control sails or fire cannons?

• 1:32:18

No, we don't have the concept of including the mercenary or additive NPC solution

• 1:32:25

or as a mechanic on naval ships.

• 1:32:28

They are elsewhere within the game, but not intended for naval ships.

• 1:32:35

And then Azrae wants to know about siege summons.

• 1:32:39

Will there be level restrictions on who can participate in the activation of these abilities other than for the group leader?

• 1:32:48

For summons during sieges?

• 1:32:53

Are we talking about summoners or are we talking about siege weapons like vehicles?

• 1:32:59

Will there be level restrictions on who can participate in the activation of these abilities?

• 1:33:03

So if we're talking about vehicles and siege weaponry, that's agnostic of class kits,

• 1:33:09

those will be predicated on individuals who have the items within their inventory in order to summon them

• 1:33:15

and who are registered as part of, in the castle scenario, registered guild, or in the node scenario, an attacker, a valid attacker.

• 1:33:24

With regards to the summoner class and abilities that exist within class kits,

• 1:33:31

those types of summons will require that the summoner is an active participant in the siege or in the node siege, castle siege or node siege,

• 1:33:43

in order to utilize that ability.

• 1:33:46

And then if we're talking about the group summons, then the group summons would be utilized solely by the party leader.

• 1:33:54

So that's an activation that occurs from the party leader.

• 1:33:57

The party leader has to satisfy having that ability as part of their class kit

• 1:34:02

and then having the necessary additive components from other classes that are part of the group.

• 1:34:07

All right.

• 1:34:08

And then Jamie Chaos wants to know about raid bosses.

• 1:34:11

It was stated that raid bosses would change difficulty based on how fast a group was clearing them.

• 1:34:18

If the raids are supposed to be open and not instanced, how does this work or do rooms lock once a boss is pulled?

• 1:34:25

And this was something you had stated a long time ago.

• 1:34:28

Yeah.

• 1:34:29

So raid bosses are aware of the number of combatants within an area in proximity to them.

• 1:34:37

And that awareness is part of an indicator to which behaviors they're going to utilize as part of their behavior tree.

• 1:34:47

So as it's assessing the types of combatants that are facing it, the number of those combatants,

• 1:34:52

the position of those combatants, the abilities and life totals of those combatants,

• 1:34:57

it weighs certain actions in its behavior tree and then it acts on those actions.

• 1:35:02

And in the scenario where you're bringing overwhelming odds to a particular fight,

• 1:35:08

that might weigh heavier the AOE options that the boss has access to,

• 1:35:14

to where they're utilizing a lot more AOE abilities during an engagement due to that overage of players.

• 1:35:22

So in that sense, it's a bit adaptive.

• 1:35:25

It's a bit dynamic based on the encounter scenario.

• 1:35:29

And you haven't really seen our full AI encounters yet.

• 1:35:33

We're very much in our core loop state as we're showing this showcase.

• 1:35:38

So for people being like, you don't see that right now.

• 1:35:42

It's because we're not showing that quite yet.

• 1:35:46

And then Serena Venport wants to know about player housing.

• 1:35:50

And this is our final question from the forums today.

• 1:35:52

What limitation will we have with placing items we find in the world as decorations in our houses?

• 1:36:01

There is a few limitations.

• 1:36:04

Some of those limitations are specific to the type of housing that you own.

• 1:36:10

Some of those limitations are at the recipe and workbench construction point as well.

• 1:36:17

You need to have the necessary components to make those things.

• 1:36:20

Placing them, there is an allotment quota that's based on the type of housing.

• 1:36:25

And there is a grade restriction based on the type of housing.

• 1:36:29

So if you have a mansion in node housing, you can place the best furniture.

• 1:36:34

And furniture has mechanical components to it, game mechanics associated with them.

• 1:36:38

They're not just visual or cosmetic.

• 1:36:43

In addition, there might be limitations around how many of a particular type of furniture piece

• 1:36:48

or decor item you can place inside of a property.

• 1:36:55

So you might only be able to place one of a certain type.

• 1:36:59

So there's a few rules around that.

• 1:37:02

All right.

• 1:37:03

And that's it.

• 1:37:04

We've wrapped it up.

• 1:37:05

Wow, we did it.

• 1:37:06

Thank you for watching this on YouTube.

• 1:37:08

We've probably made some edits because we're going to re-record the gameplay section

• 1:37:12

to showcase that a little bit better.

• 1:37:15

And for those of you who are watching this live with us, thank you for joining us

• 1:37:19

and giving us a lot of feedback.

• 1:37:21

We appreciate that.

• 1:37:22

And of course, as always, head on over to our forums, forums.ashisofcreation.com.

• 1:37:28

Give us feedback.

• 1:37:29

We have tank thread up there as well as looting UI thread up there.

• 1:37:33

So if you have thoughts, get them over to us.

• 1:37:34

We always love seeing those.

• 1:37:36

And as Stephen mentioned before, we do make reports on these

• 1:37:39

and we send them to the development team.

• 1:37:41

And sometimes we have meetings regarding these.

• 1:37:43

And it really helps us ensure that we're always on the same page.

• 1:37:45

And usually a lot of the feedback that you guys have is stuff that we're already like,

• 1:37:48

yeah, we want to move forward in that direction anyway.

• 1:37:51

Or we're already working towards that.

• 1:37:53

Which is nice.

• 1:37:54

Good validator.

• 1:37:55

Absolutely.

• 1:37:56

Exactly.

• 1:37:57

It validates that we're on the right track.

• 1:37:59

And of course, we would love for you to check out our Featherstone Royal Expeditions cosmetics.

• 1:38:05

They will be swapping over February 8th, 2023 at 11 a.m.

• 1:38:08

So if you want those, grab them.

• 1:38:10

And of course, thank you or thank you very much viewers for joining us.

• 1:38:15

And of course, to our lovely developers, Keenan, Trad, Brian, and Stephen

• 1:38:20

for showcasing our tank.

• 1:38:23

And we hope that you all stay safe and healthy.

• 1:38:26

We'll have a 4K video up on YouTube.

• 1:38:28

We'll have the whole development video up on YouTube as well.

• 1:38:32

One will come today and the other one will go tomorrow.

• 1:38:35

And then of course, on the development update video, if you leave us a comment

• 1:38:38

and you subscribe, your comment could possibly be the lucky winner

• 1:38:42

that will be showcased on our next development update next month.

• 1:38:46

So please follow us in all the places at Ashes of Creation.

• 1:38:50

And we'll see you guys all next month.

• 1:38:52

Any last words, Stephen?

• 1:38:54

No, just thank you guys.

• 1:38:55

Make sure to give us your feedback.

• 1:38:57

We appreciate it as always.

• 1:38:58

And of course, we endeavor to present you guys with the most amazing MMORPG possible.

• 1:39:03

And our goal has always been to make you proud.

• 1:39:07

So keep us informed on your feedback and give us all the thoughts.

• 1:39:12

Yeah, we love seeing all your thoughts.

• 1:39:15

So we'll see you all next month.

• 1:39:17

Bye, everyone.

• 00:00

Yeah.

• 00:20

Hello and welcome to our

• 00:21

glorious ashes of creation.

• 00:23

January development update.

• 00:25

It's our first stream of the

• 00:28

year.

• 00:30

Isn't that crazy?

• 00:32

That is very crazy.

• 00:34

I was just talking with you the

• 00:36

other day actually about how it

• 00:38

feels so long since we've had a

• 00:40

live stream.

• 00:42

Yes, it has been, well, it's

• 00:44

because the months, so we have

• 00:46

like a little bit of a

• 00:47

situation whenever it's

• 00:48

December and November, it's

• 00:50

like everything is so fast and

• 00:51

they're back to back.

• 00:52

And then when it gets around the

• 00:54

time for January, everything

• 00:55

feels super long because we

• 00:58

have been doing this for a long

• 01:00

time.

• 01:01

And when we were doing our live

• 01:02

stream, it was making me sad.

• 01:03

I went like the week beyond the

• 01:05

normal cadence for me and I was

• 01:07

just like something feels off.

• 01:09

Well, now you're back and

• 01:11

everyone gets to see our faces.

• 01:14

But that's not why you're here.

• 01:16

You want to see the tank.

• 01:18

You want to see some tanking and

• 01:20

some spanking.

• 01:22

We'll definitely be showing you

• 01:23

some of that.

• 01:24

We'd like to thank everyone

• 01:28

who's been watching us.

• 01:30

I was like, thanks for joining

• 01:32

us.

• 01:34

But of course, you know, as a

• 01:36

reminder, like we're here again.

• 01:38

I'm Margaret Crone, I'm your

• 01:40

director of communications.

• 01:42

I got a title of achievement

• 01:44

unlocked.

• 01:46

And then of course with me as

• 01:48

always is Stephen Sharif, our

• 01:50

creative director.

• 01:51

I hope you're doing well.

• 01:52

It's been, you missed

• 01:53

everybody.

• 01:54

They've missed you.

• 01:55

I know.

• 01:56

Yeah, I've been doing great.

• 01:58

I'm glad you're here.

• 01:59

This has probably been our most

• 02:00

productive January I think

• 02:01

we've ever had as a company.

• 02:03

A lot has happened a lot.

• 02:05

I know.

• 02:07

Especially I'm just like, it's

• 02:09

Yeah, usually sometimes for

• 02:11

studios, it can take a week to

• 02:13

get back in the saddle again.

• 02:14

But I feel like we hit the

• 02:16

ground running.

• 02:18

Day one was like, let's go.

• 02:19

Yes.

• 02:21

But I think everyone was

• 02:22

refreshed.

• 02:23

We got a lot of cool stuff to

• 02:24

show off.

• 02:25

And of course, we're working on

• 02:26

a lot of stuff that you're not

• 02:28

going to see here.

• 02:29

And we'll give a little teasers

• 02:30

of some stuff that's coming up.

• 02:31

But of course, to remind you of

• 02:33

what you're going to see today,

• 02:35

we are going to go through some

• 02:36

quick reminders.

• 02:37

They're super quick.

• 02:38

And then we have our tank

• 02:39

update.

• 02:40

We'll get right into it.

• 02:41

We know that's why you're here.

• 02:42

And then we have our character

• 02:43

art and studio update and

• 02:44

questions and answers.

• 02:46

And look at this overlay.

• 02:47

Mike Vecchio bringing it in.

• 02:49

Some new overlays for the new

• 02:51

year.

• 02:52

It's getting, you know, little

• 02:53

Ashes of Creation fantasy

• 02:55

vibes.

• 02:56

We hope that you like it.

• 02:58

Let us know what you think.

• 02:59

We always try to take the new

• 03:00

year, at least my team.

• 03:01

We do like a refresher.

• 03:02

So you'll see a lot of cool new

• 03:03

assets coming down the line for

• 03:05

all of our social stuff.

• 03:07

And I know they're working on

• 03:09

some fun things.

• 03:10

So stay tuned on that front.

• 03:12

But with that, we're going to go

• 03:14

over our comment spotlight,

• 03:16

which I think we need to grab

• 03:19

from the thing about quick.

• 03:22

Let us see.

• 03:28

We have our cosmetic swap over

• 03:30

that's happening.

• 03:31

So I'll just remind you guys

• 03:33

that the Featherstone Royal

• 03:35

Expedition goodies are

• 03:37

available.

• 03:39

They will be swapping over soon.

• 03:40

So if you would like them, make

• 03:42

sure that you get them before

• 03:44

11 a.m. Pacific on February

• 03:45

8th.

• 03:48

And those ones I got to design,

• 03:49

which was really cool.

• 03:51

Reminder that these are kind of

• 03:52

NPCs that you'll see in the

• 03:53

world, creatures that you'll

• 03:54

see in the world.

• 03:55

They are, you know, tied with

• 03:57

the lore that we have going on,

• 03:58

which is pretty exciting.

• 04:00

And of course, we had our

• 04:02

comment spotlight, which I'm

• 04:03

going to swap over to.

• 04:04

If you would like to be our

• 04:06

comment spotlight, you can head

• 04:07

on over to our YouTube channel,

• 04:08

subscribe and leave a comment

• 04:10

on this development update.

• 04:11

So it's going to be January

• 04:13

development update, the one

• 04:14

that's titled that, which will

• 04:15

go live on Saturday.

• 04:17

But our question here, well,

• 04:18

it's not, it's a comment plus

• 04:20

question.

• 04:21

I have been wondering how you

• 04:22

will capture the storytelling

• 04:23

from a casual point of view.

• 04:27

A lot of the times where people

• 04:29

reflect on what has happened in

• 04:31

the MMO is by watching trailers.

• 04:32

Arguably, in this person's

• 04:34

opinion, one of, if not the best

• 04:36

trailers out there is the Star

• 04:38

Wars, the old Republic one,

• 04:39

where they spend tons of money

• 04:40

on capturing an audience through

• 04:42

some phenomenal trailers.

• 04:43

Are you looking to do the same

• 04:44

or what kind of trailers can we

• 04:45

expect from Ashes of Creation?

• 04:47

And this is from Actually E-Pod,

• 04:49

which, yeah, I have thoughts on

• 04:51

this, but I'll leave it to you

• 04:53

first, Stephen.

• 04:55

So, Sotor, I thought did a

• 04:56

great trailer and story and

• 04:59

voiceovers.

• 05:00

I thought all that was great

• 05:01

with Sotor.

• 05:04

You know, we're an independent

• 05:06

studio.

• 05:07

We'll start there.

• 05:08

We'll just start there.

• 05:09

With that being said, there are

• 05:11

certain budgetary requirements

• 05:13

in order to afford very, you

• 05:15

know, high-end cinematics and

• 05:18

voice actors.

• 05:19

Probably not getting a blur

• 05:21

trailer, if that's what you're

• 05:22

asking.

• 05:23

But we're going to be using

• 05:24

that money to do that.

• 05:26

Exactly.

• 05:28

And what that means is how we

• 05:30

want to implement on that front

• 05:34

is really going to be in engine,

• 05:36

in game, how we capture those

• 05:38

scenes, how we capture those

• 05:39

elements of story.

• 05:41

And the good thing is, is that

• 05:42

from a lore narrative and

• 05:44

questing perspective, we have

• 05:45

some functionality and tools

• 05:47

that we're going to be utilizing

• 05:49

to help tell the story from the

• 05:53

story.

• 05:55

And that story is derived from

• 05:57

player action, from community

• 05:59

engagement, from the social

• 06:01

interactions and decisions made

• 06:02

along these different story arcs

• 06:04

that can occur.

• 06:05

And each server is different.

• 06:06

So not, you know, spending that

• 06:07

amount of money or that amount

• 06:09

of resources on creating these

• 06:13

bespoke, very well-done

• 06:15

trailers, we would have to

• 06:17

create a lot to kind of show how

• 06:18

certain story arcs, what the

• 06:20

outcome looks like in

• 06:23

different ways these story arcs

• 06:24

can end, depending on what the

• 06:25

players do.

• 06:26

So we're going to leverage tech

• 06:28

that captures kind of at the

• 06:30

moment when something server

• 06:32

first is done in the story arc,

• 06:33

and those will be recorded on

• 06:35

these memory fragments that

• 06:38

players can collect within the

• 06:40

game through their experiences

• 06:42

and relive potentially through

• 06:44

the cinematic that would be in

• 06:46

game recorded, how an event went

• 06:47

down, how a boss was killed, how

• 06:49

a story arc ended, and how

• 06:53

that story arc ended and how

• 06:55

that story arc ended.

• 06:56

And they can collect those

• 06:57

things throughout that server's

• 06:59

life and history, which I think

• 07:01

is a really cool way to tell

• 07:02

the story of the server, the

• 07:04

history of the server.

• 07:05

I think that's super cool.

• 07:07

And that's kind of how we're

• 07:09

going to acquire it.

• 07:10

It's really going to be meant to

• 07:12

portray in-game and also based

• 07:14

on what the players did.

• 07:16

Margaret, I don't know if you

• 07:18

have thoughts on that.

• 07:19

That's more like in-game

• 07:20

cinematics.

• 07:23

We're going to be doing some

• 07:25

fun videos for Alpha 2 and Beta

• 07:27

1 and Beta 2, and of course our

• 07:28

launch is going to be a big

• 07:29

deal for us.

• 07:31

We will be doing lots of video

• 07:32

snippets and goodies that we

• 07:34

will be sharing and showcasing.

• 07:35

So we'll definitely have

• 07:37

trailers.

• 07:39

They might not be blur level

• 07:40

trailers, but we will do our

• 07:41

best to make some really sick

• 07:43

stuff that gets people hyped.

• 07:44

And we'll probably, you know,

• 07:46

from a marketing perspective,

• 07:47

advertise in some spaces in

• 07:49

order to get people excited

• 07:50

about certain content pieces

• 07:53

that we're going to be doing.

• 07:55

So we will definitely put, we're

• 07:57

saving our marketing budget for

• 07:58

the right spaces, for the right

• 07:59

places.

• 08:00

We'll be doing a lot of content

• 08:01

creator stuff, as you all know.

• 08:02

We do have a content creator

• 08:04

program that is open.

• 08:05

It's currently in application

• 08:06

phase.

• 08:07

We will let you know when it

• 08:08

switches to invitation phase,

• 08:09

which will probably be closer to

• 08:11

Alpha 2 because we, you know,

• 08:12

you kind of need content to be

• 08:14

able to make content.

• 08:16

So for us and from our

• 08:18

perspective, it makes the most

• 08:20

sense for that to timeline

• 08:23

because we have a bunch of

• 08:25

content creators who are working

• 08:26

with us, but they don't have

• 08:27

content to share.

• 08:28

Yeah, and we have a pretty good

• 08:29

budget that's been allocated for

• 08:31

marketing trailers and marketing

• 08:32

endeavors.

• 08:34

We haven't even utilized any

• 08:36

budget towards marketing thus

• 08:38

far.

• 08:39

And we've, you know, from a

• 08:40

project's perspective,

• 08:41

obviously we've garnered a lot

• 08:42

of attention because we have

• 08:43

this transparent process of

• 08:45

development where we keep you

• 08:46

guys updated on a monthly basis.

• 08:47

But as we grow closer to testing

• 08:51

launch where those marketing

• 08:53

dollars get a good return on ad

• 08:55

spend, that's when we deploy

• 08:57

those things.

• 08:59

And I think you're going to be

• 09:00

seeing just through the

• 09:01

production quality that you see

• 09:02

that Margaret and her team

• 09:03

provide on the monthly cadence

• 09:04

with our development updates,

• 09:06

that is going to be met same

• 09:07

course on the marketing side.

• 09:09

Oh, for sure.

• 09:11

Like, we will be doing very cool

• 09:12

things on, and obviously for us

• 09:14

launch is going to be really

• 09:15

exciting, especially for my team

• 09:17

because that's when community

• 09:20

is going to be really important

• 09:21

to us.

• 09:22

We're going to be able to get

• 09:24

to the service and, you know,

• 09:26

GMs and things like that so we

• 09:27

get to have a little bit more

• 09:28

fun because we get to interact

• 09:29

with you guys.

• 09:30

And we also get to utilize

• 09:31

things that you're doing in

• 09:32

game like Stephen was talking

• 09:33

about, those big moments on

• 09:34

servers where we get to

• 09:35

interact with them or maybe

• 09:36

we'll have like a news live

• 09:38

stream where we work with

• 09:39

different people from all the

• 09:40

different servers to bring us

• 09:41

information.

• 09:42

Like, we're going to do a lot of

• 09:44

cool, fun things.

• 09:46

You know, guild programs is

• 09:47

something that we've talked

• 09:48

about in the past too, which is

• 09:50

really cool.

• 09:51

And if you've seen stuff that

• 09:52

I've done at previous companies

• 09:53

in regards to that, you'll know

• 09:55

that I'm a big fan of that

• 09:56

stuff.

• 09:57

So we will have a lot of fun,

• 09:59

don't you, Larry?

• 10:01

And when it comes to trailers

• 10:02

and videos, we will have plenty

• 10:03

of them.

• 10:04

Right now it doesn't make sense

• 10:05

for us to make a ton of videos

• 10:06

because, you know, we're in

• 10:08

development.

• 10:09

We want to make sure that we're

• 10:10

not making too much content

• 10:11

where we have to keep up with

• 10:12

stuff that doesn't make sense

• 10:13

while we're heads down trying to

• 10:14

make the game.

• 10:15

Especially when those things can

• 10:16

change.

• 10:17

Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:18

Exactly.

• 10:19

And so, Larry, what is Ashes of

• 10:20

Creation?

• 10:21

Well, we need to make that game

• 10:22

first so that we can make that

• 10:24

video.

• 10:25

Yes.

• 10:26

And we need to go through the

• 10:27

iterative testing loops, which

• 10:28

is where the game can really

• 10:29

change, right?

• 10:30

That's the very most important

• 10:31

part is, you know, we have

• 10:32

well-defined systems and

• 10:35

features that we've built thus

• 10:36

far, but really how those

• 10:38

features survive and in the way

• 10:40

they survive comes after the

• 10:42

testing environment.

• 10:43

And that testing environment is

• 10:45

most applicable with a live

• 10:46

audience.

• 10:48

So, you know, our efforts, our

• 10:49

endeavors are always to work

• 10:50

towards that next live audience

• 10:51

testing, which of course is

• 10:53

Alpha 2, that we've made some

• 10:54

significant progress towards.

• 10:55

We'll have some pre-Alpha 2

• 10:57

testing, too, that we're going

• 10:58

to do to make sure that we're

• 10:59

ready to open the floodgates

• 11:00

because Alpha 2 is a lot of

• 11:01

players.

• 11:02

Yes.

• 11:03

Whereas Alpha 1 was, I mean,

• 11:04

it's a good amount of players

• 11:05

Alpha 1 was, but we want to kind

• 11:06

of make sure that we're ready.

• 11:07

I think our Alpha 2 has over

• 11:09

100,000 people that have

• 11:10

purchased into it, so it's a

• 11:11

pretty significant testing

• 11:12

environment.

• 11:13

Yeah, we were originally going

• 11:14

30,000.

• 11:15

And obviously that explodes.

• 11:16

I know.

• 11:18

Obviously that explodes when we

• 11:19

get closer to Alpha 2 testing.

• 11:23

But yes, so a lot to be said

• 11:25

there.

• 11:26

But I know people are waiting to

• 11:27

want to see this tank thing.

• 11:28

Yes.

• 11:29

Let's go ahead and switch over.

• 11:30

That's where we're at next.

• 11:31

We were just trying to answer

• 11:32

that question for you guys, so

• 11:34

thank you so much.

• 11:35

And with that, we'll swap over

• 11:36

to the tank, goodness.

• 11:38

So, Stephen, let's do a little

• 11:39

prefacing before people watch

• 11:41

this hour-long video.

• 11:42

I apologize.

• 11:44

I know.

• 11:46

I'm sorry.

• 11:48

I'm sorry.

• 11:49

Everyone is always aware of

• 11:50

this if you tune in, but you

• 11:51

have to be partly the messenger

• 11:53

for us with the broader

• 11:54

audience that isn't as engaged.

• 11:56

That is a responsibility of not

• 11:58

just us, but also you guys as

• 12:00

our loyal, loving, amazing,

• 12:02

beautiful, glorious followers

• 12:04

who are waiting for this product

• 12:06

to sit in your hands.

• 12:08

It's helpful if you guys comment

• 12:10

that this is a work in progress.

• 12:12

Art is a work in progress.

• 12:14

Design is a work in progress.

• 12:15

All of this stuff is meant to

• 12:18

help us make that progress

• 12:20

towards the end goal, which is

• 12:22

delivering this.

• 12:23

So keep that in mind.

• 12:24

That's a rapport that we've

• 12:25

established with the community

• 12:26

I feel really comfortable with.

• 12:27

And because of that, you are

• 12:29

going to see in this recording,

• 12:31

I had to use a few GM cheats.

• 12:36

I apologize.

• 12:38

That was what you did, Stephen.

• 12:39

What did you do?

• 12:41

I had to use some GM cheats,

• 12:43

specifically because there is a

• 12:45

particular item that I needed

• 12:47

to get.

• 12:48

We had a few bad cheats.

• 12:50

We died a few times when we

• 12:52

shouldn't have.

• 12:53

There was too many creeps that

• 12:54

we pulled.

• 12:55

We were under manned in an area

• 12:56

that was designed for eight man

• 12:58

groups.

• 12:59

So, you know, there's just stuff

• 13:01

that happens.

• 13:02

And I just want to give you that

• 13:03

up front that there's a little

• 13:05

bit of GM cheating.

• 13:06

If you see that, please take it

• 13:08

with a grain of salt.

• 13:09

We feel comfortable sharing that

• 13:10

stuff with you.

• 13:11

This isn't marketing oriented.

• 13:12

This is development oriented.

• 13:13

So you guys are getting to see

• 13:17

the tank archetype.

• 13:19

It is what it is.

• 13:21

With that being said, you're

• 13:23

going to see the tank archetype.

• 13:24

It's important to remember the

• 13:25

tank archetype, this is I think

• 13:26

it's level 12 or level 13.

• 13:28

There's a few abilities that

• 13:30

we're going to be going over.

• 13:31

The biggest thing to take away

• 13:33

here is November we showed you a

• 13:35

cleric live stream.

• 13:37

There were three big points of

• 13:40

feedback from the community with

• 13:41

regards to the cleric live

• 13:43

stream that related to combat.

• 13:46

The first one was the animations

• 13:48

from the NPCs when they're being

• 13:50

attacked.

• 13:52

It was hit visual effects on

• 13:54

impact from a weapon when that

• 13:56

weapon contacts and making it

• 13:58

feel substantive, making it

• 14:00

visually apparent that you've

• 14:01

made contact with the enemy.

• 14:02

And the last was going to be the

• 14:04

animations and the root motions

• 14:06

around the mace combat.

• 14:08

Now, Brian Ferguson did a lot of

• 14:10

work on fine tuning up that mace

• 14:12

combat.

• 14:13

I think it looks great.

• 14:14

We took a lot of that feedback.

• 14:16

It's great.

• 14:17

It feels very connected.

• 14:19

And then Jim, Matt, and John did

• 14:22

a lot of work on the hit impact

• 14:24

effects with Adam and Keenan

• 14:25

supporting on the directionality

• 14:27

of those hit impacts.

• 14:28

And then in addition with the

• 14:30

animation team, Brad Constantine

• 14:32

providing some significant

• 14:36

adaptation to the hit reactions

• 14:38

on the animation side with these

• 14:40

particular creatures that you're

• 14:41

going to see improvements on.

• 14:42

Where your point of feedback is

• 14:46

going to be on the hit impact

• 14:48

effects.

• 14:49

So those three things.

• 14:50

But in addition, talking about

• 14:52

the role, the functionality of

• 14:54

the abilities, you're going to

• 14:55

see what about the tank have you

• 14:56

enjoyed in previous games, that

• 14:58

particular role, and what do you

• 14:59

like what you see here?

• 15:00

There's some cool tech you're

• 15:02

going to see involved in this.

• 15:04

You're going to see some wind

• 15:05

force actors that get applied

• 15:06

to abilities when dealing with

• 15:07

the surrounding foliage.

• 15:08

I think that's super cool.

• 15:10

It really is immersive.

• 15:12

And of course it adds.

• 15:15

I think we've seen a lot more

• 15:17

in the background yet.

• 15:18

They happen in the morning.

• 15:20

Oh, look at that.

• 15:22

They always do it every other

• 15:24

Friday.

• 15:26

We've made it.

• 15:27

We're going to see some active

• 15:28

blocking as well.

• 15:29

I know in the past we've talked

• 15:30

a little bit about how active

• 15:31

blocking as a mechanic might

• 15:32

leverage a separate energy

• 15:33

mechanic called stamina.

• 15:35

We haven't yet really nailed

• 15:36

that down yet if we're going to

• 15:38

go that route or if we're going

• 15:39

to have active blocking consume

• 15:41

mana based on mitigated

• 15:43

additional mitigated damage.

• 15:45

That's across all classes.

• 15:46

Some classes will have the

• 15:47

ability to spec into passive

• 15:49

skill trees that might reduce

• 15:50

the cost of that mana down to

• 15:52

very, very small when active

• 15:54

blocking.

• 15:56

So it's geared towards certain

• 15:57

types of archetypes.

• 16:00

So with that being said, you're

• 16:02

going to, oh, one other thing.

• 16:03

Audio levels might be a little

• 16:05

high with combat and voices.

• 16:06

That's an issue we're going to

• 16:08

have fixed the next time we do

• 16:09

some development live streams by

• 16:11

separating out the audio.

• 16:13

We've got some new equipment for

• 16:14

Steven.

• 16:17

It will make it so my team can

• 16:18

edit a little bit easier.

• 16:19

Absolutely.

• 16:20

Right now it's like the audio

• 16:21

and the game player are mixed

• 16:22

together so we can't really edit

• 16:24

that as easy.

• 16:25

Yeah.

• 16:26

So just be aware of that.

• 16:27

But without further ado, we

• 16:29

would like to show you the first

• 16:31

look at the Alpha 2 Tank work

• 16:33

and progress archetype.

• 16:35

Enjoy.

• 17:04

Hello, everyone, and welcome to

• 17:07

another Ashes of Creation

• 17:08

update.

• 17:10

Today we are going to be

• 17:11

sharing with you a preview of

• 17:13

the Alpha 2 Tank archetype.

• 17:15

Now, I want you guys to keep in

• 17:17

mind as you're watching this

• 17:18

preview that everything is still

• 17:20

subject to change, especially

• 17:21

considering that the Alpha 2 is

• 17:23

going to give us a lot of

• 17:24

feedback both from the players

• 17:26

as well as data-driven that

• 17:28

we're going to utilize in order

• 17:30

to get the most out of the

• 17:34

game to improve the design

• 17:36

features.

• 17:37

But your feedback from this

• 17:39

video is very important.

• 17:40

And I am joined today by three

• 17:42

of our absolute glorious

• 17:44

developers, one of our

• 17:46

engineers with whom you've

• 17:47

spoken with in the past.

• 17:48

Keenan, how you doing, buddy?

• 17:50

I'm doing great.

• 17:52

Thanks for asking.

• 17:53

Welcome back again.

• 17:54

We are here at it again.

• 17:56

For those of you who watched,

• 17:57

by the way, on the live stream,

• 17:58

you saw a previous iteration of

• 18:00

this recording.

• 18:01

We're doing a little bit of

• 18:03

a preview of the game.

• 18:04

And also I just wanted to give

• 18:05

a little bit more in-depth

• 18:06

detail around the specific

• 18:08

abilities, the area that we're

• 18:09

fighting in, and the encounter

• 18:11

design.

• 18:12

But also we have with us two of

• 18:13

our glorious senior designers,

• 18:15

Brian and Trad.

• 18:16

How you guys doing?

• 18:17

Doing great.

• 18:19

Happy to be here.

• 18:20

Yep.

• 18:21

Let's do it again.

• 18:22

Ready to...

• 18:23

We got a lot of practice on

• 18:24

this by now.

• 18:25

Yes, let's do it again.

• 18:26

And this time, you know what

• 18:27

we're going to do?

• 18:28

We are going to perform

• 18:29

flawlessly.

• 18:31

There's not going to be any

• 18:33

more of that.

• 18:34

So, before we get started,

• 18:35

first, let's talk about the

• 18:37

area that we're in.

• 18:38

This is the Riverlands.

• 18:39

As many of you know, the

• 18:40

Riverlands is one of the

• 18:42

predominant areas in Alpha 2

• 18:43

that players will be exploring.

• 18:45

This was home to the once

• 18:47

ancient Aelin Empire, a human

• 18:49

race nation that was formed at

• 18:51

the apex of Vera before the

• 18:53

fall.

• 18:54

And we are here to collect some

• 18:56

gear.

• 18:57

We're going to be using the

• 19:01

Titan Bark set.

• 19:03

I believe that I am looking for

• 19:05

the remaining pieces of the

• 19:07

Titan Bark set.

• 19:09

Is that right, Brian?

• 19:10

Yes.

• 19:12

Awesome.

• 19:13

And also, there's a weapon and

• 19:15

the shield available for you.

• 19:17

Okay.

• 19:18

So, the weapon and the shield

• 19:19

are going to show us a little

• 19:20

bit of the iteration that you've

• 19:21

been working on since our last

• 19:22

livestream with the cleric

• 19:24

update, specifically around the

• 19:25

attack animations and root

• 19:27

motion for the mace and shield.

• 19:31

Yeah, and not just me, but also

• 19:33

the glorious animators and FX

• 19:35

artists, Meadow and Myers on the

• 19:37

animation side have been a

• 19:39

pleasure to work with on this

• 19:40

iteration over the past month.

• 19:42

Yeah, we all knew that the mace

• 19:44

was in a kind of rough first

• 19:46

state in the cleric livestream,

• 19:48

but took another look at it, and

• 19:49

we focused more on pose holds

• 19:52

and quick transitions and an

• 19:54

overall satisfying cadence.

• 19:55

And I think the end result is

• 19:57

pretty good.

• 20:00

Yeah, and it matches with the

• 20:02

great sword.

• 20:03

It's in kind of the same

• 20:04

universe, and I think we're

• 20:05

starting to find our rhythm with

• 20:06

weapon creation, and it should

• 20:07

be pretty straightforward from

• 20:08

here.

• 20:09

Absolutely, and a lot of that

• 20:10

feedback from the community was

• 20:11

with regards to the animation

• 20:12

hit reactions from the enemy

• 20:13

NPCs, as well as the hit effects

• 20:16

on weapon impact to make it feel

• 20:18

a bit more substantive and

• 20:19

connective, which I think the

• 20:20

VFX team and the animation team

• 20:22

has done great jobs on both of

• 20:24

those fronts.

• 20:26

And then, let me talk a little

• 20:27

bit about the setting.

• 20:30

So, before we get into what our

• 20:32

objectives are, you'll see a

• 20:34

little bit of update here on the

• 20:36

UI.

• 20:38

So, we're taking a look at our

• 20:39

new quest journal.

• 20:41

The area that we're in, we're

• 20:42

going to be heading towards is

• 20:43

called the Oakenbane Keep.

• 20:44

And the Oakenbane Keep is once

• 20:46

military academy before the fall

• 20:50

of the Aelan Empire during the

• 20:52

Exodus, and it was used to kind

• 20:54

of train up recruits, but now

• 20:56

those recruits and perhaps some

• 21:00

of the other recruits are

• 21:02

going to be sent to the

• 21:04

military academy, and we need to

• 21:05

take care of them and dispatch

• 21:07

them with haste.

• 21:09

You'll see some of the updates

• 21:11

on the itemization and the

• 21:13

inventory here with some of the

• 21:15

tool tips and icons, and also

• 21:17

you'll see a little bit of the

• 21:18

update to the world map, which

• 21:20

is still a work in progress.

• 21:21

Everything you're going to see

• 21:23

here, as I said, is a work in

• 21:24

progress that is deserving of

• 21:26

your attention and feedback so

• 21:30

that you can run through of the

• 21:32

abilities.

• 21:33

I don't want to get necessarily

• 21:34

engaged with any enemies, so I'm

• 21:36

just going to kind of use the

• 21:38

abilities without an enemy kind

• 21:40

of in my targeting.

• 21:42

Let's talk about this first one.

• 21:44

We have a shield assault.

• 21:46

Now, does this require a shield

• 21:48

in order to use?

• 21:51

I would hope so, hence the name.

• 21:52

Yes, absolutely.

• 21:54

Now, of course, I have the

• 22:00

ability.

• 22:05

I'm going to use that ability

• 22:06

without the shield, but I'm not

• 22:08

going to for the purposes of

• 22:09

this demonstration.

• 22:10

Tell me a little bit about the

• 22:11

shield assault.

• 22:12

What is its intent as an

• 22:13

ability, guys?

• 22:14

Yeah.

• 22:16

Yeah.

• 22:18

So it's got a few things going

• 22:19

on with it.

• 22:20

I would say the primary intent

• 22:21

of it is that it is how you

• 22:23

engage and encounter.

• 22:25

It's got a bit of mobility.

• 22:26

It's not like a super far charge

• 22:30

attack, but it's basically a way

• 22:32

to engage with the enemy, get

• 22:33

some damage out, and also grab

• 22:35

some threat.

• 22:36

It applies a pretty good chunk

• 22:38

of threat in a small area in

• 22:39

front of you, so it's really

• 22:40

good at grabbing snap threat on

• 22:42

some high-priority targets.

• 22:43

And it looks like that this has

• 22:45

a variable distance that's

• 22:46

traveled, so essentially if I

• 22:47

have a target that's directly

• 22:48

in front of me right now, it's

• 22:50

not predicated on having an

• 22:51

actual target, but it is a

• 22:53

templated attack.

• 22:54

And if that target is

• 22:55

immediately in front of me, then

• 22:56

the distance traveled will be

• 22:57

shorter.

• 22:58

Is that correct?

• 23:00

Yeah, that's correct.

• 23:01

Right now you're seeing the

• 23:02

full distance.

• 23:03

It's, again, a pretty short

• 23:05

range mobility skill, but,

• 23:06

yeah, you can also just use it

• 23:08

point blank on something, and

• 23:09

it's not going to make you

• 23:10

overshoot the target, and then

• 23:11

you have to reposition because

• 23:12

that can be kind of annoying

• 23:13

with some of those skill types.

• 23:14

Awesome.

• 23:15

And you said that this generates

• 23:16

threat, but I see we have a

• 23:17

second ability as well called

• 23:18

inciting strikes.

• 23:21

And if I use that ability,

• 23:22

that's a forward cone AoE attack

• 23:24

that generates additional threat

• 23:25

and damage on targets impacted.

• 23:27

Is that correct?

• 23:28

Exactly.

• 23:30

And it's a forward cone AoE

• 23:31

threat, so it's got a bit of a

• 23:32

wider hitbox, good for grabbing

• 23:34

multiple targets and cleaving

• 23:36

them all.

• 23:37

So that'll be what you'll be

• 23:39

using if, like, there's a pack

• 23:40

of stuff on us and you want to

• 23:41

just get them all off of us.

• 23:42

But not quite as much threat as

• 23:44

the shield assault for one

• 23:46

target.

• 23:48

So each of them kind of has

• 23:49

their utility there for aggro.

• 23:50

Awesome.

• 23:51

Now, obviously, as part of our

• 23:52

kit design, we want to

• 23:53

encourage synergies, especially

• 24:00

with the party, and I see that

• 24:06

we have two abilities,

• 24:07

specifically shield assault as

• 24:09

well as tremoring bellow.

• 24:10

And tremoring bellow applies a

• 24:12

status condition that can be

• 24:13

promoted if there is an existing

• 24:14

status condition on the target.

• 24:16

So it looks like I can create

• 24:18

the shaken condition, and then

• 24:21

I can trip shaken targets with

• 24:23

the tremoring bellow.

• 24:24

Is that correct?

• 24:25

It's actually a snare.

• 24:26

Oh, god.

• 24:30

There's two components to that

• 24:32

ability.

• 24:33

It's got a shout component,

• 24:35

which is a forward cone, and

• 24:36

then it's all, yeah, as you can

• 24:37

kind of see there, that shock

• 24:39

wave that flew out, it kind of

• 24:41

extends past the second element

• 24:42

of that, which is a PBOE around

• 24:44

Steven.

• 24:47

If you use that ability again,

• 24:48

you'll see kind of like the

• 24:50

ground kick up, and that's like

• 24:51

the earthquake element of it.

• 24:53

And that does damage, and that

• 24:55

does what Steven was alluding

• 24:58

to, which is that it will knock

• 25:00

enemies down, which is our trip

• 25:02

effect.

• 25:03

And one thing I forgot to

• 25:04

mention on the shield assault

• 25:05

ability is it does apply a

• 25:06

snare, so you've got a little

• 25:07

bit of insert hit synergy going

• 25:08

on there.

• 25:10

It's a pretty satisfying combo

• 25:11

to charge in and knock them

• 25:12

down at the stop.

• 25:14

Yeah, it looks pretty good.

• 25:15

And then also after that, we

• 25:17

have another ability.

• 25:19

Brian, talk to me a little bit

• 25:20

about grit and its purpose.

• 25:22

Yeah, grit is some of your

• 25:24

bread and butter mitigation

• 25:28

stuff.

• 25:30

If you're really getting some

• 25:32

heat, you'll want to pop that.

• 25:33

And if you haven't had it on

• 25:35

for a bit, you're going to be

• 25:37

generating stacks of courage,

• 25:39

and the more stacks of courage

• 25:40

you have, that'll give you

• 25:42

increased damage mitigation for

• 25:44

a certain number of hits.

• 25:46

And I notice that I'm slowed

• 25:47

when I used grit, so really

• 25:49

it's a very situational ability

• 25:51

usage, depending on what type

• 25:53

of situation you find yourself

• 25:56

in.

• 25:57

This can be activated mid-swing

• 26:00

in another ability, right?

• 26:02

Yep.

• 26:04

The way I always refer to this

• 26:05

ability is you can think of it

• 26:07

kind of like an off GCD ability

• 26:08

where you can use it even

• 26:10

though you have another ability

• 26:12

activating so that it's really

• 26:14

responsive and can be popped in

• 26:15

like an emergency.

• 26:16

You don't have to wait for that

• 26:17

animation to complete or for

• 26:19

that global cooldown to finish.

• 26:20

You just pop it in instantly.

• 26:22

It applies on and off, and it's

• 26:23

a toggled ability, so you can

• 26:26

use it to get a lot of

• 26:28

damage and get a lot of

• 26:29

disclosure.

• 26:31

Nice. Very cool.

• 26:33

And I see this Aegis is causing

• 26:35

essentially an area of effect

• 26:38

that our party members can live

• 26:41

within, and if they do, I'm

• 26:43

absorbing a portion of their

• 26:45

damage taken pre-mitigation.

• 26:47

Is that correct as well?

• 26:49

Keenan?

• 26:50

Yeah, that's right.

• 26:52

It forks some percentage of the

• 26:56

damage, but it's not the

• 26:58

party members.

• 27:00

Nice. Very cool.

• 27:01

Very cool.

• 27:02

All right.

• 27:03

Well, this kind of gives you

• 27:04

guys a comprehensive overview.

• 27:05

I'm sorry.

• 27:06

In addition to that, we have a

• 27:07

grapple, but that will require

• 27:08

a target, and the grapple is

• 27:09

missing some of the effects.

• 27:10

As I said, we're in progress,

• 27:11

but we can still use it in order

• 27:13

to kind of do certain types of

• 27:15

engagements.

• 27:17

So with that quick kind of

• 27:18

demonstration of these

• 27:19

abilities, let's see what we can

• 27:20

do to acquire that mason shield

• 27:26

as a party.

• 27:30

How cohesive can we be?

• 27:32

So I would ask, given that we're

• 27:33

low level, and just so you guys

• 27:35

are aware, because we're lower

• 27:37

level, we're about level 15, our

• 27:38

access to our class kit is a bit

• 27:40

limited, as you would expect.

• 27:41

You want to have that ramp and

• 27:42

kind of class progression, and

• 27:44

as a result, I'm going to ask

• 27:45

because we have such strong DPS

• 27:47

users here in the fighter and

• 27:49

in the ranger that you give me a

• 27:51

moment with the larger monsters

• 27:56

that are kind of a threat.

• 27:59

Let me pull this guy to us.

• 28:00

Does not compute.

• 28:02

Does not compute.

• 28:12

Oh, yeah, okay.

• 28:14

It's feeling good.

• 28:16

I love the little stream, the

• 28:18

ambient sound effects that Kat

• 28:20

has done.

• 28:22

Yeah, the stream is really nice.

• 28:25

I'm just kidding.

• 28:26

I'm just kidding.

• 28:28

AFK BRB.

• 28:29

There we go.

• 28:31

Got that knocked down.

• 28:33

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

• 28:35

All right, now as you guys will

• 28:36

see, these guys are relatively

• 28:38

easy to dispatch.

• 28:39

You probably saw them in our

• 28:40

ranger showcase.

• 28:41

These are some of the minotaurs

• 28:42

that are out in the early parts

• 28:43

of this river land area.

• 28:45

We're trying to reach the Oak

• 28:46

and Bain Keep.

• 28:48

That is the location of our

• 28:49

goodies, and the quests that we

• 28:50

have, they deserved better,

• 28:54

but we're going to have to go

• 28:56

back to the people that died

• 28:58

there, which is really sad to

• 28:59

think about.

• 29:01

Oh, my God.

• 29:03

Got him.

• 29:08

Back it up.

• 29:09

Did you pull that rain collar

• 29:10

in?

• 29:16

That was just smash in space.

• 29:20

Easy peasy.

• 29:22

What do we got up here?

• 29:23

Looks like a destroyed boat.

• 29:25

What was a boat even doing here

• 29:27

in the first place?

• 29:29

Could have been a big flood.

• 29:31

Probably.

• 29:34

Maybe we're in a drought.

• 29:41

Nice.

• 29:42

I love the effects on the staff

• 29:47

and their little bubble shield.

• 29:50

Yeah, these minotaurs are

• 29:51

awesome looking.

• 29:52

Yeah, they are.

• 29:53

I like their size.

• 29:54

Just the general size.

• 29:55

All right, looks like we got

• 29:56

somebody over here to the right.

• 29:57

Let me see if I can pull that

• 29:58

guy as well.

• 30:01

And these are more seriously

• 30:02

tuned for...

• 30:04

All right, get behind me.

• 30:09

Yeah, these guys are more tuned

• 30:10

towards that group.

• 30:11

Now, this is intended for a full

• 30:12

group.

• 30:15

Of course, we are a party of

• 30:16

four, and I am losing a bit of

• 30:20

aggro on this guy.

• 30:22

There we go, got him back.

• 30:23

Knock him down to the ground.

• 30:32

A little bit more deeps.

• 30:34

Let's see.

• 30:37

I could probably avoid that

• 30:38

other guy over there.

• 30:40

Let me grab this Echo.

• 30:43

Oh, he's coming toward us.

• 30:45

Aggro.

• 30:45

Uh-oh.

• 30:47

All right.

• 30:48

We're good.

• 30:55

Good.

• 30:56

Here we have this other one.

• 30:57

I'm going to activate some

• 30:58

shield for us.

• 31:03

Oh.

• 31:05

Oh, I'm coming down.

• 31:07

No, Manta.

• 31:09

Oh, whoa.

• 31:10

No.

• 31:12

Flawless.

• 31:14

I'm back up.

• 31:15

It's okay, that's it.

• 31:17

As long as the party up and the

• 31:18

party's done.

• 31:22

Okay.

• 31:24

Let me see here.

• 31:28

We are okay.

• 31:29

Let's get our...

• 31:30

Oh, where did you guys go?

• 31:32

We're kiting.

• 31:34

I think they're leashing.

• 31:35

Okay, okay, let's let them leash.

• 31:37

I see, um, 4GM Ferguson is here.

• 31:42

Maybe we can get him up.

• 31:45

Let's just avoid the guys to the right real quick.

• 31:48

Yeah, I think he patrolled over as you were moving up there.

• 31:54

All right, I'm going to come back.

• 31:55

Oh, there's one up there too.

• 31:56

Let's pull him back here.

• 31:57

Let's pull him back.

• 32:00

All right, going for it.

• 32:03

All right, I got the boss.

• 32:04

Just the boss.

• 32:06

All right.

• 32:08

Okay, we got just the boss, so we should be good.

• 32:13

He's on me.

• 32:15

Knock him down.

• 32:21

All right, we're going to be killing some heroes.

• 32:24

He's out of range.

• 32:29

All right.

• 32:31

I'm going to go for the boss.

• 32:33

I'm going to go for the boss.

• 32:35

All right.

• 32:37

I like the, uh, I feel like it was a pretty strong, uh,

• 32:43

damage mitigation from the RIP.

• 32:48

Yeah, especially if you build up a bit of courage beforehand.

• 32:57

Doing okay on mana.

• 32:59

All right.

• 33:00

Knock him down almost.

• 33:03

This guy should have a mace for me, right?

• 33:06

Yep.

• 33:07

Ooh, he's got the hammer of Korin.

• 33:09

Okay.

• 33:10

Looks like it has some physical penetration.

• 33:13

Of course, these stats you'll see here are not the final

• 33:16

step, I won't quite reveal that just yet.

• 33:19

But let me see if I can, ooh, okay.

• 33:21

So in the group loot, obviously there's a lot of functionality

• 33:25

here that parties have the ability to customize.

• 33:28

There can be loot master, there can be round robin, there can

• 33:32

be need, greed, pass that's applied on a per rarity basis,

• 33:37

depending on the parties' choices.

• 33:41

Some materials.

• 33:42

And now I should have the ability to use.

• 33:46

So the Lorik of Indicta Shield, that's not the shield I'm

• 33:49

looking for.

• 33:50

I'm trying to get a tower shield, but in the meantime, I

• 33:53

can use this shield, which works, I think.

• 33:57

But it's not going to be as good as the tower shield.

• 34:00

But it'll help.

• 34:01

So now let me see what happens when I use my shield rush with

• 34:04

this.

• 34:06

Nice.

• 34:07

Ooh, that felt very cool.

• 34:19

All right, stay on me, little Echo.

• 34:22

Little baby Echo.

• 34:28

Hey, look at that.

• 34:29

Not too bad here.

• 34:32

So talk to me a little bit about kind of some of the differences

• 34:36

that we had between the tank archetype in Alpha 1 and the

• 34:40

tank archetype that we will be having in Alpha 2.

• 34:43

Yeah, I can speak to that a bit.

• 34:46

So for those of you that were part of Alpha 1, where I've

• 34:50

seen some of that footage, you might have noticed that the

• 34:53

tank felt very much more like an offensive melee type,

• 34:57

something you'd almost expect more from a fighter.

• 35:00

And part of that is because we didn't really have any other

• 35:04

archetypes at that time to fill that role.

• 35:07

So you're going to notice a lot more defense and control

• 35:11

and threat mechanics on this version of the tank that you

• 35:15

didn't necessarily see as much of prior.

• 35:18

So as we've kind of already gone over a lot of the building

• 35:22

mechanics, you probably already noticed that you've got a lot

• 35:25

more reliable mechanics that you can use pretty frequently

• 35:29

to defend your party and also defend yourself.

• 35:35

And what is the type of tank role we're looking to achieve

• 35:38

with this particular class fantasy, this class kit that we have?

• 35:42

I would say we're, you know, Ashes of Creation Sink will be

• 35:46

a pretty classic one, one that tank players are familiar with.

• 35:50

And I think that's what people want.

• 35:53

We don't need to necessarily redefine what the tank is,

• 35:56

but I think we can improve it.

• 35:58

There's some things that obviously you'll have your

• 36:02

expected mechanics like threat management and generation,

• 36:07

mitigation, control, battlefield control, CC effects.

• 36:11

But then, you know, we'd also like to see more direct ways

• 36:15

of protecting your party members too, exploring just like Aegis.

• 36:19

That's just scratching the surface of that kind of thing.

• 36:24

But being able to actually actively take damage for your

• 36:28

allies that isn't just manipulating the AI.

• 36:31

Because another thing about tanks that I think a lot of

• 36:35

people deal with other games is they're pretty bad in PvP.

• 36:39

Like when threat is removed from the equation, what am I

• 36:43

doing as a tank when players just ignore me?

• 36:46

And so we want to offer more direct mechanics that force

• 36:50

even players or encourage players to attack the tank to make

• 36:54

it so that the tank can't protect their allies against you.

• 37:01

Yeah, I think, you know, traditionally I like playing a

• 37:05

combination of tank healer.

• 37:07

I mean, I've also played, of course, mages and DPSs.

• 37:11

But I like the role of kind of the control aspect, the mitigation,

• 37:16

the kind of protective nature, the ability to kind of route

• 37:20

enemies in a fashion that is most conducive to the engagement

• 37:23

of the encounter.

• 37:24

That's what I really like here.

• 37:26

So as you can see, we're making good progress here.

• 37:30

A lot better than the first round.

• 37:35

Once we get up here, I want to showcase a little bit of the

• 37:38

wind actors on this grass that you guys kind of see around us.

• 37:53

These guys are pieces of cake.

• 37:55

We're doing better.

• 37:56

We're doing better.

• 37:57

In small numbers.

• 37:58

In small numbers.

• 37:59

Yeah, we're going to have some challenge ahead of us because

• 38:02

this is a very intense area of these enemies and we're not

• 38:05

careful with the positioning.

• 38:06

We can end up with a big fight on our first.

• 38:14

Come over here, buddy boy.

• 38:15

Yeah, what you got?

• 38:23

See, sometimes when I like to play from a showcase

• 38:28

perspective, I do so in the realm of like a new player,

• 38:33

persona wise.

• 38:34

Of course, but of course I see I'm ticking for 50.

• 38:42

I don't know what that ticking for 50 is.

• 38:45

Sit for mana if you all need it.

• 38:48

Yeah, I think communal restoration or something applies

• 38:52

a hot.

• 38:53

Oh, yeah.

• 38:54

Let me sit down.

• 38:55

No, that's cleansing.

• 38:56

Oh, you're right.

• 38:57

Take a seat and get some restorative mana.

• 39:00

So you guys are going to see here ahead of us.

• 39:01

This is a pretty grassy area.

• 39:05

It's a beautiful area.

• 39:07

I'm liking it, but I want to showcase a little bit of how

• 39:11

abilities interact with the grass and with the foliage.

• 39:15

So you'll remember that we have that kind of forward shout

• 39:18

and watch what happens when I use it here.

• 39:21

Boom.

• 39:22

Oh, it's like a heart shape.

• 39:24

It's like a heart shape little a we of anger and malice.

• 39:30

I think that's a really cool touch of just like visual

• 39:34

tech that a lot of a lot of games haven't explored.

• 39:38

Absolutely.

• 39:39

It's grounded in the world.

• 39:40

Yeah, I agree.

• 39:41

It's very immersive.

• 39:43

I would like to kind of move in this direction guys kind

• 39:46

of if you want to stay close to me.

• 39:48

I'll see what we can accomplish here.

• 39:51

This way and I'm going to grab this guy over here.

• 39:59

Sit down.

• 40:03

Let me know if you see any targets moving towards us.

• 40:09

And we'll maybe approach this.

• 40:23

Let's go this way.

• 40:25

Stay close.

• 40:28

And I'm going to pull this guy over real quick.

• 40:34

There we go.

• 40:35

I think he resisted you.

• 40:37

Good.

• 40:38

He did.

• 40:39

But he is on me.

• 40:42

That means.

• 40:43

Got on it.

• 40:44

Add.

• 40:45

Okay.

• 40:46

It's okay.

• 40:47

Just stay near me if you can.

• 40:49

He peels on me.

• 40:50

I got shield up.

• 40:51

Let's focus down that one target.

• 40:53

Target's dead.

• 40:59

We'll switch over.

• 41:00

On me.

• 41:02

And knocking him down.

• 41:04

All right.

• 41:05

Good, good, good.

• 41:07

Now this is a pretty dense area.

• 41:09

That's a problem.

• 41:11

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:13

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:15

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:17

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:19

I'm going to go down here.

• 41:21

That's a problem.

• 41:24

Let me see.

• 41:25

Let me try to pull this guy one at a time.

• 41:28

Hold on.

• 41:29

Let me get people topped off.

• 41:30

Get close if you can to me.

• 41:31

All right.

• 41:32

Here we go.

• 41:34

Okay.

• 41:35

Knock him.

• 41:38

Nice.

• 41:41

Focus him down.

• 41:45

All right.

• 41:46

Nice.

• 41:52

Nicely done.

• 41:53

Nicely done.

• 41:54

Let's grab this guy right here.

• 41:56

Nice.

• 42:14

Nice.

• 42:17

The effects on these guys.

• 42:19

The animation did a great job as well.

• 42:24

All right.

• 42:25

Let's move up over to this rock area.

• 42:27

I need to sit real quick if we can sit before the respawn occurs.

• 42:32

Just grab some.

• 42:33

Yeah, just line of sight.

• 42:36

It's a beautiful zone.

• 42:39

Serene.

• 42:40

I know.

• 42:41

I couldn't even hear the sound of the birds.

• 42:43

There's so many ghosts and shades in this area.

• 42:46

It's kind of sad.

• 42:47

Now, I believe in this particular Okanbaen keep area,

• 42:54

there used to be these old magnificent kind of essence-ridden trees,

• 43:00

but they were all harvested to produce kind of magical artifact-y items,

• 43:08

and now only one remains, which Lord Okanbaen himself guards.

• 43:12

All right.

• 43:13

I think I'm good.

• 43:14

Let me grab this guy here.

• 43:15

I'm just going to body pull him.

• 43:17

Come on, buddy.

• 43:18

There we go.

• 43:27

Okay.

• 43:30

You guys finish him off.

• 43:32

I'm going to grab the next one.

• 43:40

Okay.

• 43:40

I'm going to knock the boss as well.

• 43:42

I'm going to activate my grit.

• 43:45

Try to focus the little dude first.

• 43:51

I'm going to try to knock the boss down.

• 43:56

I'm going to put up a shield just in case you need it.

• 43:58

Oh, I went down.

• 43:59

Cool down.

• 44:00

I went down.

• 44:02

I'm coming back up.

• 44:03

I'm coming back up.

• 44:07

Knock him down now.

• 44:10

Trying to drop some aggro.

• 44:23

Trying to get him off.

• 44:36

Nice job.

• 44:38

Keep it up.

• 44:39

Almost.

• 44:41

Boom.

• 44:43

Not bad.

• 44:44

Only one death.

• 44:45

Yeah, that wasn't too bad.

• 44:46

It wasn't too bad.

• 44:47

We got a tower shield now.

• 44:49

I need that, of course, as the tank.

• 44:54

You get all the loot this run.

• 44:55

Yay.

• 44:56

It is the tank showcase.

• 44:57

It's the tank run.

• 44:58

All right.

• 44:59

Let me put on this glorious tower shield, and let me compare it, actually.

• 45:03

Oh, I can't compare it.

• 45:06

There we go.

• 45:07

I'm loving it.

• 45:08

That is a true tower shield.

• 45:10

Now, I'm, of course, to having a medium-sized tower shield as a dwarf in most tabletop RPGs that I play so that I just have complete cover against my enemies.

• 45:20

But this isn't bad either.

• 45:22

I like it.

• 45:23

It's very polished metal.

• 45:27

Yeah, it fits with the armor from this area.

• 45:34

Yeah, I like this.

• 45:36

That's nice.

• 45:38

Now, we have how many more bosses are in here?

• 45:44

We have a couple of legions and a chest piece.

• 45:46

Now, we really, in that live stream, did not perform well against the main boss dude.

• 45:51

But again, this is an area intended for eight people with pots and other supplies that we don't necessarily have access to.

• 46:02

I'm going to knock them down into one.

• 46:07

Yeah, like a lot of other classic inspired MMOs, you can still do it with lower numbers.

• 46:13

It's just going to take a while.

• 46:15

You've got to be more careful.

• 46:16

Yeah, and tell me a little bit about our decisions around allowing content to get experienced by lower level players.

• 46:23

What type of safeguards do we put from power leveling or twinking?

• 46:28

Obviously, we adjust experience based on level differential between the target enemy and the group.

• 46:38

How do we do that?

• 46:43

Obviously, we take the difference in the party max level and the party's lowest level.

• 46:49

Those things can indicate the modifier that is applied to incoming experience based on the number of participants within that party.

• 46:59

Those help safeguard those things.

• 47:04

We're all coming.

• 47:06

Oh, god.

• 47:08

In addition to that, we also have experience bonus for grouping up.

• 47:17

That's pretty cool.

• 47:19

It's higher and higher the more people you have in your group to really encourage those full groups.

• 47:25

Yes.

• 47:27

Obviously, the way that we designed the encounter for these types of areas is that certain monsters will have certain types of strengths and weaknesses.

• 47:37

Those, of course, will correlate to certain types of class kits.

• 47:40

Some areas might be more beneficial for you to kind of experience versus others.

• 47:44

A big role in that non-solo gameplay, of course, is going to be group composition, right?

• 47:49

Yeah, that's one thing I really love about our diverse class kits that we have available to us in Ashes.

• 47:56

The diverse content that comes along with that, right?

• 47:59

An optimal group for one area might involve three or four ranged DPS,

• 48:03

but another area you might want to stack fighters for all the CC that they can bring.

• 48:08

Different groups for different areas.

• 48:21

Easy.

• 48:24

How far? Oh, we have to go just up this way, right?

• 48:28

Just up here and around the hill.

• 48:30

Yeah, that's a good idea.

• 48:34

And then the other area is on some ruins in the back.

• 48:43

Come on over here, buddy. Come on.

• 48:47

Hey, Tread, can you change the loot rules to drop the rarity from what it's at right now, like one level, so that greens are rollable?

• 48:55

Oh, good call. Good call.

• 48:58

Hold up, Steven.

• 49:01

All right. Stand by. Tank is standing by.

• 49:05

I'm saying what? Need a grid?

• 49:09

Yeah, yeah.

• 49:11

So, common and uncommon, need a grid.

• 49:15

Look at this party. So powerful, so strong, so diverse.

• 49:22

Oh, voting change, huh? What do we got here?

• 49:26

I will accept that.

• 49:30

Accept.

• 49:34

All right. Let's see here.

• 49:38

I really love that system, by the way, the voting to accept loot change rules.

• 49:43

Oh, you don't like the ninja party loot change?

• 49:47

You have to trust your group leader.

• 49:49

I know. You mean reputation, right?

• 49:52

Hey, I was in this group and a ninja changed the loot right before the boss go. That guy's on our KOS list.

• 49:58

It creates conflict. It's a good thing.

• 50:00

Soft friction.

• 50:03

It's going to be funny whenever they try to do that in our game and then the vote window pops up.

• 50:07

I know.

• 50:12

I love the lightning attack on this guy.

• 50:16

Oh, whoops, guys. I accidentally went into my settings and changed some very deep stuff. Whoops.

• 50:23

Oh, no.

• 50:25

Whoops, totally an accident.

• 50:27

I had no clue and it just happened before this legendary drop. I don't know how that was possible.

• 50:35

We call those ninja looters.

• 50:40

I don't know. This kind of impacts on my ranger fantasy.

• 50:44

Aren't you all about nature and being one?

• 50:49

Oh, yeah, yeah, but also loot.

• 50:51

Oh, but also loot. I think that's the road.

• 50:56

Definitely rangers. I feel like rangers and rogues sometimes are the same people.

• 51:01

Just a ranged rogue.

• 51:05

Pretty much.

• 51:07

To me, sometimes the ranger is always the first that's like, huh, this engagement isn't looking so hot.

• 51:14

Let me use the advantage I already have from a distance to kind of leave here.

• 51:17

Okay, hold on. I'm going to grab this guy.

• 51:20

Like he's about to do now.

• 51:22

No, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't a dangerous situation.

• 51:29

Look, it's survival of the furthest.

• 51:32

Nice.

• 51:33

Nice.

• 51:35

I like that. Survival of the furthest.

• 51:41

All right, let's go kill this guy over here first. I think he has leggings. Yeah.

• 51:47

I'm going to grab this guy. Get over here.

• 51:56

I do like the old school feel of carefully navigating through the space.

• 52:01

Oh, absolutely.

• 52:02

Trying not to pull too many things at once.

• 52:04

Oh, yeah. I'm not about that lawnmower combat at all.

• 52:08

Yeah, Jeremy, Doug, and their teams did a really good job on the encounters here.

• 52:13

Yeah, that can be a problem when you move into an area and it's just like overwhelmingly dense.

• 52:19

And sometimes those areas you like are happy if there's other parties that are nearby and you're like, okay, cool.

• 52:24

You're keeping the spawn rate down for me a little bit.

• 52:26

Oh, we got somebody here. Oh, God. Let me see if I can actively block that. Boom.

• 52:31

What's up, buddy? What's up?

• 52:32

Nice.

• 52:32

Let's go get skills.

• 52:37

I'm just going to take that one. I need some mana.

• 52:40

I want to get them to shoot me again. Boom.

• 52:43

I'd like to explore like a block thing where if you time it perfectly, you get an additional bonus.

• 52:48

Oh, that would be great. Like a kind of almost Gears of War where you have that active reload.

• 52:53

The engineer in me is now crying.

• 52:58

We'll have to be somewhat a little forgiving for it, but I've been playing Valheim lately and it's really fun to do their perfect block.

• 53:05

I'm feeling it. I'm feeling that block.

• 53:07

And it's just so good with the sound effects that are associated with that cat did on that bolt. Oh, it feels so good.

• 53:13

Okay, it looks like we're grabbing two. Let me get Agro on the boss first. I'm going to need some heals.

• 53:18

We'll focus the add.

• 53:19

Yeah, you guys focus. I'm just going to build up hate here on the boss. You guys focus down that add.

• 53:28

I'll try and keep you both up.

• 53:30

I should be good. I have my grit active and I have my active block. You just keep Keenan alive. He looks like he's taking some damage.

• 53:36

Working on it.

• 53:39

He's almost down.

• 53:45

How dare you? How dare this guy?

• 53:50

Crucial coming up.

• 53:54

How dare him? The arborist Historia.

• 54:01

That was way more.

• 54:03

Knocked him.

• 54:05

Let me pull him over here a little bit. Come on over, buddy. Come on. Come to me.

• 54:11

Crucial coming up again.

• 54:12

Pulling him.

• 54:19

Knocking him.

• 54:21

There we go. Let's go. Let's go.

• 54:28

Easy.

• 54:32

Nice. What has he got? Titanbark leggings? Sweet. We're almost there.

• 54:37

I need that, of course.

• 54:40

I need Nate.

• 54:43

All right. We handled that guy with ease. Maybe we'll be okay with the Lord Okunbeng.

• 54:48

I think if we just clear carefully, we'll be fine.

• 54:51

Let's keep on clearing. I'm going to pull the left side first.

• 54:57

Standby. Standby.

• 55:00

I would pull him back over here because we'll have mobs on both sides of you.

• 55:04

Let's go over here, actually. Let's go to the right.

• 55:08

I don't know if I can. I think they're socially aggro.

• 55:11

I'm just hoping I'm not going to...

• 55:15

I would do it now because the other one is patrolling away.

• 55:18

There we go. Okay. Oh, God. We've got three. Just stand behind me. Let me roll it up.

• 55:23

Don't go yet.

• 55:27

Don't go yet. Hold on.

• 55:30

All right. You guys can go now. Focus one target.

• 55:37

Putting a shield up.

• 55:42

I don't think we want to stand in that because then we just get hit by cleaves.

• 55:47

Knocking. Oh, my God.

• 55:50

All right. Yeah. Don't stand in that.

• 55:52

One on me.

• 55:54

Dread, keep yourself up. I'm okay for a little bit.

• 56:01

Okay. Dread's almost down. Okay. Good.

• 56:05

I'm down. All right.

• 56:10

Get yourself back up.

• 56:13

Get up. Get up.

• 56:20

There we go. There we go.

• 56:25

There's another one near you.

• 56:27

Yeah, don't back up any further. Come back this way.

• 56:30

Almost.

• 56:36

All right. We got him.

• 56:39

Yeah, three of those guys is tough.

• 56:41

That's a lot. That's a lot for a party of four.

• 56:44

Adds. I know. I did.

• 56:46

Okay. We got one add.

• 56:47

Two in the back.

• 56:48

Did you hear that?

• 56:51

Of course the ranger would say that.

• 56:53

I'm still alive.

• 56:59

I'm going to focus the echo.

• 57:04

Now we've talked about this in the past, but the active blocking might be an ability that it's universal.

• 57:14

It's universal, but it might be consuming mana and you'll be able to adjust that mana consumption based off of your passive spec into your skill trees.

• 57:23

In addition, it might also consume stamina. That's something we're going to be testing as part of Alpha 2.

• 57:29

Sorry, sometimes when I talk I don't get it.

• 57:38

All right. Let's move up.

• 57:42

Should we go up to the left?

• 57:43

Yeah. Let's go up to the second at the top.

• 57:47

Yeah. Let's take this guy.

• 58:05

I'm going to have to get some mana after this.

• 58:14

Nice. All right. Maybe we can just sit right here for a second.

• 58:18

Just looking down. Oh, there's the tree.

• 58:22

The tree in all its glory.

• 58:27

It's beautiful.

• 58:31

I think Scott Allen did that one.

• 58:36

I wonder what kind of wood it gives.

• 58:41

That's a good question.

• 58:44

Only one left and you want to chop it down.

• 58:48

I feel like I'm having – are we having an earthquake?

• 58:52

Like my table's moving.

• 58:55

I'm going to get some sleep, Steven.

• 58:57

I know, right? Oh my God.

• 58:59

Time for all of us to get some sleep.

• 59:01

I know. All right. I'm going to pull this guy up here and stand by.

• 59:17

Okay. We're doing good there.

• 59:19

Keep focusing him.

• 59:20

I'm going to grab this next dude.

• 59:27

Sit down.

• 59:36

Very dangerously close to a resident on the left.

• 59:40

All right. All right.

• 59:42

I think he's moving away, so we're good.

• 59:49

That's perfect.

• 59:52

All right. So after that guy –

• 59:56

I think we should clear all three of these, to be honest.

• 59:59

Yeah.

• 1:00:01

Watch the angle on the pole.

• 1:00:03

Don't want to pull in front of Oak and Bane.

• 1:00:05

He does a big AOE, so we're going to have to spread out,

• 1:00:07

and then we're going to aggro if we do that.

• 1:00:09

Okay. Stand right here on me in this position.

• 1:00:13

Don't deviate from this one. Hold here.

• 1:00:16

And then let me see if I can grab this echo first.

• 1:00:23

And if I can – there we go.

• 1:00:26

I've got the boss.

• 1:00:27

Okay. I'm going to grab the boss.

• 1:00:28

You guys kill the echo.

• 1:00:29

Yeah.

• 1:00:30

Take the boss back to his room.

• 1:00:32

Okay. Stand by.

• 1:00:34

Don't attack that boss.

• 1:00:36

All right. Good.

• 1:00:43

Oh, God. It hurts. It hurts.

• 1:00:49

All right. I've got the boss on the ground.

• 1:00:51

Keep keening up. Oh, God.

• 1:00:53

I'm trying.

• 1:00:55

I'm holding the boss down.

• 1:00:56

No, I can't keep up with the –

• 1:00:58

Okay. I'm good. Ignore me now.

• 1:01:00

Oh, man.

• 1:01:01

Oh, so close. I'm going to knock him down.

• 1:01:04

All right. Good, good, good. We're good.

• 1:01:06

Dropping the chains.

• 1:01:09

Nice.

• 1:01:14

Oh, thank God for this active block.

• 1:01:17

Knocking him.

• 1:01:21

All right. Holding aggro.

• 1:01:24

I'm going to pull him inside of his mausoleum

• 1:01:27

where he should be laid to rest appropriately.

• 1:01:30

Come here. Follow me into your final resting place, Lord Oak and Bay.

• 1:01:38

Oh. He didn't like that.

• 1:01:42

Oh, he's going to sleep.

• 1:01:44

Shh. Just go to sleep. Go to sleep.

• 1:01:47

Do it.

• 1:01:49

Rest.

• 1:01:50

It's happening.

• 1:01:53

I commit you to the ground, Lord Oak and Bay.

• 1:01:59

Well done, ladies and gentlemen.

• 1:02:02

That was a good fight.

• 1:02:03

That was good.

• 1:02:04

I'm grabbing my need on the Titan Bark chest plate.

• 1:02:10

And now it is time to reveal the glory of our pursuits.

• 1:02:17

I am going to equip said things.

• 1:02:35

Oh, it looks so good.

• 1:02:38

Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:39

It looks so glorious.

• 1:02:42

Jelly.

• 1:02:43

How's our art team so good?

• 1:02:45

I know.

• 1:02:46

The art team is unbelievable.

• 1:02:47

I mean, really.

• 1:02:48

They're just so good.

• 1:02:50

Well, everyone, I hope you guys enjoyed this brief demonstration of our Alpha 2 preview for the Tank archetype.

• 1:02:59

Of course, as we said, this is all a work in progress.

• 1:03:01

There are many things that will change.

• 1:03:03

Testing is very important.

• 1:03:04

Your feedback is incredibly important.

• 1:03:07

Make sure that you leave all commentary possible within the YouTube video on our forums, on our Reddit, on Twitter, everywhere possible.

• 1:03:14

We always take that stuff very seriously, and we iterate upon it, as you've seen between November's livestream and this month's livestream.

• 1:03:21

I hope you all enjoyed it.

• 1:03:23

Keenan, Trad, Brian, thank you very much for joining us.

• 1:03:27

And we will see you all next time.

• 1:03:31

Cheers.

• 1:03:32

Cheers, everyone.

• 1:03:33

Well, we hope that you guys enjoyed that.

• 1:03:47

We will have some of that video playing in the background.

• 1:03:50

I know that there's a lot of questions.

• 1:03:53

I tried to grab some of them as best I could.

• 1:03:56

But of course, we won't get to everything today.

• 1:04:01

But if you have any other questions for us or if you have thoughts, which I see a lot of thoughts from you all.

• 1:04:08

We have a couple threads up, one regarding tanking and one regarding UI and looting.

• 1:04:13

So if you have thoughts on those things, definitely go give us a feedback over on our forums, forums.ashisofcreation.com.

• 1:04:19

We super duper appreciate it.

• 1:04:20

We put a lot of reports together for our developers, and then we present those and we discuss them.

• 1:04:24

And a lot of the times, we're all on the same page.

• 1:04:27

We're already thinking those things.

• 1:04:28

So I'm going to go through some of the things that you guys had questions about here, which is first and foremost, there were a lot of concerns about threat.

• 1:04:36

A lot of people didn't understand how holding threat works because you were holding threat at some point.

• 1:04:42

I know.

• 1:04:43

I know.

• 1:04:44

Well, it's important to remember that these previews are done at a very low level, right?

• 1:04:49

So these are low-level skills and abilities that the archetypes have available to them.

• 1:04:54

And so because of that, some of the functionality from these abilities, they don't necessarily perform as well as you would want them to in a later stage of the game for that role.

• 1:05:07

Now, also keep in mind that balance is a perspective that needs to be incorporated also.

• 1:05:15

So threat is generated based off of a few factors.

• 1:05:18

It's based off of damage done.

• 1:05:19

It's based off of healing done.

• 1:05:21

It's based off of threat generation modifiers that are on abilities.

• 1:05:27

Now, the tank in this situation, I believe, has two abilities that are going to generate additional threat.

• 1:05:34

They have the number two ability, and then they also have the shout ability.

• 1:05:43

Both of those are creating additional threat.

• 1:05:45

But with that being said, we need to tune probably those abilities up a little bit to contend with the DPS that's coming both from the Ranger and with the heals that are coming out of the cleric.

• 1:05:56

All right.

• 1:05:58

And the next questions here are in regards to blocking and dodging.

• 1:06:03

Will all classes be able to have active blocking?

• 1:06:06

And then also, can you active block without a shield?

• 1:06:09

Because mostly we only saw you doing that when you got the shield afterwards.

• 1:06:14

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:06:16

So active block will not be as performant in mitigating the incoming damage with weapons that aren't using a shield.

• 1:06:23

However, you will be able to active block with that currently as it stands in the design.

• 1:06:27

And then the other question about active block was, I'm sorry.

• 1:06:30

It was the shield one, and the other one was will all classes get active block?

• 1:06:35

So it's like can you active block without a shield?

• 1:06:37

Oh, so you can active block without a shield, and all classes can active block.

• 1:06:41

But it's not a universal ability at the moment.

• 1:06:45

And then are there iframes in dodges when you're dodging?

• 1:06:50

We aren't using iframes for dodging.

• 1:06:52

However, we are toying with the idea of a dodge increasing certain stats that are opposed to checks,

• 1:07:00

such as accuracy versus evasion, and potentially boosting mitigation

• 1:07:07

by spec into certain passives that augment their dodge ability.

• 1:07:11

And then there were a lot of questions regarding UI stuff.

• 1:07:16

But yeah, I'll start with the performance thing, which was people were saying that it was really cool

• 1:07:21

seeing the grass get knocked down and stuff like that.

• 1:07:24

But people are worried about GPU drain, and they were curious if they'll be able to toggle that off.

• 1:07:30

Yeah, so there's a lot of bells and whistles that are intended on the client rendering side

• 1:07:36

for these types of features that players will have the ability to scale up or down or off from a performance perspective.

• 1:07:46

And then I think people are wondering if this video is with UE 5.1,

• 1:07:53

because we've been talking about the fact that we are going to be swapping over to that.

• 1:07:56

Right.

• 1:07:57

No, our 5.1 is not scheduled to be complete until probably another week or two.

• 1:08:03

We're moving over to that.

• 1:08:05

Cool.

• 1:08:07

And then we have UI stuff, which is, will there be an auto-loot option?

• 1:08:12

A lot of people saw that you were manually looting things, and they were curious if there would be an auto-loot,

• 1:08:17

or they could have some kind of pet that would auto-loot for them.

• 1:08:20

No, not a pet that can auto-loot.

• 1:08:22

However, we are toying with the idea on the interact of double tapping or some other type of keystroke input

• 1:08:29

that would not require you to interact with the loot container itself, but would just grab everything off of it.

• 1:08:35

Especially if there's multiple loot piles within a proximity radius,

• 1:08:38

it would have to be very close proximity radius.

• 1:08:41

You could double tap to interact with all those and pull them in.

• 1:08:44

And then there were a lot of thoughts on the nameplates and how it's kind of hard to tell mobs versus your party

• 1:08:50

because everything was like red.

• 1:08:51

I know their nameplates aren't complete yet, but I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about the direction of where that's headed.

• 1:08:56

Yeah, so nameplates really actually require a big refactor on our end that we haven't done yet.

• 1:09:03

However, that is something that TechArt and engineering, as well as our UX UI team,

• 1:09:09

are going to be doing over the course of probably the next month to month and a half.

• 1:09:14

It's a big refactor both from performance reasons, how we're going to be able to occlude those nameplates

• 1:09:19

with in-world obstacles in line of sight, as well as prioritizing and clamping their sizes and distances

• 1:09:28

that need a bit of a refactor and of course their visual appearance.

• 1:09:33

So that's work that's still outstanding.

• 1:09:35

And I think that kind of ties in line with being able to tell whether an enemy is in a lead or not

• 1:09:42

and also just kind of different types of mobs.

• 1:09:45

Yeah, that's general UX treatment of the nameplates that's going to include, which has already begun a little bit,

• 1:09:51

but is going to include, as you said, those indicators like resistances, buffs that are present,

• 1:09:57

whether they're elite or not, they'll have probably a star format to indicate that with their hit point allocation.

• 1:10:05

There's a lot of treatments from a UX perspective that needs to be included in the artwork.

• 1:10:09

Is their power level over 9,000? That's the question.

• 1:10:12

Right.

• 1:10:12

And then of course we have, will bosses look different than regular mobs?

• 1:10:17

Or is this kind of just a placeholder to show that, hey, the boss in this area is a little bigger than the other ones,

• 1:10:24

but they kind of look similar?

• 1:10:26

Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:27

So it kind of depends on the types of bosses we're talking about, right?

• 1:10:30

We have regional, we have hunting ground, we have elites, we have mini bosses, we have dungeon bosses, we have raid bosses.

• 1:10:38

There's a lot of different types of creature types.

• 1:10:41

And these in particular are more really elite spawns for this location.

• 1:10:46

They're not really probably considered bosses because they can be handled by a single party.

• 1:10:50

But the rare spawns obviously have a longer respawn time.

• 1:10:54

And so sometimes you'll see that they're scaled up from a size perspective,

• 1:10:59

but most of the time you're going to see if it's a named mob that it's going to have a unique character appearance.

• 1:11:05

And then will there be range indicators for abilities?

• 1:11:09

So, for instance, like if I have ability that can be used within X amount of meters,

• 1:11:15

can I kind of see that as I'm using it versus just hitting it and then seeing that it does it?

• 1:11:23

You mean from like a...

• 1:11:27

Like if I have a grapple that has like a range of 60 meters, right?

• 1:11:33

Can I see that distance a little bit more obvious?

• 1:11:36

It depends. If it's a targeted ability, the indicator when targeting will tell you,

• 1:11:43

great out or not, that the ability can be used based on distance.

• 1:11:47

If it is a templated ability, which means it's a skill kind of skill based use,

• 1:11:52

you'll need to get a feel for those distances.

• 1:11:55

And that's kind of some skill based learning where you get an idea for what those distances are.

• 1:12:03

Some of those will have template indicators, but they'll be very in world and immersive.

• 1:12:10

We're not utilizing more UI centric looking indicators,

• 1:12:15

but generally the AOE templates are meant to be kind of skill based.

• 1:12:20

And then when it comes to tanking, will it be primarily the tank archetypes that will be able to tank?

• 1:12:28

Or can other people tank?

• 1:12:30

No, I mean other people can tank. It really depends on the setting, right?

• 1:12:35

If we're talking like high end rating or done engineering

• 1:12:39

and playing in these areas that require a main tank,

• 1:12:43

that role and responsibility lies to the tank archetype.

• 1:12:46

Now, tank archetypes can obviously take secondary archetype selections

• 1:12:49

and they can hybridize across different roles.

• 1:12:52

That'll give them a bit of horizontal utility or horizontal progression to the augment system.

• 1:12:59

And the best tanks are going to be the tanks that double down in that role.

• 1:13:04

But the game here is agency, player agency and providing that kind of unique build options.

• 1:13:13

People want to use a wand and a shield, Stephen.

• 1:13:15

Right. Well, I don't know about a wand and a shield.

• 1:13:19

But yeah, no, it's something that is intending to allow players to have agency over that.

• 1:13:25

And for those of you wanting to hear more about augments and stuff,

• 1:13:28

we'll be talking more about that in the future. So stay tuned.

• 1:13:31

And then also people are wondering about how are you designing encounters around active blocking?

• 1:13:35

Will it be situational use or what I expect to be laying on my block keybind for most of the fight

• 1:13:42

to prevent getting deleted by bosses?

• 1:13:44

Kind of like they're wondering if the gameplay,

• 1:13:46

because obviously seeing the gameplay right now it's in its core loop,

• 1:13:49

which is a little bit more simplistic.

• 1:13:51

Absolutely. Yeah, it depends really on the type of adversary you're facing.

• 1:13:56

Some of them are going to have indicators or tells that a big attack is coming.

• 1:14:01

It's an animation windup where you'll have an opportunity to use active block

• 1:14:06

in very unique situations that are based on timing

• 1:14:10

and mitigate additional mitigation for those incoming one-off attacks.

• 1:14:14

In other occasions, you'll be able to use it off of rotational cooldowns

• 1:14:19

or if you're waiting for a particular ability or, you know,

• 1:14:22

during the use of your Aegis, right?

• 1:14:27

There's different situations for when active block is a relevant use case.

• 1:14:32

Yeah. And of course, we are still in development.

• 1:14:35

There's many things that will be changing along the way.

• 1:14:37

So if you follow the journey and if you've been following us so far,

• 1:14:40

you've probably seen some very strides in what we've done,

• 1:14:43

especially from Alpha 1 to moving towards our Alpha 2.

• 1:14:47

But I think I'm going to wrap up the questions here.

• 1:14:48

I know there are some forum questions that we'll do in the Q&A section.

• 1:14:52

I just wanted to grab a few that were, I noticed were pretty vocal in the chat.

• 1:14:56

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:14:57

There were a lot of comments about Stephen's gameplay.

• 1:15:00

So I do want to comment on that real quick, though.

• 1:15:03

Just so you guys are aware, you know, I do take a certain persona

• 1:15:09

when kind of showcasing this because, again, it is intended for an audience

• 1:15:13

that's not core per se, but sometimes might be tuning in for the first time

• 1:15:17

and seeing what the development of the game is all about.

• 1:15:19

And, you know, it's much more fun to be kind of a participant in that exploration

• 1:15:25

rather than a recipient of knowledge and information

• 1:15:28

if you're seeing it for the first time.

• 1:15:30

So there's a bit of duality in kind of that streamer-esque persona.

• 1:15:34

However, with that being said, what I want to do with this particular video

• 1:15:40

is I want to upload a 4K version of it after the stream,

• 1:15:43

but I'm going to rerecord it because of the audio issues that we had,

• 1:15:47

and I'm going to be a bit more descriptive and definitive in the demonstration

• 1:15:51

so that, you know, we can try that and see how that feels.

• 1:15:55

But I would say that that'll take probably a couple of hours or so.

• 1:15:59

All right.

• 1:16:00

And we'll use some of our other equipment that we have now, which is exciting.

• 1:16:04

So with that, we're going to head on over to look at character goodies.

• 1:16:09

I always love the character art updates.

• 1:16:11

Character art updates.

• 1:16:14

So first and foremost, we have some really neat Cyclops goodies,

• 1:16:19

which if you've been following along with us,

• 1:16:22

you've probably seen that we are going to be showcasing some Cyclops action.

• 1:16:28

And we've shown a little bit of the Cyclops over the months,

• 1:16:33

if you've kind of gone back and look.

• 1:16:35

But now we're showing you the weapons that are getting 3D modeled,

• 1:16:39

which looks very cool.

• 1:16:41

There's a variety of Cyclopses.

• 1:16:43

Cyclops-I? Cyclops-y?

• 1:16:46

What's the Cyclopses?

• 1:16:48

What's the plural?

• 1:16:50

Cyclop-I?

• 1:16:52

But we have some really cool looking.

• 1:16:56

Yeah, those look great.

• 1:16:58

Who modeled these?

• 1:17:00

These ones were modeled by a variety.

• 1:17:02

So the spear is Chris, and then Manny did the staff, the mace, and the shortbow.

• 1:17:06

Love it.

• 1:17:07

Looks great.

• 1:17:08

I wrote them down this time so I don't forget.

• 1:17:10

Yay.

• 1:17:12

I was like, Stephen's going to ask, and I need to have the answer.

• 1:17:17

Next up we have the tank and hammer that you saw, or the tank and hammer,

• 1:17:23

the sword and hammer that you saw.

• 1:17:25

The tank and hammer.

• 1:17:26

Stephen playing with the tank.

• 1:17:28

Wow.

• 1:17:30

In Alder glory.

• 1:17:32

Quite beautiful.

• 1:17:35

And then I got a little teaser for you.

• 1:17:37

Teasing something that's coming up.

• 1:17:40

But this is called, well, it's like our shield, our carfen shield.

• 1:17:44

That's not the full name of it, but that might tease a little bit of what might be coming.

• 1:17:48

Oh, carfen.

• 1:17:50

Carfen.

• 1:17:52

And Danny worked on this one.

• 1:17:54

Looks great.

• 1:17:55

Looks very good.

• 1:17:57

And then we've got, you guys have seen the Najash being worked on quite a bit,

• 1:18:03

but this one is the enforcer model.

• 1:18:06

Looking pretty cool.

• 1:18:08

And then we actually have the 3D turntable for the shaman,

• 1:18:13

which I believe we showed the shaman model in work in progress previously.

• 1:18:18

But now you're seeing.

• 1:18:20

Love it.

• 1:18:21

The 3D one.

• 1:18:22

It's sick.

• 1:18:24

Some snake people.

• 1:18:26

And then you also see their staff, which is awesome.

• 1:18:30

I can't wait to see the animations for these.

• 1:18:33

Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:34

I loved seeing the animated armor today with like their little, their lightning zap thing.

• 1:18:39

That ability looks so cool.

• 1:18:42

And then we've got the boulder stone bulldog, which Jinsei worked on.

• 1:18:51

I love his little face.

• 1:18:53

I know.

• 1:18:54

He's like a ram and a doggo had a baby.

• 1:18:57

Yeah.

• 1:18:58

And he's a mount.

• 1:19:00

He's a bull goat.

• 1:19:01

And bull goat.

• 1:19:03

And bull ram.

• 1:19:05

Very cool.

• 1:19:08

And then we've got the oak stout.

• 1:19:14

I can't wait to see the animations.

• 1:19:17

I know.

• 1:19:18

They're going to be awesome.

• 1:19:21

It's utterly adorable.

• 1:19:24

And I know I'm the worst.

• 1:19:27

And then we've got our risen guardian,

• 1:19:30

which is just disgustingly awesome.

• 1:19:34

That's nasty.

• 1:19:36

Nasty.

• 1:19:37

This is the mount that you want to ride into battle to scare your enemies.

• 1:19:44

Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:45

It probably has like just an aura of rotting flesh.

• 1:19:48

You need to make some will saves or fortitude saves when you get near it.

• 1:19:52

Imagine the stench.

• 1:19:55

This is where we need like smell-o-vision.

• 1:19:58

I'm just kidding.

• 1:19:59

And then we have some new stuff for you for Vec hairstyles.

• 1:20:04

So brace yourselves.

• 1:20:06

It's pretty awesome.

• 1:20:08

So we're going to start with the Vec.

• 1:20:10

This is a short hairstyle, a little knobbin.

• 1:20:14

Love it.

• 1:20:16

So good.

• 1:20:23

I like the second ponytail that's going forward.

• 1:20:29

And then we've got the reverse ponytail.

• 1:20:32

The mohawk plus some beard action.

• 1:20:36

Nice.

• 1:20:38

Did we grab some reference images from Ryfy?

• 1:20:43

I don't have some reference images, but Ryfy does have a sick mohawk.

• 1:20:49

He's one of our producers.

• 1:20:54

And then we've got the long beard, which kind of reminds me of Zach's beard a little bit.

• 1:21:02

Zach, yeah.

• 1:21:03

But like more scruffy.

• 1:21:07

And then, you know, we got to rep.

• 1:21:09

We got to have the ladies.

• 1:21:10

So we have a short hairstyle for our Vec ladies.

• 1:21:15

We will have many, many, many hairstyles, homies.

• 1:21:18

So do not fret.

• 1:21:20

These are just a few we're showing for the Vec.

• 1:21:25

And I think this next one's my favorite, but it's the long pony for the Vec.

• 1:21:32

Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:33

That one's cool.

• 1:21:34

I can cosplay this one.

• 1:21:35

I can't wait to see the physics, the physics sim on that.

• 1:21:38

Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:39

People are going to be like, that better not be going into my clothing.

• 1:21:42

Good luck with that, animators.

• 1:21:44

And that is the wonderful character art update.

• 1:21:50

And always they do so many amazing things.

• 1:21:52

We can't show everything.

• 1:21:53

We'd be here all day.

• 1:21:54

But we do like to take bits and pieces that are really cool.

• 1:21:57

And we do want to keep some things as surprises.

• 1:22:00

So with that, we're going to swap over and do a little Q&A from the forums.

• 1:22:06

If you submitted your questions, thank you so much.

• 1:22:08

We super duper appreciate it.

• 1:22:11

Actually, Stephen, do you want to do a quick studio update before we do Q&A?

• 1:22:17

Yeah, no.

• 1:22:18

January has been an awesome month so far.

• 1:22:22

Like I said, we started off pretty quick.

• 1:22:25

We have some pretty ambitious hiring goals for this year.

• 1:22:34

And I think you guys last year in the community

• 1:22:39

have helped us spread awareness for the studio and for the project

• 1:22:43

on all the socials.

• 1:22:45

And of course, we've seen, as most of you are aware,

• 1:22:50

some turbulent times in the tech industry in general,

• 1:22:53

as well as across the games industry specifically.

• 1:22:56

Intrepid Studios is hiring.

• 1:22:59

We can be a resource for those individuals who have been impacted

• 1:23:02

by those recent layoffs.

• 1:23:03

And our heart goes out, of course, to all of them.

• 1:23:06

If you know anyone who's been impacted, direct them to IntrepidStudios.com

• 1:23:10

where we have all of our current jobs postings listed

• 1:23:13

and make sure that they know there's going to be updates coming

• 1:23:16

over the course of the next 30 to 60 days for additional positions

• 1:23:20

that will be listed as well.

• 1:23:21

And of course, if you don't see a position listed there

• 1:23:23

or you know of someone who you think would be a great fit

• 1:23:26

for the team and the project, you can direct them to just send in

• 1:23:29

their resume, even without a position listed.

• 1:23:33

So that's going to be good.

• 1:23:35

And then in addition, there's a lot of feedback that we need

• 1:23:42

and that we share with you guys, especially in these updates.

• 1:23:45

And the community team does a great job at collecting that feedback.

• 1:23:48

So make sure that you guys are posting and giving us all your thoughts

• 1:23:51

because that stuff is very important, especially as we get into this year

• 1:23:55

specifically, where we have a lot of things planned.

• 1:23:59

A lot of things.

• 1:24:00

A lot of things.

• 1:24:00

A lot of things are happening.

• 1:24:04

With that, we will go to our Q&A.

• 1:24:06

I was looking through my run of show and I was scrolling down.

• 1:24:09

I hit the button on the overlay and I was like, oh, no.

• 1:24:12

But with that, we will chat a little bit about the Q&A.

• 1:24:17

So the first question here from our lovely forum folks is from Symex.

• 1:24:21

We have a few that are actually tank related.

• 1:24:23

So thanks, guys.

• 1:24:24

You kept everything a little bit on topic and then we have some that are not.

• 1:24:27

So we will start with the tank ones since we got it on our mind right now.

• 1:24:31

The first one is about damage mitigation.

• 1:24:33

Should a skilled tank be able to prevent all damage to their party

• 1:24:36

or should there be situations that no matter what your skill,

• 1:24:40

the party will take some damage?

• 1:24:42

Yeah.

• 1:24:43

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:24:44

There is a few ways that that gets accomplished, both from an ability creation

• 1:24:49

perspective with regards to the class kits and what they are capable of doing,

• 1:24:53

but also in the encounter design and how we want to structure the AI

• 1:24:57

and behavior tree of our monsters not to be very simplistic in their engagement.

• 1:25:02

So that is important.

• 1:25:05

It's cool to, as a tank, have some control over the encounter,

• 1:25:11

but it's also not cool if the control creates an entirely predictive gameplay loop.

• 1:25:17

So with that being said, we want to introduce that element of chaos

• 1:25:26

because that makes things kind of fun and reactive

• 1:25:30

and reactive gameplay is skill based gameplay and that's a good thing to have.

• 1:25:35

All right.

• 1:25:36

And the next question is from Immortality.

• 1:25:39

This is about general tank play.

• 1:25:41

Will tanks have some form of stances to swap between that increases damage

• 1:25:46

dials at the cost of defenses?

• 1:25:49

Yes.

• 1:25:50

So those are some hybridization options that should be available as part of the class kit.

• 1:25:55

They can be further expanded upon with access to augment systems

• 1:25:58

and depending on your secondary class choice.

• 1:26:00

But again, the idea here is player agency.

• 1:26:03

So we don't prescribe what that class fantasy or class role is.

• 1:26:07

There's a lot of directions that players can take as part of that agency

• 1:26:10

and that comes down to how they compose their skill trees.

• 1:26:15

All right.

• 1:26:17

And then we've got damage and aggro from Super Waffle Fry.

• 1:26:22

I like that name and it's making me hungry.

• 1:26:24

Tanks need to do two things, mitigate damage and hold aggro.

• 1:26:28

How will tank weapons, shields and armor balance these two dynamics compared to other gear sets?

• 1:26:36

Well, I think it does so in a few ways.

• 1:26:39

I mean, obviously stack composition and your itemization choices are important,

• 1:26:43

making sure you're driving up your constitution-based stat allocation

• 1:26:48

through selection of certain set bonuses and or stat modifiers.

• 1:26:52

But in addition, a big portion of that is not just through itemization,

• 1:26:55

but also through your skill tree selections.

• 1:26:59

And, you know, they don't have to be diametrically opposed.

• 1:27:02

The ability to kind of garner additional threat is predicated on your rotational selection

• 1:27:09

and how you are leveraging certain types of set bonuses that are catered towards that role specifically.

• 1:27:16

So some set bonuses will have specific very targeted benefits like additional threat generation.

• 1:27:22

But in addition, you know, if you're going to mitigate damage,

• 1:27:25

you need to make sure you're focusing on your health pool.

• 1:27:27

How much health pool do you have available to you?

• 1:27:29

What type of damage are you mitigating?

• 1:27:31

Because we have different types of damage mitigation from magic to physical.

• 1:27:34

And that's predicated on who your opponent is, where your adversary lives.

• 1:27:38

You know, both of those are viable strategies.

• 1:27:42

All right.

• 1:27:43

And then we have Orbificator, and they want to know about being unkillable.

• 1:27:47

Will I be able to fulfill my fantasy of having a ridiculously large health pool

• 1:27:52

at the cost of other attributes?

• 1:27:55

You will have significant agency over the allocation of your stat progression.

• 1:28:01

Yes.

• 1:28:02

Some of that will be baked in based on the archetype selection.

• 1:28:06

But a large portion of that will come down to your itemization selection,

• 1:28:09

your selection of tattoos and other ancillary types of augments

• 1:28:12

and or benefits you can apply to specific items such as socketing.

• 1:28:15

But generally, if you want to make a very con-heavy HP-focused tank, you can do that.

• 1:28:24

All right.

• 1:28:26

The next one is PvP gameplay.

• 1:28:28

And this one's from Nice Gaming, but not spelled like nice.

• 1:28:31

What steps are being taken or considered to make the tank archetype viable in PvP engagements?

• 1:28:40

Well, there is a whole host of things that are taken.

• 1:28:46

It's important to note that in a lot of MMOs that probably many of us have played,

• 1:28:50

PvP can feel like a slapped-on design consideration.

• 1:28:55

And our approach is very holistic in the sense that we take into account the fact

• 1:29:00

this is a PvX game.

• 1:29:02

So when we're designing the class kits, we are making sure that mechanics and designs

• 1:29:07

are targeting applicability both in PvE settings as well as PvP settings.

• 1:29:13

That's very important.

• 1:29:16

There are also special mechanics like how threat is used in PvP,

• 1:29:20

how taunts are used in PvP.

• 1:29:23

Those things, I think, require testing.

• 1:29:26

But we have some ideas that will make them relevant so that you don't have abilities

• 1:29:31

that have no relevancy in PvE or PvP but have some cross-application.

• 1:29:38

All right.

• 1:29:40

And then we've got the off-tanking.

• 1:29:42

And this is from Sago.

• 1:29:44

And they want to know how will off-tanks remain useful in raids or dungeons

• 1:29:48

when they don't need to tank for a specific fight?

• 1:29:52

There's a few cases in which off-tanks, of course, are relevant.

• 1:29:59

I mean, when you're fighting in a dungeon, you have the occasional adds that come in

• 1:30:03

where the primary tank might be focused on keeping your party's target aggroed

• 1:30:12

and the off-tank has the ability to kind of hold aggro on adds

• 1:30:15

until the main tank is finished with their target.

• 1:30:18

In addition, you have certain types of abilities like taunts that are immediate redirects on threat

• 1:30:25

without having to acquire or accrue the appropriate threat to hold that aggro

• 1:30:29

that can utilize those taunts situationally based off of the threats that are appearing to the party.

• 1:30:36

There's a lot of, I mean, there's a broad scope of applicability

• 1:30:42

that applies to these types of roles like off-tank

• 1:30:45

that I think are relevant and part of our overall kit designs.

• 1:30:50

And this next question is one I feel like many people internally have also talked about,

• 1:30:56

which is from MyoSotis, and they want to know about the name.

• 1:31:05

Have you considered renaming the tank archetype?

• 1:31:10

Yes, we have considered it.

• 1:31:14

There are a few thoughts on that.

• 1:31:20

The tank is a clear communicator.

• 1:31:23

The tank name is a clear indicator kind of of the role

• 1:31:28

that is more common in our average MMO vernacular, right?

• 1:31:33

Now, from a role-play perspective, there are questions about keeping that name in world,

• 1:31:42

in lore, so to speak, and not necessarily adopting the vernacular that the community has adopted.

• 1:31:49

I think those are valid concerns, and it's something I'm not diametrically opposed to reconsidering.

• 1:31:55

But I would say an update on that is not coming in the immediate future.

• 1:32:00

All right.

• 1:32:01

And then we're moving away from tank stuff, so it's gone.

• 1:32:05

Barab wants to know about naval mechanics.

• 1:32:08

Will there be a mechanic on ships that allow players to hire or install NPCs to control sails or fire cannons?

• 1:32:18

No, we don't have the concept of including the mercenary or additive NPC solution

• 1:32:25

or as a mechanic on naval ships.

• 1:32:28

They are elsewhere within the game, but not intended for naval ships.

• 1:32:35

And then Azrae wants to know about siege summons.

• 1:32:39

Will there be level restrictions on who can participate in the activation of these abilities other than for the group leader?

• 1:32:48

For summons during sieges?

• 1:32:53

Are we talking about summoners or are we talking about siege weapons like vehicles?

• 1:32:59

Will there be level restrictions on who can participate in the activation of these abilities?

• 1:33:03

So if we're talking about vehicles and siege weaponry, that's agnostic of class kits,

• 1:33:09

those will be predicated on individuals who have the items within their inventory in order to summon them

• 1:33:15

and who are registered as part of, in the castle scenario, registered guild, or in the node scenario, an attacker, a valid attacker.

• 1:33:24

With regards to the summoner class and abilities that exist within class kits,

• 1:33:31

those types of summons will require that the summoner is an active participant in the siege or in the node siege, castle siege or node siege,

• 1:33:43

in order to utilize that ability.

• 1:33:46

And then if we're talking about the group summons, then the group summons would be utilized solely by the party leader.

• 1:33:54

So that's an activation that occurs from the party leader.

• 1:33:57

The party leader has to satisfy having that ability as part of their class kit

• 1:34:02

and then having the necessary additive components from other classes that are part of the group.

• 1:34:07

All right.

• 1:34:08

And then Jamie Chaos wants to know about raid bosses.

• 1:34:11

It was stated that raid bosses would change difficulty based on how fast a group was clearing them.

• 1:34:18

If the raids are supposed to be open and not instanced, how does this work or do rooms lock once a boss is pulled?

• 1:34:25

And this was something you had stated a long time ago.

• 1:34:28

Yeah.

• 1:34:29

So raid bosses are aware of the number of combatants within an area in proximity to them.

• 1:34:37

And that awareness is part of an indicator to which behaviors they're going to utilize as part of their behavior tree.

• 1:34:47

So as it's assessing the types of combatants that are facing it, the number of those combatants,

• 1:34:52

the position of those combatants, the abilities and life totals of those combatants,

• 1:34:57

it weighs certain actions in its behavior tree and then it acts on those actions.

• 1:35:02

And in the scenario where you're bringing overwhelming odds to a particular fight,

• 1:35:08

that might weigh heavier the AOE options that the boss has access to,

• 1:35:14

to where they're utilizing a lot more AOE abilities during an engagement due to that overage of players.

• 1:35:22

So in that sense, it's a bit adaptive.

• 1:35:25

It's a bit dynamic based on the encounter scenario.

• 1:35:29

And you haven't really seen our full AI encounters yet.

• 1:35:33

We're very much in our core loop state as we're showing this showcase.

• 1:35:38

So for people being like, you don't see that right now.

• 1:35:42

It's because we're not showing that quite yet.

• 1:35:46

And then Serena Venport wants to know about player housing.

• 1:35:50

And this is our final question from the forums today.

• 1:35:52

What limitation will we have with placing items we find in the world as decorations in our houses?

• 1:36:01

There is a few limitations.

• 1:36:04

Some of those limitations are specific to the type of housing that you own.

• 1:36:10

Some of those limitations are at the recipe and workbench construction point as well.

• 1:36:17

You need to have the necessary components to make those things.

• 1:36:20

Placing them, there is an allotment quota that's based on the type of housing.

• 1:36:25

And there is a grade restriction based on the type of housing.

• 1:36:29

So if you have a mansion in node housing, you can place the best furniture.

• 1:36:34

And furniture has mechanical components to it, game mechanics associated with them.

• 1:36:38

They're not just visual or cosmetic.

• 1:36:43

In addition, there might be limitations around how many of a particular type of furniture piece

• 1:36:48

or decor item you can place inside of a property.

• 1:36:55

So you might only be able to place one of a certain type.

• 1:36:59

So there's a few rules around that.

• 1:37:02

All right.

• 1:37:03

And that's it.

• 1:37:04

We've wrapped it up.

• 1:37:05

Wow, we did it.

• 1:37:06

Thank you for watching this on YouTube.

• 1:37:08

We've probably made some edits because we're going to re-record the gameplay section

• 1:37:12

to showcase that a little bit better.

• 1:37:15

And for those of you who are watching this live with us, thank you for joining us

• 1:37:19

and giving us a lot of feedback.

• 1:37:21

We appreciate that.

• 1:37:22

And of course, as always, head on over to our forums, forums.ashisofcreation.com.

• 1:37:28

Give us feedback.

• 1:37:29

We have tank thread up there as well as looting UI thread up there.

• 1:37:33

So if you have thoughts, get them over to us.

• 1:37:34

We always love seeing those.

• 1:37:36

And as Stephen mentioned before, we do make reports on these

• 1:37:39

and we send them to the development team.

• 1:37:41

And sometimes we have meetings regarding these.

• 1:37:43

And it really helps us ensure that we're always on the same page.

• 1:37:45

And usually a lot of the feedback that you guys have is stuff that we're already like,

• 1:37:48

yeah, we want to move forward in that direction anyway.

• 1:37:51

Or we're already working towards that.

• 1:37:53

Which is nice.

• 1:37:54

Good validator.

• 1:37:55

Absolutely.

• 1:37:56

Exactly.

• 1:37:57

It validates that we're on the right track.

• 1:37:59

And of course, we would love for you to check out our Featherstone Royal Expeditions cosmetics.

• 1:38:05

They will be swapping over February 8th, 2023 at 11 a.m.

• 1:38:08

So if you want those, grab them.

• 1:38:10

And of course, thank you or thank you very much viewers for joining us.

• 1:38:15

And of course, to our lovely developers, Keenan, Trad, Brian, and Stephen

• 1:38:20

for showcasing our tank.

• 1:38:23

And we hope that you all stay safe and healthy.

• 1:38:26

We'll have a 4K video up on YouTube.

• 1:38:28

We'll have the whole development video up on YouTube as well.

• 1:38:32

One will come today and the other one will go tomorrow.

• 1:38:35

And then of course, on the development update video, if you leave us a comment

• 1:38:38

and you subscribe, your comment could possibly be the lucky winner

• 1:38:42

that will be showcased on our next development update next month.

• 1:38:46

So please follow us in all the places at Ashes of Creation.

• 1:38:50

And we'll see you guys all next month.

• 1:38:52

Any last words, Stephen?

• 1:38:54

No, just thank you guys.

• 1:38:55

Make sure to give us your feedback.

• 1:38:57

We appreciate it as always.

• 1:38:58

And of course, we endeavor to present you guys with the most amazing MMORPG possible.

• 1:39:03

And our goal has always been to make you proud.

• 1:39:07

So keep us informed on your feedback and give us all the thoughts.

• 1:39:12

Yeah, we love seeing all your thoughts.

• 1:39:15

So we'll see you all next month.

• 1:39:17

Bye, everyone.