Ashes of Creation

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Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMORPG, set in a high fantasy open world.[1]

Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMORPG set in a world of high fantasy where player’s choices will shape and define the world around them.[1]

When it comes to how MMO’s have been traditionally designed, most gamers are familiar with two distinct types of gameplay loops: the “theme park”, and the “sandbox”. The vast majority of MMO’s we’ve all seen come and go in the gaming industry have been of the theme park variety – these games put the player onto a specific path, guiding them along, with plenty of pretty sights in between the same old quest hubs, very little in divergent paths, virtually no freedom in player progression. Recently the MMO genre has seen some games of the sandbox nature come onto the scene, but despite the ultimate freedom the sandbox affords players, many are left wanting more, as there is by definition no pre built world content, no human touch, just the vastness of the “sand” for lack of a better term. Thus many MMO players often find themselves caught between the repetitive rock of the theme park or the vast dead spaces of the sandbox’s hard place. This chasm between the state of MMO gameplay loops is where we intend to inject Ashes of Creation’s Node system.[1]

In order for sandbox mechanics to mean something, there must be curated content to accompany the player’s choices. Which means, as the developers, we must create that Themebox style content but for every possible path the community may take.[2]Steven Sharif

Open world

Alpha-1 open world dungeon entrance.[3]

80% of the content that will exist in Ashes of Creation is open-world and there's a specific reason for that. So because of the way that friendships and or enemies are forged in the game and people have the opportunity to create their own friends or foes. We want that to play out from a contesting standpoint as well. So a lot of these hunting grounds or raid bosses that people are going to have opportunities to kill, they're going to be essentially contested potentially by your your enemies that you've created in the game or you can work together to create alliances in order to defend those contested zones.[4]Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation will be a seamless open-world experience.[5]

  • No loading time or loading screens between regions.[5]

There will be an approximately 80/20 split between open world vs instanced encounters.[6][7][4][8][9]

  • Around 80% of the content is open-world, where healthy competition is an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.[6][10][7]
In situations where we want to contain a particular type of raid, we will utilize instancing; and that can protect certain engagements with certain bosses. But that's really more on the 20% of the scenarios will have instancing protection like that. Around 80% of the content is open-world, where competition is- healthy competition is an instigator for soft player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. So that's an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes. It's a core philosophical point. And just to be clear, that is not for everyone. We are not trying to make a product that appeals to every MMO gamer. That's impossible; and so we've been very upfront and forthright with what we are trying to accomplish and what our core pillars of philosophical design are.[7]Steven Sharif
  • Castle and node sieges may contain instanced locations where specific groups can participate in certain objective-based waypoints.[11]
  • Dungeons and raids will maintain an open world feel while also capitalizing on the benefits of instanced mechanics.[12] Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal.[7][13] Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else.[5]
There will be some open dungeons that have bosses at the end of the dungeons. There will be some open dungeons that just have a multitude of dungeon bosses, not necessarily world raids or something; and there will be lots of different rooms and they'll be progressive in the sense that in the earlier parts of the dungeon they'll be lower level and then at the later parts of the dungeons deeper down they'll be higher level and more difficult; and that creates again I think an ecosystem of where players across a multitude of levels have an opportunity to coexist within certain areas of the world; and that's good from a social dynamic. It's good from a recruitment dynamic. It's good from just a liveliness and relevance of particular areas. So that you don't end up with these locations that once you pass a certain level like it's empty.[14]Steven Sharif
We're probably going to do instancing only in certain dungeons and in arenas. You probably won't see instancing too much anywhere else. What you see is gonna be what you get.[5]Jeffrey Bard

The PvP flagging and corruption system is in place to safeguard against griefing without limiting opportunities for open conflict.[16][7][17]

  • Healthy competition is seen as an instigator for player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. This is an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes of Creation.[16][7]
  • This friction presents an opportunity to engage in the political aspects of the game, which is the lifeblood of what keeps players interested and invested in the game.[16][7][14]
Q: When you reach the bosses in [open world] dungeons can you be jumped?
A: For the most part if there are bosses at the end of dungeons, it is possible for you to get jumped.[14]Steven Sharif
Q: In an open world dungeon, what prevents others from just waiting until you're at the boss and then killing you and taking your boss's loot? What prevents mega guilds from just owning an area and preventing you from accessing or enjoying it?
A: In a majority of cases, we do not want to prevent another group from engaging potentially in PvP. We disincentivize it by creating safeguards within the flagging system that make that decision very concerning for the people that might go corrupt; and if you're in the large enough group of numbers I doubt you're going to experience that unless there's some rivalry between guilds. In which case there's apparatuses like Guild Wars that are more opt-in. You can drop guild tag if you want. But anyways, the competitive nature of this environment is a PvX element.[7]Steven Sharif

Open development

Intrepid Studios has embraced an open (transparent) development approach, rather than sharing information through carefully curated press releases and announcements.[18]

I think that we live in an age where it's easy to be transparent if you're not trying to hide something. The downside is if you're showing something that's not a completed or finished product, it is incumbent upon the viewer to understand that fact.[18]Steven Sharif

There are obviously going to be some aspects of the development that we will not reveal, like lore and some system mechanics in order not to spoil the game for release.[19][20]Steven Sharif

Factions

There are no predefined factions in Ashes of Creation.[21]

Because we are non-faction based, you want to grant the user the ability to either do things that are "evil" or "good", so there has to be a plethora of choice on the evil side for them to participate in.[22]Steven Sharif

Payment model

Box cost

There is no upfront box cost associated with Ashes of Creation.[23]

Nobody should feel that they have to back the project to see it come to life. It's coming to life regardless of that. You do it because you want to support us and that's fine; and if you don't want to, that's also fine as well. We want to hear your voice and we want you to be part of the community, so that's a very important aspect. Nothing we offer in the pre-order packages are power driven. They don't give any competitive advantage to an individual who backs the game.[24]Steven Sharif

Subscription model

Game time was previously purchasable in Pre-order packs.[25][26]

This allows us to avoid the pay to win mentality many free-to-play games employ, as well as maintain a steady flow of new content for all our players.[27]

Ashes of Creation (the MMORPG) is a subscription-only game with no box cost.[27]

Certain regions will have "harmonized" subscription prices that better reflect their local economies. Harmonized regions will be segregated from other regions.[30]Ry Schueller
  • Subscriptions will begin at launch or, subject to change, a user may be able to choose to activate their subscription to start at a particular point in time.[36]
I think a sub cost provides both the barrier of entry to prevent, some not all, but mitigate some gold selling bots and whatnot because there's a cost associated with playing the game, but it's also not too high that it gets on the greedy side or prevents a lot of players from participating and trying the game; and then if the game is good then people will continue to subscribe and that subscription provides funding and revenue for the developers to continue a significant content creation and expansion rollout for the game.[38]Steven Sharif
There is no P2W in Apocalypse or the MMORPG![40]

Expansions

DLC expansions (post-launch releases) are planned on a monthly, quarterly, or six-monthly basis.[41][42]

  • The frequency and size of expansions will be based on the popularity and subscription base of the game.[41]
  • New content will primarily be introduced through the node system. The goal is for existing content to remain relevant alongside the new content.[46]
  • Expansions provide an opportunity for the developers to evaluate ways to unlock content that was not readily experienced by players in the previous release.[47]
Each inflection point, which is those updates as expansions... you get to go back reevaluate. Hey, it seems like 89% of the servers out there never opened this door. Well, maybe the predicates were too granular. Maybe they were too focused. Maybe there's a reason why that didn't happen? Let's expand on that for the next expansion so that this content has an opportunity to come out and see the light of day.[47]Steven Sharif

Pay to win

Ashes of Creation will not be pay to win.[48][38][49]

Ashes of Creation will not be pay to win, that is our pledge to the community. One of the core principles we set forth with Ashes of Creation is a very strong desire to maintain the game's even playing field.[49]
A lot of developers and companies have come along in the past- and I've been hit by this too- and they've said we're not going to have pay-to-win and then boom they roll out some pay-to-win. We have consistently said we won't be pay-to-win and in the pre-orders that we provide and even in the Kickstarter there were absolutely zero pay-to-win components whatsoever. So not only will we talk the talk but we will walk the walk as well.[38]Steven Sharif
Because we are a non-box purchase game, meaning there is no box price to play Ashes of Creation, it is only a subscription; and that's beneficial because it reduces the barrier of entry and we want a high population obviously; but at the same time one of the ways we augment the revenue flows to sustain constant updates and new chapter releases and additional content within the game is through a cosmetic-only marketplace; and that means absolutely no pay-to-win whatsoever; and that will be adhered to forever.[48]Steven Sharif

Inventory slots, RNG loot boxes and XP potions are considered pay-to-win.[50][51][52][53]

We will not use a loot box system for cosmetics either. We currently have a cosmetic store that offers limited time, limited quantity items to help sustain game development. These items are purely decorative and do not offer any in-game benefits.[50]
My definition of pay-to-win is really anything that affects the in-game economy, the in-game action pool, your abilities and/or skills... In my opinion the inventory slots and the XP potions would be considered pay-to-win.[52]Steven Sharif
  • Items sold in the store that are also obtainable through gameplay are still considered pay-to-win.[57]
It undermines an achievement when you remove the need to achieve it.[57]Steven Sharif
Q: Will there be RNG boxes?
A: I dislike RNG. Archeage made me loath rng monetization gimmicks.[53]Steven Sharif

Cosmetic store (micro transactions)

Ashes of Creation cosmetic store.[58]

There is going to be legendary cosmetics that can be earned and achieved in the game through the game systems, but that's going to take a significant amount of effort and work; and those cosmetics are going to be on-par with the cosmetics offered in the marketplace... What that does is it provides additional revenue to the company so that we can continue to fund the development of content as well and bridge the divide that not having a box cost would have and not having any pay-to-win mechanics whatsoever.[38]Steven Sharif

The Cosmetic store enables players to purchase Cosmetics for use in Ashes of Creation.[59] The cosmetic store offers limited time, limited quantity items to help sustain game development.[60]

  • Equitable cosmetics, both from a quantity and quality standpoint, are achievable through in-game means.[60]
  • Nothing in the cosmetic store will be pay to win.[61]

Nothing in our shop will ever be pay to win as we believe this practice greatly hurts the MMORPG genre.[61]

  • Cash shop cosmetics will offer a diverse selection of unique looks.[62]

I want to incentivize purchase in the cosmetic shop for sustainability of what expansions we have intended, since we are not a box cost. I want to incentivize purchase by offering limited items: limited time, limited quantity, so you have confidence that when you purchase them, they won't be offered later on in some other way.[60]Steven Sharif

  • All cosmetic store items will be non-tradeable.[63] There will be no gifting mechanism for cosmetic items.[64]

I don't want cosmetic items that can be purchased from the market to be transferable... because it is in a way a transfer of money for potentially something in-game.[64]Steven Sharif

Alts

End game

There is not going to be a typical end-game in Ashes of Creation.[75]

Part of the whole experience with nodes is that there is no real end-game, in that the world is constantly shifting every day. Month one is going to be really different from month two; and that's for the level 50s and level 1s.[75]Jeffrey Bard

Game difficulty

People who put more time and effort into it are definitely going to get more out of it but that doesn't mean that person who logs in once a week won't be able to have fun so it's just a matter of the scale of stuff that you're going after... Running a caravan is not gonna be the same thing every time you do it. You might be able to find like a super secret path that nobody knows about... and you exploit it for a while and nobody knows and then eventually somebody sees you and suddenly that route becomes a lot more difficult so you know that's kind of the way we really want that emergent gameplay to kind of come out of those options that we give you guys; and a lot of it is gonna come down to other players making it more or less difficult for you.[76]Jeffrey Bard

There's a ton of room for difficulty on whatever scale... In a living world everything becomes much more difficult.[76]Peter Pilone

Learning curve

Ashes of Creation will be easy to understand yet hard to master.[77]

Target demographic

I think our target demographic, obviously we have a very high graphic fidelity in the game that's attractive to younger players, but at the same time we have a very roleplay game orientation - a kind of a play back to that pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons feel that perhaps younger generations may not know but is very near and dear to the hearts of older gamers. So I think we have a broad appeal from a demographic standpoint.[77]Steven Sharif

Player types

Ashes of Creation will cater for a variety of player types; from Raiders or PvPers to Role players and Crafters.[78]

A guy who wrote a book on game design, called Bartle, breaks gamers up into different categories. We will often talk about the different categories of gamers and trying to satisfy their needs.[78]Akil Hooper

The most compelling design argument for how those different sects of gamers interact with each other is dependant from the design standpoint of interdependencies in the systems. So, for example if as a Raider or as a PvPer you're looking for the best gear, you're going to devote your time towards leveling up and going out and participating in the things you enjoy like pvping, perhaps going for caravans or sieging cities and castles and all that type stuff. If you want the best gear, you're going to have to to rely on a person who's devoted their time towards crafting potentially; and they may not be a PvPer but they have a place in your wheelhouse because you need their services. And then that crafter is going to need a person who is either a gatherer or plays the economy as a merchant in the nodes with the auction houses that are regionalized. They're going to have to work with a person who specializes in trade that takes caravans with either mercenary groups or other guilds that are PvPers between the nodes to get the resources they need. Building dependencies on different groups or factions of players that exist within a large world like this MMORPG is what kind of solidifies the bonds that allow for them to exist either harmoniously, or at least in a way that they know you need those types of players.[78]Steven Sharif

Casual vs. hardcore players

Casual players will have an impact because what they do is necessary for the health of the server.[79]

There are events that are that are happening in the world in the game that you won't need to be a hardcore player to impact and join. For example, the triggered events from the PvE standpoint against the cities; the trades of the caravans; those natural battlegrounds that exist; the castle sieges you can login for. There is a lot of systems that are at play where a person can simply log in, participate, have fun, be impactful and then log out.[79]Steven Sharif

Game balance

The way that the systems are being designed from a balancing standpoint we're taking into account how we would like the nodes to change per-se how often and we've designed attrition systems for certain cultures that may have more dominance over others. These are things that in Alpha and Beta we will be testing and watching and making sure that our objective is achieved from a gameplay standpoint and if it's not we'll come back and recalculate.[80]Steven Sharif

Localization/Translation

Efforts will be made to translate Ashes of Creation into multiple languages.[81][82]

  • Translation will be done in the game client based on interest.

Platforms

Ashes of Creation will be released on the Windows PC platform.[83]

Performance

Performance optimization when rendering 1300 simulated actors utilizing merged materials and meshes in Unreal Engine 5 Nanite.[85] This test was confirmed post-stream to be running on a RTX 3070.[86]

What you're seeing here showcases the new modular appearance component which can combine any set of meshes and materials into a single mesh and single material at run-time. What you're looking at is over 1300 different entities, different actors. These are simulated players essentially. Previously you saw the example they were just standing still. There was no animation, there was no effects, there was no environment and it was a thousand. This is thirteen hundred playing animations, playing effects, plus the environment which is Nanite in this example. So what you're seeing is all of these players moving around and doing something and you're seeing the frame rate at about 30 on Clayton's rig.[87]Steven Sharif

Here you see that the FPS in the top right corner is like seven or eight on average, so not too good from a rendering perspective... So by merging now you can see that the same thousand players who are wearing the same armors as previously are actually having a 300 percent increase- 300 to 400 increase- in the performance of the of the FPS. So it went from 7 to about 21 on average and that is a significant optimization point that obviously this is just the beginning of the optimization efforts.[88]Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation was performing at 50-60 FPS on a 1080 Ti during early Alpha-1 testing.[89]

  • A "default player appearance" may be automatically applied during sieges or other large scale battles to improve client-side performance.[93][94][92]
I think you guys will agree with me here that effects now are, as opposed to where they were in Alpha-1, we've taken into account what people's feedback were, although it was always the case we were going to address them; and we've implemented them in such a way where they're more conducive to large player battles.[90]Steven Sharif

Unreal Engine 4

Unreal Engine 5 walkthrough.[95]

Lumen has done a great job in really bringing to to life this area. As you can see, there's light bouncing off of the surfaces and casting into the rest of the cave... I love how you can also see the detail in the costume and the cloth that we have now.[95]Steven Sharif

unreal-engine-logo.png

Unreal Engine 5 is the graphical engine for Ashes of Creation.[95][96] The game was originally developed in Unreal Engine 4.[97] Migrating to UE5 required early is expected to save time the long run compared to upgrading closer to release, or post-release.[98][99]

What it provides in my opinion as person who enjoys PvP is it adds additional dynamics to what is possible from your opponent or from yourself. You know, if there is a ledge and jumping off that ledge is going to deal a lot of damage to me when I hit the ground and that puts me at a significant disadvantage, maybe I have an option to jump off the ledge at a point where I can mantle onto the side of a cliff or something. Now the give and take there is I won't be able to use my skills while I'm mantled. I won't be able to react easily, but I didn't have to take the fall damage per-se. Or if there's an obstruction and I'm going to take a significant reduction in speed so that I can crouch and make it past that, and now I have a effective line of sight has been obstructed as a result of that decision. I think it adds interesting elements to the battlefield and the key here is going to be making sure that it's not cumbersome- that it doesn't feel opposite of the flow of combat.[102]Steven Sharif
Lumen is going to greatly improve the visual fidelity and performance of the game with the reduced work and effort that's required by the art team, making Ashes of Creation much more beautiful than in UE4.[104]Steven Sharif
Nanite brings us really an entirely new approach to rendering and art workflows. Now we can render more actors with extremely high detail while eliminating the need to bake out normal map textures. For artists essentially what this means is that they can import high quality sculpted meshes directly into Unreal 5 without really having to reduce the poly count, making the workflow more efficient while simultaneously improving the quality of the art.[107]Steven Sharif
  • Features (such as World partitions and One file per actor) make it much easier for multiple developers to work together.[98]
    • World partitions also enable Unreal Engine 5 maps to exceed the map size constraints of UE4 (~20 kilometers squared).[98]
Q: How does this upgrade to UE5 affect the Ashes of Creation release timeline?[98]
A: While UE4 is a great engine, there are certain focuses and technological endeavors that Epic is doing on UE5 that won't necessarily be supported by UE4; and we want to make sure given the lifespan of Ashes and how long we intend this MMO to last, that when we made this decision early on during the development process that we weren't going to exacerbate the amount of effort it would take to move over later in the lifespan or after launch.[98]Steven Sharif
  • As of January 24, 2022 all teams have moved over to Unreal Engine 5.[111]
    • The developers were able to transition to Unreal Engine 5.1.1 in February 2023 as part of milestone 4.[112][113][114]
    • The upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.2 was completed. The developers expect to start upgrading to 5.3 around the end of 2023.[115][116]
    • At some point the developers intend to stop updating Unreal Engine until post-launch. This decision will be based on careful consideration of potential delays and other risks.[117]
Q: What is your stance in regards to focusing on delivering an MVP versus continuously upgrading your tools and engine to deliver a better product with new tech, even if that results in delays or additional years of development like UE 5.2, maybe 5.3 etc?
A: Our technical teams, especially our network team, our ICS teams, our gameplay engineering teams, they convene and weigh when our next update should be on the engine side: What new technologies might bring benefit overall. My perspective on how we balance the need for integration of new technology versus the responsibility we have in a timely manner to provide testing sessions that get us closer to the launch date; that's a delicate balance. I would say generally our disposition is not to incorporate new technologies that yield some significant amount of delay on the development side. We very much take the perspective that we're capable of adjusting and/or integrating those new technologies post-milestone, post-launch if necessary. At some point we'll stop updating the Unreal Engine in development until launch. That point hasn't come yet, but of course the larger the project grows and on the more custom we make the engine for our back-end needs; and for whatever else merge conflicts can occur- those mergers can become big and painful; and the update process gets more painful. So to answer your question shortly, we have a team that evaluates what direction we need to take there; and at the top of my mind is always, let's not incorporate delays as a result of leveraging new technologies.[117]Steven Sharif

Servers

The world will be the same on each server, but Nodes will develop differently. Different servers will have different narratives. Things that happen on one server may not happen on another.[118][119][120]

To answer your question about "what stops all servers from from progressing the same nodes," the answer to that question is "other players." Certain content is locked behind different nodes that develop. If we assume that at some point all of the information regarding node progression is available, not all players on a server may agree on what content they want access to, or that they want other players to have access to. Even if a certain perks from node progression are considered "best value" to players trying to solve a node meta, that doesn't mean all players on a server benefit from that in the same way. Because of this, some players make act against your best interests, because it isn't their best interest. Nodes define (and redefine) the world around you, influence points of interest, world quest lines, story arcs, drop tables, resource pools, and even spawn tables for NPCs and bosses. The cycle of nodes leveling and triggering events is something we expect to see play out in a variety of different ways, across different servers, based on how players choose to play Ashes of Creation.[118]Ry Schueller
  • There will be a multitude of servers located throughout the various regions of the world.[122]
    • Server selection will show the region where the server is located and/or the ping to that server.[122]
With regards to live launch when the server's go live, you'll be selecting a server to play on; and that will be your character's home; and that server you'll be aware of where that server is located usually by either a ping or a region that's notated on next to the server.[122]Steven Sharif

Regions

Ashes of Creation will launch with the following server regions:[125][126]

At this stage we do not have numbers on how many different servers will exist for different regions. We've said in the past 8-10,000 concurrent users per server is what we'd like to aim for. Obviously, the number of servers that exist in a region are going to be dependent on the population that's playing.[133]Steven Sharif

Other server regions will be considered based on interest.[127][126]

  • South America is under consideration due to traffic from that region.[134]

Once we get closer to launch we'll update this information, which may include additional regions.[127]

Certain regions will have "harmonized" subscription prices that better reflect their local economies. These regions will be segregated from other regions.[31]

  • Players will be able to make characters on any server they wish. There will be no region locking (outside of harmonized regions).[32]

Folks have always been able to make characters on any server they wish. We are not region locking anyone.[32]Margaret Krohn

Server population

Population limits will be enforced on each server.[135]

  • Around 8-10k concurrent users per server is projected.[136][133][137][138]
  • Initially there will be a limited number of registered accounts (approximately 15,000) per server to help mitigate login queues.[139]
    • This limit will increase over time to around 50,000 registered accounts per server.[139][140][141]
  • There may be queues to get into high population servers, but the aim is to avoid excessively long queues.[141]
  • The developers intend to carefully manage server populations via the use of character creation throttles to avoid the need to merge servers.[140][142]
  • The developers may occasionally release stats relating to server populations and archetype/class makeup, but there isn't going to be an official page that surfaces this information.[123]

Server history

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

The history of each server will be tracked and visible to players in a node's library.[144][145]

  • This design may have changed.[146]
We're gonna keep track of the history of the world so that we can tell people the story up to the current day. A player who's brand new, who's come in at the six-month mark can take a look at each server, what each server has done, how each server has tackled the storyline; and they can decide for themselves what community they want to join; what version of the world that they want to take part in.[145]Jeffrey Bard
  • Scribes may be able to collect and record information about the events of the world as they see it from their point of view.[147]

Server instancing

There won't be server channels (sharding) on a server.[148][149]

Server types

Server transfers

Server transfers, outside of server merges, will not be possible initially.[152][153]

  • The developers intend to assess the impact on housing and other systems closer to launch.[153]

Esports

Esports is not the main focus of Ashes of Creation, but the game may move in that direction if the gameplay is compelling, competitive, and fun.[155][156]

What I would say as an MMO player is Esports tends to miss out on a core element that's unique to MMORPGs, which is progression; and it's difficult to represent that progression in the traditional Esports format that we see with other games and genres today. However, what I will say is that I have participated in some MMOs that have stood up cross-server competitions and I've really personally enjoyed those types of cross-server competitions where you bring the best that those individual servers have to offer with regards to groups, or teams, or constant parties as we like to call them; and you allow them to compete in an arena format, or in a castle siege format. Like that is super cool. I love that server versus server type of competition and I think that's where there is a potential to do something interesting with regards to Esports and the MMORPG genre.[155]Steven Sharif

Voice acting

Voice acting is not a priority in Ashes of Creation.[157]

  • It's possible that NPC greetings will be voice acted.[158]

Voice acting is a fun luxury to have, but it is not only a costly one, but it is also one that takes a lot of logistics.[157]Steven Sharif

Milestones

December 2015 First team members were hired.[159]
February 2016 Ashes of Creation design documentation and prototyping.[160][159]
December 10, 2016 Official website was launched and project announced.[159]
January 18, 2017 Official discord was launched.[161]
May 2, 2017 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign launched with $750,000 funding goal.[162]
June 3, 2017 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign completed with 19,576 backers raising $3,271,809.[163]
June 2017 Game production began with a team size of 15-20.[160]
June 21, 2017 Summer crowdfunding campaign launched.[164]
July 22, 2017 Summer crowdfunding campaign completed with 2,485 backers.[165]
September 1, 2017 PAX West 2017.[166][167]
November 4, 2017 Raised $16,500 for Extra Life children's hospitals.[168]
December 15, 2017 Alpha-0 released on schedule.[169]
March 19-23, 2018 Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2018.[170]
April 5, 2018 PAX East 2018.[171]
August 15, 2018 Last day for purchases of Alpha-1 through Intrepid pre-order packs.[172]
August 20, 2018 At Gamescom with My.com.[173]
August 27, 2018 100 developers working on Ashes of Creation.[174]
September 1, 2018 PAX West 2018 panel.[175]
October 19, 2018 Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale (previously called Alpha-1 phase 1 battlegrounds).[176]
November 4, 2018 Raised $20,518 for Rady Children's hospital with Extra Life.[177]
April 15, 2019 60 developers working on Ashes of Creation at San Diego offices (following disengagement with Malaysian art team).[178]
November 3, 2019 Raised $20,901 for Rady Children's hospital with Extra Life.[179]
August 21, 2020 Announced a mutual parting of ways with publisher My.games.[180]
October 17, 2020 Almost 3,000,000 registered accounts for Ashes of Creation.[181]
October 17, 2020 ~87 developers working on Ashes of Creation.[182]
November 8, 2020 Raised $88,546 for Rady Children's hospital with Extra Life.[183]
February 26, 2021 Official ashesofcreation.com website redesign.[184]
May 5, 2021 Alpha-1 sales resumed with the announcement of the Adventurer pre-order pack.[185]
May 17, 2021 Verbal NDA was lifted from Alpha-1 testing.[186]
July 9, 2021 Alpha-1 no-NDA preview weekend began on schedule.[187]
July 11, 2021 Alpha-1 no-NDA preview weekend completed on schedule.[188]
July 14, 2021 Alpha-1 no-NDA month long test began on schedule.[189][190]
August 15, 2021 Alpha-1 no-NDA month long test completed on schedule.[191]
November 7, 2021 Raised $34,485 for Rady Children's hospital with Extra Life.[192]
December 23, 2021 Announced that Ashes of Creation is moving to Unreal Engine 5.[95][96]
January 14, 2022 Over 120 people working on Ashes of Creation.[193]
November 5, 2022 Raised $77,939 for Rady Children's hospital with Extra Life.[194]
August 31, 2023 Over 150 people working on Ashes of Creation.[195]
November 5, 2023 Raised $76,964 for Rady Children's hospital with Extra Life.[196]
December 19, 2023 Over 170 people working full-time on Ashes of Creation.[197][198]
March 1, 2024 188 employees working on Ashes of Creation.[199]

Release schedule

Alpha Two is coming in Q3 2024! We have not announced specific dates or testing schedules for Alpha Two, Beta One, or Beta Two yet.[200]

The Ashes of Creation release schedule is subject to change.[201]

Spot testing has begun, some limited NDA'd testers are participating in spot tests and December will see more, including some major headless client testing. Also those of you that still have the A1 launcher may see an update in the next couple weeks.[202]Steven Sharif
The NDA spot testing that will be before Alpha-2: We will have first one with our PI members, then we'll have some with our Alpha-1 users, and then our Alpha-2 users; and of course Alpha-2 will not be NDA, but that spot testing will be NDA.[203]Margaret Krohn
Phase Release Estimated/Actual date
Pre‑alpha Alpha-0.[204] December 15, 2017.[169]
APOC Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale stress test (NDA).[205] September 7, 2018.[206]
Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale stress test (NDA lifted).[176] October 19, 2018.[176]
Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale open beta.[207] December 18, 2018.[208]
Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale early access.[209] September 24, 2019.[210]
Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle siege mode PI closed testing.[211] December 19, 2019.[211]
Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale testing ends.[212] March 10, 2020.[213]
Alpha Alpha-1 early preview livestream.[214] March 27, 2020.[215]
Alpha-1 limited QA testing (NDA).[216][217] May 28, 2020.[218][219]
Alpha-1 preview pre-test 1 (NDA).[220] Dec 18 - Dec 21 2020.[220]
Alpha-1 preview pre-test 2 (NDA).[220] Feb 19 - Feb 22 2021.[221][222]
Alpha-1 preview intermittent spot testing (NDA).[223][224] Mar 19 - Jul 9 2021.[223][224]
Alpha-1 preview weekend (no NDA).[223] July 9 - July 11 2021.[188][187][223]
Alpha-1 (no NDA).[223] July 14 - August 15 2021.[191][225]
Alpha-2 spot testing (NDA).[203][226][227][228] November 2023.[202]
Alpha-2 (No NDA).[203][227][229][230] Q3 2024.[200][203][231]
Beta Beta-1. To be announced.[225]
Beta-2. To be announced.[225]
Pre‑release Head start for crowdfunding backers at the Founder level and above.[232] 1-2 days before launch.[232][33]
Release Launch (live) release. To be announced.[225][233]
Post‑launch Major releases (DLC expansions). Quarterly or six-monthly.[41][42]
Minor releases. Monthly.[41][42]

Accomplishments

  • Kickstarter's most funded MMORPG.[234]
  • Kickstarter's #7 most funded video game.[235]
  • Most anticipated MMO – MMORPG.com's Best of 2017 Awards.[236]
  • Most anticipated early access hands-on MMORPG – MMOs World.[237]
  • Gamescom 2018: Best Independent game.[238]
  • Gamescom 2018: Best Online game.[238]
  • Best indie MMO of 2020 – massivelyop.com reader's poll.[239]
  • Most anticipated MMO of 2021 and beyond – massivelyop.com reader's poll.[240]
  • Top 10 Best Upcoming New MMORPGs For 2021 And Beyond – Forbes.[241]
  • 2022 Best MMO Studio – MMOGames.[242]

Security systems

Security systems will be in place to combat cheating, exploiting, botting, gold selling/real money transactions (RMT), item duplication and other things that affect the economy starting from Alpha-0.[243][244][245][246][247][248][249]

  • A broad spectrum of approaches are going to be utilized in order to try to protect the integrity of the game once it launches. Testing of these systems will begin leading up towards Alpha-2.[244]
Security is always at the top of any concern when you have a closed system like an MMO is... We've seen a lot of MMO is launch without security in place and the economy gets ruined as a result thereafter. And every band-aid that's slapped on top of that wound is just making things worse. And so part of why you take the time in order to ensure that things are done correctly is also the security component of things; and that's where testing with a live audience is a bit different also than testing with a Q&A audience as well, because you're going to get those bad actors- and we call them bad actors because ultimately they're attempting to destroy the fun for others... So what we've done is we've hired some security experts who've worked on massive other MMOs like World of Warcraft and other games, and they bring with them lot of experience; and we're going to be testing that in leading up towards Alpha-2. It's a very important part of Alpha-2. It's not something that we really addressed with Alpha-1 because again, that was a much more barebones functional testing experience. We did see some issues during Alpha-1 and we made it important for Alpha-2 to test those systems. We have a broad spectrum of approaches that we're going to be utilizing in order to try to protect the integrity of the game once it launches.[244]Steven Sharif
  • These systems collect user data and flag abnormal activities for investigation. This combined with player reporting functions generates a live "heat map" that draws attention to unusual behavior.[243][245][246][249]
We do have already built into the game on the outset is essentially behavioral metrics. So in the game, as a player does normal things and they acquire normal gold, that's all good and well, but if there starts to be item IDs that appear on the player account that are out of the norm, like either a large amount of gold, or significant legendary items, what it does in the back-end it flags the account for view so that we can take a look at where did this item come from. Is it coming from a known gold seller or a flagged bot, or whatever; and then we investigate. So we're going to be pretty hard on the ability for players to subvert the natural economy systems by RMT or botting.[246]Steven Sharif
  • Botters, cheaters, gold sellers, and RMTers, will face severe penalties from the active GM/community team.[243][250][251][249]
It's important to note that there is a sanctity that must be protected within the game from RMTing; and let me just go into a little diatribe about this: But in games that I've played where the company or the publisher does not enforce rules, it becomes the standard that you buy gold if you want to be competitive. If you want to compete at the top tier levels in certain games, and everyone's buying gold, you almost either have to buy the gold or you're just not going to be able to compete with those people and that's a really shitty feeling to have. Excuse my French, I apologize. That is sucky; and in order for that not to be the case it is the responsibility of the publisher or the developers both to make sure that we have stringent practices from a CS- from a customer customer service perspective- to enforce our rules and to make sure that players are aware if they partake in this there is a huge risk in doing so. It's not going to be a slap on the hand. It's not going to be a "we told you once, we told you twice, we told you three, four, five six times okay. We're just taking some gold away", that thing. We have got to ensure that it is feared to do those things because that ashes has active GMS, it has active customer service, it has an active community team.[251]Steven Sharif

Franchise

Ashes of Creation will be a franchise.[252]

  • The Ashes of Creation MMORPG is one of many intended products in the franchise.

External links

See also

References

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