Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode is an Ashes of Creation Apocalypse testing mode where 50 players defend a city against waves of incoming NPCs and player controlled monsters.

• Each wave is more difficult than the last.
• Between waves, players collect experience, money and weapons to take back to their hold to defend against the next wave.
• Monster coins enable players to join the game as part of the horde.

Horde mode will include adaptive AI boss mechanics. Rewards are obtained dependent on progress against these NPCs.

• Coins for character upgrades.
• Cosmetics.
• Pet versions of the defeated NPCs.

Horde mode will absolutely include boss mechanics, so some of the ideas behind that is going to have a wave mode of a variety of NPCs will likely include some achievable cosmetics as well in that mode depending on how far you can get and those cosmetics will include pets of the NPCs that you face, so like a little miniature version of the NPC's and we'll update those as well, that you'll have in the MMO. – Steven Sharif

Horde mode is specifically for testing.

• Testing the blackboard for the AI.
• NPCs with different adaptive AI focuses:
  • Sniper
  • Ranged
  • Melee
  • Boss

It's a way that we thought it would be fun to implement AI mechanics that we're looking to implement. Testing the the blackboard for the AI. Being able to have variable types of NPCs that have roles whether it be like a sniper, ranged, melee, boss, heroic different AI focuses for those monsters during interesting situations. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 user interface

Alpha-2 UI customization.

The UI implementation will be highly customizable, whether it be from resizing, a movement, recoloring, different types of UI flavors that will be presented and offered to players as well. We want to have a very very robust UI system so we know that that's something that's more personally oriented in people's preferences rather than something that can be a one-size-fits-all. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 raid frames UI.

The Ashes of Creation user interface (UI) and HUD is built with customization in mind, rather than being one-size-fits-all.

• Users will be able to quickly customize UI elements on-the-fly to suit the PvX nature of the game and different styles of combat.

Customization of UI elements, especially there on the HUD is a top desired aspect of our UI team. – Steven Sharif

• Users will be able to save and load UI profiles, such as switching to a custom UI profile for raids.

One of the first things we did when we were starting to block in the very base features of our HUD editor was talking about saving and loading profiles. We're going to have options for, when I'm in a raid automatically change my UI to this UI. – Colby Marchi

• The user interface in Alpha-2 will have options to support hover-over casting and double-tap application of AoE effects on the cursor location.

One of the big goals of our UI team and our design team is to accommodate a whole host of different types of user options that they're capable of setting, because we all have different play styles; and in that regard those include things like hover-over casting, double-tap application of AoE effects on cursor location- just a lot of different options, because people like to play different ways. – Steven Sharif

• The UI in Alpha-1 was placeholder and will not be fully implemented until Alpha-2.

It's very important to note that in Alpha 1 you are not going to see a solid UI presentation and that's because our UI currently is still very placeholder very work-in-progress. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 mini map

Alpha-2 minimap and compass UI.

There is an in-game minimap and compass user interface in Ashes of Creation.

• The goal is to allow pings and other forms of communication tools via the mini-map.

Alpha-1 hotkeys

Alpha-1 default keybindings.

Players will be able to customize their keyboard control scheme in Ashes of Creation.

• Keybinds were not yet adjustable (in Alpha-1).
• Action targeting can be toggled via a key to enable mouse targeting via a reticle that feels similar to a third-person action game.
• Players will be able to trigger skills with combinations of different keystrokes, and reuse the same keys as part of different combinations.
• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse included hotkey customization.

Controller support

Testing Ashes of Creation Apocalypse controller support.

The Ashes of Creation MMO is not designed around controller support.

• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse may have controller support.

Controller support will likely be something we work on closer to launch. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1

Alpha-1 Teaser.

This is a true development alpha. This is not a marketing alpha; and what that means is as you know part of the process here in developing Ashes of Creation is being open with that development so you guys can see that progress; and it is a double-edged sword. There are going to be a spectrum of people that exists who are very involved with the game's development and those who are just completely at an arm's length away in understanding the process; and they may look at alpha one- the people who don't really understand the development process or haven't been a part of it- they may look at it and they may think oh you know this is trash, looks like trash, you know whatever it's the end-product. But at the end of the day what's important for us and what yields the best possible product is for us to include as much as possible the community in that development process with no NDA so that you guys give valuable feedback; and as we go through the iterative process in further defining the game and fleshing out that content were doing so with the player in mind and their voice in our ear. That is I think one of the key distinguishing factors between our development and many developments that you guys may have seen in the past. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 preview ancients mobs.

What this experience for Alpha one is going to be- that month-long experience- it is not intended to be a content experience... It is not intended to be a game experience. It is not intended to be a fully-fledged content experience. So keep that in mind. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 PvE combat.

Alpha-1 was a testing release of the Ashes of Creation MMORPG.

• World
  • The Alpha-1 map (Alpha island) consists of a mainland area and several islands. This was approximately 70 km² of playable area.
  • Alpha-1 takes place in the north west part of the map.

• Character
  • Progression to level 15.

    The composition of class skills or archetype skills has to tread a fine line between two roads: One we wanted to be representative of skills not just that would traditionally be found 1 through 15 but we're actually introducing some skills that might be found later, because we want to test those particular ideas and how the skill functions. – Steven Sharif

  • Character creator (basic).

• Archetypes
  • Cleric, Mage and Tank archetypes.
  • Ranger may be added later in Alpha-1.
  • Fighter, Bard, Rogue, and Summoner archetypes will follow in later in development (after Alpha-1).
  • Secondary archetypes will not be present in Alpha-1. These are planned for Alpha-2.

• Races
  • 4 playable races Kaelar, Vaelune, Dünir, Empyrean.

    A lot of times people ask well why haven't we seen the other races and stuff? We want to establish the quality bar and process with these races first and then when we move into further content production for the other races we have have those pipelines in place and we have the processes in place and we know how to approach them.

• Combat
  • Hybrid action/tab combat.
  • Revamped combat systems will be rolled out during and post Alpha-1 testing.

The weapon attack is an important component of the combat system, so we want to make sure that as we're doing this combat revamp that we are essentially taking into consideration player feedback and sentiment about how they want a reactive and more mobile weapon attack system. – Steven Sharif

• Nodes
  • Node advancement to Village (stage 3).
  • There are 9 node locations in Alpha-1.
  • Normally there would be 18-20 nodes in the same area.
  • A basic vassal system is in place.
  • The node ZOI's is larger than the final map.
  • Node locations are subject to change prior to Beta-1.

• Economy
  • The economy present in Alpha-1 is not reflective of the final state of the game.
  • Merchant systems and player to player trading.

    We have an economy but it's not really going to be reflective of the final how the economy is going to work. It'll work for alpha one and there'll be plenty of things to trade and buy and exchange, but it's not going to be really super representative what the final state is. So keep that in mind as well it's a stubbed-in system. It's not a complete or really finalized system at all. – Jeffrey Bard

  • Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system.
    • The core basics of the artisan gameplay loop is facilitated via the merchant (NPC) system.
  • Gathering, Processing, Crafting is expected to come online in Alpha-2 and the Betas.
  • Previously this was targeted for Alpha-1.

    What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting. – Steven Sharif

• Gear
  • Approximately 49 unique gear sets.
  • These are unique sets with different stats, but some may be similar in appearance.
  • Daggers (Dual weapons).

• PvE
  • Approximately 6 or 7 dungeons with one almost raid-level difficulty.
  • Two world bosses requiring party-sized groups.
  • One true 40 person raid boss.
  • Over 200 quests.
  • Questing is placeholder until Alpha-2.

• Guilds.
  • Alpha-1 castle sieges and Castles are in a zone accessible via a NPC teleporter.
  • This zone includes three Elder dragon raid bosses.
  • These bosses also appear in the open world (outside the siege zone) with slightly different mechanics.

• Naval content
• Ships for "island hopping".
  • Temporary teleportation points are present in early tests until ships are introduced later in the alpha testing.

• Other
  • There is no instancing in Alpha-1.
• UI and tutorial systems are placeholders until Alpha-2.

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

• Social organizations.
• Portions of player housing.
• Corruption.
• Name reservations.

Alpha-1 availability

Pre-order pack upgrades are possible for current pack holders for the difference in price. Upgrades to Kickstarter and Summer crowdfunding packs are also available in the store for the difference in package price.

• August 15, 2018 was the last day for purchases of Alpha-1 through Intrepid pre-order packs (History).

• Sales of Alpha-1 resumed on May 5, 2021 through the Adventurer pre-order pack.

• August 13, 2021 was the last day for purchases of Alpha-1 through the Adventurer pre-order pack (History).

Phase	Release	Estimated/Actual date
Alpha	Alpha-1 early preview livestream.	March 27, 2020.
	Alpha-1 limited QA testing (NDA).	May 28, 2020.
	Alpha-1 preview pre-test 1 (NDA).	Dec 18 - Dec 21 2020.
	Alpha-1 preview pre-test 2 (NDA).	Feb 19 - Feb 22 2021.
	Alpha-1 preview intermittent spot testing (NDA).	Mar 19 - Jul 9 2021.
Alpha-1 preview weekend (no NDA).	July 9 - July 11 2021.
Alpha-1 (no NDA).	July 14 - August 15 2021.

See also

• Alpha-1
• Release schedule