Foliage

Foliage 3D renders.

Biomes really need to have a fairly eclectic selection of plant life, of vegetation, of foliage. These help to create the atmosphere that you are really immersed in this different climate zone and that that's obviously something that we as players enjoy when we get to see a significant diversity of plant life, because it does lend itself to the immersive nature of the world. – Steven Sharif

Bloomeria 3D turntable.

Foul and ravenous spirits have been bound to these stinking flowers

• There will be player collision with foliage.

  As you move through a plant you're not just gonna go straight through the plant. It will move around on the client for you: you'll see that plant move because you intersected with it and passed through it. So there's collision with foliage there; but I'm not sure if it's going to be as granular on blades of grass. We do have footprints and footsteps... you can see them on the dirt surfaces; you can see them on the snow surfaces. – Steven Sharif

  • Different growth states will have different collision profiles.

  For example as for trees, sapling stage requires no collision, but the young stage will have a collision that you can no longer go through. – Alex Khudoliy

• Different seasons may unmask different types of vegetation.

• Later stages of game polish will address quality-of-life issues, such as foliage blocking the player's camera.

Q: Folks were wondering about foliage as it seems like it could hide your character from your own camera. Can it do something like turn transparent to you, so you... don't lose yourself in the grass?

A: Absolutely. Those are literal higher fidelity types of polish that we get around to when we're out of guts of building core systems and abilities and archetypes. So, part of watching our game in development is understanding that a lot of the quality-of-life or polish-oriented features that you would typically see in a launched game are not yet worked on from our perspective. We're very much still on the core aspects of our feature development. – Steven Sharif

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Resources

Pre-alpha gatherable mushrooms found in an underground cave.

We want our players to have a reason to explore the wilderness, to travel with purpose, and much of that will be driven by our resource system. Transporting these goods might just be more difficult than gathering them. Our regional market system allows players to participate in creating pocket economies that will reinforce the stability of goods in particular regions.

Gatherable resources (also known as raw materials, gatherables, and harvestables) occur in locations where you would expect them to be organically.

• Lower level resources will be abundant. Higher level resources that are gatherable by Apprentice level or higher artisans will spawn randomly but in places that make sense for that type of resource. Surveying is a mechanic that solo or group players can utilize to track these resources down.

We want to be able to spawn stuff randomly and we want to put it in places in the world that will make people travel and bolster up our local player-to-player economies: have people actually be out in the world looking for stuff and not standing in the same place waiting for a tree or a flower to respawn over and over again. So, we're having the best of the both Worlds where we have our lower tier stuff that will fill out the base look of our world, so that it's always looking good; and then the higher tier stuff, from apprentice onward, will always spawn randomly in places that we've deemed look good and make sense for what that thing is. So, surveying is a way that you can track that stuff down. It will help you find places, will help you find particular resources, will help you find resources at a certain rarity; and so it should be something you could do as a gatherer on your own, or group up with other people to bolster up the power of your survey, or the range or reach of it. – Kory Rice

• Certain resources will only be gatherable for a limited time during specific story arcs.

You want to take advantage of the limited time you have during the story arcs to get some of these rare resources for crafting things. – Jeremy Gess

• Seasonal resources are only gatherable during specific seasons.

• Some resources are only gatherable at specific times of the day or night.

• The location the resource was found can affect the benefits, bonuses, and other characteristics of that resource.
  • Some resources will be one-time gatherables, others will exist as clusters that will last until the vein is depleted.

• Players drop resources and other items upon death, based on their applicable death penalties.

• Resources looted from caravan wreckages become stolen resources.

• Resources do not expire or degrade over time.

We don't want to create an environment I feel where you're having to micromanage each of the resources that are very vast in our game. We have 100 plus material system where you're having to play whack-a-mole with managing those things... I don't see the value in it. – Steven Sharif

• Raw materials (gatherable resources) are not to be confused with crafting materials (processed goods).

Underrealm resources

Resources will be different in the Underrealm, including unique species of fish.

• This will affect professions such as fishing, farming, and animal husbandry.
• Since players may only have one Freehold, they must choose their Artisan specializations accordingly if they wish to place it in the Underrealm.

Crops

Alpha-2 freehold farm.

Crops are harvestable resources in Ashes of Creation.

• Freeholds allow placement of farm workstations for farming crops and livestock.
  • The level and types of processing stations on a freehold will affect the speed and quality of crop rotations.
• Static housing allows placement of small garden sections for farming special types of crops.
• Apartments allow placement of pots to grow seeds.
• Public spaces in nodes allow lower-tier animal husbandry and farming activities.

There'll be different types of tools and/or machinery that can be used to plant multiple seed types within a particular infrastructure that gives you bundles and/or many different harvestings that's part of progression. So, as you get more adept at farming, you have the ability to mass produce; and the same is true when you talk about quantity, speed of processing across many of the different processing professions – Steven Sharif

• Crops are grown from seeds that are obtained from vendors or in the open-world.
  • Initially seeds will need to be planted individually, but the acquisition of farming tools or hired farmhands will enable more efficient methods.
• Crops must be watered and fertilized until they are mature.
  • Plants can be uprooted, fruited (seeded), or harvested.
• There are diminishing returns from harvesting crops, where new seeds will eventually need to be reacquired from the world.
• There won't be a breeding mechanic associated with crops.
• Farmable crops have applications beyond basic food items.
• Farmed materials can be processed into craftable materials or be converted directly into consumable items through professions such as cooking and alchemy.

See also

• Herbs
• Crops
• Environments