November 30th Livestream Transcription
– Intrepid Studios shares New Alpha 1 Biome update and Elder Dragon previews
Quick Updates:
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- Alpha 0 Island has been replaced by the Alpha 1 Map.
- New Zone/Biome underway for upcoming test.
- Huge character stat revamp underway for the February Test.
- Continuing to work from home due to Covid. Onboarded 23 people since June.
- Team is focused on the December 18th Alpha Test.
Design Team Update: Combat is being worked on heavily, we’ve got multiple small teams working on the strong foundation that we have established to give it that rich feel that we want to achieve. The new Biome’s development has expanded our creature suite, so we’ve been populating everything. We have also moved off from the Alpha 0 Island to the full Alpha 1 map about two weeks ago. There will teleport NPC’s present for the testing so you can test better, this is a temporary thing for the water problem until we get ships in, then there will be no more teleporters. About 30 minutes while mounted to traverse across the A1 test area which is around 10km.
The concept art for the new biome from the Alpha 1 zone is now ready in-game, so if you’ve got a node nearby, you would be able to affect a harbor nearby. There are going to be 9 nodes throughout the Alpha 1 area. It is important to note that the node locations will change, you wont see the definite locations until the first beta.
Environment Team Updates: We’ve done a lot of work on the game’s lighting system and reworked things, switching from the fixed lighting we used earlier to dynamic lighting. Lighting is something which touches all aspects of the game, from environment to character models, weapons, NPC’s, everything. We could not implement dynamic lighting in APOC as it was too costly, but it’s now ready with the rework.
QnA Session
Q: What are the teams thoughts on gear access?
A: We’re going towards traditional level tiers for gearing. All of us love overgearing since it’s fun when done right, but we want to make sure it’s done right
Q: Could you elaborate as to why a skin can only be applied to one character at a time?
A: The idea there for purchasable cosmetics is also tied to exclusivity. Since the game has no box price, we only have a subscription, providing these limited options for collectors means not providing something everywhere.The costumes don’t have level restrictions on them.
Q: Will certain combat stats be tied to certain gear? Like agility only on leather?
A: No, all stats on all gear. Customize the gear the way you want.
Q: How will NEED before GREED work since all classes can use everything?
A: That’s when the party would basically tell the party member “Hey stop doing that”, its player regulated. That’s our current looting system.
Q: How does flagging work for PvP events?
A: PvP, Caravans, Sieges, Node Wars all do not use the flagging system. Different death penalties. The flagging system is in the open world OUTSIDE of those events, in a non-normal environment. Generally though, corruption is a deterrent to PK’ing, its risk vs reward.
Q: Do you plan to support player made custom music in-game?
A: We have discussed it, but scope wise, at the moment we dont think so. Maybe later.
Q: With open world raids, how will you prevent groups larger than 40 players from trivializing difficulty?
A: There will be opportunities in the open world where larger groups will try to clear content, so there will be a large amount of AoE hazards, damage from bosses that will scale up depending on how many players are there. But ultimately that’s one of the downsides of an open world MMORPG, we can scale it to a certain extent, we could activate additional hazards if there’s more than a specific amount of monsters, but we shall see. It needs testing in the alphas and betas. When we want to confine numbers, we will make it instanced, but generally we are leaning towards increasing environmental hazards and AoE effects if the Boss is getting swarmed with numbers more than intended.
Q: Do you think Solo players will get overrun by group players?
A: The game has different types of content for different playstyles. There’s plenty of solo RPGs out there, but we are building an MMORPG, the game is designed around a massive amount of players, so you will have to interact with players from an economic standpoint and so much more. You will have node citizenship chat, religion chat, scholar chat, and so many other micro communities to form relationships. While we will provide solo content, there will be group content that requires working together with others. We are not trying to make a game for everyone. We accept that we are not making a game that everyone will want- And that is okay.
Q: Will summoner summons also have gear available or only combat pets?
A: Only combat pets. Summons are summoner pets and cannot wear gear.
Q: Will my party members be able to deposit items directly into my Mule’s bag?
A: Good question, no answer yet. Probably not. Maybe player to player trade.
