April 11th DCN Livestream Transcription
– Steven joins the Dungeon Crawler Network on their podcast and discusses the scientific node features, citizenship and the progress on web systems.
Stream Hosts: Aggelos, Stormlordz, Alpha Soul, Krojak | Stream link
Discussion opens with talking about the armor leak released last week:
The above is an armor model that we used in PAX but it’s been overhauled to match the current art. It is NPC Guard armor, however it can be obtained via in-game questing by becoming part of the Knights Order. There’s 13 distinct modelling styles that go into the 9 races and their styles. Apocalypse is primarily Aelan and Pyrian styles (Human and Elf). Margaret is planning a blog on how such armor is made from concept art to modelling. (Colours, textures, pieces, etc). You will not be able to change the fabric, but you will be able to adjust the metal pauldrons and certain other parts.
Q: With SSO being pushed through, how is the back-end infrastructure doing?
A: There’s game backend, server architecture and platform backend. The SSO touches a lot of different things. SSO allows us to touch on our various plans that we have, especially for the future. Regarding the back end of the game, moving from Azure hosting to AWS, you’ll see a lot more about the SSO with the blog posts that will go out to prep for Alpha 1.
Q: How is the new back end going to work going forward since we saw how the old one worked in the past apocalypse tests?
A: As the backend keeps developing, we’ll slowly push it out to the testers to get the feedback we need. Quality Assessment needs to be done.
Q: When is Apocalypse coming back?
A: Apoc was built for testing and it’s given us great data. It’s why we split Alpha 1 into 2 phases. So no ETA.
Q: When backend works out, do you plan to bring up just the BR or both the BR and the sieges simultaneously?
A: No answer on that right now, we’re working on systems that are needed for both apocalypse and alpha 1. This is something we’ll reveal later.
Q: How is AoC and Intrepid studios going to handle meta-game since all the nodes are static?
A: It depends on what kind of meta-game you’re looking to avoid. We dont want node location/information to change. When it comes to curating content to a particular node, those node types need to be static and that’s a form of meta as players know where X or Y node type exists. And this might become a meta that a group adheres to and we cant stop that. Players will always tend to do certain things. If it comes down to whether a meta MUST be followed in order to succeed – that’s what we want to provide. We want to provide multiple ways to achieve an outcome. We dont want a need to adhere to a meta, but a selection of options.
Q: Will all 5 metropolii cover the entire world once they’re fully built?
A: Yes.
Q: Do city ruins show up once a metropolis is destroyed?
A: There will be things that are present for a period of time following a siege, after which it will be a fresh area for the node to be re-settled in.
Q: Does Essence play a role or is it just flavour text?
A: It does play a role, its part of materials, equipment, items, skills, it is the foundation and driving force of magic in the world. It can be used of good or bad. However it does not affect abilities to provide bonuses to traverse or move around, what it does affect is creation of items, skills, certain NPC’s and antagonist, a large mechanic, but its not prohibitive.
Q: Will any activity contribute to the node or are certain activities more beneficial?
A: Any activity will contribute to the node’s growth. Regarding scientific nodes requiring chemicals etc, it’s moreso about the flavour of quests involved. Not all quests are going to be related to that specifically (Like collecting reagents). You might recieve quests that are like those at the start, however later on you might find that some antagonist has exploited what you collected. So it’s not like a ‘collect x’ quest, it comes back to you later.
Q: Is there anything that contributes to negative EXP to the node? Besides inactivity?
A: Lets say monsters spawn around a node and attack the city, if those events are successful in killing certain NPC’s or destroying certain buildings, it diminishes the nodes ability to contend with nearby nodes, this causes negative experience. Additionally there’s node wars and open world objectives if achieved will result in a loss for the node and these losses will modify incoming experience that will reduce the experience received. So a rival node can reduce the amount of incoming experience by declaring war on a node and taking out key objectives.
Q: Didnt nodes get destroyed after losing node wars?
A: Node wars and Node sieges are two different events. Losing a siege destroys the node entirely. Node wars on the other hand is more like a guild war,, wheere a mayor may declare war on another node that puts the citizens in an open flag state of PvP with the other node. It doesnt destroy the node, but results in benefits for the victor and losses for the loser.
Q: What is construction going to provide to other players and is it a profession?
A: Construction encompasses building, within a node or by players in a freehold. It also relates to certain points of interests in the world. Scientific nodes offer a specific material components/certificates that are necessary to capitalize on additional features of buildings and activate adjacency bonus features that are offered. It yields certain benefits for certain paths. Along that upgrade path of buildings, whether through citizenship or trade/questing with a scientific node, they are able to unlock these certificates to attain the bonuses.
Q: Scientific nodes seem to be very crafting heavy, is it tied to this node type?
A: You’ll be able to learn and achieve these at any node type, but it will be harder at different node types and scientific nodes might offer special masteries.
Q: Do node benefits only apply while within the node’s ZOI?
A: Generally as a rule, there are certain benefits that only apply to a ZOI of a node. If you want to benefit from a buff/droprate/higher EXP, it needs to be within the ZOI of the node. There are citizen benefits that will travel with you outside the ZOI as well.
Q: What are Runic power stones? Could you give us an example or comparison?
A: The stone system, whether power or enchantment stones, there are slots in armors and weapons that can be slotted with a number of stones. These stones range from damage bonuses, ancillary effects, providing buffs or passives and much more, all of these things that the stones can do for you, they exist in tiers of relevancy and power. As you increase the grade of the item that you own/craft using materials you can potentially increase the number of slots an item has. Runic power stones in particular are temporary stones that you can apply for a period of time and are situational which offer certain benefits. Enchantment stones can be unsocketed but they are permanenet.
Q: Do runic and power stones share the same sockets?
A: Yes. You need to make a decision as a player to plan out your slots to decide how you build your character and plan for dungeons or PvP with their respective stones.
Q: Do schematics refer to freehold designs?
A: Schematics are blueprints that you utilize to build structures on a freehold or community projects on the node.
Q: Since level 3 scientific nodes offer a library that lets you see history, what history exactly?
A: History of narrative can relate to downing of certain bosses, progression of certain questlines and meta questlines, mayors who have been elected, destruction/sieging of castles/cities, relate to certain area quests that pop up around the city, it can relate to events that spawn around the city, etc. Lots of things that players can choose to track/learn.
Q: Players can choose to track/learn info in the library?
A: You basically have to get your library card first through a questline to gain access to information. It turns into an ongoing return feature where players contribute information to the library that other players can view.
Q: Regarding legendary weapon crafting, relics and tracking them?
A: Dont want to reveal too much. Relics are a high tier item. They can be granted on a limited basis to its citizens. One of the primary incentives for PvP in nodes is to raid their relics. The legendary crafting benches relate in a way to need different metropolis types.
Q: Are there going to be certain legendaries that cannot be deconstructed?
A: Deconstruction mechanics relate to materials and unique components that can be taken out of an item. Items usually will yield a random assortment of available componenets. The identification mechanic in a scientific node will allow players to identify what the deconstruction will yield before you actually deconstruct it. Gaining these deconstructed items help in crafting or lesser but higher tier items. Lets say a guild beats a raid boss and gains a legendary weapon, they might deconstruct it to craft 3 weapons of a tier just under legendary as it might be more beneficial to them.
Q: Say a server has no level 6 scientific metropolis for some reason, how are legendary crafting/relics managed?
A: There’s 2 thoughts on it, one is that its possible and that it isnt possible. However it requires testing. It is possible but very difficult to achieve.
Q: What’s stopping a citizen of a vassal node – leaving their citizenship at scientific metro A to go to scientific metro B?
A: As a citizen you contribute to the building of the node. We dont want to restrict your ability to make a choice and leave, but we do want to provide incentives and dis-incentives. Some dis-incentives are – there’s a cooldown on citizenship when you leave to join elsewhere. You lose access to the unique items and merchants that you gained trust with. You lose access to the buffs or achievements provided by your node and work to get it all back. There’s certain costs that go into declaring citizenship, while there isnt necessarily a cap on citizenship, there is a soft cap on the resources required to obtain citizenship.
Q: Does the soft cap apply right away or only once the cap is hit?
A: The soft cap increases and scales. It might be low for the first 200-300 and then get harder. We do want a softcap that changes between the various node stages. It is not retroactive.
Q: Are cosmetics shown during PvP in the open world?
A: There’s a default player appearance setting that they can activate, this helps accomodate large player battles and helps hit the performance we want for large battles. We want to lower rendering load to make it easier. So yes it is available.
Q: We were worried about plate armor players wearing cloth cosmetics to hide their gear
A: You can disable this in settings.
Q: Can crafters leave signatures on their work after a certain rarity?
A: Crafted items will contain crafter signature by default unless they choose to turn it off.
Q: Can anyone obtain legendaries with enough luck and time or are they single drop items where if one obtains it, it is gone for good.
A: Anyone can obtain it. There’s 2 references to legendaries, there’s legendary items and legendary unique items. Legendary unique items are only one on a server at a time. Legendary items themselves are multiple on the server through multiple ways such as trade/craft/world bosses etc.
Q: Mayors of military nodes are chosen via gladiator style combat, is it a 1v1 or free for all?
A: The current design behind the gladitorial arena… (contemplating whether margaret will get mad) …the idea… nevermind, will probably wait for the military node blogpost!
Q: Is there a cooking profession?
A: Yes, there is.
