July 30th Livestream Transcription
– Intrepid Studios shares overview of Alpha 1 test and future plans.
Quick Updates:
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- Significant downtime planned after this Alpha 1 month for big changes.
- New Junior Community Manager has joined the Community team.
- Content Creator Program applications are open. Hiring an influencer specialist.
- Studio move should be complete within the next month.
Studio Update: As of yesterday, all the workstations have been set up. We’re now waiting on the ancillary furniture, the game lounge and the cafeteria to get set up. We have about 40 people now working in the studio and the others should come in within the next 2-3 weeks. We also have multiple new employees that have started working on the project within the last month.
Design Team Update: We’ve been going through all the feedback, including the videos produced by content creators to make iterative changes. One of the biggest changes we’re making right now is to the combat system. The changes we’ve made are set to go live sometime next week. The change is to melee combat and it’s root motion, initially in apoc we had free movement which players felt had no weight, so we had added in root motion. However now with player feedback we realize that players want that freedom of mobility as well. So we’ve added in a hotkey that allows players to switch between the older root motion combat and the newer mobility combat so that they can test out each combat system and tell us what they like.
We’ve moved away from our previous system on how actors were calculated, so the new method of sending traffic is a lot less taxing on the network side. From a network standpoint, we need an ability/combat system that can handle massive amounts of players in sieges. So on your end as the player, you will not notice a difference, but it’s much better on the servers during large scale pvp. This also helps with the key-input and ability-input to ensure you as the player have a great experience in game.
We’ve begun the non-root motion animations on the attacks. However the visual effects, weapon effects, minute camera shakes, audio cues, split body animation, have all not been added in yet, but once they have been added in, the combat will ‘feel’ much better for the player. This is a big part of why in Alpha 1 we’re trying out different forms of combat to see which ones you guys, our playerbase, enjoy the most. Currently as per the feedback we’ve gotten, we’ve come to realize that the community enjoys having constant control over your character’s movement and not being rooted in place. With that said, it is important for us to touch on the fact that Alpha 1 is mostly back-end changes that lay down the framework for future systems. Alpha 2 is the one where we will have all our core systems in place.
QnA Session
Q: What happens to materials that have been gathered to build a node building if a mayor scraps the project?
A: The materials are lost.
Q: Will we be able to trigger skills with combinations of different keystrokes and re-use the keys for different skills?
A: Yes.
Q: If I damage a fellow player but then let the mob they’re fighting finish them off, will I gain corruption?
A: No. The idea is going to be, unless a player is in your party, alliance, guild, raid, you will not be able to see their HP. When you do something sketchy like bringing them close to death, you risk accidentally killing them and gaining corruption. But this is being tested.
Q: Will sprinting be infinite? Or limited resource?
A: Currently we’re planning to have a % based sprint which cannot be used in combat.
Q: Do you plan to keep fishing location based like other harvesting? Or will I be able to finish anywhere and in any type of water.
A: There will be multiple types of fishing, there’s sport fishing that will be location based. There will be no sparkles on gatherables later, currently it’s there just because we have not implemented all the UI stuff for it yet.
Q: Will we be able to worship the ‘others’ in the divine node?
A: No you will not be able to build temples to the others in a divine node. However there will be other quests that you can undertake for the ‘others’
Q: Will I need arrows for my bow?
A: Good question, still discussing with the design team. No answer.
Q: How early would we be able to own our first ship?
A: Level 10 or 15 you can craft your own small or personal vessel. The smallest size.
Q: Are players restricted from transferring materials to alts via freeholds storage?
A: No you cannot move materials that way. But you can move normal items that way.
Q: When you invest % of your power into a combat pet, when it dies, how soon does the % power return to you?
A: Immediately.
Q: What are your plans to keep old gear relevant/useful?
A: A big component for this while expansions or progression comes out is via deconstruction. Deconstruction will provide unique materials that can only be acquired through deconstruction to progress your gear.
