October 14th Reddit AMA Transcription

– Steven Sharif heads over to Reddit to answer the highest upvoted questions from the community.

 

Since AoC relies heavily on players, do you have a plan for servers with low population?
Yes, we do have a plan- Typically a large portion of the population on a server starts on day 1. Although you do get a small refresh on this population during expansions. However for Ashes of Creation, the element of world building is key as that’s how the different cities (nodes) come up. Server merges are planned to be conducted within respective regions, thus a European server would be merged into other European servers. There’s various factors that go into planning a server merge- Currently our plan is to have a weaker server merged into the stronger server. Players from the weaker server would be offered name changes. Regarding properties and land ownership, the weaker server would have their land ownership reset- Alternatively, both the weaker server and the stronger server would have their land ownership reset. This is something we’re relying on player feedback to decide on what’s the right decision to go with.

What work/milestones still need to be completed before Alpha 2 launch?
We’ve seen plenty of core content in Alpha 1, however Alpha 2 involves adding content to those core systems that you’ve previously seen. Thus the main milestones for Alpha 2 is content, since there is a mix of themepark and sandbox content, there is a fair amount that needs to be curated content for Alpha 2.

How many abilities will be made or are planned to be made for each archetype?
It depends on the archetype- Some have more actives than passives compared to others. It also depends on your class combination. However on average, each archetype will have 35-40 abilities. The player will not be able to spec into all of these abilities due to limited skill points requiring them to pick and choose how they build their class. We dont want to have obsolete or un-utilized abilities like some other games.

How are you Steven?
I’m doing great! Had an awesome year so far and still got some fun stuff planned for October/November. We’ll be doing ExtraLife charity fundraising for the fifth year in a row. Building games is difficult, building an MMORPG is more challenging- There’s a lot of work that goes into it and watching the team work hard to build something that everyone including the players can be proud of, it takes a toll on the developers. But being able to walk into the office each day and build this dream with one another has been an absolute delight. At times people ask- “Why follow a development process?” Well, as consumers of the MMORPG genre, many of us have felt that the genre has gone in a direction that does not represent what the playerbase wants. One of the most important aspects of our development process is to allow players to look under the hood and interact with the developers, to dictate the course of the final end product, a rare opportunity which often does not occur during the development of other games. A typical MMORPG enters the feedback phase when it is nearly completed and it isnt possible to make major changes. Typically MMO’s only have a single attempt at launch so its important to get it right (ofcourse there are a few rare exceptions)

When can we expect to see how secondary archetypes work in the game?
You’ll be experiencing them in Alpha 2 to some degree- We will also be showcasing them in the upcoming developer livestreams. 

Can we expect to get any pre-alpha 2 spot tests this year or early next year and will they be under NDA?
Yes we will be having spot tests, we’ve already been having spot tests internally but over the course of the next several months, we do plan to do some NDA spot testing for the testers. Once the dates have been locked in, you will be receiving emails if you have access to those respective tests.

Assuming that staves are melee weapons, could you explain briefly what are the main differences between orbs, wands and spellbooks?
Some staves will be ranged, some will be melee. The primary differences between orbs, wands and spellbooks would be their skill trees. It’s important to note that different weapons provide passives and proc-based benefits that you can spec into as you progress that specific weapon’s skill tree. Attack speed, attack range, various waterfall stats and more differences will be present.

What are your plans to make healing skills fun, deep and effective?
I’m not going to be answering this in detail as we have an upcoming developer livestream scheduled where we will be showing off the cleric base class. However, what makes healing fun? For me personally, it’s a lil whack-a-mole type of game where if I’m the healer in a party, it’s important for me to conserve my mana and manage my healing rotations so that I can time heals appropriately and bounce between my various party members to keep all their HP bars topped up. In regards to Action combat, aiming healing skills in a line-path trajectory or proximity based heals that rely on positioning, or formation type skills where players must be directionally positioned behind say a tank in order to be healed. All of these and more contribute towards a compelling and engaging combat system. 

What do you envision as the primary leveling systems for Ashes?
The primary levelling system is rather traditional- Usually questing and grinding are the two primary ways to level up your adventuring class. Now of course you can contribute to this via crafting, raiding, PvP and so much more. Personally I am not a fan of solo questing where you go from quest to quest mindlessly to level up. That wont be the case with us, there’s a whole wide world to explore in Ashes!

What are some of the biggest challenges at this point of time before releasing Alpha 2?
One of the challenges is going to be the QA process (Quality Assurance). We have a lot of rapid development at Intrepid studios, we test and iterate on things rather quickly which can be good at times to get a good feel of things, but this can also lead to bugs sneaking in and then we have to dedicate extra time to get those bugs identified and squashed. It’s a double edged sword where we want to iterate on things quickly but it leads to bugs. The other challenge is the sheer scope of content, there’s a lot of things to get done and that’s a big effort to create a lot of the content. Lastly from a technical perspective, we have high goals when it comes to player density- We want to achieve a large amount of players on screen at the same time during sieges.

How is the render distance/vision on the sea? And will an item like a spyglass be acquirable to get a zoom in?
Render distance on the sea will be similar to what it is on land. However what will different is that ships have a farther render distance than players. Ships have interchangeable attachment slots on them, so equipping a specific type of attachment on a ship would allow you certain perks such as a radar which will show you your surroundings. The class of ship or type of spyglass would give you an idea to your surrounding. Its important to note that aquatic mounts have abilities that can affect ships, while ships have abilities to detect movement under the water.

Can we get a concrete list of professions and which artisan classes they belong to?
We have 3 types of branches (Gathering, Processing, Crafting). Each of them has different applicability. Many of these will be available in Alpha 2 as well. 

• • Gathering: Mining, Lumbering, Herbalism, Fishing, Hunting.
  • Processing: Metalworking, Stonemason, Smithing, Weaving, Tanning, Lumber milling, Farming, Animal Husbandry, Alchemy, Cooking.
  • Crafting: Weapon, Carpentry, Arcane Engineering, Armor Smithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Jewel Cutting, Scribing.

How many active players (Monthly subs) are necessary for the game to survive? And how many active players would Steven consider the game a success?
I dont have a specific number of what is necessary for the game to survive. But what I can tell you is that we have millions of pre-registrations, an assortment of newer and old school legacy MMORPG players. We have the dedication to ensure that the game will not be affected by either Pay to win or Pay for convenience. From our current forecasts, I’m expecting a million concurrent users on launch.

How far along with completion of class combat are you? Are we going to see summoner, cleric, mage, rogue, bard before alpha 2?
Yes you will see some of these classes before alpha 2 begins. A lot of it is the combat feel, the movement, the weapon usage, the ability system, and so much more. All of these require various iterations so that we can continually improve upon these systems. After the design and engineering, there’s a lot of art that’s required to make the abilities feel good, then we need sound to get that tactile feeling to sell the abilities. Even though our design team may have completed the abilities of a class, we have so much more that goes into it from various departments because its a long pipeline. We’re doing pretty good on the progress front.

What is the intended levelling progression experience considering node citizenship and the lack of much fast travel?
We know that we dont have a lot of fast travel, while we do have faster travel between nodes- This only starts out as land travel at the travel building in a node, however once the travel building is upgraded, you’d achieve air ‘faster’ travel. A scientific node at metropolis stage would allow teleportation. When the world is new, when things are fresh, much of your experience will be localized. However as the world progresses, you as a player will need to travel more and thus your experience will be less localized. The intended levelling progression experience will grow steadily over time.

If I’m a ranger and 50 meters away, but I’m prone or crouched in a bush, will my name plate be visible? Can I stalk my prey?
You cannot go prone or crouched at the moment, still in discussion. There are ways to obscure your nameplate, yes. Line of sight will play into obstructing visibility. However I do understand the spirit of your question, to reduce visibility and presence of the player. Yes there are certain skills/abilities such as camouflage, stealth, invisibility, disguises and more that will allow you to use utility based skills that you can spec into based on what you want to do.

Will Archetypes like the Tank or Bard be as viable as DPS or healers in small scale PvP, such as ranked arenas?
Tanks and bards will be viable in PvP, yes- The reason for that is the design philosophy where we have a rock paper scissor type balancing in effect. Certain classes will be naturally stronger than some and weaker than some.

If a node gets destroyed in a siege or atrophies, will it leave behind any evidence of its existence?
When a node gets destroyed, there’s a period of time when the node exists in a ruined state. During that ruined state, the node’s footprint becomes ruins with treasures inside of it. The treasures are decided based on the various things that had contributed to the node during its existence such as trade or upgrades. A node which has turned into ruins is an open PvP ground, it takes time to dig up the treasures and during this time other players can kill you and take the treasures or you can kill them.

When a node developers into a city, if I’m logged in 24/7 starting at it, what is it doing?
When a node has a level up event, it informs the server, the server then triggers various visual events such as caravans and other NPC’s coming to the node and beginning to upgrade it. If you’re outside of the node, there will be animations and visual effects as the new node pops into existence. If you are within the city, you will be teleported to a respawn area near the city and you will be able to watch the visual advancement of the node.

How many active skills on the hotbar?
Roughly 15-20.

Will there be any castle sieges in the ocean/coastal nodes where ships can be involved?
Yes! There are specific castles and some nodes that are within range of ships. On the node front the ships won’t be involved, however some nodes will have harbors which have objectives during a siege that ships can be involved in. From a castle based perspective, there is one castle that can be attacked via ships.

 

Google Doc Link

Over the past few transcripts, many of our readers felt that our transcripts were getting shorter, we’d like to explain that this was because there was less ‘new’ information to transcribe. (Which is completely normal as Intrepid is hard at work to deliver on their next milestone!). Our goal with this website is to provide new information as quickly as possible for people looking for quick updates on Ashes of Creation. For a general repository of information, please utilize the Ashes of Creation Wiki.

We plan to fire up the transcriptions once again when we get closer to Alpha 2 and more juicy updates start coming along <3

January 28th Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid Studios provides their first update for 2022, diving into updates on Character Races

Quick Updates: 

• • Planning to have level cap go up to 35 for Alpha 2
  • Early Character creation will be shown next month.
  • 6 New Hires in the month of January.
  • New Races + Character Models unveiled.

Studio Update: Great start to the new year, had a great kickoff this January with all the new hires- We’ve had 6 new hires so far. We’re still waiting for a few pieces of furniture and the beautification of the office before we do a Studio Tour on stream for the community.

Design Team Update: We have been re-iterating a lot of systems since Alpha 1. Plenty of design discussions have been taking place in the large conference room meeting. Recently we’ve been delving into the economic impact that nodes will have, mayors having to account for resources they keep track of, trade relationships between nodes, predominance of economic volume between player to player transactions and so much more. We’re also very excited to debut the new changes to combat to the community. Tweaking the augment system, the signature style of each of the classes, tons of planning over hybrid classes and their impact, so much going into Alpha 2 as a whole. So we’re making sure we get all our ducks in order. 

Instancing is a great tool to prevent Zerging- However instancing will be very limited in Ashes of Creation. However for Castle Sieges, we’re planning to have it instanced for 2 groups that are competing over the castle siege- Short instance battles that influence the larger battle is something we are considering. As always, having transparent development has resulted in us being able to show you things every step of the way so that you as players can compare our progress from every single test we’ve had up until this point. At the same time, engineering has been leading the charge in producing all the various tools and resources that the different departments need to speed up the development process.

December 23rd Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid Studios provides a large milestone development update, including upgrading the game engine

Quick Updates:

• • Ashes of Creation will officially be moving from UE4 to Unreal Engine 5.
  • Parkour mechanics have been added to the game.
  • Huge character customization updates will be shown in upcoming months.
  • Large hiring phase begins early next year for Intrepid.

Studio Updates: Studio morale is incredibly high as we’ve come to the end of the year and are able to see the progress over the many months all come together. We’re going to be kicking off the new year by going into a rather large hiring phase once more. It’s been lovely to be back at the studio in full, while keeping an eye on covid of course, it’s definitely a whole different feel working in person once again.

Design Team Update: We’d like to officially announce that we have begun the migration from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5. UE5’s signature Lumen and Nanite are beginning to be put in use. Additionally parkour mechanics such as climbing and rolling have been added in alongside tweaks to character movement, root motion animations and character movement tilting. With UE5 utilizing the world loading in cells, it allows us to work in the world unlike previous engines- Making our workflow process a lot easier.

 

QnA Session

Q: Will the upgrade to UE5 affect the supported operating systems? (Like Linux)
A: No, not really. Unfortunately the reality is there’s not that many linux users out there, they make up less than 1% of PC users.

Q: Will the upgrade to UE5 affect recommended specs?
A: We want to make the game as accessible as we can to everyone. To that, UE5 allows us to scale down the graphics. However the full extent, we don’t know yet, but if there are changes to the recommended spec, we will let you know.

Q: What exactly is the process of upgrading from UE4 to UE5?
A: The process begins with vetting the codebase and project and what bugs it might face during migration to UE5. It is a comprehensive process and has implications on the art side. We have a significant amount of assets that need to be taken stock of to see which are compatible with Nanite.

Q: What is Nanite and how will it improve the visual effects of the game?
A: Nanite brings us to a new approach to rendering art. An artist can import high quality meshes without having to reduce the poly-count.

Q: What is Lumen and how will it improve lighting?
A: Lumen gives us a much more realistic approach to lighting. It gives us dynamic global illumination and brings the world to light. Raytracing is resource heavy, but lumen is way more efficient. Lumen does an incredible job especially in dungeons, increasing the fidelity and improving the performance of the game.

Q: How will the new parkour implementation affect PvP?
A: PvP is an important aspect of AoC. We want the parkour system to not affect PvP negatively. We want it to add additional dynamics to combat.

Q: Is UE5 gonna change any aspect of class abilities or require reworks?
A: Nothing comes to mind. However from a VFX standpoint, we will be implementing lumen into skill effects.

Google Doc LInk

November 19th Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid Studios provides a short development update

(This month’s transcript is shorter as the 24 hour livestream was held recently. As such, little new information or content was shared)

 

We have been having a lot of design discussion over combat, where it is right now and where we want it to be before Alpha 2 goes up. We’ve had a lot of lively and passionate discussions with the design teams on that front. In Alpha 1 you saw a lot of minor changes, but there will be a TON of large changes coming to combat before Alpha 2. A large portion of the discussion has been around the camera- How it works in action combat vs tab combat and how unifying the approach might work. Additionally we’ve been discussing combat with performance, having universal hitboxes so that tiny characters would not have an advantage in action combat. 

October 29th Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid Studios provides a updates towards Alpha 2 Milestone progress

Quick Updates:

• • 24 Hour Livestream Nov 6 – 7th (Extra Life – Rady Children’s Hospital)
  • Developers had a great time celebrating Halloween at the studio.
  • Announcement of Halloween Contest Winners: https://i.imgur.com/S7qCsrR.png

Studio Update: Things have been chugging along, not too much to say on the studio front. We’ve passed the research phase and are now at the iteration phase for Alpha 2. We are now finally back into the studio and waiting for some final artistic touches to the studio. Hiring has been going incredibly well with numerous hires excited to work in-person on the project. The tech work has moved onto feature builds since the Alpha 1, moving towards the Alpha 2 milestone has been incredibly exciting for us. Just a heads up though, you won’t be seeing the real systems and changes for a while as they are being worked on, but you can still see the art updates as we continue to run passes over our work.

Design Update: Design has also been working on identifying the changes we want to make based on the Alpha 1 test for this past month and a half. Next, we’ve been having meetings to discuss how dungeons must change and be interactive, what technology is available currently or what tools we need to build in order to create the constantly changing dungeons which get altered when nearby nodes are destroyed and more. We’re also going to be showing building destruction tech later once it is ready. We’re also planning for Mounts to interact with the seasons from a visual standpoint.

September 24th Livestream Transcription

Design Team Update: We’re working extensively on the synergy across the nodes, such as the alliances between nodes, sieges, how nodes will take over territories and take over nodes. This is the most complex nature of design and we now have a visual representation to provide a preview of things. You’ll be able to see which nodes have ZOI (Zone of Influence) over other nodes, how they expand territory and how the power levels of the different nodes scale up. This also simulates sieges and events, including a health ticker- which when impacted will result in services being hindered or invasions from enemy monsters. In the simulation we have 111 nodes, unsure of the tick frequency, each second is probably 24 hours. This simulation allows the design team from a tools perspective to see strange happenings that we could not have predicted. This helps us make the necessary changes after assessing the various outcomes that could potentially take place across various servers since players can be unpredictable. 

Engineering Updates: We want to implement more modular quest types that can change based on the ever changing world. Since nearly every system touches or interacts with the node system, it is integral that we get the node system right. Up next is the various iterations we’d like to go over, including the combat changes from Alpha 1. Next, it is our responsibility to plan ahead and think about the fidelity of the game not just in the present but also once it releases. A few months ago we evaluated Unreal Engine 5. A few weeks ago we made a strike team to go through tech for Unreal Engine 5. We will keep you informed if we do make a decision to fully switch over to UE5.

July 30th Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid Studios shares overview of Alpha 1 test and future plans.

Quick Updates:

• • 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.

Google Doc Link

June 25th Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid Studios provides an update on the road to the month long Alpha 1 Test

Quick Updates:

• • Studio move is underway, temporary furniture is in place
  • Paypal being added as store payment option
  • Back end for major combat overhaul is going live today during the test

 

Studio Update: Apologies for the stream delay, today is a large development milestone as the major backend revamp for the combat update takes place today. Starting today and over the weekend we will be extensively testing the combat back-end overhaul. Regarding the move to the studio, the main furniture comes in at the end of July, we’ve got some temporary furniture in there for the moment. We’re hoping to move in and monitor the Alpha 1 test in-house.

 

Design Update: It’s important to note that you will not see a solid UI implemented for Alpha 1, it’s all placeholder. The plan is to provide a highly customizable UI eventually which will let you scale/adjust your damage number texts and more. A big reason for the back-end rework on combat is to ensure things function well during optimization. With our previous combat system, as we were doing large player testing, when players moved all over the world, it was causing performance concerns. Hence we began working on a backend rework for the combat so that the design team could create the tools necessary for the newer skills.

For the past month or so we’ve been having an issue in the Alpha test, as NPCs die, their AI controller stuck around and would stack up over time (An AI controller is the server process that manages the NPC’s behaviour tree). Since it was stacking up over time, it would gradually degrade the server as more mobs were killed. We’ve been incorporating fixes for it over the past month which our patient Alpha 1 testers have been assisting us with. What happens when the server degrades due to such an issue? Well that’s when the player starts experiencing rubberbanding, lag and desyncs. Hence in order to ensure we can have a fluid large-scale experience, we’ve been hammering out this issue over the recent tests.

Currently we’re actively testing the siege as it is a great way to test high density combat. We’ve also incorporated some raid bosses within the siege mode so we can test both PvP and PvE during the test. The siege also allows testing of grouping mechanics such as the raid system and various other systems such as the siege weaponry, castle gates, teleports, control points, buffs and so much more. 

 

QnA Session

Q: Will players receive a memento for their temporary mounts? Like a decor item?
A: Nope. Once it’s gone, its gone.

Q: Will I be selecting augments per skill or one augment for my whole build?
A: Per skill. Augments can be acquired via various means such as archetype, schools, guilds, achievements and more.

Q: If multiple bounty hunters take down a target, who gets the reward?
A: Right now it’s the person who does the last hit. Might change later.

Q: Will players be able to preview items in the auction house before buying them?
A: Currently this is not planned for pre-launch. But maybe post-launch. No scope creep.

Q: Will intrepid own the distribution rights for music made by Bear McCreary and will we be able to stream it with DMCA rights?
A: Yes, we will own distribution rights and you will be able to use the final music.

Q: Will each monster have its own sets of resistances or will there be global resistances like a certain monster catching game?
A: Not every monster will have unique resistances, many will share resistances with specific groups or types. So shared resistance groups for monsters in a shared location.

Q: Is the siege scroll able to be modified once obtained? So if the node advances while questing etc?
A: No. The quest given to obtain a siege scroll is very particular to that type of node and node type. Because if a node levels up, the quest to acquire its siege scroll will be much much harder. So you cannot obtain the scroll for a low level node siege and wait for it to level up.

Q: What will you do if anything to ensure balance between sides of a siege?
A: Interesting question, do we as the developers want to ensure that- Not necessarily. Obviously we want to ensure attacker buffs, defender mechanisms, stages leading up to the siege are all balanced ASSUMING equal footing on both sides. However if one team is more co-ordinated or more geared or higher in number compared to the other team, those things we will not interfere with. But aspects such as castle gate hitpoint values we will balance appropriately. The player aspect of things, we will leave up to the players to coordinate. The servers will keep track of a Guild’s performance and their win/loss ratio. All records for major server events will be kept.

Q: If corruption in an area is not fought back by the players, how far can the corruption go?
A: There are certain events, world progression events that will occur if players ignore it- Such as the spawning of a zombie horde or a dragon awakening. Communities that do not respond to those in an effective way will see services get disabled.

Q: Will non-corrupt players always respawn at the closest spawn or can we choose the respawn?
A: It will be the closest respawn, however certain events will not allow you to spawn nearby. You cannot choose your respawn under normal events.

Q: If you had to choose 1 thing to be as good as possible for Alpha 1, what would it be?
A: Probably server performance. Alpha 1 is incredibly technical, hence one of the primary focuses is vetting the fundamental architecture of how the networking component of the world and the game itself is going to exist so that we can build upon it in the future. Even combat, you should expect its final form at launch. 

Q: Any updates on the career job fair intrepid will offer?
A: No details to share currently, the first priority is setting up the office.

Q: How many guild alliances can your guild be a part of?
A: Currently, at most 3 guilds can join an alliance besides yours, for a total of 4 guilds. However this is subject to change.

Q: Will you make flying content for the few people that have flying mounts?
A: Flying monsters will not exist in the game from a content perspective. Some monsters will fly, but they will land on the ground for you to fight. 

Q: How many alliances can a guild be in?
A: Only 1.

Q: If I dual wield, will I get exp/skills from both weapons?
A: Dual wielding will have its own sets of skills/trees.

Q: Will there be more niche stats in addition to basic ones such as healing increase or armor penetration?
A: Yes, those will definitely exist. Passives will exist, but there is a wide range of stats that get waterfalled off of your six primary attributes.

Q: Can we use weapons or shields with cosmetic skins on them to place in our freeholds?
A: You will have home decor items that are weapons in nature. Whether or not they can be the same as in-game weapons, we are planning to have unique weapons that can be placed at home.

Q: In regards to targeting, will there be ground targeting templates?
A: Yes you will be able to swap between reticle and targeting templates.

Q: Are there any areas that give corruption to a player?
A: No.

Q: Are there any mechanics from other games you wanted to implement but could not due to technical limitations?
A: Would be great to have spaceships to fly to different planets- Just kidding. Cannot think of anything off the top of my head.

Q: Will there be stat requirements to equip gear? Like needing X amount of strength to equip gear?
A: We decided not to do so. We will have level requirements on gear or affiliation requirements on gear, but from a stat perspective, we decided not to go down that road. We don’t want to shoehorn people into specific types of builds, that would create restrictive metas.

Q: Are there plans to add unique titles that only 1 person can obtain?
A: Yes. Mayors, Guild Leaders, and many other particular titles grant you access to certain things. There are achievements that we want you to strive for. 

Q: Will monster coins allow you to take part in events on OTHER servers?
A: No. We might implement cross-server arenas, but no promises. We’d like to have inter and intra PvP ladders between various servers. Kinda like a cross-realm or cross-server arena. However all of this is not in launch plans, maybe post release.

 

Google Doc Link

May 28th Livestream Transcription

– Intrepid Studios provides a swathe of Alpha 1 progress updates and showcase Castle Sieges

Quick Updates:

• • Alpha 1 tests are taking place nearly every wednesday each week.
  • Next Alpha 1 test is on June 2nd, 2021.
  • The new content creator program is live and you can now apply for it.
  • A secondary content creator program is being worked on.
  • Large scale Castle Siege content was shown on stream.
  • Jeffrey Bard has left the studio to pursue his passion in the VR genre.

General Update: We’re doing the alpha 1 tests almost every wednesday, which can be joined with alpha 1 access- We’re still under Visual NDA, but you can still talk about it. Also regarding the new Content Creator Program, it is now live- However since there were so many applicants we will also be making a secondary content creator program which will sort of be like a bootcamp to train creators, more information on this later though!

 

Studio Update: As usual, we are always hiring and have onboarded some great people, including 3 additional producers, some new engineers and a recruiter. The studio move is underway, the server rooms are getting set up next week and hopefully around the middle of June we will be back in the studio. We’ll also be conducting a job fair to onboard new hires, excited to have our monthly potlucks at work. Remember that we’re still in a technical pre-alpha, working on a lot of back end things that you don’t always see visually. Huge props to the testers because they’ve been doing an amazing job at giving us the data and feedback that we need in order to polish and work on the things that we need to work on.

For those unaware, we did have to give a bittersweet farewell to Jeffrey Bard yesterday- I remember we had initially interviewed Jeff for a lead writer position, but he ended up being a jack of all trades and hit the spots where we needed him when we were a small team. Jeff wanted to pursue his passion of Virtual Reality and we’re incredibly grateful to him and wish him the best. I personally shared a lot of passion and stories with Jeff about MMO’s. 

 

Siege Gameplay Footage Notes: All siege footage was recorded in 4k on a widescreen monitor using a GTX 1080. In the future we want to have high octane massive battles without having to worry about your computer blowing up. Currently we’re still working on further optimizing for larger scale content so that we can have fluid 250v250 battles. To do this we’ve been running numerous profiles on the servers in order to essentially play whack-a-mole with bugs and knock issues out one by one.

The current damage numbers are in the wind, we’re not focused on that at the moment- The current focus is establishing the core functionality of the game like “When you push button, the enemy should get hit”. We’re reworking a couple of major systems already to have them better scale for content later. The combat is also heavily being worked on, lots of changes are being made and things are being tested now so that we can build on them later. We’re also working on the rotational movement and rotational animations, right now all attacks are root motion type attacks- We’ll be trying some split body animation next, where your upper body is able to attack while the lower body is able to move. Currently we are in root motion animation because the split body felt floaty 2 years ago. 

A lot of feedback was received on being able to simply hold down the Q key or the Left mouse button in order to attack with your weapon. Traditionally in other MMOs you rarely use your weapon attack. However in AoC, weapon attacks are important, in the planned skill system, you would be able to spec into certain weapon proficiencies so that you could acquire certain flavours to your weapon attack, like being able to proc bleeds on back attacks. Thus weapon attacks play a large role in the skill system for Ashes of Creation. Often other companies reuse things such as launchers and patchers from the past- We as a new studio have built everything from scratch, which allows us to customize tools as we need them. Thankfully we have a team of veteran developers that know exactly what we require.

After August 2021, our engineering team will be working on figuring out the goals for the next testing phase and then have tasks assigned for everyone. Once that’s been locked in, production starts making decisions on what the date for the next milestone will look like. Since Alpha 1 and Alpha 2 are critical testing periods as this is when the majority of large changes and overhauls will be made. 

 

QnA Session

Q: Will we be able to repair siege equipment like ballistas and trebuchets?
A: Yes, you will be able to repair siege equipment.

Q: Will there be diminishing returns on CC?
A: Yes there will be diminishing returns on CC added in later.

Q: How will incurred death penalties, particularly EXP debt, change at max level?
A: There’s a few approaches to the death penalties especially in regard to EXP debt. When you die multiple times, it will take larger chunks of exp debt percentage. As we run through testing and play with numbers, we will change things as this is a process that will be adjusted as necessary.

Q: Will ships have similar permissions and structures as freeholds? Like being able to summon a ship even when the owner is offline?
A: No. Only the owner can summon the ship. You can customize whether your party or raid can utilize weapons/functions etc.

Q: Are there any involuntary item sinks planned for gear? Since over-enchanting and deconstructing are player choices.
A: Yes there are, if you are corrupt and you die you can lose gear. As for a sink, unlike other games where you simply use gold to repair, you will require additional materials which were used to craft the item in order to repair it.

Google Doc Link