Ashes of Creation

Ashes of Creation (AoC) is an upcoming MMORPG, set in a high fantasy open world.

Ashes of Creation takes place within a medieval fantasy setting, blending imagination with cutting-edge graphics. We are putting the word massive back into massively multiplayer with unique and novel mechanics that will bring meaning to player action. Ashes of Creation will incorporate the best parts of traditional MMORPGs with innovative sandbox concepts. You will choose your fate at every opportunity. Questlines will open and close based on the interactions of the players with their world, because this is a world where choice is consequential. Monsters will roam and grow in ferocity as civilization disrupts the natural order of things. From the location of towns to the size of cities, you will determine the landscape of your world. It will be unique in culture, ecology, and economy.

Ashes of Creation MMORPG official Gamescom 2019 teaser trailer.

Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMORPG set in a world of high fantasy where player’s choices will shape and define the world around them.

Ashes of Creation is a unique take on the MMO experience. Our world structure is dynamic and built to react to the actions of our players. Cities will rise and fall, their populations based on the history of the world as the players create it. Quests will unlock as these populations gather, their needs grow, and secrets are unlocked. As the world’s NPC structure is established in real time, players will have the ability to destroy what they’ve created, paving the way for new development, new populations, and real change. Political strife and intrigue will play a very real role in the structure of your world. Gone are the days of static worlds, change is here to stay.

Our team is dedicated to providing the MMORPG we all have been waiting for. Thanks to our community’s incredible support, we successfully pinpointed critical systems in need of revision for Alpha One through the use of our Apocalypse testing ground. After taking the time needed to finalize these revisions, we are happy to announce that starting August 20, 2019 at 11:00 AM PDT the Divine Gateways will open once more for limited Apocalypse testing sessions. We can’t wait to hear your feedback on the updated performance, user interface, art iteration, and combat changes that you’ll see during this phase. We’ve learned a lot from our previous testing and we are using that knowledge to ensure smoother testing periods moving forward. Once we have successfully vetted our back-end changes with Apocalypse during August and September, we will have better insight for future dates involving Siege Mode, Horde Mode, and the highly anticipated MMORPG’s Alpha One. We hope you'll join us for this incredible journey! – Steven Sharif

The Ashes of Creation release schedule is subject to change.

Phase	Release	Estimated/Actual date
Pre‑alpha	Alpha-0.	December 15, 2017.
APOC	Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale stress test (NDA).	September 7, 2018.
	Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale stress test (NDA lifted).	October 19, 2018.
	Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale open beta.	December 18, 2018.
	Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale early access.	September 24, 2019.
	Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle siege mode.	Release before 2020 is possible.
	Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.	To be announced.
Alpha	Alpha-1. It is possible that Alpha-1 is released prior to horde mode.	To be announced.
	Alpha-2 (persistent alpha).	-
Beta	Betas won through the weekly drawings ("Beta-0").	After Alphas, but before Betas.
	Beta-1.	-
	Beta-2.	-
Pre‑release	Head start for crowdfunding backers at the Founder level and above.	1-2 days before launch.
Release	Launch (live) release.	To be announced.
Post‑launch	Major releases (DLC expansions).	Quarterly.
	Minor releases.	Monthly.

Quarter two is no longer going to be the proposed date for alpha one delivery. The delay will not be in a number of years it'll be in a number of months. However we are not going to- we give this commitment going forward to the community that when we give you a date we are going to be confident 100% that we can hit that date, which means that those core systems will need to be complete and stood up in a QA format or setting to where we are confident that that date's going to be deliverable. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation.

Nœuds

Pre-alpha Metropolis node.

Node concept art.

Alpha-0 Empyrean village node.

Au sein de chaque serveur sont soigneusement placés des points de développement appelés Nœuds.

• Il y aura plus de 100 emplacements de nœuds lors de la sortie.

Les Nœuds sont des lieux prédéfinis, englobés dans une zone d'influence, dans notre monde qui peuvent se transformer dans des villes de plusieurs tailles. Ces tailles peuvent aller d'un petit camp à une métropole étendue. La taille des villes dépend de la contribution des joueurs et à quel point ils ont pu faire avancer le Nœud. Les joueurs ne créaient pas le territoire d'un Nœud, mais à l'intérieur de ce territoire, ils ont la possibilité de posséder des terres. Les joueurs qui font partie d'un gouvernement pour un Nœud en particulier pourront modifier les types de bâtiments et les services, mais principalement, un Nœud évoluera en suivant son propre chemin (imaginez plutôt des PNJs qui bâtissent ces villes, plutôt que des PCs construisant individuellement des bâtiments et les murailles). La zone de contribution pour un Nœud est plus large que la ville elle-même, permettant aux joueurs de s'aventurer à l'extérieur tout à la construisant. Nous appelons la zone de contribution, la Zone d'Influence d'un Nœud, il s'agit de la zone où les joueurs aident à l'évolution du Noeud dans lequel ils se trouvent.

Nodes exist all throughout the world and the location of said node will determine its type; but this type will be... seen at the first stage of development when the first stage when a node propagates real-time assets in the world; is basically these NPCs, these merchants that come into an area and they offer services and/or you know of stores or whatever the deal may be. You will see the flavor of the node from those merchants. So if it's a military node you'll see military people. If it's... an economic node you'll see merchants. If it's a scientific one you'll see scholars; and if it's a divine one you'll see priests and clerics. So players will have a very firm understanding of which node is which type in order to know how they want to progress. – Steven Sharif

Nœuds are assigned one of four (4) node types, each of which contain unique specializations.

• Players will be able to identify the type of a node at its first stage of development (Expedition) based on its NPC population.

Node type.	Specialization.	NPCs.
Divine nodes	Faith and skill/equipment augment focuses	Priests
Economic nodes	Trade and merchant focuses	Merchants
Military nodes	Combat and class training focuses	Guards
Scientific nodes	Artisan and construction focuses	Scholars

Ashes of Creation allows you, the player, to decide the fate of the world around you. With each Node Type, you can change the flow of resources and goods in the world. Will you grow the largest Economic Metropolis and help guide the riches of Verra, or will you choose another path unlocking new stories filled with allies and enemies?

Node types are predetermined and are the same across all servers.

• A node’s type is static. It does not change based on the node’s advancement or destruction.

For example, if a level 4 Scientific Node is destroyed, it will become a Level 0 Scientific Node. It will never be any other Node Type other than a Scientific Node. The location of these Types relates to the influences of the area around the Node. – Margaret Krohn

Node types affect various services and systems at each level of node advancement.

• Node governments
• Narrative
• NPCs
• Node buildings and amenities

Node advancement

Illustration of node advancement from Wilderness (stage 0) to Metropolis (stage 6).

Nodes advance by collecting experience from the actions of players nearby. As players complete content inside of a Node’s Zone of Influence (the area around the node), they contribute that experience toward the Node’s development. The experience given to the Node may then be modified based on certain Events and Accomplishments. When a Node reaches the experience required, it undergoes the process of advancing to the next stage. There are a few exceptions where a Node cannot advance even though it has the required experience - most commonly, a Node can not advance if a Node is a Vassal of another Node and would advance to the same stage as its Parent Node. – Margaret Krohn

Citizen and non-citizen player activity (questing, gathering, raiding, etc.) within a node's ZOI counts toward that particular node’s advancement (progression). Nodes have seven (7) stages of advancement, with experience thresholds for each stage. When a Node reaches the experience required for its current stage, it advances to the next stage.

	Node stage.	Alternate name.	Timeframe to advance.	Player housing.
0.	Wilderness			-
1.	Expedition	Crossroads	Few hours	-
2.	Encampment	Camp	Many hours	-
3.	Village	-	Few days	Baux, Static housing
4.	Town	-	Many days	Baux, Static housing, Appartements
5.	City	-	Few weeks	Baux, Static housing, Appartements
6.	Metropolis	Metro	Many weeks	Baux, Static housing, Appartements

The Development Area of a Node is where civilization will appear as the Node advances. As the Node Stage increases, different buildings, NPCs, and services will become available in the Development Area. The higher the Node Stage, the more complex and populated the Development Area becomes. Development Areas will also vary depending on the Node Type - Economic, Military, Scientific, or Divine; we’ll go into further details on each of those Node Types in future posts in this series. – Margaret Krohn

Conceptual illustration. Nœuds that are in the ZOI of more advanced nodes have their progression capped by the more advanced node.

Beginning at Node Stage 3, when a Node advances, it enslaves nearby Nodes and makes them into its Vassals. Vassal Nodes are owned by a Parent Node and must always be at least one Node Stage below the Parent Node. This means that the Vassal Node cannot grow until the Parent Node advances in stage. Vassal Nodes give excess experience to their Parent Node, and are able to have their own Vassals, as long as they fit within the Parent Node’s Zone of Influence. They are subject to the government, alliances, wars, taxes, and trade of their Parent Node, and are able to receive federal aid from them. A Vassal Node cannot declare war on their Parent Node or any of its Vassals. Citizens of Vassals are bound by the diplomatic states of the Parent Node. – Margaret Krohn

The advancement of a node unlocks its unique content, which comes at the cost of locking out an increasing ring of neighboring nodes from progressing to the next stage.

• Nodes advance to the first stage quickly. This enables NPC services such as vending or banking items.
• The more advanced the node is, the larger its ZOI becomes.
• Less advanced nodes (referred to as vassal nodes) that fall within a more advanced node's ZOI can still gain XP, but must remain at a lower advancement stage than the dominant node.
• A node does not receive XP from the nodes within its ZOI until these nodes have reached their cap.
• Players are moved to safety if they intersect with newly spawned assets during node advancement.
• Citizens of one node can contribute to the advancement of other nodes.
• The exact percentage of advancement from obtaining items or killing monsters is not going to be explicitly known to avoid "gaming" the system.

Different people have different resources invested in nodes progressing and it would be a little "gamey" if you could know exactly what was necessary at that point because that would disincentivize people from participating. – Steven Sharif

Noeuds sièges

Noeuds sièges (Pre-alpha footage).

As some areas in the world grow, others will fall. This is the foundation of the living, breathing world that is Ashes of Creation, where players will have the ability to make important decisions that matter in the longevity of an area becoming a city, or whether to siege a rival town. Rise above the ashes, create the world around you, and be a part of the story that unfolds because of your actions and decisions. – Margaret Krohn

Noeuds sièges enable players to delevel a node (reverse its advancement) and to ultimately destroy that node entirely. This paves the way for new development and access to the locked content in surrounding nodes. Due to this dynamic, political strife and intrigue play an important role in the structure of the world.

Sieging nodes will not be an easy task for the attackers. Cities and metropolises will have a considerable defensive advantage. Automatic PvE sieges may be initiated against nodes that are not continuously active.

If you own a home in a node and you don't want to see that home destroyed, you need to defend that city! – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Combat

Alpha-0 Timeless protector boss in the Dünheim dungeon.

Combat in Ashes of Creation is focused on strategy and tactics.

We want combat to be engaging, fun... Right now we've begun the sprint toward Alpha-1 first phase deployment, so we're really looking into the action side of combat right now; and we're building systems for that. And the reason why we are doing that is because tab-targeting has been a staple of MMORPGs for a very long time, even though there's a large interest now in action for MMORPGs and there has been some successful titles with action-oriented, like TERA and BDO. We want to be able to really delve into that development so that we can better understand how to merge tab and action together in the same game, because they are vastly different play-styles. – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Factions

There are no predefined factions in Ashes of Creation.

Because we are non-faction based, you want to grant the user the ability to either do things that are "evil" or "good", so there has to be a plethora of choice on the evil side for them to participate in. – Steven Sharif

Open world

Alpha-0 flood plains environment.

Ashes of Creation will be a seamless open-world experience.

• No loading time or loading screens between regions.

There will be open world dungeons and raids. The aspiration is to maintain the open world feel while being able to capitalize on the benefits of instanced mechanics.

• Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal. Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else.

We're probably going to do instancing only in certain dungeons and in arenas. You probably won't see instancing too much anywhere else. What you see is gonna be what you get. – Jeffrey Bard

The PvP flagging system presents an opportunity for open conflict.

PvE

Pre-alpha PAX East 2018 PvE Developer playthrough, 4 April 2018.

The Node system facilitates the generation of new PvE content such as Quêtes, Donjons, Raids and Pièces de Monster.

There is going to be a lot of PvE content for all portions of the playerbase... Part of that risk versus reward: Your risk is your time you're putting in to having a chance at getting the reward and successfully completing; and that should feel good based on how much time you devote. Now I know that there's a spectrum of casual and hard-core players in the time there, what we can do, but that's why we have many different content paths that play towards how you affect the world around you. – Steven Sharif

PvE content adapts to the development of the world to avoid repitition.

Whenever you have a player versus environment setting you don't want a stagnant kind of overly repetitive because its lackluster. It does not have that a component that engages. – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Pvp

Alpha-0 Pvp.

Pvp (Player versus player combat) is the catalyst for change in Ashes of Creation. Player combat is intended to be meaningful, ranging from Caravan battles to vast open world conflicts fought for the pride of Kings and Queens.

Because players are motivated by different things, because they want something from the game that other players don't want, that's going to cause people to butt heads. Different players are going to want different experiences and the conflict between the two of them will create a bigger and better thing. Out of strife comes rebirth and that's a core symbol, it's a core theme that occurs throughout the game. – Jeffrey Bard

There are many reasons to engage in open world PvP in Ashes of Creation.

• Scarce resources.
• Hunting grounds.
• Caravanes.
• Sieges.
• Guerres de guilde.

Just because our flagging system gives corruption to pkers, doesn't mean PvP won't happen. There is plenty of reason for PvP to occur open-world. Scarce resources, open world hunting grounds, caravans, sieges, guild wars etc. – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Gear

There may be some gear binding (BoE or BoP) but it will be an exception rather than the rule, as this doesn't facilitate the objectives for the economy.

• Very little gear will be account bound or soulbound in Ashes of Creation.
• Gear is obtained via crafting, gathering and processing along with raid and dungeon bosses.

A lot of what we experienced in games that usually come before us is that many things our account bound and they're soulbound to your character... Instead very little here is character bound. Very very little. The vast majority of gear- yes you will get quest related gear as rewards- but it won't be let's say one set in one dungeon and you must run the dungeon over and over. Instead we want to really emphasize the reliance on the economy and crafters and gatherers and processors to support a majority of the gear structure in-game, combined with that of world raid bosses and dungeon bosses; not a repetitive quest line through a single dungeon. – Steven Sharif

• Armes and armor are not class locked, but certain classes are more efficient with certain types of weapons or armor.
• Armes and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.

Weapon types

There is an even split between melee and ranged weapons.

• Axes (One and two handed).
• Bows.
• Clubs.
• Crossbows.
• Daggers.
• Hammers are being considered.
• Lances.
• Maces (One and two handed).
• Orbs.
• Polearms/Halberds.
• Potion launchers.
• Scepters.
• Shields.
• Spears.
• Spellbooks.
• Staves.
• Swords/Rapiers (One and two handed).
• Wands.

Read more...

Armor types

Armure types in Ashes of Creation.

• Helmets.
• Shoulders.
• Cloaks/Capes.
• Chest armor.
• Wrists.
• Gloves.
• Belts.
• Pants.
• Boots.

Read more...

Courses

Ashes of Creation offers nine playable races.

• Aela Humans (Kaelar and Vaelune).
• Pyrian Elves (Empyrean and Py'Rai).
• Kaivek Orcs (Ren'Kai and Vek).
• Dünzenkell Dwarves (Dünir and Niküa).
• Tulnar.

Verra is a world with rich and diverse cultures. Much of its important history has been dominated by the major races. Humans of the coast and plains, Orcs within the hills and the marshes, Elves in the forest and the riverlands, and the esteemed Dwarves of the mountains. The major races have held dominance through countless wars and skirmishes between the lesser races of Verra. Decades may pass between these flareups of violence. There are many minor races on Verra. Some of the minor races exist in makeshift villages or tribes if you will. Some of the major villages among the minor races are comprised primarily of the Giants, less reputable sects of Human, Gnomes, and Halflings. The Halflings are not Halflings in a traditional sense but actually half-bloods of different races. – Steven Sharif

Wandering the darker places in the world lie truly sinister abominations of creation. The great churches of civilization often dispatch heroes of the state to eliminate these threats to mortals. There currently exist four great nations on Verra. This is 25 years roughly before the fall: The Aelan Empire, Pyrian Kingdom, the Kaivek Protectorate, and the nation of the Dünzenkell. There was not always only four great nations. Long ago the races were more divided into many nations and city states. – Steven Sharif

In the 7,000 years of recorded history, wars upon wars were fought. Some for land, others for resources, many for beliefs. Royal houses stood and fell over the years. Some now long bereft of lordship. Many city states exist in Verra. Some self-governed bastions of democracy and republics alike. Others are vassal states at the behest of their benefactors. – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Classes

With 8 Archétypes to combine, players may choose from 64 total combinations to create their class.

Secondary
		Bard	Cleric	Fighter	Mage	Ranger	Rogue	Summoner	Tank
Primary	Bard	Minstrel	Soul Weaver	Tellsword	Magician	Song Warden	Trickster	Songcaller	Siren
	Cleric	Scryer	High Priest	Templar	Oracle	Protector	Shadow Disciple	Shaman	Apostle
	Fighter	Bladedancer	Highsword	Weapon Master	Spellsword	Hunter	Shadowblade	Bladecaller	Dreadnought
	Mage	Sorcerer	Acolyte	Battle Mage	Archwizard	Spellhunter	Shadow Caster	Warlock	Spellstone
	Ranger	Bowsinger	Soulbow	Strider	Scion	Hawkeye	Scout	Falconer	Sentinel
	Rogue	Charlatan	Cultist	Duelist	Nightspell	Predator	Assassin	Shadow Lord	Shadow Guardian
	Summoner	Enchanter	Necromancer	Wild Blade	Spellmancer	Beastmaster	Shadowmancer	Conjurer	Brood Warden
	Tank	Argent	Paladin	Knight	Spellshield	Warden	Nightshield	Keeper	Guardian

Read more...

Rôles

Ashes of Creation has the traditional trinity of Tank, DPS and Support/healer roles.

• Although traditional roles are present, players should not feel branded by their primary archetype.
• Skill augments available through the class system allow characters to be personalized outside of their primary role.
• Players can also double down on their archetype choice to strengthen their primary role.

We have our eight base archetypes; and the trinity is a pretty strong influence with regards to the eight base classes. However the area in which we begin to play with that line between the trinity is in the secondary classes that you can pick. That's where be begin to blend those spaces and allow people a little bit of influence over their role and whether or not they fit perfectly within a particular category within the trinity. – Steven Sharif

Religions

Religious temple in a Metropolis node.

There are six religions in Ashes of Creation.

We're talking about a pantheon here, not necessarily separate religions. They're all kind of offshoots of who is the better god, or who is the god who identifies best with you. – Jeffrey Bard

Read more...

Character

Alpha-0 character sheet UI.

Pre-alpha character design - Snapchat sneak peak.

Alts

There are no specific barriers to alts. Gear will be able to be transferred between characters.

Créateur de personnages

Pre-alpha Créateur de personnages discussion.

The character creator (or character customization screen) allows players to define the look of their character in Ashes of Creation.

We're gonna have a wide array of character customization out of the box.

If I had to give a comparison, I would use BDO as an example of what our Character Creation is going for.

A character's voice may be able to be selected from preset options.

There is a chance that the character creator may be released before Alpha-1.

Character appearance

Character model concept art by Chris Atkins.

We want there to be a lot of room for people to manifest their own identity, to role play how they want to from an appearance standpoint. There's going to be parameters within which you will be able to customize a character. We want the culture and the identity of the races to exist in a range that makes them easily identifiable from other players and other cultures. So, because of that, we have to have a spectrum you can exist on. There will be a lot of hair variants you can do, body art tattoos that you can apply. You'll be able to play with the scales of the facial structure, the bones, the height, width, the body fat percentage. You'll be able to add body hair on different parts of the body. If you want to have hair on your feet, you can dial that up. – Steven Sharif

Character appearance can be customized in the character creator (CC) and via in-game salons/barbershops.

• Character models are focused on realism.
• A player will see a generic character before customization.
• Player can adjust their character to be overweight, skinny, muscular.
• Character designs will have influences from a wide range of cultures, such as European, African and Asian.
• Lolis will not be in the game.

Sliders will offer flexibility in customization.

• Hair variants.
  • Can add hair on different parts of the body.
• Body art.
  • Tattoos
• Facial structure.
• Bone structure.
• Height.
  • You can't have a one inch tall character.
• Width.
• Body fat percentage.

Adjustments will allow a character to appear more feminine or masculine.

• Brow height.
• Chin.
• Hair.
• Facial hair.
  • Female Dwarven beards will not match that of the male. It will be more of a braided option that is not as voluminous.
  • Facial hair is characteristic of the Dünir, not the Niküa.
• Body type.
• There will be "boobie sliders".
  • These are relative to the character's race.
  • The scale is not going to be ridiculous.

Character appearance is able to be saved to hard disc.

Read more...

Cosmétiques

Pilgrimage of the Diviner pre-order pack cosmetics.

Cosmétiques provide a wide array of customization in Ashes of Creation.

• Nothing in the cosmetic store will be pay to win.
• Equitable cosmetics, both from a quantity and quality standpoint, are achievable through in-game means.
• Cash shop cosmetics will offer a diverse selection of unique looks.

I want to make sure that equitable cosmetics both from a quantity and quality standpoint are achievable through in-game achievements. Time, effort should let you be happy with what you can accomplish. – Steven Sharif

In my opinion quality of cash shop cosmetics should be equal to in game achievable cosmetics, but offer a diverse selection of unique looks. – Steven Sharif

Obtaining cosmetics

Some cosmetics can be obtained in-game:

• Dyes.
• Costumes.
• Seasonal cosmetics.

Réalisations may unlock some cosmetics.

Not all cosmetics are obtainable through in-game means. These will be purchasable through the cosmetic store.

Cash shop cosmetics will be limited in quantity, limited in time for purchase. They will be unique, but you will also have extremely difficult to gain cosmetics in game as well as unique cosmetics that look great and better... There will be a lot of cosmetics that are achievable in the game because that is a very fun aspect of MMO play. – Steven Sharif

Cosmetic items

Cosmetic items allow players to customize their character in-game.

• Eye color.
• Skin color.
• Hair color.
• Hairstyles.
• Tattoos.
• Scars.

Cosmetic items that produce in-game cosmetic effects will also be available.

• Fireworks.
• Picnics.
• Camps.

Armor appearance

Gear will have appearance slots (Transmutation/Transmog/cosmetic slots) that are used to copy the appearance of an item (in some cases).

• Armure will take on a racial appearance.

• Cosmetic slots can be toggled on or off.

• Gear is intended to be realistic in appearance.
  • There will not be "oversized" weapons.
  • Armor not be overly sexual in appearance.

• Players can change gear colors using dyes.

• Helmet display can be toggled on and off.

• Particle effects are used to denote the importance and rarity of some weapons.

• Armes are able to be sheathed.

I'm more of the mind that it wouldn't really serve a purpose to have bikini plate armor, just in like reality, if you're going to have armor, it should be protective. I think from a fashion statement is enjoyable for some people, but it's a kind of an immersive issue. – Steven Sharif

We're going for kind of a more realistic look; not necessarily realistic setting, but we want our characters to have weight and kind of feel like they're there. – Jeffrey Bard

Gear attachments

Attachments are able to be unlocked as flair pieces to armor to create a customizable look.

• There will be hundreds of attachments available ranging from a small clasp to the front plate of a breast plate.

Read more...

Lore

Ashes of Creation logo.

Ashes of Creation is a direct reference to the storyline. Without giving too much away, the phoenix is going to be a persistent symbol throughout the first phase of the storyline, and the world that the players will be inhabiting is a long-lost world that has suffered devastating calamity. – Jeffrey Bard

There are different parts to the Lore in Ashes of Creation.

• Origin story.
• The story of the fall.
• The story of deliverance/return.

These story arcs drive one or more quest lines.

We're keeping lore very close to the chest and the reason for that is because it is very rich. It is diverse. It will have applications outside of just the MMORPG. We intend to take it much further, but I want it to be something that the players get to reveal themselves, that's not just handed to them and then the experience is lost. They should feel when they're experiencing this that it relates to them on a personal level. – Steven Sharif

It is about mythology and discovering what truths mythologies are talking about and finding out what really happened on this world so long ago; and that's part of that discovery process; and we want people to feel that throughout the game, not just in terms of lore but in terms of the world itself . – Jeffrey Bard

Read more...

Progression

Progression occurs through a variety of pathways.

• The objective is to provide both vertical and horizontal progression.
• Repetition will not be part of progression in Ashes of Creation.

Multiple playstyles should be relevant and viable. Additionally, you have a spread between casual players and hard-core players; and most of us exist somewhere on that spectrum. The progression path in a society or religion is more conducive to the time we have to play. Whereas, someone else may be playing several hours a day, and they have a better opportunity for the raid/level progression that might require some more dedication. So we want to have these different progression paths available to accommodate the different times in our lives that we have to play the game. And all of those types of progressions will make us relevant in some way shape or form to the general world. – Steven Sharif

Having the ability to gain power at a sacrifice... That's a way to kind of reach a horizontal type of progression. It may not be entirely, because there could potentially be a meta if balancing isn't done correctly; but the objective there is to make sure we have both vertical and horizontal progression in the game. – Steven Sharif

Nivellement won't follow a traditional linear path, although classic mechanics for leveling exist. Experience (XP) is gained through a variety of activities:

• Pvp.
• PvE.
• Exploration.
• Collecte/Traitement/Artisanat.
• Events/Quêtes.

Read more...

End game

There is not going to be a typical end-game in Ashes of Creation.

Part of the whole experience with nodes is that there is no real end-game, in that the world is constantly shifting every day. Month one is going to be really different from month two; and that's for the level 50s and level 1s. – Jeffrey Bard

We want the game to be a living game, which means that all content should be relevant at all times. I’d say that we try to make as little distinction between the leveling up experience and the end game experience as possible. The whole journey is important to us, in order to maximize the fun people have during different stages of the game. – Sarah Flanagan

Level cap

The level cap at launch is expected to be around level 50.

The developers anticipate max level should be attainable in approximately 45 days.

Grinding

Repetition will not be part of progression in Ashes of Creation.

• There will be no "grindy" quests.
• There will not be repetitive quest lines through a single dungeon to obtain gear.
• The aspiration is to have more things to do in the game than a player has time to do.

AFK leveling

There will not be AFK leveling in Ashes of Creation.

We want this game to be played. If there are things that you can do to not play the game and still progress, we've done something wrong. – Jeffrey Bard

Level scaling

There will be a mentorship program where upper-level players are able to benefit from partying and/or helping lower level players; and getting them situated in the game.

• Levels or skills will not be adjusted to allow low level players to participate in dungeons with higher level players.

There will be activities that are present for higher level players to mentor lower level players. Let's say you have a friend who joins later on and you still want to do things with them, there will be things to do. Will you he be able to enter a dungeon of your level and participate? No, because we don't want to inflate or deflate characters and manipulate that type of skill or power. We want that to be something that makes sense for them in a progression standpoint. – Steven Sharif

Class progression

As a player progresses with their primary archetype (primary class), they will have the opportunity to choose a secondary archetype to augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype (secondary class). The combination of primary and secondary archetypes is referred to as a Class.

If a Fighter were to choose Mage as a secondary archetype, the fighter would become a Spellsword. This combination opens up augments that can be applied to skills in their primary skill tree. Fighters have a Rush skill that allows them to rush towards a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down. A Mage's escape augment could be applied to the rush skill, which would now teleport the player to the target; thus eliminating the charge time on the skill.

Each skill in the primary tree will have several augment options from the secondary tree. This is an example of horizontal progression.

• Augments to primary skills will fundamentally change the way the ability works - adapting what the ability once did to incorporate the identity of the secondary archetype/class.

Players receive skill points as they level. These can be used to level up skills within their skill tree.

• It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.

Weapon progression

Scimitar 3D render.

Armes will have their own progression paths and their own applicable types of skills.

• Currently the weapon use ability/combo determines special effects that proc. This system might change to adapt to weapon progression.
• Ancillary effects proc based on enchantment types.
• Gear enhancements (power stones) can be applied to add elemental or energy types of damage.
• A skill tree is used to grant effects: making them better or branching off into different directions.
• Passive skills will enable players to work toward mastery of a weapon.
• Weapon proficiency (based on length of use of a weapon) is not a planned feature.

Q: Are weapons balanced towards a proficiency system (i.e. the longer I use a sword, the better my damage will be), or will it be a normal RPG stat system with no long-term scaling?

A: We will not be using a proficiency system as described, but players will have passives available in their skill tree that will increase effectiveness of certain weapons. Becoming a master of swords will be something that is possible, just not in that particular manner. – Sarah Flanagan

Ashes of Creation is all about providing many progression paths... The reason why we don't like the term endgame is because with the amount of progression that's available with the amount of diversity and player agency that that impacts the world... We kind of want the the weapon system and add an element of that as well... You can determine special effects that proc from currently the combo system right; you can determine ancillary effects that proc based on enchantment types; you can power stone weapons to add different either elemental types of damage and/or energy that kind of play rock paper scissor with player defenses ... and then you can skill tree out how those effects that are granted ... you can make them better you can branch them off into a different direction. – Steven Sharif

Pet progression

Some pets will be levelable and will have gear available to them.

• Combat pets will incorporate some of their owner's power in a way that keeps the power progression horizontal.

Artisan progression

Players must choose a path in the artisan skill tree for each character. Within each of the three parent artisan paths (Collecte, Traitement and Artisanat) there are different professions. A character may only ever master one of these paths.

• Branching into specific paths allows the player an opportunity to specialize in certain areas. This encourages player inter-dependency, enhancing the artisan experience.
• It is possible to master every profession within a parent artisan path, but this will be a long and labor intensive feat, requiring many resources.
  • A player may only master a profession if they have achieved the artisan path mastery.
  • Based on testing, it may be decided to limit profession mastery certificates to a capped value.
• Masteries aren’t just about making an item. They grant many things, including titles, access to items, bargains, and quests.
• Choice of profession does not affect a player's stats.
• Characters within a single account (Alts) may have different professions.

When we reference not being masters of all that doesn't mean you're not a master within your own one of the three artisan types, which is you know crafter or gatherer, processor. You will be a master of one of those, you will not be master of the other two. – Steven Sharif

Religion progression

There are player progression paths within a religion.

• Players may follow only one religion at a time.
• Religions will have a ranking system.
• Changing religion will cause loss of progress in a player's previous religion.

It depends on their dedication to the religion itself; their performance when it comes to certain religion's religious objectives; their contribution to the development of that religion within the world. There's a lot of different markers that we use at each stage to determine how they progress within the religion. – Steven Sharif

Naval progression

Mariner classes (also referred to as boatsmanship classes, boatsman skills or seamanship) contain different skill trees arranged in a similar manner to Classes artisanales. As a player gains experience in these different skills they become more adept at using them.

• Gunnery
• Piloting
• Navigation
• Boat repair
• Ship components
• Defensive skills
• Utility based skills

You can spec into and kind of create your own class based on what things you're doing on the boat... It's gonna be very similar to in structure to like the artisanship trees, so you'll you'll have your mariner class: You'll have different trees in that class. – Jeffrey Bard

Zones and progression

Donjons, Raids, Patrons du monde, Mobs, Quêtes, Events, Resources, Narratives and other content within a node's ZOI will have a diverse level range; but will scale with the advancement of that node and it's racial influence.

We don’t have a strictly level 25 zone. Instead, that zone might have some level 10 creatures near the road, some level 20 creatures deep in the forest, and some level 30 creatures up the mountain. These ratios will change based on the Nodes that inform them, becoming generally more dangerous as the Node grows. All this civilization attracts the attention of Things-That-Should-Not-Be. This does not mean that wilderness areas are safe, by any means. Some may be safe-er, but all will have dangers that even the most experienced traveler needs to watch out for.

Guild progression

Guild progression occurs through participation in different systems.

• Quêtes.
• Nœuds.
• Organisations sociales.
• Artisanat certain items.
• Events.

Passive skills and augments are unlocked by guild progression.

• Passive abilities increase certain stats relating to a guild member's ability to perform in combat or in other aspects of the guild, such as the economy.
• Augmente may apply at the upper tiers of guild progression.
  • This applies to guilds that have opted for the non-expansive member route.
  • It benefits guild members with a classification of officer or knight.

Guild size can be traded off for guild progression.

• The higher the guild's member cap, the fewer available skill options will be available to that guild.
• Guild alliances may be a key part in creating a larger "guild".

As you're leveling up the guild and you're getting these points to either allocate towards expanding the guilds member count or allocate towards adding certain passive abilities that your guild members can gain by being guild members. You're also going to see as you're leveling up the guild through different type of quest-based, participation-based, node-based, organization-based systems and ways that those quests hook into the world. You're also going to see perhaps some augment abilities at the upper tiers of the guild levels become unlocked for certain members that have a classification of officer or knight, will have access to those different types of augment abilities that might get unlocked should you go down the non expansive member lane; and the idea there is to offer these benefits to smaller groups. – Steven Sharif

It's not always going to be combat. You could have an economic focus guild. You could have a trade oriented guild; and there's all sorts of things that you can kind of put together and kind of give your guild its own identity. – Jeffrey Bard

Social organization progression

A player progresses through a social organization by accomplishing tasks or quests. There are hierarchical paths pertaining to specific questlines for the organization's thematic.

• Sabotage.
• Espionage.
• Intrigue.

- For example, a Thieves' guild may have objectives and quests toward securing a particular item to enable players to advance within the organization.

Social organizations are going to have questlines that players participate in which some will include sabotage, espionage, intrigue... While it's not necessarily player versus player in the combat sense, it is player versus player in pitting communities in those organizations kind of against each other in a competitive atmosphere, where only some things can be accomplished by certain communities; and not everybody can succeed at a particular task. So, I think that that's a unique way to involve meaningful conflict that doesn't necessarily have to relate to PvP, because obviously we have a lot of PvP systems in the game and and there are many ways for players to participate in player versus player combat; but we also want to make sure that from a progression standpoint, from a system standpoint there are going to be abilities of individuals to follow these questlines, these tasks that will pit organizations against each other, specifically from an organizational standpoint. – Steven Sharif

• Social organizations unlock augments.

You're gonna see arguments being used a lot throughout a lot of our systems. When we're talking about the guild system, when we're talking about social organizations, when we're talking about religions. A lot of those things are going to affect how and what you have available to augment your skills with. – Jeffrey Bard

Alliance progression

Ashes of Creation may have specific content that revolves around Alliances.

• Progression pathways within alliances.
• Guildes sharing common services with alliance members.
• Alliances can toggle relationships with nodes.

Content that revolves around alliances specifically and progression within the development of that alliance; and the ability to share some common services between guilds that are part of that alliance. I think that additionally allowing alliances to toggle certain relationships with nodes as an interaction is beneficial. That's going to provide an interesting dynamic for players who are either members of the particular node that has the relationship established or members of the Alliance. So I think that obviously building systems is is about creating the channels by which these players can form bonds and the more layers you have around those you know channels of bonding between the different guilds or players, the more sustainable that relationship. – Steven Sharif

Freehold progression

Freehold buildings are able to be levelled up based on the length of time and productivity of the freehold.

• Freehold progression unlocks new bonuses, abilities and capabilities.

We want there to be progression in many systems and part of the freehold progression is that when you establish these base buildings the longer and more productive you are and exist with that freehold, the more opportunity those buildings will have to both level up: offering new bonuses, new abilities, new capabilities; and just surviving in this world is a feat in and of itself, so it's rewarded by allowing progression with those things. – Steven Sharif

Taverns provide tiered services.

• Quêtes that might only be gathered from the player-owned taverns.
• Meals that grant buffs for a period of time after a player leaves.
• Recipes that could potentially be sold to cooking professions, that may only be obtained from a player-owned business in a certain area.

The longer the tavern is in business and the more patrons served, the faster the tavern will level up.

Monster coin progression

There is a progression system that levels a player's monster skills based on how often they participate in monster events.

In Ashes of Creation a large portion of world events revolve around the environment reacting to the player. This means that as players are exploring the world and developing civilization around them the environment is responding to this encroachment by spawning dynamic events and creatures to attack those developing cities. These events occur in 3 different types: the Legion level the Elite level and the Epic level.

As nodes advance, so does the scale of the monsters. There are tiers of events denoting the caliber of the monsters being spawned.

Game balance

The way that the systems are being designed from a balancing standpoint we're taking into account how we would like the nodes to change per-se how often and we've designed attrition systems for certain cultures that may have more dominance over others. These are things that in Alpha and Beta we will be testing and watching and making sure that our objective is achieved from a gameplay standpoint and if it's not we'll come back and recalculate. – Steven Sharif

Class balance

Les soixantes-quatres (64) classes sont divisées en huit archetypes primaires. L'équilibrage des compétences actives ne concerne que ces huits archétypes primaires.

• Il y a quatre groupes primaires d'augmentations assigné à chaque archétype de base. L'équilibrage des augmentations est lié au groupe de quatre augmentations pour chacun des huits archétypes.

Balancing is such an important aspect of this class system that we want to make sure that there's a role to be had for every possible combination. – Steven Sharif

You don't make 64 classes for four to be played. – Peter Pilone

L'équilibrage dans Ashes of Creation est orienté sur le "groupe".

There will be match ups in 1v1s where one class will be superior to another; and that application should be a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. We want there to be counter-play between the different classes... Instead it's going to be a group focused balance, where as long as you have the diversity of classes present, that's going to be an equal level playing field. It's going to be very dependent on skill and strategy. – Steven Sharif

Certains archétypes secondaires sont capable de "comblé le fossé" avec leur contre.

Certain archetypes are capable of moving the gap between their counterpart per-se. If I am a Tank archetype and a Mage is my counter, I can take a Mage secondary and kind of bridge the divide slightly; and then move my identity that direction ever so slightly. – Steven Sharif

Power creep

Power creep is a balance issue... When it comes to gear progression specifically, the idea is to create an open market that is not heavily dependent on soulbound items; and having many item sinks and gold sinks within that economy that allows for the potential degradation and loss of assets within that closed economy; and not introduce items from the marketplace that companies put in from a pay-to-win perspective or from a pay-to-convenience perspective that undermines the economy that players have built. That is a huge mistake that companies have made in the past and that lends to the imbalancing of what designers maybe have actually balanced well. – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Design

When it comes to how MMO’s have been traditionally designed, most gamers are familiar with two distinct types of gameplay loops: the “theme park”, and the “sandbox”. The vast majority of MMO’s we’ve all seen come and go in the gaming industry have been of the theme park variety – these games put the player onto a specific path, guiding them along, with plenty of pretty sights in between the same old quest hubs, very little in divergent paths, virtually no freedom in player progression. Recently the MMO genre has seen some games of the sandbox nature come onto the scene, but despite the ultimate freedom the sandbox affords players, many are left wanting more, as there is by definition no pre built world content, no human touch, just the vastness of the “sand” for lack of a better term. Thus many MMO players often find themselves caught between the repetitive rock of the theme park or the vast dead spaces of the sandbox’s hard place. This chasm between the state of MMO gameplay loops is where we intend to inject Ashes of Creation’s Node system.

In order for sandbox mechanics to mean something, there must be curated content to accompany the player’s choices. Which means, as the developers, we must create that Themebox style content but for every possible path the community may take. – Steven Sharif

Piliers de conception

The design of Ashes of Creation adheres to five main pillars.

1. Histoire engageante et immersive
2. Monde réactif
3. Interaction joueur
4. Agence de joueur
5. Risk vs reward

In designing Ashes of Creation, we adhere every detail to five main pillars: Engaging and Immersive Story, a Reactive World, Player Interaction, Player Agency, and Risk vs Reward. Even in the environment, everything you as the player do will tie into these pillars, while everything your guild does, everything your server does will ultimately keep the world fresh, ever-changing, and most importantly... exciting.

Inspiration

Ashes of Creation has taken inspiration from various other MMORPG titles.

• Eve Online with its regionalized economy and risk vs reward in transportation.
• ArcheAge with its building systems, transportation and naval combat.
• Lineage II with its castle sieges, flagging, open world PvP and guild progression.
• Star Wars Galaxies with its crafting systems.

In terms of what came before, we're trying to figure out who did what best and take inspiration from that: Move the genre forward; keep things updated and bring it into the 21st century. – Jeffrey Bard

End-game

There is not going to be a typical end-game in Ashes of Creation.

Part of the whole experience with nodes is that there is no real end-game, in that the world is constantly shifting every day. Month one is going to be really different from month two; and that's for the level 50s and level 1s. – Jeffrey Bard

We want the game to be a living game, which means that all content should be relevant at all times. I’d say that we try to make as little distinction between the leveling up experience and the end game experience as possible. The whole journey is important to us, in order to maximize the fun people have during different stages of the game. – Sarah Flanagan

Open development

Intrepid Studios has embraced an open (transparent) development approach, rather than sharing information through carefully curated press releases and announcements.

I don't answer to a board. I don't answer to a publisher. We answer to our players; and we try to be as transparent as possible with showing our progress; and showing it in a timely manner. – Steven Sharif

I think that we live in an age where it's easy to be transparent if you're not trying to hide something. The downside is if you're showing something that's not a completed or finished product, it is incumbent upon the viewer to understand that fact. – Steven Sharif

There are obviously going to be some aspects of the development that we will not reveal, like lore and some system mechanics in order not to spoil the game for release. – Steven Sharif

Payment model

Box cost

There is no upfront box cost associated with Ashes of Creation.

Subscription model

Game time is currently purchasable in Pre-order packs.

Ashes of Creation (the MMORPG) is a subscription based game.

• The monthly subscription fee is USD $15.
• Lifetime subscriptions were granted to crowdfunding backers at the Braver of worlds level or higher.
  • Users may change servers within their chosen publisher without losing their lifetime subscription.

This allows us to avoid the pay to win mentality many free-to-play games employ, as well as maintain a steady flow of new content for all our players.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse is free-to-play.

• These are stand-alone modes that will be open to everyone, not just a backers.

There is no P2W in Apocalypse or the MMORPG!

Expansions

DLC expansions (post-launch releases) are planned on a quarterly basis.

• DLC will not cost anything more than the normal subscription.

Because of the modularity of a lot of the systems that we're working on, it's not too hard to iterate and implement new things... We're planning on going on a quarterly/ monthly cycle to continue to push out new content. – Jeffrey Bard

The quarterly cycle for the big content is good for us and then, as you said, those modular components to our mechanisms in the game allow for us to introduce smaller content patches that can be seen in real time in the world. – Steven Sharif

We don't intend to a wordsmith around future charge for DLC content. As a subscription model, that's part of the agreement between us as a Studio and you guys: That there will be regularly scheduled updates and chapters; and that subscription is what allows you to access that content. – Steven Sharif

Pay to win

Ashes of Creation will not be pay to win.

"Ashes of Creation will not be pay to win, that is our pledge to the community. One of the core principles we set forth with Ashes of Creation is a very strong desire to maintain the game's even playing field."

Q: Will there be RNG boxes?

A: I dislike RNG. Archeage made me loath rng monetization gimmicks. – Steven Sharif

Inventaire slots and XP potions are considered pay to win.

My definition of pay to win is really anything that affects the in-game economy, the in-game action pool, your abilities and/or skills... In my opinion the inventory slots and the XP potions would be considered pay to win. – Steven Sharif

Publishers

Intrepid Studios will self-publish Ashes of Creation in the NA (North American) region.

Intrepid Studios will be self-publishing in North America. – Steven Sharif

My.com (Mail.ru) will publish Ashes of Creation in the EU (European Union), RU (Russia) and CIS regions.

Intrepid will maintain 100% creative control over Ashes and our partners My.com and Mail.ru shares our vision for Ashes, as this was very important to us. This means our stance on p2w for the game. This partnership allows us as a Studios to focus on the development of the game and allows us to feel comfortable with the level of service that we know my.com and Mail.ru can provide our glorious community. – Steven Sharif

Today I have confirmed business model will be subscription with no box cost, cosmetic only marketplace (will match NA). – Steven Sharif

There is no current publisher for the OCE (Oceanic) and SEA (Southeast Asia) regions. It is likely that Intrepid Studios will self-publish in OCE.

We do not have a publisher in mind for Oceanic and Southeast region of Asia so we will likely be self-publishing in OCE. – Steven Sharif

The Ashes of Creation MMORPG will not be published on the Steam platform.

• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse was made available for download on Steam on Monday, August 19, 2019 at 2PM PDT.

Payments

It will be possible to register with Intrepid, in order to play on NA servers. In which case, your account and billing info would be handled solely by Intrepid. My.com will be responsible, with collaboration from Intrepid, for EU accounts and servers. – Steven Sharif

Q: So to play on EU you would need a EU account via mycom?

A: Correct. – Steven Sharif

Q: Can you inform us about payments done by EU. Will they be to my.com or to IS?

A: Depends where the player creates their accounts, you will be able to choose Intrepid or my.com. – Steven Sharif

Cosmetic store (micro transactions)

Ashes of Creation cosmetic store.

The Magasin cosmétique enables players to purchase Cosmétiques for use in Ashes of Creation.

• Pets, Supports, Costumes, Armure, Buildings and Accessories sold in the cosmetic store are skins.
• Cosmetic skins are only be able to be applied to things that have already been earned, crafted or found within Ashes of Creation.
• Nothing in the cosmetic store will be pay to win.
• Different variants of store purchased cosmetic creatures may exist in the wild.

We plan to include a shop for micro transactions. The shop will only include cosmetic items. Nothing in our shop will ever be pay to win as we believe this practice greatly hurts the MMORPG genre.

All cosmetic store items will be non-tradeable. There will be no gifting mechanism for cosmetic items.

I don't want cosmetic items that can be purchased from the marketplace to be transferable... because it is in a way a transfer of money for potentially something in-game. – Steven Sharif

The cosmetic store will offer limited time, limited quantity items to help sustain game development.

• Equitable cosmetics, both from a quantity and quality standpoint, are achievable through in-game means.

I want to incentivize purchase in the cosmetic shop for sustainability of what expansions we have intended, since we are not a box cost. I want to incentivize purchase by offering limited items: limited time, limited quantity, so you have confidence that when you purchase them, they won't be offered later on in some other way. – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Artistic style

Ashes of Creation will have a higher graphical fidelity than most western games. It will not be too stylized or "cartoony".

• All of the art assets in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale testing mode have been created by Intrepid Studios.

We can push the limits a little bit on the graphical fidelity, especially using Unreal Engine 4... My desire was not to see very cartoony games. I'm not a big fan of highly stylized art. – Steven Sharif

Artistic influences

• Aelean architecture has a French medieval influence.
• Pyrian architecture has a Greco-Roman influence.
• Empyreans have a Greco-Roman imperialistic feeling.
• The Py'Rai have a Navajo Native American influence. Py'Rai architecture has a woodland inspiration.
• The Vek have a Mesoamerican racial influence.
• The Niküa have a Polynesian influence.

You will see in the different races that are available from a player character standpoint a lot of different influences that reflect many cultures in the world: Not just European, not just Africa, not Mesoamerican. These cultures are going to be present in many of the races. – Steven Sharif

The idea is just to find a base component in the real world as a starting point and then to begin to fantasize. – Steven Sharif

Cultural references

There will be real-world cultural references, particularly with regards to real-world holidays and historical events.

• These won't be out of place in terms of immersion. They will be homages.

There will be some real world references, particularly with regards to potentially real world holidays as well as some historical events or cultures. For example the PAX East kind of ship that was named Eleanor that we released a cosmetic of, you know, being a reference to the Eleanor ship that the tea was thrown off of; or kind of colonialesque look. – Steven Sharif

ESRB rating

ESRB T rating.

Dead bodies in a Pre-alpha raid encounter.

The aim is for Ashes of Creation to have a T for Teen rating, but it may end up having a M for Mature rating.

• There may be an option to turn off blood and gore in the game.
• There probably won't be swearing in quests.

The antagonists in this game are definitely dark... We're not going grimdark at all, but there are parts of it that get that way. – Jeffrey Bard

Game difficulty

People who put more time and effort into it are definitely going to get more out of it but that doesn't mean that person who logs in once a week won't be able to have fun so it's just a matter of the scale of stuff that you're going after... Running a caravan is not gonna be the same thing every time you do it. You might be able to find like a super secret path that nobody knows about... and you exploit it for a while and nobody knows and then eventually somebody sees you and suddenly that route becomes a lot more difficult so you know that's kind of the way we really want that emergent gameplay to kind of come out of those options that we give you guys; and a lot of it is gonna come down to other players making it more or less difficult for you. – Jeffrey Bard

There's a ton of room for difficulty on whatever scale... In a living world everything becomes much more difficult. – Peter Pilone

Learning curve

Ashes of Creation will be easy to understand yet hard to master.

Target demographic

I think our target demographic, obviously we have a very high graphic fidelity in the game that's attractive to younger players, but at the same time we have a very roleplay game orientation - a kind of a play back to that pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons feel that perhaps younger generations may not know but is very near and dear to the hearts of older gamers. So I think we have a broad appeal from a demographic standpoint. – Steven Sharif

Player types

Ashes of Creation will cater for a variety of player types; from Raiders or PvPers to Role players and Crafters.

A guy who wrote a book on game design, called Bartle, breaks gamers up into different categories. We will often talk about the different categories of gamers and trying to satisfy their needs. – Akil Hooper

The most compelling design argument for how those different sects of gamers interact with each other is dependant from the design standpoint of interdependencies in the systems. So, for example if as a Raider or as a PvPer you're looking for the best gear, you're going to devote your time towards leveling up and going out and participating in the things you enjoy like pvping, perhaps going for caravans or sieging cities and castles and all that type stuff. If you want the best gear, you're going to have to to rely on a person who's devoted their time towards crafting potentially; and they may not be a PvPer but they have a place in your wheelhouse because you need their services. And then that crafter is going to need a person who is either a gatherer or plays the economy as a merchant in the nodes with the auction houses that are regionalized. They're going to have to work with a person who specializes in trade that takes caravans with either mercenary groups or other guilds that are PvPers between the nodes to get the resources they need. Building dependencies on different groups or factions of players that exist within a large world like this MMORPG is what kind of solidifies the bonds that allow for them to exist either harmoniously, or at least in a way that they know you need those types of players. – Steven Sharif

Casual vs. hardcore players

Casual players will have an impact because what they do is necessary for the health of the server.

There are events that are that are happening in the world in the game that you won't need to be a hardcore player to impact and join. For example, the triggered events from the PvE standpoint against the cities; the trades of the caravans; those natural battlegrounds that exist; the castle sieges you can login for. There is a lot of systems that are at play where a person can simply log in, participate, have fun, be impactful and then log out. – Steven Sharif

Mentor program

There will be a mentorship program where upper-level players are able to benefit from partying and/or helping lower level players; and getting them situated in the game.

• Levels or skills will not be adjusted to allow low level players to participate in dungeons with higher level players.

There will be activities that are present for higher level players to mentor lower level players. Let's say you have a friend who joins later on and you still want to do things with them, there will be things to do. Will you he be able to enter a dungeon of your level and participate? No, because we don't want to inflate or deflate characters and manipulate that type of skill or power. We want that to be something that makes sense for them in a progression standpoint. – Steven Sharif

Localization/Translation

Ashes of Creation will be initially available in English, French, German, and Russian.

• Italian, Polish and Spanish localization will then be added.
• Other languages are being considered.

Servers won't be language locked.

• There may be separate servers in the EU region based on language type.

There's localization that will be present in the German and French Russian languages to start; and then we intend to also localize in Italian, Polish and Spanish. So servers will be allocated within the region as being one of those language type servers. So it's not going to be per country per se as it might be per language. – Steven Sharif

Efforts will be made to translate Ashes of Creation into multiple languages.

• Translation will be done in the game client based on interest.
• Interface utilisateur localization tools are available in the chat window.

Platforms

Ashes of Creation will be released on the Windows PC platform.

• Console support may be added at a later point.
• Native Linux support may be possible in future.

Performance

By the time of launch, five year old hardware should be viable.

• Minimum specification of a 2014-2015 rig with a mid to high range graphics card from that era.

The target is a five-year-old system when we launch should be able to run the game... You're looking at kind of like mid to high range graphic card from that era and you should be good to go. – Jeffrey Bard

I think our min spec right now is targeting 960. Basically, the goal is to have computer when we launch five years back be viable. So we're not targeting super high-end systems. Unreal gives us a lot of capability to tune down fidelity as we need it, so we've got a lot of options in there. Right now it plays extremely well even on lower end systems. And we haven't even done any optimization. – Jeffrey Bard

The game will be highly customizable from a settings standpoint. If you don't quite have the rig necessary to run it, you can dial the game settings down.

• Highly scalable options to adjust rendering and particle effects will be offered.
• Motion blur will be togglable on and off.
• Settings to cull out characters in large battle scenarios are being worked on.

Unreal Engine 4

Unreal Engine 4 is the graphical engine for Ashes of Creation.

Ashes of Creation will feature a custom Unreal Engine back-end with proprietary networking code to enable mass combat in the open world: such as Pvp, Noeuds sièges, Siège de Château, Donjons and Patrons du monde.

Unreal engine makes it really fast to iterate... Compared to other gaming engines, I can do something in a hour that would take eight hours to do in another engine. – Jeffrey Bard

We're ripping out most of the network code that Unreal has and putting in our own just so that it works with our game and so everything is as efficient as possible. We're not going to have any replication problems because we're building it ourselves. – Jeffrey Bard

One of the most important things about Epic Games as the creators of Unreal Engine is the way they've allowed developers to have access to the source code. To be able to do that makes the engine very versatile. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse system requirements

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse minimum system specification.

• Operating system: Windows 7 SP1, 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i3-2125 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 3.3GHz
• Memory: 6 GB
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 460 or Radeon 6870 HD with 1GB and DirectX 12
• Broadband internet connection
• 11 GB available space

Recommended specification.

• Operating system: Windows 10, 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz / AMD FX-9590 4.7GHz
• Memory: 32 GB
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 Fury with 4GB and DirectX 12
• Broadband internet connection
• 16 GB available space

Servers

The world will be the same on each server, but Nœuds will develop differently. Different servers will have different narratives. Things that happen on one server may not happen on another.

• Servers will be named after the champions of the great battles that led up to the fall of Verra.

There will be a multitude of servers located throughout the various regions of the world.

• Post launch, users will be able to select their server by the ping or the region that's notated next to the server.
• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse server selection is driven by the party leader. Whatever region they have selected will apply to their friends and squad.

We'll have a multitude of servers located throughout to the various regions of the world; and those servers will be good connection points for- and will be driven by- I mean there's two types of servers I'm sorry: For the alpha-1 arena those will be driven by the party leader right; and wherever whatever region they have selected if they invite friends to their squad or whatever, they'll be able to play on that region. With regards to live launch when the server's go live, you'll be selecting a server to play on; and that will be your character's home; and that server you'll be aware of where that server is located usually by either a ping or a region that's notated on next to the server. – Steven Sharif

Regions

Ashes of Creation will launch with the following server regions:

• North America (NA).
• Europe (EU).
• Asia/Pacific (SEA).
• Oceania (OCE).

Other server regions will be considered based on interest.

• South America is under consideration due to traffic from that region.
• OCE servers will not be provisioned until Beta for Ashes of Creation (the MMO) and live launch for Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.

At this stage we do not have numbers on how many different servers will exist for different regions. We've said in the past 8-10,000 concurrent users per server is what we'd like to aim for. Obviously, the number of servers that exist in a region are going to be dependent on the population that's playing. – Steven Sharif

There will not be region locking or IP blocking.

I can confirm there will be no region locking. – Steven Sharif

No IP blocking. – Steven Sharif

Q: When you say you no region locking or IP blocking, does this refer to all regions or just only Europe, Russia or North America?

A: Currently that refers to regions that are territories under our license agreement with My.com and Mail.ru, which is Europe and Russia as it relates to our North American servers as well. However, moving forward should we announce additional strategic partners for foreign territories, it would be a red line for us as well not to allow for any region locking or IP blocking. – Steven Sharif

Server population

Population limits will be enforced on each server.

• Around 8-10k concurrent users per server is projected.

Server history

The history of each server will be tracked and visible to players.

We're gonna keep track of the history of the world so that we can tell people the story up to the current day. A player who's brand new, who's come in at the six-month mark can take a look at each server, what each server has done, how each server has tackled the storyline; and they can decide for themselves what community they want to join; what version of the world that they want to take part in. – Jeffrey Bard

Server instancing

There won't be server channels (sharding) on a server.

Server types

• There won't be separate roleplaying (RP) servers.
• There won't be separate PvE and Pvp servers.

Server transfers

Server transfers will not be possible initially. The developers intend to assess the impact on housing and other systems closer to launch.

Esports

eSports is not the main focus, but the game will naturally move in that direction if the game play is compelling, competitive and fun.

If we make the gameplay compelling, competitive and fun, that naturally it will move in that direction; and then we will find the ability to support it afterwards. – Steven Sharif

Voice acting

NPCs will have voice acted audio greetings.

• Narrated quest lines are not currently planned.
• Adding voice acting into the game at at a later point is a fairly cosmetic change.

Is it difficult to add voice acting later? No, it's definitely not... It's a fairly cosmetic change. – Steven Sharif

Voice acting is a fun luxury to have, but it is not only a costly one, but it is also one that takes a lot of logistics. – Steven Sharif

Security systems

Security systems will be in place to combat cheating, exploiting, botting, gold selling, item duplication and other things that affect the economy starting from Alpha-0.

• These systems collect user data and flag abnormal activities for inspection. This combined with player reporting functions generates a live "heat map" that draws attention to unusual behavior.

• Players caught cheating will be banned.

Two-factor authentication

Token-based two-factor authentication (2FA) may be in place for Alpha-1.

Addons/mods

Addons will not be allowed, in general.

• The developers don't want addons/mods to be necessary to experience the game.
• The developers believe that parsers (DPS meters) can have negative effects.
  • There will be leader boards.
• The design of the game API is still under consideration.
  • There will be integrations available for streaming services such as Twitch and a few other services, but it's not something that will be exposed through an API just yet.

We will have a lot of customization present in the both from a UI perspective as well as different data points that will be naturally in the game, but we don't want to open up the mod game just yet. That might be a decision we change in the future but, it's not planned for release. – Steven Sharif

The idea is to make a one-stop-shop from the company when it comes to in-game systems... We don't really want to have addons in my opinion. – Steven Sharif

Étapes

• First team members were hired in December 2015.
• Ashes of Creation development began in February 2016.
• Official website was launched and project announced, December 10, 2016.
• Official discord was launched, January 18, 2017.
• Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign launched with $750,000 funding goal, May 2, 2017.
• Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign completed with 19,576 backers raising $3,271,809, June 3, 2017.
• Summer crowdfunding campaign launched, June 21, 2017.
• Summer crowdfunding campaign completed with 2,485 backers, July 22, 2017.
• Raised $16,500 for Extra Life children's hospitals, November 4, 2017.
• PAX West 2017, September 1-4, 2017.
• Alpha-0 released on schedule, December 15, 2017.
• Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2018, March 19-23, 2018.
• PAX East 2018, April 5-8, 2018.
• Last day for purchases of Alpha-1 through Intrepid pre-order packs, August 15, 2018.
• At Gamescom with My.com, August 20, 2018.
• 100 developers working on Ashes of Creation, August 27, 2018.
• PAX West 2018 panel, September 1, 2018.
• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale (previously called Alpha-1 phase 1 battlegrounds), October 19, 2018.
• Raised $20,518 for Rady Children's hospital with Extra Life, November 4, 2018.

Accomplishments

• Kickstarter's most funded MMORPG.
• Kickstarter's #7 most funded video game.
• Most anticipated MMO – MMORPG.com's Best of 2017 Awards.
• Most anticipated early access hands-on MMORPG – MMOs World.
• Gamescom 2018: Best Independent game.
• Gamescom 2018: Best Online game.

Franchise

Rogue Pre-alpha preview.

Ashes of Creation will be a franchise.

• Ashes of Creation MMORPG.
• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.
• Ashes of Creation board game.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse logo.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse early access trailer.

The standalone prequel to the upcoming epic MMORPG Ashes of Creation - both a testing ground for new systems and content, as well as a unique last-man-standing action game where magic, steel, and chaos reign supreme in a high fantasy, free-to-play experience.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse (also referred to as APOC) is a free-to-play matchmaking-based arena game with three primary modes.

• Battle royale (battlegrounds).
• Castle sieges.
• City defense horde mode.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse utilizes action-based combat.

• Ashes of Creation Apocalypse will be implemented side-by-side with the Ashes of Creation MMORPG.
• 6.25 km² map size.
  • The Forest of Erinthia map is roughly 1/5th the size of the original map.
• A Créateur de personnages will be available to allow creation and saving of characters for use in the MMORPG.
• Establish Player housing and save Furniture arrangements for use in the full game.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse early access is available for download on the official website and on Steam.

Steam really provides a great platform that reaches a lot of different users all of which you know exists in different demographics and interests; and it makes sense from a matchmaking game standpoint for a game like APOC to really funnel as many players as possible, because it gives us the most amount of data. It allows us to kickoff matches very regularly and it also introduces people who might not normally be introduced this early on to what Ashes of Creation is as a IP. As a MMORPG development it gives us access to those people. So that was really kind of what led us to you know change our minds with regards to our approach to steam with Apocalypse. With regards to the MMORPG, there are currently still no plans for the MMORPG to be on steam. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation board game

An Ashes of Creation board game is scheduled for release at around the time of the MMORPG Beta phase.

Just to be clear, a board game doesn’t impact any mmo development. They are 2 very different sets of employees. – Steven Sharif

It is a resource management and combat game with an action economy.

• Each player chooses a Class and attempts to build a Guild that takes over a server on Ashes of Creation.
• The more guild members, the more action tokens the guild will receive. These tokens can be spent on actions on the game board and during battles.
• Guilds gain income by constructing Caravanes.
• Players have a pool of resources that they keep secret.
  • Followers.
  • Gold.
  • Combat resource (gained from guilds participating in Pvp).

There are several types of combat in the game.

• Attacking caravans.
• Arenas (instanced).
• Guerres de guilde.
• Raid bosses.
  • Attacking a raid boss makes the game co-op. Other guilds can then join in to fight the boss.
  • The raid boss' level is based on the level that the game board is at.

The game comes as a complete set with an adjustable map that players construct every game.

• The map is comprised of six components that are placed together.
• The game board is made of of zones that evolve as players complete activities and actions.
• Over forty different buildings can be built.

There game comes with six standardized characters.

• Players have a character sheet with tracked abilities and skill levels.
• As a character levels they become more powerful.

Players compete for server firsts.

The game is playable by two to five players.

• The game will last about 30 minutes per player.

There will be expansions, but the base game can be played stand-alone.

• Expansions will come with additional map tiles with new locations to gain resources from.
  • Map tiles from expansions can be switched out.
• Expansions come with additional structures.
• Expansions will have characters that are race-specific to Ashes of Creation.
  • Each race will have certain advantages and abilities.

The game will probably not be funded by Kickstarter.

The estimated retail price is between $50 and $100 US.

It is undecided if certain editions of the game will come with Cosmétiques.

Gameplay videos

• 2017-05-25 Video - Monster coin system
• 2017-05-30 Video - Pre-alpha Mage gameplay
• 2017-12-15 Livestream
• 2018-01-30 IGN Ashes of Creation hands-on
• 2018-02-09 Livestream
• 2018-04-04 Video - PAX East Pre-Alpha Gameplay
• 2018-04-06 MMORPG-PAX East 2018 Demo and Interview
• 2018-04-09 MASSIVELY OP - Hands-on with the surprisingly solid combat of Ashes of Creation
• 2018-04-20 Dragon Blogger - Gameplay and interview with Jeffrey Bard
• 2018-08-17 Video - Ashes of Creation Apocalypse - First Look at Action Combat
• 2018-09-01 Video - Ashes of Creation Apocalypse Alpha Gameplay
• 2018-09-27 Livestream
• 2018-10-20 Lazy Peon livestream interview with Steven Sharif
• 2018-10-21 Krojak livestream interview with Steven Sharif
• 2018-10-31 Livestream
• 2018-12-06 Livestream
• 2018-12-06 Video - Ashes of Creation Apocalypse
• 2018-12-13 Livestream
• 2019-03-08 Livestream
• 2019-03-08 Video - Ashes of Creation Apocalypse Castle Siege Gameplay
• 2019-08-21 Video - Ashes of Creation MMORPG Teaser
• 2019-09-24 Video - Ashes of Creation Apocalypse early access trailer
• 2019-09-30 Apocalypse Gaming Session Late Night Edition Livestream (Part I)
• 2019-09-30 Apocalypse Gaming Session Late Night Edition Livestream (Part II)
• 2019-10-02 Apocalypse QnA and Gaming Session Late Night Edition Livestream
• 2019-10-12 Apocalypse gaming session with some lite QnA Livestream

External links

• Ashes of Creation official website.
• Ashes of Creation official discord.
• Ashes of Creation official forums.
• Ashes of Creation official Twitter.
• Ashes of Creation official Facebook.
• Ashes of Creation official Instagram.
• Ashes of Creation official YouTube channel.
• Ashes of Creation official Twitch channel.
• Ashes of Creation official Steam community.
• Ashes of Creation official subreddit.

See also

• Intrepid Studios
• Calendrier de publication
• Interface utilisateur
• Piliers de conception
• Crowdfunding