Arcs Narratifs

Story arcs drive one or more quest lines in Ashes of Creation.

• Personal quest lines.
• Cultural quest lines.
• Regional quest lines.

All of the events are based around storytelling. All of the the narrative quests are based around storytelling. All the organizational quests are based around storytelling. You know the game is built from a story basically, so we want to make sure that there's context and relevancy for all of the actions that you're doing in the game. – Jeffrey Bard

The overarching narrative is that players are the returning children of Verra. They will not be characterized individually as "saviors".

Even player driven mechanics will still have story components. There will be a reason why the player driven mechanic is available or required of the player; so you know every system that's created touches a story. – Steven Sharif

Every stage a node develops it's unlocking narratives, storylines, it's changing the spawn population of the area around it, changing what bosses exist, it's triggering events where you may have legendary dragons attack the city. It's basically writing the story of the server based on the actions and determination of the players. So, you may experience a dungeon one month earlier and have a completely different story that relates to this location the next month, because something has changed either geopolitically or from the node standpoint. – Steven Sharif

Certain story arcs can be unlocked through the bulletin board system. Certain requirements would need to be met in order to access story arc quests.

• Maires require certain resources.
• Bâtiments are required within a node.
• Social organization tasks need to be completed.

Histoire et traditions

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

The Phoenix is the celestial avatar of the Goddess of creation. Her sacrifice protected the people of Verra during the apocalypse. – Steven Sharif

There are different parts to the Histoire et traditions 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.

• It is possible for some storylines to relate to a darker/evil path, if a character should choose.

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

Quêtes d'histoire

Les Quêtes d'histoire peuvent avoir de multiples étapes. Ces étapes de quêtes peuvent être échouées.

• La possibilité de réessayer une quête échouée dépend de la Progression de Nœud.
• Les Quêtes impliquant des citoyens de plusieurs Nœuds sont déverrouillées sur base des alliances et d'autres relations entre les nœuds ainsi que leurs progressions.

Il y aura beaucoup de quêtes différentes qui auront des étapes dans l'histoire ; et ces étapes peuvent être éventuellement échouées. Vous pouvez franchement rater une histoire ; ce qui n'est pas terrible quand on y pense, mais en même temps ce risque rend votre investissement beaucoup plus important. – Steven Sharif

Quêtes raciales

Les Quêtes peuvent être basées sur la race d'un personnage.

Différentes quêtes peuvent être en relation avec la culture qui aura contribué le plus dans un Nœud. Cela ne verrouillera pas le contenu, mais au contraire ajoutera de la saveur aux quêtes.

Il pourrait même exister différents répertoires de quêtes qui existent pour des races spécifiques, et même si vous partagez une quête pour tuer un boss, si vous êtes humain et que je suis un elfe, j'aurais un arc narratif différent qui me dirigera potentiellement dans une direction différente de la vôtre, même si on a pris exactement la même quête ; et cela peut être en rapport avec la culture qui aura contribué le plus dans un nœud déverrouillant différents arcs pour les cultures qui partagent la culture principale d'un nœud - Cela ne verrouillera pas le contenu, mais au contraire ajoutera de la saveur dans une direction différente pour ne pas donner la sensation que tout est préfabriqué. – Steven Sharif

La race est importante car les histoires ont des chemins qui sont également influencés par la culture qui aura contribué le plus dans un nœud... Si vous êtes un Niküa et que vous vous trouvez dans un nœud Niküa qui est principalement composés de Niküa, vous obtiendrez certains services et/ou compétences en tant que membre de la race Niküa auxquels les autres races n'auront pas forcément accès... Ils auront peut-être des suites de quêtes alternatives, mais ils n'auront pas les quêtes spécifiques. Pour ce qui est des quêtes spécifiques aux Niküa elles seront en rapport à la méta-narration qui sera présente dans le monde et elles commenceront à diriger une partie de cette méta-narration ; et ça sera bénéfique pour votre race car ça débloquera certains contenus pour votre race que d'autres races n'ont pas encore débloqués. Donc il y a une forme de motivation présente pour progresser de cette manière pour atténuer le progrès d'une race dominante. – Steven Sharif

Les Quêtes qui sont spécifiques aux Races, Titres, ou aux Guildes composeront sans doute moins de 10% du total de quêtes. 90% des quêtes devront être partageables par tout le monde.

Epic/Legendary quests

Epic and Légendaire quests affect the narrative of the game. These quests will unlock gated content.

Player driven narrative

The world of Verra 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.

We want as many people as possible to experience the main server Narrative. These will branch at different scales, but largely at the personal level. Where things change is at the Node level – different parts of the story will be unlocked based on where and when Nodes grow. Unlocking a part of the story in a certain way locks out progression of the story in a different way. You’ll see different antagonists, different NPCs, and different calls to action depending on what’s happening with the server at that time.

It kind of redefines what the players will experience in an MMORPG to come into a wilderness that is devoid of really any structure outside of what the community creates themselves; and then what can be created can be changed, if they want to experience a storyline that's been seen on another server, but you know you're fighting a dragon because you're near a mountain and the other server's fighting a Kraken because they're near the coast and you want to fight that Kraken because of its drop table. If you want to meta it or because you just want that under your belt: to be the server first to take out that Kraken and you have yet to develop the node there, you know it's incumbent upon you to manifest that in the game. – Steven Sharif

Server history

L'histoire de chaque serveur sera suivie et visible par les joueurs.

Nous allons garder la trace de l'histoire du monde afin de pouvoir raconter aux gens le récit jusqu'à ce jour. Un tout nouveau joueur, qui arrive après six mois, peut jeter un œil à chaque serveur, ce que chaque serveur a réalisé, comment le serveur a abordé l'intrigue ; et ils peuvent décider par eux-mêmes quelle communauté ils veulent rejoindre, à quelle version du monde ils veulent prendre part. – Jeffrey Bard

Libraries

Scientific node building.

At the Village stage, the scientific node's unique building is the Bibliothèque. Players can use the Library to access information, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Historique de la page of narrative events and when they occurred.
• Locations and last known quantity of gatherable resources.
• Locations and inhabitants of new dungeons or POIs (points of Interest) that have spawned.
• Runic power stones for armor.
• Common armor and weapon recipes (level 25 and under).

Legendary items

There is a small RNG chance of looting rare and legendary items or crafting materials from mobs based on the level, status and type of mob. This also applies to harvesting resources with a gathering profession.

• There is a much higher chance that materials and unique recipes are dropped that can be used to craft items of equitable value.
• Légendaire equipment is only dropped by Legendary world bosses.

At each stage from Gatherer to Processor to Crafter you are required to have certain prerequisites before those elite types of materials can be essentially gathered, processed, or crafted. – Steven Sharif

• Gatherers must have high quality tools to gather rare resources.
• Processors must have high tier processing buildings on their freehold to produce rare materials.
• Crafters must also satisfy certain prerequisites to craft legendary equipment.

The amount of effort needed and interdependencies across the different types of players – between raiders and PvPers and crafters and even role players and the taverns and businesses: the processors and gatherers – all of those systems will likely have a component that lends toward creating or crafting that legendary item... We want to stay away from the highly RNGd system, and instead take our multiple progression paths that we are offering the players and put the construction components for achieving these legendary items within them so it encourages communities to work together because it's going to be difficult for just one person by themselves to gather everything. Not to say that they couldn't in an economic sense, by buying those components, that's possible. But achieving them from a time investment standpoint we want it to be considerably less RNG focussed. – Steven Sharif

Discovery of legendary items will unlock further chapters of the Histoire et traditions.

There are absolutely legendary items and they're not items that are attained easily nor are they granted out in a volume. There might even be items that are single items that will exist on the server at any given time.

A legendary weapon is easily distinguished by its visual appearance.

It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, you know they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon. – Steven Sharif

Legendary items are not intended to be temporary.

• A notable exception to this is Royal mounts.

The fact there is only one of them... or very very few of them depending on what it is. I think that in and of itself is a balance component right and you need to make sure that the players who are striving for those legendary things and who are devoting the time energy, resources in order to achieve them are accurately rewarded... We do not intend on having legendary items that are temporary. – Steven Sharif

Voir également

• Bulletin boards
• Quêtes
• Histoire et traditions