Talk:2023-06-30 Livestream

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Intro

• 00:00

Hello and welcome to our glorious Ashes of Creation June development update.

• 00:23

We hope everyone is well and safe and has been having a wonderful month on our front.

• 00:28

It has been crazy.

• 00:29

You've got a lot going on and you better buckle in strap up because it's going to be a long

• 00:34

one today.

• 00:35

I hope everyone brought their snacks.

• 00:36

I was warning people in the chat.

• 00:39

So you've been warned.

• 00:40

It is going to be a long one.

• 00:41

I mean, what are we thinking here?

• 00:43

Probably at least an hour and a half, if not maybe two.

• 00:45

Oh my gosh.

• 00:46

Yeah, depending on how many questions we answer after.

• 00:49

So we'll see how it goes.

• 00:50

But a lot of good information, a lot of new information and updated information from old

• 00:55

information.

• 00:56

So keep that in mind as we're moving forward today.

• 00:58

But to cover what we're going to be covering, we're going to go quick reminders and try

• 01:01

to be really quick about that.

• 01:03

Freehold update.

• 01:04

We'll do some art updates, which includes some new Nekuun awesomeness.

• 01:08

I know folks have been asking about more dwarf stuff and a studio update and Q&A.

• 01:14

So first and foremost, we have our spotlight for our YouTube comment, which comes from

• 01:19

Zash Welshguy and wants to know with fishing, will we be able to use the fish we catch with

• 01:26

the animal husbandry profession?

• 01:28

Maybe have a freehold pond or a fish tank in the player home.

• 01:32

Yeah, this is something that we have ideas around and designs around.

• 01:37

We haven't done any implementation or development for it yet.

• 01:40

But the idea is that for certain types of fish or certain very rare kind of trophy-esque

• 01:46

fish, you would be able, instead of using the material to go through a process that

• 01:51

might put it into things that are more cosmetic focused, like a fish tank or a pond on the

• 01:56

freehold or something in the house.

• 01:59

We definitely have some ideas around there.

• 02:01

I think it's a super cool thing to kind of see something you've taken from the world

• 02:04

and now that you've domesticated or put into your customizable space.

• 02:09

A great question.

• 02:10

It's definitely on the top of our minds.

• 02:11

It's something that we're going to be exploring post-Alpha 2.

• 02:14

Awesome, awesome.

• 02:16

And then we've got Stephen will be on the Ashen Forge over on twitch.tv slash theory

Reminders

• 02:22

forge on July 9th.

• 02:24

I think that they're going to be putting up a thread over on our forums as well to gather

• 02:27

some questions from the community after the live stream.

• 02:30

So definitely check that out.

• 02:33

Stephen will probably answer a lot of questions.

• 02:35

They always have a good time and ask a lot of good things.

• 02:39

And of course, we also have our dev discussion about role-playing up.

• 02:42

We would love for you to tell us what systems and features make role-playing fun.

• 02:46

What features help remove hurdles and barriers?

• 02:48

So if you have thoughts on that, please feel free to pop on over to our forums and give

• 02:53

us your thoughts.

• 02:54

And of course, we also have our cosmetic swap over happening for the songs of the sea on

• 03:00

July 12th, 2023.

• 03:02

And I know that we had previously said that the packages will be changing coming up in

• 03:07

the future, but Stephen was giving you all a long warning.

• 03:10

It's going to be a bit before that change over happens, but we will give you guys ample

• 03:13

notice with an FAQ on details of what that will entail.

• 03:17

And with that, we will move on to Freehold Goodness.

Freehold Update

• 03:21

So if you want to do any prefaces here, Stephen.

• 03:24

Yes, let me give you guys a bit of a preface.

• 03:26

So we decided to take a little bit of a different approach with this presentation.

• 03:34

The first half of this is going to be really focused in on detailing out some of the mechanics

• 03:42

of the Freehold system.

• 03:44

A part of it is going to be reiterating what you guys have known for a while, but another

• 03:49

part of it is going to be giving some updates around these designs and some changes that

• 03:54

have occurred in anticipation of the rollout for Freeholds during Alpha 2.

• 04:00

So give us your feedback on whether or not you like the style of this approach for the

• 04:04

presentation.

• 04:06

The first, like I said, half of it is going to be us kind of going through slides and

• 04:10

showing some of the tech trees of the buildings and some of the purposes of these different

• 04:15

systems on the Freehold.

• 04:16

And then after that, we're going to have a little bit of gameplay in the world showcasing

• 04:21

the Freeholds.

• 04:22

I believe Bucky has a Freehold we're going to be going through, doing some farming on

• 04:26

it, some live interactions with some of the livestock.

• 04:29

We're also going to be showing off as an ancillary overview some of the changes that we had talked

• 04:35

about previously to the inventory system.

• 04:38

We're going to show some of the storage off.

• 04:40

We're going to show off a couple of new mounts and some of the mining areas.

• 04:45

But it's something that really the focus is giving you guys expectations around how Freeholds

• 04:51

have changed coming towards Alpha 2.

• 04:54

So hopefully you guys enjoy.

• 04:55

This is going to be a long one.

• 04:56

It's about an hour long video.

• 04:58

Yeah, over an hour long.

• 05:01

So enjoy and we'll see you afterwards.

• 05:16

Hello everyone and welcome to another I was about to say day in Vera, but actually we

• 05:22

are going to be doing something a little bit different than what you are accustomed to.

• 05:28

And the reason for this is because we are getting a little bit into the systems and

• 05:33

the mechanics of how Freeholds work.

• 05:36

And it's going to be a two part presentation, the first of which you're seeing now is going

• 05:40

to be in the format of a more PowerPoint oriented kind of presentation talking about the mechanics,

• 05:45

looking at skill trees.

• 05:47

And then the second part is going to be in game where we're going to take a look at some

• 05:51

of the systems like farming, livestock, housing and storage.

• 05:57

But I am joined today by three absolutely glorious developers on the Ashes of Creation

• 06:04

dev team.

• 06:06

Our designers, first of which is a regular appearing guest, Mr. Bucky.

• 06:13

How you doing, Bucky?

• 06:14

Hey, how's it going?

• 06:16

I'm Bucky, AKA Dr. Bucky, a game designer here at Intrepid helping out some of the Arts

• 06:22

and Ship designs and also some of the systems related nodes and Freeholds and also a little

• 06:26

bit of combat design.

• 06:28

Yes.

• 06:29

And we also have with us joining, I believe for the first time, one of our glorious designers,

• 06:34

Mike.

• 06:35

Hello, my name is Mike.

• 06:36

I'm a senior systems designer here at Intrepid.

• 06:41

It's really nice to be here.

• 06:42

Yeah, I deal with economy and itemization and this is the first time on livestream.

• 06:47

I'm really excited.

• 06:48

Yeah.

• 06:49

Yes, excited to have you as well.

• 06:50

And we have Cory also, Cory, I believe you were on our December livestream that we did.

• 06:58

Yeah, I was there for the gathering and I'm Cory, I'm a technical designer and I focus

• 07:04

mostly on artisanship and economy.

• 07:06

Kind of jump around to other things, but those are my main things.

• 07:10

Yes.

• 07:11

Now we have an exciting topic today, which is I think near and dear to a lot of players'

• 07:17

hearts and that is Freeholds.

• 07:20

What are we looking at here?

• 07:21

Tell me a little bit of what this concept art is.

• 07:24

We've obviously talked a lot about Freeholds in the past as a system since back in 2017

• 07:29

when we first were discussing Ashes of Creation with the community during Kickstarter and

• 07:34

what the intent of Freeholds are.

• 07:36

But what are we looking at and tell me a little bit about the system overall.

• 07:40

Yeah, we got a little example set of a Freehold here.

• 07:45

We got on the left, we have some farmable animals, some livestock here in pens, and

• 07:49

then we have in the middle there's a bunch of crop rows of farmable crops the players

• 07:53

can have.

• 07:54

And then there's a couple different examples of different kind of Freehold buildings you

• 07:56

have on your Freehold, one of which is the house on the right and then some other Freehold

• 08:01

buildings as well.

• 08:02

Like it looks like there's a mill in the back there as well.

• 08:04

Yeah.

• 08:05

And for those of you who have just been kind of tuning into Ashes of Creation's development

• 08:10

or don't follow along in game development or other projects, this type of concept art

• 08:15

is really important, especially for the artists on the team who are helping develop and create

• 08:22

the world around you.

• 08:23

It kind of sets the mood for what we're trying to accomplish when environment art starts

• 08:28

creating these assets and starts creating these environments, right?

• 08:33

What's the type of visuals we're looking to achieve?

• 08:36

Yeah, it really, really helps us, right?

• 08:39

Like we can only do so much on paper and we have to start kind of visualizing the ideas,

• 08:46

right?

• 08:47

So kind of coming up with the space and what's going to fit and how's it going to look and

• 08:51

all of these things that we want to coexist in this space, right?

• 08:55

Like concept lets us know whether or not it's even possible.

• 08:58

So looking at stuff like this is super exciting.

• 09:01

Yes.

• 09:02

And as I said, we have a few updates to the system that we're going to go over in detail

• 09:05

through this PowerPoint.

• 09:07

But to start us off, let us ask a question.

• 09:11

What exactly are freeholds?

• 09:16

Freeholds obviously have a lot of different purposes within Ashes of Creation.

• 09:20

However, three main purposes that freeholds provide are allowing really players an opportunity

• 09:27

to kind of express themselves in a highly customizable fashion, right?

• 09:31

So these are plots of lands that you have access to.

• 09:34

You can build different types of buildings on.

• 09:36

You can create housing and place furniture and you can grow livestock and you can just

• 09:42

own this piece of land.

• 09:44

And one unique thing about allowing the players kind of express themselves through this manner

• 09:48

in Ashes of Creation is that it's in the open world.

• 09:51

So it's not an instance or a phased location that you are kind of customizing.

• 09:57

You're actually leaving a mark on the world that's representative of you as a player,

• 10:02

as a character, something something you can you can role play.

• 10:06

But importantly enough, when it comes to the economy, freeholds also provide the highest

• 10:12

level of processing that's available.

• 10:14

And processing is one of three primary branches that exist within the Artisanship system.

• 10:20

Processing is kind of the intermediary step between what you gather in the wild and what

• 10:24

you eventually craft via recipes.

• 10:27

The other primary purpose of freeholds is that they allow you to offer certain types

• 10:32

of business services, right?

• 10:33

Because we don't just want to make freeholds delegated to the individual owner, we want

• 10:39

it to have capabilities to kind of interact with other players as they're walking past

• 10:44

your freehold, as they're going to these hunting grounds and participating in quests or events

• 10:50

that might be existing around.

• 10:51

And that means that location matters for the freehold because it's important to the business.

• 10:56

Have you guys ever, I mean, Corey, Bucky, Mike, have you guys ever played a game that's

• 11:02

had a system as intricate as freeholds are in an MMO?

• 11:07

Talk to me a little bit about your experiences.

• 11:12

There are housing systems in other MMOs, right?

• 11:15

But it's not as much ambitious of projects that we're trying to accomplish here.

• 11:20

There's always putting some furnitures, putting some cosmetic stuff that's on the freehold

• 11:27

to look nice, but we're trying to accomplish three major pillars, which is looking unique,

• 11:33

making an impact on the economy.

• 11:35

And I really love the part that we're trying to make a footprint onto the real world that

• 11:40

you are actually owning a piece of land in an MMO.

• 11:43

And I think that's really cool.

• 11:45

I think it's super cool too.

• 11:46

I mean, I've played games, obviously they have housing systems and they sometimes delegate

• 11:50

those housing locations to very specific areas that are off the beaten path and aren't necessarily

• 11:57

fully integrated into the rest of the world or certain environments and areas that players

• 12:01

like to play in.

• 12:02

And one thing that I like that we're achieving with the freehold system is really moving

• 12:07

that into the world that players are a part of and doing things in.

• 12:13

Here we're kind of looking at a layout and talk to me a little bit, Bucky, about these

• 12:19

different aspects of the types of buildings that you can place and the things that you

• 12:24

can do on the freehold that we see here.

• 12:26

Yeah, for sure.

• 12:27

I mean, players will have a lot of freedom in what they choose to outfit their freehold

• 12:31

with and kind of like what you were talking about before.

• 12:33

In other games, we've seen different housing systems where it's more kind of like plot

• 12:37

based and you're kind of locked into specific places for building stuff.

• 12:40

But in ours, it's going to be you have a lot more freedom in where those buildings go,

• 12:44

which buildings you choose, how many buildings you even want, if you want to just sacrifice

• 12:48

maybe some building space for additional farming space.

• 12:50

So players will have a lot of opportunity to customize the way their freehold looks

• 12:55

and operates.

• 12:56

Absolutely cool.

• 12:57

I see that there is a shed that's listed there.

• 13:01

Is that shed?

• 13:02

Do we talk about the shed a little bit later in the presentation?

• 13:04

Yeah, we can touch on that later, I think.

• 13:07

Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool.

• 13:08

All right.

• 13:09

So you're obviously asking yourself, how do I own a freehold?

• 13:14

Bucky, do you want to talk to us a little bit about that?

• 13:17

Sure, yeah.

• 13:18

So it's kind of a multi-step process.

• 13:20

But the first thing you'll have to do is you have to complete a quest to unlock the ability

• 13:23

to even acquire the freehold permit.

• 13:26

So once you do that quest line, you'll be able to go to the node and bid on an available

• 13:31

freehold permit.

• 13:32

If you're able to win the permit.

• 13:33

Oh, sorry.

• 13:34

And real quick, Bucky, so the purpose of that quest is, you know, these nodes aren't just

• 13:39

going to grant the ability to own land within their zone of influence to anybody, right?

• 13:46

And so the quest is kind of a method by which the node gets to vet both the intent of the

• 13:53

player who's attempting to own this parcel of land, but also whether or not they are

• 13:58

up to the chops of actually owning and servicing a freehold, because it takes a lot to service

• 14:04

these freeholds.

• 14:05

Yeah, exactly.

• 14:06

Very cool.

• 14:07

So talk to us a little bit about these parcels.

• 14:10

Like how do they exist around the node?

• 14:12

Yeah, so basically, there'll be a variety of predetermined parcels of land in each node

• 14:16

zone of influence.

• 14:19

And once players acquire their freehold permit, they'll be able to lay claim to any available

• 14:24

parcel in the issuing nodes region.

• 14:26

So any and by region, we mean that any any region nodes region is the total combined

• 14:31

territory of a node and all of its vassal nodes.

• 14:34

So if you if you acquire a freehold permit in the metropolis of a huge region, you know,

• 14:38

almost 20% of the map, right, you'll be able to lay a claim to a available parcel anywhere

• 14:43

within that region.

• 14:44

So it gives you a lot of freedom if you're able to acquire the permit from a metropolis.

• 14:47

Yeah.

• 14:48

Yeah, this is this is one of the first changes for those of you in our core audience who

• 14:52

have been following development for a period of time.

• 14:55

Now, you will know that because we are in active development, everything that relates

• 15:02

to the design of the game is available to be iterated upon and changed.

• 15:07

And so as I said, at the start of this, you're going to be seeing a little bit of changes

• 15:11

to the systems and we'll eventually show you here in game some of those systems, but you're

• 15:16

going to see a little bit of change.

• 15:17

And this is one of the first one is that these are predetermined locations that exist around

• 15:23

the node or under its vassal structure that you will have the ability to bid on.

• 15:31

And to give you kind of a sense there, this allows us to to customize a bit of those those

• 15:38

predetermined parcels like a Sherwood Forest type of example or, you know, the hills of

• 15:47

Verdant Glen or something.

• 15:49

Thank you.

• 15:50

Exactly.

• 15:51

Thank you.

• 15:52

Essentially, letting us kind of customize that.

• 15:53

And then when you own when you've taken the permit for that parcel, then you get to go

• 15:59

and place your freehold plot out in that section of that area of the world.

• 16:06

Right.

• 16:07

So these will have many parcels by which they are able to to sell permits to and it will

• 16:13

be on a auction basis.

• 16:16

So talk to us a little bit about that permit and what it looks like to lay that down, Bucky.

• 16:20

Sure.

• 16:21

Yeah.

• 16:22

So it'll basically be an item in your bag.

• 16:23

And once you, you know, you get to your parcel, you claim that piece of land and then once

• 16:27

it's claimed, you'll be able to use the item to, you know, go into top down view and lay

• 16:32

out actually exactly where your freehold will go on that parcel of land.

• 16:35

You have a lot of freedom.

• 16:36

So a lot of a lot of that will be going through looking at your whole area of land you now

• 16:40

own claim to and then deciding where the best spot to put your freehold in there would be.

• 16:45

Awesome.

• 16:46

And, and, you know, having this type of layout makes it so that in the world when we talk

• 16:52

about the visual fidelity and the kind of, you know, freehold density that might exist

• 16:57

out in these open areas, we don't want it to be where you're running through the world

• 17:02

and at every glance you see someone's freehold, right?

• 17:06

And what this allows us to kind of do is partition those spaces out so that there's a minimum

• 17:12

distance essentially between the different freeholds.

• 17:15

Yeah.

• 17:16

And there'll be places like where you won't be able to put a freehold even like a point

• 17:20

of interest or roads or, you know, a dungeon area.

• 17:23

So the parcels will kind of be mapped around those areas as well.

• 17:27

Awesome.

• 17:28

Very cool.

• 17:29

I also want to point out the concept art of this piece is vastly different than what we

• 17:34

showed earlier, which kind of gives you the freedom of the placement of what you can do.

• 17:38

This is like way more farming in farming aesthetics where, where the gatherables are a whole bunch

• 17:47

in the middle and then there's like a storage mill kind of thing in the middle.

• 17:51

So that's how much freedom that we want to offer players how customizable a freehold

• 17:56

can be.

• 17:57

Yeah.

• 17:58

I love that.

• 17:59

It's super, super cool.

• 18:00

It's, you know, like, like we said, one of the first and most important aspects of the

• 18:03

freehold system is that it's giving the players that level of customization to help them represent

• 18:10

their identity, the identity of their character, right?

• 18:13

Now obviously the freehold would not be a freehold without a house.

• 18:19

That's the most important aspect of the freehold system.

• 18:24

It's also what is the first necessary thing that you must build.

• 18:28

Talk to us a little bit about housing.

• 18:30

Yeah.

• 18:31

So as you can see here, we got some examples of the different sizes of houses you might

• 18:35

be able to have on your freehold.

• 18:38

And the first, like you said, the first building you need to build on the field is a house.

• 18:41

And then once you do that, you're able to, you know, build other buildings like the different

• 18:44

artisanship buildings or businesses we'll get to later.

• 18:48

Now before, before that house is present, what's on the freehold?

• 18:52

It's just an empty plot of land.

• 18:54

All you have will be the little storage shed that gives you the base storage to be able

• 18:57

to bring materials to your freehold and then make your construction.

• 19:00

Nice.

• 19:01

Awesome.

• 19:02

So basically as you acquire that house blueprint, you go and you preview the location of the

• 19:09

house blueprint on the piece of land.

• 19:12

And when you lay down the construction site, you're expected to bring materials through

• 19:16

the caravan system or through the mule system, or even individually, if you want to take

• 19:20

many trips to the location of the shed and then deposit within that sheds storage.

• 19:26

Is that correct?

• 19:28

Exactly.

• 19:29

Yeah.

• 19:30

Cool.

• 19:31

And then what happens if I want to go ahead, sorry.

• 19:34

I was just going to say, once, once you do that, you'll be able to initiate the construction

• 19:36

and complete the house and then proceed with your other thing.

• 19:39

Very cool.

• 19:40

And so you were talking a little bit about the housing sizes, right?

• 19:43

Small, medium, and large.

• 19:45

These actually have mechanical influences around the design of the freehold system.

• 19:50

Talk to us a little bit about what that size controls.

• 19:52

Yeah.

• 19:53

Well, one of the main things that will control is your furniture allotment.

• 19:56

So a small house, for example, might only be able to place, you know, a hundred furniture

• 20:00

items, whereas a medium or large house would be able to place many more.

• 20:04

And so that's kind of a bouncing factor for players in determining if they want to have

• 20:08

a larger house or have a smaller house and have more farmland, whereas they're sacrificing

• 20:11

furniture then for that.

• 20:14

Got it.

• 20:15

So space actually matters here.

• 20:16

And when you talk about, you know, that furniture having a functional benefit to the player,

• 20:20

Corey, what are some examples of that, you know, furniture system?

• 20:24

I know we've talked in the past about some of these, but talk to me a little bit about

• 20:28

the importance of having that furniture and how that furniture kind of gets placed.

• 20:31

Is it going to be placed anywhere?

• 20:33

Is it going to be placed on top of each other?

• 20:34

Tell us a little bit about the furniture.

• 20:37

Yeah.

• 20:38

You know, placing the furniture is like one of the most fun, at least for me, parts of

• 20:45

customizing, you know, your place or your land, right?

• 20:49

Like that's where you can really kind of express yourself and you can, oh, this looks like

• 20:52

a good place to have a dining room.

• 20:54

This looks like a good place to put my bed.

• 20:57

You know, maybe this is looking really cozy.

• 21:00

I'd like to do my cooking in here and place down a cooking station.

• 21:05

Right.

• 21:06

So the other point, too, is that like not all furniture is just cosmetic, right?

• 21:12

There could be functional furniture and we're not talking just a chair that you can interact

• 21:17

with and sit down with, but there might be something along the lines of furniture that

• 21:23

gives you buffs or bolsters up some consumables that you may have, right?

• 21:28

So there is more to the space that the house gives you to place the furniture because that

• 21:34

might allow you to get more function out of said furniture.

• 21:38

So there's some thought that goes into whether or not you want more furniture space or less

• 21:44

furniture space, more farmland, less farmland.

• 21:47

That's pretty fun.

• 21:48

Absolutely.

• 21:49

I love it when the furniture actually has a purpose, right?

• 21:53

Outside of just the visual appearance and the aesthetic of the home, but is something

• 21:57

that players are called to interact with because it provides a benefit in the game as well.

• 22:04

Now housing, of course, wouldn't be housing without the ability to customize that appearance.

• 22:11

And you'll see here a few different examples of housing that's representative of at least

• 22:18

eight of the nine different races.

• 22:20

You'll notice that the Talnor aren't represented here, but they will be represented in the

• 22:25

future.

• 22:26

But the blueprint that we talked about earlier, when you acquire this blueprint, talk to me

• 22:31

a little bit, Mike, about that process.

• 22:34

Where do you kind of acquire these blueprints?

• 22:36

What are the multiple ways that you can get them essentially?

• 22:41

So a blueprint, like the basic ones, could be sold at a node vendor, something similar

• 22:48

to what a node is racial influences.

• 22:51

So if it's a Kaler node, you should be able to buy a Kaler house.

• 22:55

But it's interesting that we tie this system to a blueprint because we can do so much more

• 23:00

itemization portion of it.

• 23:02

So we can drop it from a boss.

• 23:03

We can make it from a scribe, can write a blueprint that is very specific or unique

• 23:07

look.

• 23:08

And if you went to a Kaler node, maybe they'll sell a recipe to write a medium Kaler house.

• 23:14

And if you go to a Renkai one, they'll sell you a blueprint for a large Renkai house.

• 23:19

So there is that acquisition of blueprint collecting, and then you can sell that to

• 23:24

other players when you acquire unique housing blueprint from a boss, for example.

• 23:30

I like the market implication that that has where you essentially can get these uniquely

• 23:34

acquired blueprints and then you can trade and sell them to other players who might not

• 23:39

have had the same opportunity to acquire them that you had.

• 23:43

And in addition to that, we have obviously cosmetics that we have sold as part of different

• 23:50

packs throughout the past, our pre-order system.

• 23:55

Those cosmetics are split into three primary categories, housing, artisanship, and business.

• 24:03

And we will have a breakdown that we're going to be releasing of the cosmetics that have

• 24:09

come previously and which categories they exist in.

• 24:12

But players will have the option to override the appearance of a blueprint that exists

• 24:17

within one of those categories with an associated cosmetic skin.

• 24:22

And you know, that is obviously not just something that can be purchased through the pre-order

• 24:27

system, but also can be achieved in game as well, are cosmetics that can be applied to

• 24:33

specific building types.

• 24:35

And we don't get as granular where let's say you might have a shrine cosmetic and you have,

• 24:42

let's say a blacksmith building that you wouldn't be able to apply the shrine to the blacksmith

• 24:47

building.

• 24:48

If the shrine exists in the artisanship lane, you can apply it to any artisanship type building,

• 24:54

but not to a house or business.

• 24:56

So giving a little bit of additional context there.

• 25:00

So what are businesses, you might ask after hearing that category, businesses serve a

• 25:06

specific function.

• 25:07

Mike, do you want to talk to us a little bit about businesses?

• 25:11

Business building is a category where we wanted to kind of branch out of just artisanship

• 25:15

buildings, right?

• 25:17

So things like taverns, things like a market kind of thing where you can install a player

• 25:21

stall so other people can come and visit your freehold and buy things that are unique to

• 25:27

tie to you.

• 25:28

Or other services like taverns where you could sell a food buff that's unique to your tavern

• 25:34

or something that you can kind of invest and then build.

• 25:37

So you can have a service building that's near to a POI that's really populated.

• 25:42

So you can help players to, you know, maybe gain more XP buff, things like that.

• 25:48

And this is the perfect place where we can express that and then allow players to customize

• 25:53

their freehold even more.

• 25:54

We wanted to branch out from artisanship, just only that, and then have more options

• 25:58

for it.

• 25:59

Very cool.

• 26:00

I love the idea of not just the business as a whole and how it relates to kind of other

• 26:06

players and their ability to kind of traverse the world and see what you've accomplished,

• 26:11

but allowing players to customize the offerings that the business is capable of providing

• 26:16

based on what they're creating as an artisanship member.

• 26:22

Or even what they can acquire from other players to offer through their business as well.

• 26:27

And one additional note here is that, you know, freeholds are meant to be a part of

• 26:33

the family system.

• 26:35

Meaning that to utilize the benefits the freehold and the services and mechanics that the freehold

• 26:40

provides, it is very conducive to be part of a family with multiple members who are

• 26:46

capable of interfacing with this.

• 26:48

And because of that, systems like the business system allow for certain permissions to be

• 26:53

granted to administer the business functions.

• 26:56

And that includes things like setting prices and setting types of sellables or services

• 27:03

that are capable of being sold through the business.

• 27:08

It's also a great mention there too is that the fact that, you know, freeholds, there's

• 27:13

not going to be a ton of parcels all over the world, you know, that might not be feasible

• 27:17

for every player to get one.

• 27:18

But even if you're a fan, if you can be a family member and you have a whole family

• 27:22

owning a freehold together, it'll allow many more players to like see the system and partake

• 27:25

in it.

• 27:26

Yeah, absolutely.

• 27:27

That's a, I love that aspect of the freeholds.

• 27:31

Now speaking of a tavern and, you know, we've obviously talked in the past about having

• 27:38

upgrades available for these types of buildings.

• 27:43

Let's use this tavern as an example of the types of upgrades that are possible.

• 27:50

Talk me through this, what we're looking at here, this tree upgrade path.

• 27:54

Yeah, I'll jump in.

• 27:56

So this is something I'm super excited about.

• 27:59

This is, you know, this is an idea that surfaced through another system that I'm sure we'll

• 28:04

get to see in the future, right?

• 28:06

And it was one of those like, oh, well, that's fun.

• 28:08

Like, why can't we have that?

• 28:11

And it just sort of played out perfectly that, you know, buildings could have upgrade paths

• 28:16

to make them better or worse or more specific in a certain lane of specialization based

• 28:23

on like how you're trying to set up your freehold, right?

• 28:25

So the idea is you place down the building and as you become more proficient in a thing,

• 28:34

in the case of artisanship, or as you work within the business building, you could build

• 28:42

up the building to be better at some things than others.

• 28:44

So what we're looking at here is just kind of an example of that, right?

• 28:48

Like we have this tavern, we placed it down and, you know, we're really focused on wanting

• 28:53

people to come by here and, you know, gain extra experience or rested experience because

• 28:58

it's, you know, maybe our freehold is really, really close to a nice hunting spot.

• 29:03

So we'll upgrade our tavern to have these upgraded feather beds to give players that

• 29:09

bonus, right?

• 29:10

And all of the things that, you know, you just went over Steven about being able to

• 29:14

set the permissions and decide who you want this to apply to, how expensive it should

• 29:18

be, right?

• 29:20

You could be, you know, that guy that's got the tavern that's helpful to the guild.

• 29:25

You could be the person where people like to stop by and hang out for a bit, get the

• 29:29

rested experience and some food buffs before they go out hunting, right?

• 29:33

And you know, this allows people to, you know, have their freeholds next to each other and

• 29:38

have their own niches of things that they offer to themselves, to the people that they

• 29:44

play with or, you know, to the public.

• 29:46

So.

• 29:47

Absolutely cool.

• 29:48

Yeah, I love that.

• 29:49

And to give kind of a primary, we're looking at specifically this upgrade to the tavern

• 29:53

type business, which includes the ability to offer beds to weary travelers, right?

• 29:58

And beds have a specific functionality.

• 30:01

We were talking previously about furnitures offering in-game mechanics.

• 30:05

One of those functionalities that beds provide is a rested experience buff that can be applied.

• 30:10

This is obviously going to be kind of at the top tier of what travelers can expect to utilize

• 30:15

at taverns when it comes to these beds.

• 30:19

That's important because one other aspect of the freeholds is that freeholds are a privilege,

• 30:26

not a right, meaning that there is a limited number of freeholds that will be available

• 30:31

within the game world.

• 30:33

And that's a very important aspect of this particular feature.

• 30:37

And remember that housing exists within three different types.

• 30:41

Freeholds are just one of those types of housings.

• 30:44

Housing also exists as static in node versions as well as instanced.

• 30:49

And there's also an additional feature that we haven't, I believe, discussed before, which

• 30:53

is the inn.

• 30:55

And the inn can service as a temporary living space that doesn't have restriction on the

• 31:02

quantity but has a soft ceiling when it comes to the citizenship dues that might be accrued

• 31:10

at a node.

• 31:11

So if you didn't own a freehold out in a location or hunting ground where you would be participating

• 31:17

in some type of adventuring or quest, and you see a tavern with a bed available, you

• 31:23

may want to make a stop there and utilize the bed so that when you go out to the nearby

• 31:29

hunting ground, you get that rested experience.

• 31:32

And that's an important aspect of this.

• 31:34

This is very cool.

• 31:35

I love the aspect of the upgrade paths and being able to specialize in the specific types

• 31:42

of buildings that you construct.

• 31:43

Now let's say, for example, in this situation, I've constructed a tavern and I have specced

• 31:48

into this tier two branch of the feathered beds.

• 31:52

If I wanted to have the opposite direction in the technology branch here, how would I

• 31:58

be able to service that?

• 31:59

Would I have to stand up another tavern and then spec into that branch there?

• 32:04

Well, technically you'd have that option, right?

• 32:08

You could repurpose the current tavern that you have or you could build yourself another

• 32:13

tavern if you're willing to give up the space and do more.

• 32:17

Absolutely cool.

• 32:18

That's awesome.

• 32:19

That's awesome.

• 32:20

And remember, one of the...

• 32:21

Oh, go ahead.

• 32:22

Yeah, so I just want to say there is a key point of real estate in the freehold.

• 32:26

There is limited amount of space, right?

• 32:27

It's really up to the player to give that choice.

• 32:31

Is this additional buffs on a new tavern building worth what I'm giving up for, for another

• 32:36

building?

• 32:37

That's a very interesting take that players needs to make to make freeholds efficient.

• 32:43

Right, exactly.

• 32:45

And just to remind you guys, again, these are the systems we will be testing in Alpha

• 32:50

2.

• 32:51

And it's important that you guys provide feedback across these types of systems.

• 32:55

Tell us what you like, what you think could be done better.

• 32:58

And as you play test them in Alpha 2 and as you watch other players play test these systems,

• 33:04

afterwards that is going to be our opportunity to take the feedback and iterate on the system.

• 33:09

So it's important to kind of, you know, focus in on these, on these details.

• 33:14

Now outside of businesses, let's talk a little bit about artisanship and more specifically

• 33:21

processing as it exists within the freeholds and how the freehold ties into the artisanship

• 33:27

as a whole, Corey.

• 33:29

Yeah, so you know, we talked about the three lanes of the buildings, right?

• 33:33

And artisanship is one of them.

• 33:35

So the way that we're sort of tying that in is that each crafting and processing profession

• 33:40

will have a building associated with it, right?

• 33:43

So before you can place any sort of stations down that are associated with that crafting

• 33:48

or processing profession, you'll have to construct your building.

• 33:52

And once the building is constructed, right, it has that similar tech tree thing going

• 33:57

on, right?

• 33:58

So you can, you can spec it in the direction that you'd like it to go.

• 34:01

And maybe that synergizes or balances out the way that you're specing your profession.

• 34:08

And yeah, it gives you access to placing stations.

• 34:12

It gives you access to placing more stations.

• 34:14

And then we also have some benefits that are conferred by the building itself to all of

• 34:22

the things related on the freehold.

• 34:24

So let's say there's some sort of weaponsmithing bonus given by a weaponsmithing building.

• 34:30

That would mean that your weaponsmithing stations on your freehold would incur that bonus.

• 34:36

So very cool.

• 34:38

Yeah, I really like the aspect of, you know, some games take a direction.

• 34:44

Um, that departs a bit from realism.

• 34:47

And I think ultimately the end goal of any system that you implement into a game is to

• 34:50

have fun, right?

• 34:51

Is that gameplay loop there fun?

• 34:53

Um, and I feel personally, and this is just a completely subjective opinion, but, um,

• 34:57

I feel personally when you can achieve a high degree of fun and also degree, uh, achieve

• 35:03

a high degree of realism in the process, that's the type of MMO experience I personally enjoy

• 35:09

a lot.

• 35:10

And I think that with this freehold system and emulating that realistic kind of process,

• 35:17

um, of, you know, what processing looks like.

• 35:21

Um, and we're going to get into a little bit of detail on that, about how these processing

• 35:25

stations work that are afforded through the processing buildings that you can construct.

• 35:30

Um, I just think that's, that's something that's really cool.

• 35:33

It gets me immersed.

• 35:34

It gets me kind of my, the suspension of disbelief is really there.

• 35:38

Um, and I'm, I'm just enamored by, um, you know, what that play experience is.

• 35:44

Yeah, I totally agree.

• 35:45

As a big time, like factory sim player, you know, I love setting up these processing chains

• 35:50

of, you know, raw resources to process, to craft.

• 35:54

I feel like we're going at a really fun level for players that are going to enjoy like,

• 35:58

you know, going out in the world, gathering, taking those, uh, raw resources, their freehold

• 36:03

be processed and then taking that to the node to do the highest level crafting, right?

• 36:06

So this is a really like a fun and engaging loop.

• 36:09

I think absolutely.

• 36:10

Yeah, absolutely.

• 36:11

I'm very excited about it as well.

• 36:14

I'm a pretty crafting artisanship focused player myself.

• 36:17

And, um, I, I appreciate depth and I appreciate, um, uh, fun and I appreciate, uh, you know,

• 36:25

complexity to a limit, right?

• 36:26

So this is stuff for me to think about as a player.

• 36:29

I get to, I have my own space.

• 36:31

I get to manage that space.

• 36:32

I get to decide, you know, what I want to do with it.

• 36:36

I get to decide how I want it to synergize with the professions I've chosen.

• 36:42

I can make a name for myself.

• 36:44

I can make social connections by the way that I express myself as a, whatever profession

• 36:49

I'm into.

• 36:50

Um, and, and freehold is sort of, sort of a, a Mecca for that.

• 36:54

Um, especially in the, in the processing realm, right?

• 36:57

Um, one of the things that I didn't quite touch on that's, uh, that's up here on the

• 37:01

screen right now is that, um, the, the highest level of processing happens only in the freehold.

• 37:06

So at the master and grandmaster level of processing, you'll need a freehold to, to

• 37:11

perform at that level.

• 37:12

Um, and then on the, on the crafting side, you know, we want the highest level of crafting

• 37:16

to happen at a node.

• 37:17

So, um, players will be able to craft on their freeholds, but, um, the max that you'll be

• 37:22

able to progress to is a journeyman level.

• 37:25

Awesome.

• 37:26

Very cool.

• 37:27

Well, speaking of processing, talk to us a little bit about the process of processing.

• 37:33

Yeah, we'll do.

• 37:35

So, um, so, uh, uh, processing, each processing profession will have, uh, four stations.

• 37:42

Um, and the stations will, um, come online as you progress through the profession.

• 37:47

Um, each one of those stations will make goods that are immediately, uh, useful, uh, to,

• 37:53

to the economy, to, um, crafters, to other processors.

• 37:57

Um, and each, uh, processing station will, um, build on itself and into the other stations,

• 38:03

right?

• 38:04

So, um, you'll, you'll, you'll end up kind of at the end.

• 38:07

Um, if you, if you do end up, you know, going all the way to master or grandmaster, um,

• 38:12

being able to kind of circle between the stations and, and make different stuff, uh, depending

• 38:17

on what you want to make.

• 38:19

Um, uh, so in addition to, um, using kind of resources in, in your recipes, uh, we also

• 38:29

want, uh, we want to use fuel, um, as a way to run your station.

• 38:35

Yeah, that's super cool.

• 38:37

The fuel is a, is I think an awesome kind of talking a little bit about again, that,

• 38:41

that, that realistic kind of process.

• 38:44

I really love the addition of the fuel and kind of the complexity as that fuel interacts

• 38:48

with the type of processed good that you're creating.

• 38:51

I think that's a really cool system.

• 38:54

Yeah.

• 38:55

It's like players are, I feel like players are definitely used to that with like, for

• 38:59

example, like iron ore, for example, you'd expect that to, you know, require some coal,

• 39:02

some wood pellets, right.

• 39:03

To complete that recipe.

• 39:04

But even, I think that's just gonna be something where I'm going to core to processing where,

• 39:07

uh, any recipe you'll do is going to require some level of fuel.

• 39:10

So even like at a sawmill, right, processing your lumber, you also require fuel to run.

• 39:14

And that's kind of gonna be something players will learn about, learn what are good fuels,

• 39:18

what resources can work as a fuel and what's, what's, what's the meta there.

• 39:22

Yeah, definitely getting dialed in with the economy and understanding, you know, what's

• 39:26

the price efficiency of using, you know, wood chips versus coal for, you know, a particular

• 39:32

recipe and kind of looking at what your, your returns are based on those decisions is just

• 39:38

like, that's so cool that you even get to think about any of those things, right.

• 39:43

And then just within the fuel itself, right.

• 39:46

So the way that we're going with the, with the fuel is kind of any, any item can have

• 39:50

a fuel value on it.

• 39:51

Right.

• 39:52

So, um, and then when you're, when you're putting together, you know, your, your job

• 39:56

to, you know, make, you know, a hundred iron ingots, right.

• 39:59

There'll be some sort of value that's required to, to, to process that job.

• 40:03

So it'll be up to you to choose, you know, the fuel types that you want to, let's say

• 40:07

that it costs a hundred fuel to make those a hundred ingots.

• 40:12

You can make whatever fuel combination you, you want to, to fulfill that value.

• 40:16

So yeah, you might have like, you know, mostly amount of coal, but then you're like, ah,

• 40:20

I need, I need to throw some extra wood chips in there, right.

• 40:22

To finish the, finish the recipe off or, but you might have a really high quality, like

• 40:26

refined fuel you've made and that that'll, that one fool will be able to do many, many

• 40:30

jobs and before it depletes itself.

• 40:32

So there's a lot of, a lot of freedom players have their inter, interring how they power

• 40:35

their station.

• 40:36

Love it.

• 40:37

And obviously I didn't mention this before, but what you guys are seeing and, and you

• 40:41

know, this is an important part to give feedback in, you know, how do you like this format

• 40:46

of a presentation when we get into these more systems heavy kind of designs?

• 40:51

But the art here is, as I said, the concept art, Ryan Richmond and his team and Mike Vecchio

• 40:57

and, and, and Lloyd and Jeff and, you know, they all do a great job in providing the rest

• 41:03

of our development team, the concepts that give direction on, you know, what to strive

• 41:08

for when modeling these assets and creating these environments.

• 41:12

They just do a phenomenal job.

• 41:13

So kudos to them.

• 41:14

All right.

• 41:15

Sorry, go ahead.

• 41:16

I want to point out one thing that certain stations will have the benefits and certain

• 41:21

buildings will also have a benefit and that using those benefits, depending on the quality

• 41:26

of the station and the tier of the station, like some of these fuel costs could be reduced,

• 41:31

right?

• 41:32

If your station is very efficient at melting iron, for example, right?

• 41:36

Then the fuel costs of that recipe might reduce quite a bit.

• 41:39

And also I'm coming back to the real estate thing again, sorry.

• 41:44

Where if you, just because you have an artisanship building, that doesn't necessarily mean you

• 41:49

get to have all the stations, right?

• 41:51

If you want to be best at everything that you will require multiple artisanship buildings.

• 41:56

And if you want access to every stations that you also require a lot of artisanship buildings,

• 42:01

then you can kind of take up to be very focused on one or have all the artisanship buildings

• 42:07

that you can possibly have want for one specific processing and be the best at it, right?

• 42:12

Yeah, absolutely.

• 42:15

It's a progressive amount of investment required in order to be the best.

• 42:20

And these systems are designed with progression in mind because that depth, that progression

• 42:25

as Corey was speaking earlier is what makes a lot of these systems compelling, right?

• 42:30

To a degree.

• 42:32

So let's talk a little bit about the depth and progression when it comes to the lumber

• 42:35

mill.

• 42:36

This is an example of an artisanship building, specifically a processing building.

• 42:40

Corey, talk to me a little bit about what we're looking at here.

• 42:45

Yeah, so this is a, you know, example similar to what we're looking at with the tavern,

• 42:51

but sort of following a lumber mill, right?

• 42:53

Like players will need to place a lumber mill to advance in their lumber milling profession.

• 42:59

And you'll be able to kind of spec it based on what you want to focus on as a lumber miller.

• 43:07

So what we're looking at here is this, you know, arcane golem and, you know, it allows

• 43:12

you to process, let's see, process jobs, reducing resource and the fuel and goal costs of processing

• 43:18

is dropped by 20%, right?

• 43:20

So this one's sort of focusing on cost and efficiency and there might be other lanes

• 43:24

or other particular skills that you can pick up that might focus on more yield, maybe a

• 43:33

rarity prox, stuff like that, right?

• 43:36

So what's really interesting is that you can kind of take these trees and apply it to your

• 43:41

skill tree in your profession and sort of, you know, balance or, you know, hyperfocus

• 43:47

or fill in the gaps that you're missing as you progress.

• 43:51

Yeah, and as you can see, the arcane golem is kind of like the final, like ultimate end

• 43:58

talent at this specific skill tree.

• 44:01

So you can see on the bottom left, there's already, you know, a couple of different active

• 44:04

upgrades that are already applying bonuses to all the stations on the freehold that are

• 44:07

related to the lumber mill.

• 44:08

So you see we have double saw, improved permit, gear system, station maintenance, stuff like

• 44:11

that.

• 44:12

So it'll be a kind of a culmination.

• 44:14

Once you fully spec out your building, it'll have a variety of benefits it'll be adding

• 44:17

to those stations.

• 44:18

And as you kind of spec into these specific types of upgrades, the building itself manifests

• 44:30

props and attachments to it that represent these different upgrade paths.

• 44:37

So it's a really kind of cool thing to see exist kind of on the freehold.

• 44:42

It gives also indication to the other players as to what specializations you focused on.

• 44:47

Yeah, definitely.

• 44:49

That same, we're hoping to get that same feeling where you walk by that person and you're like,

• 44:54

holy shit, that's that sword.

• 44:58

You could walk by someone's tavern and be like, oh, they got the bar in the window.

• 45:02

I can just roll up there and get myself a quick snack and a drink and head on out to

• 45:07

the hunting grounds.

• 45:10

They went down a certain path for the lumber mill upgrade and they know that this is probably

• 45:15

the processor that you want to reach out to for all of your wood needs.

• 45:21

Yes, absolutely.

• 45:23

Well, so guys, as we said, this was a little bit of an experiment kind of prefacing this

• 45:30

particular system, the freehold system before we get in game and take a look.

• 45:34

Bucky, I think you have a freehold somewhere in the Riverlands, perhaps by some interesting

• 45:40

mining options that we're going to take a look at now.

• 45:44

Hopefully we don't get killed on the way.

• 45:47

But give us your feedback on what you enjoyed or thought could have been done better about

• 45:53

this PowerPoint kind of presentation of the system so that we get a little bit more nitty

• 45:56

gritty details of this.

• 45:59

And we're going to do some Q&A after the gameplay.

• 46:01

But right now, let's talk a little bit about and go in game and take a look at some farming.

• 46:07

Let's take a look at the livestock and those interactions, because I know that those two

• 46:11

specific interactions on freeholds is near and dear to a lot of different players' hearts.

• 46:18

And then in addition, there's going to be a little bit of discussion about our inventory

• 46:22

management system.

• 46:24

I've told you a little bit in the past that we have gone with a kind of Tetra styled inventory

• 46:29

when it comes to materials and raw gatherables.

• 46:33

So we're going to take a look at the first iteration of that.

• 46:35

Of course, everything here is a work in progress.

• 46:38

We are still active in development towards Alpha 2.

• 46:41

So take everything you see with a grain of salt, but obviously participate on our forums,

• 46:46

on social media channels here in Twitch on the things you're liking in what you've seen

• 46:51

and what you would like to see done differently.

• 46:55

One other thing I think we're going to take a look at when we get in there is some of

• 46:57

the housing, some of the furniture, interacting with some of that furniture as well.

• 47:02

You might even get a look at a new little mount.

• 47:04

But let's switch over to in-game and we will see you guys in just a second.

• 47:29

Hello everyone and we find ourselves now in the world of Vera once again.

• 47:36

And Bucky, I think you were talking a little bit about a freehold that you have nearby

• 47:41

in the Riverlands here, or we're going to perhaps participate in some of your...

• 47:46

What do you got on that freehold?

• 47:48

What are you doing over there?

• 47:50

So we got a lot of farming stuff, mainly is what we're focusing on, but we also have a

• 47:54

artisan building as well.

• 47:56

Oh nice.

• 47:57

And a large station because we got some good mining opportunities out here.

• 48:00

Okay, very cool.

• 48:02

And I see you kind of are close to these ruins with your freehold, I guess.

• 48:11

Is there any happening spots around this area for you guys?

• 48:15

Yeah for sure.

• 48:16

I mean we got some mob packs around here.

• 48:18

Players are coming through here a lot to obviously get this nice resource here.

• 48:22

We got some alicanite.

• 48:24

Is that why you formed your freehold near this precious resource?

• 48:29

Talk to me a little bit about this resource, Corey and or Mike.

• 48:37

So this is halcyonite.

• 48:38

It's kind of a mid-tier journeyman gem.

• 48:42

And yeah, it's just sort of something you would use in weapons and for decorations,

• 48:49

jewelry.

• 48:50

But it's pretty sought after for a lot of drafts, so it's pretty valuable.

• 48:57

I love just its look.

• 48:59

I mean it adds a really kind of magical blues to this area.

• 49:05

Wow, this is a beautiful...

• 49:06

Now Bucky, I know why you made your freehold here.

• 49:08

This is a beautiful view.

• 49:10

Yep, just another beautiful day in Vera.

• 49:13

Oh my gosh.

• 49:14

Do you ever get like afraid of heights here?

• 49:17

I mean this is kind of crazy.

• 49:20

I think actually I might have something that could help you with this.

• 49:23

Hold on, let me see.

• 49:24

I can just bring it up here and then if you ever need to use it one day, feel free to.

• 49:29

You're more than welcome.

• 49:30

Oh yes, beautiful, perfect.

• 49:31

Oh, it's even on theme for the fall weather.

• 49:35

I know, exactly.

• 49:36

It's the drink of the canopy.

• 49:37

Perfect.

• 49:38

Yeah, if you ever want to take him for a spin, just let me know.

• 49:41

Okay.

• 49:42

All right, but yeah, there you go.

• 49:44

Actually, I'll put him away.

• 49:45

He's kind of afraid of heights himself.

• 49:49

So I can mine this.

• 49:50

So I've maxed out my artisanship levels through a little bit of a cheat, but if you have the

• 49:57

tools and oops, do I have the tools?

• 50:01

Okay guys, you're seeing a little bit of a preview of some of the work in progress UI

• 50:06

with the artisanship windows and obviously you have a number of tools here that are possible.

• 50:10

This UI of course is getting completely revamped.

• 50:12

This is just kind of the wire framing for it, but talk to me a little bit about the

• 50:17

tool setup.

• 50:18

Why is it important to have these kinds of tools?

• 50:20

How do tools aid you in your gathering adventures?

• 50:26

So each gathering profession will have three tools.

• 50:30

The tools kind of come online as you progress through the profession and the different resource

• 50:36

types for each one of the profession may require different tools.

• 50:39

So you basically want to carry around the right tool for the job and tools along with

• 50:47

the artisanship gear will have stats on it.

• 50:49

So you can itemize towards how you want to gather, how fast you want to gather.

• 50:54

Yeah.

• 50:55

Oh, it looks great.

• 50:58

I love the destruction of the actual, like, is it halcyonite?

• 51:04

Halconite?

• 51:05

Halcyonite.

• 51:06

Yeah, halcyonite.

• 51:07

Yeah.

• 51:08

I mean, we sort of set the precedent with the trees, right?

• 51:11

So we're trying to get similar feelings that the trees bring with our other gatherables.

• 51:18

Yeah, it's looking great.

• 51:20

Now where is your freehold?

• 51:23

It's just over this hill here off to the left of the path.

• 51:26

I think you might be able to see my house there with the chimney smoke as well.

• 51:30

Okay, yeah, that looks good.

• 51:33

How do we, let's get over there a little bit faster.

• 51:35

Maybe we can, what do we got?

• 51:38

Oh, I don't think people have seen the Lightfoot yet.

• 51:45

Let's bring him out.

• 51:46

Oh, look at him.

• 51:48

How cool is that?

• 51:51

I look so good.

• 51:55

I love the eyes.

• 51:59

Super cool.

• 52:00

Do we know who did this one?

• 52:01

Was this Jinsei?

• 52:02

I think it was Jinsei.

• 52:03

I believe it was a Jinsei, yeah.

• 52:06

Oh wow, this guy's fast.

• 52:10

It's high speed.

• 52:11

It is a rabbit after all, you know.

• 52:16

It's so cool.

• 52:17

Wait, we got to slow it down a little bit.

• 52:19

I can't approach at such fast pace to your freehold.

• 52:22

That'd be disrespectful.

• 52:23

I apologize.

• 52:24

Thank you.

• 52:25

Don't trample my plants, please.

• 52:27

Oh, perfect.

• 52:29

This is great.

• 52:30

The Horde of Rabbits.

• 52:32

So what have you geared?

• 52:34

It looks like you don't have a lot of buildings on the freehold for yours, Bucky.

• 52:39

Is that because you're trying to utilize the land for farming?

• 52:44

I know of course you are Dr. Bucky, so the animal husbandry system and livestock.

• 52:49

That's exactly right.

• 52:50

Yeah, so I sacrificed some of the space I could have used for buildings to just have

• 52:54

more farm space basically.

• 52:57

As you can see here, we got some sheeps, we got some cows and pigs, and we got some chickens

• 53:03

back there, and we have a lot of space for different farmables.

• 53:06

So we have wheat here, corn, and then the tomatoes over there as well.

• 53:10

Oh, this looks great.

• 53:11

So now Mike, when we're talking about these types of farmable spaces, obviously as we

• 53:20

discussed previously, the customization options for your freehold are really kind of up to

• 53:26

you and what you want to delve into on the processing side of things and how you want

• 53:30

to use the space.

• 53:32

But players who want to participate in the farming, talk to me a little bit about that

• 53:35

system.

• 53:36

I mean, the intent to provide this open area space for people to utilize just growing different

• 53:43

crop rotations and the livestock, and how does that feed the general processing system?

• 53:48

Yeah, so the farming is kind of generally focused on growing crops like this and then

• 53:53

dealing with livestocks over there like that.

• 53:57

And generally what you want to do is gather some seeds from either vendor or in the world,

• 54:03

you can gather or find some seeds on the open content and you're going to come to your freehold,

• 54:09

plant them and then depending on what kind of processing level you have and what kind

• 54:13

of processing stations or buildings you might have, you might grow crops like a little faster,

• 54:19

produce better crop rotations and just generally farm things that's unique to farming produce

• 54:27

like compared to the open world.

• 54:31

Yeah, I just got a bunch of wheat.

• 54:34

By the way, I apologize Bucky on stealing your wheat, but I got plenty.

• 54:39

It's harvest season.

• 54:40

We got a big crop coming.

• 54:41

I need some help getting all the harvest done.

• 54:44

Yeah, it looks super cool.

• 54:47

Another cool thing about farming too, since it has the livestock, is that it kind of feeds

• 54:52

directly into hunting and synergizes with animal husbandry.

• 54:56

So if you're interested in raising animals, taming animals, farmers will have a use for

• 55:04

them.

• 55:05

Yeah, exactly.

• 55:07

So yeah, animal husbandry has multiple lanes of ways to breed and specialize your creatures

• 55:12

and mounds and pets are one of the more popular ones, but then obviously livestock as well.

• 55:17

So not only can you breed your animals for traits such as like movement, speed and health

• 55:21

and different combat stats, but you'll also be able to breed them for desirable traits

• 55:25

like fertility, increased harvesting yield and even increased yield from butchering.

• 55:31

What are you guys doing?

• 55:34

Oh my God, that is awesome.

• 55:38

This is the...

• 55:39

Leave our eggs alone.

• 55:40

It makes them more comfortable with you taking their eggs away.

• 55:43

Leave our eggs alone.

• 55:45

Yeah, they won't peck us if we come with their style.

• 55:50

Very nice.

• 55:51

Very nice.

• 55:53

I just got some eggs.

• 55:54

Okay, now one of the other things that we wanted to obviously collect player feedback

• 55:59

on, I'm going to open up the inventory just to kind of take a look at the materials resource

• 56:07

bag.

• 56:08

Talk to me a little bit about how we are implementing resources differently from your general item

• 56:14

inventory.

• 56:18

So we're taking an approach from other games, but the idea of resources is going to have

• 56:27

somewhat of a slot base instead of having a slot base like traditional MMO, we're going

• 56:31

to look for like a Tetris kind of idea of having different shapes and different stock

• 56:37

sizes kind of like that to make some interesting choices out in the world where you have to

• 56:42

do inventory management and have a pick and choose depending on like what you have available,

• 56:47

what kind of bags you have.

• 56:50

Now I seem to have kind of run out of space.

• 56:52

Maybe I can grab...

• 56:54

Do you have any...

• 56:55

Oh yeah, if you want you can come put some stuff in the chest in the house or...

• 57:00

Your bag's too small or what?

• 57:01

Yeah, no, I only have one bag.

• 57:02

It's called a Sanctus resource bag.

• 57:04

Oh yeah, I got some extra bags for you actually.

• 57:06

You could take some from my chest.

• 57:07

Oh, this is a nicely decorated home here.

• 57:11

Oh, you have the...

• 57:15

You have the...

• 57:16

Oh man, I can't remember what we called this, but this was for the pandemic.

• 57:22

Everyone who I think registered prior to a certain date during the pandemic, Margaret

• 57:27

will know, we granted this item to people or will be granted to people.

• 57:32

That's cool.

• 57:33

It's modeled.

• 57:34

Look at that.

• 57:35

I think Ryan Richmond actually did the modeling for that and then John Wainik did the implementation.

• 57:40

Very cool.

• 57:41

That's awesome.

• 57:42

Where's the chest I can grab?

• 57:44

Right here by the fireplace.

• 57:45

Oh, okay.

• 57:46

Sweet.

• 57:47

Let me see here.

• 57:48

The materials.

• 57:49

Oh, okay.

• 57:50

All right.

• 57:51

So what do I do here?

• 57:54

Just grab this.

• 57:55

I think you should take them all and swap it out, I think.

• 58:00

I'll equip them.

• 58:01

Okay, cool.

• 58:02

I have some...

• 58:03

Now this is obviously work in progress UI.

• 58:06

This is not the final UI, but this kind of demonstrates the functionality of the system.

• 58:11

Let me go over here.

• 58:14

What can I do with these sheep?

• 58:17

You can harvest them for wool, shear them.

• 58:20

All right.

• 58:22

This is not going to hurt them, is it?

• 58:25

No.

• 58:26

No.

• 58:27

Okay.

• 58:28

You did a good job.

• 58:29

Pretty sheep.

• 58:30

Pretty sheep.

• 58:31

Give me your wool.

• 58:32

Oh, it gave me some wool and now it's naked.

• 58:35

That's so sad.

• 58:36

It'll grow back.

• 58:40

So talk to me...

• 58:41

Perfect.

• 58:42

That's a good point.

• 58:43

So it'll grow back.

• 58:44

Talk to me a little bit about kind of the intent behind the livestock here and the crops

• 58:49

as well.

• 58:50

Like you're planting and you're placing these livestock on farmable space within your freehold

• 58:57

and then over time they mature and become processable?

• 59:01

How does that work?

• 59:02

Oh, yeah.

• 59:03

That's pretty much exactly it.

• 59:05

So certain things like for the crops, for example, you need to acquire seeds first,

• 59:10

which can be acquired through a number of ways.

• 59:12

But once you plant them, you'll have to water them and care for them.

• 59:15

And then after a certain point, depending on the crop itself, would be when you can

• 59:19

harvest them and then you can replant them at that point.

• 59:22

And then for animals, different animals have different sort of byproducts that you can

• 59:26

get.

• 59:27

So for example, from here, from the cow, you can milk them and get some fresh milk.

• 59:32

Oh my God.

• 59:33

They have horns.

• 59:34

Are these the right cows to milk?

• 59:37

There's udders down there.

• 59:38

Oh, okay.

• 59:39

There's udders.

• 59:40

Let's see.

• 59:41

Oh, I got like a little stool.

• 59:44

Wow.

• 59:45

That's some rapid paced milking.

• 59:47

Holy smokes.

• 59:48

Yeah, you know.

• 59:49

That was crazy.

• 59:50

Hold on.

• 59:51

Let me make sure I got the milk.

• 59:54

Oh, we did get the milk.

• 59:56

Let me pull it down here.

• 59:58

Pull some corn down as well.

• 1:00:02

Do some reorganization there.

• 1:00:04

Yeah, kind of just reorganizing things.

• 1:00:07

Another sort of interesting thing that you'll see with livestock and other types of things

• 1:00:11

that you can gather is you'll be able to kind of choose the things that you want to gather

• 1:00:16

from it.

• 1:00:17

Right?

• 1:00:18

Bucky had mentioned animal byproducts, right?

• 1:00:20

And milk is a byproduct of a cow and so is beef.

• 1:00:24

So it's up to you kind of how and when you want to harvest your livestock in certain

• 1:00:30

ways.

• 1:00:31

And same with plants.

• 1:00:34

Maybe you want to take the corn and maybe you want to cut down the entire corn plant

• 1:00:41

to make room for other crops.

• 1:00:44

There's different byproducts depending on how you interact with that gatherable.

• 1:00:47

Now this is going to be another point of good player feedback.

• 1:00:53

So one, we kind of talked to you and showed you guys a little bit of the systems for planting

• 1:00:58

crops on your freehold, for raising livestock, collecting resources from them, and then the

• 1:01:08

Tetris inventory type system.

• 1:01:11

But this one is more game philosophy slash immersion, right?

• 1:01:19

And what you're going to see now, I think, for those of you who are a bit squeamish,

• 1:01:25

if you want to turn away, understandable, but we're going to get some leather.

• 1:01:32

And what else from this guy?

• 1:01:35

Meat.

• 1:01:36

Yeah.

• 1:01:37

Some meat.

• 1:01:38

Kind of whatever you'd expect from a pig.

• 1:01:41

Yep.

• 1:01:42

Bacon.

• 1:01:43

All right.

• 1:01:44

Well, all right.

• 1:01:45

I apologize, little buddy.

• 1:01:46

You had a good long life.

• 1:01:47

You did have a good long life.

• 1:01:49

Happy life on the farm.

• 1:01:50

And now.

• 1:01:51

Oh God.

• 1:01:52

Go to sleep.

• 1:01:53

Now.

• 1:01:54

Oh, we got the hide and the meat.

• 1:01:55

But it's oh, that's sad.

• 1:01:56

Is it just sleeping?

• 1:01:57

Is it tired?

• 1:01:58

That was intense.

• 1:01:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:00

For sure.

• 1:02:01

It's sleeping.

• 1:02:02

Yeah, don't worry.

• 1:02:03

Let's go.

• 1:02:04

Yeah, nothing to see here.

• 1:02:06

Sorry, little piglets.

• 1:02:07

Oh, no, not the piglets.

• 1:02:08

Okay.

• 1:02:09

We'll take good care of you.

• 1:02:10

Oh, let them let them live a little bit of a life.

• 1:02:15

You'll become big and then we'll.

• 1:02:17

Oh, okay.

• 1:02:18

So, guys, that's it.

• 1:02:19

That's a great point of player feedback.

• 1:02:22

Talk to us a little bit about how real slash immersive do you want it to be or do you prefer

• 1:02:27

that perhaps the pigs don't die, but rather they just go to sleep.

• 1:02:33

That's a good question, I think, for a lot of people to give their thoughts on.

• 1:02:37

Okay.

• 1:02:38

So now we have I'm seeing over here there's another building.

• 1:02:41

Obviously, we have the home here.

• 1:02:43

We went inside a little bit.

• 1:02:45

This other building.

• 1:02:46

Talk to me a little bit about that.

• 1:02:47

We talked a little bit in the presentation about the profession buildings and them giving

• 1:02:53

access to workstations.

• 1:02:55

What do we have here?

• 1:02:57

So this is the artisan building that we talked about, and then these give general benefits

• 1:03:04

to the freehold.

• 1:03:05

It could be profession specific.

• 1:03:07

It could be just general specific, but it also gives you access to putting down stations

• 1:03:12

like this.

• 1:03:13

So this would be the metalworking station.

• 1:03:14

Oh, nice.

• 1:03:15

Okay.

• 1:03:16

So you can see that this station is pretty intensive, and that's, I think, something

• 1:03:21

we're going to be showing in a future stream, which is all about the crafting process and

• 1:03:26

the recipe acquisition and the tools, but also a little bit of a gameplay layer that

• 1:03:33

Corey and Mike, you guys have been working on with crafting in the future that we're

• 1:03:39

going to show.

• 1:03:40

But this one's all about processing.

• 1:03:41

Talk to me a little bit about what it takes to go into the fuel to prep the station.

• 1:03:46

What it takes to do the processed goods and then kind of leaving and letting that process

• 1:03:51

over time.

• 1:03:54

Do you expect that players are going to want to fully kit out their freeholds with the

• 1:04:00

profession buildings so they have access to all the stations?

• 1:04:02

What would be the benefit of that?

• 1:04:06

I think so, right?

• 1:04:07

If players are really interested in investing in processing, freeholds are supposed to give

• 1:04:15

the players the furthest reach up to the highest tiers of processing.

• 1:04:20

So if you want to allocate most of your space in your freehold for processing buildings,

• 1:04:29

processing stations, you could create kind of your own processing plant or factory and

• 1:04:37

really sort of have a stranglehold on a market or particular goods.

• 1:04:42

So the freehold is supposed to be free space for players to kind of do whatever they'd

• 1:04:47

like, decorate housing, have businesses, or create a processing empire.

• 1:04:55

Cool, very cool.

• 1:04:57

Well I did get some supplies.

• 1:05:00

Oops.

• 1:05:01

I did get some supplies.

• 1:05:04

Bucky do you want me to put this in the chest or anything?

• 1:05:07

Yeah you can just store it here in my chest for now.

• 1:05:10

Are these tomato plants?

• 1:05:11

Oh yeah, yeah, that's right.

• 1:05:13

I forgot to harvest these.

• 1:05:15

Oh, let's see.

• 1:05:16

Get some other ones here.

• 1:05:18

Very nice.

• 1:05:20

Aw, some more exploded.

• 1:05:23

Oh no.

• 1:05:24

Well you got some at least, right?

• 1:05:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did.

• 1:05:27

We're good.

• 1:05:28

Alright, let me go put this inside.

• 1:05:29

Wait, let me make sure I actually did get the tomatoes.

• 1:05:31

You probably got a full bag at this point almost.

• 1:05:34

Did I?

• 1:05:35

Oh I did get some tomatoes.

• 1:05:36

Okay, there we go.

• 1:05:37

Alright, I'm gonna go put this in for you.

• 1:05:41

Now you've obviously done a great job with the decorations here and the furniture.

• 1:05:47

And you know, we don't intend furniture to obviously just be visual aspect of the interior,

• 1:05:54

but functional as well.

• 1:05:56

Talk to me a little bit about that.

• 1:05:58

Yeah, so obviously we've seen here the chest, right?

• 1:06:01

The chest is a placeable furniture prop that actually increases the storage capacity of

• 1:06:05

your freehold property.

• 1:06:07

And we're gonna have a variety of other functional furniture besides just even the artisanship

• 1:06:12

stations.

• 1:06:13

So for example, we have a bed over here which you'll be able to sleep in as well.

• 1:06:17

Get some rest experience perhaps.

• 1:06:19

Also we'll have chairs.

• 1:06:21

Those are just kind of cosmetic you'll be able to sit in.

• 1:06:22

But yeah, there'll be a variety of functional prop items as well that'll have actual gameplay

• 1:06:28

uses.

• 1:06:29

Nice, that's awesome.

• 1:06:30

Let's see, I'm just putting all this stuff into your storage chest so you have it.

• 1:06:42

Very nice, free labor.

• 1:06:44

I see you have some pictures in here as well.

• 1:06:46

Yep, yep, that's the picture I commissioned to myself.

• 1:06:50

Oh, is this it?

• 1:06:51

Is that you?

• 1:06:52

Yes.

• 1:06:53

It is actual Bucky.

• 1:06:55

Me in armor.

• 1:06:56

It's actual Bucky.

• 1:06:57

That is so cool.

• 1:06:58

That is so great.

• 1:07:00

I think this is your favorite, Steven.

• 1:07:03

Yes, the sandals.

• 1:07:04

Oh, that's so awesome.

• 1:07:06

That is super cool.

• 1:07:08

Now obviously players that we talked a little bit about businesses and how players can kind

• 1:07:12

of stand up different taverns and whatnot.

• 1:07:15

And Bucky, you had stated like one of the reasons why you wanted to have your freehold

• 1:07:18

here in this location was because of some of the access to the rare resources.

• 1:07:22

But there's also some interesting hunting grounds nearby.

• 1:07:27

And one of the things that is interesting about the freehold system is that it's not

• 1:07:32

just architected for processing, but it can also be a profitable location based on where

• 1:07:40

and what you're providing other players access to from a drink and food tavern perspective.

• 1:07:47

We mentioned before there's business types of buildings that you can build.

• 1:07:52

Some of these could be very region specific.

• 1:07:55

If there was a hunting ground nearby that is very populated, we could set up a tavern,

• 1:07:59

sell like food buffs and drinks that is really good for XP bonuses or increase to your loot

• 1:08:07

chance or something like that.

• 1:08:08

Whatever that may increase some kind of a benefit to the player that is good business,

• 1:08:15

like I said, would be set up here where you could just take advantage of the populated

• 1:08:23

player area.

• 1:08:25

That's awesome.

• 1:08:27

That's super cool.

• 1:08:28

I love it.

• 1:08:29

And you were saying, you know, obviously having access to an open world where you're not necessarily

• 1:08:39

restricted to the locations that you can place these freeholds, but allowing the players

• 1:08:46

to kind of place them themselves.

• 1:08:50

Generally we are going to block out certain areas that can't be placed like certain road

• 1:08:55

networks and POIs, but generally the intent is to provide these freeholds as layable plots

• 1:09:04

in the open world.

• 1:09:05

Is that right?

• 1:09:06

Yeah, that's right.

• 1:09:07

So as long as you purchase a certificate from the owning node of the land, you'll be able

• 1:09:11

to place it in many places around the node.

• 1:09:14

Basically anywhere that's not like a dungeon or a POI with monsters, you'll be able to

• 1:09:21

place it in a lot of areas.

• 1:09:22

So players will have a lot of freedom in choosing where they want to build their freehold and

• 1:09:27

lay down their plots.

• 1:09:28

So it'll be a big, like obviously here, like you said, I was looking at the, you know,

• 1:09:32

we got the mines over there, we got the POIs, but we also have this large flat area for

• 1:09:36

a lot of farming.

• 1:09:37

And so it was kind of a good mix of this freehold.

• 1:09:41

Yeah, super cool.

• 1:09:44

Love it.

• 1:09:45

Bucky, you have a very cool freehold.

• 1:09:46

You know, I think I'm getting a little bit tired.

• 1:09:49

Can I, mind if I just take a little nap, you know?

• 1:09:52

Oh sure.

• 1:09:53

Yeah.

• 1:09:54

I mean, it's a great, great bed.

• 1:09:55

You'll get some rest and experience.

• 1:09:56

It'll be perfect.

• 1:09:57

I was concerned a little bit with the nearby enemy populations, perhaps.

• 1:10:04

Maybe you guys can keep watch over me as I go to sleep.

• 1:10:06

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 1:10:07

Don't worry.

• 1:10:08

You'll be safe.

• 1:10:09

We'll set up a guard.

• 1:10:10

You'll be safe.

• 1:10:11

Well everybody, I hope you guys enjoyed this brief look at Bucky's Freehold.

• 1:10:17

A little bit about the processing for livestock as well as crops and take a look at the new

• 1:10:26

mount, some of the resources that are placed around the Riverlands area, and also a little

• 1:10:32

look at the housing system with some of the furniture that you have access to kind of

• 1:10:37

use and provide a little bit of benefit that you have access to for your gameplay.

• 1:10:45

And with that being said, I think we'll wish you all a do and a good night and we will

• 1:10:51

see you next time.

• 1:10:52

Thank you guys for joining us.

• 1:10:53

Later.

• 1:10:54

Thank you for having us.

• 1:10:59

Bye guys.

• 1:11:03

Hello everybody.

• 1:11:07

I'm going to be playing the video in the background while we answer some preliminary questions

• 1:11:11

because we know there was a lot of thoughts and clarifications that we want to make.

• 1:11:19

You're muted, Steven.

• 1:11:20

There we go.

• 1:11:21

I think I heard something.

• 1:11:22

Can you hear me?

• 1:11:23

Testing?

• 1:11:24

Yeah, yeah, you're good.

• 1:11:25

Okay, sorry.

• 1:11:26

I said, I feel like after that we all need to get up and do a little bit of a stretch.

• 1:11:33

Just kind of move around a little bit.

• 1:11:36

I know it was a long one.

• 1:11:37

That's why I told everybody, bring your snacks, strap in.

• 1:11:39

We got a lot more to show.

• 1:11:42

And of course, we want to do some clarifications.

• 1:11:44

The first one is that we will have the gameplay video part of it in 4K up on YouTube after

• 1:11:49

this live stream.

• 1:11:50

And then the full video will be up.

• 1:11:52

The full dev update should be up tomorrow pending technology and YouTube cooperate with

• 1:11:57

us and Twitch.

• 1:11:59

You wanted to make some clarifications on the predetermined aspects.

• 1:12:03

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:12:04

So I want to kind of clarify the way that the predetermined parcels work versus laying

• 1:12:13

down the freehold where you wish, right?

• 1:12:16

So essentially, each zone of influence in the world has designated large swaths of land

• 1:12:24

that act sort of as these parcels that can be catered to specific like points of interest

• 1:12:31

or thematically relevant, and you might want to bid on that kind of almost county size

• 1:12:39

area where you then get to place your freehold, right?

• 1:12:43

And once you have bid on that area at the node, then you can acquire the freehold plot

• 1:12:54

and you go out into that zone, that section that you have bid on and acquired, and you

• 1:13:00

place your freehold footprint, which is previously we had set the freehold size to about a half

• 1:13:06

an acre.

• 1:13:07

However, recently that's changed.

• 1:13:09

Well, not recently, a while ago that changed to be one and a half acres or roughly 100

• 1:13:14

by 60.

• 1:13:15

And of course, we're still in development, so things might change, you know, continually

• 1:13:19

just general disclaimer as in development, these systems are subject to change.

• 1:13:24

So right now they're about one and a half acres.

• 1:13:26

So you go out there and you go to that predetermined slice of land that's very large, you know,

• 1:13:31

it's many, many, many acres, and then you choose where you want to place your plot for

• 1:13:36

the freehold that's about one and a half acres.

• 1:13:39

And then on that plot, you get blueprints for buildings like your house and the artisanship

• 1:13:45

buildings or businesses, and you place those blueprints down on the plot that you placed

• 1:13:51

and you construct them with materials.

• 1:13:54

I think some people have concerns about the bidding aspect of freeholds.

• 1:13:58

Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:59

Yeah, sure.

• 1:14:00

No.

• 1:14:01

So so bidding is essentially once you've completed a quest in order to bid, right, it's kind

• 1:14:08

of like a little bit of a lordship quest, right?

• 1:14:11

We're like, you know, you're entitled to own this land, so to speak, you've proven yourself

• 1:14:15

worthy for the node to grant you this parcels deed.

• 1:14:22

Then on a regular cadence, especially at the inception of the beginning of a node, a number

• 1:14:27

of those parcels will be available to bid for and players who bid and win that bid then

• 1:14:32

get to place their freehold on that on that section of the world.

• 1:14:36

Right.

• 1:14:37

And the idea is, is to remember that like nodes are built up and nodes can fall through

• 1:14:43

the destruction of either atrophy events or sieges.

• 1:14:48

And when that happens, these freeholds can be subject to destruction.

• 1:14:54

And if a new node develops, then that cyclical kind of recycling of these locations become

• 1:15:02

available again.

• 1:15:04

Yeah, I think people are like, it's too real.

• 1:15:08

Housing.

• 1:15:09

Yes.

• 1:15:10

Well, I remember freeholds are just one form of three different technically now four with

• 1:15:16

the ends three different types of housing.

• 1:15:18

So freeholds are really the ultimate level of process oriented or artisan artisanship

• 1:15:25

oriented housing type.

• 1:15:28

But there's also static in node housing and there's apartments as well.

• 1:15:32

Yeah.

• 1:15:33

And OK, next up, we've got a clarification that we'll be putting out an article for freehold

• 1:15:39

building cosmetic concerns.

• 1:15:40

I know there was a lot of concerns in regards to that to make things a little bit more clear.

• 1:15:44

And we'll also be updating item descriptions as well in inventory.

• 1:15:48

But one of the main things that people had noted was if freeholds are going to be limited,

• 1:15:53

what happens if I bought a freehold building cosmetic?

• 1:15:55

And I know you wanted to address that, Stephen.

• 1:15:58

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:16:00

So in the same sense that we've done flying mounts, types of cosmetics and or tier two

• 1:16:06

mounts, these require you to acquire them.

• 1:16:09

And there are many ways to acquire a freehold, not just through the quest system first come

• 1:16:13

first serve on a per node basis, but you can also sell and purchase a freehold as well.

• 1:16:19

Now, again, freeholds are restricted to one per account.

• 1:16:23

So if you're going to acquire a freehold and then sell it, you can only sell it to an account

• 1:16:28

that doesn't already own a freehold.

• 1:16:31

So because these are relative to sell, correct, that's correct.

• 1:16:37

And because these these freeholds are an integral component of the artisanship system, fulfilling

• 1:16:43

kind of the best processing that's available within Ashes of Creation, these are constantly

• 1:16:48

going to be coming up for sale.

• 1:16:50

We're establishing kind of a real estate market that players can invest in and then sell within

• 1:16:56

the end game economy.

• 1:16:58

But also they are a resource that's subject to removal through the sieging system as well.

• 1:17:04

Right.

• 1:17:05

So there's a bit of risk implied there.

• 1:17:07

But the idea is that this is something for players to strive for and to achieve those

• 1:17:12

who wish to to achieve this.

• 1:17:15

And anyone who sets their mind to it or sets it to their goal to work up either enough

• 1:17:21

money in game to purchase a freehold from another player or is is at a node where a

• 1:17:28

freehold is available and you've developed your personal holdings to acquire one through

• 1:17:33

the bidding system.

• 1:17:35

Or if you become a member of a family, those are all methods by which you can have access

• 1:17:41

to the freehold and then utilize your cosmetics for the for the the buildings.

• 1:17:46

Okay.

• 1:17:47

And then by the way, just just as real quick, I just want to state saying we took this different

• 1:17:53

approach with the presentation and the PowerPoint side of things because this is a very in depth

• 1:17:59

hefty system.

• 1:18:01

And this is very hefty when it comes to design detail.

• 1:18:05

And any time we get into a discussion about a system this intricate, there's a lot of

• 1:18:12

opportunity for miscommunication, misinformation, misunderstanding and how these systems work.

• 1:18:18

So that's why, as Margaret said at the beginning of the stream, I am scheduled for a live Q&A

• 1:18:25

next week.

• 1:18:27

And then also want another one next month that will be announcing soon where I'm going

• 1:18:32

to have an opportunity to kind of chat with the community.

• 1:18:34

And I'll probably jump on Discord after stream as well for maybe an hour.

• 1:18:38

So we'll see how my schedule looks.

• 1:18:39

It's probably a nightmare.

• 1:18:40

But I know, I know, I know.

• 1:18:44

And I'll try to answer some questions as in Discord as well.

• 1:18:48

So and, you know, Roshan and Cody, they'll be they'll be assisting with that as well

• 1:18:54

on the community side.

• 1:18:55

Roshan and Vaknar have been answering a lot of stuff.

• 1:18:58

Yes.

• 1:18:59

Yeah.

• 1:19:00

You answered one of them already.

• 1:19:01

And people would like it kind of goes hand in hand with what you were just talking about.

• 1:19:05

If you could talk a little bit more about freehold permissions, specifically, one of

• 1:19:09

the questions was, can people harvest from your freehold without permissions?

• 1:19:13

Can they steal from your freehold?

• 1:19:15

No, they people cannot steal from your freehold.

• 1:19:18

They cannot harvest without your permission.

• 1:19:21

You can have if you're unfamiliar with the family system, take a little bit of a look

• 1:19:24

at that.

• 1:19:25

Of course, the Ashes Wiki is a great location of resources and knowledge.

• 1:19:30

I know, I know a lot has changed.

• 1:19:33

Remember, as we draw closer to testing dates, these systems get iterations that can happen

• 1:19:40

very rapidly as we're either internally play testing or as other systems change that facilitate

• 1:19:47

a need to make changes within other ancillary systems.

• 1:19:52

You know, those changes can occur.

• 1:19:53

That's that's part of the the player contract, so to speak, with a live development is that

• 1:20:02

understanding must be expressed on kind of the ability for these things to change over

• 1:20:06

time because ultimately, we're trying to build the best possible systems, the best possible

• 1:20:09

game for you guys to enjoy.

• 1:20:10

And it all needs to make sense together.

• 1:20:12

And MMOs are an accumulation of many different types of games in one.

• 1:20:18

And that's what makes them so unique.

• 1:20:19

So yeah.

• 1:20:20

All right.

• 1:20:22

And then can players be denied from buying a freehold from other players or by proper

• 1:20:28

property anonymously?

• 1:20:29

No, not really.

• 1:20:32

Okay.

• 1:20:33

And then mega ballin, which I think is funny name, will rare blueprints have benefits beyond

• 1:20:39

just appearance?

• 1:20:41

Yes, absolutely.

• 1:20:43

Yeah, blueprints blueprints are the vehicle for which unique mechanical properties are

• 1:20:50

in game properties are delivered to the player.

• 1:20:54

So buildings can have certain types of buffs and passive benefits that are conferred based

• 1:20:59

on the quality of the blueprint that's been acquired.

• 1:21:02

So the rarer the blueprint, the more powerful its effect.

• 1:21:07

Okay.

• 1:21:08

And then does freehold size determine how much stuff can be put inside?

• 1:21:13

How does a cosmetics can impact how many things or the location of where things can be placed?

• 1:21:19

Good call.

• 1:21:20

So for cosmetics that are very large in size, we will have a system.

• 1:21:26

It's not been developed yet, but we've been planning for this.

• 1:21:28

We'll have a system where multiple buildings can be occupied space wise by the larger cosmetic.

• 1:21:35

So a cosmetic might replace the visual appearance of one particular building, but then you'll

• 1:21:41

be able to have that footprint occupy multiple buildings to replace the visual appearance

• 1:21:46

of right.

• 1:21:47

So that way you're you're still utilizing the similar amount of space.

• 1:21:50

And yes, when you talk about the kind of management system of the freehold, it is entailed in

• 1:21:56

two parts.

• 1:21:57

One is a permitting system that allows for a specific number of different types of buildings

• 1:22:02

that can be allotted on the freehold and constructed that needs to be acquired through the node

• 1:22:07

in which you've attained the freehold certificate.

• 1:22:10

And the other side of that is the space constraint as well, because whatever space you're not

• 1:22:15

using on the freehold for a building plot or location can be utilized for other purposes,

• 1:22:21

as you saw in the in game presentation, such as livestock placement, crop placements and

• 1:22:27

rotations as well as other types of placeables.

• 1:22:32

All right, and then the question here was, are there plans to replace rest XP when with

• 1:22:39

another benefit as the servers mature and majority of players are already max level?

• 1:22:44

Not at the moment, no, no.

• 1:22:49

Right now the beds are primarily servicing rest experience function.

• 1:22:54

Of course, there are obviously opportunities where additional tech tree structures could

• 1:22:59

be provided or additional items might get released with expansions that have different

• 1:23:04

types of benefits conferred to that particular type of furniture.

• 1:23:08

But at the moment, that's not in the plan.

• 1:23:11

Are the upgraded or the upgrades slash skills are my cameras driven out?

• 1:23:17

I took the Elgato update and now it's just bored my camera.

• 1:23:21

No, yeah.

• 1:23:24

Are the upgrades skill trees, tree buildings or profession specific?

• 1:23:29

Can you reset the trees at a cost?

• 1:23:33

You absolutely you I believe you can actually change the tree spec at a cost and the upgrades

• 1:23:43

are specific to the building.

• 1:23:46

The upgrade paths are specific to the building.

• 1:23:48

All right, and then will there be furniture loot in drop tables?

• 1:23:54

If so, will they be common or rare drops with unique designs?

• 1:23:59

There will be components of unique furniture recipes that are dropped and are rare.

• 1:24:08

And those again will scale based on the rarity and the power it confers to the specific type

• 1:24:13

of furniture constructs.

• 1:24:16

And can married couples co-own a freehold?

• 1:24:19

No, the freehold ownership is designated by one account only.

• 1:24:25

And then the family system is the system that facilitates multiple accounts having permission

• 1:24:29

base basis within that freehold.

• 1:24:33

And we will have more questions, but they're in the Q&A segment from pulled from our forums,

• 1:24:39

but they will be freehold specific.

• 1:24:41

And I want to go ahead real quick.

• 1:24:43

I just want to give one other commentary about an additional system that you guys got an

• 1:24:47

early insight and early look at, which is the inventory system.

• 1:24:53

And I want to give some clarifying commentary on the purpose and the design for that inventory

• 1:25:00

system.

• 1:25:01

So first of all, inventory is split into two separate management systems.

• 1:25:06

The first is your non material, non gatherable slots.

• 1:25:12

Those are your standard single slot, non not space-constrained system, right?

• 1:25:20

That's a standard inventory.

• 1:25:21

You just have a single slot and you can pull completed items and or consumables and quest

• 1:25:27

items or whatever into that slot, right?

• 1:25:29

And then when you're talking about materials specifically, processed goods and gatherables,

• 1:25:37

those exist within the Tetris type inventory system.

• 1:25:42

And the purpose for that is there is a and this is you're seeing a very early representation

• 1:25:47

of the UI there.

• 1:25:49

This is not the final UI, nor is it even the existing kind of UX design that we want to

• 1:25:56

facilitate with ease of access into that system.

• 1:25:59

This is just kind of functional currently.

• 1:26:02

But what we want to achieve with that is because everything in the world is generally harvestable,

• 1:26:12

a resource that could be harvested, we want to have very unique progression when it comes

• 1:26:17

to the construction of resource bags, right?

• 1:26:21

And those resource bags will have certain benefits like increasing stack size count

• 1:26:25

of particular types of resources or of having additional delay time necessary to interface

• 1:26:33

with your corpse should a player try to take the resources you might have dropped in PvP

• 1:26:39

or having passive benefits and unique structures of spacing that makes it more a better bag

• 1:26:44

for wood gathering because woods are three by one or better bag for mining because mining

• 1:26:51

is always two by two.

• 1:26:54

The idea is to make your intent as a gatherer when you go out into the wild specific, right?

• 1:27:01

Not just that you're going out into the wild and gathering everything you can because it's

• 1:27:05

there and that's what we don't have like a labor system that limits it, right?

• 1:27:10

We have a space constraint system.

• 1:27:11

So when you leave your node and you go out into the wild, you need to be conscientious

• 1:27:17

of what you're choosing to interact with and take resources for because you have a limited

• 1:27:22

space constraint to that degree.

• 1:27:24

And we think it's an interesting system that ties into, as you guys will see later, the

• 1:27:30

caravans and crates system as well.

• 1:27:32

All right.

• 1:27:34

And do note that anything that we've talked about today, we would love feedback on.

• 1:27:38

We will have a freehold updates live stream thread that will go up.

• 1:27:43

It might be up right now.

• 1:27:44

I don't know how quickly Vagner is working to push that up, but definitely go head on

• 1:27:49

over to our forums, give us feedback.

• 1:27:51

We'll be compiling that and sending it yonder to our development team.

• 1:27:55

They've been loving all of the reports that we've been putting together and your guys'

• 1:27:59

feedback has been super valuable.

• 1:28:02

It makes sure that we're on the right page as far as we move forward.

• 1:28:05

A lot of the things that you guys want are things we're already planning to do, which

• 1:28:09

is very exciting.

• 1:28:11

And it also kind of makes sure that we're making the right design choices.

• 1:28:17

And if you guys see any flaws or holes in those things, we'd love to see what your thoughts

• 1:28:21

are.

• 1:28:22

And especially as you get into Alpha 2, that's when you're going to get your hands on it

• 1:28:24

and you're going to be able to provide like the juicy feedback.

• 1:28:28

But preliminary, we would love to know what your guys' thoughts are.

• 1:28:31

With that, we've got quite a bit of art updates to showcase.

Art Update

• 1:28:34

So we'll move on to that.

• 1:28:36

And then I know that folks are curious about some studio updates that have happened this

• 1:28:41

month.

• 1:28:42

So we'll move on to art.

• 1:28:46

You saw that we had some cow milking set up there that Stephen was, he couldn't find the

• 1:28:54

udders to start with, but he did eventually.

• 1:28:58

And some shearing that we did with the wool.

• 1:29:00

And we've shown some of the other creatures in the past, but we did have some chickens

• 1:29:03

that were added and eggs.

• 1:29:05

And I'm sure you've seen some of our other, we've got like a chicken pig creature and

• 1:29:09

some other creatures that may be coming in the world, but we want to definitely have

• 1:29:14

the ranching creatures you would expect in game, of course.

• 1:29:17

And then we'll have some more Varan specific ones coming out.

• 1:29:21

The next one, the next creature we have is actually quite awesome.

• 1:29:26

It's the crab fish, which I love.

• 1:29:32

Danny did such a good job with this one.

• 1:29:34

Yeah, careful what you what you go out there fishing for.

• 1:29:39

Yeah.

• 1:29:41

You might catch one of these bad boys.

• 1:29:43

And then for those of you who got the fall gaze stalker, this is how that's coming along.

• 1:29:48

And we actually have a turntable for it.

• 1:29:50

And don't worry, I'll be showing that costume in a moment here too.

• 1:29:56

But it's looking sick.

• 1:29:58

Looks great.

• 1:29:59

Yeah, love it.

• 1:30:00

And making many variants of that, I'm sure for creatures in the world.

• 1:30:04

Yeah, I was what they had.

• 1:30:05

I can't remember the name of it.

• 1:30:06

Is it a is it Manicor?

• 1:30:07

Or what is it?

• 1:30:08

I can't remember the name of the creature that's similar to this in D&D.

• 1:30:12

But I was watching that D&D movie.

• 1:30:14

And I thought they did a great job with that movie.

• 1:30:16

And I think they had one similar to this in the little maze area.

• 1:30:20

Yeah, I actually like the D&D movie as well.

• 1:30:22

Yeah, normally the D&D movies are cheesy, but that one was really good.

• 1:30:26

Yeah.

• 1:30:27

And then this is the Desolation Outlander armor that you just saw in that turntable.

• 1:30:32

Looks badass.

• 1:30:34

Jinsey did such a good job.

• 1:30:37

And we have the second sword.

• 1:30:40

And I believe we got a Vek donning this.

• 1:30:44

For those of you who maybe haven't seen a Vek in a bit.

• 1:30:49

They're pretty cool looking.

• 1:30:51

Looks great.

• 1:30:53

And this one was done by Keith.

• 1:30:56

I think he's one of the longest running employees here at Intrepid, right?

• 1:31:02

He was our first ever hired, actually.

• 1:31:05

Yeah.

• 1:31:06

Keith has made a lot of awesome stuff.

• 1:31:10

A lot of great stuff.

• 1:31:11

He's a phenomenal artist, great modeler, character artist.

• 1:31:15

And then we've got the Sons of Fortune.

• 1:31:24

And a couple Soulseeker variants.

• 1:31:33

And a couple masks.

• 1:31:35

So the first one is the Tormentor's Visage.

• 1:31:38

Oh, I was wearing that, but the white version.

• 1:31:40

I just didn't have the cloak on.

• 1:31:42

Oh, for the Soulseeker?

• 1:31:44

Yeah.

• 1:31:45

Yeah, if you saw Steven's character in game.

• 1:31:50

And then we've got the Midnight Mask.

• 1:31:52

I think this is still work in progress, but you can see some of it.

• 1:31:56

And then the fun one, Drum Roll.

• 1:31:59

Oh yeah, Steven can't hear the drum roll.

• 1:32:02

Now he can.

• 1:32:03

Uh oh.

• 1:32:04

Drum roll.

• 1:32:05

We've got our new Nekuwin looks.

• 1:32:09

Oh yeah.

• 1:32:11

So you probably saw some of the faces that we had here.

• 1:32:15

And then we have the bodies.

• 1:32:17

And then I also have some more shots for you guys to check out as well.

• 1:32:22

But they are coming along really nicely.

• 1:32:24

This is the Nekuwin.

• 1:32:25

These are the in-game models.

• 1:32:26

Yep.

• 1:32:27

Yep.

• 1:32:28

So you saw the concept art previously.

• 1:32:29

Now these are the models.

• 1:32:31

And of course you'll have some customization for yourself.

• 1:32:35

This is just like, you know, one that we've generated.

• 1:32:41

Somebody said, holy mother of forearms.

• 1:32:43

Yeah, he's beefy.

• 1:32:45

That was great.

• 1:32:48

Very nice.

• 1:32:51

Looks great.

• 1:32:52

And then we've got the female.

• 1:32:54

Let's hop over to them.

• 1:32:56

And I do have a turntable for the female as well.

• 1:33:05

Super cool.

• 1:33:06

Love it.

• 1:33:07

Yeah, it looks so good.

• 1:33:09

Love the body art.

• 1:33:11

The tattoos and stuff.

• 1:33:13

Yeah.

• 1:33:14

And we will have like a whole tattoo system in game as well, which is really exciting.

• 1:33:19

Absolutely.

• 1:33:20

It's the turntable of the female.

• 1:33:25

Yeah, I love the Polynesian influences for this race.

• 1:33:29

I think they, you know, it's an often underrepresented cultural influence in a lot of games.

• 1:33:37

And I think that the Nukuan history and lore tie in nicely to kind of representing, I think,

• 1:33:45

that aspect in Ashes.

• 1:33:47

Yeah, I feel like there's not always a lot of Islander or Asian specific vibes.

• 1:33:53

So I'm usually misrepresented or underrepresented in those games.

• 1:33:59

Sometimes there's not even female characters.

• 1:34:00

So with that, let's talk a little bit about studio updates.

Studio Update

• 1:34:06

There's one big one that I know folks have been asking about and is that person going

• 1:34:10

to be on the stream?

• 1:34:11

No, no.

• 1:34:12

I'm gonna let you know, as someone who was on a live stream and did it AMA my first week

• 1:34:17

starting, that's wild.

• 1:34:19

Hey, you were a trooper.

• 1:34:22

I downloaded everything and every piece of information I possibly could.

• 1:34:26

Yeah, so studio update.

• 1:34:28

Some of you might have seen an announcement.

• 1:34:30

We have brought on an absolutely glorious individual by the name of Bill Trost.

• 1:34:35

Funny enough, Bill was the first person I had ever interviewed, John and I ever interviewed

• 1:34:41

for Intrepid Studios.

• 1:34:43

But he joins us as of two weeks ago.

• 1:34:46

He has a rich history and a very tremendous amount of experience having shipped multiple

• 1:34:51

MMOs.

• 1:34:52

And he brings his wealth of knowledge to the team.

• 1:34:55

He's worked with many of the people in our studio over the course of his long tenure

• 1:35:01

as a game developer.

• 1:35:03

And he is currently in the process of catching up to speed as much as possible.

• 1:35:08

So it wasn't quite appropriate for us to invite him on this stream, but I'm sure in a future

• 1:35:12

stream, you guys will have an opportunity to meet and listen to Bill and chat with him.

• 1:35:17

So very excited about that.

• 1:35:18

Yeah, and we've done a few of those where you get to meet and learn more about some

• 1:35:24

of the developers, but we usually like to tie that in with a system that they're working

• 1:35:28

on or some kind of content piece.

• 1:35:30

We also get people who are mad because they're like, show us game.

• 1:35:34

We don't want to hear about this person.

• 1:35:36

It's finding a balance of like, we are people, but we also are trying to make a product for

• 1:35:41

you and show progression in that.

• 1:35:43

And hopefully you've been seeing that as we move forward.

• 1:35:45

And next month's live stream is also going to be a very long one.

• 1:35:48

So prepare yourself for that.

• 1:35:51

Oh my goodness.

• 1:35:53

You think this one was...

• 1:35:57

And with that, I think we'll go into our Q&A to wrap things up because we've been holding

Outro and Q&A

• 1:36:03

you all as long as we can so far.

• 1:36:06

But we do have a few more questions and some of them are specifically Freehold related

• 1:36:12

and others are not.

• 1:36:13

So we'll go through some of those.

• 1:36:16

I will just say that many people are asking for a leak.

• 1:36:19

I'm not going to give a leak, but I am just going to say that next month, and I'm pretty

• 1:36:26

sure it's going to be next month, that there's a slight possibility it might be the month

• 1:36:29

after, but next month, the hint will be send nodes.

• 1:36:34

Stephen.

• 1:36:35

What?

• 1:36:36

No, nodes.

• 1:36:37

Send nodes.

• 1:36:38

I know.

• 1:36:39

Okay.

• 1:36:40

Well, I'm going to leak something from PI meeting.

• 1:36:45

Someone might've said the wrong word at one point during the meeting.

• 1:36:49

Calling you out Roshan.

• 1:36:53

It was so funny.

• 1:36:54

I was laughing so hard.

• 1:36:57

Anyways, moving on, we've got our questions here.

• 1:37:00

So these were pulled from the forums.

• 1:37:01

Reminder that we do sometimes do these.

• 1:37:03

We might not do one for next month, but we do have a couple of Q&As slotted for Stephen

• 1:37:07

outside.

• 1:37:08

We'll see how that goes.

• 1:37:10

But for this one, this is from Songroon, which that's such a beautiful name.

• 1:37:14

Their question is about Freehold plot placement.

• 1:37:16

Will it be possible to choose the direction your Freehold is facing and buildings are

• 1:37:21

facing on your plot, particularly when using cosmetics from pre-order packs, or will this

• 1:37:25

already be determined by the plot you choose?

• 1:37:29

The answer to those questions are yes, yes, and yes.

• 1:37:31

So you can manipulate the orientation of the Freehold plot.

• 1:37:35

You can manipulate the orientation of the particular buildings.

• 1:37:38

And items.

• 1:37:40

And items, correct.

• 1:37:41

Yep.

• 1:37:42

And then-

• 1:37:43

Heavy, heavy degree of customization.

• 1:37:44

And by the way, those systems are in place for the furniture placements and the props.

• 1:37:48

It's just pending kind of UI treatments because right now it's all program art.

• 1:37:53

And for those of you who are unfamiliar, game development, UI and visual effects and audio

• 1:37:59

are often the most taxed teams because they tend to be at the end of each pipeline.

• 1:38:05

So-

• 1:38:06

Praise them.

• 1:38:07

Praise them.

• 1:38:08

And QA.

• 1:38:09

So all four of those teams are like, please give us the thing as early as possible.

• 1:38:13

Just to give context for why they're typically at the end of the pipeline of development

• 1:38:17

for many systems and or content is because you want to have all the iteration done for

• 1:38:23

a particular animation or a system or whatever before you get to the phase of the audio visual

• 1:38:30

effects or the UI.

• 1:38:32

And then typically when those systems all get completed, now it's all stacked up and

• 1:38:36

ready to get worked on by those teams.

• 1:38:39

So yeah.

• 1:38:40

Yeah.

• 1:38:41

And then the next one is from Zeke the Phoenix and they want to know about mounts and Freeholds.

• 1:38:45

Will you be able to keep your mounts that you've unlocked on your Freeholds plot to

• 1:38:49

move freely about as they please like in a stable or in a little fenced area?

• 1:38:54

There are a number of different types of ways that creatures can be acquired.

• 1:39:00

Some of them in a mount format and can be utilized in animal husbandry slash livestock

• 1:39:07

placements on the Freehold.

• 1:39:09

But from a cosmetic perspective, we don't quite have a system in place for that yet.

• 1:39:14

I'm not going to rule that out for the future or post launch, but right now it's delegated

• 1:39:18

specifically to like hunting, taming livestock and animal husbandry.

• 1:39:22

All right.

• 1:39:24

And then Tyran Thraxis wants to know about moving Freeholds.

• 1:39:29

How many times a year do you suspect that most players will be moving residents based

• 1:39:34

on nodes being eliminated from sieges?

• 1:39:39

That's a good question.

• 1:39:40

And there are a lot of variables that influence that answer.

• 1:39:42

I'm not sure I can give an average.

• 1:39:46

But what I would say is that depending on the political dynamic of a server, if a server

• 1:39:54

tends to have more combat and or sieges against nodes, that is going to increase the amount

• 1:40:07

of opportunity for Freeholds to be removed from the world and then replaced.

• 1:40:14

I'm not sure I have an average.

• 1:40:16

What I will say is that it is very important to remember that Ashes is not a PvP game and

• 1:40:22

it is not a PvE game.

• 1:40:23

It is a PvX game.

• 1:40:25

And that has a very specific meaning.

• 1:40:27

It means that as these systems are developed, as they are designed and they are integrated

• 1:40:34

with each other, they are done so from a competitive viewpoint and how that system relates to both

• 1:40:42

PvE and PvP.

• 1:40:45

Freeholds are one of those systems very much so.

• 1:40:47

And it's because of the cyclical nature that we're attempting to achieve with the development

• 1:40:52

of nodes and the destruction of nodes.

• 1:40:55

The world is a rapidly and dynamically changing place, really.

• 1:40:59

So it's intended to be something that is constantly recycling and is leaking out different types

• 1:41:05

of content and new content that revitalizes the player interest and stimulates new points

• 1:41:13

of conflict or cooperation.

• 1:41:16

That is what the goal is of the system.

• 1:41:18

And building the history of the game.

• 1:41:20

For instance, if you're part of the node that is the longest running node in the history

• 1:41:24

of your server, that's epic.

• 1:41:26

That's a story to tell.

• 1:41:28

And I think that hopefully you feel like you are part of it so much that you want to fight

• 1:41:36

for your Freehold and fight for your citizenship and fight for your area that you're in.

• 1:41:42

For anyone who has played a game that has persistency like that, there's a little bit

• 1:41:49

of ego that comes with some of that, I feel like, when it comes to servers and notoriety.

• 1:41:54

For sure.

• 1:41:55

I like somebody, I think Biggie said PvP now stands for player versus pig.

• 1:42:00

When you killed the mama pig and the babies had to be in front of the piglets.

• 1:42:05

We don't know that the piglet was related.

• 1:42:07

They could have been from different pig families.

• 1:42:09

There was no other mama pigs there.

• 1:42:12

We don't know that for certain.

• 1:42:15

Dr. Bucky, we need an update.

• 1:42:18

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:42:20

Zeyer wants to know.

• 1:42:22

Oh, sorry.

• 1:42:23

Go ahead.

• 1:42:24

I was just going to say, I love the emote that they did with the chicken dance.

• 1:42:28

Oh, my gosh, it was so great.

• 1:42:30

I was laughing so hard.

• 1:42:31

No, hilarious story.

• 1:42:32

I was late for a meeting yesterday with Bucky, Cory, and Mike.

• 1:42:39

And they took a video and they sent me a video on Slack and they were doing...

• 1:42:45

And Lucy, can I send this to you and you can show it?

• 1:42:49

Yeah, you can send it to me in DM.

• 1:42:51

I think they told me that I could show it.

• 1:42:56

Hold on.

• 1:42:57

Let me see.

• 1:42:58

Maybe they're going to regret that.

• 1:43:02

I think they might.

• 1:43:03

Hold on.

• 1:43:04

Okay, here we go.

• 1:43:06

Got it.

• 1:43:07

And let me...

• 1:43:09

They're probably trying to run to my office right now and stop me from doing it.

• 1:43:14

Okay, I just sent it to you in a DM on Slack.

• 1:43:19

Okay.

• 1:43:20

Oh, it's in like a...

• 1:43:22

So this is after we recorded.

• 1:43:28

They were waiting for me to come to a meeting.

• 1:43:30

I had to run out and do...

• 1:43:31

I had to run out for an errand and I was late for my meeting like five minutes and so they

• 1:43:35

sent me this.

• 1:43:36

Okay, hold on.

• 1:43:37

I'm going to drag it onto here.

• 1:43:41

Oh, it's because...

• 1:43:42

Why is it an MOV?

• 1:43:43

I don't know.

• 1:43:44

I don't know how they took it.

• 1:43:47

They probably did it on a phone or on their...

• 1:43:50

I think because it's an MOV, I can't put it on here.

• 1:43:53

But I can do it a different way.

• 1:43:55

I can play it on a screen and screen capture.

• 1:43:58

Yeah.

• 1:43:59

Good call.

• 1:44:00

Good call.

• 1:44:01

Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:02

So give me a second to...

• 1:44:03

So the idea is that a lot of these different emotes are part of the game that you can kind

• 1:44:09

of express yourself in.

• 1:44:11

This one was a leftover for those of you who were in APOC and tested for APOC, you had

• 1:44:18

this particular emote.

• 1:44:19

I have six monitors, so I got to find the right monitor.

• 1:44:23

Okay.

• 1:44:24

I'm going to transition here.

• 1:44:26

You're going to get a full screen of whatever this is.

• 1:44:30

This is what...

• 1:44:33

There's Bucky, Cory and Mike.

• 1:44:37

They were doing some great...

• 1:44:42

You know people are going to zoom in on the images on people's...

• 1:44:46

Those are animations.

• 1:44:47

They're animation references.

• 1:44:50

The mocap for the...

• 1:44:51

No, I don't think those were mocapped animations.

• 1:44:54

So good.

• 1:44:55

We need the mocap suit on them next time.

• 1:45:01

But in regards to the data about sieges and nodes and things like that, we will be capturing

• 1:45:05

a lot of that stuff in the backend.

• 1:45:07

So we could do some really cool server statistic data.

• 1:45:10

And I know from the marketing perspective, I would love to do lots of graphics like that

• 1:45:15

with details and stuff for you guys to look at on the website when it comes to server

• 1:45:20

details as well.

• 1:45:23

The next question here is from Zeyer, maintaining a freehold.

• 1:45:26

Is there going to be an upkeep to freeholds and nodes that if not provided will degrade

• 1:45:31

the freehold such as materials required to keep things running?

• 1:45:36

Well, as we spoke a little bit about through the artisanship and processing mechanics,

• 1:45:42

fuel is a necessary component of the actions that you can take with processing stations.

• 1:45:48

However, if we're talking about like material...

• 1:45:51

Excuse me.

• 1:45:55

If we're talking about material maintenance necessary for the actual freehold itself,

• 1:46:01

no.

• 1:46:02

There is, however, a tax system which requires taxes to be paid on the property that you

• 1:46:07

own.

• 1:46:08

And that tax system is informed by the number of permits for the types of buildings and

• 1:46:16

upgrades that you have on the freehold as well, including potentially the business.

• 1:46:20

So those tax certifications are kind of what's necessary to maintain or upkeep the node.

• 1:46:25

Okay.

• 1:46:26

And but in regards to like crops and creatures, will they have to have some upkeep to keep

• 1:46:31

those things alive?

• 1:46:32

Yeah, that's the livestock and the crop rotations have a process oriented approach, which means

• 1:46:42

that it includes things like watering and fertilizing and feeding and raising those.

• 1:46:50

That's kind of the process by which you get these things to the mature state.

• 1:46:54

The other thing is that like different types of assets on the farming side or on the livestock

• 1:46:58

side, they have different types of interactions.

• 1:47:00

So right now you're just kind of seeing one interaction.

• 1:47:03

The system hasn't been fully implemented yet, but certain types of creatures can be either

• 1:47:08

butchered or they can be harvested for their wool or their milk.

• 1:47:14

And then they can be, you know, plants can be like uprooted.

• 1:47:16

They can be fruited.

• 1:47:18

They can be harvested.

• 1:47:21

There's different types of interacts that are available based on the type of asset from

• 1:47:24

the farming perspective.

• 1:47:27

People are already zooming in on the whiteboard in the background.

• 1:47:31

Oh no.

• 1:47:32

Is there stuff on there?

• 1:47:33

I don't know, but it's funny.

• 1:47:37

Next up, we've got Strange Abe who wants to know about super fast freehold gathering.

• 1:47:41

Will there be quicker gather function in your freehold than the one that was seen?

• 1:47:47

Because right now you're like gathering one at a time on the crops.

• 1:47:50

Yes, there'll be different types of tools and or machinery that can be used to like

• 1:47:56

plant multiple seed types within a particular infrastructure that gives you bundles and

• 1:48:01

or many different harvestings.

• 1:48:02

That's part of progression.

• 1:48:04

So as you get more adept at farming, you have the ability to kind of mass produce.

• 1:48:09

And the same is true when you talk about quality, quantity, speed of processing across many

• 1:48:14

of the different processing professions.

• 1:48:17

All right.

• 1:48:18

And then we've got Team America wanting to know about guild hall crafting.

• 1:48:23

And I did see a bunch of questions about guild halls in the chat too, but this was about

• 1:48:26

freeholds, not guild halls.

• 1:48:29

Will guild halls be able to build high end crafting stations or other otherwise different

• 1:48:34

mechanics from freeholds?

• 1:48:37

Generally let me pause on the guild hall discussion because there are still some active iteration

• 1:48:44

being done on the designs for that based on what we've previously had.

• 1:48:49

So that'll be something that will update in the future on guild halls.

• 1:48:51

Cool, makes sense.

• 1:48:53

I mean, we could probably do a whole thing just on guild halls.

• 1:48:55

That's why I didn't, I saw a lot of questions about them in there.

• 1:48:57

I was like, that's a whole other thing homies.

• 1:48:59

Yeah, Jelon wants to know about freehold PvP.

• 1:49:04

Are you safe while on your freehold or do you have to be in a building to have safety

• 1:49:09

from other players?

• 1:49:11

Currently the only safe space for the freehold is the home.

• 1:49:16

So if you are within the home's footprint, you cannot be harmed via damage by other players.

• 1:49:22

Do you have to like lock your doors and windows like some other games that I've come across

• 1:49:26

or just inside?

• 1:49:27

Nope, just on the footprint of the home.

• 1:49:29

All right, on the footprint of the home.

• 1:49:32

What prevents players from PvPing you?

• 1:49:34

Is it just like a zone type of thing?

• 1:49:36

It's a hard lock when the system, when the ability checks a valid target, the return

• 1:49:41

is no.

• 1:49:42

Okay, just wanted to clarify because people are going to ask further.

• 1:49:47

And Paragrinium or Grinam wants to know about freehold durability.

• 1:49:52

Could you give us an idea of how durable a freehold is in case your node is successfully

• 1:49:58

staged?

• 1:49:59

Like how does that, you know, how long do I have to basically go clean up my stuff?

• 1:50:03

Yeah, that's, you know, that's a, it's a balance question and it's something that's going to

• 1:50:07

be a part of when we test that functionality, you know, where does landing right live?

• 1:50:12

And, you know, my expectation is that given the scope of time that's available for the

• 1:50:18

freehold to be destroyed, potentially after a node siege, we want to cater that balance

• 1:50:25

towards that period of time, essentially.

• 1:50:28

And knowing that that's a few hours, potentially, you want it to obviously to scale based on

• 1:50:34

the number of participants and or attackers you might have, but creating kind of a mini

• 1:50:40

encounter slash experience there.

• 1:50:42

So I don't have a direct answer to you.

• 1:50:44

It's going to live within the timeframe of that period of time that the freehold can

• 1:50:49

be destructed.

• 1:50:50

Awesome.

• 1:50:51

And these last two questions that were pulled from our forum folks are not necessarily freehold

• 1:50:56

specific.

• 1:50:57

So you can, it's all freehold.

• 1:51:02

Smucky wants to know about monster coins and world bosses.

• 1:51:07

Will world bosses like Tumac take part in the NPC sieges on nodes and will players be

• 1:51:13

able to use a monster coin to play as one of those world bosses in an event?

• 1:51:19

That is the intent is that we will have varying quality of monster coins available.

• 1:51:26

Creatures like Tumac may participate in certain atrophy events or other types of events.

• 1:51:33

But if you have the very rare and legendary type of monster coin that's available to be

• 1:51:38

used on a creature type like Tumac, then yes, you could inhabit him.

• 1:51:44

That's the intent of the system.

• 1:51:46

I love the idea that Tumac lives on this node area with you and is protecting the roaming

• 1:51:50

area around and then you're starting to get sieged and he's like, all right, I'll come

• 1:51:55

help you.

• 1:51:56

Some diplomacy happens and he gets on board and someone gets to play him.

• 1:52:00

That's cool.

• 1:52:01

I don't know.

• 1:52:02

I think right now I will say that the monster coin system is used exclusively for assaulting

• 1:52:08

nodes, not for defending them.

• 1:52:10

But okay, they took over your area.

• 1:52:13

Little does he know we're gonna do that to it too.

• 1:52:15

But don't tell him that he's low end.

• 1:52:19

It's fine.

• 1:52:20

I'm just kidding.

• 1:52:22

Next question here is I just like the RP element of it.

• 1:52:25

I'm sorry.

• 1:52:26

Jibz IRL wants to know about audio design from an audio creation standpoint.

• 1:52:30

How do you plan to make audio in Ashes of Creation an immersive experience?

• 1:52:34

And I do want to mention that if you haven't watched our 2022 recap, you should definitely

• 1:52:41

go do that because Kat talked.

• 1:52:43

She didn't really want to be on the stream, but she was wonderful and she did have like

• 1:52:46

a lot of great things to say about the audio in Ashes of Creation and her thoughts on it.

• 1:52:52

But I'll pass that to you, Steven.

• 1:52:53

For sure.

• 1:52:54

Audio is as important as visuals and sometimes in certain cases more.

• 1:53:02

For me specifically, when you talk about the audio design of like creatures and you know

• 1:53:09

the different types of kind of tactile responses you want to hear out of mining and resource

• 1:53:15

gathering and artisanship, I mean it permeates every layer of the game, right?

• 1:53:19

So we have a phenomenal audio team here that's comprised of both on the engineering side,

• 1:53:27

on the audio design side, and Kat is a phenomenal leader.

• 1:53:31

She is very dedicated to kind of the audio fidelity that we want to achieve with Ashes.

• 1:53:38

I think you guys can see that in the demonstrations and the kind of previews that we provide of

• 1:53:42

the game.

• 1:53:43

You know that when we're talking about the bar that we're setting in that quality, it

• 1:53:49

is, it is on par with what you would expect from other AAA type games.

• 1:53:53

You know, our perspective is that we want to, you know, create an environment that's

• 1:53:59

going to elicit emotion from the player when they hear these types of sound effects or

• 1:54:05

when they hear these types of ambiences or soundtracks and music that is accompanied.

• 1:54:09

And we want it to be defining either to the area, to the encounter, to the dungeon, you

• 1:54:14

know, something that when you hear it, you remember, oh, that's that place, you know,

• 1:54:20

that this brings back the memories, right?

• 1:54:23

And so, you know, having a team that's capable and dedicated in creating an experience for

• 1:54:27

themselves as a player as well.

• 1:54:30

I mean, that even goes down to brand.

• 1:54:32

Like one of the things when we first started was making that iconic like screech sound

• 1:54:36

when you hear the the phoenix come on the screen and, you know, some people were like,

• 1:54:42

well, why are you being so picky?

• 1:54:43

Why do you want that sound to be in everything?

• 1:54:44

I was like, because it's like that that sound you get when you're like, you know what it

• 1:54:48

is right away.

• 1:54:49

I think that to me, that's so important for not only, you know, the immersion of in-game,

• 1:54:53

but in other external places as well for people to know your brand and see that it's iconic.

• 1:54:59

And Steven, you made it.

• 1:55:00

All the questions, all the things covered.

• 1:55:04

I said at the start, I think this would have taken about one and a half to two hours.

• 1:55:07

And I think we're just going to be under two hours.

• 1:55:09

That's just under two hours.

• 1:55:10

I think the next one's going to be a long one, too.

• 1:55:13

But we hope that you have all enjoyed this.

• 1:55:15

Steven, do you have any final things that you want to mention before I do some quick

• 1:55:18

reminders?

• 1:55:19

Absolutely.

• 1:55:20

I just want to say, you know, thank you guys for being great sports and dedicated supporters

• 1:55:24

for the project.

• 1:55:25

You know, I know that development and the journey of development is not a journey for

• 1:55:31

everyone.

• 1:55:32

And it means very much to us that we have this rapport established with our core audience,

• 1:55:38

our golden players to kind of provide us with the navigational feedback and direction that

• 1:55:45

we're taking on the game side and making sure that that's validated by what our core audience

• 1:55:50

wants and believes in.

• 1:55:52

Right.

• 1:55:53

I mean, that is the best type of relationship that that any developer can have with their

• 1:55:58

audience.

• 1:55:59

And we are very privileged and honored to have that relationship with you guys.

• 1:56:02

And we appreciate it.

• 1:56:03

We hope you like what you're seeing.

• 1:56:05

And you guys are excited for playing the game because we're here every day, hard at work,

• 1:56:09

trying to make this dream a reality.

• 1:56:11

Everyone's kicking butt and having fun while we're doing it because, you know, gamers.

• 1:56:16

But if you do have thoughts and feedback for us, head on over to our forums, forums.ashesofcreation.com.

• 1:56:22

We have some threads that are already premade, but you can also create your own.

• 1:56:26

We'll be creating some feedback reports for our developers.

• 1:56:30

So please, please share that information with us.

• 1:56:33

Also, don't forget that Stephen will be joining the Ashen Forge for their hundredth episode

• 1:56:37

over on twitch.tv slash Theory Forge on July 9th.

• 1:56:41

So please tune into that.

• 1:56:43

It should be a really good time.

• 1:56:44

Stephen always answers, sometimes leaks something.

• 1:56:48

So we'll see what comes of that.

• 1:56:50

We also have our monthly cosmetic swap over that's happening for Songs of the Sea on July

• 1:56:55

12th, if you're interested in that.

• 1:56:57

And we don't have all the information on the swap over Stephen was giving you guys a very

• 1:57:02

big heads up that cosmetic packs and stuff are going to be changing in the future from

• 1:57:06

pre-order packs.

• 1:57:07

So just keep that in mind.

• 1:57:09

We will have more information as we get closer to that, but still we'll give you enough time

• 1:57:13

to and warning in advance.

• 1:57:15

So don't worry too much about that.

• 1:57:16

And of course, thank you very much to all of you for sticking with us for two hours.

• 1:57:22

And for following our journey, we hope that you enjoy it is, you know, making games is

• 1:57:26

not easy as people think it is.

• 1:57:30

And we also want folks to we want to say thank you to Dr. Bucky, Mike, Corey, and of course,

• 1:57:36

Stephen for presenting some really great information on freeholds.

• 1:57:40

We'll have some articles and content up for you guys after this.

• 1:57:44

So stay tuned for all that.

• 1:57:46

And if you follow us on all of our social channels, we also give lots of information

• 1:57:50

on things on a daily basis.

• 1:57:53

So you will have plenty of Ashes of Creation content to consume throughout the weeks.

• 1:57:59

And of course, we will have the video up on YouTube.

• 1:58:02

We're going to have the 4k one right away today for just the gameplay segment.

• 1:58:06

And then the full dev update should be up tomorrow pending technology cooperates.

• 1:58:10

And if you leave a comment on the dev update, you could be spotlighted for our next one.

• 1:58:16

So make sure you're a subscriber and that we can see that you're a subscriber and you

• 1:58:19

could get your comments spotlighted on our next live stream.

• 1:58:22

So with that, we are going to wrap up today and we hope that you have a wonderful month

• 1:58:27

and we will see you next month.

• 1:58:28

Happy 4th of July for you guys out there in America.

• 1:58:32

Happy birthday to Steven, because your birthday is going to happen before the update.

• 1:58:37

Next day, no two weeks.

• 1:58:38

Bye guys.

• 1:58:39

Getting old.

• 1:58:40

No, just kidding.

• 1:58:41

Same age as me.

• 1:58:42

All right.

• 1:58:43

Bye, guys.

• 1:58:44

Bye.

• 00:00

Hello and welcome to our glorious Ashes of Creation June development update.

• 00:23

We hope everyone is well and safe and has been having a wonderful month on our front.

• 00:28

It has been crazy.

• 00:29

You've got a lot going on and you better buckle in strap up because it's going to be a long

• 00:34

one today.

• 00:35

I hope everyone brought their snacks.

• 00:36

I was warning people in the chat.

• 00:39

So you've been warned.

• 00:40

It is going to be a long one.

• 00:41

I mean, what are we thinking here?

• 00:43

Probably at least an hour and a half, if not maybe two.

• 00:45

Oh my gosh.

• 00:46

Yeah, depending on how many questions we answer after.

• 00:49

So we'll see how it goes.

• 00:50

But a lot of good information, a lot of new information and updated information from old

• 00:55

information.

• 00:56

So keep that in mind as we're moving forward today.

• 00:58

But to cover what we're going to be covering, we're going to go quick reminders and try

• 01:01

to be really quick about that.

• 01:03

Freehold update.

• 01:04

We'll do some art updates, which includes some new Nekuun awesomeness.

• 01:08

I know folks have been asking about more dwarf stuff and a studio update and Q&A.

• 01:14

So first and foremost, we have our spotlight for our YouTube comment, which comes from

• 01:19

Zash Welshguy and wants to know with fishing, will we be able to use the fish we catch with

• 01:26

the animal husbandry profession?

• 01:28

Maybe have a freehold pond or a fish tank in the player home.

• 01:32

Yeah, this is something that we have ideas around and designs around.

• 01:37

We haven't done any implementation or development for it yet.

• 01:40

But the idea is that for certain types of fish or certain very rare kind of trophy-esque

• 01:46

fish, you would be able, instead of using the material to go through a process that

• 01:51

might put it into things that are more cosmetic focused, like a fish tank or a pond on the

• 01:56

freehold or something in the house.

• 01:59

We definitely have some ideas around there.

• 02:01

I think it's a super cool thing to kind of see something you've taken from the world

• 02:04

and now that you've domesticated or put into your customizable space.

• 02:09

A great question.

• 02:10

It's definitely on the top of our minds.

• 02:11

It's something that we're going to be exploring post-Alpha 2.

• 02:14

Awesome, awesome.

• 02:16

And then we've got Stephen will be on the Ashen Forge over on twitch.tv slash theory

• 02:22

forge on July 9th.

• 02:24

I think that they're going to be putting up a thread over on our forums as well to gather

• 02:27

some questions from the community after the live stream.

• 02:30

So definitely check that out.

• 02:33

Stephen will probably answer a lot of questions.

• 02:35

They always have a good time and ask a lot of good things.

• 02:39

And of course, we also have our dev discussion about role-playing up.

• 02:42

We would love for you to tell us what systems and features make role-playing fun.

• 02:46

What features help remove hurdles and barriers?

• 02:48

So if you have thoughts on that, please feel free to pop on over to our forums and give

• 02:53

us your thoughts.

• 02:54

And of course, we also have our cosmetic swap over happening for the songs of the sea on

• 03:00

July 12th, 2023.

• 03:02

And I know that we had previously said that the packages will be changing coming up in

• 03:07

the future, but Stephen was giving you all a long warning.

• 03:10

It's going to be a bit before that change over happens, but we will give you guys ample

• 03:13

notice with an FAQ on details of what that will entail.

• 03:17

And with that, we will move on to Freehold Goodness.

• 03:21

So if you want to do any prefaces here, Stephen.

• 03:24

Yes, let me give you guys a bit of a preface.

• 03:26

So we decided to take a little bit of a different approach with this presentation.

• 03:34

The first half of this is going to be really focused in on detailing out some of the mechanics

• 03:42

of the Freehold system.

• 03:44

A part of it is going to be reiterating what you guys have known for a while, but another

• 03:49

part of it is going to be giving some updates around these designs and some changes that

• 03:54

have occurred in anticipation of the rollout for Freeholds during Alpha 2.

• 04:00

So give us your feedback on whether or not you like the style of this approach for the

• 04:04

presentation.

• 04:06

The first, like I said, half of it is going to be us kind of going through slides and

• 04:10

showing some of the tech trees of the buildings and some of the purposes of these different

• 04:15

systems on the Freehold.

• 04:16

And then after that, we're going to have a little bit of gameplay in the world showcasing

• 04:21

the Freeholds.

• 04:22

I believe Bucky has a Freehold we're going to be going through, doing some farming on

• 04:26

it, some live interactions with some of the livestock.

• 04:29

We're also going to be showing off as an ancillary overview some of the changes that we had talked

• 04:35

about previously to the inventory system.

• 04:38

We're going to show some of the storage off.

• 04:40

We're going to show off a couple of new mounts and some of the mining areas.

• 04:45

But it's something that really the focus is giving you guys expectations around how Freeholds

• 04:51

have changed coming towards Alpha 2.

• 04:54

So hopefully you guys enjoy.

• 04:55

This is going to be a long one.

• 04:56

It's about an hour long video.

• 04:58

Yeah, over an hour long.

• 05:01

So enjoy and we'll see you afterwards.

• 05:16

Hello everyone and welcome to another I was about to say day in Vera, but actually we

• 05:22

are going to be doing something a little bit different than what you are accustomed to.

• 05:28

And the reason for this is because we are getting a little bit into the systems and

• 05:33

the mechanics of how Freeholds work.

• 05:36

And it's going to be a two part presentation, the first of which you're seeing now is going

• 05:40

to be in the format of a more PowerPoint oriented kind of presentation talking about the mechanics,

• 05:45

looking at skill trees.

• 05:47

And then the second part is going to be in game where we're going to take a look at some

• 05:51

of the systems like farming, livestock, housing and storage.

• 05:57

But I am joined today by three absolutely glorious developers on the Ashes of Creation

• 06:04

dev team.

• 06:06

Our designers, first of which is a regular appearing guest, Mr. Bucky.

• 06:13

How you doing, Bucky?

• 06:14

Hey, how's it going?

• 06:16

I'm Bucky, AKA Dr. Bucky, a game designer here at Intrepid helping out some of the Arts

• 06:22

and Ship designs and also some of the systems related nodes and Freeholds and also a little

• 06:26

bit of combat design.

• 06:28

Yes.

• 06:29

And we also have with us joining, I believe for the first time, one of our glorious designers,

• 06:34

Mike.

• 06:35

Hello, my name is Mike.

• 06:36

I'm a senior systems designer here at Intrepid.

• 06:41

It's really nice to be here.

• 06:42

Yeah, I deal with economy and itemization and this is the first time on livestream.

• 06:47

I'm really excited.

• 06:48

Yeah.

• 06:49

Yes, excited to have you as well.

• 06:50

And we have Cory also, Cory, I believe you were on our December livestream that we did.

• 06:58

Yeah, I was there for the gathering and I'm Cory, I'm a technical designer and I focus

• 07:04

mostly on artisanship and economy.

• 07:06

Kind of jump around to other things, but those are my main things.

• 07:10

Yes.

• 07:11

Now we have an exciting topic today, which is I think near and dear to a lot of players'

• 07:17

hearts and that is Freeholds.

• 07:20

What are we looking at here?

• 07:21

Tell me a little bit of what this concept art is.

• 07:24

We've obviously talked a lot about Freeholds in the past as a system since back in 2017

• 07:29

when we first were discussing Ashes of Creation with the community during Kickstarter and

• 07:34

what the intent of Freeholds are.

• 07:36

But what are we looking at and tell me a little bit about the system overall.

• 07:40

Yeah, we got a little example set of a Freehold here.

• 07:45

We got on the left, we have some farmable animals, some livestock here in pens, and

• 07:49

then we have in the middle there's a bunch of crop rows of farmable crops the players

• 07:53

can have.

• 07:54

And then there's a couple different examples of different kind of Freehold buildings you

• 07:56

have on your Freehold, one of which is the house on the right and then some other Freehold

• 08:01

buildings as well.

• 08:02

Like it looks like there's a mill in the back there as well.

• 08:04

Yeah.

• 08:05

And for those of you who have just been kind of tuning into Ashes of Creation's development

• 08:10

or don't follow along in game development or other projects, this type of concept art

• 08:15

is really important, especially for the artists on the team who are helping develop and create

• 08:22

the world around you.

• 08:23

It kind of sets the mood for what we're trying to accomplish when environment art starts

• 08:28

creating these assets and starts creating these environments, right?

• 08:33

What's the type of visuals we're looking to achieve?

• 08:36

Yeah, it really, really helps us, right?

• 08:39

Like we can only do so much on paper and we have to start kind of visualizing the ideas,

• 08:46

right?

• 08:47

So kind of coming up with the space and what's going to fit and how's it going to look and

• 08:51

all of these things that we want to coexist in this space, right?

• 08:55

Like concept lets us know whether or not it's even possible.

• 08:58

So looking at stuff like this is super exciting.

• 09:01

Yes.

• 09:02

And as I said, we have a few updates to the system that we're going to go over in detail

• 09:05

through this PowerPoint.

• 09:07

But to start us off, let us ask a question.

• 09:11

What exactly are freeholds?

• 09:16

Freeholds obviously have a lot of different purposes within Ashes of Creation.

• 09:20

However, three main purposes that freeholds provide are allowing really players an opportunity

• 09:27

to kind of express themselves in a highly customizable fashion, right?

• 09:31

So these are plots of lands that you have access to.

• 09:34

You can build different types of buildings on.

• 09:36

You can create housing and place furniture and you can grow livestock and you can just

• 09:42

own this piece of land.

• 09:44

And one unique thing about allowing the players kind of express themselves through this manner

• 09:48

in Ashes of Creation is that it's in the open world.

• 09:51

So it's not an instance or a phased location that you are kind of customizing.

• 09:57

You're actually leaving a mark on the world that's representative of you as a player,

• 10:02

as a character, something something you can you can role play.

• 10:06

But importantly enough, when it comes to the economy, freeholds also provide the highest

• 10:12

level of processing that's available.

• 10:14

And processing is one of three primary branches that exist within the Artisanship system.

• 10:20

Processing is kind of the intermediary step between what you gather in the wild and what

• 10:24

you eventually craft via recipes.

• 10:27

The other primary purpose of freeholds is that they allow you to offer certain types

• 10:32

of business services, right?

• 10:33

Because we don't just want to make freeholds delegated to the individual owner, we want

• 10:39

it to have capabilities to kind of interact with other players as they're walking past

• 10:44

your freehold, as they're going to these hunting grounds and participating in quests or events

• 10:50

that might be existing around.

• 10:51

And that means that location matters for the freehold because it's important to the business.

• 10:56

Have you guys ever, I mean, Corey, Bucky, Mike, have you guys ever played a game that's

• 11:02

had a system as intricate as freeholds are in an MMO?

• 11:07

Talk to me a little bit about your experiences.

• 11:12

There are housing systems in other MMOs, right?

• 11:15

But it's not as much ambitious of projects that we're trying to accomplish here.

• 11:20

There's always putting some furnitures, putting some cosmetic stuff that's on the freehold

• 11:27

to look nice, but we're trying to accomplish three major pillars, which is looking unique,

• 11:33

making an impact on the economy.

• 11:35

And I really love the part that we're trying to make a footprint onto the real world that

• 11:40

you are actually owning a piece of land in an MMO.

• 11:43

And I think that's really cool.

• 11:45

I think it's super cool too.

• 11:46

I mean, I've played games, obviously they have housing systems and they sometimes delegate

• 11:50

those housing locations to very specific areas that are off the beaten path and aren't necessarily

• 11:57

fully integrated into the rest of the world or certain environments and areas that players

• 12:01

like to play in.

• 12:02

And one thing that I like that we're achieving with the freehold system is really moving

• 12:07

that into the world that players are a part of and doing things in.

• 12:13

Here we're kind of looking at a layout and talk to me a little bit, Bucky, about these

• 12:19

different aspects of the types of buildings that you can place and the things that you

• 12:24

can do on the freehold that we see here.

• 12:26

Yeah, for sure.

• 12:27

I mean, players will have a lot of freedom in what they choose to outfit their freehold

• 12:31

with and kind of like what you were talking about before.

• 12:33

In other games, we've seen different housing systems where it's more kind of like plot

• 12:37

based and you're kind of locked into specific places for building stuff.

• 12:40

But in ours, it's going to be you have a lot more freedom in where those buildings go,

• 12:44

which buildings you choose, how many buildings you even want, if you want to just sacrifice

• 12:48

maybe some building space for additional farming space.

• 12:50

So players will have a lot of opportunity to customize the way their freehold looks

• 12:55

and operates.

• 12:56

Absolutely cool.

• 12:57

I see that there is a shed that's listed there.

• 13:01

Is that shed?

• 13:02

Do we talk about the shed a little bit later in the presentation?

• 13:04

Yeah, we can touch on that later, I think.

• 13:07

Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool.

• 13:08

All right.

• 13:09

So you're obviously asking yourself, how do I own a freehold?

• 13:14

Bucky, do you want to talk to us a little bit about that?

• 13:17

Sure, yeah.

• 13:18

So it's kind of a multi-step process.

• 13:20

But the first thing you'll have to do is you have to complete a quest to unlock the ability

• 13:23

to even acquire the freehold permit.

• 13:26

So once you do that quest line, you'll be able to go to the node and bid on an available

• 13:31

freehold permit.

• 13:32

If you're able to win the permit.

• 13:33

Oh, sorry.

• 13:34

And real quick, Bucky, so the purpose of that quest is, you know, these nodes aren't just

• 13:39

going to grant the ability to own land within their zone of influence to anybody, right?

• 13:46

And so the quest is kind of a method by which the node gets to vet both the intent of the

• 13:53

player who's attempting to own this parcel of land, but also whether or not they are

• 13:58

up to the chops of actually owning and servicing a freehold, because it takes a lot to service

• 14:04

these freeholds.

• 14:05

Yeah, exactly.

• 14:06

Very cool.

• 14:07

So talk to us a little bit about these parcels.

• 14:10

Like how do they exist around the node?

• 14:12

Yeah, so basically, there'll be a variety of predetermined parcels of land in each node

• 14:16

zone of influence.

• 14:19

And once players acquire their freehold permit, they'll be able to lay claim to any available

• 14:24

parcel in the issuing nodes region.

• 14:26

So any and by region, we mean that any any region nodes region is the total combined

• 14:31

territory of a node and all of its vassal nodes.

• 14:34

So if you if you acquire a freehold permit in the metropolis of a huge region, you know,

• 14:38

almost 20% of the map, right, you'll be able to lay a claim to a available parcel anywhere

• 14:43

within that region.

• 14:44

So it gives you a lot of freedom if you're able to acquire the permit from a metropolis.

• 14:47

Yeah.

• 14:48

Yeah, this is this is one of the first changes for those of you in our core audience who

• 14:52

have been following development for a period of time.

• 14:55

Now, you will know that because we are in active development, everything that relates

• 15:02

to the design of the game is available to be iterated upon and changed.

• 15:07

And so as I said, at the start of this, you're going to be seeing a little bit of changes

• 15:11

to the systems and we'll eventually show you here in game some of those systems, but you're

• 15:16

going to see a little bit of change.

• 15:17

And this is one of the first one is that these are predetermined locations that exist around

• 15:23

the node or under its vassal structure that you will have the ability to bid on.

• 15:31

And to give you kind of a sense there, this allows us to to customize a bit of those those

• 15:38

predetermined parcels like a Sherwood Forest type of example or, you know, the hills of

• 15:47

Verdant Glen or something.

• 15:49

Thank you.

• 15:50

Exactly.

• 15:51

Thank you.

• 15:52

Essentially, letting us kind of customize that.

• 15:53

And then when you own when you've taken the permit for that parcel, then you get to go

• 15:59

and place your freehold plot out in that section of that area of the world.

• 16:06

Right.

• 16:07

So these will have many parcels by which they are able to to sell permits to and it will

• 16:13

be on a auction basis.

• 16:16

So talk to us a little bit about that permit and what it looks like to lay that down, Bucky.

• 16:20

Sure.

• 16:21

Yeah.

• 16:22

So it'll basically be an item in your bag.

• 16:23

And once you, you know, you get to your parcel, you claim that piece of land and then once

• 16:27

it's claimed, you'll be able to use the item to, you know, go into top down view and lay

• 16:32

out actually exactly where your freehold will go on that parcel of land.

• 16:35

You have a lot of freedom.

• 16:36

So a lot of a lot of that will be going through looking at your whole area of land you now

• 16:40

own claim to and then deciding where the best spot to put your freehold in there would be.

• 16:45

Awesome.

• 16:46

And, and, you know, having this type of layout makes it so that in the world when we talk

• 16:52

about the visual fidelity and the kind of, you know, freehold density that might exist

• 16:57

out in these open areas, we don't want it to be where you're running through the world

• 17:02

and at every glance you see someone's freehold, right?

• 17:06

And what this allows us to kind of do is partition those spaces out so that there's a minimum

• 17:12

distance essentially between the different freeholds.

• 17:15

Yeah.

• 17:16

And there'll be places like where you won't be able to put a freehold even like a point

• 17:20

of interest or roads or, you know, a dungeon area.

• 17:23

So the parcels will kind of be mapped around those areas as well.

• 17:27

Awesome.

• 17:28

Very cool.

• 17:29

I also want to point out the concept art of this piece is vastly different than what we

• 17:34

showed earlier, which kind of gives you the freedom of the placement of what you can do.

• 17:38

This is like way more farming in farming aesthetics where, where the gatherables are a whole bunch

• 17:47

in the middle and then there's like a storage mill kind of thing in the middle.

• 17:51

So that's how much freedom that we want to offer players how customizable a freehold

• 17:56

can be.

• 17:57

Yeah.

• 17:58

I love that.

• 17:59

It's super, super cool.

• 18:00

It's, you know, like, like we said, one of the first and most important aspects of the

• 18:03

freehold system is that it's giving the players that level of customization to help them represent

• 18:10

their identity, the identity of their character, right?

• 18:13

Now obviously the freehold would not be a freehold without a house.

• 18:19

That's the most important aspect of the freehold system.

• 18:24

It's also what is the first necessary thing that you must build.

• 18:28

Talk to us a little bit about housing.

• 18:30

Yeah.

• 18:31

So as you can see here, we got some examples of the different sizes of houses you might

• 18:35

be able to have on your freehold.

• 18:38

And the first, like you said, the first building you need to build on the field is a house.

• 18:41

And then once you do that, you're able to, you know, build other buildings like the different

• 18:44

artisanship buildings or businesses we'll get to later.

• 18:48

Now before, before that house is present, what's on the freehold?

• 18:52

It's just an empty plot of land.

• 18:54

All you have will be the little storage shed that gives you the base storage to be able

• 18:57

to bring materials to your freehold and then make your construction.

• 19:00

Nice.

• 19:01

Awesome.

• 19:02

So basically as you acquire that house blueprint, you go and you preview the location of the

• 19:09

house blueprint on the piece of land.

• 19:12

And when you lay down the construction site, you're expected to bring materials through

• 19:16

the caravan system or through the mule system, or even individually, if you want to take

• 19:20

many trips to the location of the shed and then deposit within that sheds storage.

• 19:26

Is that correct?

• 19:28

Exactly.

• 19:29

Yeah.

• 19:30

Cool.

• 19:31

And then what happens if I want to go ahead, sorry.

• 19:34

I was just going to say, once, once you do that, you'll be able to initiate the construction

• 19:36

and complete the house and then proceed with your other thing.

• 19:39

Very cool.

• 19:40

And so you were talking a little bit about the housing sizes, right?

• 19:43

Small, medium, and large.

• 19:45

These actually have mechanical influences around the design of the freehold system.

• 19:50

Talk to us a little bit about what that size controls.

• 19:52

Yeah.

• 19:53

Well, one of the main things that will control is your furniture allotment.

• 19:56

So a small house, for example, might only be able to place, you know, a hundred furniture

• 20:00

items, whereas a medium or large house would be able to place many more.

• 20:04

And so that's kind of a bouncing factor for players in determining if they want to have

• 20:08

a larger house or have a smaller house and have more farmland, whereas they're sacrificing

• 20:11

furniture then for that.

• 20:14

Got it.

• 20:15

So space actually matters here.

• 20:16

And when you talk about, you know, that furniture having a functional benefit to the player,

• 20:20

Corey, what are some examples of that, you know, furniture system?

• 20:24

I know we've talked in the past about some of these, but talk to me a little bit about

• 20:28

the importance of having that furniture and how that furniture kind of gets placed.

• 20:31

Is it going to be placed anywhere?

• 20:33

Is it going to be placed on top of each other?

• 20:34

Tell us a little bit about the furniture.

• 20:37

Yeah.

• 20:38

You know, placing the furniture is like one of the most fun, at least for me, parts of

• 20:45

customizing, you know, your place or your land, right?

• 20:49

Like that's where you can really kind of express yourself and you can, oh, this looks like

• 20:52

a good place to have a dining room.

• 20:54

This looks like a good place to put my bed.

• 20:57

You know, maybe this is looking really cozy.

• 21:00

I'd like to do my cooking in here and place down a cooking station.

• 21:05

Right.

• 21:06

So the other point, too, is that like not all furniture is just cosmetic, right?

• 21:12

There could be functional furniture and we're not talking just a chair that you can interact

• 21:17

with and sit down with, but there might be something along the lines of furniture that

• 21:23

gives you buffs or bolsters up some consumables that you may have, right?

• 21:28

So there is more to the space that the house gives you to place the furniture because that

• 21:34

might allow you to get more function out of said furniture.

• 21:38

So there's some thought that goes into whether or not you want more furniture space or less

• 21:44

furniture space, more farmland, less farmland.

• 21:47

That's pretty fun.

• 21:48

Absolutely.

• 21:49

I love it when the furniture actually has a purpose, right?

• 21:53

Outside of just the visual appearance and the aesthetic of the home, but is something

• 21:57

that players are called to interact with because it provides a benefit in the game as well.

• 22:04

Now housing, of course, wouldn't be housing without the ability to customize that appearance.

• 22:11

And you'll see here a few different examples of housing that's representative of at least

• 22:18

eight of the nine different races.

• 22:20

You'll notice that the Talnor aren't represented here, but they will be represented in the

• 22:25

future.

• 22:26

But the blueprint that we talked about earlier, when you acquire this blueprint, talk to me

• 22:31

a little bit, Mike, about that process.

• 22:34

Where do you kind of acquire these blueprints?

• 22:36

What are the multiple ways that you can get them essentially?

• 22:41

So a blueprint, like the basic ones, could be sold at a node vendor, something similar

• 22:48

to what a node is racial influences.

• 22:51

So if it's a Kaler node, you should be able to buy a Kaler house.

• 22:55

But it's interesting that we tie this system to a blueprint because we can do so much more

• 23:00

itemization portion of it.

• 23:02

So we can drop it from a boss.

• 23:03

We can make it from a scribe, can write a blueprint that is very specific or unique

• 23:07

look.

• 23:08

And if you went to a Kaler node, maybe they'll sell a recipe to write a medium Kaler house.

• 23:14

And if you go to a Renkai one, they'll sell you a blueprint for a large Renkai house.

• 23:19

So there is that acquisition of blueprint collecting, and then you can sell that to

• 23:24

other players when you acquire unique housing blueprint from a boss, for example.

• 23:30

I like the market implication that that has where you essentially can get these uniquely

• 23:34

acquired blueprints and then you can trade and sell them to other players who might not

• 23:39

have had the same opportunity to acquire them that you had.

• 23:43

And in addition to that, we have obviously cosmetics that we have sold as part of different

• 23:50

packs throughout the past, our pre-order system.

• 23:55

Those cosmetics are split into three primary categories, housing, artisanship, and business.

• 24:03

And we will have a breakdown that we're going to be releasing of the cosmetics that have

• 24:09

come previously and which categories they exist in.

• 24:12

But players will have the option to override the appearance of a blueprint that exists

• 24:17

within one of those categories with an associated cosmetic skin.

• 24:22

And you know, that is obviously not just something that can be purchased through the pre-order

• 24:27

system, but also can be achieved in game as well, are cosmetics that can be applied to

• 24:33

specific building types.

• 24:35

And we don't get as granular where let's say you might have a shrine cosmetic and you have,

• 24:42

let's say a blacksmith building that you wouldn't be able to apply the shrine to the blacksmith

• 24:47

building.

• 24:48

If the shrine exists in the artisanship lane, you can apply it to any artisanship type building,

• 24:54

but not to a house or business.

• 24:56

So giving a little bit of additional context there.

• 25:00

So what are businesses, you might ask after hearing that category, businesses serve a

• 25:06

specific function.

• 25:07

Mike, do you want to talk to us a little bit about businesses?

• 25:11

Business building is a category where we wanted to kind of branch out of just artisanship

• 25:15

buildings, right?

• 25:17

So things like taverns, things like a market kind of thing where you can install a player

• 25:21

stall so other people can come and visit your freehold and buy things that are unique to

• 25:27

tie to you.

• 25:28

Or other services like taverns where you could sell a food buff that's unique to your tavern

• 25:34

or something that you can kind of invest and then build.

• 25:37

So you can have a service building that's near to a POI that's really populated.

• 25:42

So you can help players to, you know, maybe gain more XP buff, things like that.

• 25:48

And this is the perfect place where we can express that and then allow players to customize

• 25:53

their freehold even more.

• 25:54

We wanted to branch out from artisanship, just only that, and then have more options

• 25:58

for it.

• 25:59

Very cool.

• 26:00

I love the idea of not just the business as a whole and how it relates to kind of other

• 26:06

players and their ability to kind of traverse the world and see what you've accomplished,

• 26:11

but allowing players to customize the offerings that the business is capable of providing

• 26:16

based on what they're creating as an artisanship member.

• 26:22

Or even what they can acquire from other players to offer through their business as well.

• 26:27

And one additional note here is that, you know, freeholds are meant to be a part of

• 26:33

the family system.

• 26:35

Meaning that to utilize the benefits the freehold and the services and mechanics that the freehold

• 26:40

provides, it is very conducive to be part of a family with multiple members who are

• 26:46

capable of interfacing with this.

• 26:48

And because of that, systems like the business system allow for certain permissions to be

• 26:53

granted to administer the business functions.

• 26:56

And that includes things like setting prices and setting types of sellables or services

• 27:03

that are capable of being sold through the business.

• 27:08

It's also a great mention there too is that the fact that, you know, freeholds, there's

• 27:13

not going to be a ton of parcels all over the world, you know, that might not be feasible

• 27:17

for every player to get one.

• 27:18

But even if you're a fan, if you can be a family member and you have a whole family

• 27:22

owning a freehold together, it'll allow many more players to like see the system and partake

• 27:25

in it.

• 27:26

Yeah, absolutely.

• 27:27

That's a, I love that aspect of the freeholds.

• 27:31

Now speaking of a tavern and, you know, we've obviously talked in the past about having

• 27:38

upgrades available for these types of buildings.

• 27:43

Let's use this tavern as an example of the types of upgrades that are possible.

• 27:50

Talk me through this, what we're looking at here, this tree upgrade path.

• 27:54

Yeah, I'll jump in.

• 27:56

So this is something I'm super excited about.

• 27:59

This is, you know, this is an idea that surfaced through another system that I'm sure we'll

• 28:04

get to see in the future, right?

• 28:06

And it was one of those like, oh, well, that's fun.

• 28:08

Like, why can't we have that?

• 28:11

And it just sort of played out perfectly that, you know, buildings could have upgrade paths

• 28:16

to make them better or worse or more specific in a certain lane of specialization based

• 28:23

on like how you're trying to set up your freehold, right?

• 28:25

So the idea is you place down the building and as you become more proficient in a thing,

• 28:34

in the case of artisanship, or as you work within the business building, you could build

• 28:42

up the building to be better at some things than others.

• 28:44

So what we're looking at here is just kind of an example of that, right?

• 28:48

Like we have this tavern, we placed it down and, you know, we're really focused on wanting

• 28:53

people to come by here and, you know, gain extra experience or rested experience because

• 28:58

it's, you know, maybe our freehold is really, really close to a nice hunting spot.

• 29:03

So we'll upgrade our tavern to have these upgraded feather beds to give players that

• 29:09

bonus, right?

• 29:10

And all of the things that, you know, you just went over Steven about being able to

• 29:14

set the permissions and decide who you want this to apply to, how expensive it should

• 29:18

be, right?

• 29:20

You could be, you know, that guy that's got the tavern that's helpful to the guild.

• 29:25

You could be the person where people like to stop by and hang out for a bit, get the

• 29:29

rested experience and some food buffs before they go out hunting, right?

• 29:33

And you know, this allows people to, you know, have their freeholds next to each other and

• 29:38

have their own niches of things that they offer to themselves, to the people that they

• 29:44

play with or, you know, to the public.

• 29:46

So.

• 29:47

Absolutely cool.

• 29:48

Yeah, I love that.

• 29:49

And to give kind of a primary, we're looking at specifically this upgrade to the tavern

• 29:53

type business, which includes the ability to offer beds to weary travelers, right?

• 29:58

And beds have a specific functionality.

• 30:01

We were talking previously about furnitures offering in-game mechanics.

• 30:05

One of those functionalities that beds provide is a rested experience buff that can be applied.

• 30:10

This is obviously going to be kind of at the top tier of what travelers can expect to utilize

• 30:15

at taverns when it comes to these beds.

• 30:19

That's important because one other aspect of the freeholds is that freeholds are a privilege,

• 30:26

not a right, meaning that there is a limited number of freeholds that will be available

• 30:31

within the game world.

• 30:33

And that's a very important aspect of this particular feature.

• 30:37

And remember that housing exists within three different types.

• 30:41

Freeholds are just one of those types of housings.

• 30:44

Housing also exists as static in node versions as well as instanced.

• 30:49

And there's also an additional feature that we haven't, I believe, discussed before, which

• 30:53

is the inn.

• 30:55

And the inn can service as a temporary living space that doesn't have restriction on the

• 31:02

quantity but has a soft ceiling when it comes to the citizenship dues that might be accrued

• 31:10

at a node.

• 31:11

So if you didn't own a freehold out in a location or hunting ground where you would be participating

• 31:17

in some type of adventuring or quest, and you see a tavern with a bed available, you

• 31:23

may want to make a stop there and utilize the bed so that when you go out to the nearby

• 31:29

hunting ground, you get that rested experience.

• 31:32

And that's an important aspect of this.

• 31:34

This is very cool.

• 31:35

I love the aspect of the upgrade paths and being able to specialize in the specific types

• 31:42

of buildings that you construct.

• 31:43

Now let's say, for example, in this situation, I've constructed a tavern and I have specced

• 31:48

into this tier two branch of the feathered beds.

• 31:52

If I wanted to have the opposite direction in the technology branch here, how would I

• 31:58

be able to service that?

• 31:59

Would I have to stand up another tavern and then spec into that branch there?

• 32:04

Well, technically you'd have that option, right?

• 32:08

You could repurpose the current tavern that you have or you could build yourself another

• 32:13

tavern if you're willing to give up the space and do more.

• 32:17

Absolutely cool.

• 32:18

That's awesome.

• 32:19

That's awesome.

• 32:20

And remember, one of the...

• 32:21

Oh, go ahead.

• 32:22

Yeah, so I just want to say there is a key point of real estate in the freehold.

• 32:26

There is limited amount of space, right?

• 32:27

It's really up to the player to give that choice.

• 32:31

Is this additional buffs on a new tavern building worth what I'm giving up for, for another

• 32:36

building?

• 32:37

That's a very interesting take that players needs to make to make freeholds efficient.

• 32:43

Right, exactly.

• 32:45

And just to remind you guys, again, these are the systems we will be testing in Alpha

• 32:50

2.

• 32:51

And it's important that you guys provide feedback across these types of systems.

• 32:55

Tell us what you like, what you think could be done better.

• 32:58

And as you play test them in Alpha 2 and as you watch other players play test these systems,

• 33:04

afterwards that is going to be our opportunity to take the feedback and iterate on the system.

• 33:09

So it's important to kind of, you know, focus in on these, on these details.

• 33:14

Now outside of businesses, let's talk a little bit about artisanship and more specifically

• 33:21

processing as it exists within the freeholds and how the freehold ties into the artisanship

• 33:27

as a whole, Corey.

• 33:29

Yeah, so you know, we talked about the three lanes of the buildings, right?

• 33:33

And artisanship is one of them.

• 33:35

So the way that we're sort of tying that in is that each crafting and processing profession

• 33:40

will have a building associated with it, right?

• 33:43

So before you can place any sort of stations down that are associated with that crafting

• 33:48

or processing profession, you'll have to construct your building.

• 33:52

And once the building is constructed, right, it has that similar tech tree thing going

• 33:57

on, right?

• 33:58

So you can, you can spec it in the direction that you'd like it to go.

• 34:01

And maybe that synergizes or balances out the way that you're specing your profession.

• 34:08

And yeah, it gives you access to placing stations.

• 34:12

It gives you access to placing more stations.

• 34:14

And then we also have some benefits that are conferred by the building itself to all of

• 34:22

the things related on the freehold.

• 34:24

So let's say there's some sort of weaponsmithing bonus given by a weaponsmithing building.

• 34:30

That would mean that your weaponsmithing stations on your freehold would incur that bonus.

• 34:36

So very cool.

• 34:38

Yeah, I really like the aspect of, you know, some games take a direction.

• 34:44

Um, that departs a bit from realism.

• 34:47

And I think ultimately the end goal of any system that you implement into a game is to

• 34:50

have fun, right?

• 34:51

Is that gameplay loop there fun?

• 34:53

Um, and I feel personally, and this is just a completely subjective opinion, but, um,

• 34:57

I feel personally when you can achieve a high degree of fun and also degree, uh, achieve

• 35:03

a high degree of realism in the process, that's the type of MMO experience I personally enjoy

• 35:09

a lot.

• 35:10

And I think that with this freehold system and emulating that realistic kind of process,

• 35:17

um, of, you know, what processing looks like.

• 35:21

Um, and we're going to get into a little bit of detail on that, about how these processing

• 35:25

stations work that are afforded through the processing buildings that you can construct.

• 35:30

Um, I just think that's, that's something that's really cool.

• 35:33

It gets me immersed.

• 35:34

It gets me kind of my, the suspension of disbelief is really there.

• 35:38

Um, and I'm, I'm just enamored by, um, you know, what that play experience is.

• 35:44

Yeah, I totally agree.

• 35:45

As a big time, like factory sim player, you know, I love setting up these processing chains

• 35:50

of, you know, raw resources to process, to craft.

• 35:54

I feel like we're going at a really fun level for players that are going to enjoy like,

• 35:58

you know, going out in the world, gathering, taking those, uh, raw resources, their freehold

• 36:03

be processed and then taking that to the node to do the highest level crafting, right?

• 36:06

So this is a really like a fun and engaging loop.

• 36:09

I think absolutely.

• 36:10

Yeah, absolutely.

• 36:11

I'm very excited about it as well.

• 36:14

I'm a pretty crafting artisanship focused player myself.

• 36:17

And, um, I, I appreciate depth and I appreciate, um, uh, fun and I appreciate, uh, you know,

• 36:25

complexity to a limit, right?

• 36:26

So this is stuff for me to think about as a player.

• 36:29

I get to, I have my own space.

• 36:31

I get to manage that space.

• 36:32

I get to decide, you know, what I want to do with it.

• 36:36

I get to decide how I want it to synergize with the professions I've chosen.

• 36:42

I can make a name for myself.

• 36:44

I can make social connections by the way that I express myself as a, whatever profession

• 36:49

I'm into.

• 36:50

Um, and, and freehold is sort of, sort of a, a Mecca for that.

• 36:54

Um, especially in the, in the processing realm, right?

• 36:57

Um, one of the things that I didn't quite touch on that's, uh, that's up here on the

• 37:01

screen right now is that, um, the, the highest level of processing happens only in the freehold.

• 37:06

So at the master and grandmaster level of processing, you'll need a freehold to, to

• 37:11

perform at that level.

• 37:12

Um, and then on the, on the crafting side, you know, we want the highest level of crafting

• 37:16

to happen at a node.

• 37:17

So, um, players will be able to craft on their freeholds, but, um, the max that you'll be

• 37:22

able to progress to is a journeyman level.

• 37:25

Awesome.

• 37:26

Very cool.

• 37:27

Well, speaking of processing, talk to us a little bit about the process of processing.

• 37:33

Yeah, we'll do.

• 37:35

So, um, so, uh, uh, processing, each processing profession will have, uh, four stations.

• 37:42

Um, and the stations will, um, come online as you progress through the profession.

• 37:47

Um, each one of those stations will make goods that are immediately, uh, useful, uh, to,

• 37:53

to the economy, to, um, crafters, to other processors.

• 37:57

Um, and each, uh, processing station will, um, build on itself and into the other stations,

• 38:03

right?

• 38:04

So, um, you'll, you'll, you'll end up kind of at the end.

• 38:07

Um, if you, if you do end up, you know, going all the way to master or grandmaster, um,

• 38:12

being able to kind of circle between the stations and, and make different stuff, uh, depending

• 38:17

on what you want to make.

• 38:19

Um, uh, so in addition to, um, using kind of resources in, in your recipes, uh, we also

• 38:29

want, uh, we want to use fuel, um, as a way to run your station.

• 38:35

Yeah, that's super cool.

• 38:37

The fuel is a, is I think an awesome kind of talking a little bit about again, that,

• 38:41

that, that realistic kind of process.

• 38:44

I really love the addition of the fuel and kind of the complexity as that fuel interacts

• 38:48

with the type of processed good that you're creating.

• 38:51

I think that's a really cool system.

• 38:54

Yeah.

• 38:55

It's like players are, I feel like players are definitely used to that with like, for

• 38:59

example, like iron ore, for example, you'd expect that to, you know, require some coal,

• 39:02

some wood pellets, right.

• 39:03

To complete that recipe.

• 39:04

But even, I think that's just gonna be something where I'm going to core to processing where,

• 39:07

uh, any recipe you'll do is going to require some level of fuel.

• 39:10

So even like at a sawmill, right, processing your lumber, you also require fuel to run.

• 39:14

And that's kind of gonna be something players will learn about, learn what are good fuels,

• 39:18

what resources can work as a fuel and what's, what's, what's the meta there.

• 39:22

Yeah, definitely getting dialed in with the economy and understanding, you know, what's

• 39:26

the price efficiency of using, you know, wood chips versus coal for, you know, a particular

• 39:32

recipe and kind of looking at what your, your returns are based on those decisions is just

• 39:38

like, that's so cool that you even get to think about any of those things, right.

• 39:43

And then just within the fuel itself, right.

• 39:46

So the way that we're going with the, with the fuel is kind of any, any item can have

• 39:50

a fuel value on it.

• 39:51

Right.

• 39:52

So, um, and then when you're, when you're putting together, you know, your, your job

• 39:56

to, you know, make, you know, a hundred iron ingots, right.

• 39:59

There'll be some sort of value that's required to, to, to process that job.

• 40:03

So it'll be up to you to choose, you know, the fuel types that you want to, let's say

• 40:07

that it costs a hundred fuel to make those a hundred ingots.

• 40:12

You can make whatever fuel combination you, you want to, to fulfill that value.

• 40:16

So yeah, you might have like, you know, mostly amount of coal, but then you're like, ah,

• 40:20

I need, I need to throw some extra wood chips in there, right.

• 40:22

To finish the, finish the recipe off or, but you might have a really high quality, like

• 40:26

refined fuel you've made and that that'll, that one fool will be able to do many, many

• 40:30

jobs and before it depletes itself.

• 40:32

So there's a lot of, a lot of freedom players have their inter, interring how they power

• 40:35

their station.

• 40:36

Love it.

• 40:37

And obviously I didn't mention this before, but what you guys are seeing and, and you

• 40:41

know, this is an important part to give feedback in, you know, how do you like this format

• 40:46

of a presentation when we get into these more systems heavy kind of designs?

• 40:51

But the art here is, as I said, the concept art, Ryan Richmond and his team and Mike Vecchio

• 40:57

and, and, and Lloyd and Jeff and, you know, they all do a great job in providing the rest

• 41:03

of our development team, the concepts that give direction on, you know, what to strive

• 41:08

for when modeling these assets and creating these environments.

• 41:12

They just do a phenomenal job.

• 41:13

So kudos to them.

• 41:14

All right.

• 41:15

Sorry, go ahead.

• 41:16

I want to point out one thing that certain stations will have the benefits and certain

• 41:21

buildings will also have a benefit and that using those benefits, depending on the quality

• 41:26

of the station and the tier of the station, like some of these fuel costs could be reduced,

• 41:31

right?

• 41:32

If your station is very efficient at melting iron, for example, right?

• 41:36

Then the fuel costs of that recipe might reduce quite a bit.

• 41:39

And also I'm coming back to the real estate thing again, sorry.

• 41:44

Where if you, just because you have an artisanship building, that doesn't necessarily mean you

• 41:49

get to have all the stations, right?

• 41:51

If you want to be best at everything that you will require multiple artisanship buildings.

• 41:56

And if you want access to every stations that you also require a lot of artisanship buildings,

• 42:01

then you can kind of take up to be very focused on one or have all the artisanship buildings

• 42:07

that you can possibly have want for one specific processing and be the best at it, right?

• 42:12

Yeah, absolutely.

• 42:15

It's a progressive amount of investment required in order to be the best.

• 42:20

And these systems are designed with progression in mind because that depth, that progression

• 42:25

as Corey was speaking earlier is what makes a lot of these systems compelling, right?

• 42:30

To a degree.

• 42:32

So let's talk a little bit about the depth and progression when it comes to the lumber

• 42:35

mill.

• 42:36

This is an example of an artisanship building, specifically a processing building.

• 42:40

Corey, talk to me a little bit about what we're looking at here.

• 42:45

Yeah, so this is a, you know, example similar to what we're looking at with the tavern,

• 42:51

but sort of following a lumber mill, right?

• 42:53

Like players will need to place a lumber mill to advance in their lumber milling profession.

• 42:59

And you'll be able to kind of spec it based on what you want to focus on as a lumber miller.

• 43:07

So what we're looking at here is this, you know, arcane golem and, you know, it allows

• 43:12

you to process, let's see, process jobs, reducing resource and the fuel and goal costs of processing

• 43:18

is dropped by 20%, right?

• 43:20

So this one's sort of focusing on cost and efficiency and there might be other lanes

• 43:24

or other particular skills that you can pick up that might focus on more yield, maybe a

• 43:33

rarity prox, stuff like that, right?

• 43:36

So what's really interesting is that you can kind of take these trees and apply it to your

• 43:41

skill tree in your profession and sort of, you know, balance or, you know, hyperfocus

• 43:47

or fill in the gaps that you're missing as you progress.

• 43:51

Yeah, and as you can see, the arcane golem is kind of like the final, like ultimate end

• 43:58

talent at this specific skill tree.

• 44:01

So you can see on the bottom left, there's already, you know, a couple of different active

• 44:04

upgrades that are already applying bonuses to all the stations on the freehold that are

• 44:07

related to the lumber mill.

• 44:08

So you see we have double saw, improved permit, gear system, station maintenance, stuff like

• 44:11

that.

• 44:12

So it'll be a kind of a culmination.

• 44:14

Once you fully spec out your building, it'll have a variety of benefits it'll be adding

• 44:17

to those stations.

• 44:18

And as you kind of spec into these specific types of upgrades, the building itself manifests

• 44:30

props and attachments to it that represent these different upgrade paths.

• 44:37

So it's a really kind of cool thing to see exist kind of on the freehold.

• 44:42

It gives also indication to the other players as to what specializations you focused on.

• 44:47

Yeah, definitely.

• 44:49

That same, we're hoping to get that same feeling where you walk by that person and you're like,

• 44:54

holy shit, that's that sword.

• 44:58

You could walk by someone's tavern and be like, oh, they got the bar in the window.

• 45:02

I can just roll up there and get myself a quick snack and a drink and head on out to

• 45:07

the hunting grounds.

• 45:10

They went down a certain path for the lumber mill upgrade and they know that this is probably

• 45:15

the processor that you want to reach out to for all of your wood needs.

• 45:21

Yes, absolutely.

• 45:23

Well, so guys, as we said, this was a little bit of an experiment kind of prefacing this

• 45:30

particular system, the freehold system before we get in game and take a look.

• 45:34

Bucky, I think you have a freehold somewhere in the Riverlands, perhaps by some interesting

• 45:40

mining options that we're going to take a look at now.

• 45:44

Hopefully we don't get killed on the way.

• 45:47

But give us your feedback on what you enjoyed or thought could have been done better about

• 45:53

this PowerPoint kind of presentation of the system so that we get a little bit more nitty

• 45:56

gritty details of this.

• 45:59

And we're going to do some Q&A after the gameplay.

• 46:01

But right now, let's talk a little bit about and go in game and take a look at some farming.

• 46:07

Let's take a look at the livestock and those interactions, because I know that those two

• 46:11

specific interactions on freeholds is near and dear to a lot of different players' hearts.

• 46:18

And then in addition, there's going to be a little bit of discussion about our inventory

• 46:22

management system.

• 46:24

I've told you a little bit in the past that we have gone with a kind of Tetra styled inventory

• 46:29

when it comes to materials and raw gatherables.

• 46:33

So we're going to take a look at the first iteration of that.

• 46:35

Of course, everything here is a work in progress.

• 46:38

We are still active in development towards Alpha 2.

• 46:41

So take everything you see with a grain of salt, but obviously participate on our forums,

• 46:46

on social media channels here in Twitch on the things you're liking in what you've seen

• 46:51

and what you would like to see done differently.

• 46:55

One other thing I think we're going to take a look at when we get in there is some of

• 46:57

the housing, some of the furniture, interacting with some of that furniture as well.

• 47:02

You might even get a look at a new little mount.

• 47:04

But let's switch over to in-game and we will see you guys in just a second.

• 47:29

Hello everyone and we find ourselves now in the world of Vera once again.

• 47:36

And Bucky, I think you were talking a little bit about a freehold that you have nearby

• 47:41

in the Riverlands here, or we're going to perhaps participate in some of your...

• 47:46

What do you got on that freehold?

• 47:48

What are you doing over there?

• 47:50

So we got a lot of farming stuff, mainly is what we're focusing on, but we also have a

• 47:54

artisan building as well.

• 47:56

Oh nice.

• 47:57

And a large station because we got some good mining opportunities out here.

• 48:00

Okay, very cool.

• 48:02

And I see you kind of are close to these ruins with your freehold, I guess.

• 48:11

Is there any happening spots around this area for you guys?

• 48:15

Yeah for sure.

• 48:16

I mean we got some mob packs around here.

• 48:18

Players are coming through here a lot to obviously get this nice resource here.

• 48:22

We got some alicanite.

• 48:24

Is that why you formed your freehold near this precious resource?

• 48:29

Talk to me a little bit about this resource, Corey and or Mike.

• 48:37

So this is halcyonite.

• 48:38

It's kind of a mid-tier journeyman gem.

• 48:42

And yeah, it's just sort of something you would use in weapons and for decorations,

• 48:49

jewelry.

• 48:50

But it's pretty sought after for a lot of drafts, so it's pretty valuable.

• 48:57

I love just its look.

• 48:59

I mean it adds a really kind of magical blues to this area.

• 49:05

Wow, this is a beautiful...

• 49:06

Now Bucky, I know why you made your freehold here.

• 49:08

This is a beautiful view.

• 49:10

Yep, just another beautiful day in Vera.

• 49:13

Oh my gosh.

• 49:14

Do you ever get like afraid of heights here?

• 49:17

I mean this is kind of crazy.

• 49:20

I think actually I might have something that could help you with this.

• 49:23

Hold on, let me see.

• 49:24

I can just bring it up here and then if you ever need to use it one day, feel free to.

• 49:29

You're more than welcome.

• 49:30

Oh yes, beautiful, perfect.

• 49:31

Oh, it's even on theme for the fall weather.

• 49:35

I know, exactly.

• 49:36

It's the drink of the canopy.

• 49:37

Perfect.

• 49:38

Yeah, if you ever want to take him for a spin, just let me know.

• 49:41

Okay.

• 49:42

All right, but yeah, there you go.

• 49:44

Actually, I'll put him away.

• 49:45

He's kind of afraid of heights himself.

• 49:49

So I can mine this.

• 49:50

So I've maxed out my artisanship levels through a little bit of a cheat, but if you have the

• 49:57

tools and oops, do I have the tools?

• 50:01

Okay guys, you're seeing a little bit of a preview of some of the work in progress UI

• 50:06

with the artisanship windows and obviously you have a number of tools here that are possible.

• 50:10

This UI of course is getting completely revamped.

• 50:12

This is just kind of the wire framing for it, but talk to me a little bit about the

• 50:17

tool setup.

• 50:18

Why is it important to have these kinds of tools?

• 50:20

How do tools aid you in your gathering adventures?

• 50:26

So each gathering profession will have three tools.

• 50:30

The tools kind of come online as you progress through the profession and the different resource

• 50:36

types for each one of the profession may require different tools.

• 50:39

So you basically want to carry around the right tool for the job and tools along with

• 50:47

the artisanship gear will have stats on it.

• 50:49

So you can itemize towards how you want to gather, how fast you want to gather.

• 50:54

Yeah.

• 50:55

Oh, it looks great.

• 50:58

I love the destruction of the actual, like, is it halcyonite?

• 51:04

Halconite?

• 51:05

Halcyonite.

• 51:06

Yeah, halcyonite.

• 51:07

Yeah.

• 51:08

I mean, we sort of set the precedent with the trees, right?

• 51:11

So we're trying to get similar feelings that the trees bring with our other gatherables.

• 51:18

Yeah, it's looking great.

• 51:20

Now where is your freehold?

• 51:23

It's just over this hill here off to the left of the path.

• 51:26

I think you might be able to see my house there with the chimney smoke as well.

• 51:30

Okay, yeah, that looks good.

• 51:33

How do we, let's get over there a little bit faster.

• 51:35

Maybe we can, what do we got?

• 51:38

Oh, I don't think people have seen the Lightfoot yet.

• 51:45

Let's bring him out.

• 51:46

Oh, look at him.

• 51:48

How cool is that?

• 51:51

I look so good.

• 51:55

I love the eyes.

• 51:59

Super cool.

• 52:00

Do we know who did this one?

• 52:01

Was this Jinsei?

• 52:02

I think it was Jinsei.

• 52:03

I believe it was a Jinsei, yeah.

• 52:06

Oh wow, this guy's fast.

• 52:10

It's high speed.

• 52:11

It is a rabbit after all, you know.

• 52:16

It's so cool.

• 52:17

Wait, we got to slow it down a little bit.

• 52:19

I can't approach at such fast pace to your freehold.

• 52:22

That'd be disrespectful.

• 52:23

I apologize.

• 52:24

Thank you.

• 52:25

Don't trample my plants, please.

• 52:27

Oh, perfect.

• 52:29

This is great.

• 52:30

The Horde of Rabbits.

• 52:32

So what have you geared?

• 52:34

It looks like you don't have a lot of buildings on the freehold for yours, Bucky.

• 52:39

Is that because you're trying to utilize the land for farming?

• 52:44

I know of course you are Dr. Bucky, so the animal husbandry system and livestock.

• 52:49

That's exactly right.

• 52:50

Yeah, so I sacrificed some of the space I could have used for buildings to just have

• 52:54

more farm space basically.

• 52:57

As you can see here, we got some sheeps, we got some cows and pigs, and we got some chickens

• 53:03

back there, and we have a lot of space for different farmables.

• 53:06

So we have wheat here, corn, and then the tomatoes over there as well.

• 53:10

Oh, this looks great.

• 53:11

So now Mike, when we're talking about these types of farmable spaces, obviously as we

• 53:20

discussed previously, the customization options for your freehold are really kind of up to

• 53:26

you and what you want to delve into on the processing side of things and how you want

• 53:30

to use the space.

• 53:32

But players who want to participate in the farming, talk to me a little bit about that

• 53:35

system.

• 53:36

I mean, the intent to provide this open area space for people to utilize just growing different

• 53:43

crop rotations and the livestock, and how does that feed the general processing system?

• 53:48

Yeah, so the farming is kind of generally focused on growing crops like this and then

• 53:53

dealing with livestocks over there like that.

• 53:57

And generally what you want to do is gather some seeds from either vendor or in the world,

• 54:03

you can gather or find some seeds on the open content and you're going to come to your freehold,

• 54:09

plant them and then depending on what kind of processing level you have and what kind

• 54:13

of processing stations or buildings you might have, you might grow crops like a little faster,

• 54:19

produce better crop rotations and just generally farm things that's unique to farming produce

• 54:27

like compared to the open world.

• 54:31

Yeah, I just got a bunch of wheat.

• 54:34

By the way, I apologize Bucky on stealing your wheat, but I got plenty.

• 54:39

It's harvest season.

• 54:40

We got a big crop coming.

• 54:41

I need some help getting all the harvest done.

• 54:44

Yeah, it looks super cool.

• 54:47

Another cool thing about farming too, since it has the livestock, is that it kind of feeds

• 54:52

directly into hunting and synergizes with animal husbandry.

• 54:56

So if you're interested in raising animals, taming animals, farmers will have a use for

• 55:04

them.

• 55:05

Yeah, exactly.

• 55:07

So yeah, animal husbandry has multiple lanes of ways to breed and specialize your creatures

• 55:12

and mounds and pets are one of the more popular ones, but then obviously livestock as well.

• 55:17

So not only can you breed your animals for traits such as like movement, speed and health

• 55:21

and different combat stats, but you'll also be able to breed them for desirable traits

• 55:25

like fertility, increased harvesting yield and even increased yield from butchering.

• 55:31

What are you guys doing?

• 55:34

Oh my God, that is awesome.

• 55:38

This is the...

• 55:39

Leave our eggs alone.

• 55:40

It makes them more comfortable with you taking their eggs away.

• 55:43

Leave our eggs alone.

• 55:45

Yeah, they won't peck us if we come with their style.

• 55:50

Very nice.

• 55:51

Very nice.

• 55:53

I just got some eggs.

• 55:54

Okay, now one of the other things that we wanted to obviously collect player feedback

• 55:59

on, I'm going to open up the inventory just to kind of take a look at the materials resource

• 56:07

bag.

• 56:08

Talk to me a little bit about how we are implementing resources differently from your general item

• 56:14

inventory.

• 56:18

So we're taking an approach from other games, but the idea of resources is going to have

• 56:27

somewhat of a slot base instead of having a slot base like traditional MMO, we're going

• 56:31

to look for like a Tetris kind of idea of having different shapes and different stock

• 56:37

sizes kind of like that to make some interesting choices out in the world where you have to

• 56:42

do inventory management and have a pick and choose depending on like what you have available,

• 56:47

what kind of bags you have.

• 56:50

Now I seem to have kind of run out of space.

• 56:52

Maybe I can grab...

• 56:54

Do you have any...

• 56:55

Oh yeah, if you want you can come put some stuff in the chest in the house or...

• 57:00

Your bag's too small or what?

• 57:01

Yeah, no, I only have one bag.

• 57:02

It's called a Sanctus resource bag.

• 57:04

Oh yeah, I got some extra bags for you actually.

• 57:06

You could take some from my chest.

• 57:07

Oh, this is a nicely decorated home here.

• 57:11

Oh, you have the...

• 57:15

You have the...

• 57:16

Oh man, I can't remember what we called this, but this was for the pandemic.

• 57:22

Everyone who I think registered prior to a certain date during the pandemic, Margaret

• 57:27

will know, we granted this item to people or will be granted to people.

• 57:32

That's cool.

• 57:33

It's modeled.

• 57:34

Look at that.

• 57:35

I think Ryan Richmond actually did the modeling for that and then John Wainik did the implementation.

• 57:40

Very cool.

• 57:41

That's awesome.

• 57:42

Where's the chest I can grab?

• 57:44

Right here by the fireplace.

• 57:45

Oh, okay.

• 57:46

Sweet.

• 57:47

Let me see here.

• 57:48

The materials.

• 57:49

Oh, okay.

• 57:50

All right.

• 57:51

So what do I do here?

• 57:54

Just grab this.

• 57:55

I think you should take them all and swap it out, I think.

• 58:00

I'll equip them.

• 58:01

Okay, cool.

• 58:02

I have some...

• 58:03

Now this is obviously work in progress UI.

• 58:06

This is not the final UI, but this kind of demonstrates the functionality of the system.

• 58:11

Let me go over here.

• 58:14

What can I do with these sheep?

• 58:17

You can harvest them for wool, shear them.

• 58:20

All right.

• 58:22

This is not going to hurt them, is it?

• 58:25

No.

• 58:26

No.

• 58:27

Okay.

• 58:28

You did a good job.

• 58:29

Pretty sheep.

• 58:30

Pretty sheep.

• 58:31

Give me your wool.

• 58:32

Oh, it gave me some wool and now it's naked.

• 58:35

That's so sad.

• 58:36

It'll grow back.

• 58:40

So talk to me...

• 58:41

Perfect.

• 58:42

That's a good point.

• 58:43

So it'll grow back.

• 58:44

Talk to me a little bit about kind of the intent behind the livestock here and the crops

• 58:49

as well.

• 58:50

Like you're planting and you're placing these livestock on farmable space within your freehold

• 58:57

and then over time they mature and become processable?

• 59:01

How does that work?

• 59:02

Oh, yeah.

• 59:03

That's pretty much exactly it.

• 59:05

So certain things like for the crops, for example, you need to acquire seeds first,

• 59:10

which can be acquired through a number of ways.

• 59:12

But once you plant them, you'll have to water them and care for them.

• 59:15

And then after a certain point, depending on the crop itself, would be when you can

• 59:19

harvest them and then you can replant them at that point.

• 59:22

And then for animals, different animals have different sort of byproducts that you can

• 59:26

get.

• 59:27

So for example, from here, from the cow, you can milk them and get some fresh milk.

• 59:32

Oh my God.

• 59:33

They have horns.

• 59:34

Are these the right cows to milk?

• 59:37

There's udders down there.

• 59:38

Oh, okay.

• 59:39

There's udders.

• 59:40

Let's see.

• 59:41

Oh, I got like a little stool.

• 59:44

Wow.

• 59:45

That's some rapid paced milking.

• 59:47

Holy smokes.

• 59:48

Yeah, you know.

• 59:49

That was crazy.

• 59:50

Hold on.

• 59:51

Let me make sure I got the milk.

• 59:54

Oh, we did get the milk.

• 59:56

Let me pull it down here.

• 59:58

Pull some corn down as well.

• 1:00:02

Do some reorganization there.

• 1:00:04

Yeah, kind of just reorganizing things.

• 1:00:07

Another sort of interesting thing that you'll see with livestock and other types of things

• 1:00:11

that you can gather is you'll be able to kind of choose the things that you want to gather

• 1:00:16

from it.

• 1:00:17

Right?

• 1:00:18

Bucky had mentioned animal byproducts, right?

• 1:00:20

And milk is a byproduct of a cow and so is beef.

• 1:00:24

So it's up to you kind of how and when you want to harvest your livestock in certain

• 1:00:30

ways.

• 1:00:31

And same with plants.

• 1:00:34

Maybe you want to take the corn and maybe you want to cut down the entire corn plant

• 1:00:41

to make room for other crops.

• 1:00:44

There's different byproducts depending on how you interact with that gatherable.

• 1:00:47

Now this is going to be another point of good player feedback.

• 1:00:53

So one, we kind of talked to you and showed you guys a little bit of the systems for planting

• 1:00:58

crops on your freehold, for raising livestock, collecting resources from them, and then the

• 1:01:08

Tetris inventory type system.

• 1:01:11

But this one is more game philosophy slash immersion, right?

• 1:01:19

And what you're going to see now, I think, for those of you who are a bit squeamish,

• 1:01:25

if you want to turn away, understandable, but we're going to get some leather.

• 1:01:32

And what else from this guy?

• 1:01:35

Meat.

• 1:01:36

Yeah.

• 1:01:37

Some meat.

• 1:01:38

Kind of whatever you'd expect from a pig.

• 1:01:41

Yep.

• 1:01:42

Bacon.

• 1:01:43

All right.

• 1:01:44

Well, all right.

• 1:01:45

I apologize, little buddy.

• 1:01:46

You had a good long life.

• 1:01:47

You did have a good long life.

• 1:01:49

Happy life on the farm.

• 1:01:50

And now.

• 1:01:51

Oh God.

• 1:01:52

Go to sleep.

• 1:01:53

Now.

• 1:01:54

Oh, we got the hide and the meat.

• 1:01:55

But it's oh, that's sad.

• 1:01:56

Is it just sleeping?

• 1:01:57

Is it tired?

• 1:01:58

That was intense.

• 1:01:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:00

For sure.

• 1:02:01

It's sleeping.

• 1:02:02

Yeah, don't worry.

• 1:02:03

Let's go.

• 1:02:04

Yeah, nothing to see here.

• 1:02:06

Sorry, little piglets.

• 1:02:07

Oh, no, not the piglets.

• 1:02:08

Okay.

• 1:02:09

We'll take good care of you.

• 1:02:10

Oh, let them let them live a little bit of a life.

• 1:02:15

You'll become big and then we'll.

• 1:02:17

Oh, okay.

• 1:02:18

So, guys, that's it.

• 1:02:19

That's a great point of player feedback.

• 1:02:22

Talk to us a little bit about how real slash immersive do you want it to be or do you prefer

• 1:02:27

that perhaps the pigs don't die, but rather they just go to sleep.

• 1:02:33

That's a good question, I think, for a lot of people to give their thoughts on.

• 1:02:37

Okay.

• 1:02:38

So now we have I'm seeing over here there's another building.

• 1:02:41

Obviously, we have the home here.

• 1:02:43

We went inside a little bit.

• 1:02:45

This other building.

• 1:02:46

Talk to me a little bit about that.

• 1:02:47

We talked a little bit in the presentation about the profession buildings and them giving

• 1:02:53

access to workstations.

• 1:02:55

What do we have here?

• 1:02:57

So this is the artisan building that we talked about, and then these give general benefits

• 1:03:04

to the freehold.

• 1:03:05

It could be profession specific.

• 1:03:07

It could be just general specific, but it also gives you access to putting down stations

• 1:03:12

like this.

• 1:03:13

So this would be the metalworking station.

• 1:03:14

Oh, nice.

• 1:03:15

Okay.

• 1:03:16

So you can see that this station is pretty intensive, and that's, I think, something

• 1:03:21

we're going to be showing in a future stream, which is all about the crafting process and

• 1:03:26

the recipe acquisition and the tools, but also a little bit of a gameplay layer that

• 1:03:33

Corey and Mike, you guys have been working on with crafting in the future that we're

• 1:03:39

going to show.

• 1:03:40

But this one's all about processing.

• 1:03:41

Talk to me a little bit about what it takes to go into the fuel to prep the station.

• 1:03:46

What it takes to do the processed goods and then kind of leaving and letting that process

• 1:03:51

over time.

• 1:03:54

Do you expect that players are going to want to fully kit out their freeholds with the

• 1:04:00

profession buildings so they have access to all the stations?

• 1:04:02

What would be the benefit of that?

• 1:04:06

I think so, right?

• 1:04:07

If players are really interested in investing in processing, freeholds are supposed to give

• 1:04:15

the players the furthest reach up to the highest tiers of processing.

• 1:04:20

So if you want to allocate most of your space in your freehold for processing buildings,

• 1:04:29

processing stations, you could create kind of your own processing plant or factory and

• 1:04:37

really sort of have a stranglehold on a market or particular goods.

• 1:04:42

So the freehold is supposed to be free space for players to kind of do whatever they'd

• 1:04:47

like, decorate housing, have businesses, or create a processing empire.

• 1:04:55

Cool, very cool.

• 1:04:57

Well I did get some supplies.

• 1:05:00

Oops.

• 1:05:01

I did get some supplies.

• 1:05:04

Bucky do you want me to put this in the chest or anything?

• 1:05:07

Yeah you can just store it here in my chest for now.

• 1:05:10

Are these tomato plants?

• 1:05:11

Oh yeah, yeah, that's right.

• 1:05:13

I forgot to harvest these.

• 1:05:15

Oh, let's see.

• 1:05:16

Get some other ones here.

• 1:05:18

Very nice.

• 1:05:20

Aw, some more exploded.

• 1:05:23

Oh no.

• 1:05:24

Well you got some at least, right?

• 1:05:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did.

• 1:05:27

We're good.

• 1:05:28

Alright, let me go put this inside.

• 1:05:29

Wait, let me make sure I actually did get the tomatoes.

• 1:05:31

You probably got a full bag at this point almost.

• 1:05:34

Did I?

• 1:05:35

Oh I did get some tomatoes.

• 1:05:36

Okay, there we go.

• 1:05:37

Alright, I'm gonna go put this in for you.

• 1:05:41

Now you've obviously done a great job with the decorations here and the furniture.

• 1:05:47

And you know, we don't intend furniture to obviously just be visual aspect of the interior,

• 1:05:54

but functional as well.

• 1:05:56

Talk to me a little bit about that.

• 1:05:58

Yeah, so obviously we've seen here the chest, right?

• 1:06:01

The chest is a placeable furniture prop that actually increases the storage capacity of

• 1:06:05

your freehold property.

• 1:06:07

And we're gonna have a variety of other functional furniture besides just even the artisanship

• 1:06:12

stations.

• 1:06:13

So for example, we have a bed over here which you'll be able to sleep in as well.

• 1:06:17

Get some rest experience perhaps.

• 1:06:19

Also we'll have chairs.

• 1:06:21

Those are just kind of cosmetic you'll be able to sit in.

• 1:06:22

But yeah, there'll be a variety of functional prop items as well that'll have actual gameplay

• 1:06:28

uses.

• 1:06:29

Nice, that's awesome.

• 1:06:30

Let's see, I'm just putting all this stuff into your storage chest so you have it.

• 1:06:42

Very nice, free labor.

• 1:06:44

I see you have some pictures in here as well.

• 1:06:46

Yep, yep, that's the picture I commissioned to myself.

• 1:06:50

Oh, is this it?

• 1:06:51

Is that you?

• 1:06:52

Yes.

• 1:06:53

It is actual Bucky.

• 1:06:55

Me in armor.

• 1:06:56

It's actual Bucky.

• 1:06:57

That is so cool.

• 1:06:58

That is so great.

• 1:07:00

I think this is your favorite, Steven.

• 1:07:03

Yes, the sandals.

• 1:07:04

Oh, that's so awesome.

• 1:07:06

That is super cool.

• 1:07:08

Now obviously players that we talked a little bit about businesses and how players can kind

• 1:07:12

of stand up different taverns and whatnot.

• 1:07:15

And Bucky, you had stated like one of the reasons why you wanted to have your freehold

• 1:07:18

here in this location was because of some of the access to the rare resources.

• 1:07:22

But there's also some interesting hunting grounds nearby.

• 1:07:27

And one of the things that is interesting about the freehold system is that it's not

• 1:07:32

just architected for processing, but it can also be a profitable location based on where

• 1:07:40

and what you're providing other players access to from a drink and food tavern perspective.

• 1:07:47

We mentioned before there's business types of buildings that you can build.

• 1:07:52

Some of these could be very region specific.

• 1:07:55

If there was a hunting ground nearby that is very populated, we could set up a tavern,

• 1:07:59

sell like food buffs and drinks that is really good for XP bonuses or increase to your loot

• 1:08:07

chance or something like that.

• 1:08:08

Whatever that may increase some kind of a benefit to the player that is good business,

• 1:08:15

like I said, would be set up here where you could just take advantage of the populated

• 1:08:23

player area.

• 1:08:25

That's awesome.

• 1:08:27

That's super cool.

• 1:08:28

I love it.

• 1:08:29

And you were saying, you know, obviously having access to an open world where you're not necessarily

• 1:08:39

restricted to the locations that you can place these freeholds, but allowing the players

• 1:08:46

to kind of place them themselves.

• 1:08:50

Generally we are going to block out certain areas that can't be placed like certain road

• 1:08:55

networks and POIs, but generally the intent is to provide these freeholds as layable plots

• 1:09:04

in the open world.

• 1:09:05

Is that right?

• 1:09:06

Yeah, that's right.

• 1:09:07

So as long as you purchase a certificate from the owning node of the land, you'll be able

• 1:09:11

to place it in many places around the node.

• 1:09:14

Basically anywhere that's not like a dungeon or a POI with monsters, you'll be able to

• 1:09:21

place it in a lot of areas.

• 1:09:22

So players will have a lot of freedom in choosing where they want to build their freehold and

• 1:09:27

lay down their plots.

• 1:09:28

So it'll be a big, like obviously here, like you said, I was looking at the, you know,

• 1:09:32

we got the mines over there, we got the POIs, but we also have this large flat area for

• 1:09:36

a lot of farming.

• 1:09:37

And so it was kind of a good mix of this freehold.

• 1:09:41

Yeah, super cool.

• 1:09:44

Love it.

• 1:09:45

Bucky, you have a very cool freehold.

• 1:09:46

You know, I think I'm getting a little bit tired.

• 1:09:49

Can I, mind if I just take a little nap, you know?

• 1:09:52

Oh sure.

• 1:09:53

Yeah.

• 1:09:54

I mean, it's a great, great bed.

• 1:09:55

You'll get some rest and experience.

• 1:09:56

It'll be perfect.

• 1:09:57

I was concerned a little bit with the nearby enemy populations, perhaps.

• 1:10:04

Maybe you guys can keep watch over me as I go to sleep.

• 1:10:06

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 1:10:07

Don't worry.

• 1:10:08

You'll be safe.

• 1:10:09

We'll set up a guard.

• 1:10:10

You'll be safe.

• 1:10:11

Well everybody, I hope you guys enjoyed this brief look at Bucky's Freehold.

• 1:10:17

A little bit about the processing for livestock as well as crops and take a look at the new

• 1:10:26

mount, some of the resources that are placed around the Riverlands area, and also a little

• 1:10:32

look at the housing system with some of the furniture that you have access to kind of

• 1:10:37

use and provide a little bit of benefit that you have access to for your gameplay.

• 1:10:45

And with that being said, I think we'll wish you all a do and a good night and we will

• 1:10:51

see you next time.

• 1:10:52

Thank you guys for joining us.

• 1:10:53

Later.

• 1:10:54

Thank you for having us.

• 1:10:59

Bye guys.

• 1:11:03

Hello everybody.

• 1:11:07

I'm going to be playing the video in the background while we answer some preliminary questions

• 1:11:11

because we know there was a lot of thoughts and clarifications that we want to make.

• 1:11:19

You're muted, Steven.

• 1:11:20

There we go.

• 1:11:21

I think I heard something.

• 1:11:22

Can you hear me?

• 1:11:23

Testing?

• 1:11:24

Yeah, yeah, you're good.

• 1:11:25

Okay, sorry.

• 1:11:26

I said, I feel like after that we all need to get up and do a little bit of a stretch.

• 1:11:33

Just kind of move around a little bit.

• 1:11:36

I know it was a long one.

• 1:11:37

That's why I told everybody, bring your snacks, strap in.

• 1:11:39

We got a lot more to show.

• 1:11:42

And of course, we want to do some clarifications.

• 1:11:44

The first one is that we will have the gameplay video part of it in 4K up on YouTube after

• 1:11:49

this live stream.

• 1:11:50

And then the full video will be up.

• 1:11:52

The full dev update should be up tomorrow pending technology and YouTube cooperate with

• 1:11:57

us and Twitch.

• 1:11:59

You wanted to make some clarifications on the predetermined aspects.

• 1:12:03

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:12:04

So I want to kind of clarify the way that the predetermined parcels work versus laying

• 1:12:13

down the freehold where you wish, right?

• 1:12:16

So essentially, each zone of influence in the world has designated large swaths of land

• 1:12:24

that act sort of as these parcels that can be catered to specific like points of interest

• 1:12:31

or thematically relevant, and you might want to bid on that kind of almost county size

• 1:12:39

area where you then get to place your freehold, right?

• 1:12:43

And once you have bid on that area at the node, then you can acquire the freehold plot

• 1:12:54

and you go out into that zone, that section that you have bid on and acquired, and you

• 1:13:00

place your freehold footprint, which is previously we had set the freehold size to about a half

• 1:13:06

an acre.

• 1:13:07

However, recently that's changed.

• 1:13:09

Well, not recently, a while ago that changed to be one and a half acres or roughly 100

• 1:13:14

by 60.

• 1:13:15

And of course, we're still in development, so things might change, you know, continually

• 1:13:19

just general disclaimer as in development, these systems are subject to change.

• 1:13:24

So right now they're about one and a half acres.

• 1:13:26

So you go out there and you go to that predetermined slice of land that's very large, you know,

• 1:13:31

it's many, many, many acres, and then you choose where you want to place your plot for

• 1:13:36

the freehold that's about one and a half acres.

• 1:13:39

And then on that plot, you get blueprints for buildings like your house and the artisanship

• 1:13:45

buildings or businesses, and you place those blueprints down on the plot that you placed

• 1:13:51

and you construct them with materials.

• 1:13:54

I think some people have concerns about the bidding aspect of freeholds.

• 1:13:58

Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:59

Yeah, sure.

• 1:14:00

No.

• 1:14:01

So so bidding is essentially once you've completed a quest in order to bid, right, it's kind

• 1:14:08

of like a little bit of a lordship quest, right?

• 1:14:11

We're like, you know, you're entitled to own this land, so to speak, you've proven yourself

• 1:14:15

worthy for the node to grant you this parcels deed.

• 1:14:22

Then on a regular cadence, especially at the inception of the beginning of a node, a number

• 1:14:27

of those parcels will be available to bid for and players who bid and win that bid then

• 1:14:32

get to place their freehold on that on that section of the world.

• 1:14:36

Right.

• 1:14:37

And the idea is, is to remember that like nodes are built up and nodes can fall through

• 1:14:43

the destruction of either atrophy events or sieges.

• 1:14:48

And when that happens, these freeholds can be subject to destruction.

• 1:14:54

And if a new node develops, then that cyclical kind of recycling of these locations become

• 1:15:02

available again.

• 1:15:04

Yeah, I think people are like, it's too real.

• 1:15:08

Housing.

• 1:15:09

Yes.

• 1:15:10

Well, I remember freeholds are just one form of three different technically now four with

• 1:15:16

the ends three different types of housing.

• 1:15:18

So freeholds are really the ultimate level of process oriented or artisan artisanship

• 1:15:25

oriented housing type.

• 1:15:28

But there's also static in node housing and there's apartments as well.

• 1:15:32

Yeah.

• 1:15:33

And OK, next up, we've got a clarification that we'll be putting out an article for freehold

• 1:15:39

building cosmetic concerns.

• 1:15:40

I know there was a lot of concerns in regards to that to make things a little bit more clear.

• 1:15:44

And we'll also be updating item descriptions as well in inventory.

• 1:15:48

But one of the main things that people had noted was if freeholds are going to be limited,

• 1:15:53

what happens if I bought a freehold building cosmetic?

• 1:15:55

And I know you wanted to address that, Stephen.

• 1:15:58

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:16:00

So in the same sense that we've done flying mounts, types of cosmetics and or tier two

• 1:16:06

mounts, these require you to acquire them.

• 1:16:09

And there are many ways to acquire a freehold, not just through the quest system first come

• 1:16:13

first serve on a per node basis, but you can also sell and purchase a freehold as well.

• 1:16:19

Now, again, freeholds are restricted to one per account.

• 1:16:23

So if you're going to acquire a freehold and then sell it, you can only sell it to an account

• 1:16:28

that doesn't already own a freehold.

• 1:16:31

So because these are relative to sell, correct, that's correct.

• 1:16:37

And because these these freeholds are an integral component of the artisanship system, fulfilling

• 1:16:43

kind of the best processing that's available within Ashes of Creation, these are constantly

• 1:16:48

going to be coming up for sale.

• 1:16:50

We're establishing kind of a real estate market that players can invest in and then sell within

• 1:16:56

the end game economy.

• 1:16:58

But also they are a resource that's subject to removal through the sieging system as well.

• 1:17:04

Right.

• 1:17:05

So there's a bit of risk implied there.

• 1:17:07

But the idea is that this is something for players to strive for and to achieve those

• 1:17:12

who wish to to achieve this.

• 1:17:15

And anyone who sets their mind to it or sets it to their goal to work up either enough

• 1:17:21

money in game to purchase a freehold from another player or is is at a node where a

• 1:17:28

freehold is available and you've developed your personal holdings to acquire one through

• 1:17:33

the bidding system.

• 1:17:35

Or if you become a member of a family, those are all methods by which you can have access

• 1:17:41

to the freehold and then utilize your cosmetics for the for the the buildings.

• 1:17:46

Okay.

• 1:17:47

And then by the way, just just as real quick, I just want to state saying we took this different

• 1:17:53

approach with the presentation and the PowerPoint side of things because this is a very in depth

• 1:17:59

hefty system.

• 1:18:01

And this is very hefty when it comes to design detail.

• 1:18:05

And any time we get into a discussion about a system this intricate, there's a lot of

• 1:18:12

opportunity for miscommunication, misinformation, misunderstanding and how these systems work.

• 1:18:18

So that's why, as Margaret said at the beginning of the stream, I am scheduled for a live Q&A

• 1:18:25

next week.

• 1:18:27

And then also want another one next month that will be announcing soon where I'm going

• 1:18:32

to have an opportunity to kind of chat with the community.

• 1:18:34

And I'll probably jump on Discord after stream as well for maybe an hour.

• 1:18:38

So we'll see how my schedule looks.

• 1:18:39

It's probably a nightmare.

• 1:18:40

But I know, I know, I know.

• 1:18:44

And I'll try to answer some questions as in Discord as well.

• 1:18:48

So and, you know, Roshan and Cody, they'll be they'll be assisting with that as well

• 1:18:54

on the community side.

• 1:18:55

Roshan and Vaknar have been answering a lot of stuff.

• 1:18:58

Yes.

• 1:18:59

Yeah.

• 1:19:00

You answered one of them already.

• 1:19:01

And people would like it kind of goes hand in hand with what you were just talking about.

• 1:19:05

If you could talk a little bit more about freehold permissions, specifically, one of

• 1:19:09

the questions was, can people harvest from your freehold without permissions?

• 1:19:13

Can they steal from your freehold?

• 1:19:15

No, they people cannot steal from your freehold.

• 1:19:18

They cannot harvest without your permission.

• 1:19:21

You can have if you're unfamiliar with the family system, take a little bit of a look

• 1:19:24

at that.

• 1:19:25

Of course, the Ashes Wiki is a great location of resources and knowledge.

• 1:19:30

I know, I know a lot has changed.

• 1:19:33

Remember, as we draw closer to testing dates, these systems get iterations that can happen

• 1:19:40

very rapidly as we're either internally play testing or as other systems change that facilitate

• 1:19:47

a need to make changes within other ancillary systems.

• 1:19:52

You know, those changes can occur.

• 1:19:53

That's that's part of the the player contract, so to speak, with a live development is that

• 1:20:02

understanding must be expressed on kind of the ability for these things to change over

• 1:20:06

time because ultimately, we're trying to build the best possible systems, the best possible

• 1:20:09

game for you guys to enjoy.

• 1:20:10

And it all needs to make sense together.

• 1:20:12

And MMOs are an accumulation of many different types of games in one.

• 1:20:18

And that's what makes them so unique.

• 1:20:19

So yeah.

• 1:20:20

All right.

• 1:20:22

And then can players be denied from buying a freehold from other players or by proper

• 1:20:28

property anonymously?

• 1:20:29

No, not really.

• 1:20:32

Okay.

• 1:20:33

And then mega ballin, which I think is funny name, will rare blueprints have benefits beyond

• 1:20:39

just appearance?

• 1:20:41

Yes, absolutely.

• 1:20:43

Yeah, blueprints blueprints are the vehicle for which unique mechanical properties are

• 1:20:50

in game properties are delivered to the player.

• 1:20:54

So buildings can have certain types of buffs and passive benefits that are conferred based

• 1:20:59

on the quality of the blueprint that's been acquired.

• 1:21:02

So the rarer the blueprint, the more powerful its effect.

• 1:21:07

Okay.

• 1:21:08

And then does freehold size determine how much stuff can be put inside?

• 1:21:13

How does a cosmetics can impact how many things or the location of where things can be placed?

• 1:21:19

Good call.

• 1:21:20

So for cosmetics that are very large in size, we will have a system.

• 1:21:26

It's not been developed yet, but we've been planning for this.

• 1:21:28

We'll have a system where multiple buildings can be occupied space wise by the larger cosmetic.

• 1:21:35

So a cosmetic might replace the visual appearance of one particular building, but then you'll

• 1:21:41

be able to have that footprint occupy multiple buildings to replace the visual appearance

• 1:21:46

of right.

• 1:21:47

So that way you're you're still utilizing the similar amount of space.

• 1:21:50

And yes, when you talk about the kind of management system of the freehold, it is entailed in

• 1:21:56

two parts.

• 1:21:57

One is a permitting system that allows for a specific number of different types of buildings

• 1:22:02

that can be allotted on the freehold and constructed that needs to be acquired through the node

• 1:22:07

in which you've attained the freehold certificate.

• 1:22:10

And the other side of that is the space constraint as well, because whatever space you're not

• 1:22:15

using on the freehold for a building plot or location can be utilized for other purposes,

• 1:22:21

as you saw in the in game presentation, such as livestock placement, crop placements and

• 1:22:27

rotations as well as other types of placeables.

• 1:22:32

All right, and then the question here was, are there plans to replace rest XP when with

• 1:22:39

another benefit as the servers mature and majority of players are already max level?

• 1:22:44

Not at the moment, no, no.

• 1:22:49

Right now the beds are primarily servicing rest experience function.

• 1:22:54

Of course, there are obviously opportunities where additional tech tree structures could

• 1:22:59

be provided or additional items might get released with expansions that have different

• 1:23:04

types of benefits conferred to that particular type of furniture.

• 1:23:08

But at the moment, that's not in the plan.

• 1:23:11

Are the upgraded or the upgrades slash skills are my cameras driven out?

• 1:23:17

I took the Elgato update and now it's just bored my camera.

• 1:23:21

No, yeah.

• 1:23:24

Are the upgrades skill trees, tree buildings or profession specific?

• 1:23:29

Can you reset the trees at a cost?

• 1:23:33

You absolutely you I believe you can actually change the tree spec at a cost and the upgrades

• 1:23:43

are specific to the building.

• 1:23:46

The upgrade paths are specific to the building.

• 1:23:48

All right, and then will there be furniture loot in drop tables?

• 1:23:54

If so, will they be common or rare drops with unique designs?

• 1:23:59

There will be components of unique furniture recipes that are dropped and are rare.

• 1:24:08

And those again will scale based on the rarity and the power it confers to the specific type

• 1:24:13

of furniture constructs.

• 1:24:16

And can married couples co-own a freehold?

• 1:24:19

No, the freehold ownership is designated by one account only.

• 1:24:25

And then the family system is the system that facilitates multiple accounts having permission

• 1:24:29

base basis within that freehold.

• 1:24:33

And we will have more questions, but they're in the Q&A segment from pulled from our forums,

• 1:24:39

but they will be freehold specific.

• 1:24:41

And I want to go ahead real quick.

• 1:24:43

I just want to give one other commentary about an additional system that you guys got an

• 1:24:47

early insight and early look at, which is the inventory system.

• 1:24:53

And I want to give some clarifying commentary on the purpose and the design for that inventory

• 1:25:00

system.

• 1:25:01

So first of all, inventory is split into two separate management systems.

• 1:25:06

The first is your non material, non gatherable slots.

• 1:25:12

Those are your standard single slot, non not space-constrained system, right?

• 1:25:20

That's a standard inventory.

• 1:25:21

You just have a single slot and you can pull completed items and or consumables and quest

• 1:25:27

items or whatever into that slot, right?

• 1:25:29

And then when you're talking about materials specifically, processed goods and gatherables,

• 1:25:37

those exist within the Tetris type inventory system.

• 1:25:42

And the purpose for that is there is a and this is you're seeing a very early representation

• 1:25:47

of the UI there.

• 1:25:49

This is not the final UI, nor is it even the existing kind of UX design that we want to

• 1:25:56

facilitate with ease of access into that system.

• 1:25:59

This is just kind of functional currently.

• 1:26:02

But what we want to achieve with that is because everything in the world is generally harvestable,

• 1:26:12

a resource that could be harvested, we want to have very unique progression when it comes

• 1:26:17

to the construction of resource bags, right?

• 1:26:21

And those resource bags will have certain benefits like increasing stack size count

• 1:26:25

of particular types of resources or of having additional delay time necessary to interface

• 1:26:33

with your corpse should a player try to take the resources you might have dropped in PvP

• 1:26:39

or having passive benefits and unique structures of spacing that makes it more a better bag

• 1:26:44

for wood gathering because woods are three by one or better bag for mining because mining

• 1:26:51

is always two by two.

• 1:26:54

The idea is to make your intent as a gatherer when you go out into the wild specific, right?

• 1:27:01

Not just that you're going out into the wild and gathering everything you can because it's

• 1:27:05

there and that's what we don't have like a labor system that limits it, right?

• 1:27:10

We have a space constraint system.

• 1:27:11

So when you leave your node and you go out into the wild, you need to be conscientious

• 1:27:17

of what you're choosing to interact with and take resources for because you have a limited

• 1:27:22

space constraint to that degree.

• 1:27:24

And we think it's an interesting system that ties into, as you guys will see later, the

• 1:27:30

caravans and crates system as well.

• 1:27:32

All right.

• 1:27:34

And do note that anything that we've talked about today, we would love feedback on.

• 1:27:38

We will have a freehold updates live stream thread that will go up.

• 1:27:43

It might be up right now.

• 1:27:44

I don't know how quickly Vagner is working to push that up, but definitely go head on

• 1:27:49

over to our forums, give us feedback.

• 1:27:51

We'll be compiling that and sending it yonder to our development team.

• 1:27:55

They've been loving all of the reports that we've been putting together and your guys'

• 1:27:59

feedback has been super valuable.

• 1:28:02

It makes sure that we're on the right page as far as we move forward.

• 1:28:05

A lot of the things that you guys want are things we're already planning to do, which

• 1:28:09

is very exciting.

• 1:28:11

And it also kind of makes sure that we're making the right design choices.

• 1:28:17

And if you guys see any flaws or holes in those things, we'd love to see what your thoughts

• 1:28:21

are.

• 1:28:22

And especially as you get into Alpha 2, that's when you're going to get your hands on it

• 1:28:24

and you're going to be able to provide like the juicy feedback.

• 1:28:28

But preliminary, we would love to know what your guys' thoughts are.

• 1:28:31

With that, we've got quite a bit of art updates to showcase.

• 1:28:34

So we'll move on to that.

• 1:28:36

And then I know that folks are curious about some studio updates that have happened this

• 1:28:41

month.

• 1:28:42

So we'll move on to art.

• 1:28:46

You saw that we had some cow milking set up there that Stephen was, he couldn't find the

• 1:28:54

udders to start with, but he did eventually.

• 1:28:58

And some shearing that we did with the wool.

• 1:29:00

And we've shown some of the other creatures in the past, but we did have some chickens

• 1:29:03

that were added and eggs.

• 1:29:05

And I'm sure you've seen some of our other, we've got like a chicken pig creature and

• 1:29:09

some other creatures that may be coming in the world, but we want to definitely have

• 1:29:14

the ranching creatures you would expect in game, of course.

• 1:29:17

And then we'll have some more Varan specific ones coming out.

• 1:29:21

The next one, the next creature we have is actually quite awesome.

• 1:29:26

It's the crab fish, which I love.

• 1:29:32

Danny did such a good job with this one.

• 1:29:34

Yeah, careful what you what you go out there fishing for.

• 1:29:39

Yeah.

• 1:29:41

You might catch one of these bad boys.

• 1:29:43

And then for those of you who got the fall gaze stalker, this is how that's coming along.

• 1:29:48

And we actually have a turntable for it.

• 1:29:50

And don't worry, I'll be showing that costume in a moment here too.

• 1:29:56

But it's looking sick.

• 1:29:58

Looks great.

• 1:29:59

Yeah, love it.

• 1:30:00

And making many variants of that, I'm sure for creatures in the world.

• 1:30:04

Yeah, I was what they had.

• 1:30:05

I can't remember the name of it.

• 1:30:06

Is it a is it Manicor?

• 1:30:07

Or what is it?

• 1:30:08

I can't remember the name of the creature that's similar to this in D&D.

• 1:30:12

But I was watching that D&D movie.

• 1:30:14

And I thought they did a great job with that movie.

• 1:30:16

And I think they had one similar to this in the little maze area.

• 1:30:20

Yeah, I actually like the D&D movie as well.

• 1:30:22

Yeah, normally the D&D movies are cheesy, but that one was really good.

• 1:30:26

Yeah.

• 1:30:27

And then this is the Desolation Outlander armor that you just saw in that turntable.

• 1:30:32

Looks badass.

• 1:30:34

Jinsey did such a good job.

• 1:30:37

And we have the second sword.

• 1:30:40

And I believe we got a Vek donning this.

• 1:30:44

For those of you who maybe haven't seen a Vek in a bit.

• 1:30:49

They're pretty cool looking.

• 1:30:51

Looks great.

• 1:30:53

And this one was done by Keith.

• 1:30:56

I think he's one of the longest running employees here at Intrepid, right?

• 1:31:02

He was our first ever hired, actually.

• 1:31:05

Yeah.

• 1:31:06

Keith has made a lot of awesome stuff.

• 1:31:10

A lot of great stuff.

• 1:31:11

He's a phenomenal artist, great modeler, character artist.

• 1:31:15

And then we've got the Sons of Fortune.

• 1:31:24

And a couple Soulseeker variants.

• 1:31:33

And a couple masks.

• 1:31:35

So the first one is the Tormentor's Visage.

• 1:31:38

Oh, I was wearing that, but the white version.

• 1:31:40

I just didn't have the cloak on.

• 1:31:42

Oh, for the Soulseeker?

• 1:31:44

Yeah.

• 1:31:45

Yeah, if you saw Steven's character in game.

• 1:31:50

And then we've got the Midnight Mask.

• 1:31:52

I think this is still work in progress, but you can see some of it.

• 1:31:56

And then the fun one, Drum Roll.

• 1:31:59

Oh yeah, Steven can't hear the drum roll.

• 1:32:02

Now he can.

• 1:32:03

Uh oh.

• 1:32:04

Drum roll.

• 1:32:05

We've got our new Nekuwin looks.

• 1:32:09

Oh yeah.

• 1:32:11

So you probably saw some of the faces that we had here.

• 1:32:15

And then we have the bodies.

• 1:32:17

And then I also have some more shots for you guys to check out as well.

• 1:32:22

But they are coming along really nicely.

• 1:32:24

This is the Nekuwin.

• 1:32:25

These are the in-game models.

• 1:32:26

Yep.

• 1:32:27

Yep.

• 1:32:28

So you saw the concept art previously.

• 1:32:29

Now these are the models.

• 1:32:31

And of course you'll have some customization for yourself.

• 1:32:35

This is just like, you know, one that we've generated.

• 1:32:41

Somebody said, holy mother of forearms.

• 1:32:43

Yeah, he's beefy.

• 1:32:45

That was great.

• 1:32:48

Very nice.

• 1:32:51

Looks great.

• 1:32:52

And then we've got the female.

• 1:32:54

Let's hop over to them.

• 1:32:56

And I do have a turntable for the female as well.

• 1:33:05

Super cool.

• 1:33:06

Love it.

• 1:33:07

Yeah, it looks so good.

• 1:33:09

Love the body art.

• 1:33:11

The tattoos and stuff.

• 1:33:13

Yeah.

• 1:33:14

And we will have like a whole tattoo system in game as well, which is really exciting.

• 1:33:19

Absolutely.

• 1:33:20

It's the turntable of the female.

• 1:33:25

Yeah, I love the Polynesian influences for this race.

• 1:33:29

I think they, you know, it's an often underrepresented cultural influence in a lot of games.

• 1:33:37

And I think that the Nukuan history and lore tie in nicely to kind of representing, I think,

• 1:33:45

that aspect in Ashes.

• 1:33:47

Yeah, I feel like there's not always a lot of Islander or Asian specific vibes.

• 1:33:53

So I'm usually misrepresented or underrepresented in those games.

• 1:33:59

Sometimes there's not even female characters.

• 1:34:00

So with that, let's talk a little bit about studio updates.

• 1:34:06

There's one big one that I know folks have been asking about and is that person going

• 1:34:10

to be on the stream?

• 1:34:11

No, no.

• 1:34:12

I'm gonna let you know, as someone who was on a live stream and did it AMA my first week

• 1:34:17

starting, that's wild.

• 1:34:19

Hey, you were a trooper.

• 1:34:22

I downloaded everything and every piece of information I possibly could.

• 1:34:26

Yeah, so studio update.

• 1:34:28

Some of you might have seen an announcement.

• 1:34:30

We have brought on an absolutely glorious individual by the name of Bill Trost.

• 1:34:35

Funny enough, Bill was the first person I had ever interviewed, John and I ever interviewed

• 1:34:41

for Intrepid Studios.

• 1:34:43

But he joins us as of two weeks ago.

• 1:34:46

He has a rich history and a very tremendous amount of experience having shipped multiple

• 1:34:51

MMOs.

• 1:34:52

And he brings his wealth of knowledge to the team.

• 1:34:55

He's worked with many of the people in our studio over the course of his long tenure

• 1:35:01

as a game developer.

• 1:35:03

And he is currently in the process of catching up to speed as much as possible.

• 1:35:08

So it wasn't quite appropriate for us to invite him on this stream, but I'm sure in a future

• 1:35:12

stream, you guys will have an opportunity to meet and listen to Bill and chat with him.

• 1:35:17

So very excited about that.

• 1:35:18

Yeah, and we've done a few of those where you get to meet and learn more about some

• 1:35:24

of the developers, but we usually like to tie that in with a system that they're working

• 1:35:28

on or some kind of content piece.

• 1:35:30

We also get people who are mad because they're like, show us game.

• 1:35:34

We don't want to hear about this person.

• 1:35:36

It's finding a balance of like, we are people, but we also are trying to make a product for

• 1:35:41

you and show progression in that.

• 1:35:43

And hopefully you've been seeing that as we move forward.

• 1:35:45

And next month's live stream is also going to be a very long one.

• 1:35:48

So prepare yourself for that.

• 1:35:51

Oh my goodness.

• 1:35:53

You think this one was...

• 1:35:57

And with that, I think we'll go into our Q&A to wrap things up because we've been holding

• 1:36:03

you all as long as we can so far.

• 1:36:06

But we do have a few more questions and some of them are specifically Freehold related

• 1:36:12

and others are not.

• 1:36:13

So we'll go through some of those.

• 1:36:16

I will just say that many people are asking for a leak.

• 1:36:19

I'm not going to give a leak, but I am just going to say that next month, and I'm pretty

• 1:36:26

sure it's going to be next month, that there's a slight possibility it might be the month

• 1:36:29

after, but next month, the hint will be send nodes.

• 1:36:34

Stephen.

• 1:36:35

What?

• 1:36:36

No, nodes.

• 1:36:37

Send nodes.

• 1:36:38

I know.

• 1:36:39

Okay.

• 1:36:40

Well, I'm going to leak something from PI meeting.

• 1:36:45

Someone might've said the wrong word at one point during the meeting.

• 1:36:49

Calling you out Roshan.

• 1:36:53

It was so funny.

• 1:36:54

I was laughing so hard.

• 1:36:57

Anyways, moving on, we've got our questions here.

• 1:37:00

So these were pulled from the forums.

• 1:37:01

Reminder that we do sometimes do these.

• 1:37:03

We might not do one for next month, but we do have a couple of Q&As slotted for Stephen

• 1:37:07

outside.

• 1:37:08

We'll see how that goes.

• 1:37:10

But for this one, this is from Songroon, which that's such a beautiful name.

• 1:37:14

Their question is about Freehold plot placement.

• 1:37:16

Will it be possible to choose the direction your Freehold is facing and buildings are

• 1:37:21

facing on your plot, particularly when using cosmetics from pre-order packs, or will this

• 1:37:25

already be determined by the plot you choose?

• 1:37:29

The answer to those questions are yes, yes, and yes.

• 1:37:31

So you can manipulate the orientation of the Freehold plot.

• 1:37:35

You can manipulate the orientation of the particular buildings.

• 1:37:38

And items.

• 1:37:40

And items, correct.

• 1:37:41

Yep.

• 1:37:42

And then-

• 1:37:43

Heavy, heavy degree of customization.

• 1:37:44

And by the way, those systems are in place for the furniture placements and the props.

• 1:37:48

It's just pending kind of UI treatments because right now it's all program art.

• 1:37:53

And for those of you who are unfamiliar, game development, UI and visual effects and audio

• 1:37:59

are often the most taxed teams because they tend to be at the end of each pipeline.

• 1:38:05

So-

• 1:38:06

Praise them.

• 1:38:07

Praise them.

• 1:38:08

And QA.

• 1:38:09

So all four of those teams are like, please give us the thing as early as possible.

• 1:38:13

Just to give context for why they're typically at the end of the pipeline of development

• 1:38:17

for many systems and or content is because you want to have all the iteration done for

• 1:38:23

a particular animation or a system or whatever before you get to the phase of the audio visual

• 1:38:30

effects or the UI.

• 1:38:32

And then typically when those systems all get completed, now it's all stacked up and

• 1:38:36

ready to get worked on by those teams.

• 1:38:39

So yeah.

• 1:38:40

Yeah.

• 1:38:41

And then the next one is from Zeke the Phoenix and they want to know about mounts and Freeholds.

• 1:38:45

Will you be able to keep your mounts that you've unlocked on your Freeholds plot to

• 1:38:49

move freely about as they please like in a stable or in a little fenced area?

• 1:38:54

There are a number of different types of ways that creatures can be acquired.

• 1:39:00

Some of them in a mount format and can be utilized in animal husbandry slash livestock

• 1:39:07

placements on the Freehold.

• 1:39:09

But from a cosmetic perspective, we don't quite have a system in place for that yet.

• 1:39:14

I'm not going to rule that out for the future or post launch, but right now it's delegated

• 1:39:18

specifically to like hunting, taming livestock and animal husbandry.

• 1:39:22

All right.

• 1:39:24

And then Tyran Thraxis wants to know about moving Freeholds.

• 1:39:29

How many times a year do you suspect that most players will be moving residents based

• 1:39:34

on nodes being eliminated from sieges?

• 1:39:39

That's a good question.

• 1:39:40

And there are a lot of variables that influence that answer.

• 1:39:42

I'm not sure I can give an average.

• 1:39:46

But what I would say is that depending on the political dynamic of a server, if a server

• 1:39:54

tends to have more combat and or sieges against nodes, that is going to increase the amount

• 1:40:07

of opportunity for Freeholds to be removed from the world and then replaced.

• 1:40:14

I'm not sure I have an average.

• 1:40:16

What I will say is that it is very important to remember that Ashes is not a PvP game and

• 1:40:22

it is not a PvE game.

• 1:40:23

It is a PvX game.

• 1:40:25

And that has a very specific meaning.

• 1:40:27

It means that as these systems are developed, as they are designed and they are integrated

• 1:40:34

with each other, they are done so from a competitive viewpoint and how that system relates to both

• 1:40:42

PvE and PvP.

• 1:40:45

Freeholds are one of those systems very much so.

• 1:40:47

And it's because of the cyclical nature that we're attempting to achieve with the development

• 1:40:52

of nodes and the destruction of nodes.

• 1:40:55

The world is a rapidly and dynamically changing place, really.

• 1:40:59

So it's intended to be something that is constantly recycling and is leaking out different types

• 1:41:05

of content and new content that revitalizes the player interest and stimulates new points

• 1:41:13

of conflict or cooperation.

• 1:41:16

That is what the goal is of the system.

• 1:41:18

And building the history of the game.

• 1:41:20

For instance, if you're part of the node that is the longest running node in the history

• 1:41:24

of your server, that's epic.

• 1:41:26

That's a story to tell.

• 1:41:28

And I think that hopefully you feel like you are part of it so much that you want to fight

• 1:41:36

for your Freehold and fight for your citizenship and fight for your area that you're in.

• 1:41:42

For anyone who has played a game that has persistency like that, there's a little bit

• 1:41:49

of ego that comes with some of that, I feel like, when it comes to servers and notoriety.

• 1:41:54

For sure.

• 1:41:55

I like somebody, I think Biggie said PvP now stands for player versus pig.

• 1:42:00

When you killed the mama pig and the babies had to be in front of the piglets.

• 1:42:05

We don't know that the piglet was related.

• 1:42:07

They could have been from different pig families.

• 1:42:09

There was no other mama pigs there.

• 1:42:12

We don't know that for certain.

• 1:42:15

Dr. Bucky, we need an update.

• 1:42:18

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:42:20

Zeyer wants to know.

• 1:42:22

Oh, sorry.

• 1:42:23

Go ahead.

• 1:42:24

I was just going to say, I love the emote that they did with the chicken dance.

• 1:42:28

Oh, my gosh, it was so great.

• 1:42:30

I was laughing so hard.

• 1:42:31

No, hilarious story.

• 1:42:32

I was late for a meeting yesterday with Bucky, Cory, and Mike.

• 1:42:39

And they took a video and they sent me a video on Slack and they were doing...

• 1:42:45

And Lucy, can I send this to you and you can show it?

• 1:42:49

Yeah, you can send it to me in DM.

• 1:42:51

I think they told me that I could show it.

• 1:42:56

Hold on.

• 1:42:57

Let me see.

• 1:42:58

Maybe they're going to regret that.

• 1:43:02

I think they might.

• 1:43:03

Hold on.

• 1:43:04

Okay, here we go.

• 1:43:06

Got it.

• 1:43:07

And let me...

• 1:43:09

They're probably trying to run to my office right now and stop me from doing it.

• 1:43:14

Okay, I just sent it to you in a DM on Slack.

• 1:43:19

Okay.

• 1:43:20

Oh, it's in like a...

• 1:43:22

So this is after we recorded.

• 1:43:28

They were waiting for me to come to a meeting.

• 1:43:30

I had to run out and do...

• 1:43:31

I had to run out for an errand and I was late for my meeting like five minutes and so they

• 1:43:35

sent me this.

• 1:43:36

Okay, hold on.

• 1:43:37

I'm going to drag it onto here.

• 1:43:41

Oh, it's because...

• 1:43:42

Why is it an MOV?

• 1:43:43

I don't know.

• 1:43:44

I don't know how they took it.

• 1:43:47

They probably did it on a phone or on their...

• 1:43:50

I think because it's an MOV, I can't put it on here.

• 1:43:53

But I can do it a different way.

• 1:43:55

I can play it on a screen and screen capture.

• 1:43:58

Yeah.

• 1:43:59

Good call.

• 1:44:00

Good call.

• 1:44:01

Yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:02

So give me a second to...

• 1:44:03

So the idea is that a lot of these different emotes are part of the game that you can kind

• 1:44:09

of express yourself in.

• 1:44:11

This one was a leftover for those of you who were in APOC and tested for APOC, you had

• 1:44:18

this particular emote.

• 1:44:19

I have six monitors, so I got to find the right monitor.

• 1:44:23

Okay.

• 1:44:24

I'm going to transition here.

• 1:44:26

You're going to get a full screen of whatever this is.

• 1:44:30

This is what...

• 1:44:33

There's Bucky, Cory and Mike.

• 1:44:37

They were doing some great...

• 1:44:42

You know people are going to zoom in on the images on people's...

• 1:44:46

Those are animations.

• 1:44:47

They're animation references.

• 1:44:50

The mocap for the...

• 1:44:51

No, I don't think those were mocapped animations.

• 1:44:54

So good.

• 1:44:55

We need the mocap suit on them next time.

• 1:45:01

But in regards to the data about sieges and nodes and things like that, we will be capturing

• 1:45:05

a lot of that stuff in the backend.

• 1:45:07

So we could do some really cool server statistic data.

• 1:45:10

And I know from the marketing perspective, I would love to do lots of graphics like that

• 1:45:15

with details and stuff for you guys to look at on the website when it comes to server

• 1:45:20

details as well.

• 1:45:23

The next question here is from Zeyer, maintaining a freehold.

• 1:45:26

Is there going to be an upkeep to freeholds and nodes that if not provided will degrade

• 1:45:31

the freehold such as materials required to keep things running?

• 1:45:36

Well, as we spoke a little bit about through the artisanship and processing mechanics,

• 1:45:42

fuel is a necessary component of the actions that you can take with processing stations.

• 1:45:48

However, if we're talking about like material...

• 1:45:51

Excuse me.

• 1:45:55

If we're talking about material maintenance necessary for the actual freehold itself,

• 1:46:01

no.

• 1:46:02

There is, however, a tax system which requires taxes to be paid on the property that you

• 1:46:07

own.

• 1:46:08

And that tax system is informed by the number of permits for the types of buildings and

• 1:46:16

upgrades that you have on the freehold as well, including potentially the business.

• 1:46:20

So those tax certifications are kind of what's necessary to maintain or upkeep the node.

• 1:46:25

Okay.

• 1:46:26

And but in regards to like crops and creatures, will they have to have some upkeep to keep

• 1:46:31

those things alive?

• 1:46:32

Yeah, that's the livestock and the crop rotations have a process oriented approach, which means

• 1:46:42

that it includes things like watering and fertilizing and feeding and raising those.

• 1:46:50

That's kind of the process by which you get these things to the mature state.

• 1:46:54

The other thing is that like different types of assets on the farming side or on the livestock

• 1:46:58

side, they have different types of interactions.

• 1:47:00

So right now you're just kind of seeing one interaction.

• 1:47:03

The system hasn't been fully implemented yet, but certain types of creatures can be either

• 1:47:08

butchered or they can be harvested for their wool or their milk.

• 1:47:14

And then they can be, you know, plants can be like uprooted.

• 1:47:16

They can be fruited.

• 1:47:18

They can be harvested.

• 1:47:21

There's different types of interacts that are available based on the type of asset from

• 1:47:24

the farming perspective.

• 1:47:27

People are already zooming in on the whiteboard in the background.

• 1:47:31

Oh no.

• 1:47:32

Is there stuff on there?

• 1:47:33

I don't know, but it's funny.

• 1:47:37

Next up, we've got Strange Abe who wants to know about super fast freehold gathering.

• 1:47:41

Will there be quicker gather function in your freehold than the one that was seen?

• 1:47:47

Because right now you're like gathering one at a time on the crops.

• 1:47:50

Yes, there'll be different types of tools and or machinery that can be used to like

• 1:47:56

plant multiple seed types within a particular infrastructure that gives you bundles and

• 1:48:01

or many different harvestings.

• 1:48:02

That's part of progression.

• 1:48:04

So as you get more adept at farming, you have the ability to kind of mass produce.

• 1:48:09

And the same is true when you talk about quality, quantity, speed of processing across many

• 1:48:14

of the different processing professions.

• 1:48:17

All right.

• 1:48:18

And then we've got Team America wanting to know about guild hall crafting.

• 1:48:23

And I did see a bunch of questions about guild halls in the chat too, but this was about

• 1:48:26

freeholds, not guild halls.

• 1:48:29

Will guild halls be able to build high end crafting stations or other otherwise different

• 1:48:34

mechanics from freeholds?

• 1:48:37

Generally let me pause on the guild hall discussion because there are still some active iteration

• 1:48:44

being done on the designs for that based on what we've previously had.

• 1:48:49

So that'll be something that will update in the future on guild halls.

• 1:48:51

Cool, makes sense.

• 1:48:53

I mean, we could probably do a whole thing just on guild halls.

• 1:48:55

That's why I didn't, I saw a lot of questions about them in there.

• 1:48:57

I was like, that's a whole other thing homies.

• 1:48:59

Yeah, Jelon wants to know about freehold PvP.

• 1:49:04

Are you safe while on your freehold or do you have to be in a building to have safety

• 1:49:09

from other players?

• 1:49:11

Currently the only safe space for the freehold is the home.

• 1:49:16

So if you are within the home's footprint, you cannot be harmed via damage by other players.

• 1:49:22

Do you have to like lock your doors and windows like some other games that I've come across

• 1:49:26

or just inside?

• 1:49:27

Nope, just on the footprint of the home.

• 1:49:29

All right, on the footprint of the home.

• 1:49:32

What prevents players from PvPing you?

• 1:49:34

Is it just like a zone type of thing?

• 1:49:36

It's a hard lock when the system, when the ability checks a valid target, the return

• 1:49:41

is no.

• 1:49:42

Okay, just wanted to clarify because people are going to ask further.

• 1:49:47

And Paragrinium or Grinam wants to know about freehold durability.

• 1:49:52

Could you give us an idea of how durable a freehold is in case your node is successfully

• 1:49:58

staged?

• 1:49:59

Like how does that, you know, how long do I have to basically go clean up my stuff?

• 1:50:03

Yeah, that's, you know, that's a, it's a balance question and it's something that's going to

• 1:50:07

be a part of when we test that functionality, you know, where does landing right live?

• 1:50:12

And, you know, my expectation is that given the scope of time that's available for the

• 1:50:18

freehold to be destroyed, potentially after a node siege, we want to cater that balance

• 1:50:25

towards that period of time, essentially.

• 1:50:28

And knowing that that's a few hours, potentially, you want it to obviously to scale based on

• 1:50:34

the number of participants and or attackers you might have, but creating kind of a mini

• 1:50:40

encounter slash experience there.

• 1:50:42

So I don't have a direct answer to you.

• 1:50:44

It's going to live within the timeframe of that period of time that the freehold can

• 1:50:49

be destructed.

• 1:50:50

Awesome.

• 1:50:51

And these last two questions that were pulled from our forum folks are not necessarily freehold

• 1:50:56

specific.

• 1:50:57

So you can, it's all freehold.

• 1:51:02

Smucky wants to know about monster coins and world bosses.

• 1:51:07

Will world bosses like Tumac take part in the NPC sieges on nodes and will players be

• 1:51:13

able to use a monster coin to play as one of those world bosses in an event?

• 1:51:19

That is the intent is that we will have varying quality of monster coins available.

• 1:51:26

Creatures like Tumac may participate in certain atrophy events or other types of events.

• 1:51:33

But if you have the very rare and legendary type of monster coin that's available to be

• 1:51:38

used on a creature type like Tumac, then yes, you could inhabit him.

• 1:51:44

That's the intent of the system.

• 1:51:46

I love the idea that Tumac lives on this node area with you and is protecting the roaming

• 1:51:50

area around and then you're starting to get sieged and he's like, all right, I'll come

• 1:51:55

help you.

• 1:51:56

Some diplomacy happens and he gets on board and someone gets to play him.

• 1:52:00

That's cool.

• 1:52:01

I don't know.

• 1:52:02

I think right now I will say that the monster coin system is used exclusively for assaulting

• 1:52:08

nodes, not for defending them.

• 1:52:10

But okay, they took over your area.

• 1:52:13

Little does he know we're gonna do that to it too.

• 1:52:15

But don't tell him that he's low end.

• 1:52:19

It's fine.

• 1:52:20

I'm just kidding.

• 1:52:22

Next question here is I just like the RP element of it.

• 1:52:25

I'm sorry.

• 1:52:26

Jibz IRL wants to know about audio design from an audio creation standpoint.

• 1:52:30

How do you plan to make audio in Ashes of Creation an immersive experience?

• 1:52:34

And I do want to mention that if you haven't watched our 2022 recap, you should definitely

• 1:52:41

go do that because Kat talked.

• 1:52:43

She didn't really want to be on the stream, but she was wonderful and she did have like

• 1:52:46

a lot of great things to say about the audio in Ashes of Creation and her thoughts on it.

• 1:52:52

But I'll pass that to you, Steven.

• 1:52:53

For sure.

• 1:52:54

Audio is as important as visuals and sometimes in certain cases more.

• 1:53:02

For me specifically, when you talk about the audio design of like creatures and you know

• 1:53:09

the different types of kind of tactile responses you want to hear out of mining and resource

• 1:53:15

gathering and artisanship, I mean it permeates every layer of the game, right?

• 1:53:19

So we have a phenomenal audio team here that's comprised of both on the engineering side,

• 1:53:27

on the audio design side, and Kat is a phenomenal leader.

• 1:53:31

She is very dedicated to kind of the audio fidelity that we want to achieve with Ashes.

• 1:53:38

I think you guys can see that in the demonstrations and the kind of previews that we provide of

• 1:53:42

the game.

• 1:53:43

You know that when we're talking about the bar that we're setting in that quality, it

• 1:53:49

is, it is on par with what you would expect from other AAA type games.

• 1:53:53

You know, our perspective is that we want to, you know, create an environment that's

• 1:53:59

going to elicit emotion from the player when they hear these types of sound effects or

• 1:54:05

when they hear these types of ambiences or soundtracks and music that is accompanied.

• 1:54:09

And we want it to be defining either to the area, to the encounter, to the dungeon, you

• 1:54:14

know, something that when you hear it, you remember, oh, that's that place, you know,

• 1:54:20

that this brings back the memories, right?

• 1:54:23

And so, you know, having a team that's capable and dedicated in creating an experience for

• 1:54:27

themselves as a player as well.

• 1:54:30

I mean, that even goes down to brand.

• 1:54:32

Like one of the things when we first started was making that iconic like screech sound

• 1:54:36

when you hear the the phoenix come on the screen and, you know, some people were like,

• 1:54:42

well, why are you being so picky?

• 1:54:43

Why do you want that sound to be in everything?

• 1:54:44

I was like, because it's like that that sound you get when you're like, you know what it

• 1:54:48

is right away.

• 1:54:49

I think that to me, that's so important for not only, you know, the immersion of in-game,

• 1:54:53

but in other external places as well for people to know your brand and see that it's iconic.

• 1:54:59

And Steven, you made it.

• 1:55:00

All the questions, all the things covered.

• 1:55:04

I said at the start, I think this would have taken about one and a half to two hours.

• 1:55:07

And I think we're just going to be under two hours.

• 1:55:09

That's just under two hours.

• 1:55:10

I think the next one's going to be a long one, too.

• 1:55:13

But we hope that you have all enjoyed this.

• 1:55:15

Steven, do you have any final things that you want to mention before I do some quick

• 1:55:18

reminders?

• 1:55:19

Absolutely.

• 1:55:20

I just want to say, you know, thank you guys for being great sports and dedicated supporters

• 1:55:24

for the project.

• 1:55:25

You know, I know that development and the journey of development is not a journey for

• 1:55:31

everyone.

• 1:55:32

And it means very much to us that we have this rapport established with our core audience,

• 1:55:38

our golden players to kind of provide us with the navigational feedback and direction that

• 1:55:45

we're taking on the game side and making sure that that's validated by what our core audience

• 1:55:50

wants and believes in.

• 1:55:52

Right.

• 1:55:53

I mean, that is the best type of relationship that that any developer can have with their

• 1:55:58

audience.

• 1:55:59

And we are very privileged and honored to have that relationship with you guys.

• 1:56:02

And we appreciate it.

• 1:56:03

We hope you like what you're seeing.

• 1:56:05

And you guys are excited for playing the game because we're here every day, hard at work,

• 1:56:09

trying to make this dream a reality.

• 1:56:11

Everyone's kicking butt and having fun while we're doing it because, you know, gamers.

• 1:56:16

But if you do have thoughts and feedback for us, head on over to our forums, forums.ashesofcreation.com.

• 1:56:22

We have some threads that are already premade, but you can also create your own.

• 1:56:26

We'll be creating some feedback reports for our developers.

• 1:56:30

So please, please share that information with us.

• 1:56:33

Also, don't forget that Stephen will be joining the Ashen Forge for their hundredth episode

• 1:56:37

over on twitch.tv slash Theory Forge on July 9th.

• 1:56:41

So please tune into that.

• 1:56:43

It should be a really good time.

• 1:56:44

Stephen always answers, sometimes leaks something.

• 1:56:48

So we'll see what comes of that.

• 1:56:50

We also have our monthly cosmetic swap over that's happening for Songs of the Sea on July

• 1:56:55

12th, if you're interested in that.

• 1:56:57

And we don't have all the information on the swap over Stephen was giving you guys a very

• 1:57:02

big heads up that cosmetic packs and stuff are going to be changing in the future from

• 1:57:06

pre-order packs.

• 1:57:07

So just keep that in mind.

• 1:57:09

We will have more information as we get closer to that, but still we'll give you enough time

• 1:57:13

to and warning in advance.

• 1:57:15

So don't worry too much about that.

• 1:57:16

And of course, thank you very much to all of you for sticking with us for two hours.

• 1:57:22

And for following our journey, we hope that you enjoy it is, you know, making games is

• 1:57:26

not easy as people think it is.

• 1:57:30

And we also want folks to we want to say thank you to Dr. Bucky, Mike, Corey, and of course,

• 1:57:36

Stephen for presenting some really great information on freeholds.

• 1:57:40

We'll have some articles and content up for you guys after this.

• 1:57:44

So stay tuned for all that.

• 1:57:46

And if you follow us on all of our social channels, we also give lots of information

• 1:57:50

on things on a daily basis.

• 1:57:53

So you will have plenty of Ashes of Creation content to consume throughout the weeks.

• 1:57:59

And of course, we will have the video up on YouTube.

• 1:58:02

We're going to have the 4k one right away today for just the gameplay segment.

• 1:58:06

And then the full dev update should be up tomorrow pending technology cooperates.

• 1:58:10

And if you leave a comment on the dev update, you could be spotlighted for our next one.

• 1:58:16

So make sure you're a subscriber and that we can see that you're a subscriber and you

• 1:58:19

could get your comments spotlighted on our next live stream.

• 1:58:22

So with that, we are going to wrap up today and we hope that you have a wonderful month

• 1:58:27

and we will see you next month.

• 1:58:28

Happy 4th of July for you guys out there in America.

• 1:58:32

Happy birthday to Steven, because your birthday is going to happen before the update.

• 1:58:37

Next day, no two weeks.

• 1:58:38

Bye guys.

• 1:58:39

Getting old.

• 1:58:40

No, just kidding.

• 1:58:41

Same age as me.

• 1:58:42

All right.

• 1:58:43

Bye, guys.

• 1:58:44

Bye.