Talk:2023-07-09 Ashen Forge - Episode 100: Hello Steven Sharif

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Transcription brute

• 00:00

Hello and welcome to the Ash and Forge 100th episode.

• 00:27

I am Fantabix joined by my colleagues as always Diggs and the legendary Neurotoxin and we

• 00:32

are joined by a fourth very special guest, Steven Sharif, the creative director of Ashes

• 00:38

of Creation.

• 00:39

Hello, Steven.

• 00:40

Hello, guys.

• 00:41

Thank you for having me.

• 00:42

I cannot believe that we are here for a third interview after nearly six years since our

• 00:48

first.

• 00:49

Yes.

• 00:50

Where does the time go?

• 00:51

I don't know.

• 00:52

You know, not too long ago.

• 00:54

Yeah, not too long ago.

• 00:55

We actually had someone post in Discord a picture of us three when we first started

• 00:59

doing this to us three now.

• 01:00

And it was almost sad to see because we aged.

• 01:03

But I feel like talking about I cut my beard and everything.

• 01:08

Now I look even younger.

• 01:10

I feel like I feel like sometimes you see those before and after pictures of like the

• 01:15

president.

• 01:16

You see Obama when he first got in and then he left.

• 01:18

I feel like to a degree.

• 01:20

I look back sometimes at those interviews and I see myself today and I'm just like,

• 01:24

wow.

• 01:25

I aged rapidly.

• 01:26

What was happening that caused that?

• 01:32

You're over 30.

• 01:33

That's what happened.

• 01:34

I know.

• 01:35

Actually, I turned I turned 38 years old yesterday.

• 01:38

Right.

• 01:39

Yeah.

• 01:40

Yes.

• 01:41

So you get 40.

• 01:42

I feel like I'm 70.

• 01:43

As we wanted to say, happy birthday, Steven.

• 01:48

I think everybody that is watching has probably said that at some point.

• 01:51

Yes.

• 01:52

I was reading through all the messages on Twitter.

• 01:56

I didn't know that that the community team was going to put out a tweet.

• 02:01

And when I read the tweet yesterday morning, it said, today is our creative director's

• 02:05

birthday.

• 02:06

Wish him a happy birthday.

• 02:08

All I could think in my mind was, please clap.

• 02:10

Please clap.

• 02:11

I wanted to post that.

• 02:17

For those of you who are new to us, we generally are conversational more than just straight

• 02:21

question after question.

• 02:23

And that's been on all of our past two interviews with Steven as well.

• 02:25

So we do have a list of questions.

• 02:26

And we thank everyone that joined.

• 02:28

We posted this everywhere and had, I think, 140 questions at the end of the day.

• 02:31

And we obviously don't have time for 140 questions.

• 02:34

So apologies if you do not hear your question.

• 02:37

But we hope we'll make this useful and fun.

• 02:40

So always feel free to chat in the chat as well.

• 02:45

So that being said, I'm going to make sure everything's working.

• 02:48

And Diggs, I think you wanted to start us off.

• 02:50

I have the most important question, the elephant in the room.

• 02:54

I love elephants.

• 02:55

By the way, I collect elephants.

• 02:56

I don't know if you know that.

• 02:57

There you go.

• 02:58

And ducks.

• 02:59

And ducks.

• 03:00

When is Nodes 3?

• 03:06

Nodes 3.

• 03:07

Oh, my goodness.

• 03:10

That is a hotly contested question.

• 03:14

So I mean, as you guys know, as everyone knows who's probably watching, the Nodes 3 is in

• 03:19

reference to we had a Nodes 1 and 2 that released back in 2017.

• 03:22

There was supposed to be a four-part series that kind of went over the systems and mechanics

• 03:26

of Nodes and kind of gave visual representation of that in game.

• 03:30

I made a decision back.

• 03:32

We were at a pack sometime.

• 03:34

And we were like working on Nodes 3.

• 03:37

And I made a call that we would punt that series conclusion until we were closer to

• 03:41

launch, likely Alpha 2.

• 03:44

Next month, excuse me, not next month, this month, oh, my God, it's July.

• 03:49

This month, we are planning to have a Node presentation.

• 03:53

Some might call it Nodes 3.

• 03:55

I don't personally.

• 03:56

I intend, I think, when we are closer to launch to revisit that whole idea of a series about

• 04:03

Nodes because it is the primary like differentiating mechanic of Ashes of Creation as an MMORPG.

• 04:10

And I think it's important to make sure that we convey what the intent is behind the system,

• 04:14

why it makes Ashes of Creation feel fundamentally different than the MMOs that we've all played

• 04:19

before.

• 04:20

And I want that to be something that's really representative of the game when it will be

• 04:25

at launch.

• 04:27

So I think that that four-part series is going to be redone entirely, Nodes 1, 2, 3, and

• 04:32

4, and be done prior to launch probably, I would say, around like six months to four

• 04:38

months out from launch.

• 04:41

But we are going to be giving a Nodes update.

• 04:43

In this month, there's a small chance it might be next month, but it's likely going to be

• 04:47

this month.

• 04:49

And that's going to go over a lot of the systems and mechanics that have been revamped in preparation

• 04:54

for Alpha 2.

• 04:55

We're going to show some interesting things there.

• 04:59

So it's not quite Nodes 3, but it is going to be a major presentation.

• 05:02

I think it's going to be at least over an hour-long presentation of Nodes.

• 05:06

So technically, part of what I consider Nodes 3 is the third Know Your Nodes article that

• 05:13

we've been waiting for for three years, I think.

• 05:17

I think that went out in 2019, maybe.

• 05:20

So I've asked you several times in the last couple of years if we're going to get that

• 05:25

third article.

• 05:27

And it's been pretty ortantic stuff.

• 05:31

Are we going to get updates to those two articles?

• 05:35

Might we get articles at least for all four of the Node types?

• 05:39

I cannot promise that that's going to be done in any short term.

• 05:45

But I can say that prior to our launch, we will absolutely have corresponding articles

• 05:52

that kind of revamp the knowledge base around the intent and systems and mechanics for Nodes.

• 05:58

Some of that stuff, as you would come to expect through open and active development, has changed

• 06:03

and will continue to change based off of iterative testing benchmarks that we hit.

• 06:09

But I can't give any short promises near future about those articles.

• 06:14

So that sounds like even you're going to wait until more like beta to do something like

• 06:19

that.

• 06:20

It's possible.

• 06:21

Yeah, it's possible.

• 06:22

And what about your article series in general?

• 06:24

We were hoping that we would be seeing articles every few months.

• 06:32

I just reviewed a Freeholds article that was intended to go out this last week.

• 06:37

I pushed that to the end of this upcoming week because I actively watch the conversation,

• 06:45

the posts, the Reddit, the Discord, what happens after a live stream, especially one that's

• 06:51

as informationally intensive as this last one was.

• 06:57

And it spurs a lot of interesting conversations and it spurs a lot of thoughts about how certain

• 07:04

systems can be approached and whatnot.

• 07:05

And as I read those and as our community team reads those, I want to make sure we hit certain

• 07:10

points in the articles because it's one thing when you're doing a video presentation, when

• 07:14

you're showing off and talking actively about something on a Twitch stream.

• 07:19

It's another thing when pen to ink or excuse me, when ink to paper occurs, when ink to

• 07:24

paper occurs and you release an article that's informationally driven.

• 07:28

So I want to be able to try to include some of those topics that I've seen over the course

• 07:32

of the last week since our last live stream in that article.

• 07:36

And that's why I pushed it to this next week.

• 07:38

So you'll be seeing an article come out on Freeholds that goes into a little bit more

• 07:42

depth on some of these systems, addresses some of the questions that the community's

• 07:45

had over the course of the last week and also clarifies some misinterpretations of the stream.

• 07:51

Great.

• 07:52

Go for it, Nero.

• 07:53

All right.

• 07:54

Well, not that this exactly dovetails into talking about the node system, but I would

• 08:03

imagine he's going to have a little something to say about it.

• 08:07

I can kind of consolidated this question down into a smaller one so you can just kind of

• 08:14

take the floor with it.

• 08:16

Bite size questions.

• 08:17

That's cool.

• 08:18

How much do you hope, plan, or otherwise expect design decisions to be changed now that Bill

• 08:26

Trost has joined the team?

• 08:28

Oh, good question.

• 08:30

Interesting question.

• 08:31

Well, first of all, Bill has, as many of you who have played EverQuest or kind of experienced

• 08:41

Bill's masterwork as a designer in helping to form the actual genre that we have today

• 08:47

as MMOs, he has incredible insight that's been built on his experience and knowledge

• 08:54

and being a part of our community, our MMORPG genre community for a long time.

• 09:00

My hope is always that our design team and now with Bill's inclusion has an opportunity

• 09:09

to reflect on the play testing that we're seeing internally, on the play testing that

• 09:13

we're doing externally with our play testers.

• 09:19

And as Bill is kind of catching up to speed on our internal documentation around these

• 09:25

GDDs and implementation, that conversations that are stimulating and iterative will be

• 09:31

formed around the team on some of these systems.

• 09:33

So how much do I hope that that takes place?

• 09:37

I always hope that that takes place, not just for Bill, but for our design team as a whole.

• 09:43

Because when you're building a world and a game that is as interconnective and as intricate

• 09:51

and detail oriented as Ashes is or as MMOs tend to be, because as we all know, MMOs are

• 09:57

really many games put into one.

• 09:59

And there's a major opportunity that when you do that type of approach, things can feel

• 10:04

discombobulated, they can feel not connected, they can feel arbitrary if it's not done right.

• 10:11

And because of that, I think a certain high degree of introspection and what we're building

• 10:17

is necessary.

• 10:18

And that means a lot of conversations have to be had.

• 10:20

And those conversations need to be had sometimes repeatedly over the course of time because

• 10:25

these systems influence each other, they inform each other.

• 10:28

And as one continues to get fleshed out or gets implemented, it might impact previous

• 10:33

decisions that we've made around how certain other systems interact.

• 10:38

And that is just a constant process that occurs within the development.

• 10:43

And so, anytime a development team or design team wants to try to create these golden frameworks

• 10:55

that just can't be touched, that's a recipe for disaster.

• 10:59

And I think that you have to be loose and willing to make changes as necessary as these

• 11:04

things get more informed.

• 11:06

And that's a very healthy place to be for a design team.

• 11:09

Sounds good.

• 11:11

That definitely makes sense to be flexible with all of the designs, not to ever be married.

• 11:18

And this is something that I've seen happen a lot in both on teams that I've been on and

• 11:23

observing projects from the outside, getting so married to a specific idea and a specific

• 11:29

mentality that like, this is our design pillar, this is our golden blah, blah, blah.

• 11:36

And it's like, it releases and it does poorly.

• 11:39

It's like, what happened?

• 11:40

Well, your design pillar was crap.

• 11:42

We told you here's what needed to be done.

• 11:45

This is why it was holding you back from everything else and you guys blew it.

• 11:51

I think it's important to note that there is a differentiation, in my opinion, between

• 11:57

what is meant to represent the philosophy, the goal, the pillar of the design, and how

• 12:03

you're trying to adhere to those goals with systems design or with mechanics.

• 12:09

But when you get married to the system or the mechanics of part of it, that's the recipe

• 12:14

for disaster.

• 12:15

Staying true to the identity and intent of the game, that's a good thing.

• 12:18

I agree with that.

• 12:19

That's where you do want to live, right?

• 12:21

And you negotiate sometimes between how those systems might interact, again, because MMOs

• 12:26

are so broad and diverse and the types of loops they're presenting to the player, many

• 12:30

in one.

• 12:31

And sometimes that can create conflict, that can create discussion.

• 12:34

But those things are good because you're getting perspectives that represent an eclectic user

• 12:39

group.

• 12:40

Because MMORPGs, especially the wider the game's intent, you get a more eclectic audience.

• 12:45

And that means that they have separating interests and sometimes those interests can overlap

• 12:49

and they can conflict.

• 12:51

So it's not a bad thing to stay ready to adapt on the definitions and mechanics side while

• 12:59

staying true to the identity and the goal of the game.

• 13:02

Yeah.

• 13:03

And you know what?

• 13:04

I'm going to do something real dirty real quick and unprecedented.

• 13:07

But a quick throwback to the conversation we were having before the show started about

• 13:16

the intent of Ashes of Creation to try to move things forward in a mechanical manner

• 13:22

that we've seen a few attempts over the years.

• 13:25

The biggest production one was probably EverQuest Next.

• 13:31

And we saw the attempts with Revival and Chronicles of Elyria trying to do this thing where it's

• 13:37

going beyond just the MMO, trying to get closer to the server as this wide-scale DM that's

• 13:46

running a giant tabletop game for everybody except a little bit more in real time.

• 13:51

And obviously because of the rules, you have to have some trade-offs.

• 13:54

You're not going to be able to climb every tree or chew on bark and spit it on a wound

• 13:59

or something unless it's actually in the mechanics.

• 14:02

But we're not making a VR sim here.

• 14:04

We're trying to make...

• 14:05

Yeah.

• 14:06

We're trying to...

• 14:07

There's a degree of nuance between what is over immersive, where it becomes tedious or

• 14:14

where it becomes non-meaningful to kind of engage in that level of immersion.

• 14:19

And of course, there's a spectrum that every player lives on which they want to see immersion

• 14:26

represented in, right?

• 14:28

And trying to find the most equitable level of that spectrum of immersion is the magic

• 14:36

sauce, right?

• 14:38

And I think that what we're doing with Ashes of Creation is we're taking it back to, as

• 14:43

you just described, the roots of why these graphical MMOs exist in the first place, which

• 14:48

is that kind of D&D callback, that tabletop RPG setting, which is I think what we're able

• 14:55

to capture graphically.

• 14:56

I mean, why did MUDs happen?

• 14:59

My first ever MMO was Neverwinter on AOL back in 1991, 1992, where you kind of got to see

• 15:07

the experience you had on the table, pen and paper be represented with pixels in a game.

• 15:14

And it just adds to the storytelling part when you're capable of suspending that disbelief

• 15:19

to a higher fidelity because of what the immersive qualities of that game is presenting you.

• 15:26

That's the Holy Grail, I think, in MMO gameplay.

• 15:28

And that's probably the biggest differentiator between an RPG genre, a video game, and any

• 15:33

other genre out there.

• 15:37

I have a follow-up question.

• 15:39

Since Bill Truss's name was mentioned, what qualifications of Bill's led you to choose

• 15:47

him for your lead game designer?

• 15:50

That's a great question.

• 15:53

You know, funny story.

• 15:55

Bill was actually the very first person that we had ever interviewed for Intrepid back

• 16:00

in, I think it was the end of 2015.

• 16:04

I was always impressed, as I said, Bill's one of the co-creators, I think, of the MMORPG

• 16:09

genre that we know today with his work on the EverQuest franchise.

• 16:16

Moving from EverQuest, going to Defiance, going to Amazon, A New World, those things,

• 16:20

that gives a breadth of experience and knowledge that I just think is fundamental to executing

• 16:27

well in MMORPG development.

• 16:31

So for me, there's obviously alignment with Bill on the more kind of old-school approach

• 16:37

that I think modern MMOs have deviated from over the course of the last decade or so.

• 16:43

There's a lot of alignment and shared thoughts there with Bill that gave me a great confidence

• 16:48

in his role at the studio now.

• 16:51

Like what?

• 16:52

Name some of those old-school ideas.

• 16:54

Yeah, I think the idea of putting Massive back in Massively Multiplayer, right?

• 16:59

I think the idea of not being delegated and stuck to a railroaded experience that you

• 17:06

don't really have a participative aspect in the story that's being told.

• 17:12

I think that the social connection, the MMOs are not built for solo players, even though

• 17:17

they have solo things to do, that you're encouraged and have the opportunity to participate with

• 17:22

newfound friends that are across the world and parties and guilds and different types

• 17:26

of social structures, social being one of the focal points of systems design, right?

• 17:31

I think the idea of creating soft friction events where the game isn't telling you not

• 17:36

to like or not to cooperate with this person, but there's opportunities that arise because

• 17:41

of these events that create either social friction or cooperation.

• 17:45

Those are like fundamental components, also like the risk versus reward aspect.

• 17:50

This is all very aligned with Ashes of Creation's attempting to create this not a trophy experience

• 17:56

for everyone.

• 17:57

That is a little bit old-school.

• 17:58

The harder work methodology of being proud of what you accomplished because it took something

• 18:02

to accomplish it, those are fundamental in creating an experience that's rewarding to

• 18:07

the player.

• 18:09

Nero?

• 18:10

Phantom?

• 18:11

Yeah, Phantom, you go ahead.

• 18:16

Yeah, I think we're good, so I can start putting some stuff in there.

• 18:19

Everybody's asking where's the real questions.

• 18:22

It was actually somewhat debatable within your Discord about whether we should ask about

• 18:25

freeholds because of the article stuff coming out.

• 18:28

But anyways, I do have some questions about that.

• 18:30

I think it's fair, yeah, ask anything.

• 18:32

One of the things that stuck out, you had mentioned, I think in actually Discord chat,

• 18:37

part of the reason for using a non-land rush system, the bidding system, was to allow people,

• 18:43

individuals, families to gather time and resources together in order to participate.

• 18:49

What I was curious about was the word of resources.

• 18:51

So when we're building, are we only spending gold or are we actually having to procure

• 18:57

other resources that are used in that building system?

• 19:01

Do we have to have some sort of material besides just gold that is then used in bidding?

• 19:08

It's a combination of three primary acquisition models.

• 19:13

One is the acquisition of gold.

• 19:16

Two is the acquisition of, as you are aware of them, they're called certificates publicly,

• 19:22

but we have an internally different name that we haven't released yet.

• 19:24

These certificates are character bound, right?

• 19:27

So as you go out and you hunt things or you do certain quests, you get these certificates.

• 19:32

You can use them to acquire commodities and then trade those commodities around regionally

• 19:36

the world in exchange for unique either rewards through gold or other materials.

• 19:42

So you're acquiring materials, you're acquiring certificates and you're acquiring gold.

• 19:47

Those are the three methods by which you will be constructing the freehold system.

• 19:51

So it's a combination of a lot of different things.

• 19:54

But the build itself is, or bid, when we bid itself, is that just purely gold?

• 19:59

We're going to a location and here's your money.

• 20:03

Right now that's a little bit of a point of discussion.

• 20:07

We have two approaches that we're going to be testing.

• 20:12

One is going to be that certain freeholds are available just through gold auctioning.

• 20:16

And then the other system is that there are going to be certain locations that are available

• 20:20

both through gold and through a other metric, which would be either character bound like

• 20:28

certificates that you acquire or favor or another currency mechanic that you have to

• 20:34

acquire through personal effort.

• 20:37

And we're going to see if that works out well in addition to the system.

• 20:42

So there's kind of two approaches there, gold only and then gold plus bound performance

• 20:48

metric, which would be that separate type of currency.

• 20:52

Because part of where that came up was people asking questions about religious nodes.

• 20:56

Are they really going to spend gold or is there some other way using the actual node

• 21:00

type as a way to procure a freehold?

• 21:02

Yeah, I'm kind of being sensitive not to touch on a couple of topics that we haven't yet

• 21:06

revealed.

• 21:08

But so for example, you bring up a religious node.

• 21:11

We have this concept in other games that we played where you have these like PVP type

• 21:15

honor systems.

• 21:17

And that's kind of an individual currency that you acquire through performance through

• 21:23

multiple quests or arena systems that we've experienced.

• 21:25

And then you use that currency to purchase unique either gear that's limited in time

• 21:30

or whatever.

• 21:33

We have a similar concept that we're going to be utilizing across different types of

• 21:37

nodes potentially.

• 21:40

And in the religious node that you mentioned, one of those concepts is something called

• 21:43

favor and favor is acquired through participating in certain religious quest lines, through

• 21:53

repeatable activities that you can achieve it and through turning in certain types of

• 21:58

material acquisitions to acquire the favor.

• 22:02

So the secondary concept of not just using gold to bid on the freeholds is having some

• 22:08

freeholds that are biddable only with gold.

• 22:10

And then some freeholds based on the node that you are trying to acquire the freehold

• 22:14

in would require that you excel within that personal progressive currency form.

• 22:20

So in divine nodes, it might be the favor.

• 22:23

And in a military node, it might be the honor.

• 22:26

And then you can bid on select parcels with those specific currencies in addition to the

• 22:32

gold.

• 22:33

And is it the mayor or whoever runs the node triggering the bidding process?

• 22:39

No, no, these are systems defined.

• 22:42

So humans don't have an opportunity to kind of change the frequency or the amount that

• 22:49

get released through the auction system.

• 22:51

Those when the node stands up, there will be a cadence where these freeholds get released

• 22:55

over time through bidding.

• 22:57

So it's not all at once.

• 22:58

And then you have kind of some that go really high and some that go really low.

• 23:02

But rather, you keep a pace of releasing these over time into the public.

• 23:07

And then after a period of time, all of them get released from the system.

• 23:10

And then players then have an opportunity to trade amongst themselves and list their

• 23:13

own that they've built up.

• 23:15

Well, I could keep going, but I'm letting her take a turn here.

• 23:19

And again, I just want to state that I don't have eyes on chat.

• 23:24

So I don't know how people are kind of, you know, responding to these or have questions

• 23:28

about these.

• 23:29

But what I would say is that it's very important to note that while you are seeing kind of,

• 23:33

you know, gameplay and the game looks great, and I always see like, you know, people saying,

• 23:37

hey, this game is ready to launch now launch it, you know, this looks better than other

• 23:40

games that I'm playing that have been released for 10 years, whatever.

• 23:44

The intent behind our design approach is to methodically create because this is such an

• 23:51

ambitious project with so many interdependent systems that are very intricately necessary

• 23:57

to work well with one another, is that we go through these iteration phases, not just

• 24:02

external iteration phases like Alpha 2, but internally as we play test these things, and

• 24:07

you guys are hearing in somewhat real time, our design direction.

• 24:13

And so keeping a grain of salt with these with these topics, as we give these definitions,

• 24:18

that these designs are all subject to change, right?

• 24:22

And they should be like it is, it is important, the iteration step is a is probably the most

• 24:29

important step of any game development.

• 24:32

So that means we have to be willing, able and ready to iterate on the designs, based

• 24:37

on both our internal play testing external feedback.

• 24:42

And then we we always use as our navigational guide, what are the pillars, the core pillars?

• 24:47

What is the philosophy of the design?

• 24:49

What are we trying to accomplish that's meaningful for the players interaction as our guiding

• 24:53

tool when we iterate?

• 24:55

Confirmed, Ashes will launch before 2030.

• 25:00

Yeah.

• 25:01

Unbelievable.

• 25:02

What I will say is, when when I see the funny, you know, comments about before 2030, before

• 25:09

2046, I am not aiming for perfection with Ashes.

• 25:13

I think that's an unattainable goal.

• 25:15

I think it is a crazy thing to to try and achieve.

• 25:20

What I am trying to achieve is not the dismal launches that I've experienced of other MMORPGs.

• 25:26

I'm not going to call it names, I'm not going to say it's anybody's fault.

• 25:29

I'm just going to say that there is a there is a certain point where you want to launch

• 25:38

a game and you feel it's ready to launch.

• 25:40

And if you launch it before that point, it is it's a dangerous endeavor.

• 25:46

Because a lot of work and effort goes into making these types of games.

• 25:50

Years of work and effort from hundreds of people, developers that are working on these

• 25:55

projects.

• 25:56

And if you don't give it the proper time to bake, that effort can be wasted.

• 26:02

And I understand the patience level of the community of players who are seeing this and

• 26:06

it's a it's a difficult journey to take because you're seeing something a genre you love,

• 26:10

you're seeing a game that looks great.

• 26:12

You know, we're getting all the positive indicators on the development that we're doing from the

• 26:15

community.

• 26:17

But we need to temper ourselves, our expectations, the timelines, because we want to do this

• 26:21

right.

• 26:22

And doing it right means we got to give it the proper time to bake.

• 26:25

I have a quick question.

• 26:28

Let me real quick.

• 26:29

Real quick.

• 26:30

Go ahead.

• 26:31

Just because it's in the same end.

• 26:32

You know, we realized and we weren't going to ask this, you know, Wednesday of Alpha

• 26:36

two, you've been asked that numerous times.

• 26:37

It's always the same answer.

• 26:38

I think one of the questions that I have in the community has had to, though, is, you

• 26:42

know, there is the conversation of there will probably be NDA spot testing that starts to

• 26:47

happen when that happens.

• 26:49

Well, obviously, we wouldn't it's India's we wouldn't know the specifics.

• 26:52

But will the community at large know that that has started?

• 26:58

That's a tricky question.

• 27:01

I would say no, not all the testing.

• 27:04

I would say that there has been testing already done in the past that the community is unaware

• 27:09

of.

• 27:10

There's a reason for that.

• 27:12

You know.

• 27:13

OK, I'll put my marketing hat on for a second.

• 27:19

We know that we have PI testing, right?

• 27:22

Or is it PI?

• 27:23

What's the what's the there are Phoenix Initiative testing that have occurred in the past.

• 27:28

Not for all.

• 27:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:30

Let me put my mark.

• 27:31

But we normally don't know when those are.

• 27:35

But for the other ones, you normally let us know that it's at least started.

• 27:41

We don't know who is in it.

• 27:43

It depends.

• 27:44

So putting on the marketing hat for a second, you know, we're doing something that's fundamentally

• 27:50

different approach that most games of this budget do.

• 27:55

Right.

• 27:56

And what I mean by that is not to say that there aren't other projects that do this.

• 27:59

There are some.

• 28:01

But what I mean by that is what we're showing now is not catered to a broad audience approach.

• 28:08

What we're showing now in our development, our monthly developments, that is more catered

• 28:13

towards a core audience of followers who have been either part of this journey and sometimes

• 28:18

it gets exposure when it gets picked up by, you know, larger streamers and influencers

• 28:23

that are out there and they show to their audience.

• 28:25

But that's a risky endeavor because not everything is polished.

• 28:29

Not everything is completed.

• 28:30

Because when people see the UI, they say, what the hell is this?

• 28:33

Or when they see other aspects of the game development, they say, oh, this is trash,

• 28:37

you know?

• 28:38

And so this process isn't yet catered for a broad audience.

• 28:42

And when we make an announcement like, NDA testing has begun, you know, that tends to

• 28:48

have legs in the marketing sense.

• 28:51

And that tends to get picked up rapidly because then people have that fear of, oh, OK, the

• 28:56

starting's begun.

• 28:57

I'm going to miss out on it.

• 28:58

I'm going to miss out on the package and jump into it.

• 29:01

And that sets a certain level of expectation that is prone for disappointment.

• 29:06

And we don't want to do that yet, right?

• 29:08

So to answer your question, no, we may not always announce when the NDA testing is because

• 29:14

we're not definitive how that testing is going to influence the future testing schedule.

• 29:19

And we don't want to set the wrong expectation from a broader audience perspective on what

• 29:24

they should be expecting with regards to testing.

• 29:26

So we have to be careful there.

• 29:28

It is this is a little bit of a juggle, right?

• 29:31

You know, this transparency approach is a double-edged sword.

• 29:34

And we have to be cognizant of that when we move forward.

• 29:38

Yeah, makes sense.

• 29:39

Yeah, so the change, you used to do that in the early days before you realized it should

• 29:44

be as transparent as you...

• 29:46

Yeah, I mean, this is a learning process.

• 29:49

Absolutely.

• 29:50

Yeah.

• 29:51

So there was a quick question from chat about the difference between parcels and plots.

• 29:56

Sure.

• 29:57

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 29:59

So this is one of the things that I wanted to add into the article that we were planning

• 30:02

to release last week with some graphical representation of how that parcel systems work.

• 30:09

But essentially, imagine the parcel as more like a county that exists around the node,

• 30:16

right?

• 30:17

And so if you have a node in the center, and you have its zone of influence around it,

• 30:21

that's a mass group of land, okay?

• 30:24

And then if you were to take a county line marker and create counties around essentially

• 30:29

the node, that is what you would be bidding on.

• 30:32

And then once you've achieved the parcel certificate for that county, then you go out with your

• 30:39

footprint of your node, excuse me, your footprint of your freehold, and you get to place the

• 30:43

freehold within that county wherever you want that's not obstructed by some other, you know,

• 30:49

road or POI or, you know, very large feature terrain.

• 30:54

So that's kind of how that systems work.

• 30:57

And that way, we're able to create, you know, something in that county theming or the immersive

• 31:06

quality of it that's representative of maybe some small POI interest, like a Sherwood Forest,

• 31:11

as I used as an example, right?

• 31:13

Like you own that county, per se, and your freehold is placed within that somewhere.

• 31:19

But yeah, you mentioned the idea of a Sherwood Forest.

• 31:22

So when we have specific kind of labeled areas, parcels, there will be no restriction on the

• 31:29

skins that can be used in these specific areas?

• 31:32

Or there will be?

• 31:33

No, no, there won't be.

• 31:35

And the artists are, you know, that's a, I don't like to use this term, but that's an

• 31:39

art problem in the sense that when we talk about what we're trying to achieve visually

• 31:44

through either the concept art or when the model is completed with, you know, sometimes

• 31:49

effects or certain material uses that might be contrast or conflict with kind of the visuals

• 31:54

of the terrain or the biome.

• 31:56

That's an interesting problem to solve.

• 31:59

Sometimes it involves tech art.

• 32:01

Sometimes it involves very talented modelers and artists and material artists that are

• 32:04

creating these things.

• 32:06

But making it in such a way where it doesn't create the thorsum, excuse me, the sore thumb,

• 32:12

the thorsum, okay.

• 32:14

You spoonerized it.

• 32:15

I know, my God.

• 32:16

The sore thumb or the clown show kind of perspective, that's the difficulty part.

• 32:21

And so far in the creation of the cosmetics that we've done through the pre-order shop,

• 32:27

but also there's cosmetics that will be available in game of comparative quality for the Freehold

• 32:32

system.

• 32:33

We want to give players a wide range of customization options where they can make this Freehold

• 32:37

their own, where they're capable of kind of changing the visuals to reflect the thematic

• 32:43

components they want to have experienced in the game.

• 32:47

And we don't want to have that be constrained through biome or through location.

• 32:53

So I have a question here.

• 32:55

It kind of touches on the Freehold placement and some of the stuff people are asking about,

• 33:01

but also about some of the upgrades.

• 33:05

So with the Freehold neighbor system, is it possible for neighbors to gain bonuses off

• 33:14

of each other's upgraded structures?

• 33:16

Can I place my spot adjacent to my buddy's spot, like touching the same edge and be able

• 33:24

to share bonuses across?

• 33:26

No?

• 33:27

So there is a minimum distance that is required between the counties and essentially that

• 33:36

creates a minimum distance then between the Freeholds.

• 33:40

So all Freeholds basically have this minimum distance.

• 33:45

Every parcel is basically one Freehold upon it.

• 33:49

Correct.

• 33:50

Okay.

• 33:51

Gotcha, gotcha.

• 33:53

So then I guess the other half of the question was about if somebody wanted to min-max, you

• 34:00

were showing like the tech trees for the crafting upgrade structures.

• 34:08

Let's say I got three different rare blacksmith shop upgrade things.

• 34:16

I filled out all the tech trees that they had the special things in.

• 34:21

Now my place is hypothetically able to make the best damn weapons or whatever the blacksmithing

• 34:26

upgrades.

• 34:28

So if someone was going to min-max, that's how they're going to do it is on one parcel,

• 34:32

just force in three buildings or whatever, fill out the whole tech tree.

• 34:39

Two degree.

• 34:40

Yes.

• 34:41

So the idea behind the profession buildings and their access to certain tech trees is

• 34:45

that you will have a limited number of permits available to place these buildings.

• 34:51

A Freehold currently has six maximum buildings that can be placed apart from the house, six

• 34:57

maximum buildings that can be placed that are profession or business-based buildings.

• 35:02

In order to fully spec out a particular tree of one profession, you will need in most cases

• 35:09

at a minimum two of the buildings for that particular profession.

• 35:13

And that also grants you access to have all four of the workstations that that profession's

• 35:17

building provides.

• 35:19

And then you can spec into those tech trees.

• 35:22

So you're occupying additional levels of permits in order to achieve that kind of broad spectrum

• 35:29

mastery over that particular profession, as opposed to specializing within the mastery

• 35:34

of that profession.

• 35:36

Gotcha.

• 35:38

That does give a lot of promise for a small group with one Freehold to be able to have

• 35:45

a huge impact just through what they've specialized in.

• 35:48

It's like, you want to get the best this or that or whatever, you come here.

• 35:53

And if you want to make sure you can keep coming here, you're going to defend these

• 35:56

lands from attack.

• 35:58

Yeah.

• 35:59

And the other thing is that like, you know, the intent of that approach from a design

• 36:03

perspective is to complement again, the goal or the pillar of making crafters significantly

• 36:11

important.

• 36:13

And part of that significance is the level of investment required in order to achieve

• 36:19

the types of accomplishments that those master crafters want to achieve and leave a mark

• 36:24

on the server as a result.

• 36:27

Giving them that broad level of influence over a market with a single Freehold, especially

• 36:34

utilizing let's say the family system.

• 36:38

That is something that I think helps achieve that goal.

• 36:42

Awesome.

• 36:43

Well, that'll be really cool to see.

• 36:47

All right.

• 36:48

I'll pass the mic.

• 36:49

Okey dokey.

• 36:50

Sorry, Phantom.

• 36:51

Open Seas I have a question about and I think my question is the first part is what happens

• 37:02

to corrupted players when they enter the open seas?

• 37:07

Do they remain corrupt?

• 37:09

Yes.

• 37:10

Yeah.

• 37:11

And what are the death penalties in open seas?

• 37:16

So if you are corrupted and you enter the open seas, you are still corrupted.

• 37:21

And the death penalties that are applied to corrupt players are universal anywhere within

• 37:25

the world.

• 37:27

So that doesn't change based on the zone.

• 37:30

If you are not corrupt and you enter the open seas, then you will not you will be taking

• 37:35

a mitigated form of the death penalties, which means you will have a debuff applied upon

• 37:41

death.

• 37:42

And in addition, you will still suffer the the gear degradation or gear decay upon death

• 37:48

as well.

• 37:50

But you will essentially be either significantly reduced in the experience debt accrued through

• 37:55

death in the open seas if you're not corrupt, or there won't be debt experienced debt accrued

• 38:00

in the open seas if you are not corrupt.

• 38:03

So is it is it the same as green or or even less than green?

• 38:09

Even less than green.

• 38:10

Okay.

• 38:11

Yeah.

• 38:12

Thank you.

• 38:13

So I'm curious about citizenship.

• 38:15

This come up a few times.

• 38:18

The Wiki, which is great, everyone I'm sure knows about the Wiki, if not go to it's a

• 38:22

great source of information.

• 38:23

Huge, huge props to Lex for that.

• 38:25

I mean, really, it is great.

• 38:28

Everything that's on there when it refers to apartments, when it refers to freeholds

• 38:31

and instance, or the static housing mentions that you have the opportunity to be a citizen.

• 38:37

So it's kind of two questions.

• 38:38

So one is, once you own the freehold or the apartment, do you automatically become a citizen

• 38:44

or can you elect not to be?

• 38:46

And the other is just once we've reached sort of a metropolis stage is how many citizens

• 38:50

is there a cap to the number of citizens a node could have along the way?

• 38:57

So with regards to owning property, any type of property or instanced housing, it does

• 39:04

not automatically create citizenship for you.

• 39:08

This is an election that the player makes.

• 39:10

Whether or not they want to be a citizen of that node, you can only ever be a citizen

• 39:13

of one node.

• 39:15

And owning housing is a form of entrance prerequisite criteria in order to become a citizen.

• 39:24

Now the reason for that is there are different types of housing systems.

• 39:28

You can be a member of up to three of those housing systems, static and node housing,

• 39:34

the instanced apartment or in housing, and the freehold system housing.

• 39:42

And players can own those at different nodes.

• 39:45

And there's relevance to that because of the types of functional furnitures that are capable

• 39:49

of being achieved through the housing system as well as storage capacities and the types

• 39:55

of crops that can be grown.

• 39:57

Even static and node housing and instanced housing will have certain methods by which

• 40:02

you can grow certain things for gatherables.

• 40:07

So the second part of your question was is there a cap on the number of citizens that

• 40:12

can be a part of a particular node?

• 40:17

There is not a hard cap.

• 40:18

There is a soft cap.

• 40:20

And what that means is if you go on the Wiki, I think we've talked about this in the past

• 40:24

and some of it might have changed a little bit over the course of the last year or two,

• 40:29

is that when you become a citizen, you enter in at a certain citizenship due structure.

• 40:36

And citizens pay taxes to their node in the form of both property taxes based on if they

• 40:41

own which type of housing as well as citizenship dues which are necessary.

• 40:49

And as you enter later into the stage of a node's development, you will pay a higher

• 40:55

value on the citizenship dues or vice versa.

• 40:59

If you own a property later, you will be entered into a property tax structure that is higher

• 41:04

based on where you enter that property ownership within the node's history.

• 41:09

So those kind of help to form a soft cap.

• 41:12

Now, if players are willing to pay more to be a citizen of a particular node, they have

• 41:21

that option, right?

• 41:22

But at some point, it becomes restrictive.

• 41:25

So did I hear this correctly?

• 41:26

Because this is also a fairly frequently asked question was would instanced apartments allow

• 41:31

for some sort of crafting and or hard processing type stations within them?

• 41:39

Not stations, but what they will allow for is certain types of furniture such as a flowering

• 41:46

pot that allows the placement of some types of seeds which can then be processed and harvested

• 41:52

from the flowering pot or different types of furnitures that allow limited use interactions

• 41:59

that relate to either processing, gathering or crafting.

• 42:03

So you could one of the things I tossed around the forums was the idea of almost like a greenhouse.

• 42:06

So that's a similar idea of being able to just have individual plants.

• 42:10

Correct.

• 42:12

And then this came out of the chat.

• 42:14

So just for clarification, can you own a freehold in one node and a apartment in a different

• 42:19

node at the same time?

• 42:21

Absolutely.

• 42:22

Yes, that is the intent.

• 42:27

I have a question.

• 42:28

Is it my turn?

• 42:29

Go for it.

• 42:30

Just go for it, Chris.

• 42:31

Okay.

• 42:32

I mean, I have a question about corruption, but I'm not sure how much we're going to get

• 42:37

to learn about that.

• 42:42

I think this one is kind of quick while you look for yours or how you want to phrase it.

• 42:46

Go for yours.

• 42:47

Yeah, this one is from Niker from the forums.

• 42:52

He asks, what would be the daily activities for someone at level 50 with a maxed out artisan

• 42:59

tree, kind of wondering what we're supposed to do in end game, kind of even though we

• 43:03

don't have an end game.

• 43:05

So you hit level 50.

• 43:08

So I would be thinking you're still progressing your node.

• 43:10

You're still trying to defend.

• 43:12

You've got some social work stuff you can do.

• 43:16

You've got some naval content you can do.

• 43:18

But what is your mind?

• 43:21

This is a chunky question.

• 43:23

So what are the types of activities you would be doing as a max level profession in level

• 43:31

50?

• 43:32

A lot of that, I'm going to say, depends on the world state.

• 43:37

And it depends on what's happening within the world.

• 43:40

You have this concept of the story arc system and of nodes that are in a constant state

• 43:45

of flux of what's happening.

• 43:48

And as they're in that state of flux, they're unlocking different types of content around

• 43:53

the world that can be predicated on certain time frames, like a particular story arc that

• 43:58

might last for a few days.

• 44:01

Or you might have certain needs that arise from certain nodes that are trying to do construction

• 44:05

projects and need certain types of materials.

• 44:08

You might have an intent to kind of control the market from an auction house perspective

• 44:13

on the types of items that only you have access to because of the relic that your node controls.

• 44:18

A lot of that answer is situationally dependent on what state the world has acquired and then

• 44:25

how that state influences the supply and demand structure from a crafter slash processor slash

• 44:31

gathering perspective, right?

• 44:33

If that's what we're specifically talking about.

• 44:35

And I think the most opportune individuals who have achieved that level of mastery because

• 44:40

they want to capitalize on how that can progress their character, their families, or their

• 44:45

guilds are going to be looking out for the opportunities that relate to either trade,

• 44:51

that relate to either the crafting and sale of particular types of items in order to provide

• 44:56

that service and edge the market in a sense, right?

• 45:00

So the daily activity might be something along the lines of depending on what type of profession

• 45:05

or processor you are, of interacting with fellow artisanship individuals to kind of

• 45:12

wheel and deal on supply and demand chains, orchestrating and participating in caravan

• 45:18

ruts that move materials across the world so that you can satisfy buy orders and or

• 45:24

commission requests, participating in unique raids and or dungeon experiences that have

• 45:30

the opportunity to acquire unique crafting materials so that you can create the dragon's

• 45:35

legendary sword and sell that potentially, you know, finding unique harvestable materials

• 45:43

in remote parts of the world or engaging in treasure map finding for, again, unique materials

• 45:48

and or processing things like there's a whole host of different intents that are loops for

• 45:55

the players to participate in that, again, are situationally relevant based on the world

• 46:00

state.

• 46:02

And that's why to your point, Diggs, when you say like, I know we're not supposed to

• 46:05

have an end game, it's because end game to me communicates static, right?

• 46:10

It is a static structure.

• 46:12

Okay, you've entered this loop now and this is your end game loop that you will repeat

• 46:16

over and over.

• 46:17

Whereas instead, the approach for Ashes is you have now reached a point where all of

• 46:23

these loops are relevant and the loops are present to you depending on how the community

• 46:29

engages the world, right?

• 46:31

And it's up to you to identify the most promising loops because you have a finite amount of

• 46:37

time and resources in which you can engage with them.

• 46:40

And that's then where strategy becomes a part of the picture, right?

• 46:44

How will I choose to engage with these loops to maximize my return or to maximize the specific

• 46:51

benefit I wish to bring an individual group, myself or guild, right?

• 46:56

Thank you.

• 46:59

Yeah, that does answer a lot for sure.

• 47:06

The question that I had was about corruption.

• 47:09

If you can tell us more about how corruption in a region takes root, how it spreads, how

• 47:16

that spreading affects freeholds and points of interest and the ability to potentially

• 47:23

maintain a freehold surrounded by encroaching corruption.

• 47:27

And if that's the sort of thing that we'll be seeing in Alpha 2 or not.

• 47:33

So we saw a very specific example of corruption within Alpha 1.

• 47:41

I don't know if you recall, but when you kind of crossed away from the starting island over

• 47:47

into the tropical area, there was a section of the world that was kind of twisted and

• 47:54

geometrically awkwardly cockeyed the terrain.

• 48:00

And you saw unique types of resources and terrain features.

• 48:05

And then you saw ancients that were spawning around like little demon ancients or whatever

• 48:10

that were spawning around that location.

• 48:12

So if you think about that for a moment, what does corruption do as it kind of seeps in

• 48:17

through the world?

• 48:18

And it seeps in in a way that's responsive to player progression.

• 48:23

So as the nodes develop, as the world becomes more civilized by society going out and standing

• 48:32

up these cities and these nodes and whatnot, corruption responds to that.

• 48:38

It is an equal pushback that it's trying to achieve.

• 48:41

And it's up to the players to kind of thwart the advancement of that corruption through

• 48:47

achieving certain story arc quest lines, through killing certain bosses, through participating

• 48:53

in content that relates to that corruption seeping into the world.

• 48:57

But corruption is not all bad because corruption changes spawners and it changes populations

• 49:03

and it changes resources that become available, unique resources.

• 49:07

As a matter of fact, we saw over the course of the last few months, different types of

• 49:13

resources that have altered states when corruption is present and it becomes a corrupt version

• 49:20

of itself, which is a necessary component for certain types of crafting endeavors as

• 49:31

well.

• 49:32

So there is a relevance, a meaningful component of why that corruption would want to be interacted

• 49:37

with from the player's perspective, but it's a push and pull situation.

• 49:40

That's really what corruption is intended to provide, push and pull between the advancement

• 49:44

of society and what was there that's more feral.

• 49:47

I see.

• 49:51

Does that, how would that affect freeholds if it hasn't fully encroached to the city

• 49:59

itself?

• 50:00

Would a freehold be surrounded and enveloped by it or is it more that the corruption stays

• 50:06

in place and just gets denser and denser until it overwhelms the area?

• 50:12

It won't really affect the freehold systems.

• 50:15

The corruption is really meant to live more in wild in nature and not on the player freehold.

• 50:21

So the player freehold is kind of protected to a degree from that, more contained.

• 50:27

And then is there always like, there's that circle of crystals there that never goes away

• 50:33

and that's always where the corruption comes from or will it dissipate from an area if

• 50:39

it's cleared and reappear in some other part of the wild?

• 50:43

My goal with that system, and we haven't yet gotten to the development side of tech art

• 50:48

and engineering kind of providing these tools, so I don't think you'll see the goal in Alpha

• 50:53

2, but the goal is that it is more dynamic and spreads across the world a bit more.

• 50:59

That's something that still requires some technical solutions that we have yet to tackle.

• 51:04

But ultimately the fallback would be that it's more static and densifies over time.

• 51:08

Gotcha.

• 51:09

I mean, I imagine it's more than just having another world layer and then it's like, oh,

• 51:14

now it's shifting into corruption and that there's going to be a lot more technical stuff

• 51:19

to it than that for sure.

• 51:21

Yeah.

• 51:22

Cool.

• 51:23

Thank you.

• 51:24

You know, I've always from the start just wanted to own a farm and do that sort of stuff.

• 51:28

So I have some obviously big interest in the last stream with the freeholds.

• 51:33

One of the questions that's come up and I don't want to get into the whole casual hardcore,

• 51:38

blah, blah, blah, but one of the questions that's come up is you have mentioned the processing

• 51:42

that you can do some to a degree at the node level.

• 51:47

Obviously master level things have to occur at a freehold.

• 51:50

So does that include animal husbandry and farming?

• 51:54

Like are there going to actually be areas within a node that you can plant or is that

• 51:58

just out in the wild?

• 52:01

And then, well, I'll let you finish.

• 52:02

I'll do that one first.

• 52:03

Yeah.

• 52:04

So the intent is that there are also public spaces where animal husbandry and farming

• 52:10

can be utilized.

• 52:13

And I don't know, you know, some games that we've played have these ideas of like public

• 52:17

farms that you can rent space in for a period of time and you have, you know, the availability

• 52:22

utilized.

• 52:23

Those systems provide opportunities for players who might be more solo oriented, aren't a

• 52:28

part of a family, don't think they'll be able to acquire a freehold, but still want to participate

• 52:32

with those particular types of professions.

• 52:35

But they may not do it at a mastery level as a result, but they'll still have access

• 52:39

to lower tier versions of that so that they can progress through that particular profession

• 52:44

up to a degree.

• 52:46

And then if they want to seek out a group that has a freehold and has access to the

• 52:50

mastery progression, they can try to elicit membership into their family or membership

• 52:56

into a guild to gain access to those features.

• 53:00

But the public spaces are intended to provide those individuals with a layer of progression

• 53:05

that's more suited towards their individual gameplay or solo gameplay aspect of it.

• 53:11

And so like Phantom, if I'm helping Phantom out on his farm, he can give me permissions

• 53:19

to get to grandmaster level using his-

• 53:21

Correct, yes, that is correct.

• 53:23

And he could just give me those permissions if we're good enough friends or he could charge

• 53:29

a fee if he wanted to.

• 53:31

Is that the way I understand that?

• 53:33

Yes.

• 53:34

So there is an outstanding question on whether or not we should provide permissions to members

• 53:41

who are not a part of a social structure.

• 53:44

And what I mean by social structure is not just that, hey, I found Joe Blow on the side

• 53:49

of the street and he needs access to this thing.

• 53:51

I'm just going to open it to public, the permissions to public.

• 53:55

Personally, I don't think that achieves the goal of the system.

• 53:58

I don't think that that's a desired quality.

• 54:00

I think that we need to have a more formalized structure in place, which is given through

• 54:05

the family system and or through guild systems.

• 54:09

And I think that that is how we're going to initially test it and see how we get feedback

• 54:15

and how it implements around the desires of progression for that particular system.

• 54:20

And so what that means is you'll be able to provide permissions to those social groups,

• 54:25

not to anyone.

• 54:26

That's it.

• 54:27

Cool.

• 54:28

OK, for for tavern owners and things like that, can you actually block people from coming

• 54:33

on?

• 54:34

Is there any ability to say there's no there's no there's no built in.

• 54:39

There's no built in discrimination permissions.

• 54:44

That's what I figured.

• 54:46

And then with with the sort of processing stations, crafty today, today's wear out

• 54:51

over time.

• 54:52

Like, do they have to be repaired?

• 54:54

Do they eventually degrade to where you have to just build a new machine?

• 54:59

That's something that we're still discussing internally.

• 55:01

There are the it is code in such it is coded in such a way where it's an easy variable

• 55:06

for us to kind of change that there are material components that are necessary to kind of feed

• 55:12

the machines to keep them up and running, or it could be based on how you interact with

• 55:16

the fuel components.

• 55:18

If you overheat, overcharge with fuel that can create like system degrade similar to

• 55:24

your armor decay, which then you have to feed materials in order to rebuild maintenance

• 55:28

wise.

• 55:29

Right now, it is not implemented with that in mind.

• 55:33

The only maintenance required is going to be through taxation.

• 55:37

And depending on the number of permits that you have placed on the freehold will increase

• 55:41

the amount of taxes that are necessary to be paid for the freehold.

• 55:44

So you increase that maintenance based on how effectively you're using the property,

• 55:49

essentially.

• 55:50

But there is an opportunity for us to iterate on that depending how we how we see the system

• 55:54

perform.

• 55:55

And similarly with for things like the crops, the seeds, the the animals we breed, Lenarker

• 56:01

had actually asked us on the forums, things like battle pets or pets that we are using

• 56:05

in the animal husbandry system.

• 56:06

Do those also eventually do exhaust the line?

• 56:10

So do I always get a seed from a plant or do I always get a pet from a parent?

• 56:14

Or do you eventually get to where always?

• 56:16

OK, so eventually you just have to start over.

• 56:21

There is a diminishing return, so to speak, within the system.

• 56:25

So it is it is not 100 percent self revolving.

• 56:29

In that sense, there is going to be a diminishing return, which then requires the player to

• 56:33

go and interact with the world again in order to supply and and support the system.

• 56:39

Would that include mounts, things like that?

• 56:40

Does your mount eventually?

• 56:41

The mounts, the mounts are a little bit of a touchier subject.

• 56:45

I'm not sure how many players I mean me personally, and I use this as a guiding metric, of course,

• 56:50

as I'm helping to design these systems.

• 56:53

Do I want to see my trusted mount, you know, Seabiscuit die or get retired or turned into

• 56:59

glue?

• 57:00

No, that's that's a touch point with the player.

• 57:02

That's I think a bit controversial.

• 57:05

So mounts do not degrade over time.

• 57:08

Once you have a mount, you own a mount.

• 57:09

I think there's another way to service limited access to mounts as you acquire them, and

• 57:13

that's through the stable system and how we utilize what your quote unquote active mounts

• 57:18

are based on slotting into the stable system.

• 57:20

I don't think we've talked about that yet as a system as a whole.

• 57:24

So I would reserve a little bit expanding on that until we get into it with some of

• 57:28

the node showcases.

• 57:33

I'll keep going there.

• 57:34

The chat's getting restless.

• 57:36

I've got another one here for you.

• 57:39

How's the chat enjoying the conversation?

• 57:42

You know, most of chat is being pretty cool.

• 57:45

And then there's a few people who are like, no, you're not asking the right question.

• 57:49

What are you doing?

• 57:51

You just need to be asking questions to get the answers.

• 57:54

Don't let them talk, man.

• 57:55

Just go.

• 57:56

There's a lot of there's a lot of it on the way.

• 57:59

I personally tried to make sure none of what I'm asking is on the Wiki, but certainly

• 58:03

it's always hard, you know, it's always hard with an open development.

• 58:07

You have different members of an audience or different members of the community that

• 58:10

join at different times.

• 58:12

And so they may not have been exposed to some answers that have already been provided or

• 58:15

they might have been or they haven't gone through the Wiki.

• 58:19

So sometimes you guys are going to experience a little bit of overlap there.

• 58:22

And I think that's OK, because that overlap also gives an opportunity for us to see what

• 58:26

things might have changed over the course of time, because I don't have a photographic

• 58:30

memory of everything the Wiki says and things are changing in a constant basis anytime you're

• 58:35

in open development.

• 58:36

And there's one other thing people who are new to these kind of interviews don't realize

• 58:40

if we let you just kind of go for a while, you might say something that's totally never

• 58:46

been revealed.

• 58:47

Oh, my God.

• 58:48

Don't tell Margaret that.

• 58:49

Don't tell Margaret.

• 58:50

Well, I mean, you know, she knows, but that was good.

• 58:53

That's a leaking tactic.

• 58:56

It's one of those things.

• 58:57

Yeah.

• 58:58

So that's one of the if we've seen it happen before.

• 59:00

We've seen it happen with developers on, you know, all sorts of games.

• 59:03

So it's instead of like having very specific, rigid, like yes, no short answers where it's

• 59:10

like this could have just been an email sort of thing.

• 59:13

Yes.

• 59:14

No, we didn't come here to just do an email and then read off the results.

• 59:17

Yeah, we know that you're here.

• 59:19

We were actually discussing whether we wanted to give you out like a mute button or not,

• 59:23

or like the ability to do like an air horn when he says something.

• 59:27

So we just get our ears blown out and don't get to hear it.

• 59:32

So no, the question that I had and this is, you know, kind of going with what you were

• 59:37

saying there, updating on previous thoughts and things, because I know it was initially

• 59:42

like a hard no.

• 59:44

And Jim, the bow year dies and he's gone.

• 59:47

And I think maybe things have changed on this a little bit.

• 59:52

Are there plans to add more persistence to the world, like ways to complete repeating

• 59:58

events in a way that it is sealed and never returns again, unless it's replaced by like

• 1:00:04

a new escalating event, like you've killed two mock and now two mocks brother who, you

• 1:00:09

know, may have cast him out, but still saw him as a brother is coming for revenge or

• 1:00:14

something like that.

• 1:00:15

And to have things kind of changing, or also the idea of adding like more stable NPCs who

• 1:00:22

migrate, when they die off, they get replaced by newcomers from Sanctus or the Tolnar hidden

• 1:00:28

zone or whatever.

• 1:00:30

So it's not just like, you know, people, people are able to migrate if they survive a situation

• 1:00:38

or it might just be the conditions change.

• 1:00:41

It's like, I'm a logger.

• 1:00:43

There's no logging in this place anymore.

• 1:00:44

You know, I'm out of here.

• 1:00:46

So what I'm hearing, I think in this question is after certain content loops have been experienced,

• 1:00:54

is there a method by which some of those content loops get retired or changed fundamentally?

• 1:01:02

And what I would say is that there is a method by which we create a cannon for the server

• 1:01:09

of events.

• 1:01:10

Those cannons are usually going to be immortalized through systems like the library, which recounts

• 1:01:16

certain types of events that happen on a server and recount perhaps the members who participate

• 1:01:21

in those events and mortalize them over time as the kind of first time defeaters, first

• 1:01:25

time accomplishers, that perspective.

• 1:01:29

But in an MMO environment where there is so much content creation that's necessary, and

• 1:01:34

some of that content is really intricate and takes a lot of time to develop, you don't

• 1:01:40

really ever want to fully retire content based off of unique experience that some portion

• 1:01:46

of the population has without providing that opportunity to the rest of the server population.

• 1:01:53

Because over time, players join at different periods within the linear history of a particular

• 1:01:58

server.

• 1:01:59

You want to have them hit those beats.

• 1:02:02

So they may not remember the first time it was down, but they did that content as well,

• 1:02:06

and they can relate to the experiences and memories that you've acquired as a participant

• 1:02:10

on this world.

• 1:02:12

So there's not going to be a fully retired, but there is a system that canonizes events

• 1:02:16

on a first time basis slash unique to the first time users.

• 1:02:21

I see.

• 1:02:22

Interesting.

• 1:02:23

I imagine it's very interesting.

• 1:02:25

The idea of creating all of these different storylines, smaller storylines, larger story

• 1:02:31

arcs, and the possibility that some servers might not necessarily ever see them is a very

• 1:02:35

interesting idea of how you do that and not waste time or resources.

• 1:02:44

It is, and it relates very fundamentally back to the beginning of this entire project, which

• 1:02:50

was I am a fan of sandbox environments as an MMO player.

• 1:02:56

There are certain types of players that enjoy curated content, railroaded experiences, take

• 1:03:00

me through the beats, I want to hear the story, I'm reading a book, so to speak.

• 1:03:05

I talked about this very early on, that my most impression, the books that had the biggest

• 1:03:10

impression on me when I was a kid was the books that you got to choose your destination

• 1:03:16

throughout chapter and chapter, those quote unquote choose your own adventure books.

• 1:03:21

When I was in middle school, I loved the Goosebumps series and stuff, and R.L.

• 1:03:26

Stine and reading those choose your own adventure paths was very fun for me.

• 1:03:30

Netflix came out with a few years ago that Bandersnatch movie where you could go back

• 1:03:35

and choose the arc of the chapter.

• 1:03:37

I'm not sure how successful that was, but I thought that was so cool.

• 1:03:40

I went back and watched different chapter arc choices that I got to see.

• 1:03:43

My point was that in a lot of MMO developments where they try to achieve the sandbox feeling,

• 1:03:49

they create a lot of different doors for the player to choose between, but there's nothing

• 1:03:53

really on the other side of the door.

• 1:03:55

It's just a choice for the sake of having a choice, and then they say, okay, player

• 1:04:00

generated content or player driven content, you guys make the content through social interactions

• 1:04:06

and politicals.

• 1:04:07

While I feel that that's important and you want to provide the tools for that to exist,

• 1:04:12

you need to also provide a path by which the doors actually have meaningful content decisions.

• 1:04:19

What that means is, as you pointed out, that sometimes content might not get experienced

• 1:04:24

because the door hasn't been open for a long period of time.

• 1:04:29

If you utilize a predicate system to determine which doors reveal which content, that is

• 1:04:35

a real reality.

• 1:04:36

That can occur, but it is something that provides a sense of meaning to the content that does

• 1:04:43

get exposed.

• 1:04:45

It requires a little bit more investment on the studio that's creating the game to be

• 1:04:49

willing to create content that's predicated on the players opening the door.

• 1:04:55

I think we actually talked about this in a past interview too, is the idea of expansions,

• 1:04:58

like how you reconcile servers at different points and introduce new content at the same

• 1:05:04

time across all services is also a very interesting idea.

• 1:05:08

You just actually gave a great point too, which is that those expansions, the updates

• 1:05:16

that occur, those are inflection points where you can go back and you can see, okay, which

• 1:05:23

doors were the least opened in the previous version.

• 1:05:28

Now how do we introduce new predicates for the door to open potentially in this expansion?

• 1:05:35

It's always a checkpoint as you make this game.

• 1:05:38

It's not like, oh, we made this content, it's never going to get revealed.

• 1:05:40

No, no, no.

• 1:05:41

Each inflection point, which is those updates, those expansions, those whatever, you get

• 1:05:46

to go back, reevaluate, hey, it seems like 89% of the servers out there never opened

• 1:05:51

this door.

• 1:05:52

Well, maybe the predicates were too granular.

• 1:05:54

Maybe they were too focused.

• 1:05:55

Maybe there's a reason why that didn't happen.

• 1:05:57

Let's expand on that for the next expansion so that this content has an opportunity to

• 1:06:01

come out and see the light of day.

• 1:06:04

Also you talked in the past, I didn't have a name for this before, but you've talked

• 1:06:09

in the past about what I would now call seasons, like releasing stuff every three months that's

• 1:06:16

not really an expansion, but it's an update that adds new lore and new cosmetics and all

• 1:06:21

that stuff.

• 1:06:22

I think that concept I would probably label seasons these days.

• 1:06:27

Yeah, probably.

• 1:06:28

Yeah, there's a lot of different terminology that's used out there in the MMO slash game

• 1:06:33

dev vernacular.

• 1:06:35

But I think ultimately-

• 1:06:36

I'm just saying, but like WoW has World of Warcraft has kind of implemented that since

• 1:06:41

you kind of brought it up.

• 1:06:42

So they now have seasons and that kind of reminds me of the kind of thing you were talking

• 1:06:46

about, something coming up every three months instead of having to wait three years for

• 1:06:51

any new content.

• 1:06:52

For sure.

• 1:06:53

So I have a question.

• 1:06:55

My question is about summoners, bards, and tonar.

• 1:07:00

I'm wondering-

• 1:07:01

Summoner, bards, and tonar.

• 1:07:02

Walking through a bar.

• 1:07:04

I'm wondering- exactly.

• 1:07:05

And Jeffrey Bard is playing there.

• 1:07:08

I'm wondering if those will be available to test at the start of Alpha 2.

• 1:07:14

And I'm wondering when you think we might see UE5 models of tonar.

• 1:07:20

Are you thinking we'll see that this year or next year?

• 1:07:24

I mean, it can be open.

• 1:07:25

I'm just wondering.

• 1:07:26

Closer to this year or closer to next year?

• 1:07:28

Just the models for tonar.

• 1:07:29

So I think that on the schedule that bards will be intended to be present at the start

• 1:07:35

of Alpha 2, but summoners will not.

• 1:07:38

And I believe that the tonar will not be this year, but will be next year.

• 1:07:44

Just even seeing the models for them?

• 1:07:46

Correct.

• 1:07:47

Oh yeah.

• 1:07:48

Oh, the models?

• 1:07:49

Just seeing the models?

• 1:07:50

Yes, the models.

• 1:07:51

Just seeing the models.

• 1:07:52

That might be this year.

• 1:07:54

I don't know.

• 1:07:55

I don't know.

• 1:07:56

Okay.

• 1:07:57

There's some-

• 1:07:58

Yeah, it's just wondering.

• 1:07:59

We have the base models for the three unique versions of that.

• 1:08:00

Right now, the tech, I think, is going between how we manipulate those versions of the character

• 1:08:06

creator to kind of slide between the three types.

• 1:08:10

So you might see the models for them this year.

• 1:08:13

We'll see.

• 1:08:14

And I have a kind of follow-up question about summoners, and this might relate kind of to

• 1:08:20

how augments work.

• 1:08:21

But last year, I was in a discussion with Neurath.

• 1:08:27

He was hoping to have a demonic shaman.

• 1:08:32

I think shaman is cleric summoner.

• 1:08:35

And so I'm wondering about how those...

• 1:08:41

I think that would not be the theme or motif.

• 1:08:44

I think demon summoning would not be the motif for a cleric summoner shaman.

• 1:08:49

It would probably be totems or something else, spirits and totems, maybe.

• 1:08:54

And then if a shaman, a cleric summoner, could summon a demon, what kind of augment school

• 1:09:01

might that fall under?

• 1:09:06

That is a...

• 1:09:07

That's a good question.

• 1:09:08

So I also do not know that we will have the opportunity for us to have a demonic school

• 1:09:13

of augmentation available for the shaman.

• 1:09:18

I don't think that's going to be the case.

• 1:09:20

It's a bit antithetical to kind of the approach of how the class of systems are meant to represent

• 1:09:25

kind of these role fantasies, these class fantasies, especially when put into the context

• 1:09:30

of the game.

• 1:09:32

That's not to rule it out from a future expansion perspective, but at least initially, that's

• 1:09:36

not the desire.

• 1:09:37

And I was thinking cosmetically, you might be able to get close to like...

• 1:09:41

Correct.

• 1:09:42

Yes, yes.

• 1:09:43

Bridge the divide between what's in the systems and or mechanics and visually or thematically

• 1:09:49

how you want to present your class.

• 1:09:52

And that is where cosmetics slash achievements in games that achieve those cosmetics might

• 1:09:58

help to kind of bridge the divide in those themings.

• 1:10:03

Your second part of the question, which was like, what is the summoning school augmentation?

• 1:10:10

Summoners are still being actively kind of worked on and fleshed out.

• 1:10:14

They will not be present in a large form at the start of Alpha 2.

• 1:10:18

There might be some representations of augmenting limited on a per class basis.

• 1:10:24

But the summoner is still actively in development on the augment side.

• 1:10:30

And we might see Bard at the beginning of Alpha 2.

• 1:10:35

Bard is scheduled to be present at the start of Alpha 2, not summoner.

• 1:10:38

Okay, sounds good.

• 1:10:40

And by schedule, I mean all things are subject to change.

• 1:10:44

Yes.

• 1:10:45

There was actually since we're on the summoner question, there was a question about whether

• 1:10:50

summoners would be locked into a creature type.

• 1:10:52

So the sort of the Necromancer, would they only be able to do undead or would they have

• 1:10:55

an opportunity to summon other creature types?

• 1:10:58

The great thing about the animal husbandry tech that we're creating and the idea of having

• 1:11:06

customization options is that there might be some opportunity there to really create

• 1:11:12

a more customized experience for the summoner and the types of visual representation that

• 1:11:17

their creature has that's more to the player's definition.

• 1:11:24

But we will see about that.

• 1:11:25

I think you guys will be getting some updates in the future about that.

• 1:11:29

I think they're wondering about Rogue too, but I think we were expecting Rogue for Alpha

• 1:11:35

1.

• 1:11:36

Rogue is scheduled to also be at the start of Alpha 2 as well.

• 1:11:41

The only archetype that's not scheduled currently to be at the start of Alpha 2 is summoner.

• 1:11:46

Okay, cool.

• 1:11:47

Good to know.

• 1:11:48

Naval combat.

• 1:11:49

Oh, no, I got one real quick out of chat.

• 1:11:56

Ratsu asked probably a good follow up to that.

• 1:12:00

What systems are still needed to be rolled out before Alpha 2?

• 1:12:05

What systems are still needed to be rolled out?

• 1:12:08

Well, I don't think it's at a core level that there's a particular system that has yet to

• 1:12:14

be feature developed.

• 1:12:16

Right now, it's more along the lines of expanding on those features, getting UI support for

• 1:12:23

those features.

• 1:12:25

That's a big one because that is UI, VFX, audio effects, those are all big bottlenecks

• 1:12:31

because they tend to occur at the end of the pipeline of content development.

• 1:12:37

And then also ensuring that the interactions are polished and working.

• 1:12:43

So from a large feature perspective, let me think about that.

• 1:12:47

What large feature endeavor is still outstanding on the Alpha 2 front?

• 1:12:54

A lot of its content.

• 1:12:55

I'm not sure that it's a feature.

• 1:12:57

It's a feature one.

• 1:12:58

I can't think of any large system features that haven't been stood up from a core functional

• 1:13:02

perspective that don't just need expanding on slash content development on.

• 1:13:08

And when you say content, that's like art and code and implementation.

• 1:13:15

The assets, the modeling for the particular types of buildings, the armor sets, the creature

• 1:13:24

features, the visual effects on ability systems, those are all content that accompany what

• 1:13:31

the code is creating from a mechanical perspective.

• 1:13:35

So if you were going to start Alpha 2 in three months, the only way to do that would be a

• 1:13:40

lot of stuff would still be early prototype, gray box, ugly, the stuff you wouldn't want

• 1:13:45

anybody to see.

• 1:13:47

Yeah.

• 1:13:48

Okay.

• 1:13:49

Okay.

• 1:13:50

So that might give people a little more perspective.

• 1:13:51

It's not that there isn't a game to play, it's that there's still some stuff that needs

• 1:13:55

to be worked through.

• 1:13:57

Um, okey dokey.

• 1:13:59

I actually had a, I want to squeeze in one other question just real quick cause I, we

• 1:14:04

got a lot of questions still.

• 1:14:06

Um, uh, combat synergy.

• 1:14:09

I saw a lot of cool stuff with the, uh, the mage there.

• 1:14:12

I saw some cool stuff in one of the previous ones.

• 1:14:15

I believe you had like a, one of the fightery ones and the cleric doing like some sort of

• 1:14:22

stun promotion combo sort of thing.

• 1:14:26

How much do you intend for, uh, those sort of synergy things to be done within one class,

• 1:14:35

one character's kit versus how much do you intend for them to be working with the other

• 1:14:43

characters, the other, um, archetypes and specializations to kind of promote their things

• 1:14:48

or to also make sure you don't step on their feet and accidentally promote something they're

• 1:14:53

trying to maximize?

• 1:14:54

Yeah.

• 1:14:55

When we talk about status conditions or like keyword conditions and the promotion of those

• 1:15:00

effects, um, you know, there is going to be the bread and butter that each class kit has

• 1:15:05

access to.

• 1:15:07

Right.

• 1:15:08

And when they're kind of creating the, uh, the type of rotation with their ability system,

• 1:15:14

um, uh, they're going to want to emphasize those interactions that, that amplify or,

• 1:15:20

uh, promote a particular type of status condition.

• 1:15:23

So they'll have within the kit, their own interactions that they'll be able to leverage.

• 1:15:28

But then in addition to that, they're going to have, uh, keyword status effects that help

• 1:15:34

to either promote other classes, keyword status effects, or are, um, or are the executed promotions

• 1:15:42

of other classes, uh, uh, um, uh, initial status conditions.

• 1:15:47

Right.

• 1:15:48

And when you think about the intent of the design, the intent of the design is that players

• 1:15:52

are servicing themselves from a solo perspective when they want to go out and solo grind and

• 1:15:58

solo experience and fulfill the quests.

• 1:16:01

But when they come together to form a party to encounter group content or a raid to encounter

• 1:16:07

raid content, that the interconnectivity between those classes synergizes with these keyword

• 1:16:13

promotions and or effects.

• 1:16:15

And there's a way to execute on that, that is successful and is effective or a way that's

• 1:16:22

not.

• 1:16:23

And that's kind of the skill ceiling slash skill cap that requires interaction and cooperation

• 1:16:29

and synchronization, uh, between because there are limited time windows in which those keywords

• 1:16:34

can get emphasized or executed upon, uh, when utilizing the ability.

• 1:16:38

Gotcha.

• 1:16:39

Cool, cool, cool.

• 1:16:40

It would be fun to see when it, uh, when we get to try it all out.

• 1:16:46

Yeah.

• 1:16:47

Yeah.

• 1:16:48

It's like, you know, when you think about it, it's very much, very much a musical endeavor,

• 1:16:50

right?

• 1:16:51

When you think about a symphony or a concert, right?

• 1:16:54

Those instruments working with each other to formulate this kind of highly effective

• 1:17:00

and very visceral, you know, experience of this music chain.

• 1:17:03

When you accomplish that in combat, it's going to be noticeable.

• 1:17:07

And that's the desire is let's reward, let's dopamine hit when players are effective in

• 1:17:12

their skill, uh, when executing on these ideas.

• 1:17:16

Okay.

• 1:17:17

Yeah.

• 1:17:18

Nope.

• 1:17:19

You know,

• 1:17:20

it's just a lot of questions out in naval, so, you know, I want to give just a little

• 1:17:26

bit longer before we get to naval.

• 1:17:28

Yeah.

• 1:17:29

It's not a question.

• 1:17:30

It's just screaming naval.

• 1:17:31

I see people saying about naval gazing.

• 1:17:32

No, we're not talking about and follow skeptics here.

• 1:17:35

We're talking about the different kind of naval.

• 1:17:37

What?

• 1:17:38

All those skeptics is when you're like,

• 1:17:41

I didn't know what you were talking about.

• 1:17:44

Rhetorical question.

• 1:17:45

Rhetorical question.

• 1:17:46

I'm just kidding.

• 1:17:47

Everybody's still, Hey, stop talking.

• 1:17:48

So there's three main, three main questions that have sort of been presented and I'm sure

• 1:17:52

chat will mention five more, but, um, one is, is, is naval.

• 1:17:57

Have you started working on naval combat yet or not?

• 1:18:00

And then from the vehicle perspective, right, when we're talking about, um, the ability

• 1:18:04

to attach, uh, the vehicle component to a particular type of ship or whatever like that,

• 1:18:10

that has been developed from a core functionality perspective.

• 1:18:13

Now when we talk about how do we emulate the physics movement of the vessel in the water,

• 1:18:18

that still needs to be done.

• 1:18:20

How do we have certain mechanics like the attaching of particular types of weapons on

• 1:18:25

the, on the, uh, on the vehicle that still needs to be done?

• 1:18:29

Um, you know, but naval combat is something that is in and of itself a very intricate

• 1:18:35

system.

• 1:18:36

Um, and it shares a lot with our general vehicle system, such as caravans and mounts, um, that

• 1:18:42

are utilized, uh, within the code.

• 1:18:44

And then there had been, uh, another question, um, this was from Figo 01, which was, uh,

• 1:18:53

in referring to the coastline nodes and whether the boats, your boats, could you, or your

• 1:18:59

ships, your Navy, could you do an, um, naval assault on a coastal node?

• 1:19:03

So are you actually going to be able to use those weapons to actually damage the node

• 1:19:08

that you're trying to take, whether that's structures or whatever might be there?

• 1:19:13

Yeah, we've gone, we've gone back and forth a little bit on whether or not the design

• 1:19:17

intent for sieging, um, of nodes is intended to include for certain nodes, uh, the naval

• 1:19:26

component.

• 1:19:27

The concern there was that it would be a difficult thing to balance, uh, around that particular

• 1:19:32

node having, um, accessibility from the water for those types of defenses.

• 1:19:37

So what we've, what we've kind of, uh, presented as an opportunity where harbors are the focal

• 1:19:43

point of those naval interactions.

• 1:19:45

And during sieges, you are aware that, um, nodes have certain objectives which have ramifications

• 1:19:51

and can influence the outcome and or the ongoings of a particular siege against a node.

• 1:19:56

And if one of those objectives is a naval objective, because that node might own a harbor,

• 1:20:01

which is a point of interest that gets adopted by a node, which advances far enough around

• 1:20:05

it, right?

• 1:20:06

So you might have one harbor and five nodes that can own that harbor.

• 1:20:09

And the first to hit the village stage adopts the harbor, right?

• 1:20:13

And that can become an objective key point during a siege that has naval interaction.

• 1:20:18

So that's kind of the direction we've moved towards rather than allowing, um, uh, the

• 1:20:23

naval, um, component to interact directly with sieging the node itself, as opposed to

• 1:20:27

being a part of the objective based gameplay, uh, that exists for a node siege.

• 1:20:33

And then another one that's come up sort of around this too, um, and I'm trying to remember

• 1:20:38

who even said it, um, was around shipbuilding, that that seems to have sort of dropped off

• 1:20:44

from a conversational standpoint that at one time there was the idea that you could do

• 1:20:47

that as a crafter, whether that still exists or whether that has now been sort of spread

• 1:20:52

out to different multiple different professions.

• 1:20:54

Yeah, the shipbuilding has been spread out to multiple different professions.

• 1:20:58

So different professions are responsible for creating different components of the shipbuilding

• 1:21:03

process.

• 1:21:04

And then at the harbor, you will interact with a unique workstation based on having

• 1:21:07

the recipe or the blueprint for the particular ship that you're attempting to build and the

• 1:21:11

components that are rent that are then derived from multiple professions to then finally

• 1:21:15

create the ship item.

• 1:21:17

Okay.

• 1:21:18

That that's, I don't know, I'm sure there's going to be more in chat about naval stuff,

• 1:21:23

but that's what I've saw so far.

• 1:21:25

Um, actually kind of related to that.

• 1:21:28

Uh, when we, we sort of talk about where you're, um, well, kind of not related, not really

• 1:21:33

related, but on the freeholds, um, we know that there's taverns.

• 1:21:37

One of the questions that we were given is whether or not you can, uh, tell us sort of

• 1:21:42

what every, um, service, whatever your business is.

• 1:21:47

Yeah.

• 1:21:48

Well, do you have a full, the question was, what is the full list of services that can

• 1:21:51

be run out of a freehold?

• 1:21:52

We know about taverns, but what else?

• 1:21:54

Yeah, I would, I would reserve that question, um, for probably a portion of the article

• 1:22:01

that's coming out this next week.

• 1:22:03

Um, so, you know, we have a list of kind of ideas that we want to service from a business

• 1:22:08

perspective, but fundamentally what that service equates to is that there are a number of created

• 1:22:14

consumables that are possible through the different professions.

• 1:22:18

How those serve, how those, um, items become presented to the player from a business establishment

• 1:22:24

perspective, uh, and through what venue that business represents is how we partition those

• 1:22:30

consumables into different verticals for the business system.

• 1:22:35

Um, and, and that is something that, um, uh, that I think we'll expand a little bit upon

• 1:22:40

in the article that comes out next week.

• 1:22:42

We saw that you could sleep on the beds.

• 1:22:44

Is there an animation for that?

• 1:22:47

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:22:48

We can have a brothel.

• 1:22:49

Oh my God.

• 1:22:50

Well, it was, was the most clock you can see of beds, uh, uh, thing that was.

• 1:22:59

Oh my God.

• 1:23:00

Um, so, uh, I don't know if I don't think we're going to have a brothel per se that,

• 1:23:06

yeah, that, that might not be, um, uh, a good idea.

• 1:23:10

However, uh, there is beds out, but we can rent beds out.

• 1:23:14

I mean, again, the beds are intended to provide rested experience digs.

• 1:23:18

I'm not sure the brothels that you're talking about, but you know, maybe not very restful

• 1:23:23

at the very least days, you can probably do a themed hotel.

• 1:23:27

You've got like the sandal room or the bed shaped like a sandal and it's got like a beach

• 1:23:31

theme.

• 1:23:32

You've got like the dragon room where everything looks all edgelord and like has the iron thrown

• 1:23:37

from that one, uh, show in it.

• 1:23:41

Um, I'm just going to call it that one show.

• 1:23:46

That one show.

• 1:23:47

Season eight, which shall not be spoken of.

• 1:23:50

I have a kind of a related question to, um, euros.

• 1:23:57

Oh, okay.

• 1:23:58

Always.

• 1:23:59

Um, to euros about, um, alpha two, uh, there was a question from crow three in the forums

• 1:24:07

asking, uh, when alpha two does roll out, what are some top key results you're hoping

• 1:24:13

to achieve as an indicator of success?

• 1:24:17

Ooh, that is a good question.

• 1:24:19

So, um, you know, there are two primary roads, I would say of feedback.

• 1:24:29

One is the empirical kind of data that we received through, uh, logs that show kind

• 1:24:34

of player interactions with particular systems, with particular items.

• 1:24:38

Uh, they have their play times, they have their kind of, um, you know, retention metrics

• 1:24:43

that we can look at, you know, how often are they interacting with certain things?

• 1:24:47

And that, that tells us one story, right?

• 1:24:50

And then we have the other aspect of it, which really requires a good investment in a community

• 1:24:55

team that's going to be interacting with the play testers, that's going to formulate kind

• 1:25:00

of surveys and, um, you know, essentially, uh, uh, feedback work that's responsible on

• 1:25:06

behalf of the play testers.

• 1:25:07

Because and I've said this in the past, um, and I'll say it again.

• 1:25:12

People who want to participate in Alpha 2 are not signing up to play a game.

• 1:25:18

They are signing up to test a product and development.

• 1:25:22

Um, and a lot of people view that as, um, you know, an aspect that the, why, why should

• 1:25:29

I pay to participate in, you know, play testing something?

• 1:25:33

We also play tested on the QA side.

• 1:25:36

We hire companies that play tested with their QA teams and that ranges in the, in the thousands

• 1:25:42

of players that will be participating from a QA perspective, um, that the company pays

• 1:25:48

for.

• 1:25:49

But there is not quite any feedback that exists that is the feedback from players.

• 1:25:55

And I think that is the most prime paramount example of feedback that we will iterate upon.

• 1:26:01

And what we're looking for from those players is what did you enjoy about these particular

• 1:26:07

systems?

• 1:26:08

What could be improved?

• 1:26:09

What felt tedious?

• 1:26:11

What felt meaningful and having players kind of expand on that.

• 1:26:15

Now, that's a bit less empirical than providing data from our logging metrics, right?

• 1:26:21

Because now we have to have individual community team members go through, sift through these

• 1:26:26

responses and find the key point takeaways that we can share with the team to see, are

• 1:26:32

these designs resonating with the player base?

• 1:26:36

Are they accomplishing the desired goal of emphasizing this particular philosophy or

• 1:26:41

game design pillar?

• 1:26:43

And is it having the type of effect that interconnects with the other systems that that player is

• 1:26:48

going to reference when giving their feedback, right?

• 1:26:50

Do they mention these other systems when they're playing this particular one loop?

• 1:26:54

Because they should be, that was the intent of the interconnectivity between them, right?

• 1:26:58

Like there's a lot of granularity in what it means and takes to sift through the player

• 1:27:04

feedback and you guys know this because you see Discord commentary and Twitch commentary

• 1:27:09

and you see forum posts that are elaborate and very detailed and Reddit posts.

• 1:27:15

All of those are examples of how players feel about what they've experienced.

• 1:27:21

And it takes a bit of knowing your audience for even the community team that participate

• 1:27:27

in sifting through that information to accurately identify what aspects of that feedback are

• 1:27:34

relevant to the development team so that we're not, the development team isn't sitting through

• 1:27:38

that time sifting through it.

• 1:27:40

They're getting the key takeaways.

• 1:27:43

So what I'm looking for from players is really a in-depth interaction across a host of the

• 1:27:49

different systems and loops that exist within the game, trying to tie in corollary loops

• 1:27:55

into those experiences and seeing whether or not they feel meaningful and interconnected

• 1:28:00

and the identity is present within those systems, how those systems can be improved to achieve

• 1:28:05

those goals, what felt tedious and fun, how do we find that fun better, right, for different

• 1:28:12

players and different groups because we have such an eclectic audience are going to have

• 1:28:16

different responses and we need to collate those responses in areas that kind of express

• 1:28:21

a large slice of the player population that's participating.

• 1:28:26

So it's a combination of the two, the empirical data as well as the player sentiment and feedback.

• 1:28:33

So I got a quickie.

• 1:28:34

Apparently all of the stuff everyone was asking about with Navel was basically, is it going

• 1:28:40

to be in Alpha 2?

• 1:28:42

Yes, it will be in Alpha 2.

• 1:28:44

It will not be at the start of Alpha 2, but it will be in Alpha 2.

• 1:28:47

Okay.

• 1:28:48

And then there's like a couple other questions, but you know, folks, there'll be more stuff

• 1:28:51

about Navel.

• 1:28:52

I'm sure, I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunities.

• 1:28:54

And again, just to reiterate, when we talk about will Navel be in Alpha 2, Navel will

• 1:29:00

be in Alpha 2 in the sense that after we launch Alpha 2, at some point in Alpha 2, Navel will

• 1:29:07

be implemented as an update and that Navel will be the ability to acquire components,

• 1:29:13

construct those components, acquire recipes, construct certain types of ships, navigate

• 1:29:17

those ships on the water and engage in certain ship to ship interactions and ship to player

• 1:29:21

interactions and ship to content interactions.

• 1:29:25

Now it won't be the expansive aspect of that, meaning all ships won't be present, all types

• 1:29:29

of those ships, all attachments of those ships, right?

• 1:29:32

And it will be maybe a little bit janked to start because it's going to be an Alpha version

• 1:29:36

of it.

• 1:29:37

But the intent there is to provide the loop where players get to go and interact with

• 1:29:41

content in the ocean.

• 1:29:43

That won't be at the start of Alpha 2, but it will be in Alpha 2.

• 1:29:45

Yeah, as we talk about adding stuff, how long do you have an idea?

• 1:29:51

This might be a question I shouldn't ask, but do you have an idea how long Alpha 2 might

• 1:29:54

be?

• 1:29:55

Because we are going to see things come online, but...

• 1:29:57

As long as it needs to be.

• 1:29:58

Yeah, that's what I assume.

• 1:30:01

All right.

• 1:30:02

And that is something though that I get this feeling you were saying about archetypes that

• 1:30:08

are going to be available at the start.

• 1:30:11

But it sounds like this Alpha is really something where you want it to maybe not get all the

• 1:30:17

way up to the start of where Beta 1 would be functionally and content-wise.

• 1:30:22

But how much of the systems and everything do you plan to bring online during Alpha 2?

• 1:30:31

Do you plan to just get most of it most of the way during that period?

• 1:30:40

Alpha 2 is intended to provide all of the core functionality and systems at some point

• 1:30:49

during Alpha 2 will be rolled out to be tested.

• 1:30:53

And then between Alpha 2 and Betas, we'll be refining those systems and populating those

• 1:30:59

systems with the additional content necessary that will then go through a more rigorous

• 1:31:04

portion of testing, which is to essentially QA all of that content through Betas.

• 1:31:11

So Alpha 2 is intended to be a true functional representation of all the core systems and

• 1:31:18

features.

• 1:31:19

Awesome.

• 1:31:20

So that's something I think people might want to take into consideration here because what

• 1:31:26

we've seen games call Alphas or Pre-Alphas or other things and the state of the game.

• 1:31:33

And then you see the state of it when they call it Beta.

• 1:31:36

And then you see the state of it when they call it Launch.

• 1:31:38

It's like, you know, golly, this still feels like an Alpha.

• 1:31:45

I've seen that happen many, many a time.

• 1:31:48

And you can continue to say that until you're blue in the face and choking on the ground,

• 1:31:52

grasping for air.

• 1:31:53

And there will still be a large segment of the broad population that will never hear

• 1:31:57

it.

• 1:31:58

And that's okay, because it's not the responsibility of the players to be a good follower of development.

• 1:32:04

They're the consumer, right?

• 1:32:05

So they can have that opinion.

• 1:32:07

That's totally fine.

• 1:32:08

We need to be careful in how we present and market the game and distinguishing between

• 1:32:13

the audiences that are the less informed development consumer and the individuals who want to be

• 1:32:19

part of the development process, watch that, get feedback, which is more our core audience

• 1:32:25

and just being able to differentiate between the two.

• 1:32:27

Yeah, like what you guys are really doing here.

• 1:32:30

I'm going to give a funny phrase.

• 1:32:32

Do whatever you want.

• 1:32:33

Clip it or whatever.

• 1:32:34

People make Alpha Alpha again.

• 1:32:40

Make Alpha Alpha again.

• 1:32:42

Ma.

• 1:32:43

Yes.

• 1:32:44

That's great.

• 1:32:45

So the last naval question I asked, it just popped in chat.

• 1:32:49

I think it'll be brief.

• 1:32:50

Will you be able to name your ship?

• 1:32:51

So will we be able to sort of name and decorate in a way that people will know you're coming?

• 1:32:55

Absolutely.

• 1:32:56

And you can own more than that was one of my that was on my favorite thing.

• 1:32:59

Yeah, you can.

• 1:33:00

But that was one of my favorite things about another game I had played.

• 1:33:04

I made sure whenever we had like naval runs with many ships, I mean, we would we would

• 1:33:09

run 300 plus people on a particular, you know, trade run or whatever with a lot of ships.

• 1:33:14

I would have every ship named after a Star Trek ship.

• 1:33:17

So I'd be like, all right, USS Endeavor, you take our flank and hit Enterprise move to

• 1:33:22

the forward.

• 1:33:23

And it was just like total role play the shit out of it.

• 1:33:26

Excuse me.

• 1:33:27

I curse all the time.

• 1:33:30

It's fine.

• 1:33:31

Yeah, it's so good.

• 1:33:32

I loved it.

• 1:33:33

We don't have a swear jar.

• 1:33:35

Don't worry.

• 1:33:36

Okay, good.

• 1:33:37

You're muted, Dig.

• 1:33:38

I was waiting to have to say that someone.

• 1:33:44

I'm glad it wasn't me.

• 1:33:48

Second question is, can players just randomly kill non combat NPCs in the world like in

• 1:33:55

World of Warcraft?

• 1:33:57

No, no, if they're if they're non combat NPC, they're there to provide a particular service

• 1:34:02

and or quest line.

• 1:34:04

I don't feel it's any type of meaningful gameplay to provide the opportunity to kill those particular

• 1:34:08

NPCs.

• 1:34:10

I guess a follow up question for me would be, but they could they be killed during a

• 1:34:18

siege?

• 1:34:19

Could they be or or like during during sieges or during the war?

• 1:34:23

During sieges or during monster events.

• 1:34:28

Those those vendors, the non combat NPCs are usually provided for through a particular

• 1:34:35

building type now unless they're general NPCs.

• 1:34:38

If they're general NPCs, currently, I think what we're doing is we're despawning them

• 1:34:42

if they're not combat oriented.

• 1:34:45

And if they are a service building, like a constructible, if that building becomes damaged,

• 1:34:51

then the NPC is disabled post the event or post the siege until the building is repaired.

• 1:34:57

But they're not present to be killed as part of the siege event.

• 1:35:00

If they are combat NPCs, such as a mercenary or like a captain of the guard or whatever,

• 1:35:05

they're present, they can be killed and they have ramifications for doing so.

• 1:35:10

So like I think in Alpha 1 we had like a scholar who was she wanted us to go on quests to gather

• 1:35:19

more information about the wildlife.

• 1:35:23

Would that character be able to be killed?

• 1:35:25

And if so, would she pop back up later?

• 1:35:28

So even after the siege if she comes back.

• 1:35:31

And then would we have to let's say that the node is destroyed.

• 1:35:39

Would it have to come back as the same racial type in order to get that NPC back?

• 1:35:45

Oh, to get the NPC back.

• 1:35:48

It depends.

• 1:35:49

So depending on the cultural influence of the node activates certain types of quest

• 1:35:55

lines and or spawners, right?

• 1:35:57

Some of those are shared.

• 1:35:58

Some of those are general.

• 1:35:59

Some of those relate to a progression path that is a first time user experience.

• 1:36:03

Those will be constant across all culture types.

• 1:36:06

Some of them, however, are predicate, are predicates that spawn when certain story arcs

• 1:36:11

and or events or commissions or by orders become present within the node.

• 1:36:17

And those might change based on the cultural influence of the node.

• 1:36:20

So there is a separation between those populations.

• 1:36:25

Someone's asking about ruins after the node is destroyed and how that would affect quest

• 1:36:28

lines.

• 1:36:29

Yeah.

• 1:36:30

So are you referring to the ruined kind of the battle arena that the nodes footprint

• 1:36:37

has after the destruction of it through the siege system?

• 1:36:41

I'm guessing.

• 1:36:42

Yeah.

• 1:36:43

OK, that's the only kind of ruins I can think about.

• 1:36:44

Have I talked about that in the past?

• 1:36:46

I think maybe I did.

• 1:36:47

I think you've mentioned that those would kind of be there, but I don't think we have.

• 1:36:50

So those are those are kind of like open world battlegrounds that spawn on the footprint of

• 1:36:54

the node after a successful siege.

• 1:36:57

And these are opportunities that defender previous defenders have to salvage certain

• 1:37:01

materials and or equipment from the destroyed node or that attackers have to do the same.

• 1:37:07

And there's interact points that live within that environment that take time in order to

• 1:37:11

interact with, which makes those individuals susceptible to potential ganking or fighting.

• 1:37:16

And you can control those areas.

• 1:37:18

And that that exists for some period of time.

• 1:37:19

It's like an open open world arena system.

• 1:37:23

Gotcha.

• 1:37:27

Maybe I can jump in.

• 1:37:28

You can one of you guys want to jump in before this.

• 1:37:31

But go ahead.

• 1:37:34

Related kind of is what's your current vision for player created NPCs like the caravan guards,

• 1:37:39

the arena heroes, the freehold helpers, shop merchants?

• 1:37:43

Do you still have plans for that?

• 1:37:47

Player created NPCs like the mercenaries.

• 1:37:49

Player created.

• 1:37:50

Got it.

• 1:37:51

Got it.

• 1:37:52

Got it.

• 1:37:53

So there are types of NPCs that have specific functions.

• 1:37:56

Right.

• 1:37:57

And for example, on the freehold, we've always talked about in the past having certain NPCs

• 1:38:00

that are capable of rotating crops or planting and or watering, doing certain process oriented

• 1:38:06

functions that are available to the user to acquire.

• 1:38:09

We still have those plans.

• 1:38:11

Those plans will follow a similar like pet system functionality, core system functionality,

• 1:38:16

where they'll have actions that can be dictated by the user.

• 1:38:19

All right.

• 1:38:22

Thank you.

• 1:38:23

So there is one that I probably should have put on the list, but you can just say no,

• 1:38:29

if it's I don't think it's too too dangerous.

• 1:38:34

Can you tell me a little bit more about like the versatility and viability of gear?

• 1:38:41

Like would a paladin really be wearing robes and going in with like a staff or more magic

• 1:38:49

oriented instead of something oriented stuff?

• 1:38:55

Or is that not really sort of thing that would ever happen?

• 1:38:59

Is it that everybody can wear all the equipment, but people are still usually going to wear

• 1:39:04

certain types for certain reasons?

• 1:39:09

So the intent behind the equipment system is that you will have certain types of equipment

• 1:39:16

that are more relevant against this certain type of content that you're attempting to

• 1:39:22

defeat or to succeed at.

• 1:39:25

And what that means is, especially on the defensive side of things, you will want to

• 1:39:31

have different gear sets acquired to be most effective against those particular encounters.

• 1:39:38

On the weapon side of things, weapons have different types of interactions.

• 1:39:43

They have passive stat progression that's available through the weapon type.

• 1:39:48

That's going to be relevant based on the way you're kitting your character in concert with

• 1:39:54

your ability selection as well through the skill tree on how you're attempting to emphasize

• 1:39:59

your character's waterfall stats.

• 1:40:01

And there's different viable approaches that each class has.

• 1:40:05

We're of course adopting a Trinity type system with a hybridization model.

• 1:40:09

So you can flirt the line between the roles to a degree based on player customization.

• 1:40:14

And an agnostic equipment approach allows players to emphasize that hybridization model

• 1:40:21

to a degree.

• 1:40:22

So there's still going to be a spectrum of relevant equipment that's most effective for

• 1:40:26

your character based on the role you're attempting to provide a particular party or yourself

• 1:40:32

solo.

• 1:40:33

And players will do well to kind of stay within that spectrum.

• 1:40:37

But it is something that is intended to be somewhat agnostic of class.

• 1:40:42

So it's the sort of thing where it might be, you know, we're going to a dungeon that's

• 1:40:47

oops all fire golems.

• 1:40:49

So if everybody straps up with plate armor and fire resistance, you don't have to worry

• 1:40:54

about the magic fire.

• 1:40:55

You've got the fire resistance for that.

• 1:40:57

And when you start getting punched around, that's why everyone's coming with plate.

• 1:41:00

Yeah, some of your other stats might be a little diminished.

• 1:41:03

Dig it, we're going to have that much more defense will be able to stick around a lot

• 1:41:07

longer.

• 1:41:08

The idea is, is that the encounters design team presents a particular type of challenge

• 1:41:14

rating for those who are familiar with like, you know, playing D&D or whatever.

• 1:41:18

Challenge rating gets informed by a few different vertical power levels.

• 1:41:23

But then there's also the horizontal perspective.

• 1:41:26

That is what tools does your party have to address the challenge rating of the situation.

• 1:41:32

And some of the horizontal progression exists with within how you kit your equipment slots.

• 1:41:38

Some of those can be enhancements or stones as you're discussing with fire resistance.

• 1:41:43

Some of those are base stats that exist on a particular item such as physical damage

• 1:41:47

mitigation versus magical damage mitigation and what subtype of damage is incoming based

• 1:41:52

on that.

• 1:41:54

These are the ways that kind of we emphasize that more rock paper scissors type of interaction

• 1:42:00

with balance to where it's okay to have asymmetric imbalance if there are horizontal methods

• 1:42:06

by which you achieve the challenge rating.

• 1:42:09

And I would say it's not just plate because you could have rings, you could have jewelry,

• 1:42:14

you could have your passive skills as well.

• 1:42:19

All of those contribute absolutely.

• 1:42:22

And they're all part of designing a more player centric customization aspect to create, I

• 1:42:31

think, what's the most fun part about those systems, unique weird ways that you overcome

• 1:42:37

things that the norm or the meta hasn't done.

• 1:42:41

And then feeling real satisfactory when someone's like, what the hell kind of a build is that?

• 1:42:45

It's awesome for this dungeon, but it sucks ass for this one.

• 1:42:49

Well, I mean, that's what I could see is just like an entire an entire alliance.

• 1:42:55

That's the leather bros.

• 1:42:56

It's like, oh yeah, we only always ever use medium armor.

• 1:43:00

We have medium armor specialized for all sorts of things.

• 1:43:04

Everybody's put all of their sport, their points in medium armor.

• 1:43:07

So we can go into any situation and we just put on the right medium armor.

• 1:43:12

We're good to go.

• 1:43:13

You know, that could be a very interesting angle to see is just straddle the line, sit

• 1:43:18

in the middle and be ready for everything.

• 1:43:21

So that's something I'm interested to see.

• 1:43:24

That's why I tell people that in Ashes there should not be an objective meta that is for

• 1:43:30

every tank or for every mage.

• 1:43:33

This is the most efficient tactics possible or the way I, the way I kind of see that is

• 1:43:40

you have a, you have this idea of the macro meta and then you have the micro meta.

• 1:43:46

And what we're doing with this approach is we're deemphasizing a macro meta and instead

• 1:43:52

emphasizing a micro meta.

• 1:43:53

And the difference between the macro micro is, is that on the micro level you have metas

• 1:43:58

that might form based on each individual type of encounter or experience.

• 1:44:04

Right.

• 1:44:05

And in those senses, yes, there's going to be a most optimal, there's going to be a best

• 1:44:07

in slot, there's going to be whatever that pertains to that particular challenge rating.

• 1:44:12

But there won't, we, there will not be an overarching meta that says from a macro level,

• 1:44:18

Hey, if you got this shit, you're good to go for everything.

• 1:44:20

Right.

• 1:44:21

That's boring.

• 1:44:22

That's unfulfilling.

• 1:44:23

That is not interesting.

• 1:44:25

And it is just something that, that dumbifies the experience.

• 1:44:30

More importantly, why don't you have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah in your build?

• 1:44:33

You're supposed to have this.

• 1:44:35

Exactly.

• 1:44:36

Yeah, that definitely ruins the ability to form a party if you know you have to be a

• 1:44:44

certain thing with this and that and the other, otherwise you suck.

• 1:44:47

And what are you even doing here?

• 1:44:48

You knew.

• 1:44:49

Yeah.

• 1:44:50

No, I like to see that there's going to be that level of variance and variation.

• 1:44:55

And you honestly, that is something I do like with the tabletop games.

• 1:44:58

The idea that, Oh yeah.

• 1:45:00

Like fifth edition of D and D for example, if you wanted, you could roll your, your,

• 1:45:06

your human variant level one wizard, roll up some light armor mastery, you know, then

• 1:45:11

get yourself some medium armor going, you know, and by level eight, you're, you're out

• 1:45:17

there wearing plate.

• 1:45:18

It's like, yeah, that's right.

• 1:45:20

I didn't use strength as a dump stat.

• 1:45:21

I got 16 strength.

• 1:45:23

I can wear this plate armor out here in the wild.

• 1:45:25

I don't need to wear my mage armor no more.

• 1:45:27

You know that you can do it.

• 1:45:29

You know, that's one of the reasons why I really love D and D 3.5 or particularly D

• 1:45:35

and D path, excuse me, piezo's pathfinder as an extension of D and D 3.5 is because

• 1:45:43

of the very high degree of granularity that you have in customizing your character.

• 1:45:47

I feel systems and this might get, this might be a hot take for a lot of players because

• 1:45:52

I know it's more widely adopted and more easier to get into from a new player experience perspective

• 1:46:02

is D and D fifth edition.

• 1:46:03

I never really got into fifth edition because I felt they oversimplified a lot of those

• 1:46:07

choices and decisions.

• 1:46:10

And I enjoyed the more intricate nature of what pathfinder or 3.5 provided in character

• 1:46:16

customization options and that high spectrum of horizontal progression that addressed unique

• 1:46:23

situations and challenge ratings that pathfinder had.

• 1:46:27

But some people felt that that was too granular, right?

• 1:46:29

And it was a barrier to entry because of the high degree of granularity.

• 1:46:33

I personally just love that more intricate detail aspect.

• 1:46:41

I can't believe we've been talking for almost two hours.

• 1:46:43

Yeah.

• 1:46:44

I keep telling everyone to quit mentioning this in chat.

• 1:46:48

You're over stop, shut up.

• 1:46:49

Why are you bringing it up?

• 1:46:52

You know, honestly, just, we could have an entire two hour conversation just on tabletop

• 1:46:56

games.

• 1:46:57

There are some real quick, I think these can be very good.

• 1:47:02

I want to get one, one quickie one.

• 1:47:04

I've seen it asked a few times about anti-cheat and stuff.

• 1:47:09

Nobody ever tells what their security is because then you're telling everyone what to look

• 1:47:13

out for.

• 1:47:14

Don't ask.

• 1:47:15

You don't want the answer.

• 1:47:16

You don't want them to reveal the answer.

• 1:47:18

They've got things, they've got people.

• 1:47:20

If that doesn't work, they can hire other people.

• 1:47:23

Security is going to be handled.

• 1:47:24

Don't worry about it.

• 1:47:25

Well, and I think we can expand on that a little bit more.

• 1:47:29

I mean, security is always at the top of any concern when you have a closed system like

• 1:47:33

an MMO is right.

• 1:47:34

You don't have an opportunity.

• 1:47:36

We've seen a lot of MMOs launch without security in place and the economy gets ruined as a

• 1:47:40

result thereafter and every bandaid that's slapped on top of that wound is just making

• 1:47:45

things worse.

• 1:47:47

Part of why you take the time in order to ensure that things are done correctly is also

• 1:47:52

the security component of things.

• 1:47:54

That's where testing with a live audience is a bit different also than testing with

• 1:47:58

a Q&A audience as well because you're going to get those bad actors and we call them bad

• 1:48:02

actors because ultimately they're attempting to destroy the fun for others.

• 1:48:06

That's not the reason why people spend years of their lives developing these games.

• 1:48:09

They want to see the satisfaction, the smile, the happiness that this effort brings to people

• 1:48:14

who they love that are part of the genre they also love.

• 1:48:18

What we've done is we've hired some security experts who've worked on massive other MMOs

• 1:48:23

like World of Warcraft and other games.

• 1:48:26

They bring with them a lot of experience and we're going to be testing that in leading

• 1:48:30

up towards Alpha 2.

• 1:48:32

It's a very important part of Alpha 2.

• 1:48:34

It's not something that we really addressed with Alpha 1 because again, that was a much

• 1:48:37

more bare bones kind of functional testing experience.

• 1:48:40

We did see some issues during Alpha 1 and we made it important for Alpha 2 to test those

• 1:48:46

systems.

• 1:48:47

We have a broad spectrum of approaches that we're going to be utilizing in order to try

• 1:48:51

to protect the integrity of the game once it launches.

• 1:48:55

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:48:57

I'm hoping that the stuff coming with all the other amazing things Unreal 5 brings is

• 1:49:02

also additional tools to streamline and make really nice security systems that are low

• 1:49:09

impact.

• 1:49:11

Absolutely.

• 1:49:14

So we got probably time for what?

• 1:49:16

Another, maybe a couple more questions?

• 1:49:18

Yeah, I have a quick question from chat about when we might see a preview of the augment

• 1:49:25

system this year, next year.

• 1:49:28

What are you thinking?

• 1:49:29

That's a good question.

• 1:49:30

I do not know when that is scheduled for off the top of my head.

• 1:49:35

But I think you did.

• 1:49:37

Yeah, okay.

• 1:49:39

If the character creator, that's another common question is sort of when can we expect to

• 1:49:43

see that again or when hands on that sort of stuff?

• 1:49:48

Character creator is scheduled before the start of Alpha 2.

• 1:49:50

So players will have an opportunity to see the character creator in the start of Alpha

• 1:49:55

2's client that they'll have access to.

• 1:49:58

That's something that is that I believe last milestone, or maybe it's a milestone, was

• 1:50:04

getting revamped or retouched up.

• 1:50:08

And then there was a debate in chat, I think it was about gear breaking if it's over enchanted.

• 1:50:15

I guess the Wikipedia is kind of conflicting on whether it breaks permanently, temporarily.

• 1:50:21

It depends on when you're doing the over enchanting.

• 1:50:23

So it's a progressive tier of risk.

• 1:50:26

At lower levels, you have opportunities to potentially lose out on the pluses instead

• 1:50:34

of breaking the equipment.

• 1:50:35

But when you reach a certain threshold, thereafter, there is an opportunity to essentially destroy

• 1:50:41

the equipment where you get resources back.

• 1:50:45

But that's a risk that the player takes.

• 1:50:47

Yep.

• 1:50:48

In my mind, all sorts of games.

• 1:50:50

My absolutely final question, and I'll leave it to you, is apartments.

• 1:50:55

So when I think we know there's 50, I believe, to start with at a third stage node.

• 1:51:02

So when we get to Metropolis, is there any rough idea of how many apartments you think

• 1:51:06

might be sort of available maximally?

• 1:51:09

I know there's some expansion possibilities between depending on who owns it, what they

• 1:51:14

want to do.

• 1:51:16

Yeah.

• 1:51:17

Yeah.

• 1:51:18

So basically, apartments are default structures that exist in every node type.

• 1:51:24

And at the different stages, you have upgrade paths that those apartment buildings can take

• 1:51:29

based on projects that the mayor and the node initiate together.

• 1:51:34

Those upgrade paths increase the quantity and the types of apartments that can be essentially

• 1:51:40

purchased or rented, meaning that you can have larger, higher tier apartment types if

• 1:51:47

you unlock those upgrade paths, which then have greater allotment of functional furniture

• 1:51:51

placement within the apartments that players then have access to.

• 1:51:55

The quantity of apartments is obviously not a firm number.

• 1:51:58

This is something we're going to be play testing.

• 1:52:00

This is something that needs to be balanced.

• 1:52:02

But to start, what we're thinking around is the low hundreds, not 100, the low hundreds

• 1:52:08

will be at the Metropolis level for players to spec into with the expansion, with the

• 1:52:12

upgrade trees.

• 1:52:13

Sounds good.

• 1:52:14

All right, guys.

• 1:52:15

I have a kind of quick question.

• 1:52:20

Do you plan to have guild management available at the start of Alpha 2?

• 1:52:25

Yes, there will be guild management functions available at the start of Alpha 2.

• 1:52:30

That's what I thought.

• 1:52:31

That was Vulcan from the forums, by the way.

• 1:52:33

Okeydokey.

• 1:52:34

All right.

• 1:52:35

One more here.

• 1:52:37

It's kind of an open one.

• 1:52:38

I'm going to maybe modify it a little bit.

• 1:52:42

Is there anything that you haven't gotten a chance to say in this stream, on a live

• 1:52:50

stream recently, anything you wanted to clarify that you have in anything that you feel like

• 1:52:57

the community doesn't quite, maybe doesn't understand, but maybe needs a little bit more

• 1:53:04

direction on or anything like that?

• 1:53:05

Kind of like an open floor sort of thing here.

• 1:53:08

Is there anything that you want to make sure the community knows that maybe they don't

• 1:53:12

know or isn't quite as clear and concrete to them right now?

• 1:53:17

It's not designed for everyone.

• 1:53:22

That is a true statement, and I think that everyone should want that to be the truth.

• 1:53:27

Any time, and I've said this in the past, I like the lead digs, by the way.

• 1:53:31

Every time that I've said this in the past, anybody trying to create a product for everyone

• 1:53:36

is going to fail every time.

• 1:53:38

The bottom line is that everybody's different.

• 1:53:41

Everyone has different interests.

• 1:53:42

Everything is different from what you're trying to achieve out of a system or what you're

• 1:53:47

trying to achieve out of a game, and that's okay.

• 1:53:49

That's a good thing.

• 1:53:50

That's a very good thing.

• 1:53:51

I don't know.

• 1:53:53

I'm relatively verbose when it comes to talking, but I do it all day, every day, every hour

• 1:54:00

of every day in sub-conference room or another at the studio.

• 1:54:06

I obviously have a lot to say about certain things.

• 1:54:09

What I would say to the community at large is that there is nothing more rewarding than

• 1:54:17

being able to interact with you guys and being able to have you along the way of this journey.

• 1:54:25

It is quite a journey.

• 1:54:27

I can't believe how much of a journey it has been thus far and how much a journey still

• 1:54:32

remains.

• 1:54:33

But it is very rewarding, very motivating to see the excitement and how much the systems

• 1:54:46

and the game resonate with our core community.

• 1:54:51

I just offer the same thanks that I give as much as I can from not just myself but from

• 1:54:56

the team that's behind Ashes of Creation.

• 1:54:58

Our ultimate goal is to create a product that we enjoy and that you guys enjoy.

• 1:55:02

You guys tuning in and watching Q&As like this or watching our monthly live streams

• 1:55:07

and going and commenting on social platforms and on our forums and being registered for

• 1:55:12

the game.

• 1:55:13

All of that stuff contributes to us being motivated every day we go to work.

• 1:55:18

Thank you guys enough for that.

• 1:55:19

With that being said, remember that everything we discuss, everything that we're working

• 1:55:25

on, everything that we're showing is subject to change in an effort to form a more perfect

• 1:55:31

game.

• 1:55:32

By perfect I don't mean literally perfect.

• 1:55:34

I mean how can we iterate on the designs and the approach of Ashes of Creation so that

• 1:55:41

we fulfill the promise of our goals, the promise of our philosophy in the game design and the

• 1:55:47

pillars that we expressed when we started this journey.

• 1:55:51

That is the ultimate end goal.

• 1:55:54

And the type of interaction that we have and the rapport that we built with the community,

• 1:55:57

our core audience is in an effort to do that better.

• 1:56:03

Just keep it with a grain of salt.

• 1:56:04

These designs are intended to be tested.

• 1:56:06

They're intended to be iterated upon.

• 1:56:09

And when you hear individuals rising up in arms against a particular design decision,

• 1:56:14

know that at the heart of this project and at the heart of this development are fellow

• 1:56:18

MMO gamers.

• 1:56:20

And we are not going to do this product wrong by making simplistic mistakes that fundamentally

• 1:56:26

alter what the intent of the design and the approach of the game is.

• 1:56:30

So have some trust in us that we're going to be iterating upon your guys' feedback

• 1:56:34

and the play testing that we do in an effort to create the game that we want to make.

• 1:56:39

Well, I think with that we are at the end and that is wonderful.

• 1:56:48

We have greatly appreciated the last six years, you know, getting to talk to you, not just

• 1:56:53

here, but in forums and Discord.

• 1:56:55

And I have to say it's been very nice having such an open person.

• 1:57:00

As you say, you tend to speak in volume.

• 1:57:02

So I think that's a very good thing for the community is being able to hear the why things

• 1:57:06

are happening.

• 1:57:07

I think that does help calm people.

• 1:57:08

So we appreciate you being here and everyone else that has joined us.

• 1:57:13

I appreciate you guys.

• 1:57:14

And I appreciate fellow content creators like you guys that are out there covering the product

• 1:57:17

and being able to bring to the masses kind of your thoughts and perspectives.

• 1:57:21

You guys always have a great time.

• 1:57:22

I see it when I watch you guys discussing with each other, your true gamers at heart.

• 1:57:26

You know this genre because you played in this genre for so long.

• 1:57:29

So really appreciate what you guys do.

• 1:57:31

Happy 100th episode.

• 1:57:33

Congratulations from the studio to you guys and participating in this conversation journey

• 1:57:37

for so long.

• 1:57:38

We do appreciate you guys are awesome.

• 1:57:40

And I love being here.

• 1:57:45

We hope to obviously have you on for a fourth time.

• 1:57:47

Maybe sometime around Alpha 2.

• 1:57:49

We'll see.

• 1:57:50

Well, everyone for who those of you who are new to us, just a little quick plug.

• 1:57:54

We are usually live every Sunday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern.

• 1:57:59

So we are usually a little bit later than now.

• 1:58:01

But you can find us in our Discord as well.

• 1:58:04

And yeah, if we didn't get your question, sorry.

• 1:58:06

There's a lot to this is a massive game and there's a lot to talk about.

• 1:58:09

So thank you all.

• 1:58:12

And we will see you around for those who join us next Sunday.

• 1:58:15

And again, thank you very much, Stephen, for your time.

• 1:58:18

Absolutely.

• 1:58:19

Bye, guys.

• 1:58:20

Thank you, Eddie.