Talk:2023-08-31 Livestream

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Intro

• 00:00

Hello and welcome, glorious

• 00:20

varans. Hello! I hope that you are just as excited as we are for August development update.

• 00:26

We have quite a doozy. Buckle in, make sure you hydrate, go get your water now, get some coffee if

• 00:34

you need it, because it's gonna be a long one. How are you doing, Steven? I am doing very good.

• 00:42

How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm moved in, I got my wedding venue locked in,

• 00:49

life is great, work is good. I know. I gotta admit, I don't normally get nervous for our

• 01:00

live streams. I really enjoy them, right? Honestly. But this is a topic that we haven't touched for

• 01:08

a while. And, you know, there's a lot of updates and I think it's exciting and I think the community

• 01:14

is gonna enjoy it. But like you said, this is gonna be a long one. Probably you guys can expect

• 01:18

that this stream will last around two hours. So, like Margaret said, make sure you have some snacks,

• 01:24

make sure you pace yourself, get up and stretch, move your legs, you know, you gotta stay healthy

• 01:29

during this time. Yeah. Or get one of those like little treadmill things that you walk at your

• 01:34

desk with. I need one. But yeah, it's gonna be a good long one for you all, so stay tuned.

• 01:43

But obviously you can see below here, our run of show, we have some quick reminders that we're

Reminders

• 01:48

gonna go through. Then we're gonna get right into the Node Village updates and then studio updates

• 01:53

and then Q&A. So, it's gonna be a tight one. Exciting! Yeah! And we will be having a whole

• 02:00

bunch of people joining us today, so it's gonna be exciting. Yeah, I think we have, what, five

• 02:06

developers that are joining us today, right? Roughly, I think, yeah. Three, four, five, yeah.

• 02:12

Maths are hard on the fly. But we'll do quick updates. So, quick updates. First and foremost,

• 02:20

we've got our YouTube spotlight comment, and this one comes from Slender MMO, or if that's

• 02:26

Leetspeak, S-L-3-N-D-E-R. And they want to know, is the development team moving away from action?

• 02:34

This is the wrong scene, sorry. That's the wrong slide. It's the wrong one. I thought I grabbed

• 02:41

the other one. Well, I will grab the right one in a moment. But the question is, is the development

• 02:47

team moving away from action combat, or is action combat more prevalent with the melee classes and

• 02:53

the healing slash range classes are more tab target other than AoE spells? And we have had people

• 03:00

asking me about this as we've had the cleric update. Obviously, with the cleric, it's a little

• 03:04

harder to show tab target in action combat because it's healing oriented. For sure. Well,

• 03:11

so to answer that question, we have not moved away from our hybrid approach to the development of

• 03:17

Ashes of Creation's combat. And specifically, to reiterate, that approach is incorporating elements

• 03:24

of skill shots, fast and reactive gameplay that is situationally relevant and incorporates the

• 03:32

camera mode of both tab targeting as well as action combat reticle. That's something that

• 03:38

is still in progress. We haven't moved away from that. However, to note, our approach of that

• 03:45

hybridization is going to incorporate things like templated skill shots, directionally relevant,

• 03:54

activated abilities, along with the ability to dodge, to roll projectiles that can impact collision.

• 04:02

Those are elements of action combat that are present. Now, when we talk about tempo or pacing

• 04:07

of the combat, we are not going to be as fast paced. And as you've been seeing updates from

• 04:14

the development of our archetypes and our classes, we are not going to be as fast paced as some of

• 04:19

the more twitch oriented combat styles of some action MMOs or some action combat systems. It's

• 04:26

meant to be a blend between the two. And in that regard, for tab targeting purposes, it needs to

• 04:34

live comfortably with each other. So that's probably what you're seeing. The opportunity

• 04:40

to utilize the reticle based combat mode is still available. Designs are taking that into account.

• 04:46

And that is our direction for the foreseeable future.

• 04:52

Awesome. Awesome. Then next up in our announcements here, we do have

• 04:59

a discussion round. Stephen will be joining a whole slew of people over on Yokai Theater's

• 05:09

channel. You've seen a few of these interviews in the past. They're always good fun. I know that

• 05:15

these folks have been working very hard on getting everything set up so that we hope that you all

• 05:21

enjoyed as well. Yeah, that's exciting. Anything you want to mention on that, Bren? Well, I have

• 05:26

been on that one before, haven't I? I've been on this one. This is my second time. I think they're

• 05:31

going to have a different cast with them. Nice. Yeah, I'm excited for that. That's going to be fun.

• 05:38

When is that? That's September 10th? Yeah, September 10th at 12 PM Pacific. So definitely

• 05:44

tune in. So make sure you guys get some questions in for that. I think they're collecting questions.

• 05:48

They're pretty good at making sure no repeats. They've been around for a little while. Now

• 05:53

you're putting pressure on them. Oh no, called it out. We do have a bunch of social that has gone

• 06:02

off for this too. So if you don't mind heading on over, retweeting, sharing, spreading some love,

• 06:09

that would be wonderful. Awesome. And we have a new dev discussion. This one is about roleplay.

• 06:16

And I know there's a bunch of y'all out there who are interested in that stuff. Definitely

• 06:21

head on over and tell us, or not roleplay, in-game content. Roleplay was last time. In-game content.

• 06:27

What we want to know is what are you looking forward to most in-game examples, maybe a game

• 06:34

system specifically, a fantasy you hope to carry out, or a specific activity with players? So

• 06:40

definitely go tell us what kind of content you want to see in-game as our content team is creating

• 06:46

things. Now what if your favorite in-game content is roleplaying? That could be it. We just did a

• 06:54

report on roleplay. That's why it's like in my mind. That was our last dev discussion that we did

• 06:58

before. But you can still go give us feedback on that if you have thoughts. Or if roleplay is your

• 07:03

favorite part of content, feel free to add it into that as well. The more information, the better.

• 07:10

And also we do have our next one is going to be coming up. It's going to be about your favorite

• 07:14

is going to be coming up. It's going to be about your dream node. So if there's things that you

• 07:18

would like to see in nodes, especially after you watch today's stream, tell us all the things because

• 07:24

we are curious. We would love to know. And the last thing I have to share with you all today

• 07:31

is about the cosmetics. We do have the none-forgotten cosmetics that we'll be swapping

• 07:36

over on September 13th at 11am Pacific. And with that reminder that the September pack that is

• 07:43

coming up is going to be the final pre-order packs. We do have an FAQ on the August one right now if

• 07:49

you want to read that. But the final dates and things like that for the September pack will be

• 07:54

in the September FAQ. So keep your eye out on that. And if you have additional questions, let us know

• 08:00

and we'll try to make sure those are covered as well. And I do want to comment just real quick on

• 08:06

this. For those of you who are feeling FOMO about the packs being discontinued, that is not the

• 08:12

intent and purpose for discontinuing the pre-order packs for Alpha 2. We still have a lot of testing

• 08:17

that we need to do and we have a significant number of players that we are anticipating

• 08:22

and who have already pre-ordered for Alpha 2. And before we potentially open up again

• 08:29

people to have access to purchase into Alpha 2, we need to vet some things regarding concurrencies

• 08:36

and total player counts. And feeling very confident in that, so I want to give the forewarning that

• 08:41

if you do not participate in purchasing pre-order packages for Alpha 2, there may be an opportunity

• 08:46

to do that again in the future. So don't walk away from this feeling like you're

• 08:51

definitely going to miss out if you don't participate in the pre-order packs. But next

• 08:54

month we will be discontinuing them and we'll have some more information on that coming up as

• 09:00

Margaret said in the September info. Yeah and keeping in mind that we'll have giveaways and

• 09:05

things like that for Alpha 2 access. So even if you aren't able to purchase, I know some people are

• 09:09

like, well I can't even afford that. So we understand. We're going to have some other ways

• 09:13

for you to get involved to just stay tuned for those things. You know Extra Lives coming up soon

• 09:18

too, so keep that in mind. That's a good announcement of an announcement. But you all know,

• 09:23

we partake in that every year. And the other thing is that I know that people are like,

• 09:29

oh they're showing off all this content and we're getting, packs are closing, so that must be

• 09:35

Alpha 2 is really close. As Stephen has stated in the past, it is not right around the corner,

• 09:41

but it's not years away. So keep that in mind and set that precedent with yourself and expectation.

• 09:48

Don't get too excited because I know people. You can get excited, don't get too hype. Excitement

• 09:54

is fine. Don't get disappointed. Yes exactly. No, we don't mind your excitement. And just to be clear,

• 10:00

I want to touch on that real quick as well. Alpha 2 is something we are working very hard towards,

• 10:06

and we will continue to update you on that progress as we normally do every month with

• 10:10

these showcases, giving you guys insight into the development of things. You get to see in real time

• 10:16

how things are progressing and what the world is looking like and how the game is feeling.

• 10:20

That's the whole purpose of this, to collect that feedback. So don't feel pressured. We understand

• 10:25

it. We're players too. We don't like that stuff. And that's why we took this transparent process.

• 10:30

Yeah. And we mentioned in our FAQ too that we want to make sure that the experience for Alpha 2 folks

• 10:36

is at a stage that we're very happy with. That server performance is good. That client performance

• 10:41

is good. In order to ensure that, we need to make sure that we can support the amount of players

• 10:45

that are currently part of Alpha 2 and then any additional players that we would want beyond that.

• 10:50

Absolutely. All right. Well, with that, we're going to get into our note update,

Village Node Update

• 10:57

but that means we're going to also invite some other folks in a moment here. But I know that,

• 11:00

Stephen, you wanted to do some prefaces. Yes. This first segment of this is going to be

• 11:06

a slideshow oriented thing, similar to what we did with the free holds, and people seem to like that.

• 11:11

Yeah. Yes, exactly. So we got a lot of positive feedback with the free holds presentation,

• 11:16

specifically as it related to having that kind of PowerPoint slide oriented.

• 11:21

Anytime, and I think I talked about this in the past, but anytime you have very detail oriented

• 11:28

systems design, it's easy to kind of get lost in the details. People run off on tangents. Well,

• 11:34

what about this? How are you going to solve this? How are you going to solve this? And that a lot

• 11:39

of times is the discussion that we have in a development setting or in a design room conversation.

• 11:44

But we can't capture all of that nuance in a single live stream about some of these systems

• 11:51

just because of how big they are. We'd be sitting in a six hour thing.

• 11:56

Yeah, that's why we have literally hundreds of hours of conversations recorded on the development

• 12:02

side during this development process that we record all of our internal meetings and our

• 12:06

internal dialogues for posterity's sake and afterwards so that we can talk about what it

• 12:10

took to build this game and have kind of presences and conversations with the people who are

• 12:14

involved in these kind of presentations about that. But there's a lot there and we have to

• 12:20

condense that down to something that's digestible, right? And something that can be not just relevant

• 12:26

to a core audience like you all are who are tuning into this development update, but also to the

• 12:32

audiences that exist out there who are a bit detached from the process and rightfully so,

• 12:36

they're not interested in following development journeys, which is totally acceptable, but it has

• 12:41

to be a part of them as well. And so to that degree, based on how successful you guys responded

• 12:48

to the Freeholds presentation, we are going to preface this video with a little bit of a slide

• 12:55

presentation and incorporate some of our design team to have that discussion. And the intended

• 13:00

purpose of this portion is to reaffirm previous designs that were captured and understood by the

• 13:09

community through the amazing Wiki that is upkept by Lex. And that will reaffirm some of those

• 13:16

designs, but it will also introduce to you a few new designs that we have picked up along the way

• 13:22

and adjusted in order to accommodate some of the more fleshed out systems as we approached them

• 13:29

over the course of the last year and a half. So during this-

• 13:32

Yeah, slide one is going to be that we've canceled nodes.

• 13:34

No, I'm just kidding.

• 13:36

Exactly. It's all curated. There's no world design. No, I'm just kidding.

• 13:39

No, it's no longer dynamic. No, I'm just kidding. I'd like to troll you all. Well,

• 13:43

with that, I'm going to switch over to that and bring in some new folks to join us.

• 13:49

So give me a moment. These slides will also be available to you all via the article that we're

• 13:56

going to post. So if you, I know it's hard to read and you're like, is this text for ants? Sometimes.

• 14:02

What is this? A slideshow for ants?

• 14:06

Yes. All right. Welcome.

• 14:11

I'm excited.

• 14:12

Yeah.

• 14:12

What up, gamers?

• 14:13

So with us are two new folks. Some of them you've heard their voices before. Actually,

• 14:18

both of them, you've heard both of their voices. So I'll give you guys a moment to introduce

• 14:22

yourselves once again. We've got Dr. Bucky.

• 14:27

Dr. Bucky.

• 14:28

You want to talk about who you are, what you do here at Intrepid? Yeah. So hi, everyone. I'm

• 14:33

Bucky. I've been on the last couple of live streams, but I'm a gameplay designer here at

• 14:37

Intrepid and working a lot with the systems team, flesh not only systems, the nodes and

• 14:41

get them all working, but also work a bit with combat as well. Yeah.

• 14:45

Yeah. You get the best of both worlds there between combat and nodes.

• 14:48

Yeah.

• 14:49

You see my fingers and all the designs.

• 14:50

Some of Bucky's, like when you were doing the node simulation stuff, too, they've seen some of

• 14:56

this. Yeah, that's right. Which has been pretty cool. Bucky's a jack of all trades. Very. We

• 15:02

enjoy you, Bucky. Stay with us. And of course, we've got the juice, the juiceto Chris. Tell us

• 15:09

a little bit about you and what you do here at Intrepid. Yeah. Hi, I'm a senior game designer

• 15:14

here at Intrepid and I live in node land. It's where I, it's what I live and breathe.

• 15:21

Yes, Chris is my right hand node man when it comes to understanding everything he has. He

• 15:28

has digested and regurgitated and digested again. Everything nodes.

• 15:34

All right. Well, if you guys are all good and we're Gucci, let's head on over to nodes. The

• 15:41

first segment here we're going to go over is all about citizenship. So I'll hand it over to you,

• 15:49

Chris. Yeah, so citizenship is kind of aside from nodes existing, one of the most important parts,

• 15:57

right? So you as a player will get to become a citizen of these nodes. You're going to need to

• 16:04

acquire some form of housing to be able to do that within that node's jurisdiction. It's zone of

• 16:09

influence. Those forms of housing can be an in an apartment, a static housing or a freehold.

• 16:16

The static housing is, go ahead, Steven. I was just going to say and pointing out specifically

• 16:22

ins is something that most players probably and most in our community have not either heard before

• 16:27

or did not get elaborated a bit. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about the intent and

• 16:32

purpose behind why we introduced ins as an option? Yeah, ins are intended to be our most kind of

• 16:38

accessible form of housing so that one players will be able to become citizens should they desire

• 16:46

to add in an accessible way because the other forms of housing are fairly limited. Yes, yeah.

• 16:53

And ins are something that are also sorry, I was just going to say ins are something that are also

• 16:58

available even around the starting areas before you have an opportunity to go out into the node

• 17:03

zones as well, and it provides players with additional storage. They have some limited

• 17:08

furniture application that are on a per room basis, depending on the type of room you rent at

• 17:14

an inn. That's possible as well, but citizenship, as you said, is one of the most foundational

• 17:20

aspects of Ashes of Creation, right? You're expected to be a citizen at a node somewhere,

• 17:25

and you cannot be a citizen at all nodes all the time, right? Yeah, so you know you're going to

• 17:32

have to pay dues to be a citizen, which are regular, but there's a ton of benefits that come

• 17:38

with being a citizen, right? You're going to get reduced fees at what that node offers. You're

• 17:43

going to get reduced tax rates, and you're going to get access to exclusive vendors based on its

• 17:48

node type. If the nodes collected relics, you're going to have exclusive access to those. So there's

• 17:54

tons of good reasons to be a citizen, and when you leave a node, you incur a cool down before you

• 18:00

can become a citizen again. So it's a it's an important choice you have to make, and there's a

• 18:06

cost to unmaking it. Yeah, absolutely. Players do have some follow up questions, obviously from the

• 18:11

freehold conversation about housing. They're wondering how much player housing will be

• 18:15

available to a node, because people are afraid to be homeless. So what are their options on Vera to

• 18:22

not be homeless? Well, the the ends are one very good option as we were just talking about, and

• 18:28

those are kind of capped more by citizenship dues as that is a soft cap that increases over time,

• 18:34

right? When you choose to become a citizen, anybody can kind of get an in to a degree without being

• 18:40

a citizen. But in addition, apartments are another method which are default and are part of every

• 18:46

node has access to these apartments, and you can expand those apartment buildings, right? Chris

• 18:51

and Bucky? Yeah, you can. So the mayor can elect as part of the service building, and you can

• 18:57

elect as part of the service building system, which we'll talk about in a bit to expand those

• 19:01

apartments and make them allow them to have more citizens, right? Right and also different

• 19:08

apartment types such as penthouses that have different thresholds for the types of

• 19:14

furnitures that they can house, whether they be legendary, more rare types of furnitures that

• 19:18

require a better either static home or apartments. And to answer your question specifically,

• 19:24

when it comes to the type of numbers that we are playing with on a per node basis, obviously,

• 19:30

that's something that changes based on node stage. So the advancement of the node will dictate the

• 19:35

number of state and node static housing, and there's a predefined amount of those because

• 19:39

those exist within the world. Right now, we're still playing with those numbers. But if you were

• 19:44

to think about the level of exclusivity between the different types of housing that we have,

• 19:48

obviously, the most exclusive when it comes to quantity is going to be freeholds, followed by

• 19:54

in node housing, followed by apartments, then followed by ins. So that is essentially, you know,

• 19:59

what it's going to break down wise, exclusivity. We don't have firm numbers on what the static in

• 20:06

node housing is going to be on a per stage basis. That's something that we intend to test as part of

• 20:11

Alpha 2. But there is- Well, we have firm numbers internally, right? We're just not-

• 20:15

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I just want to be clear to people.

• 20:18

Yeah, sure. What I mean there is that we don't have a number we would feel confident giving the

• 20:23

community right now and them holding us to that number because it is a variable we intend to use

• 20:28

data to inform. And that data is going to be play testing with the community as part of Alpha 2.

• 20:33

Yes. I'm so excited. Housing stuff is so much fun for me. And then the other question here is in

• 20:38

regards to citizenship. If I am a citizen of a node and I don't agree with leadership, how do I

• 20:45

or slash what is involved in changing my citizenship to a different node? You mentioned

• 20:50

there's a cool down, but is there anything else that's involved in that? Yeah, so I can take this

• 20:56

one. So yeah, basically, it's anytime you can visit the town hall and renounce your citizenship

• 21:02

at the node. But that comes with the cost of that. Now you go on to a cool down where you can't

• 21:06

actually join other nodes. So it kind of incentivizes players to try to make it work

• 21:09

at their node and then try and not just jump ship, right? If they don't like it and try and

• 21:13

make changes in their node. And then the one other caveat is that if your node's destroyed and like

• 21:18

a siege, for example, then you will be able to just right away join a new node. You don't have

• 21:21

to wait on that cool down just so it's not like even further punishing when that scenario and

• 21:26

something to expand on the refugee status that Bucky was talking about is, you know, the intent

• 21:33

is that it is a normal process of the world to see PvP be a catalyst for change. That is one of the

• 21:41

defining elements of our world building approach and being a PvX game is that PvE builds the world

• 21:48

and PvP changes the world. And as these nodes get destructed, and this should be a normal habit that

• 21:54

players are accustomed to seeing that landscape changing over time because it is the breath of

• 21:59

renewal that then is allowed as a result of that action, this refugee status to a degree brings

• 22:07

down the friction that the player would have normally with finding a new node to become a

• 22:11

citizen at. And we want those types of mechanics present so that players are not experiencing

• 22:17

extreme friction after extreme friction after extreme friction to the point where it's just

• 22:21

like, you know, screw this, I'm done, right? We want to be able to make that a bit of an easier

• 22:26

process. And so the refugee status reduces the cool down period to joining a new node as a citizen,

• 22:31

but it also reduces potentially some of the citizenship dues that might be present,

• 22:37

some of the costs associated with it, and even policies, which we'll talk about a little bit

• 22:41

later with Chris and Bucky here, can be adopted by other nodes when a siege occurs. That even

• 22:47

makes it more incentivizing for players to come there as new citizens as well.

• 22:51

All right. And I will to kind of directly answer if you don't want to leave your node in your

• 22:57

mayorship is not doing things you like. Most of these systems that we're going to talk about here

• 23:02

have some amount of like citizenship buy on that's like required for a thing to happen. So,

• 23:08

you know, it may stagnate a little if you don't like your mayorship, but you can stop them from

• 23:13

doing destructive things and you can stop them from spending things in ways you don't like.

• 23:19

Yeah, that might be a good it might be a good segue into the next slide.

• 23:22

Well, there's a bunch of community questions. I don't know if we want to answer a couple of them

• 23:25

or speed run through that suit through some. I would I would try to limit it to probably

• 23:30

around two or three questions per slide. Otherwise, we'll never get to the video.

• 23:33

OK, I guess they're wanting to know if ins are instance rooms and if they're player owned

• 23:39

should be. Yes. So instance. So instance instances are apartments and ins.

• 23:46

And these are shared instances where you can invite party members to join you in the instance

• 23:50

as well. If you want to do a little bit of role play or, you know, group activities in the in the

• 23:55

instances and then ownership on the apartments and the ins does not exist. You rent these locations.

• 24:03

Is it one person who can rent them? Correct. Same with housing. It's like one person owns it.

• 24:10

Correct. And then you can have family permission set to have access to those as well.

• 24:14

And then the last one here I'll ask is how will limited housing work with players who stop playing?

• 24:19

So if someone leaves the game and hasn't come back for a while, will they eventually be evicted

• 24:24

to allow other players to utilize those spaces? Yes, the the the wheel of tax and death is always

• 24:30

turning in Vera and taxes are a necessary component in order to upkeep and maintenance the

• 24:38

the freeholds or the housing that you own. And after a period of not paying those taxes,

• 24:43

the tax man may visit you and put you in a default status after which period of time.

• 24:47

If you do not settle that debt, you will lose your property.

• 24:51

All right, let's move on to mayorship and I will hand it over to you. Justo.

• 24:58

Yeah, so obviously mayorship is another really important part of nodes. It's how

• 25:04

we kind of define it as the mayor is tasked with initiating changes to the quality of a node,

• 25:11

right? Not the progress of it, but the quality of it. So there's four main ways a mayor can get

• 25:17

elected based on the node type. They're all kind of played a different strengths scientific, which

• 25:25

we had an alpha one, which we've changed a little since then. It's not a single popular vote. It's

• 25:31

now a ranked choice vote. And we should take note of that in real life as well. I'm just kidding.

• 25:40

The economic node type is a blind bid auction. So the player with the most money is going to be the

• 25:47

node are going to be the mayor and divine is going to be a PVE like favor event that players

• 25:54

participate in and have to grind through to earn as much favor as possible, right? And then military

• 26:01

is never revealed. The military one and the military is a trial by combat event. Now this

• 26:07

is kind of the node enters a state where players who register are going to PVP each other and kind

• 26:14

of a free for all situation and citizens who aren't registered are going to get to back a

• 26:20

candidate and PVP with them. Yes. So let me let me set the stage just real quick because I don't

• 26:27

think in the past we've talked about the potential of having a I think it was like a military

• 26:33

champion and you could equip that champion and the champion will fight for you and you'd

• 26:36

accumulate points and that was kind of to to prevent the the strangeness between like the

• 26:42

one v one scenario. But what we've decided is that moving forward for military nodes,

• 26:48

we will be implementing an election method that leverages the ruined state of nodes as a PVP

• 26:55

battleground, so to speak, in the in a form of an instance where citizens and or candidates can

• 26:59

participate. And during the week, you will have a number of opportunities to participate in a

• 27:07

timed event where you can pledge your support to a candidate or if you are a candidate, you will

• 27:13

have objective based gameplay within a windowed period of time within the node proper and you

• 27:17

will attempt to go to those objectives, execute the required interaction and you will accumulate

• 27:23

points based off of your performance during those events. And at the end of those events, overall,

• 27:28

the highest point contributor will be elected the mayor. Now what that event entails is you as a

• 27:35

citizen can pledge support and you will have open PVP within the node proper that groups of those

• 27:42

candidates and their pledged supporters can attempt to secure and combat over the objectives

• 27:49

over an hour period of time, perhaps a number of times a week. And then at the end of those events

• 27:53

will be the election result. That is the intent and desire behind this system. I think it's going

• 28:00

to be fun. I think it's going to be interesting. But obviously, the purpose of these demonstrations

• 28:04

slash discussions is to give you guys an opportunity to give your thoughts, whether or not you think

• 28:09

that's interesting, what you think could be improved, where are the areas where you would

• 28:12

have concerns. That's a really cool update, I think, for the military nodes that you guys can

• 28:18

chat about. Some questions that are coming in from a chat in all the places we're looking at,

• 28:23

Discord, we're looking at Twitter, we're looking at social. So we're keeping an eye on all the places

• 28:27

that are getting fed to me. One of the questions is, are all the benefits that mayors can give to

• 28:32

a node the same for every type of node? Or are there differences per type of node?

• 28:38

There definitely are differences. The difference is some systems have a more, some of the things

• 28:45

that mayors can do are more universal. But then some systems have very specific, if your race has

• 28:51

a certain, your node has a certain dominant race, or your node is a certain type, or it's in a

• 28:58

certain biome. So there's even differences between kind of where it is too. And then,

• 29:06

this was just a funny one. Does the mayor get a free home? Just because I think that's funny.

• 29:12

Their home is the town hall where they slave away all day long. All they want.

• 29:16

They get to decorate their office. People want to know. So I'm guessing that's not the case.

• 29:24

They still have to have their own home. Okay. It's a predicate. You have to be a citizen before

• 29:30

you can be the mayor. So you need to- So you need to know what it's like to be one of the lackeys.

• 29:36

What happens if a mayor leaves? If they quit playing the game,

• 29:40

and what will happen to the mayorship if that occurs?

• 29:45

So some of the decisions that the mayor makes, they have a period of time within which they can

• 29:50

make the decision. And if they don't, the system will make a decision for them. Some of those

• 29:54

interactions. Not all, however. There is a constant conversation with regards to the systems we're

• 30:01

creating for mayors to interact with. How much is too much failure that we're going to give agency

• 30:05

to a player to be a bad faith mayor, essentially? And part of that is not just if they quit, but if

• 30:11

they want to actively do the node harm, how much harm can they really do? Those two things kind of

• 30:17

align with one another. But yeah, some of the systems have automated responses and some don't.

• 30:23

So there is some damage that can be done. You have to choose your mayor wisely. And in the event that

• 30:28

somebody quits, then there's an election cycle for a reason and you vote that person out or you have

• 30:33

a different- if there's a different election method, you have that person removed.

• 30:37

All right. Kill them. No, I'm just kidding. And the last one here is, can an enemy of the state

• 30:42

be set on any random player or are there some other prerequisites that need to be met?

• 30:47

No, you cannot have an enemy of the state condition assigned to a player. There are methods by which

• 30:53

you can have flag statuses associated with other node citizens through like a node war. And you can

• 31:02

have open PVP in the world if your nodes are at war with one another, but you cannot denote a

• 31:06

particular individual as an enemy of the state and have the guards kill them when they approach the

• 31:10

node. Right? The intent of the system is not to necessarily exclude players from the state.

• 31:16

It's to literally exclude players, exclude players and create, you know, clicks or factions within

• 31:22

the nodes per se. Everyone's just going to make Steven the enemy of state.

• 31:26

Oh, wow. You don't want me as the enemy of state. I have the ultimate weapon.

• 31:32

Oh, really? Just nuke everything. Spawn three million bears. That's even special.

• 31:38

I'm just a sandal wanderer anyway, so it's okay. I'm just trolling anyway. Next up,

• 31:43

mandates to keep things moving and I'll hand it over to you, Chris.

• 31:48

Yeah, so mandates are kind of a new thing. I don't think we've ever really talked about them

• 31:52

outside of the company before, but they're functionally what we're talking about.

• 31:59

This energy system that mayors get to use to enact things, right? Enable service buildings or

• 32:06

do constructions, etc. And they generate mandates by having citizens participate in these activities,

• 32:15

right? So contributing to the construction of a service building or doing mayoral commissions,

• 32:21

which we'll talk about, and voting on policies. So the more citizens like what a mayor is doing,

• 32:27

the more power they're going to get to do more things. And the less citizens like what they're

• 32:32

doing, the less power they're going to get to do things. Yeah, this kind of goes back to what

• 32:38

Stephen was talking about on the last slide to where it's like we're kind of concerned about

• 32:42

limiting how how much damage a bad faith mayor can do, right? And this is definitely one of those

• 32:46

systems that, you know, if you're doing good things that the citizens are agreeing with,

• 32:50

and this is part of your power as a citizen, even if, you know, even if you think you don't have any

• 32:54

power, this is one of your main things is like agreeing with what the mayor is doing, makes them

• 32:57

able to do more actions that hopefully are favorable for you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

• 33:03

So when we think about when we think about certain energy mechanics, usually they're provided as a way

• 33:08

to give a throttle, right? And most of those throttles are incurred through specific design

• 33:13

curated intent. However, this throttle exists in such a way where the citizens have the ability

• 33:19

to either let the gas go for the mayor or pull it back a bit because they're doing things they

• 33:23

don't necessarily want. And mayors have a unique ability to elicit change within the node proper,

• 33:29

either through the destruction of certain buildings that have been constructed previously,

• 33:33

because there's a limited number of slots that buildings can be constructed within,

• 33:36

or the kickoff of additional projects or the certain types of policies that can be enacted.

• 33:40

Like those things, those actions, the changing of a tax rate, they all have a unified source of

• 33:47

energy requirement. And the energy requirement is a mandate. And you accrue those mandates,

• 33:52

as Chris and Bucky were saying, through doing things that the population agrees with. And when

• 33:57

you do things that the population doesn't agree with, your mandates suffer. And if you don't have

• 34:03

mandates to do certain actions, then that's the way that the citizenship throttles back your

• 34:09

ability to elicit change. So the question we have from people is if there's a cap on the energy for

• 34:17

mandates. There is not currently a cap that's designed for mandates. However, mandates are an

• 34:25

accrued energy through action. And actions have cooldowns associated with them that you can do

• 34:30

them over certain periods of time. And they also have certain weights that are applied by design.

• 34:34

So naturally, within a given period of time, a mayor will only have the ability to do so many

• 34:39

things that generate mandates. And as a result, that is the soft cap. However, the system is

• 34:44

built or is being built in such a way where that is a variable we can define through testing when

• 34:50

we see if there should be or should not be. We can add that at a later time. And is there a way to

• 34:55

counter those mandates? Counter those mandates. What do you mean by that? Like if the mayor has

• 35:05

acquired the mandates, then they can use the mandates as they see fit. However, a lot of the

• 35:11

interactions still require successful participation by the audience, by the citizens. Chris, if you

• 35:17

want to talk a little bit about, well, actually, I think we have policies coming up in a second.

• 35:21

Yeah, we have policies that are coming up. So can a mayor do just a simple vote? Like if they just

• 35:26

want to ask people stuff like, hey, I want to put up a poll. Is that going to be something that's

• 35:29

going to be available to them? One of you guys grab that if you want to.

• 35:35

Yeah, it's not something we've previously discussed. We've talked about having messages

• 35:40

of the day for the mayor. And obviously, there's still chat services and stuff that mayors can use

• 35:45

to get the feedback from the citizens. Yeah, we want that to be something that's a bit more

• 35:56

diegetic and not necessarily handheld by a survey system. We want if the individual is interested

• 36:02

in participating with their community, with their citizenship, there will be tools that they can use,

• 36:08

such as the message of the day, such as chat, such as citizenship chat. Right. Like the mayor will

• 36:13

have a special color name right there and they can ask questions and just have conversations with the

• 36:17

citizens. A little Q&A with your mayor. That's cute. Yeah, yeah, I want I can't wait to see the

• 36:22

RP and like how different nodes deal with their mayors. Like, I just I'm so excited for it because

• 36:29

I've been part of a lot of different communities and every guild runs differently. I feel like every

• 36:33

node is going to run differently. And I'm just excited to see that. We're already thinking on the

• 36:38

community side, what kind of fun streams we can do. The last question I think just just real quick,

• 36:43

because you touched on a great point there. Oh, yeah. Is that we have a very we have a unique

• 36:49

approach in that we are a non faction based game. Many of the MMOs that a lot of us have played are

• 36:54

faction based. So because of that, because we're not faction based, we have this concept of pseudo

• 37:00

factions that we have to create systems in such a way where we can present that. And what you just

• 37:06

described essentially is a micro community or a pseudo faction that exists within the nodes.

• 37:10

And as you described, like many of those are going to be very different across the landscape. And I

• 37:16

think that creates a very compelling and interesting social social diversity so that when you're

• 37:23

determining friend or foe, there is a landscape that is going to be constantly changing as a

• 37:28

result of those different faction interests. All right. And our last question here is, will a good

• 37:33

mayor have a benefit for the next election so they have some kind of like favor points or

• 37:37

something like that so that they can get reelected? And how long is that term for?

• 37:44

Yeah, so there's no plan other than the mayor's actions to help them get reelected. Right. If you

• 37:52

do good things, you're more likely to get reelected because players will like you, you know, but

• 37:57

there's no systemic benefit to previously being the mayor. Yeah, let's move on to.

• 38:05

I said one more clarification about mandates, right? Like if you're a you get when you become

• 38:10

elected, you probably get a couple mandates. Right. And then and then as you do good and you're

• 38:14

getting more and more mandates and you might end the election with a bunch of mandates. If at that

• 38:18

point you don't get reelected and a new mayor comes in, I don't think they will inherit all

• 38:22

your mandates. Yeah, so they'll get reset back to a correct. Yeah, the mandate pool is unique to the

• 38:29

candidate. Right. And so and that's and then this is obviously remember everything we're discussing

• 38:34

here is subject to change. You know, this is all based off of testing essentially that we'll be

• 38:39

doing. But as Bucky described, a mandate is unique to the candidate. And so if the candidate is

• 38:45

voted out of office, like, yes, there is going to be a momentum slowdown because the other candidate

• 38:51

and as Bucky said, they'll be coming in with some default amount of mandates available to them.

• 38:55

Just fresh off the election or fresh off of whatever the election method is that they can use

• 39:01

to start their their works. But as they as they roll those actions forward, are they generating

• 39:06

more mandates or are they not? Right. That's kind of the intent behind the momentum a candidate has.

• 39:12

All right. I'm going to move us on to mayoral commissions. If you'd like to talk a little bit

• 39:18

about that. Yeah, I could do this one. Yeah. So we got commissions in our game is basically a simple

• 39:24

type of quest with a singular objective. And there will be other types of commissions like,

• 39:29

you know, quest related ones, narrative related ones, you know, but mayors will have access to

• 39:34

initiate mayoral commissions, which are kind of special. And these are commissions that are meant

• 39:39

to help the node in some way. So and then the node will be rewarded based on the amount of players

• 39:45

that complete these commissions. So, you know, kind of back to how we were talking about,

• 39:48

this is one of the like ways to generate more mandates. If you're doing commissions, a lot of

• 39:52

players are completing them and helping out the node, you'll be getting some more mandate power

• 39:56

and yeah, and the players will be rewarded as such. So you can get things like experience,

• 40:01

node reputation, node currency and other other kinds of rewards for helping out the node.

• 40:05

Yeah. And it's a good thing to point out as well as that citizenship participation is the key factor

• 40:12

in mandate generation. Whether that's through policy enactment, through commission completion,

• 40:18

or through a buy order potential, or even unique, you know, one off predicate systems that exist

• 40:25

outside event wise or whatever, right? Your citizenship participation is what determines

• 40:30

that. So commissions can be conducted by anyone, non-citizen or citizen, right? And so you want to

• 40:37

see what the health is of your interaction as a mayor with your citizens versus the one

• 40:41

versus the world. So that's an important factor as well to keep in mind.

• 40:46

Yep. And yeah, the commissions basically just cost gold from the treasury for the mayor to initiate

• 40:50

and they'll have a limited number of commission slots active at one time. And then you can have

• 40:55

a variety of commissions that'll be enabled based on node type, its location, you know,

• 41:00

the predominant node race and different building choices, right? So there'll be a lot of different

• 41:04

options for the mayor to try to see what they want to try to incentivize their players to,

• 41:08

their citizens to, and other visiting players to work on. Yeah.

• 41:12

Can they pick a custom flag for their node?

• 41:19

So mayors will have an emblem generation suite that will have a number of different

• 41:28

components slash damn, I can't think of the-

• 41:31

Like symbols.

• 41:32

Yeah, kind of like how our tattoos-

• 41:34

Back on.

• 41:34

Thank you. Yeah, it's a modular insignia system that you can choose and pick between to create

• 41:40

the flag.

• 41:42

Cool. Can only citizens participate in commissions or can-

• 41:47

Anybody can participate in commissions.

• 41:49

So I can have my friend who's part of another node-

• 41:51

And just to be clear, there are mayoral commissions and then there are node commissions,

• 41:56

right? And the node commissions are just general commissions that interact with the world around

• 41:59

you, the POIs that exist around your node. And the mayoral ones are specifically chosen. Chris,

• 42:04

if you want to talk a little bit about that.

• 42:06

Yeah. So, yeah, the mayoral commissions are specifically chosen by the mayor,

• 42:10

which is kind of, it is similar to the regular commission system, but that system is more

• 42:18

system generated, right? So anyone can participate in a mayoral commission, but we,

• 42:24

for mandates, like I said, we track the citizen participation in those, right?

• 42:29

The mayoral commissions are available for a limited time. There's no limit on the amount

• 42:33

of players that can complete them, right?

• 42:35

There's no limit on how many I can have? So how many I can-

• 42:39

Yeah, yeah, there'll be a limit on how many you can take at any one time. And you can't

• 42:44

repeat one that's active, right? But once that timer runs out, based on how many people completed

• 42:52

it, will determine kind of what reward the node gets as a result of that commission.

• 42:57

And the mayor also has a limitation on the number of active commissions he can

• 43:02

set at a time. So the intent and purpose there is that the mayoral commissions serve as a

• 43:08

strategic decision base for the mayor. What issues am I facing? What issues do I believe

• 43:15

I will face? How is this aligning with my strategy? And then how will my citizens help

• 43:21

me help participate in accomplishing these goals so that I'm best set strategically for

• 43:26

what I intend to do with those commissions?

• 43:28

All right. And our last question for this is, is participation always going to be greater

• 43:35

for larger nodes by default? Or can a small node with close to 100% participation still

• 43:42

greatly benefit from them?

• 43:45

Yeah, so I mean, that's going to come down to what commissions the mayor is initiating,

• 43:50

right? Level three nodes aren't going to be initiating mayoral commissions that are,

• 43:56

that require thousands of players to participate, right? Because they don't have access to those,

• 44:01

where metropolises that have a huge citizenship base will get access to those kinds of commissions.

• 44:07

So the rewards will be kind of proportionate to, you know, the node level and the expected

• 44:13

amount of citizens.

• 44:15

All right. Moving on to our next one. Here we go. Policies, which we keep referencing

• 44:23

in the other segments. So I feel like this is going to be the one.

• 44:27

Yeah, policies are also something we haven't really touched on a lot as well, although

• 44:32

we have referenced it. Chris, if you want to take this one away.

• 44:36

Yeah. So policies are actions that the mayor can take. They're exactly what it sounds

• 44:42

like it's a policy, right? So as a mayor, I want people to be harvesting stone. So I'm

• 44:49

going to initiate this stone policy, which is going to provide this benefit to people

• 44:53

who are harvesting stone in the zone of influence, right? Now, in order to initiate a policy,

• 44:59

players are going to be able to, or citizens will be able to vote on it and either turn

• 45:04

down the policy if they don't want it or, you know, accept the policy if they do.

• 45:11

Yeah. And that's a very key point, Buck, if you want to chat about that a little bit.

• 45:14

Yeah. Well, I was just going to say also too, that's one of, bringing it back to my

• 45:18

mandates, that's one of the really powerful uses of mandates is that it allows you to

• 45:22

bypass the citizen vote on a policy if you wish. So you can spend that limited energy

• 45:26

resource. If you really think this policy is important, you need to even just like hotline

• 45:30

or you think it's good for the citizenship, but they're not going to agree with you. You

• 45:32

can just say like, skip the vote. And that's one of like the cool powers for policies.

• 45:37

Yeah. And, and, and really an important aspect that players should be taking away and part of

• 45:43

what our interest in Alpha 2 to collect data on from player behavior, player sentiment,

• 45:49

right? And your guys' feedback is how much of an interaction is existing between the

• 45:54

citizenship of the node and the decisions that the players, that the mayor is making.

• 45:59

And policies are a great example of that because it requires outside of the mandates that Bucky

• 46:04

was just talking about, which is very limited in scope, how much a mayor can do. And if they

• 46:09

really want to spend their mandate capital on that, you know, that's a decision that

• 46:12

they need to make, but the players are primarily necessary, the citizens in order to vote

• 46:19

successfully policies in place and policies take a very card format type system, right? The node

• 46:26

has a number of different locations from which they get certain types of policies from that

• 46:31

includes things like racial representative of the culture that the node is something that's

• 46:37

representative of the building selection and specialization that the node has taken something

• 46:44

that is representative of the predicate of happiness that the node is currently at. If

• 46:49

they're very happy or not, you can do certain types of policies. So a lot of different predicate

• 46:53

systems make available and also make relevant whether or not you can even suggest a policy for

• 47:00

enactment. And then it requires the player buy on the citizenship buy on to actually get that

• 47:05

enactment completed, completed. And there's a limited number of slots that you can have active

• 47:09

policies available at a given time. And on top of that, certain policy cards have a cool down. So

• 47:16

you can't use them repeatedly over and over again. Yeah, I feel like this is definitely one of the

• 47:21

systems the mayor is going to be constantly like thinking about, like trying to min max their policy

• 47:26

choices, right? They're going to be like, Oh yeah, I only have limited number of slots, juggling a

• 47:30

lot of things like the economy of the node. If it's under threat by, you know, a CBO,

• 47:34

you know, a siege, for example, you know what they're trying to do, how they're trying to

• 47:38

advance their node, they're going to constantly looking at these policies, try to optimize them

• 47:41

for the best. And are the policies always voted as majority vote? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then the next

• 47:51

one here is do policies affect the vassal? Just to be clear, just to be clear, you said, you said

• 47:56

always, except for the cases where the mayor uses his mandate power to override the citizenship

• 48:02

participation, which again is limited in function, but it is a power that the mayor has available to

• 48:07

them. Veto. It's like, it's like an emergency action basically, right? Exactly. It's an emergency

• 48:13

action. Um, and certain events will also make certain policies available. Like if a war gets

• 48:18

declared or a siege gets declared, you have certain war footing policies that are now available to you.

• 48:23

Those might require much lower threshold of player or citizenship vote in order to pass, uh, as well

• 48:30

because of the emergency situations. Um, so I'll re-ask the other question because I think, um,

• 48:35

we went back to the other one. Uh, do policies also affect the vassal nodes of that node?

• 48:43

So there may be policies that do, uh, but they don't all inherently.

• 48:50

Yep. And there might even be policies that affect the zone around you. Policies have a wide range of

• 48:55

effects, uh, that can be conferred. Um, uh, and that's the intent, right, for the system. Yeah,

• 49:01

they could go from affecting the buildings you've constructed to affecting the zone of influence of

• 49:08

your network, right? And the last one here is will nodes affect the policies chosen in a physical

• 49:15

way, like different objects seen or things like that in the node? Like will they see things change?

• 49:20

Certain policies will absolutely have a visual change that are present, right? Not all. Um,

• 49:26

we want to make sure that when we spend our budget of either asset creation or content creation,

• 49:32

that we're reflecting meaningful choices that are more wide arcing. Um, and that might be in the,

• 49:37

in the realm of like props getting spawned to reflect like, you know, you have a refugee status.

• 49:42

Well, now I'm spawning a number of like guards and citizens with clothing and boxes of food,

• 49:48

to kind of represent, hey, we're taking in refugees because the node nearby got destroyed.

• 49:53

Um, that's how we would visually diegetically show, uh, these types of effects within the world. And

• 49:59

in the node layout tool and, and how nodes are constructed, those spaces and locations are

• 50:04

predefined for certain types of either events or policy creation or relics, right? To show those

• 50:10

things in those, in those areas. Um, yeah. All right. To keep us moving along, we are going to

• 50:15

talk about service buildings now, which I'm very excited for people to see on the stream when we

• 50:20

do the playthrough segment, because it looks cool. Yes. Yes. Serving buildings are one thing we hit

• 50:27

hard in the, uh, in the playthrough that people about to see, but, uh, Bucky or Chris, if you guys

• 50:31

want to take it away, I can do this one. Actually, maybe do you want to start with the next slide

• 50:36

that kind of explains it and we can go into the maintenance and demolition. Sure. We can go into

• 50:40

the first one. Yeah. Building types go for it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, so yeah, there's a couple

• 50:48

different types of service buildings, right? We have your default buildings that come pre-built

• 50:51

with the node. Those are things like the town hall, the warehouse, the caravansary,

• 50:55

and then there's also constructed service buildings. That's a lot of things like the

• 50:59

artisanship buildings, businesses that the mayor actually has to initiate and choose and then

• 51:04

voted on and built by the players. Um, and then the different types of buildings there are between

• 51:10

that is some buildings are active service buildings. So those are like, you know,

• 51:13

garages and ship business businesses like you different, you know, your blacksmith,

• 51:17

your tavern and all that. Um, and then some buildings are passive buildings and those are

• 51:22

kind of provide passive benefits to the node. They don't have a reason to be visited, but they,

• 51:26

uh, unlock the ability to upgrade your active service buildings through expansions.

• 51:29

And then, yeah, so building expansions is like, is the primary way you upgrade your buildings

• 51:33

through expansions. I think we were showing a expansion tree in the, in the recording, right?

• 51:37

For the, uh, blacksmith. Um, and so to upgrade your building, you choose expansions, you build

• 51:42

passive buildings to allow you to like unlock those expansion slots. And this will basically

• 51:48

specialize your service building down a path and it kind of the building specialization

• 51:52

will narrow down a specific path. So you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can,

• 51:57

you can, maybe the, kind of, you know, expansion deterioration will narrow down a

• 52:02

specific path. So you might start as a generalized. Blacksmith building and then you'll specialize

• 52:06

towards maybe armor Smith. And then towards specifically like plate armor through the

• 52:10

expansion tree? Yeah. The, the important thing with the service building system for us is that

• 52:17

it's, it's, uh, a way to shape your node, like a character, right? And to give you an exclusive

• 52:23

or a niche that you fight over, right?

• 52:27

If you build, if you go down this weaponsmithing path

• 52:30

and you build your node to be this like mecca

• 52:33

of weaponsmithing and the node three doors down builds it,

• 52:38

there's reason for you to conflict over it, right?

• 52:40

They're taking your business or maybe you are in a zone

• 52:43

and there isn't a weaponsmithing thing anywhere near you

• 52:48

and you do wanna start to carve that path for yourself

• 52:51

to make your node a place people visit and come to.

• 52:56

Yeah, and I think the key takeaway here

• 52:58

when talking about node specialization is buildings provide,

• 53:04

as we were talking about with policies,

• 53:06

access to certain policy types as well, right?

• 53:09

They're going to incentivize player activity

• 53:11

and traffic to your node based on the services

• 53:13

that the building is giving you.

• 53:15

They're going to potentially expand

• 53:17

the types of craftables and workstations

• 53:22

that you're going to have available to you

• 53:24

based on the buildings you construct.

• 53:26

And there might be reason for you to construct

• 53:28

the same type of building multiple times

• 53:30

because the pathway of upgrades is exclusionary, right?

• 53:34

So when I choose a path down a particular building type

• 53:38

in order to reach a tier five benefit

• 53:40

when I eventually reach a higher stage,

• 53:42

or even if I'm lower stage and want to dedicate

• 53:46

a majority of my service plots

• 53:48

toward one particular crafting building,

• 53:51

like I may get a very top tier workstation as a result,

• 53:55

even if I'm still a village node, right?

• 53:57

It's like, I'm the village node that makes the T5 swords

• 54:01

because I've dedicated all of my plots to that, right?

• 54:04

Chris, if you wanna talk a little bit about that.

• 54:06

Yeah, the important thing is expanding your building

• 54:08

requires other buildings to support it, right?

• 54:12

So to go from a smithing building

• 54:14

to a weaponsmithing building,

• 54:17

you're gonna need to fill another plot

• 54:19

with what we call those passive buildings, right?

• 54:23

Or support buildings.

• 54:23

And they are gonna provide some kind of passive benefit

• 54:27

to the node as the name kind of describes,

• 54:29

whether that's to the zone or to services in the node,

• 54:34

but they're not gonna be buildings

• 54:35

that you particularly visit,

• 54:37

but they will allow you to make the buildings

• 54:39

you are visiting better.

• 54:41

Yeah.

• 54:42

And this is a good- And some of those depend,

• 54:44

so can I- Just real quick.

• 54:45

Some of those dependencies that Chris said

• 54:47

can also be conferred based on the vassal ship network

• 54:52

you have as well.

• 54:53

So you might have a parent node or a regional,

• 54:57

a regent node that has a vassal ship over your node,

• 55:02

and you're getting benefits conferred to you

• 55:04

through either the prerequisite of the building types

• 55:06

that you can construct as well

• 55:08

to make a bit more headway there.

• 55:10

And I think because you're already talking about the plots

• 55:12

and how you can space them,

• 55:14

I know we're gonna show this off in the video as well,

• 55:16

but how much can a node's government decide

• 55:18

where a specific building is placed?

• 55:21

So the plots in a node are predefined,

• 55:24

but the plots are universal, right?

• 55:26

So you can put any constructed service building

• 55:30

in any plot, right?

• 55:34

And that's relevant because- And those plots

• 55:34

are in specific places,

• 55:36

but you get to pick which plot they go to.

• 55:38

Exactly. Yeah.

• 55:39

And that's relevant because when it comes to either events

• 55:43

or sieges against the node and even wars,

• 55:47

those building locations also serve

• 55:49

as objective locations as well.

• 55:51

And there is a varying degree of footprint

• 55:55

and level design that's associated with access

• 55:59

to those plot locations.

• 56:01

So if you know that your Smithy that has your workstation

• 56:06

to build the T5 stuff is closest to the center-

• 56:10

Right next to the- Yeah.

• 56:11

Right next to the door, like that's an aid.

• 56:14

There's a difference there in strategy.

• 56:16

Yeah.

• 56:16

And the next question here is,

• 56:18

will nodes in certain places have unique buildings

• 56:21

and unique upgrades,

• 56:22

or kind of are all of those available to everybody?

• 56:26

Those, so constructed service buildings are available

• 56:29

to every type of node in every location, right?

• 56:33

Where the uniqueness comes in

• 56:35

is in some of the default buildings,

• 56:36

like your node type building.

• 56:39

Yeah, and in addition to that, potentially relics as well,

• 56:42

which are location dependent within the world,

• 56:45

you can acquire certain relics that give you access

• 56:47

to certain types of workstations,

• 56:49

or that can augment certain types of workstations as well.

• 56:53

And those could be closer located to certain nodes

• 56:57

based on the POIs.

• 56:59

And I think you talking about sieges and destruction

• 57:01

is a perfect segue into the next slide here,

• 57:04

which if you guys wanna go for that in regards to-

• 57:07

And how many slides do we have left

• 57:10

just so audience knows time to gameplay?

• 57:12

We have one more after this.

• 57:14

TTG.

• 57:15

One more after this in a little video.

• 57:18

Sweet.

• 57:19

Yeah.

• 57:21

All right.

• 57:22

Yeah, so I can keep going with this one.

• 57:24

Yeah, so this is just more info about service buildings

• 57:26

and how they're maintained.

• 57:29

So service buildings incur regular maintenance costs

• 57:32

for node commodities,

• 57:33

or for the node in terms of commodities and gold.

• 57:35

So to continue operations,

• 57:37

you have to fund them.

• 57:38

And that's definitely part of the things

• 57:39

the mayor will be thinking about

• 57:40

is keeping that economy going,

• 57:42

which we'll get into more on the next slide about buy orders.

• 57:44

But basically if you miss maintenance on a building,

• 57:47

it'll enter a state of disarray.

• 57:48

And building maintenance is auto-paid,

• 57:50

but it kind of goes through

• 57:54

like the most valuable buildings they'll pay first.

• 57:56

And then if you don't have enough commodities though,

• 57:58

or a gold new treasury,

• 57:59

then some of your buildings will become

• 58:01

in a state of disarray.

• 58:03

And so if a building's in a state of disarray

• 58:05

or maybe damaged as a result of a siege,

• 58:08

it basically needs to be repaired.

• 58:09

So to do so, players visiting the node

• 58:12

can just contribute materials

• 58:14

to restore the building to an operational state.

• 58:16

And then mayors will also have the ability

• 58:19

if they want to demolish constructed buildings.

• 58:23

So if they so choose, they can destroy a building

• 58:27

if they don't think it's needed anymore.

• 58:28

But this will have mandate cost and a player buy-in vote.

• 58:33

So we want to make sure that mayor can't just go

• 58:35

and blow up the whole node,

• 58:36

if they're trying to grief or something.

• 58:38

So this is a very important and impactful decision.

• 58:43

And then buildings can also just be straight up destroyed

• 58:46

from a siege.

• 58:47

Like if you are sieged and your node ultimately survives,

• 58:50

you still might've taken some damage

• 58:52

in form of destroyed buildings.

• 58:54

And they'll basically become reduced to rubble

• 58:57

after which a certain period of time,

• 58:59

they'll become an empty plot again, you can rebuild.

• 59:01

So that's a very like, even if you attack a node

• 59:03

and you don't destroy it, you can still weaken it.

• 59:04

So that's kind of like a strategy for attackers,

• 59:07

even if they don't, aren't able to destroy the node

• 59:08

ultimately.

• 59:09

And especially for events where monster coins

• 59:12

can be relevant to, you know,

• 59:14

these are some of the objectives that players might even

• 59:16

have during PvE events, if they utilize monster coins

• 59:20

is to either help organize the NPCs in assisting

• 59:25

in the destruction or disabling of a particular building.

• 59:29

Yeah, exactly.

• 59:30

Cool, cool.

• 59:33

And I think we can head on over to the next question

• 59:37

or next segment, just to kind of move things along.

• 59:41

And this is about buy orders,

• 59:43

which we are gonna show a bit on the playthrough as well.

• 59:46

Yeah, talk to us about buy orders,

• 59:48

because this is a big loop for the citizens and the mayor.

• 59:54

Yeah, so buy orders are really important.

• 59:57

They're kind of the primary way that the node generates

• 1:00:00

these things we call node commodities,

• 1:00:02

which are functionally node resources.

• 1:00:05

Node resources are used, we spend them on buildings

• 1:00:10

to build them and upgrade them on maintenance.

• 1:00:12

You can trade them with other nodes.

• 1:00:14

You know, they're super useful to the node

• 1:00:17

and increasing its quality.

• 1:00:21

Now, basically what it is, is it's a recipe that the mayor

• 1:00:25

can initiate, maybe they need bins of stone,

• 1:00:31

like we show in the stream, and that's gonna cost

• 1:00:35

a different materials and players are going to have

• 1:00:38

to contribute those materials to the buy order as a package.

• 1:00:43

And they're gonna get rewarded for it

• 1:00:45

in the form of node currency.

• 1:00:47

And if you're like a really economic and strategic player,

• 1:00:50

you'll kind of be monitoring buy orders around the world

• 1:00:52

and be trying to transit goods to get the most reward

• 1:00:55

you can.

• 1:00:57

And if you're kind of a local player and you just like

• 1:00:59

helping your node and you'll be, you know,

• 1:01:02

kind of using them almost as a surrogate vendor

• 1:01:05

for something, a reward that's a little better

• 1:01:07

than just dumping your materials at an NPC.

• 1:01:13

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:01:13

So, buy orders are instrumental in the activities

• 1:01:19

that a node participates in.

• 1:01:21

Whether it be the transition of these node inventory items,

• 1:01:26

and again, the node resources, these node commodities,

• 1:01:30

they do not exist in player inventories.

• 1:01:32

They exist solely within the nodes inventory.

• 1:01:34

So, once a material gets sunk into the buy order,

• 1:01:38

the player receives the benefit of the node currency,

• 1:01:40

which right now is a bound currency that's used

• 1:01:42

to purchase a number of different types of vendorable items

• 1:01:45

that exist within nodes.

• 1:01:46

It is not player to player currency.

• 1:01:48

It is not intended to be traded between players,

• 1:01:52

but instead it interacts with these unique vendors

• 1:01:54

that supply a large segment of necessary components

• 1:01:59

for a number of different things,

• 1:02:00

whether it be crafting, enchantments, you know,

• 1:02:03

a lot of different things that exist within the node.

• 1:02:05

This is the reason why you would want to acquire

• 1:02:07

that currency is so you have access to those types of items.

• 1:02:10

And you see-

• 1:02:11

And like Steven, you just take all of them

• 1:02:12

and you don't share them with anybody.

• 1:02:14

Unbelievable.

• 1:02:15

I misunderstood the intent or what he was asking me.

• 1:02:18

I thought he said he wanted me to share.

• 1:02:20

Okay, anyways.

• 1:02:21

So, when the mayor or even if the mayor

• 1:02:25

is not making these decisions,

• 1:02:27

buy orders will populate based off of activities

• 1:02:29

that the node have available to them

• 1:02:30

after a set period of time,

• 1:02:32

so that the bad faith mayor is not depleting the node

• 1:02:35

potentially of its resources

• 1:02:37

that players can still interact with.

• 1:02:39

So, the node can use these resources as well to trade

• 1:02:42

with other nodes that might have resource types

• 1:02:45

that you need available to them.

• 1:02:46

And when selecting specific types of buy orders

• 1:02:49

that require certain material components

• 1:02:51

in order to fulfill,

• 1:02:52

you will have a wide array of material choices to make,

• 1:02:55

either those that are relevant locale to your node placement

• 1:02:59

or those that are across the world.

• 1:03:01

And there is a variable in payment

• 1:03:03

that the mayor has access to in setting

• 1:03:06

and how they'll be rewarding players.

• 1:03:07

So, you need to make sure that you're incentivizing players

• 1:03:09

who are making those large transits across the world

• 1:03:12

to actually take that risk

• 1:03:14

and bring those materials to you.

• 1:03:16

These buy orders require a significant amount

• 1:03:19

of material components in order to achieve

• 1:03:21

the necessary inventory that a node wants to see

• 1:03:24

for construction projects, for trade goods,

• 1:03:26

for a lot of different things that they use the materials for.

• 1:03:29

So, it is a big undertaking,

• 1:03:31

but it is one of the primary loops that the node requires

• 1:03:34

in order to get the steam to do certain things, right?

• 1:03:38

And it is something that we showcase in this gameplay video

• 1:03:41

that we're about to go to after this slide,

• 1:03:44

but we're gonna, oh, sorry, and Chris and Bucky,

• 1:03:46

I'll let you give a few more comments

• 1:03:47

before I preface the video.

• 1:03:49

Oh, I do have a question for the community as well.

• 1:03:51

Oh, yeah, sure.

• 1:03:53

But you guys can go ahead.

• 1:03:55

I was just gonna add that buy orders

• 1:03:58

also benefit from citizen contribution, right?

• 1:04:01

It will generate mandates

• 1:04:03

if citizens are participating in these buy orders.

• 1:04:08

So, the question that people are a little confused about

• 1:04:10

is they're wondering if you can explain

• 1:04:12

the difference between a buy order is versus a commission.

• 1:04:17

Yeah, so a buy order is strictly material-based, right?

• 1:04:21

And you don't accept a buy order and then go do it.

• 1:04:24

It is something that you can just check your node UI,

• 1:04:28

or you can check the nodes around you

• 1:04:30

to see what they have active,

• 1:04:32

and you can just go do it and come back

• 1:04:34

and participate or fulfill these buy orders.

• 1:04:38

Whereas a commission is,

• 1:04:39

a mayoral commission is more like a quest.

• 1:04:41

It's something you pick up and then it tracks your activity

• 1:04:43

while you have it.

• 1:04:44

Yeah, think of commissions like,

• 1:04:47

there is the Sherwood Forest is nearby,

• 1:04:50

and there's a number of wolves

• 1:04:51

that have been attacking the villagers,

• 1:04:53

and we need your support in taking care of those wolves.

• 1:04:57

Go out there now, citizen,

• 1:04:58

and bring back pelts to prove your worthiness, right?

• 1:05:01

That's a commission.

• 1:05:02

Whereas a buy order is more like a person standing

• 1:05:05

at an auction house saying,

• 1:05:07

we're willing to buy this for this amount of money.

• 1:05:09

Does anybody have this?

• 1:05:10

Right, and you're coming up,

• 1:05:11

checking your warehouse inventory,

• 1:05:12

checking your inventory,

• 1:05:13

and you're depositing that in exchange for the node currency,

• 1:05:17

and that, then you're using the node currency

• 1:05:19

to go interact with vendors and purchase vendors.

• 1:05:22

Now, to be clear, node currency stays with the player,

• 1:05:25

even if their node is destroyed or they drop citizenship.

• 1:05:29

This is something that you have available to you

• 1:05:31

and you carry forward to your next location,

• 1:05:33

but you may only spend your node currency

• 1:05:35

at nodes that you're a citizen of.

• 1:05:37

And also, you have to have enough node rep

• 1:05:39

to be able to buy certain tiers of things from the node

• 1:05:42

with your node currency.

• 1:05:43

Correct.

• 1:05:44

Even though currency is generic,

• 1:05:45

you still need the rep with the node

• 1:05:46

to unlock better purchases.

• 1:05:47

Correct, and guys,

• 1:05:49

I said this at the start of this presentation,

• 1:05:51

that nodes is the most complex system

• 1:05:54

that exists within Ashes of Creation.

• 1:05:56

It is arguably one of the more complex systems

• 1:05:58

that probably exists across MMORPGs as a whole,

• 1:06:01

and what I would say is what Bucky just commented on,

• 1:06:04

which is node reputation,

• 1:06:06

is a separate mechanic that also deals as a predicate

• 1:06:10

for the vendors that you have access to as a player.

• 1:06:14

And so you can establish that node reputation

• 1:06:16

by doing certain activities within the node,

• 1:06:18

by progressing within certain social organizations

• 1:06:20

or certain religions within the node,

• 1:06:23

and then that predicate serves as your access

• 1:06:25

either to items granularly within a vendor's access table

• 1:06:29

or to just vendors as a whole.

• 1:06:31

It just kind of depends,

• 1:06:32

and there's different thresholds you have to meet

• 1:06:34

across different vendors.

• 1:06:36

Yes, it is, and almost every system interacts

• 1:06:40

with nodes in some way.

• 1:06:41

It's a little crazy,

• 1:06:43

so we'd be here all day if we went through everything,

• 1:06:45

but we will give you snippets here and there

• 1:06:48

throughout the upcoming months,

• 1:06:49

so this won't be the only thing.

• 1:06:50

Just hold tight.

• 1:06:52

Yes, and on that point,

• 1:06:54

I do wanna pretext to a degree

• 1:06:58

what we're going to be showing here.

• 1:07:00

And I know, Margaret, you have prepared a video

• 1:07:03

to kind of give players some insight to...

• 1:07:06

Can we answer one quick question,

• 1:07:08

which is will buy orders include processed or final goods,

• 1:07:11

or is it only just the raw materials?

• 1:07:14

It will include raw materials and processed goods,

• 1:07:16

but not final crafts.

• 1:07:18

Okay, cool, cool.

• 1:07:19

Now I can play the video for you, Stephen.

• 1:07:22

Cool, so before we play that,

• 1:07:24

let me just preface something.

• 1:07:26

So it has been roughly two years

• 1:07:31

since you guys have been inside of a node.

• 1:07:35

And always, as usual,

• 1:07:38

I say that things are works in progress,

• 1:07:40

art is constantly moving forward,

• 1:07:42

things are constantly getting better,

• 1:07:44

and you guys get to watch that progress

• 1:07:47

as part of our development journey.

• 1:07:50

And not everybody is built for that,

• 1:07:52

but you guys are here,

• 1:07:54

and you guys are watching,

• 1:07:55

and you're giving us your feedback,

• 1:07:56

and it's very important to us.

• 1:07:58

And what we're going to be showcasing today

• 1:08:00

we can't showcase everything, right?

• 1:08:03

Some things are still in development,

• 1:08:05

some things have yet to be developed.

• 1:08:07

And what we are wanting to showcase to you

• 1:08:11

is a village update,

• 1:08:13

where we're showcasing some of the interactions

• 1:08:15

we just discussed in this slideshow,

• 1:08:17

such as mayoral activities, taxes,

• 1:08:20

the initiation of buy orders,

• 1:08:21

the completion of those buy orders,

• 1:08:23

the use of inventory systems within the node

• 1:08:27

to begin a construction sequence,

• 1:08:30

interacting with the environment,

• 1:08:32

and most importantly is now,

• 1:08:35

the visual representation of the node structure

• 1:08:38

at the village stage.

• 1:08:40

And this is something that is representative

• 1:08:43

of the quality that we intend to have with nodes

• 1:08:48

for launch, and it is for Alpha 2.

• 1:08:50

But what's most important from you guys

• 1:08:52

when you are watching this is to give us,

• 1:08:54

and it's about an hour long video,

• 1:08:55

so I told you today is going to be a doozy,

• 1:08:58

or Margaret told you today is going to be a doozy.

• 1:09:00

But it is something.

• 1:09:03

I think it's like 32 minutes, not actually an hour.

• 1:09:05

Oh, I thought it was like 52 minutes.

• 1:09:07

I was watching it last night.

• 1:09:09

Did I watch the wrong video?

• 1:09:10

I might.

• 1:09:11

Did you have the wrong video?

• 1:09:12

Uh oh.

• 1:09:13

I thought it was 52 minutes.

• 1:09:15

Oh no, my phone died.

• 1:09:17

Okay, well, it's either 30 minutes or 52.

• 1:09:20

I'm pretty sure it's 52, but we'll see.

• 1:09:23

And so my point is that when you guys are watching this,

• 1:09:27

the best point of feedback is obviously

• 1:09:29

going to be along the systems design that we just discussed,

• 1:09:32

but keeping in mind that these systems are created

• 1:09:35

when you're giving that feedback

• 1:09:36

in a very intricate and interconnected way,

• 1:09:39

and we don't have the ability to communicate

• 1:09:41

all of the intent and purpose,

• 1:09:43

and all of the designs that are associated with it.

• 1:09:45

So when you're giving feedback there,

• 1:09:46

try not to think about the niche points

• 1:09:49

that we may have already addressed,

• 1:09:51

but more the overarching intent of the system

• 1:09:53

and how you feel it will interface with you as a player.

• 1:09:56

And when you're giving commentary on the visuals

• 1:09:59

and the interactions that you're gonna see in this video,

• 1:10:01

think about ways that you would like

• 1:10:03

to see things done differently

• 1:10:04

based off of examples that you give

• 1:10:06

on our, in your past gaming experiences

• 1:10:09

and what you enjoyed about what's been done visually.

• 1:10:12

And we have an incredible art team here at Intrepid.

• 1:10:14

Obviously our environment artists are always amazing.

• 1:10:17

You're gonna be introduced to three of them

• 1:10:20

in this live stream.

• 1:10:22

But before we actually get into the video presentation,

• 1:10:25

I wanna remind everyone where nodes have come from.

• 1:10:29

And Richie S.H. who is one of our glorious content creators

• 1:10:32

in the community, he made a video doing a walkthrough

• 1:10:36

of a Alpha One nodes where the core functionality

• 1:10:38

was present, the expansion, the development,

• 1:10:40

the collection of experience.

• 1:10:42

People saw them grow there.

• 1:10:43

They saw the construction there,

• 1:10:46

and they saw some of the interactions that we've detailed,

• 1:10:48

but just take a look visually at where nodes have come from

• 1:10:52

before you're about to see where nodes are now.

• 1:10:54

And you are right, it's 53 minutes.

• 1:10:57

Also Richie was on our Q&A that we did in April.

• 1:11:00

So if you wanna check that out over on our YouTube channel,

• 1:11:03

Steven answered a lot of great questions over there.

• 1:11:05

And so we can play the video and talk over

• 1:11:08

because we're watching it.

• 1:11:10

Yeah, and as we're-

• 1:11:11

It's 4K so it, we grabbed this earlier today, so.

• 1:11:17

Oh, okay, hello there.

• 1:11:20

Hello.

• 1:11:21

Yeah, so just to give you guys context,

• 1:11:23

this was back in Alpha One.

• 1:11:25

This was a very bare bones representation of the node,

• 1:11:30

but had a lot of the core functionality present

• 1:11:32

from the collection of experience around it,

• 1:11:36

the VassalShip system and locking out other nodes

• 1:11:39

from progressing, vendor tables that became available

• 1:11:42

and new nodes and excuse me, new story arcs

• 1:11:45

and quests that were possible as a result,

• 1:11:49

the purchasing of housing, the storage components,

• 1:11:53

the citizenship and the mayoral election, right?

• 1:11:56

All of this, the core functionality was there,

• 1:11:58

but just to give you guys insight to development,

• 1:12:01

this was not visually what we wanted to represent

• 1:12:04

for the node, but served its purpose at the time.

• 1:12:06

And so what we are going to see now is nodes for Alpha Two,

• 1:12:13

the village update, and we're gonna be showing more

• 1:12:15

about nodes as we move forward towards Alpha Two,

• 1:12:18

but this is an hour long video you're about to watch

• 1:12:20

that gives you insight to where we are now.

• 1:12:22

And with that, enjoy the show.

• 1:12:27

Send nodes.

• 1:12:28

Send nodes.

• 1:12:30

We are sending nodes.

• 1:12:31

And welcome everyone to another live stream here

• 1:12:56

in the world of Vera and boy,

• 1:12:58

do we have an exciting stream today.

• 1:13:01

We are back again looking at one of the most defining features

• 1:13:08

of Ashes of Creation, the node system.

• 1:13:12

And I am joined today by regular face on the live stream.

• 1:13:19

One of our glorious senior designers, Mr. Chris.

• 1:13:22

How you doing, Chris?

• 1:13:23

I'm doing swell.

• 1:13:24

I don't know if I'd say regular though.

• 1:13:26

Well, I mean, well, you know, there's once before.

• 1:13:28

There's one other time.

• 1:13:30

It's regular now it's two times.

• 1:13:31

That's a regular thing, right?

• 1:13:33

I don't know.

• 1:13:33

I feel like you're a regular on the stream.

• 1:13:35

That's true.

• 1:13:36

That's true.

• 1:13:37

It's true.

• 1:13:38

All right, I apologize.

• 1:13:39

We are joined once again by one of our glorious designers,

• 1:13:42

Mr. Chris.

• 1:13:43

How you doing, buddy?

• 1:13:45

Thanks for having me.

• 1:13:46

It's great to be here.

• 1:13:47

And for those of you who don't know,

• 1:13:49

Chris is our resident expert when it comes to nodes.

• 1:13:53

He lives, eats, breathes and any other normal bodily function

• 1:13:58

that's required revolves around the node system.

• 1:14:02

So I'm glad to have you with us because

• 1:14:06

you know what there needs to be known about nodes.

• 1:14:09

Where are we?

• 1:14:10

Oh, sorry.

• 1:14:11

We're, yeah, lots of things need to be known,

• 1:14:13

but we're outside of a beautiful node

• 1:14:16

that's around the corner a little bit.

• 1:14:18

Okay, and I believe I am the self-appointed mayor

• 1:14:23

of this node for the purposes of what we're going

• 1:14:24

to be demonstrating a little bit later.

• 1:14:26

Yeah, the citizens aren't super happy

• 1:14:28

that you, you know, invalidated the election process, but.

• 1:14:32

Wow.

• 1:14:34

Wow.

• 1:14:35

It's not an invalidation.

• 1:14:36

It's a reaffirmation of the correct election process.

• 1:14:42

So tell me what we're doing out here today.

• 1:14:43

What are we gonna be showcasing here?

• 1:14:45

It's been a long time since we've actually taken a look

• 1:14:48

at nodes, as many of you know.

• 1:14:50

The last time we saw nodes was back during Alpha 1

• 1:14:53

in August of 2021.

• 1:14:55

Wow.

• 1:14:57

And nodes during that time were,

• 1:15:00

you know, relatively early functional version.

• 1:15:04

They had a lot of the core systems

• 1:15:05

and functionality present that we saw,

• 1:15:07

which was, you know, constructing buildings

• 1:15:09

and participating in quest hubs.

• 1:15:11

They were able to purchase housing and become citizens.

• 1:15:16

There was all that there,

• 1:15:17

but they were a very early representation of it

• 1:15:20

and definitely not visually or aesthetically

• 1:15:23

what we wanted to present.

• 1:15:24

That's going to be part of what we're showing,

• 1:15:26

but what are we doing out here today?

• 1:15:27

And let me, while you tell me what we're doing,

• 1:15:29

I'm just going to adjust some of the, the winds.

• 1:15:31

Yeah, for sure.

• 1:15:33

Well, today we're going to walk through kind of the

• 1:15:37

general process of what it takes to build a building.

• 1:15:40

You know, we're going to get some materials.

• 1:15:42

We're going to get the nodes some materials.

• 1:15:45

We're going to get the nodes some money

• 1:15:47

and we're going to build ourselves a little service building.

• 1:15:49

Nice. So we're going to go generally around the loops

• 1:15:52

that players can expect.

• 1:15:53

And obviously nodes are a huge system.

• 1:15:56

They are, as I said,

• 1:15:58

one of the defining features of Ashes of Creation,

• 1:15:59

what sets us apart from other MMOs.

• 1:16:01

They reflect the change that exists within the environment

• 1:16:04

based off of player activity, player actions,

• 1:16:07

and players have governance over these nodes,

• 1:16:09

both from a mayoral perspective

• 1:16:11

and the way that citizens interact with the decisions

• 1:16:14

that the mayor is, is, is utilizing.

• 1:16:16

And as a mayor, one of those core loops is,

• 1:16:19

as you mentioned, buy orders.

• 1:16:21

Tell me, should I be starting one of these?

• 1:16:23

How would I go about doing that?

• 1:16:24

Yeah, so you probably should do that.

• 1:16:26

There is a lovely menu you can open

• 1:16:29

with the node button, N.

• 1:16:32

Okay. All right.

• 1:16:33

Oh, I see the node here.

• 1:16:36

And then you're going to go to the treasury page.

• 1:16:39

Got it. I am on the treasury.

• 1:16:40

And I see there's a number of different items

• 1:16:42

in our node inventory.

• 1:16:44

Yeah, so these are node commodities

• 1:16:48

and they're the resources the node uses

• 1:16:50

for lots of things like siege defense.

• 1:16:53

They're going to use it for maintenance.

• 1:16:55

They're going to use it to build buildings.

• 1:16:56

They're going to trade it with other nodes.

• 1:16:59

Cool.

• 1:17:01

And these are essentially the resources

• 1:17:02

that the node are going to be using

• 1:17:04

in order to initiate those activities

• 1:17:07

that like construction projects you were mentioning

• 1:17:08

or trading with other nodes.

• 1:17:11

And what is the method by which we actually acquire

• 1:17:14

as a node these goods?

• 1:17:16

Because these goods are not things that exist

• 1:17:18

within player inventories,

• 1:17:20

but rather they are generated by players

• 1:17:23

interfacing with the environment in some way, shape or form

• 1:17:26

and then bringing those materials to the node

• 1:17:28

to get transitioned into these node inventory items.

• 1:17:32

Exactly. So we're going to do what's called the buy order.

• 1:17:34

So if you look in the bottom left of your treasury screen

• 1:17:37

you're going to see a little plus button.

• 1:17:40

You can click that and it'll open you up to a big list

• 1:17:44

of commodities that you can select

• 1:17:46

to kind of set some settings on the buy orders.

• 1:17:51

Okay, cool. This is looking good.

• 1:17:53

And just always, as usual guys,

• 1:17:55

everything that you see is a work in progress.

• 1:17:58

We are moving towards our alpha two.

• 1:17:59

So you get to see as part of our open development,

• 1:18:01

you know, things that are still works in progress

• 1:18:03

like the UI, this is a functional UI system

• 1:18:06

but it is not the version of our final UI artistically.

• 1:18:11

Same is true for everything you see

• 1:18:12

in the environments and in the world.

• 1:18:14

So what should I be selecting today?

• 1:18:18

What do we need? What are we trying to build?

• 1:18:21

You're going to need some bins of stone.

• 1:18:23

We're going to build a forge today or a smithy.

• 1:18:26

We renamed it. It's not a forge anymore.

• 1:18:28

Okay, cool.

• 1:18:31

And you need bins of stones for it.

• 1:18:34

All right. So I see bins of stone

• 1:18:35

in the industrial goods section.

• 1:18:38

And over on the right-hand side,

• 1:18:39

I see that I have the ability as the mayor

• 1:18:42

to customize the buy order.

• 1:18:45

And what elements of this would I want to customize and why?

• 1:18:50

Yeah. So the first thing you see at the top

• 1:18:53

is the recipe, right?

• 1:18:54

The recipe is going to change the mins and maxes

• 1:18:58

of the parameters you see below,

• 1:19:00

how much you can pay players for these items,

• 1:19:03

how long you can keep them active.

• 1:19:05

And the ingredients are options you have

• 1:19:10

for the recipe that you've picked, right?

• 1:19:13

For different materials.

• 1:19:14

So obviously not all materials are going to be local

• 1:19:17

to all locations.

• 1:19:18

So kind of picking the right things

• 1:19:21

to either incentivize players from a long distance

• 1:19:25

to bring things to you or picking things local

• 1:19:28

because you need them now and you need them fast

• 1:19:30

and you need them for a low amount of investment.

• 1:19:34

Okay. So the first thing I'm looking at

• 1:19:36

is this purchase price.

• 1:19:38

And is this what I'm paying players essentially

• 1:19:41

from the node treasury on a per item basis

• 1:19:45

of these materials?

• 1:19:47

So a buy order comes as a package.

• 1:19:50

So players deliver them as a package.

• 1:19:53

And you're paying per package functionally,

• 1:19:56

but that is not in gold, it's in node currency,

• 1:19:59

which is the primary way that nodes

• 1:20:01

are going to reward players.

• 1:20:03

Okay, cool.

• 1:20:04

And so when I'm purchasing that package,

• 1:20:08

is it that I'm buying one basalt and one halcyonite

• 1:20:11

and that is a package?

• 1:20:12

Or am I buying 50 basalt and 50 halcyonite

• 1:20:15

and that is a package?

• 1:20:17

That's going to depend on the recipe.

• 1:20:19

But so it's not exactly always going to be

• 1:20:23

the same amount of each.

• 1:20:25

And the amounts it's per package will vary

• 1:20:29

based on the amount of investment the node

• 1:20:31

has to put into the buy order.

• 1:20:34

Okay, cool.

• 1:20:34

All right, so I'm going to set this,

• 1:20:38

because I am a benevolent mayor

• 1:20:40

and I believe that people should be rewarded

• 1:20:43

for their hard work and effort in helping to establish

• 1:20:46

what the node that we are collectively a part of needs.

• 1:20:49

And I'm going to set that to two, right?

• 1:20:51

Just above the minimum.

• 1:20:54

Just barely above it.

• 1:20:56

The more you pay, the more it will cost

• 1:20:58

the node's treasury.

• 1:20:59

Oh, okay, maybe I'll set this back down to one.

• 1:21:01

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:21:02

I'm just kidding.

• 1:21:04

Now you see why the citizens are mad.

• 1:21:07

Wait a minute, they're not mad, they're perfectly happy.

• 1:21:09

We just had an election last week.

• 1:21:10

There's a 99% approval rating for me.

• 1:21:14

So, and that 1%, they mysteriously left the node.

• 1:21:17

I don't know where they went.

• 1:21:19

They were in a plane.

• 1:21:20

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:21:21

Okay, so all right, duration-wide.

• 1:21:24

Duration-wise, let's see, three days.

• 1:21:26

Now, is this the amount of time that players

• 1:21:28

have the opportunity to kind of turn these things in?

• 1:21:31

Exactly, so the last slider that you have there is quantity.

• 1:21:36

And basically, when you initiate a buy order,

• 1:21:38

the node is paying for it, right?

• 1:21:41

So regardless of whether players finish it,

• 1:21:45

you've paid for it.

• 1:21:46

So the longer it's up, the more likely you are

• 1:21:49

to get paid out.

• 1:21:52

But the shorter windows allow people to kind of capitalize

• 1:21:55

on it, the early bird gets the worm.

• 1:21:59

And just to be clear, I know exactly what many

• 1:22:02

of the people in the audience are thinking,

• 1:22:04

that if I was the mayor and I knew what types of buy orders

• 1:22:09

I was intending to launch at some date,

• 1:22:13

I could inform via some type of insider trading

• 1:22:18

what that is going to be so that people had time

• 1:22:20

potentially to bring those resources to the node

• 1:22:22

in advance and purchase out all the buy orders.

• 1:22:26

Yeah, that is definitely true.

• 1:22:28

The mayor does have some power to give people warning,

• 1:22:34

but they also have the power to pull the rug out

• 1:22:36

from under those people too, right?

• 1:22:38

Tell them you need bins of stone and you're gonna,

• 1:22:41

you need basalt and halcyonite, but you actually use iron.

• 1:22:48

Okay, interesting.

• 1:22:49

And then that way, if they are bringing those things,

• 1:22:52

usually via caravan, given that a lot of the quantities

• 1:22:54

for these types of buy orders are gonna be relatively large

• 1:22:57

in order to accommodate the necessary material components

• 1:23:00

that the node requires, they might be subject

• 1:23:03

to attack potentially, right?

• 1:23:05

And so reputation matters here.

• 1:23:07

So I see that in choosing quantity,

• 1:23:09

I'm choosing 116 different packages,

• 1:23:11

which means I'll get 116 basalt and 116 halcyonite,

• 1:23:15

and that will help us to finish this project, yeah?

• 1:23:20

Correct.

• 1:23:21

All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and schedule this order.

• 1:23:24

Order details, okay, yes, let's see.

• 1:23:28

Oh, okay, so this package has a,

• 1:23:29

it's not a one-to-one per se.

• 1:23:31

This is 117 packages, which will constitute total of 696

• 1:23:36

basalt and 232 halcyonite.

• 1:23:39

Total reserve cost is 25.

• 1:23:41

I'm gonna confirm this.

• 1:23:43

All right, there we go.

• 1:23:45

All right, so it's kicking off.

• 1:23:47

All right, so I assume you've brought me out here,

• 1:23:49

and I don't normally participate in direct menial labor

• 1:23:53

as the mayor of this node, but for demonstration purposes,

• 1:23:56

I will help you collect some of these resources.

• 1:24:03

I see we're out here in a beautiful part of the world.

• 1:24:05

This is obviously the Riverlands,

• 1:24:07

which many of our audience are accustomed to seeing.

• 1:24:11

This will be one of the primary locations

• 1:24:14

that we will be testing for Alpha-2.

• 1:24:16

It is expansive, it is large.

• 1:24:18

It is probably larger than most MMOs,

• 1:24:20

just as a single biome that people have participated in.

• 1:24:24

But I see we have some familiar halcyonite here.

• 1:24:27

Yep, I've got some insider information

• 1:24:29

from the artisanship team on where we need to go.

• 1:24:32

Nice, very cool.

• 1:24:35

Ah, we've added some blue smoke, I see,

• 1:24:37

to the effects here.

• 1:24:42

Looks very good.

• 1:24:44

I see some basalts here as well.

• 1:24:46

And so players who are interested in seeing

• 1:24:49

this kind of update at the node

• 1:24:52

of the necessary materials requested,

• 1:24:58

not all the time will those materials be

• 1:25:00

in the locality of that node, right?

• 1:25:02

That's, as you were mentioning, a bit strategic

• 1:25:04

for the node to either select material components

• 1:25:07

that yield the type of node inventory items necessary

• 1:25:10

or commodities necessary based on the geolocation of that.

• 1:25:14

Correct, and they might not even have access to bioters

• 1:25:18

for certain node commodities that are local to them, right?

• 1:25:24

So higher tier commodities will be further away.

• 1:25:29

Very cool.

• 1:25:31

And will players around the world have an opportunity

• 1:25:34

to inspect the types of bioters that are currently listed

• 1:25:37

at a particular node?

• 1:25:41

Yeah, they will be able to.

• 1:25:42

Cool, very cool.

• 1:25:44

So those of you who are traders and are interested in kind of,

• 1:25:47

I'm gonna start moving down this road now.

• 1:25:48

Those of you who are traders and are interested

• 1:25:50

in actually capitalizing on the supply and demand of nodes

• 1:25:56

and their competing interests

• 1:25:58

and what they're trying to accomplish

• 1:25:59

will have an opportunity to move those goods

• 1:26:03

around the world, take that risk potentially,

• 1:26:06

but receive a high reward as a result.

• 1:26:11

Exactly.

• 1:26:12

Ooh, I see we have someone up ahead here.

• 1:26:14

Who is this?

• 1:26:16

Oh! Looks like a lovely guard.

• 1:26:19

A guard doing his duty.

• 1:26:21

Let me pay him a visit and tell him

• 1:26:25

how wonderful of a job he is doing.

• 1:26:29

Fare thee well, God.

• 1:26:31

Hello.

• 1:26:33

Stop when your mayor is talking.

• 1:26:35

Hey.

• 1:26:37

Listen, they're busy people.

• 1:26:38

Does he not recognize my authority?

• 1:26:41

And is he stretching in front of me?

• 1:26:45

Do I bore you?

• 1:26:48

Unbelievable.

• 1:26:49

We're gonna have to talk with his commander.

• 1:26:51

This is a beautiful area.

• 1:26:53

I mean, the environment team did a phenomenal job,

• 1:26:55

obviously, always.

• 1:26:58

And I think one of the big things

• 1:27:00

that people are gonna be in for a surprise here

• 1:27:03

as we showcase this glorious node.

• 1:27:07

Where are we going?

• 1:27:07

By the way, this is Winstead.

• 1:27:09

This is the lovely Winstead node.

• 1:27:11

So one of the biggest differences

• 1:27:14

that people are going to notice today,

• 1:27:16

and of course it's very important to keep in mind,

• 1:27:20

I'll go into walk mode here, I don't run into my own node.

• 1:27:24

It's very important to keep in mind

• 1:27:26

that nodes in Alpha 1, the last time we saw them,

• 1:27:31

are very placeholder.

• 1:27:32

Right, as I said, they were core functionality,

• 1:27:34

but artistically, they did not represent

• 1:27:36

the aesthetic of nodes that we were intending

• 1:27:37

to create.

• 1:27:40

And the environment team has been hard at work

• 1:27:44

in creating, obviously, the different stages

• 1:27:46

of these nodes, but also in representing

• 1:27:49

the type of visual fidelity that we want to represent

• 1:27:51

within the cities of our game.

• 1:27:54

And I believe that we have arrived at Winstead

• 1:28:00

and we are joined by some additional glorious members

• 1:28:04

of the development team.

• 1:28:05

I see two of them here.

• 1:28:07

We have Mr. Tristan, our lead environment artist.

• 1:28:10

Tristan, how you doing, buddy?

• 1:28:12

Hello, welcome, doing very well, how are you?

• 1:28:14

I am doing very good.

• 1:28:15

We just went for a little stroll, got some resources,

• 1:28:18

and now we're showing up back to the node.

• 1:28:19

You got everything we need?

• 1:28:21

I do, I think I have everything we need.

• 1:28:24

We also have with us, I see, Adam.

• 1:28:27

How you doing, buddy?

• 1:28:28

I am good, thank you.

• 1:28:30

Another one of our glorious environment artists.

• 1:28:32

Yes, and there's one more missing.

• 1:28:35

He's around here somewhere.

• 1:28:36

What, where is he?

• 1:28:39

Is he over here, what is this?

• 1:28:40

Is this the caravansary, by the way?

• 1:28:42

It is the caravansary.

• 1:28:45

Very cool, I'm gonna come look over there,

• 1:28:48

but let me just take a look at what's going on

• 1:28:50

in here real quick.

• 1:28:52

Beautiful.

• 1:28:54

And this is where players will have an opportunity

• 1:28:56

to reserve certain caravan stalls.

• 1:28:58

They'll be able to kit out and we'll be showcasing this

• 1:29:01

in a future livestream, probably a couple months away or so,

• 1:29:04

where you can kit out your caravan

• 1:29:06

with different components, you can upgrade these,

• 1:29:09

and that is a default building, correct?

• 1:29:11

The nodes don't select and create those by agency,

• 1:29:14

but they come by default.

• 1:29:16

Yeah, that is a building that comes with the node,

• 1:29:18

though it is upgradable by the node.

• 1:29:20

I see.

• 1:29:21

Now where is our third, where is James?

• 1:29:26

Hello.

• 1:29:27

Oh, we have found him, welcome, James.

• 1:29:31

I was just doing some stuff at my house,

• 1:29:33

wasn't really a citizen.

• 1:29:34

I was able to get some real estate.

• 1:29:37

Very nice, okay, look at that,

• 1:29:39

beautiful little house you have there.

• 1:29:41

It's quaint, I think that's the appropriate term, right?

• 1:29:44

Quaint?

• 1:29:44

Are you paying your taxes on that?

• 1:29:46

You don't really pay us enough, so.

• 1:29:48

Unbelievable, unbelievable.

• 1:29:51

It is not the mayor's job to assign these salaries.

• 1:29:54

This is a purely capitalist society.

• 1:29:57

You need to speak to your corporate head.

• 1:30:01

I didn't vote for you.

• 1:30:02

Oh, no.

• 1:30:07

We'll be talking after this stream.

• 1:30:09

I gotta hit with some bad news, James is invisible.

• 1:30:12

Oh, James, where are you?

• 1:30:15

I drank a potion of invisibility.

• 1:30:17

Oh, very nice, I can see you, James,

• 1:30:19

I think you look very nice for me.

• 1:30:22

That's because you're the mayor.

• 1:30:24

Yes, that is correct, I see all, I'm the mayor of Sauron.

• 1:30:27

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:30:28

Well, let's head into the node

• 1:30:31

and take a look here.

• 1:30:34

This is, I mean, truly a sight to see.

• 1:30:38

I love the layout, I love the aesthetic.

• 1:30:41

You guys did a phenomenal job

• 1:30:44

with actually representing, I think,

• 1:30:46

what we want out of the node.

• 1:30:49

I mean, visually, it's just, it looks great.

• 1:30:51

Oh, look at the little piglet.

• 1:30:54

Yeah, you might find a few little small farm animals

• 1:30:57

to hang out with around the town.

• 1:30:59

Those guys are great, little piglet.

• 1:31:02

Talk to me a little bit about what it took

• 1:31:04

to bring this node online

• 1:31:05

and to the visual fidelity that we wanted to.

• 1:31:10

A lot.

• 1:31:11

A lot said here.

• 1:31:15

There's far more than just making the art here look good.

• 1:31:18

It's also anticipating how we're gonna approach

• 1:31:21

eight different races or more

• 1:31:24

in terms of the amount of assets that we have to create.

• 1:31:26

So it's more of a, it's not just an artistic problem,

• 1:31:30

it's a logistic problem, right?

• 1:31:31

So we have so much to do when it comes to the world

• 1:31:37

in terms of the biomes

• 1:31:38

and making this all work and functional

• 1:31:40

because all this is dynamic.

• 1:31:42

This isn't set in stone.

• 1:31:43

This is something that's going to be spawned

• 1:31:45

and created by the players

• 1:31:46

and then built up by the players.

• 1:31:48

And that, of course, makes it entirely more complex.

• 1:31:52

100%.

• 1:31:53

Yes.

• 1:31:54

We had to develop new systems

• 1:31:55

for how we develop the art, how we lay out the art,

• 1:31:58

how design can use the art,

• 1:32:01

just so that it can be dynamic,

• 1:32:04

it can be different races,

• 1:32:06

and it can show up in different biomes.

• 1:32:08

Yeah.

• 1:32:10

Yeah, not to mention we had to build up a new aesthetic

• 1:32:13

to really sell an Ashes of Creation look.

• 1:32:18

Steven, before you go any further,

• 1:32:19

can I show you something real quick?

• 1:32:21

Yes, absolutely.

• 1:32:23

Right back over here.

• 1:32:26

You just come back here.

• 1:32:27

I am on my way.

• 1:32:31

Where, oh, this is cool.

• 1:32:32

So there's like these little back alley areas where-

• 1:32:35

You know, Tristan, why don't you go with him?

• 1:32:37

No, no.

• 1:32:38

Yeah, no, that's okay.

• 1:32:39

We posted something up here.

• 1:32:41

Oh, what is this?

• 1:32:42

Who's that little fella?

• 1:32:44

Who is Tristan?

• 1:32:46

Have you seen me?

• 1:32:48

Who is that?

• 1:32:49

I don't see him.

• 1:32:50

Who is that guy?

• 1:32:51

Is that Tristan?

• 1:32:52

Yeah.

• 1:32:53

Is that Lord Snot himself?

• 1:32:55

Oh, wow.

• 1:32:57

I am currently on the missing board.

• 1:32:59

You're on the missing board.

• 1:33:02

That's all right.

• 1:33:03

At least people care about me.

• 1:33:04

Hey.

• 1:33:05

Aw.

• 1:33:06

They're sad that I'm missing.

• 1:33:07

No, you have a bounty on your head.

• 1:33:09

Yeah, the reward is 10 cents.

• 1:33:13

Well, I'll take it.

• 1:33:16

At least somebody's paying attention to me

• 1:33:17

and where I am and where my whereabouts are.

• 1:33:20

That is hilarious.

• 1:33:23

So talk to me a little bit about,

• 1:33:25

we're going to get back to the systems real quick

• 1:33:27

in a second, guys, but I want to just kind of go over

• 1:33:30

what are some of the unique hurdles

• 1:33:33

that we are accomplishing through the development

• 1:33:35

of these nodes, especially considering that they have

• 1:33:37

to go through multiple different stages of development

• 1:33:41

from crossroads to encampment to village to town to city

• 1:33:45

to eventually these large metropolises

• 1:33:49

and how that makes this a very complicated process

• 1:33:52

for you guys.

• 1:33:54

Yeah, I mean, essentially we have to plan

• 1:33:55

for the buildings being able to expand,

• 1:33:58

to get taller, to get bigger,

• 1:34:00

and that has to happen from day one, right?

• 1:34:03

Like we need to talk to concept and figure out

• 1:34:05

how we get from, like you said, camp to metropolis

• 1:34:09

and then kind of work within those bounds.

• 1:34:13

And you know, there's been a lot of discoveries and pain

• 1:34:17

and jubilation along the way, and this guy just died.

• 1:34:22

I don't know.

• 1:34:23

But yeah, it's a work in progress

• 1:34:27

like it is for every stream, right?

• 1:34:30

But I think we have a good start here

• 1:34:32

and we'll be able to really kind of push forward

• 1:34:36

and show progress in the future.

• 1:34:39

Absolutely, it is a beautiful view, this area.

• 1:34:44

And I know that there's been some changes

• 1:34:47

kind of in how we anticipated node expansion working

• 1:34:53

and utilizing a more district-oriented approach

• 1:34:58

where expansions kind of are previewed

• 1:35:01

or at least telegraphed to the node

• 1:35:04

as development continues, as expansion grows,

• 1:35:08

players start to see construction taking place

• 1:35:11

within the node to represent those expanding areas.

• 1:35:15

Yeah, that's right.

• 1:35:16

As the mayor and the citizens start, you know,

• 1:35:20

bringing more online with their node,

• 1:35:22

you'll start to see the outskirts of say like this village,

• 1:35:26

for instance, start to have little construction projects.

• 1:35:29

Grass will be cleared.

• 1:35:31

You'll start to see scaffolding

• 1:35:33

and other things being placed as well as materials.

• 1:35:35

And you'll start to see the village expand into a town

• 1:35:40

and then a town into a city and so forth and so on.

• 1:35:44

And it's really exciting to be able

• 1:35:45

to kind of build those systems

• 1:35:47

and visually still have them look, you know,

• 1:35:51

well, you can see how it looks, but.

• 1:35:53

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:35:55

And it's not just, you know, obviously for those of you

• 1:35:58

who might be a little bit newer

• 1:36:00

to the audience and the project,

• 1:36:03

the systems that are in place to accompany

• 1:36:06

this node progression, these city progressions

• 1:36:09

across the world are really intended to be defined

• 1:36:13

by player activity, player action, player choices.

• 1:36:18

Whoops, I have a little bit of a weird mesh issue over there,

• 1:36:21

but that's okay.

• 1:36:23

The really meant to reflect the player choices, right?

• 1:36:26

And that includes building construction.

• 1:36:29

And as we were talking about earlier,

• 1:36:31

these buy orders are the primary method

• 1:36:33

by which nodes can procure the resources necessary.

• 1:36:39

One of the other methods by which nodes can help

• 1:36:44

kind of utilize that expansion

• 1:36:47

is through treasury acquisition with taxation,

• 1:36:50

with trade agreements and other nodes.

• 1:36:52

Chris, we have some resources we've collected.

• 1:36:55

Where are we gonna head to next to kind of utilize that?

• 1:36:58

Well, if you'll follow me over here.

• 1:37:01

All righty.

• 1:37:02

We're gonna go to the warehouse.

• 1:37:05

All right, I'm on my way with you to the warehouse.

• 1:37:10

Now, this is a building that you're gonna manage

• 1:37:13

your material and item storage.

• 1:37:16

You're going to obviously interface

• 1:37:18

with the buy order manager.

• 1:37:20

I think he's called the requisition agent these days.

• 1:37:23

All right.

• 1:37:27

Cool.

• 1:37:27

So if we're gonna wanna talk

• 1:37:28

to this lovely fellow over here.

• 1:37:32

This guy here?

• 1:37:33

Yep.

• 1:37:34

All right.

• 1:37:36

Let's see here.

• 1:37:37

Okay, here we go.

• 1:37:38

All right, and as you see kind of the portrait

• 1:37:40

still outstanding, you're gonna see that some of the UI.

• 1:37:43

Greetings, citizen.

• 1:37:44

I am tasked with purchasing goods, which,

• 1:37:46

how dare him refer to me as a citizen?

• 1:37:48

We need to fix the greeting tables.

• 1:37:51

I mean, really, the disrespect.

• 1:37:53

Okay, I am tasked with purchasing goods,

• 1:37:56

which the node uses to construct and maintain

• 1:37:58

its varied services.

• 1:37:59

Would you like to see our current requisitions?

• 1:38:01

I would indeed.

• 1:38:04

Exchange rate, okay.

• 1:38:06

All right.

• 1:38:07

And so now anybody who is participating as a citizen

• 1:38:12

or as just a player in the game can go to these locations

• 1:38:15

and they can fulfill these buy orders.

• 1:38:16

So right now I'm seeing that I can adjust the quantity

• 1:38:19

of goods that I'm going to be offering to the node.

• 1:38:23

And we might have a little bit of a problem here

• 1:38:25

because it's saying that the total value of goods

• 1:38:27

I want to contribute are 232 currency worth,

• 1:38:30

gold worth, to the node.

• 1:38:33

Well, you're exchanging two for every,

• 1:38:36

you're getting two for every package you're fulfilling.

• 1:38:39

And you can fulfill all of them, it looks like.

• 1:38:43

Should I do that?

• 1:38:44

I mean, do you want to share the love?

• 1:38:50

Okay, I'll do that.

• 1:38:51

So exchange, confirm, let's see here.

• 1:38:53

Total materials, process this order for 232.

• 1:38:56

I will confirm that.

• 1:38:58

Boom, done.

• 1:39:00

So now I have acquired node currency

• 1:39:03

in exchange for these materials.

• 1:39:09

Correct.

• 1:39:10

Also, you did all of it.

• 1:39:12

You didn't share anything.

• 1:39:14

Uh-oh, what does that mean?

• 1:39:17

Well, the currency is bound,

• 1:39:18

so you can't trade it with anyone.

• 1:39:21

So you fulfilled the whole buy order

• 1:39:23

and you took all the reward.

• 1:39:25

Oh, I thought you meant share as in like,

• 1:39:29

I would take that and then later,

• 1:39:31

I would use what I received

• 1:39:34

and give those to other people in other means,

• 1:39:36

like through servitude as a servant-oriented type leader.

• 1:39:41

You know what I mean?

• 1:39:42

Like, I didn't know you meant actually not fulfill the order.

• 1:39:44

Listen, I need some node currency.

• 1:39:47

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that's what you meant.

• 1:39:51

I thought you meant share as in like, me give more resources.

• 1:39:55

Okay, will that be a problem or are we good?

• 1:39:58

No, we're good, we're good.

• 1:39:59

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

• 1:40:00

I'm just a little hurt.

• 1:40:01

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that.

• 1:40:03

Well, I can speak with a guy.

• 1:40:03

I know some people here at this node.

• 1:40:06

Okay, okay, for sure, hook me up.

• 1:40:08

All right, so we've fulfilled this buy order.

• 1:40:10

What is next in this loop?

• 1:40:12

So now we are gonna talk about taxes.

• 1:40:16

You just spent, as a node, 25 gold

• 1:40:19

to initiate that buy order, right?

• 1:40:22

Yes.

• 1:40:23

Eventually we're gonna need.

• 1:40:24

I see the treasury says I have 75 remaining.

• 1:40:26

Yeah, and that should be enough to build the building,

• 1:40:28

but you probably wanna start replenishing now, right?

• 1:40:31

Yes.

• 1:40:32

So you're gonna open up your node panel again.

• 1:40:36

Okay.

• 1:40:36

And take yourself to the treasury page.

• 1:40:39

Done.

• 1:40:40

And you're gonna look, there's a taxes area.

• 1:40:44

Taxes area, taxes area.

• 1:40:45

It says tax rates.

• 1:40:47

Oh, I see that, okay.

• 1:40:49

Tax rates.

• 1:40:50

And you're gonna be able to adjust those as the mayor.

• 1:40:53

So I wanna go to advanced details.

• 1:40:55

Yep.

• 1:40:56

Okay, oh, I see, okay, perfect.

• 1:40:58

And so this is, I see that there are a number

• 1:41:01

of different potential modifiers.

• 1:41:04

These probably are going to be offered out

• 1:41:09

as either the node levels up or as upgrades.

• 1:41:12

How does that work?

• 1:41:13

Talk to me a little bit about these modifiers.

• 1:41:15

So at a high level in early node development,

• 1:41:20

you're not gonna get access to a lot of these, right?

• 1:41:22

This is probably pretty close to what a node level three

• 1:41:25

is gonna end up getting.

• 1:41:27

And we've broken the things that cost money in the node

• 1:41:30

into different categories, right?

• 1:41:32

As the node levels up, you're gonna get access

• 1:41:35

to kind of deeper controls on the taxes

• 1:41:38

so that you as a mayor can kind of incentivize players

• 1:41:43

to come to your node to do certain things, right?

• 1:41:45

If you're a node that loves smithing,

• 1:41:49

you're probably gonna wanna lower your taxes on artisanship

• 1:41:52

to incentivize players to be here.

• 1:41:55

But then you might wanna drive up taxes and other avenues

• 1:41:58

that players aren't necessarily coming to your node for,

• 1:42:01

but are using out of convenience, right?

• 1:42:05

Okay, cool.

• 1:42:06

So we need to generate some more income.

• 1:42:08

Yep, so I would recommend cranking those taxes.

• 1:42:12

Oh my God.

• 1:42:14

Oh man, not again.

• 1:42:16

Oh, here we go.

• 1:42:17

This is not me.

• 1:42:18

This is, it takes a village, literally.

• 1:42:22

Well, that's what we're doing right now.

• 1:42:23

It takes from a village.

• 1:42:24

It takes from a villager.

• 1:42:27

And it goes to the roads, right?

• 1:42:28

Yes, it goes to the potholes in the roads.

• 1:42:31

There seems to be quite a lot of them here.

• 1:42:34

I have adjusted the tax rate to 75%.

• 1:42:38

All right, now if we go over here to this guy,

• 1:42:42

you can go ahead and buy some stuff

• 1:42:45

and 75% of the base cost of these items

• 1:42:49

is going to go to the, is gonna go to the treasury.

• 1:42:53

Ooh, let's see here.

• 1:43:05

This is a bit grayed out for me.

• 1:43:07

Maybe I don't, guys, again,

• 1:43:08

you're gonna see some placeholder stuff.

• 1:43:11

Looks like.

• 1:43:12

I don't have room for some stuff,

• 1:43:14

so I'm just gonna be killing some things.

• 1:43:17

Nobody pay any attention to the non-existent icons.

• 1:43:22

Yeah, some of that art is still pending.

• 1:43:26

Okay, I will now interact with this gear vendor

• 1:43:29

and let's see if he can sell me some items.

• 1:43:34

You know, these are grayed out for me.

• 1:43:36

Do you have any money?

• 1:43:38

Oh my God, I have no money.

• 1:43:41

It looks like you probably only have node currency.

• 1:43:43

I need some money.

• 1:43:47

I'm gonna use a cheat panel.

• 1:43:48

Nobody look, this is a little bit of a cheat panel.

• 1:43:51

Okay, you're gonna see where I can.

• 1:43:55

You're saying your mayor's broke right now, right?

• 1:43:57

We'll just pick up.

• 1:43:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody sees anything.

• 1:44:01

Maybe you did need that node currency more than I did.

• 1:44:04

Yeah, so what do I do?

• 1:44:06

Character gold, let me get some gold.

• 1:44:11

Give gold, you know, I'm gonna give myself a thousand.

• 1:44:16

And I will now speak with this individual again,

• 1:44:19

who was so rude and curt with me

• 1:44:21

when I tried to buy stuff from him.

• 1:44:24

Didn't know who I was as the mayor.

• 1:44:27

Okay, cool, so we wanna generate some currency for the node.

• 1:44:30

We're just gonna demonstrate here making some purchases.

• 1:44:36

Oops, I probably need to, hold on, sorry, my bad.

• 1:44:40

I'm going to select some of these different items.

• 1:44:49

How do I make that purchase?

• 1:44:53

So I'm just selecting these items.

• 1:44:55

Yep, you should just be able to right click them.

• 1:44:58

Right click, oh, there we go, yeah, yeah, yeah, my bad.

• 1:45:03

Okay, how much gold do we need for the node right now?

• 1:45:06

This is more, not enough gold.

• 1:45:08

Well, this is more not for you

• 1:45:11

to just make a bunch of gold right away,

• 1:45:12

but just to make sure we're getting more gold over time.

• 1:45:15

We have enough to make the building.

• 1:45:17

Okay, let me check the node treasury.

• 1:45:20

The node treasury now has 112.

• 1:45:22

That should be plenty.

• 1:45:24

So now, you wanna build a building, Steven?

• 1:45:28

I wanna build a building.

• 1:45:30

All right, well, let's go have a nice little waltz.

• 1:45:34

Well, actually, open your mayor panel here for us.

• 1:45:38

Okay, mayor panel is open.

• 1:45:41

And you're gonna hit N and go to the buildings tab.

• 1:45:45

Done.

• 1:45:46

Now, here you're gonna see a list

• 1:45:48

of all the buildings we currently have constructed.

• 1:45:51

Since this is a pretty new node,

• 1:45:53

all the buildings in this list

• 1:45:55

are what we call default buildings,

• 1:45:58

which means they come pre-constructed with the node.

• 1:46:01

But if you scroll all the way down to the bottom,

• 1:46:03

you're gonna see the empty plots.

• 1:46:06

Okay, very cool.

• 1:46:08

And just to be clear,

• 1:46:09

the default buildings are offering default services,

• 1:46:13

as you were saying, apartments, warehouse for storage,

• 1:46:17

or the caravansary for the caravans

• 1:46:21

and reception of those caravans.

• 1:46:24

All nodes will have a base default list of services

• 1:46:28

that are offered regardless of type.

• 1:46:31

And then what we're doing now is we're specializing the node

• 1:46:35

to cater specific services

• 1:46:37

in order to draw traffic of players to us.

• 1:46:40

Right, yeah, all the services that come default

• 1:46:43

with the node we've kind of,

• 1:46:44

as a design team, deemed essential, right?

• 1:46:48

We want caravans to move around the world

• 1:46:50

so everyone should have a caravansary.

• 1:46:51

We want players to have storage

• 1:46:53

so everyone should have a warehouse, right?

• 1:46:55

But that doesn't mean those default buildings

• 1:46:56

can't be upgraded and specialized themselves, right?

• 1:47:00

Awesome.

• 1:47:01

But the empty plots are where you really get

• 1:47:04

to start specializing your node.

• 1:47:07

All right, and I see a smithy under artisanship.

• 1:47:12

Correct.

• 1:47:14

Okay, I've selected the building.

• 1:47:16

Yep.

• 1:47:18

Oh, okay, here we go.

• 1:47:19

We have a little bit of a tree here

• 1:47:20

that talks about its expansions.

• 1:47:23

Yeah, so buildings can expand,

• 1:47:26

and as I kind of alluded to with the default buildings,

• 1:47:28

they specialize as they expand, right?

• 1:47:30

So this isn't like a traditional field tree.

• 1:47:34

It's exclusionary, more like a tech tree, right?

• 1:47:37

So selecting the next upgrade for it

• 1:47:42

will lock out the other two paths, right?

• 1:47:47

So as you get better with the building,

• 1:47:49

it will continue to narrow,

• 1:47:50

which allows lots of nodes

• 1:47:52

to carve out lots of niches in the world.

• 1:47:55

Very cool.

• 1:47:57

And so because of this, because it's exclusionary,

• 1:48:00

it would be relevant for certain nodes

• 1:48:03

in order to achieve a broader spectrum

• 1:48:07

of upgrade potential within a particular building type

• 1:48:12

to potentially build multiple of these buildings.

• 1:48:15

Yeah, exactly, right?

• 1:48:16

If you wanna be the home to weaponsmithing in your node,

• 1:48:20

you're probably gonna have three smithies

• 1:48:21

to capitalize on slashing, bludgeoning,

• 1:48:25

and piercing weapons, right?

• 1:48:28

And then there are other things you can do

• 1:48:30

with the policy system or with the relic system

• 1:48:32

to kind of amp that up even further.

• 1:48:36

Very cool.

• 1:48:37

Very cool.

• 1:48:38

And so let's say, and I know we don't have this,

• 1:48:42

or I'm not sure if we have this yet implemented,

• 1:48:45

but let's say, for example, I as the mayor,

• 1:48:47

I'm about to start this build, right?

• 1:48:50

I'm gonna, do I just click on this build right now?

• 1:48:52

Yep.

• 1:48:53

All right.

• 1:48:55

Oh, okay, here we go.

• 1:48:56

Construction requirements.

• 1:48:57

So I have the bins of stone,

• 1:49:00

and it looks like we have the cords of wood.

• 1:49:03

Yep. Citizen contributions.

• 1:49:05

So the citizen contribution, that is in reference

• 1:49:07

to when this construction project begins,

• 1:49:10

citizens will need to come to the building

• 1:49:13

and contribute resources to aid in its development.

• 1:49:16

Yeah, so unlike buy orders,

• 1:49:19

you're not directly rewarded for this, right?

• 1:49:21

As a player, this is kind of our way of ensuring

• 1:49:25

that citizens want the thing

• 1:49:28

that the mayor is asking them to do,

• 1:49:29

or is spending resources on, right?

• 1:49:32

So if you're a mayor and you're just like,

• 1:49:33

ah, I'm gonna build a bunch of this building

• 1:49:37

that no one wants, then players aren't gonna contribute

• 1:49:40

to it and they're not gonna get built.

• 1:49:43

Good call, very cool.

• 1:49:44

All right, let me confirm this.

• 1:49:46

Players will have 2 million days

• 1:49:49

to provide the resources for construction.

• 1:49:51

Well, that's good.

• 1:49:52

I wanna be a lenient mayor.

• 1:49:55

And as many in the audience know,

• 1:49:58

we expect Ashes to have a very long

• 1:50:01

and fruitful lifespan as a product.

• 1:50:05

And 2 million days is a bit on the maybe conservative side

• 1:50:09

of what we'll actually see overall,

• 1:50:12

but I think it's a worthwhile time.

• 1:50:15

Are we good with that?

• 1:50:16

What do you think, Chris?

• 1:50:17

Yeah, that sounds great.

• 1:50:19

Okay, 2 million days it is.

• 1:50:21

Okay, where do we go to see this building?

• 1:50:26

So we've constructed it over here.

• 1:50:30

If you wanna follow me this way.

• 1:50:31

All right, I'm following.

• 1:50:33

I don't normally run in my own town, but I will.

• 1:50:35

I will run for this building.

• 1:50:37

Listen up, I got places to go, people to see.

• 1:50:39

People to see?

• 1:50:41

You work at the behest of the mayor.

• 1:50:44

So I notice there's a gentleman here you can talk to.

• 1:50:48

Does he also work for me, just to be clear?

• 1:50:51

He's a foreman.

• 1:50:52

He does, he does.

• 1:50:52

Technically he works for the city.

• 1:50:54

I am the city, I am the law.

• 1:50:57

I'm just kidding.

• 1:50:59

And this gentleman is the construction foreman,

• 1:51:02

so this is where players will get to go

• 1:51:03

to donate resources to the construction of a building.

• 1:51:07

Okay, all right, let's see here.

• 1:51:09

So he has nothing of nothing acquired.

• 1:51:12

Well, what is it you say you do here,

• 1:51:14

Mr. Construction Foreman?

• 1:51:15

He hasn't collected yet any resources?

• 1:51:18

Oh, you just initiated it.

• 1:51:21

Do I have to do everything myself?

• 1:51:22

Should I give him 100 of the oak log?

• 1:51:26

I mean, I think that's a fair thing to do.

• 1:51:28

All right, let us donate.

• 1:51:33

We shall donate to the foreman.

• 1:51:36

Oh, it's beginning to construct.

• 1:51:40

Now Bruno and Scott did a great job

• 1:51:44

with this construction animation and visual effects.

• 1:51:49

As you will see, you're gonna see

• 1:51:51

a sped up version of this here,

• 1:51:52

but typically Chris talked to me a little bit

• 1:51:54

about the time expectation for these types of projects,

• 1:51:58

and of course how that's a variable

• 1:52:00

depending on the stage of the node

• 1:52:02

and the building type itself.

• 1:52:04

Yeah, so we want this to be an exciting thing.

• 1:52:08

So once materials are kind of contributed to it

• 1:52:12

and it's ready to finish,

• 1:52:15

there's gonna be any kind of variable

• 1:52:17

from like 15 to 20 minutes to even a couple of days

• 1:52:21

for it to finish constructing,

• 1:52:23

depending on kind of the power

• 1:52:25

that the building offers to the players, right?

• 1:52:28

Very cool.

• 1:52:29

And James, Adam, Tristan, talk to me a little bit

• 1:52:34

about how you guys go about constructing

• 1:52:37

these different more modular sets of building creation

• 1:52:43

and what it takes to kind of master that

• 1:52:46

across the multiple different cultures

• 1:52:49

that we're anticipating to present within these villages.

• 1:52:56

You wanna take the one Adam?

• 1:52:57

Yeah, sure, I mean, it's a lot of trial and error,

• 1:52:59

but it took a lot of practice to figure out

• 1:53:04

what the correct size of the buildings and the plots,

• 1:53:08

the walls, the doors, all those things are,

• 1:53:11

and then to dial them in so that going forward,

• 1:53:14

any future races, it's all kind of somewhat plug and play,

• 1:53:19

as long as we're making them to those specs.

• 1:53:22

The big thing is the aesthetic

• 1:53:24

and how that will change between races,

• 1:53:27

which is, you know, still a work in progress,

• 1:53:30

but like in this, for example,

• 1:53:32

this one is a lot of Anglo-Saxon type architecture influence.

• 1:53:38

Yeah, the calar, absolutely.

• 1:53:39

Yeah, but that's how it works for the most part,

• 1:53:43

and it's all modular, so we can make these buildings

• 1:53:47

in mostly any size we want.

• 1:53:50

So it could reach all the way up to the sky,

• 1:53:52

multiple floors if we wanted to, not saying we would,

• 1:53:55

but, and that's the idea.

• 1:53:58

So then this right here will construct those pieces

• 1:54:03

for the player, one piece at a time.

• 1:54:05

Very cool, very cool.

• 1:54:08

Yeah, I love the, you know,

• 1:54:10

we previously had a different version of this in,

• 1:54:13

oh, look, it has little fireworks playing

• 1:54:16

above the building.

• 1:54:18

That's awesome.

• 1:54:19

So it's really, really cool.

• 1:54:21

So it's drawing attention kind of to the construction.

• 1:54:26

We had a version of this obviously in Alpha 1,

• 1:54:29

and, you know, that was very sped up

• 1:54:33

for what we were trying to accomplish there.

• 1:54:35

This technique is, you know, meant to more represent

• 1:54:39

that longer period of construction requirement.

• 1:54:44

Yeah, and a lot of what you see right now,

• 1:54:47

it's technically being generated procedurally

• 1:54:50

by the tech from our TechArt team,

• 1:54:52

which Bruno has been putting together,

• 1:54:55

which is like basically we kind of took an approach

• 1:54:58

similar to other games that you might see

• 1:55:00

in like strategy games and stuff like that.

• 1:55:01

So there's a scaffolding approach

• 1:55:03

that kind of builds things up and forms around,

• 1:55:05

and you'll see some people kind of working and hammering.

• 1:55:08

It's very rudimentary at this current point in time,

• 1:55:10

but yeah, no, the goal is to have it be

• 1:55:13

as versatile as possible so that when we actually need

• 1:55:16

to make a hundred of variations of these,

• 1:55:20

we don't have to sit there and make animations one by one,

• 1:55:23

which we did in the past,

• 1:55:26

which gets very complicated, very expensive,

• 1:55:27

but in this case, it's more of a procedural, you know,

• 1:55:30

you plug and play like that.

• 1:55:32

But I do want to clarify that we're not saying

• 1:55:36

that these nodes are fully procedurally generated.

• 1:55:40

It's the building aspect is,

• 1:55:43

but the nodes themselves still have a handmade aspect to it.

• 1:55:50

Right, correct, yeah.

• 1:55:52

This is all just for the construction phase,

• 1:55:53

so we can kind of have things done in a way

• 1:55:55

that feels natural, but it doesn't really take years

• 1:55:59

and years to actually complete the final product.

• 1:56:01

Right, awesome, absolutely.

• 1:56:04

Very, very impressive work.

• 1:56:06

So Chris, now that we have constructed this smithy,

• 1:56:11

what are we doing?

• 1:56:12

Do you have a little duckling following you?

• 1:56:14

The ducklings are very aggressive right now.

• 1:56:17

I have one following me right now.

• 1:56:18

Oh my God.

• 1:56:20

But that can be fixed.

• 1:56:22

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:56:25

Do it, do it.

• 1:56:26

Do it.

• 1:56:26

Do not kill that duck.

• 1:56:28

Do it now.

• 1:56:29

Do it.

• 1:56:29

Do not kill that duck.

• 1:56:31

Oh my God.

• 1:56:32

Oh God.

• 1:56:32

Oh God.

• 1:56:33

What are you doing?

• 1:56:34

Very aggressive.

• 1:56:36

What are you doing?

• 1:56:38

Did you just murder that duck?

• 1:56:40

Did you just murder that duck?

• 1:56:43

You monster.

• 1:56:44

You just murder our tax rate?

• 1:56:45

Just, oh my God, you can't kill innocent animals

• 1:56:48

over your disgruntledness tax rates.

• 1:56:50

I would say that's more for food for the village, but.

• 1:56:53

I'm, you know, rebellion.

• 1:56:55

I'm trying to.

• 1:56:55

What have you done?

• 1:56:58

You can't even eat that.

• 1:56:59

There's not valuable meat on this creature yet.

• 1:57:03

That was just, it's a.

• 1:57:04

I just got a hunting certificate, so.

• 1:57:07

Did you really?

• 1:57:08

Oh no.

• 1:57:08

Oh, you're dead.

• 1:57:09

Oh no.

• 1:57:10

Oh no.

• 1:57:11

The goddess of creation herself has smote you.

• 1:57:13

Fair enough.

• 1:57:14

Fair enough.

• 1:57:15

Fair enough.

• 1:57:16

Fair enough.

• 1:57:17

Fair enough.

• 1:57:18

Fair enough.

• 1:57:18

All right.

• 1:57:19

It need to be done.

• 1:57:20

Chris, what are we going to do with this smithy?

• 1:57:21

Well, what do you want to do?

• 1:57:22

We can do some armor smithing.

• 1:57:24

We can do some weapon smithing.

• 1:57:26

I honestly think after that heinous act against that duck,

• 1:57:30

you really needed some better weapons to defend

• 1:57:32

the beautiful creatures of this node.

• 1:57:35

Agreed.

• 1:57:36

I am so angry.

• 1:57:37

I could just scream.

• 1:57:39

Not at all.

• 1:57:40

Sorry, sorry.

• 1:57:42

Well, over here is the weapon smithing station.

• 1:57:45

All right, cool.

• 1:57:46

I was looking at this a little bit earlier.

• 1:57:48

Whoops, I turned off my UI.

• 1:57:50

All right, what do we have?

• 1:57:52

Well, I hear the artisanship team hooked you up

• 1:57:55

with the ability to make a blood sword.

• 1:57:59

Oh, do I have materials?

• 1:58:01

Ooh, I do have some materials.

• 1:58:03

What should we do?

• 1:58:04

Oh, the sandals of holding back.

• 1:58:06

It's like infinite space.

• 1:58:08

That is a GM back.

• 1:58:11

Okay, so I do have some materials.

• 1:58:12

What do we want to do with this material?

• 1:58:15

Oh, do you want a blood sword or not?

• 1:58:17

Well, I mean, I don't know.

• 1:58:19

Do I want a blood sword?

• 1:58:19

Is a blood sword good?

• 1:58:20

Is it better than what I already have?

• 1:58:22

Where's the blood sword?

• 1:58:23

Crystallized blood sword.

• 1:58:26

Okay, I see.

• 1:58:28

It's going to be a pretty spicy sword.

• 1:58:31

Okay, very cool.

• 1:58:38

Yeah, let's try this.

• 1:58:40

What are we going to do here?

• 1:58:41

So I already have the materials for it.

• 1:58:44

I just go to craft one quantity.

• 1:58:47

Hold on, it says I can't craft this.

• 1:58:49

Yes, you got to add your molds to it.

• 1:58:52

Oh.

• 1:58:53

Oh, I have selected my iron weapon mold

• 1:59:01

and I am using that mold and crafting.

• 1:59:09

Oh, I do have a crystal blood sword now.

• 1:59:11

I shall rule with a mighty fist.

• 1:59:13

Let me equip this.

• 1:59:17

Well, do I actually have, oh, I do have it.

• 1:59:19

Oh, okay, that's pretty sweet.

• 1:59:25

I like that.

• 1:59:27

Oh, it looks great.

• 1:59:29

Very cool.

• 1:59:31

All right, so now that we have constructed this building,

• 1:59:35

there are also a number of upgrade paths

• 1:59:38

that players can utilize to specialize the building further.

• 1:59:41

We previewed that in the tech tree for the building

• 1:59:43

and each building comes with that sort of customizable

• 1:59:47

path of upgrades that are possible.

• 1:59:50

And those continue to give the node a higher specialization

• 1:59:56

which makes it relevant for player traffic.

• 1:59:59

Right, and the idea with that too is

• 2:00:02

no one node can do anything, right?

• 2:00:04

So it kind of is leaning into this idea

• 2:00:07

that you need to travel your goods around the world

• 2:00:11

and go to a lot of places to do a lot of things, right?

• 2:00:14

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

• 2:00:18

This is a beautiful, I mean, gosh, this is just,

• 2:00:21

I love the atmospherics.

• 2:00:24

I love the more nature-oriented aspects

• 2:00:26

of the interior of the node.

• 2:00:28

Now, this node, Tristan and Adam James,

• 2:00:32

this has a bit more topography

• 2:00:35

than what we were seeing in Alpha 1.

• 2:00:38

Talk to me a little bit about the types of node templates

• 2:00:43

and footprints that we are leveraging

• 2:00:47

with the design of these villages and cities.

• 2:00:52

Yeah, so there should be kind of a handful

• 2:00:56

of different types that you'll experience in the world

• 2:00:58

and they all have their different benefits.

• 2:01:01

But in this case, we kind of have

• 2:01:02

a plateau landscape layout for this one.

• 2:01:06

It's not like you said, the flat landscapes

• 2:01:09

that we've done in the past.

• 2:01:10

We've also got ones that will be like rivers

• 2:01:13

flowing through it and as well as like being nudged up

• 2:01:16

against say like a body of water

• 2:01:19

or like a cliff face sort of style.

• 2:01:22

So in this case, it's, this is a pretty,

• 2:01:24

one of the more basic versions that you'll see

• 2:01:27

for the current layout styles that we have, but yeah.

• 2:01:31

Yeah.

• 2:01:31

I don't know that the node itself will have its own type

• 2:01:34

that's best suited to develop into,

• 2:01:38

I think this one's an academic node.

• 2:01:41

Yeah, this one is academic.

• 2:01:42

So I see we have a kind of a placeholder node

• 2:01:46

type building here.

• 2:01:48

That's the town hall.

• 2:01:49

Oh, is that the town hall?

• 2:01:50

I apologize.

• 2:01:51

This is the placeholder one over here,

• 2:01:53

the kind of Citadel looking one, yeah?

• 2:01:54

Yep.

• 2:01:55

Yeah, that is a work in progress.

• 2:01:58

So we have that standing in for now.

• 2:02:00

Beautiful.

• 2:02:01

So this is kind of where all the activities take place

• 2:02:03

for citizenship interactions, the pain,

• 2:02:06

the paying of these dues,

• 2:02:08

the opportunity for players to kind of interface

• 2:02:11

with their local government

• 2:02:12

and the custom request arcs that are available

• 2:02:15

based off of the surrounding POIs.

• 2:02:19

Up here is kind of the city center, so to speak.

• 2:02:23

Right.

• 2:02:24

Right, this is where elections happen, right?

• 2:02:29

Normally.

• 2:02:30

Normally.

• 2:02:31

Normally.

• 2:02:32

Normally.

• 2:02:33

Normally.

• 2:02:34

Normally.

• 2:02:35

When you don't GM command yourself mayor.

• 2:02:38

Wow, unbelievable.

• 2:02:40

I just sat down, you guys told me to GM myself mayor.

• 2:02:44

This is also a place where punishments could happen.

• 2:02:47

Oh, where's that?

• 2:02:50

Are there like gallows over here or something?

• 2:02:52

Yeah.

• 2:02:52

Are you threatening the mayor?

• 2:02:54

Yeah, is that the type of mayor that I am?

• 2:02:55

Do I just have like public hangings or something?

• 2:02:57

I mean, if you're that type of mayor,

• 2:02:59

you could just hang anyone, anyone.

• 2:03:01

Unbelievable.

• 2:03:02

Depends upon who messes with the ducklings, that's all.

• 2:03:04

Yep.

• 2:03:06

I gotta go.

• 2:03:10

I noticed that we have a bit of homage

• 2:03:12

that we're paying to the, excuse me,

• 2:03:15

to the windmill monster that many players experienced

• 2:03:17

in our pre-alpha testing.

• 2:03:19

You guys remember that?

• 2:03:20

That was like two days straight

• 2:03:22

of us getting stuck at a loading screen

• 2:03:24

back in like 2018, 2017.

• 2:03:27

That was a fun time.

• 2:03:30

I love the windmill.

• 2:03:31

A mimic the size of a windmill would be pretty.

• 2:03:34

I think we actually did turn,

• 2:03:36

so at some point we updated that image

• 2:03:38

to be a windmill monster that was eating

• 2:03:41

pre-alpha players when they tried to drive.

• 2:03:43

That was great.

• 2:03:44

It was really good.

• 2:03:45

Oh, it's beautiful.

• 2:03:46

This is absolutely beautiful.

• 2:03:48

So, you know what?

• 2:03:53

I would like to thank each of you

• 2:03:55

for showing our players the update to Nodes.

• 2:04:01

This is one of the, one of many updates

• 2:04:03

that players will be seeing over the course

• 2:04:06

of the next time till alpha two.

• 2:04:10

And as it relates to kind of the systems design

• 2:04:13

of these Nodes showcasing the core loops

• 2:04:17

with the mayors helping to initiate buy orders

• 2:04:21

as well as commissions in order

• 2:04:22

to generate these node commodities,

• 2:04:24

these node inventory items by which then the node utilizes

• 2:04:29

to kick off certain either events

• 2:04:31

or service building constructions

• 2:04:34

that create an additional loop

• 2:04:36

for players to participate in.

• 2:04:38

I think that this is very exciting

• 2:04:40

that the node is absolutely beautiful

• 2:04:42

and it hits the aesthetic that we want.

• 2:04:44

But what's most important is to get your guys' feedback

• 2:04:47

in the community, you guys as our players,

• 2:04:50

giving us your thoughts about the visual fidelity

• 2:04:53

that these villages are representing.

• 2:04:55

You'll have an opportunity to see additional node stages

• 2:04:59

as we progress.

• 2:05:00

This is a lot of work that the environment team

• 2:05:02

has been doing a phenomenal job in my opinion in creating,

• 2:05:07

but you guys need to give us your thoughts.

• 2:05:09

You like what you see here, what can be done better.

• 2:05:11

And then we are going to chat a little bit more

• 2:05:15

about some of the system changes that we have introduced

• 2:05:18

as part of our road to alpha two, as it relates to the Nodes.

• 2:05:23

So, yes, go ahead.

• 2:05:25

Is this Nodes part four or part five?

• 2:05:27

This is, I don't know, this is, you're going to kill me.

• 2:05:35

This is not yet Nodes part four, but this is getting close.

• 2:05:40

No, you guys did a great job.

• 2:05:42

Oh yeah, I'm sure everyone will get that reference there.

• 2:05:44

Yes, exactly.

• 2:05:46

But Chris and I will be joining you guys in just a moment

• 2:05:49

to talk a little bit more in detail

• 2:05:51

about these systems in just a moment.

• 2:05:54

Thanks guys for joining us, appreciate it.

• 2:05:56

Thank you. Thank you.

• 2:05:58

Bye. Bye.

• 2:06:07

Seems like people enjoyed it.

• 2:06:10

I'll be playing the video in the background

• 2:06:11

whilst we continue to chat.

• 2:06:14

There were some questions in the channel that,

• 2:06:18

or in various channels, all the places,

• 2:06:20

we've accumulated them. All the places.

• 2:06:22

Our community managers are hot on the trail

• 2:06:24

and of course social media.

• 2:06:26

The first one here is, can Node NPCs be customized?

• 2:06:29

If so, what kinds of customization options are there

• 2:06:32

and can NPCs be upgraded with things like crafted gear?

• 2:06:37

Yeah, so there are a group of NPC types

• 2:06:40

that can be customized.

• 2:06:41

Those are the mercenaries and the guards

• 2:06:44

that defend the Node against events and sieges.

• 2:06:47

Those customization options are conferred

• 2:06:50

through utilizing upgrades within buildings

• 2:06:52

like the barracks.

• 2:06:54

But if we're talking about appearance,

• 2:06:56

can I change their hair or their facials?

• 2:06:59

That is not something that is provided to the players.

• 2:07:02

Can we cook duck soup?

• 2:07:04

No, I'm just kidding. That's another question on here.

• 2:07:07

The chat was just losing it.

• 2:07:08

And the apples, the guy hammering the apples.

• 2:07:11

Clearly there are bugs.

• 2:07:13

It's Applesmith. It's Applesmith.

• 2:07:15

Applesmith, yes.

• 2:07:17

Granny Applesmith.

• 2:07:18

No, can you kill... Oh, go ahead.

• 2:07:21

Just to touch on what you said.

• 2:07:24

Clearly there are bugs.

• 2:07:25

Absolutely, guys.

• 2:07:26

Always remember when somebody out there

• 2:07:29

who's perhaps not watching development as closely

• 2:07:32

as our core audience is,

• 2:07:34

expressing to them that this is work towards Alpha 2,

• 2:07:37

things are work in progress, there's going to be bugs,

• 2:07:39

you're going to see weird things.

• 2:07:41

That's the whole process of development.

• 2:07:44

We're showing you a slice that we bring up

• 2:07:47

to a little bit more level of what some would say

• 2:07:51

is polish, right? Exactly.

• 2:07:53

Higher fidelity so that we can get a good amount of feedback

• 2:07:57

from the community and you guys are not obstructed

• 2:07:59

by things like visual fidelity.

• 2:08:04

Because sometimes we set buildings up in a node

• 2:08:07

and it's all gray boxes, right?

• 2:08:08

Like we don't show you guys that because we're playing around

• 2:08:11

with layouts and ideas and how the flow feels

• 2:08:15

and then sieges and level design.

• 2:08:18

But we don't show you that because it doesn't...

• 2:08:20

It's a difficult barrier.

• 2:08:22

That, exactly.

• 2:08:23

The gray boxing and the prototyping,

• 2:08:27

for those who are not in a line of development work,

• 2:08:30

it's a difficult barrier to make it past that visual,

• 2:08:34

that dissonance there.

• 2:08:37

So that's why we bring things and we showcase

• 2:08:39

these systems and whatnot.

• 2:08:41

We bring it up to a digestible level.

• 2:08:44

We try.

• 2:08:47

Two hour digestion.

• 2:08:48

You know, it's a process.

• 2:08:51

Next one here is, can you kill guards at a node?

• 2:08:55

I know we've talked a little bit about this,

• 2:08:56

but they wanna know, can citizens kill guards

• 2:08:58

at their own node?

• 2:08:59

How effective are guards in combat

• 2:09:02

in order to protect citizens?

• 2:09:05

Guards are capable of being killed.

• 2:09:07

However, that is a very tall barrier to surpass.

• 2:09:10

Meaning that their skill level is relatively high.

• 2:09:14

Their damage mitigation, their output and power.

• 2:09:17

Those things are very difficult to overcome,

• 2:09:20

but they can be killed.

• 2:09:21

And again, you can upgrade guards through policies,

• 2:09:25

through upgrades within the barracks structures,

• 2:09:28

and you can even place mercenaries and guards

• 2:09:31

ahead of certain events.

• 2:09:33

All right.

• 2:09:35

And the next one here is, can node to node,

• 2:09:39

well, I guess following up on that,

• 2:09:42

in sieges, will guards be more active

• 2:09:45

or are they gonna play a more passive role?

• 2:09:48

During sieges, guards and the...

• 2:09:54

Merchants and NPCs.

• 2:09:56

No, no, no.

• 2:09:57

Yeah, non-combat NPCs are despawned during sieges,

• 2:10:01

unless they're relevant from an objective perspective.

• 2:10:04

And then combat NPCs, which include the garrison,

• 2:10:08

which is a military detachment that gets spawned

• 2:10:10

based on the upgrade choices that the barracks

• 2:10:12

have been made, and the existing guard populations

• 2:10:15

will be present to participate in the siege

• 2:10:17

from an AI perspective.

• 2:10:19

Okay.

• 2:10:20

Sorry, I just wanna add that little bit on there,

• 2:10:21

because I think they were asking about sieges too.

• 2:10:24

Can node to node trade supply some of the commodities

• 2:10:27

that are not present in the node that starts the buy order?

• 2:10:31

Okay.

• 2:10:32

And does that trigger a caravan between the nodes?

• 2:10:35

Correct.

• 2:10:36

So mayoral caravans, which I'm not sure

• 2:10:38

we've elaborated too much on.

• 2:10:41

We've talked about it.

• 2:10:43

Yeah, essentially what happens is,

• 2:10:44

mayors who need certain resources

• 2:10:47

that either they don't have enough of,

• 2:10:49

or that they're prospectively investing in,

• 2:10:52

they will initiate a mayor request.

• 2:10:56

And any node that sees that request

• 2:11:00

on the mayoral node, excuse me,

• 2:11:04

the mayoral caravan dropdown menu,

• 2:11:06

will have an opportunity to attempt

• 2:11:09

to fulfill the trade request.

• 2:11:12

In order to fulfill a trade request,

• 2:11:14

a node must have a certain level of relationship

• 2:11:18

with that requesting node.

• 2:11:20

At a minimum, it has to be a trade agreement relationship.

• 2:11:24

And then there's a limited number

• 2:11:25

of those trade relationships that you can have.

• 2:11:27

And that scales up to eventually alliance perspective.

• 2:11:31

And then once the node requesting mayor

• 2:11:35

accepts a potential fill order,

• 2:11:38

then a system spawned caravan is generated

• 2:11:42

and the transit is completed.

• 2:11:44

And players can participate

• 2:11:46

in helping to defend that or not.

• 2:11:48

And we'll have more information about caravans

• 2:11:50

coming up in a future live stream.

• 2:11:51

So stay tuned for that. Yes, very soon, very soon.

• 2:11:56

Then the next one is, can we see the empty plots

• 2:11:59

so that we can plan out the physical placement of buildings?

• 2:12:04

Can you see the empty plots?

• 2:12:06

Yes, there will be a node map

• 2:12:09

that players will have access to within the UI.

• 2:12:13

And on that map, you'll be able to see the plot locations.

• 2:12:18

Yeah, and you can see them in the world too.

• 2:12:20

Like if you walk around, you can tell that less space

• 2:12:22

is used for a building, like a governmental building.

• 2:12:26

Yeah.

• 2:12:27

And then the next, oh, I think there's a follow-up to this.

• 2:12:32

Can you choose where to place them?

• 2:12:33

So we talked about this earlier in regards to that,

• 2:12:36

which is there are designated plots,

• 2:12:38

but the mayor can choose which plots to place them in.

• 2:12:42

And so what Stephen had stated before

• 2:12:43

is that there's some strategy to this, right?

• 2:12:45

If there's a plot that's close to a gate

• 2:12:47

and there's a plot that's further inland

• 2:12:49

in the middle of your node,

• 2:12:50

maybe you wanna be strategic about which buildings

• 2:12:53

you place near the door,

• 2:12:55

because those ones might get destroyed faster.

• 2:12:58

And then if a siege happens and it gets destroyed,

• 2:13:02

now you're having to put more resources into that to fix it,

• 2:13:05

to bring it back up to a non-disarrayed status,

• 2:13:11

because you wanna be able to use it, right?

• 2:13:13

Yeah, and basically just the quick answer there

• 2:13:16

is of course, plots exist within the node

• 2:13:19

and all buildings can be placed in any plot.

• 2:13:22

All right.

• 2:13:24

And then is the game time requirement,

• 2:13:28

the two million days in game time or real time?

• 2:13:32

Clearly not.

• 2:13:33

No, that was a bug.

• 2:13:35

I was just making jest of that.

• 2:13:37

And again, to reiterate, the UI is very work in progress.

• 2:13:41

You are seeing what is the version of our functional UI,

• 2:13:45

which is not representative of our artistic UI,

• 2:13:48

which is player facing.

• 2:13:49

It'd be cool if the mayor could be like,

• 2:13:51

hey, I want this to be done within this timeframe.

• 2:13:54

And they have like a window that they can choose between,

• 2:13:56

it would be cool.

• 2:13:57

That is dictated by the type of building

• 2:13:59

that's being constructed.

• 2:14:00

So each building has its own associated construction rate,

• 2:14:05

or time, and that can be augmented by certain effects,

• 2:14:10

some of which can be conferred through policies as well

• 2:14:12

that give you longer construction times.

• 2:14:14

So those policies could mean

• 2:14:16

that you construct things faster,

• 2:14:18

but the more powerful the building is expected

• 2:14:21

to probably take more time.

• 2:14:24

Correct. Is that a good annotation?

• 2:14:25

Okay, cool.

• 2:14:27

And I think that's it for the major ones from the chat.

• 2:14:29

I know we're gonna have a million.

• 2:14:31

We'll be here all day if we answer all the questions.

• 2:14:33

So we do wanna let you all go at some point.

• 2:14:37

So we're gonna do a quick studio update

Studio Update

• 2:14:40

if you don't mind, Stephen.

• 2:14:42

Absolutely, a studio update.

• 2:14:45

Things are going very well here at the studio.

• 2:14:47

We continue to grow with, of course,

• 2:14:50

your guys' help out in the community,

• 2:14:51

spreading the word for Ashes of Creation,

• 2:14:53

especially our content creators,

• 2:14:55

and those of you who are our de facto headhunters

• 2:15:03

that talk about Ashes on social media and whatnot.

• 2:15:08

We have a number of listed positions still available.

• 2:15:11

We show that on social media as well.

• 2:15:14

Anybody who is watching this that's a developer

• 2:15:17

that might be interested in potentially applying

• 2:15:18

for the team, you can always visit our company website

• 2:15:21

at intrepidstudios.com and take a look

• 2:15:23

at what roles are available.

• 2:15:24

Slash Careers for the list of jobs.

• 2:15:26

Slash Careers, yes.

• 2:15:27

Our hearts go out 100% to some of the studios

• 2:15:30

that we've been seeing having layoffs recently.

• 2:15:34

That is always a very sad sight to see.

• 2:15:35

This is a very close-knit and small industry.

• 2:15:39

And many of the people who are a part

• 2:15:41

of these development studios are there

• 2:15:43

because of a sheer passion that they have

• 2:15:46

as being one of us, a gamer,

• 2:15:48

and wanting to make something that can make you guys,

• 2:15:52

their communities happy.

• 2:15:54

And it is just a very sad thing to see sometimes

• 2:15:56

when these studios get closed down,

• 2:15:58

either through mismanagement or through whatever.

• 2:16:02

And we're trying on our end to have some scalable solutions

• 2:16:06

in place for things like that.

• 2:16:07

Because we understand in development,

• 2:16:09

there's times where, hey, you need a lot of QA

• 2:16:11

or a lot of CS or influx of artists

• 2:16:14

for certain types of things,

• 2:16:15

but you don't need them for the longevity

• 2:16:17

of the entire project.

• 2:16:18

And so coming up with solutions that are like contractual

• 2:16:21

or things like that can really aid in that.

• 2:16:23

So it's not like, hey, people are getting laid off

• 2:16:27

left and right.

• 2:16:28

I think, again, that's something that we're trying

• 2:16:30

to be conscious of at Intrepid Studios as we grow.

• 2:16:33

And like Stephen has said a million times,

• 2:16:35

we are trying to grow smartly and only get people

• 2:16:38

in the roles that we really need at the time.

• 2:16:40

So that means that some teams are wearing many hats

• 2:16:42

because that's what that life is like.

• 2:16:45

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 2:16:48

We have over 150 developers now at Intrepid

• 2:16:51

and that touch the project in some way, shape or form

• 2:16:54

here in San Diego.

• 2:16:55

We are continuing to hire, so send people our way,

• 2:16:58

good people our way.

• 2:16:59

Send them our way.

• 2:17:02

And of course, we did like a potluck this month.

• 2:17:05

It's been fun.

• 2:17:06

The studio, we're constantly always trying to celebrate

• 2:17:10

the little things, the little moments that we have

• 2:17:11

internally with our internal milestones too,

• 2:17:14

because that's a good morale boost.

• 2:17:15

And just the teams in general have been kicking butts.

• 2:17:19

So sending love to all of them.

• 2:17:21

If we can get some little hearts in chat for our developers,

• 2:17:25

one of the things that I always say is like,

• 2:17:27

it's so hard when you hear players say,

• 2:17:29

oh, the developers don't care because deep down,

• 2:17:32

the ones who are working day in and out, we care a lot.

• 2:17:34

And yes, sometimes things don't always go the way

• 2:17:36

that we expect, but we're trying.

• 2:17:39

And at least Intrepid here, we care a lot.

• 2:17:42

Absolutely.

• 2:17:43

And just to give a shout out, guys,

• 2:17:45

I know I was watching chat, you guys,

• 2:17:47

it seemed that the sentiment was resoundingly positive

• 2:17:51

with regards to the visual direction

• 2:17:52

that the nodes are taking.

• 2:17:54

Just wanna give a shout out to our art team in particular,

• 2:17:58

our tech artists and our environment team,

• 2:18:02

Tristan, who's their lead.

• 2:18:04

They all do a phenomenal job.

• 2:18:05

Zachary, Scott, John, James, Hans, Hal, Charlie,

• 2:18:09

Cameron, Brandon, Brianna, Ayoung, Adam and Adam,

• 2:18:12

you guys have done a phenomenal job.

• 2:18:15

Brian as well, and Bruno, just big hearts in chat for them.

• 2:18:20

They slave away at making us the visuals

• 2:18:24

that we all wanna see, quality level in the games

• 2:18:27

that we spend a majority of our time in, our free time in.

• 2:18:30

And it is one thing to have an artist working on something,

• 2:18:34

it's another thing to have a passionate individual

• 2:18:36

who wants to play in a world they're creating.

• 2:18:39

And I feel very, very privileged and blessed.

• 2:18:43

And I express the sentiment on behalf of our community,

• 2:18:46

our team of developers, artists and all,

• 2:18:49

continue to strive and do an amazing job.

• 2:18:51

So very well done Intrepid.

• 2:18:53

I think that this was a great moment for the community

• 2:18:56

to see the direction that nodes take.

• 2:18:58

We are the node game.

• 2:19:00

This is a fundamental world building aspect

• 2:19:02

that MMOs have not historically seen

• 2:19:05

or had an opportunity to leverage or utilize

• 2:19:09

to the degree that we are doing so.

• 2:19:13

To a degree, that's the risk that is Ashes of Creation,

• 2:19:16

what will players do with this newfound power?

• 2:19:18

But at the same time, I feel it's the most appealing one.

• 2:19:21

And so for that, big props to the team

• 2:19:24

and for you guys out in the community

• 2:19:26

giving us your feedback and joining us on this journey.

• 2:19:30

Speaking of the community, we are gonna grab some Q&A,

• 2:19:32

but of course we do have a thread up.

Outro and Q&A

• 2:19:35

And while we do that, I'll play more of the video.

• 2:19:38

But we do have a thread up right now for feedback.

• 2:19:40

Please give us your feedback in regards to nodes,

• 2:19:43

the village node update that we provided with you.

• 2:19:45

And we will have the 4K video up on YouTube as well,

• 2:19:48

as per usual.

• 2:19:50

Shortly after. Shortly after, so stay tuned.

• 2:19:53

So with the questions, the first one here is from Gaul

• 2:19:56

about potion chugging.

• 2:19:58

What is the intent? And I know we,

• 2:19:59

Oh, go ahead. And just real quick Margaret,

• 2:20:00

I know we have a lot of these questions,

• 2:20:02

but I do have a hard stop at 1.30.

• 2:20:05

I thought we were only gonna be two hours.

• 2:20:06

So maybe just grab the top three.

• 2:20:07

Okay, I'll grab the top three.

• 2:20:09

So the first one is about potion chugging.

• 2:20:12

What is the intent for potion consumption

• 2:20:14

during active combat?

• 2:20:15

Will we chug potions regularly

• 2:20:18

or will there be a moderate cool down?

• 2:20:21

Yeah, there will be a cool down for potion use.

• 2:20:24

It is intended that potions are relevant during combat.

• 2:20:27

There will be a mixture of potion use

• 2:20:30

as well as meals and or drinks.

• 2:20:33

That's something we'll get into a little bit in the future,

• 2:20:34

the differences between those things

• 2:20:36

and what types of benefits they confer

• 2:20:37

because they are unique to the type.

• 2:20:39

But there will also be tiers

• 2:20:42

of these different types of things.

• 2:20:44

And those tiers will share cool down.

• 2:20:46

So you might have a very strong potion

• 2:20:50

and a very minor potion.

• 2:20:51

They'll have separate cool downs

• 2:20:53

that they share with their same tier.

• 2:20:58

So the intent is not to spam potions during combat.

• 2:21:01

The intent is to be tactical in the use of these potions

• 2:21:05

because you do not have an unlimited ability.

• 2:21:07

Right, and then Sun Garden wants to know

• 2:21:10

about mounted combat.

• 2:21:11

How will it be evident to players in a PVP scenario

• 2:21:15

what types of abilities they might anticipate

• 2:21:18

from an enemy's mount if its owner has a skin

• 2:21:21

of another breed applied to it?

• 2:21:24

Sure, great question.

• 2:21:27

So mount abilities are really meant

• 2:21:30

to be a learned information source.

• 2:21:34

This is not meant to be something

• 2:21:35

that I can look at a mount and know

• 2:21:39

without interacting with that individual, that player,

• 2:21:42

what that mount is capable of doing.

• 2:21:44

And as such, when they have skins,

• 2:21:46

excuse me, when they have skins applied,

• 2:21:50

whether it be through in-game earned

• 2:21:52

or through cosmetic purchase,

• 2:21:54

you will get a learning for what that mount does

• 2:21:56

by observing its use case and taking that knowledge

• 2:22:00

that you have learned forward with you.

• 2:22:03

All right, and the next question here

• 2:22:06

is about node citizenship,

• 2:22:07

and this comes from Rinald and Azare on the forums.

• 2:22:12

And they wanna know, can a player be stripped

• 2:22:14

of node citizenship by any player agency

• 2:22:18

other than node destruction, for example,

• 2:22:21

being exiled by some government process?

• 2:22:23

If so, what happens to their house?

• 2:22:26

No, they cannot be, there is no player agency function

• 2:22:30

that allows for a citizen to be dismissed from a node.

• 2:22:36

All right, and that is it.

• 2:22:39

Oh my gosh.

• 2:22:40

We did it. We made it to the end.

• 2:22:42

It has been a long journey, but thank you all so much.

• 2:22:45

The weight is off my shoulders now.

• 2:22:47

I know, I was having like

• 2:22:49

a little heart palpitations at the beginning.

• 2:22:51

But I always do that before the streams, I get so nervous.

• 2:22:56

Don't forget that Steven will be joining

• 2:22:58

the discussion round on September 10th.

• 2:23:01

That will be streamed at twitch.tv slash Yo-kai Theater.

• 2:23:03

We'll be making sure that you're aware

• 2:23:05

of all of these things on all of the social channels.

• 2:23:07

So make sure you follow us so that you don't miss out.

• 2:23:10

There's gonna be a lot of answers, I'm sure,

• 2:23:12

about node things and variety of other stuff, we'll see.

• 2:23:14

And of course, please head on over to our forums

• 2:23:17

to leave us feedback.

• 2:23:18

We're very diligent about making reports

• 2:23:20

for our development team.

• 2:23:22

And you can find that at forums.ashesofcreation.com.

• 2:23:26

And of course, we do have the None Forgotten Cosmetics

• 2:23:28

swap over that's happening on September 13th at 11 a.m.

• 2:23:32

where our last cosmetics set will be swapped over.

• 2:23:35

So that will be our September set.

• 2:23:37

And there will be an FAQ with that set

• 2:23:39

giving you further details.

• 2:23:40

But if you have any questions, make sure you let us know

• 2:23:42

so that we can ensure those are in our FAQ.

• 2:23:46

We do have an FAQ in the August one,

• 2:23:47

so check that first to make sure the question's

• 2:23:49

not already answered.

• 2:23:51

And of course, we would like to thank you all for joining us.

• 2:23:55

We hope that you enjoyed this, that you stuck around with,

• 2:23:57

but that you were hydrated and walked a little bit during it.

• 2:24:02

But we also want to thank Bucky, Chris, James, Tristan,

• 2:24:05

Adam, and of course, Steven for their time

• 2:24:08

because these do take a little bit of time.

• 2:24:10

And we hope that everyone stays safe and healthy

• 2:24:13

and that you follow us on all of the things.

• 2:24:15

We are Ashes of Creation in every place

• 2:24:17

that you can think of.

• 2:24:18

Give us some love over in all those spaces.

• 2:24:20

We try our best to keep content and, you know,

• 2:24:22

keep you filled with some Ashes of Creation

• 2:24:25

content almost daily.

• 2:24:26

So come hang out with us over on our social platforms

• 2:24:30

and we will all see you next month.

• 2:24:34

Bye guys.

• 2:24:34

Toodles.

• 2:24:36

Shhh.

• 2:24:37

Shhh.

• 2:24:38

Shhh.

• 2:24:39

Shhh.

• 2:24:39

Shhh.

• 2:24:40

Shhh.

• 2:24:41

Shhh.

• 2:24:42

Shhh.

• 2:24:43

Shhh.

• 2:24:44

Shhh.

• 2:24:44

Shhh.

• 2:24:45

Shhh.

• 2:24:46

Shhh.

• 2:24:47

Shhh.

• 2:24:48

Shhh.

• 00:00

Hello and welcome, glorious

• 00:20

varans. Hello! I hope that you are just as excited as we are for August development update.

• 00:26

We have quite a doozy. Buckle in, make sure you hydrate, go get your water now, get some coffee if

• 00:34

you need it, because it's gonna be a long one. How are you doing, Steven? I am doing very good.

• 00:42

How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm moved in, I got my wedding venue locked in,

• 00:49

life is great, work is good. I know. I gotta admit, I don't normally get nervous for our

• 01:00

live streams. I really enjoy them, right? Honestly. But this is a topic that we haven't touched for

• 01:08

a while. And, you know, there's a lot of updates and I think it's exciting and I think the community

• 01:14

is gonna enjoy it. But like you said, this is gonna be a long one. Probably you guys can expect

• 01:18

that this stream will last around two hours. So, like Margaret said, make sure you have some snacks,

• 01:24

make sure you pace yourself, get up and stretch, move your legs, you know, you gotta stay healthy

• 01:29

during this time. Yeah. Or get one of those like little treadmill things that you walk at your

• 01:34

desk with. I need one. But yeah, it's gonna be a good long one for you all, so stay tuned.

• 01:43

But obviously you can see below here, our run of show, we have some quick reminders that we're

• 01:48

gonna go through. Then we're gonna get right into the Node Village updates and then studio updates

• 01:53

and then Q&A. So, it's gonna be a tight one. Exciting! Yeah! And we will be having a whole

• 02:00

bunch of people joining us today, so it's gonna be exciting. Yeah, I think we have, what, five

• 02:06

developers that are joining us today, right? Roughly, I think, yeah. Three, four, five, yeah.

• 02:12

Maths are hard on the fly. But we'll do quick updates. So, quick updates. First and foremost,

• 02:20

we've got our YouTube spotlight comment, and this one comes from Slender MMO, or if that's

• 02:26

Leetspeak, S-L-3-N-D-E-R. And they want to know, is the development team moving away from action?

• 02:34

This is the wrong scene, sorry. That's the wrong slide. It's the wrong one. I thought I grabbed

• 02:41

the other one. Well, I will grab the right one in a moment. But the question is, is the development

• 02:47

team moving away from action combat, or is action combat more prevalent with the melee classes and

• 02:53

the healing slash range classes are more tab target other than AoE spells? And we have had people

• 03:00

asking me about this as we've had the cleric update. Obviously, with the cleric, it's a little

• 03:04

harder to show tab target in action combat because it's healing oriented. For sure. Well,

• 03:11

so to answer that question, we have not moved away from our hybrid approach to the development of

• 03:17

Ashes of Creation's combat. And specifically, to reiterate, that approach is incorporating elements

• 03:24

of skill shots, fast and reactive gameplay that is situationally relevant and incorporates the

• 03:32

camera mode of both tab targeting as well as action combat reticle. That's something that

• 03:38

is still in progress. We haven't moved away from that. However, to note, our approach of that

• 03:45

hybridization is going to incorporate things like templated skill shots, directionally relevant,

• 03:54

activated abilities, along with the ability to dodge, to roll projectiles that can impact collision.

• 04:02

Those are elements of action combat that are present. Now, when we talk about tempo or pacing

• 04:07

of the combat, we are not going to be as fast paced. And as you've been seeing updates from

• 04:14

the development of our archetypes and our classes, we are not going to be as fast paced as some of

• 04:19

the more twitch oriented combat styles of some action MMOs or some action combat systems. It's

• 04:26

meant to be a blend between the two. And in that regard, for tab targeting purposes, it needs to

• 04:34

live comfortably with each other. So that's probably what you're seeing. The opportunity

• 04:40

to utilize the reticle based combat mode is still available. Designs are taking that into account.

• 04:46

And that is our direction for the foreseeable future.

• 04:52

Awesome. Awesome. Then next up in our announcements here, we do have

• 04:59

a discussion round. Stephen will be joining a whole slew of people over on Yokai Theater's

• 05:09

channel. You've seen a few of these interviews in the past. They're always good fun. I know that

• 05:15

these folks have been working very hard on getting everything set up so that we hope that you all

• 05:21

enjoyed as well. Yeah, that's exciting. Anything you want to mention on that, Bren? Well, I have

• 05:26

been on that one before, haven't I? I've been on this one. This is my second time. I think they're

• 05:31

going to have a different cast with them. Nice. Yeah, I'm excited for that. That's going to be fun.

• 05:38

When is that? That's September 10th? Yeah, September 10th at 12 PM Pacific. So definitely

• 05:44

tune in. So make sure you guys get some questions in for that. I think they're collecting questions.

• 05:48

They're pretty good at making sure no repeats. They've been around for a little while. Now

• 05:53

you're putting pressure on them. Oh no, called it out. We do have a bunch of social that has gone

• 06:02

off for this too. So if you don't mind heading on over, retweeting, sharing, spreading some love,

• 06:09

that would be wonderful. Awesome. And we have a new dev discussion. This one is about roleplay.

• 06:16

And I know there's a bunch of y'all out there who are interested in that stuff. Definitely

• 06:21

head on over and tell us, or not roleplay, in-game content. Roleplay was last time. In-game content.

• 06:27

What we want to know is what are you looking forward to most in-game examples, maybe a game

• 06:34

system specifically, a fantasy you hope to carry out, or a specific activity with players? So

• 06:40

definitely go tell us what kind of content you want to see in-game as our content team is creating

• 06:46

things. Now what if your favorite in-game content is roleplaying? That could be it. We just did a

• 06:54

report on roleplay. That's why it's like in my mind. That was our last dev discussion that we did

• 06:58

before. But you can still go give us feedback on that if you have thoughts. Or if roleplay is your

• 07:03

favorite part of content, feel free to add it into that as well. The more information, the better.

• 07:10

And also we do have our next one is going to be coming up. It's going to be about your favorite

• 07:14

is going to be coming up. It's going to be about your dream node. So if there's things that you

• 07:18

would like to see in nodes, especially after you watch today's stream, tell us all the things because

• 07:24

we are curious. We would love to know. And the last thing I have to share with you all today

• 07:31

is about the cosmetics. We do have the none-forgotten cosmetics that we'll be swapping

• 07:36

over on September 13th at 11am Pacific. And with that reminder that the September pack that is

• 07:43

coming up is going to be the final pre-order packs. We do have an FAQ on the August one right now if

• 07:49

you want to read that. But the final dates and things like that for the September pack will be

• 07:54

in the September FAQ. So keep your eye out on that. And if you have additional questions, let us know

• 08:00

and we'll try to make sure those are covered as well. And I do want to comment just real quick on

• 08:06

this. For those of you who are feeling FOMO about the packs being discontinued, that is not the

• 08:12

intent and purpose for discontinuing the pre-order packs for Alpha 2. We still have a lot of testing

• 08:17

that we need to do and we have a significant number of players that we are anticipating

• 08:22

and who have already pre-ordered for Alpha 2. And before we potentially open up again

• 08:29

people to have access to purchase into Alpha 2, we need to vet some things regarding concurrencies

• 08:36

and total player counts. And feeling very confident in that, so I want to give the forewarning that

• 08:41

if you do not participate in purchasing pre-order packages for Alpha 2, there may be an opportunity

• 08:46

to do that again in the future. So don't walk away from this feeling like you're

• 08:51

definitely going to miss out if you don't participate in the pre-order packs. But next

• 08:54

month we will be discontinuing them and we'll have some more information on that coming up as

• 09:00

Margaret said in the September info. Yeah and keeping in mind that we'll have giveaways and

• 09:05

things like that for Alpha 2 access. So even if you aren't able to purchase, I know some people are

• 09:09

like, well I can't even afford that. So we understand. We're going to have some other ways

• 09:13

for you to get involved to just stay tuned for those things. You know Extra Lives coming up soon

• 09:18

too, so keep that in mind. That's a good announcement of an announcement. But you all know,

• 09:23

we partake in that every year. And the other thing is that I know that people are like,

• 09:29

oh they're showing off all this content and we're getting, packs are closing, so that must be

• 09:35

Alpha 2 is really close. As Stephen has stated in the past, it is not right around the corner,

• 09:41

but it's not years away. So keep that in mind and set that precedent with yourself and expectation.

• 09:48

Don't get too excited because I know people. You can get excited, don't get too hype. Excitement

• 09:54

is fine. Don't get disappointed. Yes exactly. No, we don't mind your excitement. And just to be clear,

• 10:00

I want to touch on that real quick as well. Alpha 2 is something we are working very hard towards,

• 10:06

and we will continue to update you on that progress as we normally do every month with

• 10:10

these showcases, giving you guys insight into the development of things. You get to see in real time

• 10:16

how things are progressing and what the world is looking like and how the game is feeling.

• 10:20

That's the whole purpose of this, to collect that feedback. So don't feel pressured. We understand

• 10:25

it. We're players too. We don't like that stuff. And that's why we took this transparent process.

• 10:30

Yeah. And we mentioned in our FAQ too that we want to make sure that the experience for Alpha 2 folks

• 10:36

is at a stage that we're very happy with. That server performance is good. That client performance

• 10:41

is good. In order to ensure that, we need to make sure that we can support the amount of players

• 10:45

that are currently part of Alpha 2 and then any additional players that we would want beyond that.

• 10:50

Absolutely. All right. Well, with that, we're going to get into our note update,

• 10:57

but that means we're going to also invite some other folks in a moment here. But I know that,

• 11:00

Stephen, you wanted to do some prefaces. Yes. This first segment of this is going to be

• 11:06

a slideshow oriented thing, similar to what we did with the free holds, and people seem to like that.

• 11:11

Yeah. Yes, exactly. So we got a lot of positive feedback with the free holds presentation,

• 11:16

specifically as it related to having that kind of PowerPoint slide oriented.

• 11:21

Anytime, and I think I talked about this in the past, but anytime you have very detail oriented

• 11:28

systems design, it's easy to kind of get lost in the details. People run off on tangents. Well,

• 11:34

what about this? How are you going to solve this? How are you going to solve this? And that a lot

• 11:39

of times is the discussion that we have in a development setting or in a design room conversation.

• 11:44

But we can't capture all of that nuance in a single live stream about some of these systems

• 11:51

just because of how big they are. We'd be sitting in a six hour thing.

• 11:56

Yeah, that's why we have literally hundreds of hours of conversations recorded on the development

• 12:02

side during this development process that we record all of our internal meetings and our

• 12:06

internal dialogues for posterity's sake and afterwards so that we can talk about what it

• 12:10

took to build this game and have kind of presences and conversations with the people who are

• 12:14

involved in these kind of presentations about that. But there's a lot there and we have to

• 12:20

condense that down to something that's digestible, right? And something that can be not just relevant

• 12:26

to a core audience like you all are who are tuning into this development update, but also to the

• 12:32

audiences that exist out there who are a bit detached from the process and rightfully so,

• 12:36

they're not interested in following development journeys, which is totally acceptable, but it has

• 12:41

to be a part of them as well. And so to that degree, based on how successful you guys responded

• 12:48

to the Freeholds presentation, we are going to preface this video with a little bit of a slide

• 12:55

presentation and incorporate some of our design team to have that discussion. And the intended

• 13:00

purpose of this portion is to reaffirm previous designs that were captured and understood by the

• 13:09

community through the amazing Wiki that is upkept by Lex. And that will reaffirm some of those

• 13:16

designs, but it will also introduce to you a few new designs that we have picked up along the way

• 13:22

and adjusted in order to accommodate some of the more fleshed out systems as we approached them

• 13:29

over the course of the last year and a half. So during this-

• 13:32

Yeah, slide one is going to be that we've canceled nodes.

• 13:34

No, I'm just kidding.

• 13:36

Exactly. It's all curated. There's no world design. No, I'm just kidding.

• 13:39

No, it's no longer dynamic. No, I'm just kidding. I'd like to troll you all. Well,

• 13:43

with that, I'm going to switch over to that and bring in some new folks to join us.

• 13:49

So give me a moment. These slides will also be available to you all via the article that we're

• 13:56

going to post. So if you, I know it's hard to read and you're like, is this text for ants? Sometimes.

• 14:02

What is this? A slideshow for ants?

• 14:06

Yes. All right. Welcome.

• 14:11

I'm excited.

• 14:12

Yeah.

• 14:12

What up, gamers?

• 14:13

So with us are two new folks. Some of them you've heard their voices before. Actually,

• 14:18

both of them, you've heard both of their voices. So I'll give you guys a moment to introduce

• 14:22

yourselves once again. We've got Dr. Bucky.

• 14:27

Dr. Bucky.

• 14:28

You want to talk about who you are, what you do here at Intrepid? Yeah. So hi, everyone. I'm

• 14:33

Bucky. I've been on the last couple of live streams, but I'm a gameplay designer here at

• 14:37

Intrepid and working a lot with the systems team, flesh not only systems, the nodes and

• 14:41

get them all working, but also work a bit with combat as well. Yeah.

• 14:45

Yeah. You get the best of both worlds there between combat and nodes.

• 14:48

Yeah.

• 14:49

You see my fingers and all the designs.

• 14:50

Some of Bucky's, like when you were doing the node simulation stuff, too, they've seen some of

• 14:56

this. Yeah, that's right. Which has been pretty cool. Bucky's a jack of all trades. Very. We

• 15:02

enjoy you, Bucky. Stay with us. And of course, we've got the juice, the juiceto Chris. Tell us

• 15:09

a little bit about you and what you do here at Intrepid. Yeah. Hi, I'm a senior game designer

• 15:14

here at Intrepid and I live in node land. It's where I, it's what I live and breathe.

• 15:21

Yes, Chris is my right hand node man when it comes to understanding everything he has. He

• 15:28

has digested and regurgitated and digested again. Everything nodes.

• 15:34

All right. Well, if you guys are all good and we're Gucci, let's head on over to nodes. The

• 15:41

first segment here we're going to go over is all about citizenship. So I'll hand it over to you,

• 15:49

Chris. Yeah, so citizenship is kind of aside from nodes existing, one of the most important parts,

• 15:57

right? So you as a player will get to become a citizen of these nodes. You're going to need to

• 16:04

acquire some form of housing to be able to do that within that node's jurisdiction. It's zone of

• 16:09

influence. Those forms of housing can be an in an apartment, a static housing or a freehold.

• 16:16

The static housing is, go ahead, Steven. I was just going to say and pointing out specifically

• 16:22

ins is something that most players probably and most in our community have not either heard before

• 16:27

or did not get elaborated a bit. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about the intent and

• 16:32

purpose behind why we introduced ins as an option? Yeah, ins are intended to be our most kind of

• 16:38

accessible form of housing so that one players will be able to become citizens should they desire

• 16:46

to add in an accessible way because the other forms of housing are fairly limited. Yes, yeah.

• 16:53

And ins are something that are also sorry, I was just going to say ins are something that are also

• 16:58

available even around the starting areas before you have an opportunity to go out into the node

• 17:03

zones as well, and it provides players with additional storage. They have some limited

• 17:08

furniture application that are on a per room basis, depending on the type of room you rent at

• 17:14

an inn. That's possible as well, but citizenship, as you said, is one of the most foundational

• 17:20

aspects of Ashes of Creation, right? You're expected to be a citizen at a node somewhere,

• 17:25

and you cannot be a citizen at all nodes all the time, right? Yeah, so you know you're going to

• 17:32

have to pay dues to be a citizen, which are regular, but there's a ton of benefits that come

• 17:38

with being a citizen, right? You're going to get reduced fees at what that node offers. You're

• 17:43

going to get reduced tax rates, and you're going to get access to exclusive vendors based on its

• 17:48

node type. If the nodes collected relics, you're going to have exclusive access to those. So there's

• 17:54

tons of good reasons to be a citizen, and when you leave a node, you incur a cool down before you

• 18:00

can become a citizen again. So it's a it's an important choice you have to make, and there's a

• 18:06

cost to unmaking it. Yeah, absolutely. Players do have some follow up questions, obviously from the

• 18:11

freehold conversation about housing. They're wondering how much player housing will be

• 18:15

available to a node, because people are afraid to be homeless. So what are their options on Vera to

• 18:22

not be homeless? Well, the the ends are one very good option as we were just talking about, and

• 18:28

those are kind of capped more by citizenship dues as that is a soft cap that increases over time,

• 18:34

right? When you choose to become a citizen, anybody can kind of get an in to a degree without being

• 18:40

a citizen. But in addition, apartments are another method which are default and are part of every

• 18:46

node has access to these apartments, and you can expand those apartment buildings, right? Chris

• 18:51

and Bucky? Yeah, you can. So the mayor can elect as part of the service building, and you can

• 18:57

elect as part of the service building system, which we'll talk about in a bit to expand those

• 19:01

apartments and make them allow them to have more citizens, right? Right and also different

• 19:08

apartment types such as penthouses that have different thresholds for the types of

• 19:14

furnitures that they can house, whether they be legendary, more rare types of furnitures that

• 19:18

require a better either static home or apartments. And to answer your question specifically,

• 19:24

when it comes to the type of numbers that we are playing with on a per node basis, obviously,

• 19:30

that's something that changes based on node stage. So the advancement of the node will dictate the

• 19:35

number of state and node static housing, and there's a predefined amount of those because

• 19:39

those exist within the world. Right now, we're still playing with those numbers. But if you were

• 19:44

to think about the level of exclusivity between the different types of housing that we have,

• 19:48

obviously, the most exclusive when it comes to quantity is going to be freeholds, followed by

• 19:54

in node housing, followed by apartments, then followed by ins. So that is essentially, you know,

• 19:59

what it's going to break down wise, exclusivity. We don't have firm numbers on what the static in

• 20:06

node housing is going to be on a per stage basis. That's something that we intend to test as part of

• 20:11

Alpha 2. But there is- Well, we have firm numbers internally, right? We're just not-

• 20:15

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I just want to be clear to people.

• 20:18

Yeah, sure. What I mean there is that we don't have a number we would feel confident giving the

• 20:23

community right now and them holding us to that number because it is a variable we intend to use

• 20:28

data to inform. And that data is going to be play testing with the community as part of Alpha 2.

• 20:33

Yes. I'm so excited. Housing stuff is so much fun for me. And then the other question here is in

• 20:38

regards to citizenship. If I am a citizen of a node and I don't agree with leadership, how do I

• 20:45

or slash what is involved in changing my citizenship to a different node? You mentioned

• 20:50

there's a cool down, but is there anything else that's involved in that? Yeah, so I can take this

• 20:56

one. So yeah, basically, it's anytime you can visit the town hall and renounce your citizenship

• 21:02

at the node. But that comes with the cost of that. Now you go on to a cool down where you can't

• 21:06

actually join other nodes. So it kind of incentivizes players to try to make it work

• 21:09

at their node and then try and not just jump ship, right? If they don't like it and try and

• 21:13

make changes in their node. And then the one other caveat is that if your node's destroyed and like

• 21:18

a siege, for example, then you will be able to just right away join a new node. You don't have

• 21:21

to wait on that cool down just so it's not like even further punishing when that scenario and

• 21:26

something to expand on the refugee status that Bucky was talking about is, you know, the intent

• 21:33

is that it is a normal process of the world to see PvP be a catalyst for change. That is one of the

• 21:41

defining elements of our world building approach and being a PvX game is that PvE builds the world

• 21:48

and PvP changes the world. And as these nodes get destructed, and this should be a normal habit that

• 21:54

players are accustomed to seeing that landscape changing over time because it is the breath of

• 21:59

renewal that then is allowed as a result of that action, this refugee status to a degree brings

• 22:07

down the friction that the player would have normally with finding a new node to become a

• 22:11

citizen at. And we want those types of mechanics present so that players are not experiencing

• 22:17

extreme friction after extreme friction after extreme friction to the point where it's just

• 22:21

like, you know, screw this, I'm done, right? We want to be able to make that a bit of an easier

• 22:26

process. And so the refugee status reduces the cool down period to joining a new node as a citizen,

• 22:31

but it also reduces potentially some of the citizenship dues that might be present,

• 22:37

some of the costs associated with it, and even policies, which we'll talk about a little bit

• 22:41

later with Chris and Bucky here, can be adopted by other nodes when a siege occurs. That even

• 22:47

makes it more incentivizing for players to come there as new citizens as well.

• 22:51

All right. And I will to kind of directly answer if you don't want to leave your node in your

• 22:57

mayorship is not doing things you like. Most of these systems that we're going to talk about here

• 23:02

have some amount of like citizenship buy on that's like required for a thing to happen. So,

• 23:08

you know, it may stagnate a little if you don't like your mayorship, but you can stop them from

• 23:13

doing destructive things and you can stop them from spending things in ways you don't like.

• 23:19

Yeah, that might be a good it might be a good segue into the next slide.

• 23:22

Well, there's a bunch of community questions. I don't know if we want to answer a couple of them

• 23:25

or speed run through that suit through some. I would I would try to limit it to probably

• 23:30

around two or three questions per slide. Otherwise, we'll never get to the video.

• 23:33

OK, I guess they're wanting to know if ins are instance rooms and if they're player owned

• 23:39

should be. Yes. So instance. So instance instances are apartments and ins.

• 23:46

And these are shared instances where you can invite party members to join you in the instance

• 23:50

as well. If you want to do a little bit of role play or, you know, group activities in the in the

• 23:55

instances and then ownership on the apartments and the ins does not exist. You rent these locations.

• 24:03

Is it one person who can rent them? Correct. Same with housing. It's like one person owns it.

• 24:10

Correct. And then you can have family permission set to have access to those as well.

• 24:14

And then the last one here I'll ask is how will limited housing work with players who stop playing?

• 24:19

So if someone leaves the game and hasn't come back for a while, will they eventually be evicted

• 24:24

to allow other players to utilize those spaces? Yes, the the the wheel of tax and death is always

• 24:30

turning in Vera and taxes are a necessary component in order to upkeep and maintenance the

• 24:38

the freeholds or the housing that you own. And after a period of not paying those taxes,

• 24:43

the tax man may visit you and put you in a default status after which period of time.

• 24:47

If you do not settle that debt, you will lose your property.

• 24:51

All right, let's move on to mayorship and I will hand it over to you. Justo.

• 24:58

Yeah, so obviously mayorship is another really important part of nodes. It's how

• 25:04

we kind of define it as the mayor is tasked with initiating changes to the quality of a node,

• 25:11

right? Not the progress of it, but the quality of it. So there's four main ways a mayor can get

• 25:17

elected based on the node type. They're all kind of played a different strengths scientific, which

• 25:25

we had an alpha one, which we've changed a little since then. It's not a single popular vote. It's

• 25:31

now a ranked choice vote. And we should take note of that in real life as well. I'm just kidding.

• 25:40

The economic node type is a blind bid auction. So the player with the most money is going to be the

• 25:47

node are going to be the mayor and divine is going to be a PVE like favor event that players

• 25:54

participate in and have to grind through to earn as much favor as possible, right? And then military

• 26:01

is never revealed. The military one and the military is a trial by combat event. Now this

• 26:07

is kind of the node enters a state where players who register are going to PVP each other and kind

• 26:14

of a free for all situation and citizens who aren't registered are going to get to back a

• 26:20

candidate and PVP with them. Yes. So let me let me set the stage just real quick because I don't

• 26:27

think in the past we've talked about the potential of having a I think it was like a military

• 26:33

champion and you could equip that champion and the champion will fight for you and you'd

• 26:36

accumulate points and that was kind of to to prevent the the strangeness between like the

• 26:42

one v one scenario. But what we've decided is that moving forward for military nodes,

• 26:48

we will be implementing an election method that leverages the ruined state of nodes as a PVP

• 26:55

battleground, so to speak, in the in a form of an instance where citizens and or candidates can

• 26:59

participate. And during the week, you will have a number of opportunities to participate in a

• 27:07

timed event where you can pledge your support to a candidate or if you are a candidate, you will

• 27:13

have objective based gameplay within a windowed period of time within the node proper and you

• 27:17

will attempt to go to those objectives, execute the required interaction and you will accumulate

• 27:23

points based off of your performance during those events. And at the end of those events, overall,

• 27:28

the highest point contributor will be elected the mayor. Now what that event entails is you as a

• 27:35

citizen can pledge support and you will have open PVP within the node proper that groups of those

• 27:42

candidates and their pledged supporters can attempt to secure and combat over the objectives

• 27:49

over an hour period of time, perhaps a number of times a week. And then at the end of those events

• 27:53

will be the election result. That is the intent and desire behind this system. I think it's going

• 28:00

to be fun. I think it's going to be interesting. But obviously, the purpose of these demonstrations

• 28:04

slash discussions is to give you guys an opportunity to give your thoughts, whether or not you think

• 28:09

that's interesting, what you think could be improved, where are the areas where you would

• 28:12

have concerns. That's a really cool update, I think, for the military nodes that you guys can

• 28:18

chat about. Some questions that are coming in from a chat in all the places we're looking at,

• 28:23

Discord, we're looking at Twitter, we're looking at social. So we're keeping an eye on all the places

• 28:27

that are getting fed to me. One of the questions is, are all the benefits that mayors can give to

• 28:32

a node the same for every type of node? Or are there differences per type of node?

• 28:38

There definitely are differences. The difference is some systems have a more, some of the things

• 28:45

that mayors can do are more universal. But then some systems have very specific, if your race has

• 28:51

a certain, your node has a certain dominant race, or your node is a certain type, or it's in a

• 28:58

certain biome. So there's even differences between kind of where it is too. And then,

• 29:06

this was just a funny one. Does the mayor get a free home? Just because I think that's funny.

• 29:12

Their home is the town hall where they slave away all day long. All they want.

• 29:16

They get to decorate their office. People want to know. So I'm guessing that's not the case.

• 29:24

They still have to have their own home. Okay. It's a predicate. You have to be a citizen before

• 29:30

you can be the mayor. So you need to- So you need to know what it's like to be one of the lackeys.

• 29:36

What happens if a mayor leaves? If they quit playing the game,

• 29:40

and what will happen to the mayorship if that occurs?

• 29:45

So some of the decisions that the mayor makes, they have a period of time within which they can

• 29:50

make the decision. And if they don't, the system will make a decision for them. Some of those

• 29:54

interactions. Not all, however. There is a constant conversation with regards to the systems we're

• 30:01

creating for mayors to interact with. How much is too much failure that we're going to give agency

• 30:05

to a player to be a bad faith mayor, essentially? And part of that is not just if they quit, but if

• 30:11

they want to actively do the node harm, how much harm can they really do? Those two things kind of

• 30:17

align with one another. But yeah, some of the systems have automated responses and some don't.

• 30:23

So there is some damage that can be done. You have to choose your mayor wisely. And in the event that

• 30:28

somebody quits, then there's an election cycle for a reason and you vote that person out or you have

• 30:33

a different- if there's a different election method, you have that person removed.

• 30:37

All right. Kill them. No, I'm just kidding. And the last one here is, can an enemy of the state

• 30:42

be set on any random player or are there some other prerequisites that need to be met?

• 30:47

No, you cannot have an enemy of the state condition assigned to a player. There are methods by which

• 30:53

you can have flag statuses associated with other node citizens through like a node war. And you can

• 31:02

have open PVP in the world if your nodes are at war with one another, but you cannot denote a

• 31:06

particular individual as an enemy of the state and have the guards kill them when they approach the

• 31:10

node. Right? The intent of the system is not to necessarily exclude players from the state.

• 31:16

It's to literally exclude players, exclude players and create, you know, clicks or factions within

• 31:22

the nodes per se. Everyone's just going to make Steven the enemy of state.

• 31:26

Oh, wow. You don't want me as the enemy of state. I have the ultimate weapon.

• 31:32

Oh, really? Just nuke everything. Spawn three million bears. That's even special.

• 31:38

I'm just a sandal wanderer anyway, so it's okay. I'm just trolling anyway. Next up,

• 31:43

mandates to keep things moving and I'll hand it over to you, Chris.

• 31:48

Yeah, so mandates are kind of a new thing. I don't think we've ever really talked about them

• 31:52

outside of the company before, but they're functionally what we're talking about.

• 31:59

This energy system that mayors get to use to enact things, right? Enable service buildings or

• 32:06

do constructions, etc. And they generate mandates by having citizens participate in these activities,

• 32:15

right? So contributing to the construction of a service building or doing mayoral commissions,

• 32:21

which we'll talk about, and voting on policies. So the more citizens like what a mayor is doing,

• 32:27

the more power they're going to get to do more things. And the less citizens like what they're

• 32:32

doing, the less power they're going to get to do things. Yeah, this kind of goes back to what

• 32:38

Stephen was talking about on the last slide to where it's like we're kind of concerned about

• 32:42

limiting how how much damage a bad faith mayor can do, right? And this is definitely one of those

• 32:46

systems that, you know, if you're doing good things that the citizens are agreeing with,

• 32:50

and this is part of your power as a citizen, even if, you know, even if you think you don't have any

• 32:54

power, this is one of your main things is like agreeing with what the mayor is doing, makes them

• 32:57

able to do more actions that hopefully are favorable for you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

• 33:03

So when we think about when we think about certain energy mechanics, usually they're provided as a way

• 33:08

to give a throttle, right? And most of those throttles are incurred through specific design

• 33:13

curated intent. However, this throttle exists in such a way where the citizens have the ability

• 33:19

to either let the gas go for the mayor or pull it back a bit because they're doing things they

• 33:23

don't necessarily want. And mayors have a unique ability to elicit change within the node proper,

• 33:29

either through the destruction of certain buildings that have been constructed previously,

• 33:33

because there's a limited number of slots that buildings can be constructed within,

• 33:36

or the kickoff of additional projects or the certain types of policies that can be enacted.

• 33:40

Like those things, those actions, the changing of a tax rate, they all have a unified source of

• 33:47

energy requirement. And the energy requirement is a mandate. And you accrue those mandates,

• 33:52

as Chris and Bucky were saying, through doing things that the population agrees with. And when

• 33:57

you do things that the population doesn't agree with, your mandates suffer. And if you don't have

• 34:03

mandates to do certain actions, then that's the way that the citizenship throttles back your

• 34:09

ability to elicit change. So the question we have from people is if there's a cap on the energy for

• 34:17

mandates. There is not currently a cap that's designed for mandates. However, mandates are an

• 34:25

accrued energy through action. And actions have cooldowns associated with them that you can do

• 34:30

them over certain periods of time. And they also have certain weights that are applied by design.

• 34:34

So naturally, within a given period of time, a mayor will only have the ability to do so many

• 34:39

things that generate mandates. And as a result, that is the soft cap. However, the system is

• 34:44

built or is being built in such a way where that is a variable we can define through testing when

• 34:50

we see if there should be or should not be. We can add that at a later time. And is there a way to

• 34:55

counter those mandates? Counter those mandates. What do you mean by that? Like if the mayor has

• 35:05

acquired the mandates, then they can use the mandates as they see fit. However, a lot of the

• 35:11

interactions still require successful participation by the audience, by the citizens. Chris, if you

• 35:17

want to talk a little bit about, well, actually, I think we have policies coming up in a second.

• 35:21

Yeah, we have policies that are coming up. So can a mayor do just a simple vote? Like if they just

• 35:26

want to ask people stuff like, hey, I want to put up a poll. Is that going to be something that's

• 35:29

going to be available to them? One of you guys grab that if you want to.

• 35:35

Yeah, it's not something we've previously discussed. We've talked about having messages

• 35:40

of the day for the mayor. And obviously, there's still chat services and stuff that mayors can use

• 35:45

to get the feedback from the citizens. Yeah, we want that to be something that's a bit more

• 35:56

diegetic and not necessarily handheld by a survey system. We want if the individual is interested

• 36:02

in participating with their community, with their citizenship, there will be tools that they can use,

• 36:08

such as the message of the day, such as chat, such as citizenship chat. Right. Like the mayor will

• 36:13

have a special color name right there and they can ask questions and just have conversations with the

• 36:17

citizens. A little Q&A with your mayor. That's cute. Yeah, yeah, I want I can't wait to see the

• 36:22

RP and like how different nodes deal with their mayors. Like, I just I'm so excited for it because

• 36:29

I've been part of a lot of different communities and every guild runs differently. I feel like every

• 36:33

node is going to run differently. And I'm just excited to see that. We're already thinking on the

• 36:38

community side, what kind of fun streams we can do. The last question I think just just real quick,

• 36:43

because you touched on a great point there. Oh, yeah. Is that we have a very we have a unique

• 36:49

approach in that we are a non faction based game. Many of the MMOs that a lot of us have played are

• 36:54

faction based. So because of that, because we're not faction based, we have this concept of pseudo

• 37:00

factions that we have to create systems in such a way where we can present that. And what you just

• 37:06

described essentially is a micro community or a pseudo faction that exists within the nodes.

• 37:10

And as you described, like many of those are going to be very different across the landscape. And I

• 37:16

think that creates a very compelling and interesting social social diversity so that when you're

• 37:23

determining friend or foe, there is a landscape that is going to be constantly changing as a

• 37:28

result of those different faction interests. All right. And our last question here is, will a good

• 37:33

mayor have a benefit for the next election so they have some kind of like favor points or

• 37:37

something like that so that they can get reelected? And how long is that term for?

• 37:44

Yeah, so there's no plan other than the mayor's actions to help them get reelected. Right. If you

• 37:52

do good things, you're more likely to get reelected because players will like you, you know, but

• 37:57

there's no systemic benefit to previously being the mayor. Yeah, let's move on to.

• 38:05

I said one more clarification about mandates, right? Like if you're a you get when you become

• 38:10

elected, you probably get a couple mandates. Right. And then and then as you do good and you're

• 38:14

getting more and more mandates and you might end the election with a bunch of mandates. If at that

• 38:18

point you don't get reelected and a new mayor comes in, I don't think they will inherit all

• 38:22

your mandates. Yeah, so they'll get reset back to a correct. Yeah, the mandate pool is unique to the

• 38:29

candidate. Right. And so and that's and then this is obviously remember everything we're discussing

• 38:34

here is subject to change. You know, this is all based off of testing essentially that we'll be

• 38:39

doing. But as Bucky described, a mandate is unique to the candidate. And so if the candidate is

• 38:45

voted out of office, like, yes, there is going to be a momentum slowdown because the other candidate

• 38:51

and as Bucky said, they'll be coming in with some default amount of mandates available to them.

• 38:55

Just fresh off the election or fresh off of whatever the election method is that they can use

• 39:01

to start their their works. But as they as they roll those actions forward, are they generating

• 39:06

more mandates or are they not? Right. That's kind of the intent behind the momentum a candidate has.

• 39:12

All right. I'm going to move us on to mayoral commissions. If you'd like to talk a little bit

• 39:18

about that. Yeah, I could do this one. Yeah. So we got commissions in our game is basically a simple

• 39:24

type of quest with a singular objective. And there will be other types of commissions like,

• 39:29

you know, quest related ones, narrative related ones, you know, but mayors will have access to

• 39:34

initiate mayoral commissions, which are kind of special. And these are commissions that are meant

• 39:39

to help the node in some way. So and then the node will be rewarded based on the amount of players

• 39:45

that complete these commissions. So, you know, kind of back to how we were talking about,

• 39:48

this is one of the like ways to generate more mandates. If you're doing commissions, a lot of

• 39:52

players are completing them and helping out the node, you'll be getting some more mandate power

• 39:56

and yeah, and the players will be rewarded as such. So you can get things like experience,

• 40:01

node reputation, node currency and other other kinds of rewards for helping out the node.

• 40:05

Yeah. And it's a good thing to point out as well as that citizenship participation is the key factor

• 40:12

in mandate generation. Whether that's through policy enactment, through commission completion,

• 40:18

or through a buy order potential, or even unique, you know, one off predicate systems that exist

• 40:25

outside event wise or whatever, right? Your citizenship participation is what determines

• 40:30

that. So commissions can be conducted by anyone, non-citizen or citizen, right? And so you want to

• 40:37

see what the health is of your interaction as a mayor with your citizens versus the one

• 40:41

versus the world. So that's an important factor as well to keep in mind.

• 40:46

Yep. And yeah, the commissions basically just cost gold from the treasury for the mayor to initiate

• 40:50

and they'll have a limited number of commission slots active at one time. And then you can have

• 40:55

a variety of commissions that'll be enabled based on node type, its location, you know,

• 41:00

the predominant node race and different building choices, right? So there'll be a lot of different

• 41:04

options for the mayor to try to see what they want to try to incentivize their players to,

• 41:08

their citizens to, and other visiting players to work on. Yeah.

• 41:12

Can they pick a custom flag for their node?

• 41:19

So mayors will have an emblem generation suite that will have a number of different

• 41:28

components slash damn, I can't think of the-

• 41:31

Like symbols.

• 41:32

Yeah, kind of like how our tattoos-

• 41:34

Back on.

• 41:34

Thank you. Yeah, it's a modular insignia system that you can choose and pick between to create

• 41:40

the flag.

• 41:42

Cool. Can only citizens participate in commissions or can-

• 41:47

Anybody can participate in commissions.

• 41:49

So I can have my friend who's part of another node-

• 41:51

And just to be clear, there are mayoral commissions and then there are node commissions,

• 41:56

right? And the node commissions are just general commissions that interact with the world around

• 41:59

you, the POIs that exist around your node. And the mayoral ones are specifically chosen. Chris,

• 42:04

if you want to talk a little bit about that.

• 42:06

Yeah. So, yeah, the mayoral commissions are specifically chosen by the mayor,

• 42:10

which is kind of, it is similar to the regular commission system, but that system is more

• 42:18

system generated, right? So anyone can participate in a mayoral commission, but we,

• 42:24

for mandates, like I said, we track the citizen participation in those, right?

• 42:29

The mayoral commissions are available for a limited time. There's no limit on the amount

• 42:33

of players that can complete them, right?

• 42:35

There's no limit on how many I can have? So how many I can-

• 42:39

Yeah, yeah, there'll be a limit on how many you can take at any one time. And you can't

• 42:44

repeat one that's active, right? But once that timer runs out, based on how many people completed

• 42:52

it, will determine kind of what reward the node gets as a result of that commission.

• 42:57

And the mayor also has a limitation on the number of active commissions he can

• 43:02

set at a time. So the intent and purpose there is that the mayoral commissions serve as a

• 43:08

strategic decision base for the mayor. What issues am I facing? What issues do I believe

• 43:15

I will face? How is this aligning with my strategy? And then how will my citizens help

• 43:21

me help participate in accomplishing these goals so that I'm best set strategically for

• 43:26

what I intend to do with those commissions?

• 43:28

All right. And our last question for this is, is participation always going to be greater

• 43:35

for larger nodes by default? Or can a small node with close to 100% participation still

• 43:42

greatly benefit from them?

• 43:45

Yeah, so I mean, that's going to come down to what commissions the mayor is initiating,

• 43:50

right? Level three nodes aren't going to be initiating mayoral commissions that are,

• 43:56

that require thousands of players to participate, right? Because they don't have access to those,

• 44:01

where metropolises that have a huge citizenship base will get access to those kinds of commissions.

• 44:07

So the rewards will be kind of proportionate to, you know, the node level and the expected

• 44:13

amount of citizens.

• 44:15

All right. Moving on to our next one. Here we go. Policies, which we keep referencing

• 44:23

in the other segments. So I feel like this is going to be the one.

• 44:27

Yeah, policies are also something we haven't really touched on a lot as well, although

• 44:32

we have referenced it. Chris, if you want to take this one away.

• 44:36

Yeah. So policies are actions that the mayor can take. They're exactly what it sounds

• 44:42

like it's a policy, right? So as a mayor, I want people to be harvesting stone. So I'm

• 44:49

going to initiate this stone policy, which is going to provide this benefit to people

• 44:53

who are harvesting stone in the zone of influence, right? Now, in order to initiate a policy,

• 44:59

players are going to be able to, or citizens will be able to vote on it and either turn

• 45:04

down the policy if they don't want it or, you know, accept the policy if they do.

• 45:11

Yeah. And that's a very key point, Buck, if you want to chat about that a little bit.

• 45:14

Yeah. Well, I was just going to say also too, that's one of, bringing it back to my

• 45:18

mandates, that's one of the really powerful uses of mandates is that it allows you to

• 45:22

bypass the citizen vote on a policy if you wish. So you can spend that limited energy

• 45:26

resource. If you really think this policy is important, you need to even just like hotline

• 45:30

or you think it's good for the citizenship, but they're not going to agree with you. You

• 45:32

can just say like, skip the vote. And that's one of like the cool powers for policies.

• 45:37

Yeah. And, and, and really an important aspect that players should be taking away and part of

• 45:43

what our interest in Alpha 2 to collect data on from player behavior, player sentiment,

• 45:49

right? And your guys' feedback is how much of an interaction is existing between the

• 45:54

citizenship of the node and the decisions that the players, that the mayor is making.

• 45:59

And policies are a great example of that because it requires outside of the mandates that Bucky

• 46:04

was just talking about, which is very limited in scope, how much a mayor can do. And if they

• 46:09

really want to spend their mandate capital on that, you know, that's a decision that

• 46:12

they need to make, but the players are primarily necessary, the citizens in order to vote

• 46:19

successfully policies in place and policies take a very card format type system, right? The node

• 46:26

has a number of different locations from which they get certain types of policies from that

• 46:31

includes things like racial representative of the culture that the node is something that's

• 46:37

representative of the building selection and specialization that the node has taken something

• 46:44

that is representative of the predicate of happiness that the node is currently at. If

• 46:49

they're very happy or not, you can do certain types of policies. So a lot of different predicate

• 46:53

systems make available and also make relevant whether or not you can even suggest a policy for

• 47:00

enactment. And then it requires the player buy on the citizenship buy on to actually get that

• 47:05

enactment completed, completed. And there's a limited number of slots that you can have active

• 47:09

policies available at a given time. And on top of that, certain policy cards have a cool down. So

• 47:16

you can't use them repeatedly over and over again. Yeah, I feel like this is definitely one of the

• 47:21

systems the mayor is going to be constantly like thinking about, like trying to min max their policy

• 47:26

choices, right? They're going to be like, Oh yeah, I only have limited number of slots, juggling a

• 47:30

lot of things like the economy of the node. If it's under threat by, you know, a CBO,

• 47:34

you know, a siege, for example, you know what they're trying to do, how they're trying to

• 47:38

advance their node, they're going to constantly looking at these policies, try to optimize them

• 47:41

for the best. And are the policies always voted as majority vote? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then the next

• 47:51

one here is do policies affect the vassal? Just to be clear, just to be clear, you said, you said

• 47:56

always, except for the cases where the mayor uses his mandate power to override the citizenship

• 48:02

participation, which again is limited in function, but it is a power that the mayor has available to

• 48:07

them. Veto. It's like, it's like an emergency action basically, right? Exactly. It's an emergency

• 48:13

action. Um, and certain events will also make certain policies available. Like if a war gets

• 48:18

declared or a siege gets declared, you have certain war footing policies that are now available to you.

• 48:23

Those might require much lower threshold of player or citizenship vote in order to pass, uh, as well

• 48:30

because of the emergency situations. Um, so I'll re-ask the other question because I think, um,

• 48:35

we went back to the other one. Uh, do policies also affect the vassal nodes of that node?

• 48:43

So there may be policies that do, uh, but they don't all inherently.

• 48:50

Yep. And there might even be policies that affect the zone around you. Policies have a wide range of

• 48:55

effects, uh, that can be conferred. Um, uh, and that's the intent, right, for the system. Yeah,

• 49:01

they could go from affecting the buildings you've constructed to affecting the zone of influence of

• 49:08

your network, right? And the last one here is will nodes affect the policies chosen in a physical

• 49:15

way, like different objects seen or things like that in the node? Like will they see things change?

• 49:20

Certain policies will absolutely have a visual change that are present, right? Not all. Um,

• 49:26

we want to make sure that when we spend our budget of either asset creation or content creation,

• 49:32

that we're reflecting meaningful choices that are more wide arcing. Um, and that might be in the,

• 49:37

in the realm of like props getting spawned to reflect like, you know, you have a refugee status.

• 49:42

Well, now I'm spawning a number of like guards and citizens with clothing and boxes of food,

• 49:48

to kind of represent, hey, we're taking in refugees because the node nearby got destroyed.

• 49:53

Um, that's how we would visually diegetically show, uh, these types of effects within the world. And

• 49:59

in the node layout tool and, and how nodes are constructed, those spaces and locations are

• 50:04

predefined for certain types of either events or policy creation or relics, right? To show those

• 50:10

things in those, in those areas. Um, yeah. All right. To keep us moving along, we are going to

• 50:15

talk about service buildings now, which I'm very excited for people to see on the stream when we

• 50:20

do the playthrough segment, because it looks cool. Yes. Yes. Serving buildings are one thing we hit

• 50:27

hard in the, uh, in the playthrough that people about to see, but, uh, Bucky or Chris, if you guys

• 50:31

want to take it away, I can do this one. Actually, maybe do you want to start with the next slide

• 50:36

that kind of explains it and we can go into the maintenance and demolition. Sure. We can go into

• 50:40

the first one. Yeah. Building types go for it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, so yeah, there's a couple

• 50:48

different types of service buildings, right? We have your default buildings that come pre-built

• 50:51

with the node. Those are things like the town hall, the warehouse, the caravansary,

• 50:55

and then there's also constructed service buildings. That's a lot of things like the

• 50:59

artisanship buildings, businesses that the mayor actually has to initiate and choose and then

• 51:04

voted on and built by the players. Um, and then the different types of buildings there are between

• 51:10

that is some buildings are active service buildings. So those are like, you know,

• 51:13

garages and ship business businesses like you different, you know, your blacksmith,

• 51:17

your tavern and all that. Um, and then some buildings are passive buildings and those are

• 51:22

kind of provide passive benefits to the node. They don't have a reason to be visited, but they,

• 51:26

uh, unlock the ability to upgrade your active service buildings through expansions.

• 51:29

And then, yeah, so building expansions is like, is the primary way you upgrade your buildings

• 51:33

through expansions. I think we were showing a expansion tree in the, in the recording, right?

• 51:37

For the, uh, blacksmith. Um, and so to upgrade your building, you choose expansions, you build

• 51:42

passive buildings to allow you to like unlock those expansion slots. And this will basically

• 51:48

specialize your service building down a path and it kind of the building specialization

• 51:52

will narrow down a specific path. So you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can,

• 51:57

you can, maybe the, kind of, you know, expansion deterioration will narrow down a

• 52:02

specific path. So you might start as a generalized. Blacksmith building and then you'll specialize

• 52:06

towards maybe armor Smith. And then towards specifically like plate armor through the

• 52:10

expansion tree? Yeah. The, the important thing with the service building system for us is that

• 52:17

it's, it's, uh, a way to shape your node, like a character, right? And to give you an exclusive

• 52:23

or a niche that you fight over, right?

• 52:27

If you build, if you go down this weaponsmithing path

• 52:30

and you build your node to be this like mecca

• 52:33

of weaponsmithing and the node three doors down builds it,

• 52:38

there's reason for you to conflict over it, right?

• 52:40

They're taking your business or maybe you are in a zone

• 52:43

and there isn't a weaponsmithing thing anywhere near you

• 52:48

and you do wanna start to carve that path for yourself

• 52:51

to make your node a place people visit and come to.

• 52:56

Yeah, and I think the key takeaway here

• 52:58

when talking about node specialization is buildings provide,

• 53:04

as we were talking about with policies,

• 53:06

access to certain policy types as well, right?

• 53:09

They're going to incentivize player activity

• 53:11

and traffic to your node based on the services

• 53:13

that the building is giving you.

• 53:15

They're going to potentially expand

• 53:17

the types of craftables and workstations

• 53:22

that you're going to have available to you

• 53:24

based on the buildings you construct.

• 53:26

And there might be reason for you to construct

• 53:28

the same type of building multiple times

• 53:30

because the pathway of upgrades is exclusionary, right?

• 53:34

So when I choose a path down a particular building type

• 53:38

in order to reach a tier five benefit

• 53:40

when I eventually reach a higher stage,

• 53:42

or even if I'm lower stage and want to dedicate

• 53:46

a majority of my service plots

• 53:48

toward one particular crafting building,

• 53:51

like I may get a very top tier workstation as a result,

• 53:55

even if I'm still a village node, right?

• 53:57

It's like, I'm the village node that makes the T5 swords

• 54:01

because I've dedicated all of my plots to that, right?

• 54:04

Chris, if you wanna talk a little bit about that.

• 54:06

Yeah, the important thing is expanding your building

• 54:08

requires other buildings to support it, right?

• 54:12

So to go from a smithing building

• 54:14

to a weaponsmithing building,

• 54:17

you're gonna need to fill another plot

• 54:19

with what we call those passive buildings, right?

• 54:23

Or support buildings.

• 54:23

And they are gonna provide some kind of passive benefit

• 54:27

to the node as the name kind of describes,

• 54:29

whether that's to the zone or to services in the node,

• 54:34

but they're not gonna be buildings

• 54:35

that you particularly visit,

• 54:37

but they will allow you to make the buildings

• 54:39

you are visiting better.

• 54:41

Yeah.

• 54:42

And this is a good- And some of those depend,

• 54:44

so can I- Just real quick.

• 54:45

Some of those dependencies that Chris said

• 54:47

can also be conferred based on the vassal ship network

• 54:52

you have as well.

• 54:53

So you might have a parent node or a regional,

• 54:57

a regent node that has a vassal ship over your node,

• 55:02

and you're getting benefits conferred to you

• 55:04

through either the prerequisite of the building types

• 55:06

that you can construct as well

• 55:08

to make a bit more headway there.

• 55:10

And I think because you're already talking about the plots

• 55:12

and how you can space them,

• 55:14

I know we're gonna show this off in the video as well,

• 55:16

but how much can a node's government decide

• 55:18

where a specific building is placed?

• 55:21

So the plots in a node are predefined,

• 55:24

but the plots are universal, right?

• 55:26

So you can put any constructed service building

• 55:30

in any plot, right?

• 55:34

And that's relevant because- And those plots

• 55:34

are in specific places,

• 55:36

but you get to pick which plot they go to.

• 55:38

Exactly. Yeah.

• 55:39

And that's relevant because when it comes to either events

• 55:43

or sieges against the node and even wars,

• 55:47

those building locations also serve

• 55:49

as objective locations as well.

• 55:51

And there is a varying degree of footprint

• 55:55

and level design that's associated with access

• 55:59

to those plot locations.

• 56:01

So if you know that your Smithy that has your workstation

• 56:06

to build the T5 stuff is closest to the center-

• 56:10

Right next to the- Yeah.

• 56:11

Right next to the door, like that's an aid.

• 56:14

There's a difference there in strategy.

• 56:16

Yeah.

• 56:16

And the next question here is,

• 56:18

will nodes in certain places have unique buildings

• 56:21

and unique upgrades,

• 56:22

or kind of are all of those available to everybody?

• 56:26

Those, so constructed service buildings are available

• 56:29

to every type of node in every location, right?

• 56:33

Where the uniqueness comes in

• 56:35

is in some of the default buildings,

• 56:36

like your node type building.

• 56:39

Yeah, and in addition to that, potentially relics as well,

• 56:42

which are location dependent within the world,

• 56:45

you can acquire certain relics that give you access

• 56:47

to certain types of workstations,

• 56:49

or that can augment certain types of workstations as well.

• 56:53

And those could be closer located to certain nodes

• 56:57

based on the POIs.

• 56:59

And I think you talking about sieges and destruction

• 57:01

is a perfect segue into the next slide here,

• 57:04

which if you guys wanna go for that in regards to-

• 57:07

And how many slides do we have left

• 57:10

just so audience knows time to gameplay?

• 57:12

We have one more after this.

• 57:14

TTG.

• 57:15

One more after this in a little video.

• 57:18

Sweet.

• 57:19

Yeah.

• 57:21

All right.

• 57:22

Yeah, so I can keep going with this one.

• 57:24

Yeah, so this is just more info about service buildings

• 57:26

and how they're maintained.

• 57:29

So service buildings incur regular maintenance costs

• 57:32

for node commodities,

• 57:33

or for the node in terms of commodities and gold.

• 57:35

So to continue operations,

• 57:37

you have to fund them.

• 57:38

And that's definitely part of the things

• 57:39

the mayor will be thinking about

• 57:40

is keeping that economy going,

• 57:42

which we'll get into more on the next slide about buy orders.

• 57:44

But basically if you miss maintenance on a building,

• 57:47

it'll enter a state of disarray.

• 57:48

And building maintenance is auto-paid,

• 57:50

but it kind of goes through

• 57:54

like the most valuable buildings they'll pay first.

• 57:56

And then if you don't have enough commodities though,

• 57:58

or a gold new treasury,

• 57:59

then some of your buildings will become

• 58:01

in a state of disarray.

• 58:03

And so if a building's in a state of disarray

• 58:05

or maybe damaged as a result of a siege,

• 58:08

it basically needs to be repaired.

• 58:09

So to do so, players visiting the node

• 58:12

can just contribute materials

• 58:14

to restore the building to an operational state.

• 58:16

And then mayors will also have the ability

• 58:19

if they want to demolish constructed buildings.

• 58:23

So if they so choose, they can destroy a building

• 58:27

if they don't think it's needed anymore.

• 58:28

But this will have mandate cost and a player buy-in vote.

• 58:33

So we want to make sure that mayor can't just go

• 58:35

and blow up the whole node,

• 58:36

if they're trying to grief or something.

• 58:38

So this is a very important and impactful decision.

• 58:43

And then buildings can also just be straight up destroyed

• 58:46

from a siege.

• 58:47

Like if you are sieged and your node ultimately survives,

• 58:50

you still might've taken some damage

• 58:52

in form of destroyed buildings.

• 58:54

And they'll basically become reduced to rubble

• 58:57

after which a certain period of time,

• 58:59

they'll become an empty plot again, you can rebuild.

• 59:01

So that's a very like, even if you attack a node

• 59:03

and you don't destroy it, you can still weaken it.

• 59:04

So that's kind of like a strategy for attackers,

• 59:07

even if they don't, aren't able to destroy the node

• 59:08

ultimately.

• 59:09

And especially for events where monster coins

• 59:12

can be relevant to, you know,

• 59:14

these are some of the objectives that players might even

• 59:16

have during PvE events, if they utilize monster coins

• 59:20

is to either help organize the NPCs in assisting

• 59:25

in the destruction or disabling of a particular building.

• 59:29

Yeah, exactly.

• 59:30

Cool, cool.

• 59:33

And I think we can head on over to the next question

• 59:37

or next segment, just to kind of move things along.

• 59:41

And this is about buy orders,

• 59:43

which we are gonna show a bit on the playthrough as well.

• 59:46

Yeah, talk to us about buy orders,

• 59:48

because this is a big loop for the citizens and the mayor.

• 59:54

Yeah, so buy orders are really important.

• 59:57

They're kind of the primary way that the node generates

• 1:00:00

these things we call node commodities,

• 1:00:02

which are functionally node resources.

• 1:00:05

Node resources are used, we spend them on buildings

• 1:00:10

to build them and upgrade them on maintenance.

• 1:00:12

You can trade them with other nodes.

• 1:00:14

You know, they're super useful to the node

• 1:00:17

and increasing its quality.

• 1:00:21

Now, basically what it is, is it's a recipe that the mayor

• 1:00:25

can initiate, maybe they need bins of stone,

• 1:00:31

like we show in the stream, and that's gonna cost

• 1:00:35

a different materials and players are going to have

• 1:00:38

to contribute those materials to the buy order as a package.

• 1:00:43

And they're gonna get rewarded for it

• 1:00:45

in the form of node currency.

• 1:00:47

And if you're like a really economic and strategic player,

• 1:00:50

you'll kind of be monitoring buy orders around the world

• 1:00:52

and be trying to transit goods to get the most reward

• 1:00:55

you can.

• 1:00:57

And if you're kind of a local player and you just like

• 1:00:59

helping your node and you'll be, you know,

• 1:01:02

kind of using them almost as a surrogate vendor

• 1:01:05

for something, a reward that's a little better

• 1:01:07

than just dumping your materials at an NPC.

• 1:01:13

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:01:13

So, buy orders are instrumental in the activities

• 1:01:19

that a node participates in.

• 1:01:21

Whether it be the transition of these node inventory items,

• 1:01:26

and again, the node resources, these node commodities,

• 1:01:30

they do not exist in player inventories.

• 1:01:32

They exist solely within the nodes inventory.

• 1:01:34

So, once a material gets sunk into the buy order,

• 1:01:38

the player receives the benefit of the node currency,

• 1:01:40

which right now is a bound currency that's used

• 1:01:42

to purchase a number of different types of vendorable items

• 1:01:45

that exist within nodes.

• 1:01:46

It is not player to player currency.

• 1:01:48

It is not intended to be traded between players,

• 1:01:52

but instead it interacts with these unique vendors

• 1:01:54

that supply a large segment of necessary components

• 1:01:59

for a number of different things,

• 1:02:00

whether it be crafting, enchantments, you know,

• 1:02:03

a lot of different things that exist within the node.

• 1:02:05

This is the reason why you would want to acquire

• 1:02:07

that currency is so you have access to those types of items.

• 1:02:10

And you see-

• 1:02:11

And like Steven, you just take all of them

• 1:02:12

and you don't share them with anybody.

• 1:02:14

Unbelievable.

• 1:02:15

I misunderstood the intent or what he was asking me.

• 1:02:18

I thought he said he wanted me to share.

• 1:02:20

Okay, anyways.

• 1:02:21

So, when the mayor or even if the mayor

• 1:02:25

is not making these decisions,

• 1:02:27

buy orders will populate based off of activities

• 1:02:29

that the node have available to them

• 1:02:30

after a set period of time,

• 1:02:32

so that the bad faith mayor is not depleting the node

• 1:02:35

potentially of its resources

• 1:02:37

that players can still interact with.

• 1:02:39

So, the node can use these resources as well to trade

• 1:02:42

with other nodes that might have resource types

• 1:02:45

that you need available to them.

• 1:02:46

And when selecting specific types of buy orders

• 1:02:49

that require certain material components

• 1:02:51

in order to fulfill,

• 1:02:52

you will have a wide array of material choices to make,

• 1:02:55

either those that are relevant locale to your node placement

• 1:02:59

or those that are across the world.

• 1:03:01

And there is a variable in payment

• 1:03:03

that the mayor has access to in setting

• 1:03:06

and how they'll be rewarding players.

• 1:03:07

So, you need to make sure that you're incentivizing players

• 1:03:09

who are making those large transits across the world

• 1:03:12

to actually take that risk

• 1:03:14

and bring those materials to you.

• 1:03:16

These buy orders require a significant amount

• 1:03:19

of material components in order to achieve

• 1:03:21

the necessary inventory that a node wants to see

• 1:03:24

for construction projects, for trade goods,

• 1:03:26

for a lot of different things that they use the materials for.

• 1:03:29

So, it is a big undertaking,

• 1:03:31

but it is one of the primary loops that the node requires

• 1:03:34

in order to get the steam to do certain things, right?

• 1:03:38

And it is something that we showcase in this gameplay video

• 1:03:41

that we're about to go to after this slide,

• 1:03:44

but we're gonna, oh, sorry, and Chris and Bucky,

• 1:03:46

I'll let you give a few more comments

• 1:03:47

before I preface the video.

• 1:03:49

Oh, I do have a question for the community as well.

• 1:03:51

Oh, yeah, sure.

• 1:03:53

But you guys can go ahead.

• 1:03:55

I was just gonna add that buy orders

• 1:03:58

also benefit from citizen contribution, right?

• 1:04:01

It will generate mandates

• 1:04:03

if citizens are participating in these buy orders.

• 1:04:08

So, the question that people are a little confused about

• 1:04:10

is they're wondering if you can explain

• 1:04:12

the difference between a buy order is versus a commission.

• 1:04:17

Yeah, so a buy order is strictly material-based, right?

• 1:04:21

And you don't accept a buy order and then go do it.

• 1:04:24

It is something that you can just check your node UI,

• 1:04:28

or you can check the nodes around you

• 1:04:30

to see what they have active,

• 1:04:32

and you can just go do it and come back

• 1:04:34

and participate or fulfill these buy orders.

• 1:04:38

Whereas a commission is,

• 1:04:39

a mayoral commission is more like a quest.

• 1:04:41

It's something you pick up and then it tracks your activity

• 1:04:43

while you have it.

• 1:04:44

Yeah, think of commissions like,

• 1:04:47

there is the Sherwood Forest is nearby,

• 1:04:50

and there's a number of wolves

• 1:04:51

that have been attacking the villagers,

• 1:04:53

and we need your support in taking care of those wolves.

• 1:04:57

Go out there now, citizen,

• 1:04:58

and bring back pelts to prove your worthiness, right?

• 1:05:01

That's a commission.

• 1:05:02

Whereas a buy order is more like a person standing

• 1:05:05

at an auction house saying,

• 1:05:07

we're willing to buy this for this amount of money.

• 1:05:09

Does anybody have this?

• 1:05:10

Right, and you're coming up,

• 1:05:11

checking your warehouse inventory,

• 1:05:12

checking your inventory,

• 1:05:13

and you're depositing that in exchange for the node currency,

• 1:05:17

and that, then you're using the node currency

• 1:05:19

to go interact with vendors and purchase vendors.

• 1:05:22

Now, to be clear, node currency stays with the player,

• 1:05:25

even if their node is destroyed or they drop citizenship.

• 1:05:29

This is something that you have available to you

• 1:05:31

and you carry forward to your next location,

• 1:05:33

but you may only spend your node currency

• 1:05:35

at nodes that you're a citizen of.

• 1:05:37

And also, you have to have enough node rep

• 1:05:39

to be able to buy certain tiers of things from the node

• 1:05:42

with your node currency.

• 1:05:43

Correct.

• 1:05:44

Even though currency is generic,

• 1:05:45

you still need the rep with the node

• 1:05:46

to unlock better purchases.

• 1:05:47

Correct, and guys,

• 1:05:49

I said this at the start of this presentation,

• 1:05:51

that nodes is the most complex system

• 1:05:54

that exists within Ashes of Creation.

• 1:05:56

It is arguably one of the more complex systems

• 1:05:58

that probably exists across MMORPGs as a whole,

• 1:06:01

and what I would say is what Bucky just commented on,

• 1:06:04

which is node reputation,

• 1:06:06

is a separate mechanic that also deals as a predicate

• 1:06:10

for the vendors that you have access to as a player.

• 1:06:14

And so you can establish that node reputation

• 1:06:16

by doing certain activities within the node,

• 1:06:18

by progressing within certain social organizations

• 1:06:20

or certain religions within the node,

• 1:06:23

and then that predicate serves as your access

• 1:06:25

either to items granularly within a vendor's access table

• 1:06:29

or to just vendors as a whole.

• 1:06:31

It just kind of depends,

• 1:06:32

and there's different thresholds you have to meet

• 1:06:34

across different vendors.

• 1:06:36

Yes, it is, and almost every system interacts

• 1:06:40

with nodes in some way.

• 1:06:41

It's a little crazy,

• 1:06:43

so we'd be here all day if we went through everything,

• 1:06:45

but we will give you snippets here and there

• 1:06:48

throughout the upcoming months,

• 1:06:49

so this won't be the only thing.

• 1:06:50

Just hold tight.

• 1:06:52

Yes, and on that point,

• 1:06:54

I do wanna pretext to a degree

• 1:06:58

what we're going to be showing here.

• 1:07:00

And I know, Margaret, you have prepared a video

• 1:07:03

to kind of give players some insight to...

• 1:07:06

Can we answer one quick question,

• 1:07:08

which is will buy orders include processed or final goods,

• 1:07:11

or is it only just the raw materials?

• 1:07:14

It will include raw materials and processed goods,

• 1:07:16

but not final crafts.

• 1:07:18

Okay, cool, cool.

• 1:07:19

Now I can play the video for you, Stephen.

• 1:07:22

Cool, so before we play that,

• 1:07:24

let me just preface something.

• 1:07:26

So it has been roughly two years

• 1:07:31

since you guys have been inside of a node.

• 1:07:35

And always, as usual,

• 1:07:38

I say that things are works in progress,

• 1:07:40

art is constantly moving forward,

• 1:07:42

things are constantly getting better,

• 1:07:44

and you guys get to watch that progress

• 1:07:47

as part of our development journey.

• 1:07:50

And not everybody is built for that,

• 1:07:52

but you guys are here,

• 1:07:54

and you guys are watching,

• 1:07:55

and you're giving us your feedback,

• 1:07:56

and it's very important to us.

• 1:07:58

And what we're going to be showcasing today

• 1:08:00

we can't showcase everything, right?

• 1:08:03

Some things are still in development,

• 1:08:05

some things have yet to be developed.

• 1:08:07

And what we are wanting to showcase to you

• 1:08:11

is a village update,

• 1:08:13

where we're showcasing some of the interactions

• 1:08:15

we just discussed in this slideshow,

• 1:08:17

such as mayoral activities, taxes,

• 1:08:20

the initiation of buy orders,

• 1:08:21

the completion of those buy orders,

• 1:08:23

the use of inventory systems within the node

• 1:08:27

to begin a construction sequence,

• 1:08:30

interacting with the environment,

• 1:08:32

and most importantly is now,

• 1:08:35

the visual representation of the node structure

• 1:08:38

at the village stage.

• 1:08:40

And this is something that is representative

• 1:08:43

of the quality that we intend to have with nodes

• 1:08:48

for launch, and it is for Alpha 2.

• 1:08:50

But what's most important from you guys

• 1:08:52

when you are watching this is to give us,

• 1:08:54

and it's about an hour long video,

• 1:08:55

so I told you today is going to be a doozy,

• 1:08:58

or Margaret told you today is going to be a doozy.

• 1:09:00

But it is something.

• 1:09:03

I think it's like 32 minutes, not actually an hour.

• 1:09:05

Oh, I thought it was like 52 minutes.

• 1:09:07

I was watching it last night.

• 1:09:09

Did I watch the wrong video?

• 1:09:10

I might.

• 1:09:11

Did you have the wrong video?

• 1:09:12

Uh oh.

• 1:09:13

I thought it was 52 minutes.

• 1:09:15

Oh no, my phone died.

• 1:09:17

Okay, well, it's either 30 minutes or 52.

• 1:09:20

I'm pretty sure it's 52, but we'll see.

• 1:09:23

And so my point is that when you guys are watching this,

• 1:09:27

the best point of feedback is obviously

• 1:09:29

going to be along the systems design that we just discussed,

• 1:09:32

but keeping in mind that these systems are created

• 1:09:35

when you're giving that feedback

• 1:09:36

in a very intricate and interconnected way,

• 1:09:39

and we don't have the ability to communicate

• 1:09:41

all of the intent and purpose,

• 1:09:43

and all of the designs that are associated with it.

• 1:09:45

So when you're giving feedback there,

• 1:09:46

try not to think about the niche points

• 1:09:49

that we may have already addressed,

• 1:09:51

but more the overarching intent of the system

• 1:09:53

and how you feel it will interface with you as a player.

• 1:09:56

And when you're giving commentary on the visuals

• 1:09:59

and the interactions that you're gonna see in this video,

• 1:10:01

think about ways that you would like

• 1:10:03

to see things done differently

• 1:10:04

based off of examples that you give

• 1:10:06

on our, in your past gaming experiences

• 1:10:09

and what you enjoyed about what's been done visually.

• 1:10:12

And we have an incredible art team here at Intrepid.

• 1:10:14

Obviously our environment artists are always amazing.

• 1:10:17

You're gonna be introduced to three of them

• 1:10:20

in this live stream.

• 1:10:22

But before we actually get into the video presentation,

• 1:10:25

I wanna remind everyone where nodes have come from.

• 1:10:29

And Richie S.H. who is one of our glorious content creators

• 1:10:32

in the community, he made a video doing a walkthrough

• 1:10:36

of a Alpha One nodes where the core functionality

• 1:10:38

was present, the expansion, the development,

• 1:10:40

the collection of experience.

• 1:10:42

People saw them grow there.

• 1:10:43

They saw the construction there,

• 1:10:46

and they saw some of the interactions that we've detailed,

• 1:10:48

but just take a look visually at where nodes have come from

• 1:10:52

before you're about to see where nodes are now.

• 1:10:54

And you are right, it's 53 minutes.

• 1:10:57

Also Richie was on our Q&A that we did in April.

• 1:11:00

So if you wanna check that out over on our YouTube channel,

• 1:11:03

Steven answered a lot of great questions over there.

• 1:11:05

And so we can play the video and talk over

• 1:11:08

because we're watching it.

• 1:11:10

Yeah, and as we're-

• 1:11:11

It's 4K so it, we grabbed this earlier today, so.

• 1:11:17

Oh, okay, hello there.

• 1:11:20

Hello.

• 1:11:21

Yeah, so just to give you guys context,

• 1:11:23

this was back in Alpha One.

• 1:11:25

This was a very bare bones representation of the node,

• 1:11:30

but had a lot of the core functionality present

• 1:11:32

from the collection of experience around it,

• 1:11:36

the VassalShip system and locking out other nodes

• 1:11:39

from progressing, vendor tables that became available

• 1:11:42

and new nodes and excuse me, new story arcs

• 1:11:45

and quests that were possible as a result,

• 1:11:49

the purchasing of housing, the storage components,

• 1:11:53

the citizenship and the mayoral election, right?

• 1:11:56

All of this, the core functionality was there,

• 1:11:58

but just to give you guys insight to development,

• 1:12:01

this was not visually what we wanted to represent

• 1:12:04

for the node, but served its purpose at the time.

• 1:12:06

And so what we are going to see now is nodes for Alpha Two,

• 1:12:13

the village update, and we're gonna be showing more

• 1:12:15

about nodes as we move forward towards Alpha Two,

• 1:12:18

but this is an hour long video you're about to watch

• 1:12:20

that gives you insight to where we are now.

• 1:12:22

And with that, enjoy the show.

• 1:12:27

Send nodes.

• 1:12:28

Send nodes.

• 1:12:30

We are sending nodes.

• 1:12:31

And welcome everyone to another live stream here

• 1:12:56

in the world of Vera and boy,

• 1:12:58

do we have an exciting stream today.

• 1:13:01

We are back again looking at one of the most defining features

• 1:13:08

of Ashes of Creation, the node system.

• 1:13:12

And I am joined today by regular face on the live stream.

• 1:13:19

One of our glorious senior designers, Mr. Chris.

• 1:13:22

How you doing, Chris?

• 1:13:23

I'm doing swell.

• 1:13:24

I don't know if I'd say regular though.

• 1:13:26

Well, I mean, well, you know, there's once before.

• 1:13:28

There's one other time.

• 1:13:30

It's regular now it's two times.

• 1:13:31

That's a regular thing, right?

• 1:13:33

I don't know.

• 1:13:33

I feel like you're a regular on the stream.

• 1:13:35

That's true.

• 1:13:36

That's true.

• 1:13:37

It's true.

• 1:13:38

All right, I apologize.

• 1:13:39

We are joined once again by one of our glorious designers,

• 1:13:42

Mr. Chris.

• 1:13:43

How you doing, buddy?

• 1:13:45

Thanks for having me.

• 1:13:46

It's great to be here.

• 1:13:47

And for those of you who don't know,

• 1:13:49

Chris is our resident expert when it comes to nodes.

• 1:13:53

He lives, eats, breathes and any other normal bodily function

• 1:13:58

that's required revolves around the node system.

• 1:14:02

So I'm glad to have you with us because

• 1:14:06

you know what there needs to be known about nodes.

• 1:14:09

Where are we?

• 1:14:10

Oh, sorry.

• 1:14:11

We're, yeah, lots of things need to be known,

• 1:14:13

but we're outside of a beautiful node

• 1:14:16

that's around the corner a little bit.

• 1:14:18

Okay, and I believe I am the self-appointed mayor

• 1:14:23

of this node for the purposes of what we're going

• 1:14:24

to be demonstrating a little bit later.

• 1:14:26

Yeah, the citizens aren't super happy

• 1:14:28

that you, you know, invalidated the election process, but.

• 1:14:32

Wow.

• 1:14:34

Wow.

• 1:14:35

It's not an invalidation.

• 1:14:36

It's a reaffirmation of the correct election process.

• 1:14:42

So tell me what we're doing out here today.

• 1:14:43

What are we gonna be showcasing here?

• 1:14:45

It's been a long time since we've actually taken a look

• 1:14:48

at nodes, as many of you know.

• 1:14:50

The last time we saw nodes was back during Alpha 1

• 1:14:53

in August of 2021.

• 1:14:55

Wow.

• 1:14:57

And nodes during that time were,

• 1:15:00

you know, relatively early functional version.

• 1:15:04

They had a lot of the core systems

• 1:15:05

and functionality present that we saw,

• 1:15:07

which was, you know, constructing buildings

• 1:15:09

and participating in quest hubs.

• 1:15:11

They were able to purchase housing and become citizens.

• 1:15:16

There was all that there,

• 1:15:17

but they were a very early representation of it

• 1:15:20

and definitely not visually or aesthetically

• 1:15:23

what we wanted to present.

• 1:15:24

That's going to be part of what we're showing,

• 1:15:26

but what are we doing out here today?

• 1:15:27

And let me, while you tell me what we're doing,

• 1:15:29

I'm just going to adjust some of the, the winds.

• 1:15:31

Yeah, for sure.

• 1:15:33

Well, today we're going to walk through kind of the

• 1:15:37

general process of what it takes to build a building.

• 1:15:40

You know, we're going to get some materials.

• 1:15:42

We're going to get the nodes some materials.

• 1:15:45

We're going to get the nodes some money

• 1:15:47

and we're going to build ourselves a little service building.

• 1:15:49

Nice. So we're going to go generally around the loops

• 1:15:52

that players can expect.

• 1:15:53

And obviously nodes are a huge system.

• 1:15:56

They are, as I said,

• 1:15:58

one of the defining features of Ashes of Creation,

• 1:15:59

what sets us apart from other MMOs.

• 1:16:01

They reflect the change that exists within the environment

• 1:16:04

based off of player activity, player actions,

• 1:16:07

and players have governance over these nodes,

• 1:16:09

both from a mayoral perspective

• 1:16:11

and the way that citizens interact with the decisions

• 1:16:14

that the mayor is, is, is utilizing.

• 1:16:16

And as a mayor, one of those core loops is,

• 1:16:19

as you mentioned, buy orders.

• 1:16:21

Tell me, should I be starting one of these?

• 1:16:23

How would I go about doing that?

• 1:16:24

Yeah, so you probably should do that.

• 1:16:26

There is a lovely menu you can open

• 1:16:29

with the node button, N.

• 1:16:32

Okay. All right.

• 1:16:33

Oh, I see the node here.

• 1:16:36

And then you're going to go to the treasury page.

• 1:16:39

Got it. I am on the treasury.

• 1:16:40

And I see there's a number of different items

• 1:16:42

in our node inventory.

• 1:16:44

Yeah, so these are node commodities

• 1:16:48

and they're the resources the node uses

• 1:16:50

for lots of things like siege defense.

• 1:16:53

They're going to use it for maintenance.

• 1:16:55

They're going to use it to build buildings.

• 1:16:56

They're going to trade it with other nodes.

• 1:16:59

Cool.

• 1:17:01

And these are essentially the resources

• 1:17:02

that the node are going to be using

• 1:17:04

in order to initiate those activities

• 1:17:07

that like construction projects you were mentioning

• 1:17:08

or trading with other nodes.

• 1:17:11

And what is the method by which we actually acquire

• 1:17:14

as a node these goods?

• 1:17:16

Because these goods are not things that exist

• 1:17:18

within player inventories,

• 1:17:20

but rather they are generated by players

• 1:17:23

interfacing with the environment in some way, shape or form

• 1:17:26

and then bringing those materials to the node

• 1:17:28

to get transitioned into these node inventory items.

• 1:17:32

Exactly. So we're going to do what's called the buy order.

• 1:17:34

So if you look in the bottom left of your treasury screen

• 1:17:37

you're going to see a little plus button.

• 1:17:40

You can click that and it'll open you up to a big list

• 1:17:44

of commodities that you can select

• 1:17:46

to kind of set some settings on the buy orders.

• 1:17:51

Okay, cool. This is looking good.

• 1:17:53

And just always, as usual guys,

• 1:17:55

everything that you see is a work in progress.

• 1:17:58

We are moving towards our alpha two.

• 1:17:59

So you get to see as part of our open development,

• 1:18:01

you know, things that are still works in progress

• 1:18:03

like the UI, this is a functional UI system

• 1:18:06

but it is not the version of our final UI artistically.

• 1:18:11

Same is true for everything you see

• 1:18:12

in the environments and in the world.

• 1:18:14

So what should I be selecting today?

• 1:18:18

What do we need? What are we trying to build?

• 1:18:21

You're going to need some bins of stone.

• 1:18:23

We're going to build a forge today or a smithy.

• 1:18:26

We renamed it. It's not a forge anymore.

• 1:18:28

Okay, cool.

• 1:18:31

And you need bins of stones for it.

• 1:18:34

All right. So I see bins of stone

• 1:18:35

in the industrial goods section.

• 1:18:38

And over on the right-hand side,

• 1:18:39

I see that I have the ability as the mayor

• 1:18:42

to customize the buy order.

• 1:18:45

And what elements of this would I want to customize and why?

• 1:18:50

Yeah. So the first thing you see at the top

• 1:18:53

is the recipe, right?

• 1:18:54

The recipe is going to change the mins and maxes

• 1:18:58

of the parameters you see below,

• 1:19:00

how much you can pay players for these items,

• 1:19:03

how long you can keep them active.

• 1:19:05

And the ingredients are options you have

• 1:19:10

for the recipe that you've picked, right?

• 1:19:13

For different materials.

• 1:19:14

So obviously not all materials are going to be local

• 1:19:17

to all locations.

• 1:19:18

So kind of picking the right things

• 1:19:21

to either incentivize players from a long distance

• 1:19:25

to bring things to you or picking things local

• 1:19:28

because you need them now and you need them fast

• 1:19:30

and you need them for a low amount of investment.

• 1:19:34

Okay. So the first thing I'm looking at

• 1:19:36

is this purchase price.

• 1:19:38

And is this what I'm paying players essentially

• 1:19:41

from the node treasury on a per item basis

• 1:19:45

of these materials?

• 1:19:47

So a buy order comes as a package.

• 1:19:50

So players deliver them as a package.

• 1:19:53

And you're paying per package functionally,

• 1:19:56

but that is not in gold, it's in node currency,

• 1:19:59

which is the primary way that nodes

• 1:20:01

are going to reward players.

• 1:20:03

Okay, cool.

• 1:20:04

And so when I'm purchasing that package,

• 1:20:08

is it that I'm buying one basalt and one halcyonite

• 1:20:11

and that is a package?

• 1:20:12

Or am I buying 50 basalt and 50 halcyonite

• 1:20:15

and that is a package?

• 1:20:17

That's going to depend on the recipe.

• 1:20:19

But so it's not exactly always going to be

• 1:20:23

the same amount of each.

• 1:20:25

And the amounts it's per package will vary

• 1:20:29

based on the amount of investment the node

• 1:20:31

has to put into the buy order.

• 1:20:34

Okay, cool.

• 1:20:34

All right, so I'm going to set this,

• 1:20:38

because I am a benevolent mayor

• 1:20:40

and I believe that people should be rewarded

• 1:20:43

for their hard work and effort in helping to establish

• 1:20:46

what the node that we are collectively a part of needs.

• 1:20:49

And I'm going to set that to two, right?

• 1:20:51

Just above the minimum.

• 1:20:54

Just barely above it.

• 1:20:56

The more you pay, the more it will cost

• 1:20:58

the node's treasury.

• 1:20:59

Oh, okay, maybe I'll set this back down to one.

• 1:21:01

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:21:02

I'm just kidding.

• 1:21:04

Now you see why the citizens are mad.

• 1:21:07

Wait a minute, they're not mad, they're perfectly happy.

• 1:21:09

We just had an election last week.

• 1:21:10

There's a 99% approval rating for me.

• 1:21:14

So, and that 1%, they mysteriously left the node.

• 1:21:17

I don't know where they went.

• 1:21:19

They were in a plane.

• 1:21:20

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:21:21

Okay, so all right, duration-wide.

• 1:21:24

Duration-wise, let's see, three days.

• 1:21:26

Now, is this the amount of time that players

• 1:21:28

have the opportunity to kind of turn these things in?

• 1:21:31

Exactly, so the last slider that you have there is quantity.

• 1:21:36

And basically, when you initiate a buy order,

• 1:21:38

the node is paying for it, right?

• 1:21:41

So regardless of whether players finish it,

• 1:21:45

you've paid for it.

• 1:21:46

So the longer it's up, the more likely you are

• 1:21:49

to get paid out.

• 1:21:52

But the shorter windows allow people to kind of capitalize

• 1:21:55

on it, the early bird gets the worm.

• 1:21:59

And just to be clear, I know exactly what many

• 1:22:02

of the people in the audience are thinking,

• 1:22:04

that if I was the mayor and I knew what types of buy orders

• 1:22:09

I was intending to launch at some date,

• 1:22:13

I could inform via some type of insider trading

• 1:22:18

what that is going to be so that people had time

• 1:22:20

potentially to bring those resources to the node

• 1:22:22

in advance and purchase out all the buy orders.

• 1:22:26

Yeah, that is definitely true.

• 1:22:28

The mayor does have some power to give people warning,

• 1:22:34

but they also have the power to pull the rug out

• 1:22:36

from under those people too, right?

• 1:22:38

Tell them you need bins of stone and you're gonna,

• 1:22:41

you need basalt and halcyonite, but you actually use iron.

• 1:22:48

Okay, interesting.

• 1:22:49

And then that way, if they are bringing those things,

• 1:22:52

usually via caravan, given that a lot of the quantities

• 1:22:54

for these types of buy orders are gonna be relatively large

• 1:22:57

in order to accommodate the necessary material components

• 1:23:00

that the node requires, they might be subject

• 1:23:03

to attack potentially, right?

• 1:23:05

And so reputation matters here.

• 1:23:07

So I see that in choosing quantity,

• 1:23:09

I'm choosing 116 different packages,

• 1:23:11

which means I'll get 116 basalt and 116 halcyonite,

• 1:23:15

and that will help us to finish this project, yeah?

• 1:23:20

Correct.

• 1:23:21

All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and schedule this order.

• 1:23:24

Order details, okay, yes, let's see.

• 1:23:28

Oh, okay, so this package has a,

• 1:23:29

it's not a one-to-one per se.

• 1:23:31

This is 117 packages, which will constitute total of 696

• 1:23:36

basalt and 232 halcyonite.

• 1:23:39

Total reserve cost is 25.

• 1:23:41

I'm gonna confirm this.

• 1:23:43

All right, there we go.

• 1:23:45

All right, so it's kicking off.

• 1:23:47

All right, so I assume you've brought me out here,

• 1:23:49

and I don't normally participate in direct menial labor

• 1:23:53

as the mayor of this node, but for demonstration purposes,

• 1:23:56

I will help you collect some of these resources.

• 1:24:03

I see we're out here in a beautiful part of the world.

• 1:24:05

This is obviously the Riverlands,

• 1:24:07

which many of our audience are accustomed to seeing.

• 1:24:11

This will be one of the primary locations

• 1:24:14

that we will be testing for Alpha-2.

• 1:24:16

It is expansive, it is large.

• 1:24:18

It is probably larger than most MMOs,

• 1:24:20

just as a single biome that people have participated in.

• 1:24:24

But I see we have some familiar halcyonite here.

• 1:24:27

Yep, I've got some insider information

• 1:24:29

from the artisanship team on where we need to go.

• 1:24:32

Nice, very cool.

• 1:24:35

Ah, we've added some blue smoke, I see,

• 1:24:37

to the effects here.

• 1:24:42

Looks very good.

• 1:24:44

I see some basalts here as well.

• 1:24:46

And so players who are interested in seeing

• 1:24:49

this kind of update at the node

• 1:24:52

of the necessary materials requested,

• 1:24:58

not all the time will those materials be

• 1:25:00

in the locality of that node, right?

• 1:25:02

That's, as you were mentioning, a bit strategic

• 1:25:04

for the node to either select material components

• 1:25:07

that yield the type of node inventory items necessary

• 1:25:10

or commodities necessary based on the geolocation of that.

• 1:25:14

Correct, and they might not even have access to bioters

• 1:25:18

for certain node commodities that are local to them, right?

• 1:25:24

So higher tier commodities will be further away.

• 1:25:29

Very cool.

• 1:25:31

And will players around the world have an opportunity

• 1:25:34

to inspect the types of bioters that are currently listed

• 1:25:37

at a particular node?

• 1:25:41

Yeah, they will be able to.

• 1:25:42

Cool, very cool.

• 1:25:44

So those of you who are traders and are interested in kind of,

• 1:25:47

I'm gonna start moving down this road now.

• 1:25:48

Those of you who are traders and are interested

• 1:25:50

in actually capitalizing on the supply and demand of nodes

• 1:25:56

and their competing interests

• 1:25:58

and what they're trying to accomplish

• 1:25:59

will have an opportunity to move those goods

• 1:26:03

around the world, take that risk potentially,

• 1:26:06

but receive a high reward as a result.

• 1:26:11

Exactly.

• 1:26:12

Ooh, I see we have someone up ahead here.

• 1:26:14

Who is this?

• 1:26:16

Oh! Looks like a lovely guard.

• 1:26:19

A guard doing his duty.

• 1:26:21

Let me pay him a visit and tell him

• 1:26:25

how wonderful of a job he is doing.

• 1:26:29

Fare thee well, God.

• 1:26:31

Hello.

• 1:26:33

Stop when your mayor is talking.

• 1:26:35

Hey.

• 1:26:37

Listen, they're busy people.

• 1:26:38

Does he not recognize my authority?

• 1:26:41

And is he stretching in front of me?

• 1:26:45

Do I bore you?

• 1:26:48

Unbelievable.

• 1:26:49

We're gonna have to talk with his commander.

• 1:26:51

This is a beautiful area.

• 1:26:53

I mean, the environment team did a phenomenal job,

• 1:26:55

obviously, always.

• 1:26:58

And I think one of the big things

• 1:27:00

that people are gonna be in for a surprise here

• 1:27:03

as we showcase this glorious node.

• 1:27:07

Where are we going?

• 1:27:07

By the way, this is Winstead.

• 1:27:09

This is the lovely Winstead node.

• 1:27:11

So one of the biggest differences

• 1:27:14

that people are going to notice today,

• 1:27:16

and of course it's very important to keep in mind,

• 1:27:20

I'll go into walk mode here, I don't run into my own node.

• 1:27:24

It's very important to keep in mind

• 1:27:26

that nodes in Alpha 1, the last time we saw them,

• 1:27:31

are very placeholder.

• 1:27:32

Right, as I said, they were core functionality,

• 1:27:34

but artistically, they did not represent

• 1:27:36

the aesthetic of nodes that we were intending

• 1:27:37

to create.

• 1:27:40

And the environment team has been hard at work

• 1:27:44

in creating, obviously, the different stages

• 1:27:46

of these nodes, but also in representing

• 1:27:49

the type of visual fidelity that we want to represent

• 1:27:51

within the cities of our game.

• 1:27:54

And I believe that we have arrived at Winstead

• 1:28:00

and we are joined by some additional glorious members

• 1:28:04

of the development team.

• 1:28:05

I see two of them here.

• 1:28:07

We have Mr. Tristan, our lead environment artist.

• 1:28:10

Tristan, how you doing, buddy?

• 1:28:12

Hello, welcome, doing very well, how are you?

• 1:28:14

I am doing very good.

• 1:28:15

We just went for a little stroll, got some resources,

• 1:28:18

and now we're showing up back to the node.

• 1:28:19

You got everything we need?

• 1:28:21

I do, I think I have everything we need.

• 1:28:24

We also have with us, I see, Adam.

• 1:28:27

How you doing, buddy?

• 1:28:28

I am good, thank you.

• 1:28:30

Another one of our glorious environment artists.

• 1:28:32

Yes, and there's one more missing.

• 1:28:35

He's around here somewhere.

• 1:28:36

What, where is he?

• 1:28:39

Is he over here, what is this?

• 1:28:40

Is this the caravansary, by the way?

• 1:28:42

It is the caravansary.

• 1:28:45

Very cool, I'm gonna come look over there,

• 1:28:48

but let me just take a look at what's going on

• 1:28:50

in here real quick.

• 1:28:52

Beautiful.

• 1:28:54

And this is where players will have an opportunity

• 1:28:56

to reserve certain caravan stalls.

• 1:28:58

They'll be able to kit out and we'll be showcasing this

• 1:29:01

in a future livestream, probably a couple months away or so,

• 1:29:04

where you can kit out your caravan

• 1:29:06

with different components, you can upgrade these,

• 1:29:09

and that is a default building, correct?

• 1:29:11

The nodes don't select and create those by agency,

• 1:29:14

but they come by default.

• 1:29:16

Yeah, that is a building that comes with the node,

• 1:29:18

though it is upgradable by the node.

• 1:29:20

I see.

• 1:29:21

Now where is our third, where is James?

• 1:29:26

Hello.

• 1:29:27

Oh, we have found him, welcome, James.

• 1:29:31

I was just doing some stuff at my house,

• 1:29:33

wasn't really a citizen.

• 1:29:34

I was able to get some real estate.

• 1:29:37

Very nice, okay, look at that,

• 1:29:39

beautiful little house you have there.

• 1:29:41

It's quaint, I think that's the appropriate term, right?

• 1:29:44

Quaint?

• 1:29:44

Are you paying your taxes on that?

• 1:29:46

You don't really pay us enough, so.

• 1:29:48

Unbelievable, unbelievable.

• 1:29:51

It is not the mayor's job to assign these salaries.

• 1:29:54

This is a purely capitalist society.

• 1:29:57

You need to speak to your corporate head.

• 1:30:01

I didn't vote for you.

• 1:30:02

Oh, no.

• 1:30:07

We'll be talking after this stream.

• 1:30:09

I gotta hit with some bad news, James is invisible.

• 1:30:12

Oh, James, where are you?

• 1:30:15

I drank a potion of invisibility.

• 1:30:17

Oh, very nice, I can see you, James,

• 1:30:19

I think you look very nice for me.

• 1:30:22

That's because you're the mayor.

• 1:30:24

Yes, that is correct, I see all, I'm the mayor of Sauron.

• 1:30:27

No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:30:28

Well, let's head into the node

• 1:30:31

and take a look here.

• 1:30:34

This is, I mean, truly a sight to see.

• 1:30:38

I love the layout, I love the aesthetic.

• 1:30:41

You guys did a phenomenal job

• 1:30:44

with actually representing, I think,

• 1:30:46

what we want out of the node.

• 1:30:49

I mean, visually, it's just, it looks great.

• 1:30:51

Oh, look at the little piglet.

• 1:30:54

Yeah, you might find a few little small farm animals

• 1:30:57

to hang out with around the town.

• 1:30:59

Those guys are great, little piglet.

• 1:31:02

Talk to me a little bit about what it took

• 1:31:04

to bring this node online

• 1:31:05

and to the visual fidelity that we wanted to.

• 1:31:10

A lot.

• 1:31:11

A lot said here.

• 1:31:15

There's far more than just making the art here look good.

• 1:31:18

It's also anticipating how we're gonna approach

• 1:31:21

eight different races or more

• 1:31:24

in terms of the amount of assets that we have to create.

• 1:31:26

So it's more of a, it's not just an artistic problem,

• 1:31:30

it's a logistic problem, right?

• 1:31:31

So we have so much to do when it comes to the world

• 1:31:37

in terms of the biomes

• 1:31:38

and making this all work and functional

• 1:31:40

because all this is dynamic.

• 1:31:42

This isn't set in stone.

• 1:31:43

This is something that's going to be spawned

• 1:31:45

and created by the players

• 1:31:46

and then built up by the players.

• 1:31:48

And that, of course, makes it entirely more complex.

• 1:31:52

100%.

• 1:31:53

Yes.

• 1:31:54

We had to develop new systems

• 1:31:55

for how we develop the art, how we lay out the art,

• 1:31:58

how design can use the art,

• 1:32:01

just so that it can be dynamic,

• 1:32:04

it can be different races,

• 1:32:06

and it can show up in different biomes.

• 1:32:08

Yeah.

• 1:32:10

Yeah, not to mention we had to build up a new aesthetic

• 1:32:13

to really sell an Ashes of Creation look.

• 1:32:18

Steven, before you go any further,

• 1:32:19

can I show you something real quick?

• 1:32:21

Yes, absolutely.

• 1:32:23

Right back over here.

• 1:32:26

You just come back here.

• 1:32:27

I am on my way.

• 1:32:31

Where, oh, this is cool.

• 1:32:32

So there's like these little back alley areas where-

• 1:32:35

You know, Tristan, why don't you go with him?

• 1:32:37

No, no.

• 1:32:38

Yeah, no, that's okay.

• 1:32:39

We posted something up here.

• 1:32:41

Oh, what is this?

• 1:32:42

Who's that little fella?

• 1:32:44

Who is Tristan?

• 1:32:46

Have you seen me?

• 1:32:48

Who is that?

• 1:32:49

I don't see him.

• 1:32:50

Who is that guy?

• 1:32:51

Is that Tristan?

• 1:32:52

Yeah.

• 1:32:53

Is that Lord Snot himself?

• 1:32:55

Oh, wow.

• 1:32:57

I am currently on the missing board.

• 1:32:59

You're on the missing board.

• 1:33:02

That's all right.

• 1:33:03

At least people care about me.

• 1:33:04

Hey.

• 1:33:05

Aw.

• 1:33:06

They're sad that I'm missing.

• 1:33:07

No, you have a bounty on your head.

• 1:33:09

Yeah, the reward is 10 cents.

• 1:33:13

Well, I'll take it.

• 1:33:16

At least somebody's paying attention to me

• 1:33:17

and where I am and where my whereabouts are.

• 1:33:20

That is hilarious.

• 1:33:23

So talk to me a little bit about,

• 1:33:25

we're going to get back to the systems real quick

• 1:33:27

in a second, guys, but I want to just kind of go over

• 1:33:30

what are some of the unique hurdles

• 1:33:33

that we are accomplishing through the development

• 1:33:35

of these nodes, especially considering that they have

• 1:33:37

to go through multiple different stages of development

• 1:33:41

from crossroads to encampment to village to town to city

• 1:33:45

to eventually these large metropolises

• 1:33:49

and how that makes this a very complicated process

• 1:33:52

for you guys.

• 1:33:54

Yeah, I mean, essentially we have to plan

• 1:33:55

for the buildings being able to expand,

• 1:33:58

to get taller, to get bigger,

• 1:34:00

and that has to happen from day one, right?

• 1:34:03

Like we need to talk to concept and figure out

• 1:34:05

how we get from, like you said, camp to metropolis

• 1:34:09

and then kind of work within those bounds.

• 1:34:13

And you know, there's been a lot of discoveries and pain

• 1:34:17

and jubilation along the way, and this guy just died.

• 1:34:22

I don't know.

• 1:34:23

But yeah, it's a work in progress

• 1:34:27

like it is for every stream, right?

• 1:34:30

But I think we have a good start here

• 1:34:32

and we'll be able to really kind of push forward

• 1:34:36

and show progress in the future.

• 1:34:39

Absolutely, it is a beautiful view, this area.

• 1:34:44

And I know that there's been some changes

• 1:34:47

kind of in how we anticipated node expansion working

• 1:34:53

and utilizing a more district-oriented approach

• 1:34:58

where expansions kind of are previewed

• 1:35:01

or at least telegraphed to the node

• 1:35:04

as development continues, as expansion grows,

• 1:35:08

players start to see construction taking place

• 1:35:11

within the node to represent those expanding areas.

• 1:35:15

Yeah, that's right.

• 1:35:16

As the mayor and the citizens start, you know,

• 1:35:20

bringing more online with their node,

• 1:35:22

you'll start to see the outskirts of say like this village,

• 1:35:26

for instance, start to have little construction projects.

• 1:35:29

Grass will be cleared.

• 1:35:31

You'll start to see scaffolding

• 1:35:33

and other things being placed as well as materials.

• 1:35:35

And you'll start to see the village expand into a town

• 1:35:40

and then a town into a city and so forth and so on.

• 1:35:44

And it's really exciting to be able

• 1:35:45

to kind of build those systems

• 1:35:47

and visually still have them look, you know,

• 1:35:51

well, you can see how it looks, but.

• 1:35:53

Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:35:55

And it's not just, you know, obviously for those of you

• 1:35:58

who might be a little bit newer

• 1:36:00

to the audience and the project,

• 1:36:03

the systems that are in place to accompany

• 1:36:06

this node progression, these city progressions

• 1:36:09

across the world are really intended to be defined

• 1:36:13

by player activity, player action, player choices.

• 1:36:18

Whoops, I have a little bit of a weird mesh issue over there,

• 1:36:21

but that's okay.

• 1:36:23

The really meant to reflect the player choices, right?

• 1:36:26

And that includes building construction.

• 1:36:29

And as we were talking about earlier,

• 1:36:31

these buy orders are the primary method

• 1:36:33

by which nodes can procure the resources necessary.

• 1:36:39

One of the other methods by which nodes can help

• 1:36:44

kind of utilize that expansion

• 1:36:47

is through treasury acquisition with taxation,

• 1:36:50

with trade agreements and other nodes.

• 1:36:52

Chris, we have some resources we've collected.

• 1:36:55

Where are we gonna head to next to kind of utilize that?

• 1:36:58

Well, if you'll follow me over here.

• 1:37:01

All righty.

• 1:37:02

We're gonna go to the warehouse.

• 1:37:05

All right, I'm on my way with you to the warehouse.

• 1:37:10

Now, this is a building that you're gonna manage

• 1:37:13

your material and item storage.

• 1:37:16

You're going to obviously interface

• 1:37:18

with the buy order manager.

• 1:37:20

I think he's called the requisition agent these days.

• 1:37:23

All right.

• 1:37:27

Cool.

• 1:37:27

So if we're gonna wanna talk

• 1:37:28

to this lovely fellow over here.

• 1:37:32

This guy here?

• 1:37:33

Yep.

• 1:37:34

All right.

• 1:37:36

Let's see here.

• 1:37:37

Okay, here we go.

• 1:37:38

All right, and as you see kind of the portrait

• 1:37:40

still outstanding, you're gonna see that some of the UI.

• 1:37:43

Greetings, citizen.

• 1:37:44

I am tasked with purchasing goods, which,

• 1:37:46

how dare him refer to me as a citizen?

• 1:37:48

We need to fix the greeting tables.

• 1:37:51

I mean, really, the disrespect.

• 1:37:53

Okay, I am tasked with purchasing goods,

• 1:37:56

which the node uses to construct and maintain

• 1:37:58

its varied services.

• 1:37:59

Would you like to see our current requisitions?

• 1:38:01

I would indeed.

• 1:38:04

Exchange rate, okay.

• 1:38:06

All right.

• 1:38:07

And so now anybody who is participating as a citizen

• 1:38:12

or as just a player in the game can go to these locations

• 1:38:15

and they can fulfill these buy orders.

• 1:38:16

So right now I'm seeing that I can adjust the quantity

• 1:38:19

of goods that I'm going to be offering to the node.

• 1:38:23

And we might have a little bit of a problem here

• 1:38:25

because it's saying that the total value of goods

• 1:38:27

I want to contribute are 232 currency worth,

• 1:38:30

gold worth, to the node.

• 1:38:33

Well, you're exchanging two for every,

• 1:38:36

you're getting two for every package you're fulfilling.

• 1:38:39

And you can fulfill all of them, it looks like.

• 1:38:43

Should I do that?

• 1:38:44

I mean, do you want to share the love?

• 1:38:50

Okay, I'll do that.

• 1:38:51

So exchange, confirm, let's see here.

• 1:38:53

Total materials, process this order for 232.

• 1:38:56

I will confirm that.

• 1:38:58

Boom, done.

• 1:39:00

So now I have acquired node currency

• 1:39:03

in exchange for these materials.

• 1:39:09

Correct.

• 1:39:10

Also, you did all of it.

• 1:39:12

You didn't share anything.

• 1:39:14

Uh-oh, what does that mean?

• 1:39:17

Well, the currency is bound,

• 1:39:18

so you can't trade it with anyone.

• 1:39:21

So you fulfilled the whole buy order

• 1:39:23

and you took all the reward.

• 1:39:25

Oh, I thought you meant share as in like,

• 1:39:29

I would take that and then later,

• 1:39:31

I would use what I received

• 1:39:34

and give those to other people in other means,

• 1:39:36

like through servitude as a servant-oriented type leader.

• 1:39:41

You know what I mean?

• 1:39:42

Like, I didn't know you meant actually not fulfill the order.

• 1:39:44

Listen, I need some node currency.

• 1:39:47

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that's what you meant.

• 1:39:51

I thought you meant share as in like, me give more resources.

• 1:39:55

Okay, will that be a problem or are we good?

• 1:39:58

No, we're good, we're good.

• 1:39:59

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

• 1:40:00

I'm just a little hurt.

• 1:40:01

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that.

• 1:40:03

Well, I can speak with a guy.

• 1:40:03

I know some people here at this node.

• 1:40:06

Okay, okay, for sure, hook me up.

• 1:40:08

All right, so we've fulfilled this buy order.

• 1:40:10

What is next in this loop?

• 1:40:12

So now we are gonna talk about taxes.

• 1:40:16

You just spent, as a node, 25 gold

• 1:40:19

to initiate that buy order, right?

• 1:40:22

Yes.

• 1:40:23

Eventually we're gonna need.

• 1:40:24

I see the treasury says I have 75 remaining.

• 1:40:26

Yeah, and that should be enough to build the building,

• 1:40:28

but you probably wanna start replenishing now, right?

• 1:40:31

Yes.

• 1:40:32

So you're gonna open up your node panel again.

• 1:40:36

Okay.

• 1:40:36

And take yourself to the treasury page.

• 1:40:39

Done.

• 1:40:40

And you're gonna look, there's a taxes area.

• 1:40:44

Taxes area, taxes area.

• 1:40:45

It says tax rates.

• 1:40:47

Oh, I see that, okay.

• 1:40:49

Tax rates.

• 1:40:50

And you're gonna be able to adjust those as the mayor.

• 1:40:53

So I wanna go to advanced details.

• 1:40:55

Yep.

• 1:40:56

Okay, oh, I see, okay, perfect.

• 1:40:58

And so this is, I see that there are a number

• 1:41:01

of different potential modifiers.

• 1:41:04

These probably are going to be offered out

• 1:41:09

as either the node levels up or as upgrades.

• 1:41:12

How does that work?

• 1:41:13

Talk to me a little bit about these modifiers.

• 1:41:15

So at a high level in early node development,

• 1:41:20

you're not gonna get access to a lot of these, right?

• 1:41:22

This is probably pretty close to what a node level three

• 1:41:25

is gonna end up getting.

• 1:41:27

And we've broken the things that cost money in the node

• 1:41:30

into different categories, right?

• 1:41:32

As the node levels up, you're gonna get access

• 1:41:35

to kind of deeper controls on the taxes

• 1:41:38

so that you as a mayor can kind of incentivize players

• 1:41:43

to come to your node to do certain things, right?

• 1:41:45

If you're a node that loves smithing,

• 1:41:49

you're probably gonna wanna lower your taxes on artisanship

• 1:41:52

to incentivize players to be here.

• 1:41:55

But then you might wanna drive up taxes and other avenues

• 1:41:58

that players aren't necessarily coming to your node for,

• 1:42:01

but are using out of convenience, right?

• 1:42:05

Okay, cool.

• 1:42:06

So we need to generate some more income.

• 1:42:08

Yep, so I would recommend cranking those taxes.

• 1:42:12

Oh my God.

• 1:42:14

Oh man, not again.

• 1:42:16

Oh, here we go.

• 1:42:17

This is not me.

• 1:42:18

This is, it takes a village, literally.

• 1:42:22

Well, that's what we're doing right now.

• 1:42:23

It takes from a village.

• 1:42:24

It takes from a villager.

• 1:42:27

And it goes to the roads, right?

• 1:42:28

Yes, it goes to the potholes in the roads.

• 1:42:31

There seems to be quite a lot of them here.

• 1:42:34

I have adjusted the tax rate to 75%.

• 1:42:38

All right, now if we go over here to this guy,

• 1:42:42

you can go ahead and buy some stuff

• 1:42:45

and 75% of the base cost of these items

• 1:42:49

is going to go to the, is gonna go to the treasury.

• 1:42:53

Ooh, let's see here.

• 1:43:05

This is a bit grayed out for me.

• 1:43:07

Maybe I don't, guys, again,

• 1:43:08

you're gonna see some placeholder stuff.

• 1:43:11

Looks like.

• 1:43:12

I don't have room for some stuff,

• 1:43:14

so I'm just gonna be killing some things.

• 1:43:17

Nobody pay any attention to the non-existent icons.

• 1:43:22

Yeah, some of that art is still pending.

• 1:43:26

Okay, I will now interact with this gear vendor

• 1:43:29

and let's see if he can sell me some items.

• 1:43:34

You know, these are grayed out for me.

• 1:43:36

Do you have any money?

• 1:43:38

Oh my God, I have no money.

• 1:43:41

It looks like you probably only have node currency.

• 1:43:43

I need some money.

• 1:43:47

I'm gonna use a cheat panel.

• 1:43:48

Nobody look, this is a little bit of a cheat panel.

• 1:43:51

Okay, you're gonna see where I can.

• 1:43:55

You're saying your mayor's broke right now, right?

• 1:43:57

We'll just pick up.

• 1:43:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody sees anything.

• 1:44:01

Maybe you did need that node currency more than I did.

• 1:44:04

Yeah, so what do I do?

• 1:44:06

Character gold, let me get some gold.

• 1:44:11

Give gold, you know, I'm gonna give myself a thousand.

• 1:44:16

And I will now speak with this individual again,

• 1:44:19

who was so rude and curt with me

• 1:44:21

when I tried to buy stuff from him.

• 1:44:24

Didn't know who I was as the mayor.

• 1:44:27

Okay, cool, so we wanna generate some currency for the node.

• 1:44:30

We're just gonna demonstrate here making some purchases.

• 1:44:36

Oops, I probably need to, hold on, sorry, my bad.

• 1:44:40

I'm going to select some of these different items.

• 1:44:49

How do I make that purchase?

• 1:44:53

So I'm just selecting these items.

• 1:44:55

Yep, you should just be able to right click them.

• 1:44:58

Right click, oh, there we go, yeah, yeah, yeah, my bad.

• 1:45:03

Okay, how much gold do we need for the node right now?

• 1:45:06

This is more, not enough gold.

• 1:45:08

Well, this is more not for you

• 1:45:11

to just make a bunch of gold right away,

• 1:45:12

but just to make sure we're getting more gold over time.

• 1:45:15

We have enough to make the building.

• 1:45:17

Okay, let me check the node treasury.

• 1:45:20

The node treasury now has 112.

• 1:45:22

That should be plenty.

• 1:45:24

So now, you wanna build a building, Steven?

• 1:45:28

I wanna build a building.

• 1:45:30

All right, well, let's go have a nice little waltz.

• 1:45:34

Well, actually, open your mayor panel here for us.

• 1:45:38

Okay, mayor panel is open.

• 1:45:41

And you're gonna hit N and go to the buildings tab.

• 1:45:45

Done.

• 1:45:46

Now, here you're gonna see a list

• 1:45:48

of all the buildings we currently have constructed.

• 1:45:51

Since this is a pretty new node,

• 1:45:53

all the buildings in this list

• 1:45:55

are what we call default buildings,

• 1:45:58

which means they come pre-constructed with the node.

• 1:46:01

But if you scroll all the way down to the bottom,

• 1:46:03

you're gonna see the empty plots.

• 1:46:06

Okay, very cool.

• 1:46:08

And just to be clear,

• 1:46:09

the default buildings are offering default services,

• 1:46:13

as you were saying, apartments, warehouse for storage,

• 1:46:17

or the caravansary for the caravans

• 1:46:21

and reception of those caravans.

• 1:46:24

All nodes will have a base default list of services

• 1:46:28

that are offered regardless of type.

• 1:46:31

And then what we're doing now is we're specializing the node

• 1:46:35

to cater specific services

• 1:46:37

in order to draw traffic of players to us.

• 1:46:40

Right, yeah, all the services that come default

• 1:46:43

with the node we've kind of,

• 1:46:44

as a design team, deemed essential, right?

• 1:46:48

We want caravans to move around the world

• 1:46:50

so everyone should have a caravansary.

• 1:46:51

We want players to have storage

• 1:46:53

so everyone should have a warehouse, right?

• 1:46:55

But that doesn't mean those default buildings

• 1:46:56

can't be upgraded and specialized themselves, right?

• 1:47:00

Awesome.

• 1:47:01

But the empty plots are where you really get

• 1:47:04

to start specializing your node.

• 1:47:07

All right, and I see a smithy under artisanship.

• 1:47:12

Correct.

• 1:47:14

Okay, I've selected the building.

• 1:47:16

Yep.

• 1:47:18

Oh, okay, here we go.

• 1:47:19

We have a little bit of a tree here

• 1:47:20

that talks about its expansions.

• 1:47:23

Yeah, so buildings can expand,

• 1:47:26

and as I kind of alluded to with the default buildings,

• 1:47:28

they specialize as they expand, right?

• 1:47:30

So this isn't like a traditional field tree.

• 1:47:34

It's exclusionary, more like a tech tree, right?

• 1:47:37

So selecting the next upgrade for it

• 1:47:42

will lock out the other two paths, right?

• 1:47:47

So as you get better with the building,

• 1:47:49

it will continue to narrow,

• 1:47:50

which allows lots of nodes

• 1:47:52

to carve out lots of niches in the world.

• 1:47:55

Very cool.

• 1:47:57

And so because of this, because it's exclusionary,

• 1:48:00

it would be relevant for certain nodes

• 1:48:03

in order to achieve a broader spectrum

• 1:48:07

of upgrade potential within a particular building type

• 1:48:12

to potentially build multiple of these buildings.

• 1:48:15

Yeah, exactly, right?

• 1:48:16

If you wanna be the home to weaponsmithing in your node,

• 1:48:20

you're probably gonna have three smithies

• 1:48:21

to capitalize on slashing, bludgeoning,

• 1:48:25

and piercing weapons, right?

• 1:48:28

And then there are other things you can do

• 1:48:30

with the policy system or with the relic system

• 1:48:32

to kind of amp that up even further.

• 1:48:36

Very cool.

• 1:48:37

Very cool.

• 1:48:38

And so let's say, and I know we don't have this,

• 1:48:42

or I'm not sure if we have this yet implemented,

• 1:48:45

but let's say, for example, I as the mayor,

• 1:48:47

I'm about to start this build, right?

• 1:48:50

I'm gonna, do I just click on this build right now?

• 1:48:52

Yep.

• 1:48:53

All right.

• 1:48:55

Oh, okay, here we go.

• 1:48:56

Construction requirements.

• 1:48:57

So I have the bins of stone,

• 1:49:00

and it looks like we have the cords of wood.

• 1:49:03

Yep. Citizen contributions.

• 1:49:05

So the citizen contribution, that is in reference

• 1:49:07

to when this construction project begins,

• 1:49:10

citizens will need to come to the building

• 1:49:13

and contribute resources to aid in its development.

• 1:49:16

Yeah, so unlike buy orders,

• 1:49:19

you're not directly rewarded for this, right?

• 1:49:21

As a player, this is kind of our way of ensuring

• 1:49:25

that citizens want the thing

• 1:49:28

that the mayor is asking them to do,

• 1:49:29

or is spending resources on, right?

• 1:49:32

So if you're a mayor and you're just like,

• 1:49:33

ah, I'm gonna build a bunch of this building

• 1:49:37

that no one wants, then players aren't gonna contribute

• 1:49:40

to it and they're not gonna get built.

• 1:49:43

Good call, very cool.

• 1:49:44

All right, let me confirm this.

• 1:49:46

Players will have 2 million days

• 1:49:49

to provide the resources for construction.

• 1:49:51

Well, that's good.

• 1:49:52

I wanna be a lenient mayor.

• 1:49:55

And as many in the audience know,

• 1:49:58

we expect Ashes to have a very long

• 1:50:01

and fruitful lifespan as a product.

• 1:50:05

And 2 million days is a bit on the maybe conservative side

• 1:50:09

of what we'll actually see overall,

• 1:50:12

but I think it's a worthwhile time.

• 1:50:15

Are we good with that?

• 1:50:16

What do you think, Chris?

• 1:50:17

Yeah, that sounds great.

• 1:50:19

Okay, 2 million days it is.

• 1:50:21

Okay, where do we go to see this building?

• 1:50:26

So we've constructed it over here.

• 1:50:30

If you wanna follow me this way.

• 1:50:31

All right, I'm following.

• 1:50:33

I don't normally run in my own town, but I will.

• 1:50:35

I will run for this building.

• 1:50:37

Listen up, I got places to go, people to see.

• 1:50:39

People to see?

• 1:50:41

You work at the behest of the mayor.

• 1:50:44

So I notice there's a gentleman here you can talk to.

• 1:50:48

Does he also work for me, just to be clear?

• 1:50:51

He's a foreman.

• 1:50:52

He does, he does.

• 1:50:52

Technically he works for the city.

• 1:50:54

I am the city, I am the law.

• 1:50:57

I'm just kidding.

• 1:50:59

And this gentleman is the construction foreman,

• 1:51:02

so this is where players will get to go

• 1:51:03

to donate resources to the construction of a building.

• 1:51:07

Okay, all right, let's see here.

• 1:51:09

So he has nothing of nothing acquired.

• 1:51:12

Well, what is it you say you do here,

• 1:51:14

Mr. Construction Foreman?

• 1:51:15

He hasn't collected yet any resources?

• 1:51:18

Oh, you just initiated it.

• 1:51:21

Do I have to do everything myself?

• 1:51:22

Should I give him 100 of the oak log?

• 1:51:26

I mean, I think that's a fair thing to do.

• 1:51:28

All right, let us donate.

• 1:51:33

We shall donate to the foreman.

• 1:51:36

Oh, it's beginning to construct.

• 1:51:40

Now Bruno and Scott did a great job

• 1:51:44

with this construction animation and visual effects.

• 1:51:49

As you will see, you're gonna see

• 1:51:51

a sped up version of this here,

• 1:51:52

but typically Chris talked to me a little bit

• 1:51:54

about the time expectation for these types of projects,

• 1:51:58

and of course how that's a variable

• 1:52:00

depending on the stage of the node

• 1:52:02

and the building type itself.

• 1:52:04

Yeah, so we want this to be an exciting thing.

• 1:52:08

So once materials are kind of contributed to it

• 1:52:12

and it's ready to finish,

• 1:52:15

there's gonna be any kind of variable

• 1:52:17

from like 15 to 20 minutes to even a couple of days

• 1:52:21

for it to finish constructing,

• 1:52:23

depending on kind of the power

• 1:52:25

that the building offers to the players, right?

• 1:52:28

Very cool.

• 1:52:29

And James, Adam, Tristan, talk to me a little bit

• 1:52:34

about how you guys go about constructing

• 1:52:37

these different more modular sets of building creation

• 1:52:43

and what it takes to kind of master that

• 1:52:46

across the multiple different cultures

• 1:52:49

that we're anticipating to present within these villages.

• 1:52:56

You wanna take the one Adam?

• 1:52:57

Yeah, sure, I mean, it's a lot of trial and error,

• 1:52:59

but it took a lot of practice to figure out

• 1:53:04

what the correct size of the buildings and the plots,

• 1:53:08

the walls, the doors, all those things are,

• 1:53:11

and then to dial them in so that going forward,

• 1:53:14

any future races, it's all kind of somewhat plug and play,

• 1:53:19

as long as we're making them to those specs.

• 1:53:22

The big thing is the aesthetic

• 1:53:24

and how that will change between races,

• 1:53:27

which is, you know, still a work in progress,

• 1:53:30

but like in this, for example,

• 1:53:32

this one is a lot of Anglo-Saxon type architecture influence.

• 1:53:38

Yeah, the calar, absolutely.

• 1:53:39

Yeah, but that's how it works for the most part,

• 1:53:43

and it's all modular, so we can make these buildings

• 1:53:47

in mostly any size we want.

• 1:53:50

So it could reach all the way up to the sky,

• 1:53:52

multiple floors if we wanted to, not saying we would,

• 1:53:55

but, and that's the idea.

• 1:53:58

So then this right here will construct those pieces

• 1:54:03

for the player, one piece at a time.

• 1:54:05

Very cool, very cool.

• 1:54:08

Yeah, I love the, you know,

• 1:54:10

we previously had a different version of this in,

• 1:54:13

oh, look, it has little fireworks playing

• 1:54:16

above the building.

• 1:54:18

That's awesome.

• 1:54:19

So it's really, really cool.

• 1:54:21

So it's drawing attention kind of to the construction.

• 1:54:26

We had a version of this obviously in Alpha 1,

• 1:54:29

and, you know, that was very sped up

• 1:54:33

for what we were trying to accomplish there.

• 1:54:35

This technique is, you know, meant to more represent

• 1:54:39

that longer period of construction requirement.

• 1:54:44

Yeah, and a lot of what you see right now,

• 1:54:47

it's technically being generated procedurally

• 1:54:50

by the tech from our TechArt team,

• 1:54:52

which Bruno has been putting together,

• 1:54:55

which is like basically we kind of took an approach

• 1:54:58

similar to other games that you might see

• 1:55:00

in like strategy games and stuff like that.

• 1:55:01

So there's a scaffolding approach

• 1:55:03

that kind of builds things up and forms around,

• 1:55:05

and you'll see some people kind of working and hammering.

• 1:55:08

It's very rudimentary at this current point in time,

• 1:55:10

but yeah, no, the goal is to have it be

• 1:55:13

as versatile as possible so that when we actually need

• 1:55:16

to make a hundred of variations of these,

• 1:55:20

we don't have to sit there and make animations one by one,

• 1:55:23

which we did in the past,

• 1:55:26

which gets very complicated, very expensive,

• 1:55:27

but in this case, it's more of a procedural, you know,

• 1:55:30

you plug and play like that.

• 1:55:32

But I do want to clarify that we're not saying

• 1:55:36

that these nodes are fully procedurally generated.

• 1:55:40

It's the building aspect is,

• 1:55:43

but the nodes themselves still have a handmade aspect to it.

• 1:55:50

Right, correct, yeah.

• 1:55:52

This is all just for the construction phase,

• 1:55:53

so we can kind of have things done in a way

• 1:55:55

that feels natural, but it doesn't really take years

• 1:55:59

and years to actually complete the final product.

• 1:56:01

Right, awesome, absolutely.

• 1:56:04

Very, very impressive work.

• 1:56:06

So Chris, now that we have constructed this smithy,

• 1:56:11

what are we doing?

• 1:56:12

Do you have a little duckling following you?

• 1:56:14

The ducklings are very aggressive right now.

• 1:56:17

I have one following me right now.

• 1:56:18

Oh my God.

• 1:56:20

But that can be fixed.

• 1:56:22

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:56:25

Do it, do it.

• 1:56:26

Do it.

• 1:56:26

Do not kill that duck.

• 1:56:28

Do it now.

• 1:56:29

Do it.

• 1:56:29

Do not kill that duck.

• 1:56:31

Oh my God.

• 1:56:32

Oh God.

• 1:56:32

Oh God.

• 1:56:33

What are you doing?

• 1:56:34

Very aggressive.

• 1:56:36

What are you doing?

• 1:56:38

Did you just murder that duck?

• 1:56:40

Did you just murder that duck?

• 1:56:43

You monster.

• 1:56:44

You just murder our tax rate?

• 1:56:45

Just, oh my God, you can't kill innocent animals

• 1:56:48

over your disgruntledness tax rates.

• 1:56:50

I would say that's more for food for the village, but.

• 1:56:53

I'm, you know, rebellion.

• 1:56:55

I'm trying to.

• 1:56:55

What have you done?

• 1:56:58

You can't even eat that.

• 1:56:59

There's not valuable meat on this creature yet.

• 1:57:03

That was just, it's a.

• 1:57:04

I just got a hunting certificate, so.

• 1:57:07

Did you really?

• 1:57:08

Oh no.

• 1:57:08

Oh, you're dead.

• 1:57:09

Oh no.

• 1:57:10

Oh no.

• 1:57:11

The goddess of creation herself has smote you.

• 1:57:13

Fair enough.

• 1:57:14

Fair enough.

• 1:57:15

Fair enough.

• 1:57:16

Fair enough.

• 1:57:17

Fair enough.

• 1:57:18

Fair enough.

• 1:57:18

All right.

• 1:57:19

It need to be done.

• 1:57:20

Chris, what are we going to do with this smithy?

• 1:57:21

Well, what do you want to do?

• 1:57:22

We can do some armor smithing.

• 1:57:24

We can do some weapon smithing.

• 1:57:26

I honestly think after that heinous act against that duck,

• 1:57:30

you really needed some better weapons to defend

• 1:57:32

the beautiful creatures of this node.

• 1:57:35

Agreed.

• 1:57:36

I am so angry.

• 1:57:37

I could just scream.

• 1:57:39

Not at all.

• 1:57:40

Sorry, sorry.

• 1:57:42

Well, over here is the weapon smithing station.

• 1:57:45

All right, cool.

• 1:57:46

I was looking at this a little bit earlier.

• 1:57:48

Whoops, I turned off my UI.

• 1:57:50

All right, what do we have?

• 1:57:52

Well, I hear the artisanship team hooked you up

• 1:57:55

with the ability to make a blood sword.

• 1:57:59

Oh, do I have materials?

• 1:58:01

Ooh, I do have some materials.

• 1:58:03

What should we do?

• 1:58:04

Oh, the sandals of holding back.

• 1:58:06

It's like infinite space.

• 1:58:08

That is a GM back.

• 1:58:11

Okay, so I do have some materials.

• 1:58:12

What do we want to do with this material?

• 1:58:15

Oh, do you want a blood sword or not?

• 1:58:17

Well, I mean, I don't know.

• 1:58:19

Do I want a blood sword?

• 1:58:19

Is a blood sword good?

• 1:58:20

Is it better than what I already have?

• 1:58:22

Where's the blood sword?

• 1:58:23

Crystallized blood sword.

• 1:58:26

Okay, I see.

• 1:58:28

It's going to be a pretty spicy sword.

• 1:58:31

Okay, very cool.

• 1:58:38

Yeah, let's try this.

• 1:58:40

What are we going to do here?

• 1:58:41

So I already have the materials for it.

• 1:58:44

I just go to craft one quantity.

• 1:58:47

Hold on, it says I can't craft this.

• 1:58:49

Yes, you got to add your molds to it.

• 1:58:52

Oh.

• 1:58:53

Oh, I have selected my iron weapon mold

• 1:59:01

and I am using that mold and crafting.

• 1:59:09

Oh, I do have a crystal blood sword now.

• 1:59:11

I shall rule with a mighty fist.

• 1:59:13

Let me equip this.

• 1:59:17

Well, do I actually have, oh, I do have it.

• 1:59:19

Oh, okay, that's pretty sweet.

• 1:59:25

I like that.

• 1:59:27

Oh, it looks great.

• 1:59:29

Very cool.

• 1:59:31

All right, so now that we have constructed this building,

• 1:59:35

there are also a number of upgrade paths

• 1:59:38

that players can utilize to specialize the building further.

• 1:59:41

We previewed that in the tech tree for the building

• 1:59:43

and each building comes with that sort of customizable

• 1:59:47

path of upgrades that are possible.

• 1:59:50

And those continue to give the node a higher specialization

• 1:59:56

which makes it relevant for player traffic.

• 1:59:59

Right, and the idea with that too is

• 2:00:02

no one node can do anything, right?

• 2:00:04

So it kind of is leaning into this idea

• 2:00:07

that you need to travel your goods around the world

• 2:00:11

and go to a lot of places to do a lot of things, right?

• 2:00:14

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

• 2:00:18

This is a beautiful, I mean, gosh, this is just,

• 2:00:21

I love the atmospherics.

• 2:00:24

I love the more nature-oriented aspects

• 2:00:26

of the interior of the node.

• 2:00:28

Now, this node, Tristan and Adam James,

• 2:00:32

this has a bit more topography

• 2:00:35

than what we were seeing in Alpha 1.

• 2:00:38

Talk to me a little bit about the types of node templates

• 2:00:43

and footprints that we are leveraging

• 2:00:47

with the design of these villages and cities.

• 2:00:52

Yeah, so there should be kind of a handful

• 2:00:56

of different types that you'll experience in the world

• 2:00:58

and they all have their different benefits.

• 2:01:01

But in this case, we kind of have

• 2:01:02

a plateau landscape layout for this one.

• 2:01:06

It's not like you said, the flat landscapes

• 2:01:09

that we've done in the past.

• 2:01:10

We've also got ones that will be like rivers

• 2:01:13

flowing through it and as well as like being nudged up

• 2:01:16

against say like a body of water

• 2:01:19

or like a cliff face sort of style.

• 2:01:22

So in this case, it's, this is a pretty,

• 2:01:24

one of the more basic versions that you'll see

• 2:01:27

for the current layout styles that we have, but yeah.

• 2:01:31

Yeah.

• 2:01:31

I don't know that the node itself will have its own type

• 2:01:34

that's best suited to develop into,

• 2:01:38

I think this one's an academic node.

• 2:01:41

Yeah, this one is academic.

• 2:01:42

So I see we have a kind of a placeholder node

• 2:01:46

type building here.

• 2:01:48

That's the town hall.

• 2:01:49

Oh, is that the town hall?

• 2:01:50

I apologize.

• 2:01:51

This is the placeholder one over here,

• 2:01:53

the kind of Citadel looking one, yeah?

• 2:01:54

Yep.

• 2:01:55

Yeah, that is a work in progress.

• 2:01:58

So we have that standing in for now.

• 2:02:00

Beautiful.

• 2:02:01

So this is kind of where all the activities take place

• 2:02:03

for citizenship interactions, the pain,

• 2:02:06

the paying of these dues,

• 2:02:08

the opportunity for players to kind of interface

• 2:02:11

with their local government

• 2:02:12

and the custom request arcs that are available

• 2:02:15

based off of the surrounding POIs.

• 2:02:19

Up here is kind of the city center, so to speak.

• 2:02:23

Right.

• 2:02:24

Right, this is where elections happen, right?

• 2:02:29

Normally.

• 2:02:30

Normally.

• 2:02:31

Normally.

• 2:02:32

Normally.

• 2:02:33

Normally.

• 2:02:34

Normally.

• 2:02:35

When you don't GM command yourself mayor.

• 2:02:38

Wow, unbelievable.

• 2:02:40

I just sat down, you guys told me to GM myself mayor.

• 2:02:44

This is also a place where punishments could happen.

• 2:02:47

Oh, where's that?

• 2:02:50

Are there like gallows over here or something?

• 2:02:52

Yeah.

• 2:02:52

Are you threatening the mayor?

• 2:02:54

Yeah, is that the type of mayor that I am?

• 2:02:55

Do I just have like public hangings or something?

• 2:02:57

I mean, if you're that type of mayor,

• 2:02:59

you could just hang anyone, anyone.

• 2:03:01

Unbelievable.

• 2:03:02

Depends upon who messes with the ducklings, that's all.

• 2:03:04

Yep.

• 2:03:06

I gotta go.

• 2:03:10

I noticed that we have a bit of homage

• 2:03:12

that we're paying to the, excuse me,

• 2:03:15

to the windmill monster that many players experienced

• 2:03:17

in our pre-alpha testing.

• 2:03:19

You guys remember that?

• 2:03:20

That was like two days straight

• 2:03:22

of us getting stuck at a loading screen

• 2:03:24

back in like 2018, 2017.

• 2:03:27

That was a fun time.

• 2:03:30

I love the windmill.

• 2:03:31

A mimic the size of a windmill would be pretty.

• 2:03:34

I think we actually did turn,

• 2:03:36

so at some point we updated that image

• 2:03:38

to be a windmill monster that was eating

• 2:03:41

pre-alpha players when they tried to drive.

• 2:03:43

That was great.

• 2:03:44

It was really good.

• 2:03:45

Oh, it's beautiful.

• 2:03:46

This is absolutely beautiful.

• 2:03:48

So, you know what?

• 2:03:53

I would like to thank each of you

• 2:03:55

for showing our players the update to Nodes.

• 2:04:01

This is one of the, one of many updates

• 2:04:03

that players will be seeing over the course

• 2:04:06

of the next time till alpha two.

• 2:04:10

And as it relates to kind of the systems design

• 2:04:13

of these Nodes showcasing the core loops

• 2:04:17

with the mayors helping to initiate buy orders

• 2:04:21

as well as commissions in order

• 2:04:22

to generate these node commodities,

• 2:04:24

these node inventory items by which then the node utilizes

• 2:04:29

to kick off certain either events

• 2:04:31

or service building constructions

• 2:04:34

that create an additional loop

• 2:04:36

for players to participate in.

• 2:04:38

I think that this is very exciting

• 2:04:40

that the node is absolutely beautiful

• 2:04:42

and it hits the aesthetic that we want.

• 2:04:44

But what's most important is to get your guys' feedback

• 2:04:47

in the community, you guys as our players,

• 2:04:50

giving us your thoughts about the visual fidelity

• 2:04:53

that these villages are representing.

• 2:04:55

You'll have an opportunity to see additional node stages

• 2:04:59

as we progress.

• 2:05:00

This is a lot of work that the environment team

• 2:05:02

has been doing a phenomenal job in my opinion in creating,

• 2:05:07

but you guys need to give us your thoughts.

• 2:05:09

You like what you see here, what can be done better.

• 2:05:11

And then we are going to chat a little bit more

• 2:05:15

about some of the system changes that we have introduced

• 2:05:18

as part of our road to alpha two, as it relates to the Nodes.

• 2:05:23

So, yes, go ahead.

• 2:05:25

Is this Nodes part four or part five?

• 2:05:27

This is, I don't know, this is, you're going to kill me.

• 2:05:35

This is not yet Nodes part four, but this is getting close.

• 2:05:40

No, you guys did a great job.

• 2:05:42

Oh yeah, I'm sure everyone will get that reference there.

• 2:05:44

Yes, exactly.

• 2:05:46

But Chris and I will be joining you guys in just a moment

• 2:05:49

to talk a little bit more in detail

• 2:05:51

about these systems in just a moment.

• 2:05:54

Thanks guys for joining us, appreciate it.

• 2:05:56

Thank you. Thank you.

• 2:05:58

Bye. Bye.

• 2:06:07

Seems like people enjoyed it.

• 2:06:10

I'll be playing the video in the background

• 2:06:11

whilst we continue to chat.

• 2:06:14

There were some questions in the channel that,

• 2:06:18

or in various channels, all the places,

• 2:06:20

we've accumulated them. All the places.

• 2:06:22

Our community managers are hot on the trail

• 2:06:24

and of course social media.

• 2:06:26

The first one here is, can Node NPCs be customized?

• 2:06:29

If so, what kinds of customization options are there

• 2:06:32

and can NPCs be upgraded with things like crafted gear?

• 2:06:37

Yeah, so there are a group of NPC types

• 2:06:40

that can be customized.

• 2:06:41

Those are the mercenaries and the guards

• 2:06:44

that defend the Node against events and sieges.

• 2:06:47

Those customization options are conferred

• 2:06:50

through utilizing upgrades within buildings

• 2:06:52

like the barracks.

• 2:06:54

But if we're talking about appearance,

• 2:06:56

can I change their hair or their facials?

• 2:06:59

That is not something that is provided to the players.

• 2:07:02

Can we cook duck soup?

• 2:07:04

No, I'm just kidding. That's another question on here.

• 2:07:07

The chat was just losing it.

• 2:07:08

And the apples, the guy hammering the apples.

• 2:07:11

Clearly there are bugs.

• 2:07:13

It's Applesmith. It's Applesmith.

• 2:07:15

Applesmith, yes.

• 2:07:17

Granny Applesmith.

• 2:07:18

No, can you kill... Oh, go ahead.

• 2:07:21

Just to touch on what you said.

• 2:07:24

Clearly there are bugs.

• 2:07:25

Absolutely, guys.

• 2:07:26

Always remember when somebody out there

• 2:07:29

who's perhaps not watching development as closely

• 2:07:32

as our core audience is,

• 2:07:34

expressing to them that this is work towards Alpha 2,

• 2:07:37

things are work in progress, there's going to be bugs,

• 2:07:39

you're going to see weird things.

• 2:07:41

That's the whole process of development.

• 2:07:44

We're showing you a slice that we bring up

• 2:07:47

to a little bit more level of what some would say

• 2:07:51

is polish, right? Exactly.

• 2:07:53

Higher fidelity so that we can get a good amount of feedback

• 2:07:57

from the community and you guys are not obstructed

• 2:07:59

by things like visual fidelity.

• 2:08:04

Because sometimes we set buildings up in a node

• 2:08:07

and it's all gray boxes, right?

• 2:08:08

Like we don't show you guys that because we're playing around

• 2:08:11

with layouts and ideas and how the flow feels

• 2:08:15

and then sieges and level design.

• 2:08:18

But we don't show you that because it doesn't...

• 2:08:20

It's a difficult barrier.

• 2:08:22

That, exactly.

• 2:08:23

The gray boxing and the prototyping,

• 2:08:27

for those who are not in a line of development work,

• 2:08:30

it's a difficult barrier to make it past that visual,

• 2:08:34

that dissonance there.

• 2:08:37

So that's why we bring things and we showcase

• 2:08:39

these systems and whatnot.

• 2:08:41

We bring it up to a digestible level.

• 2:08:44

We try.

• 2:08:47

Two hour digestion.

• 2:08:48

You know, it's a process.

• 2:08:51

Next one here is, can you kill guards at a node?

• 2:08:55

I know we've talked a little bit about this,

• 2:08:56

but they wanna know, can citizens kill guards

• 2:08:58

at their own node?

• 2:08:59

How effective are guards in combat

• 2:09:02

in order to protect citizens?

• 2:09:05

Guards are capable of being killed.

• 2:09:07

However, that is a very tall barrier to surpass.

• 2:09:10

Meaning that their skill level is relatively high.

• 2:09:14

Their damage mitigation, their output and power.

• 2:09:17

Those things are very difficult to overcome,

• 2:09:20

but they can be killed.

• 2:09:21

And again, you can upgrade guards through policies,

• 2:09:25

through upgrades within the barracks structures,

• 2:09:28

and you can even place mercenaries and guards

• 2:09:31

ahead of certain events.

• 2:09:33

All right.

• 2:09:35

And the next one here is, can node to node,

• 2:09:39

well, I guess following up on that,

• 2:09:42

in sieges, will guards be more active

• 2:09:45

or are they gonna play a more passive role?

• 2:09:48

During sieges, guards and the...

• 2:09:54

Merchants and NPCs.

• 2:09:56

No, no, no.

• 2:09:57

Yeah, non-combat NPCs are despawned during sieges,

• 2:10:01

unless they're relevant from an objective perspective.

• 2:10:04

And then combat NPCs, which include the garrison,

• 2:10:08

which is a military detachment that gets spawned

• 2:10:10

based on the upgrade choices that the barracks

• 2:10:12

have been made, and the existing guard populations

• 2:10:15

will be present to participate in the siege

• 2:10:17

from an AI perspective.

• 2:10:19

Okay.

• 2:10:20

Sorry, I just wanna add that little bit on there,

• 2:10:21

because I think they were asking about sieges too.

• 2:10:24

Can node to node trade supply some of the commodities

• 2:10:27

that are not present in the node that starts the buy order?

• 2:10:31

Okay.

• 2:10:32

And does that trigger a caravan between the nodes?

• 2:10:35

Correct.

• 2:10:36

So mayoral caravans, which I'm not sure

• 2:10:38

we've elaborated too much on.

• 2:10:41

We've talked about it.

• 2:10:43

Yeah, essentially what happens is,

• 2:10:44

mayors who need certain resources

• 2:10:47

that either they don't have enough of,

• 2:10:49

or that they're prospectively investing in,

• 2:10:52

they will initiate a mayor request.

• 2:10:56

And any node that sees that request

• 2:11:00

on the mayoral node, excuse me,

• 2:11:04

the mayoral caravan dropdown menu,

• 2:11:06

will have an opportunity to attempt

• 2:11:09

to fulfill the trade request.

• 2:11:12

In order to fulfill a trade request,

• 2:11:14

a node must have a certain level of relationship

• 2:11:18

with that requesting node.

• 2:11:20

At a minimum, it has to be a trade agreement relationship.

• 2:11:24

And then there's a limited number

• 2:11:25

of those trade relationships that you can have.

• 2:11:27

And that scales up to eventually alliance perspective.

• 2:11:31

And then once the node requesting mayor

• 2:11:35

accepts a potential fill order,

• 2:11:38

then a system spawned caravan is generated

• 2:11:42

and the transit is completed.

• 2:11:44

And players can participate

• 2:11:46

in helping to defend that or not.

• 2:11:48

And we'll have more information about caravans

• 2:11:50

coming up in a future live stream.

• 2:11:51

So stay tuned for that. Yes, very soon, very soon.

• 2:11:56

Then the next one is, can we see the empty plots

• 2:11:59

so that we can plan out the physical placement of buildings?

• 2:12:04

Can you see the empty plots?

• 2:12:06

Yes, there will be a node map

• 2:12:09

that players will have access to within the UI.

• 2:12:13

And on that map, you'll be able to see the plot locations.

• 2:12:18

Yeah, and you can see them in the world too.

• 2:12:20

Like if you walk around, you can tell that less space

• 2:12:22

is used for a building, like a governmental building.

• 2:12:26

Yeah.

• 2:12:27

And then the next, oh, I think there's a follow-up to this.

• 2:12:32

Can you choose where to place them?

• 2:12:33

So we talked about this earlier in regards to that,

• 2:12:36

which is there are designated plots,

• 2:12:38

but the mayor can choose which plots to place them in.

• 2:12:42

And so what Stephen had stated before

• 2:12:43

is that there's some strategy to this, right?

• 2:12:45

If there's a plot that's close to a gate

• 2:12:47

and there's a plot that's further inland

• 2:12:49

in the middle of your node,

• 2:12:50

maybe you wanna be strategic about which buildings

• 2:12:53

you place near the door,

• 2:12:55

because those ones might get destroyed faster.

• 2:12:58

And then if a siege happens and it gets destroyed,

• 2:13:02

now you're having to put more resources into that to fix it,

• 2:13:05

to bring it back up to a non-disarrayed status,

• 2:13:11

because you wanna be able to use it, right?

• 2:13:13

Yeah, and basically just the quick answer there

• 2:13:16

is of course, plots exist within the node

• 2:13:19

and all buildings can be placed in any plot.

• 2:13:22

All right.

• 2:13:24

And then is the game time requirement,

• 2:13:28

the two million days in game time or real time?

• 2:13:32

Clearly not.

• 2:13:33

No, that was a bug.

• 2:13:35

I was just making jest of that.

• 2:13:37

And again, to reiterate, the UI is very work in progress.

• 2:13:41

You are seeing what is the version of our functional UI,

• 2:13:45

which is not representative of our artistic UI,

• 2:13:48

which is player facing.

• 2:13:49

It'd be cool if the mayor could be like,

• 2:13:51

hey, I want this to be done within this timeframe.

• 2:13:54

And they have like a window that they can choose between,

• 2:13:56

it would be cool.

• 2:13:57

That is dictated by the type of building

• 2:13:59

that's being constructed.

• 2:14:00

So each building has its own associated construction rate,

• 2:14:05

or time, and that can be augmented by certain effects,

• 2:14:10

some of which can be conferred through policies as well

• 2:14:12

that give you longer construction times.

• 2:14:14

So those policies could mean

• 2:14:16

that you construct things faster,

• 2:14:18

but the more powerful the building is expected

• 2:14:21

to probably take more time.

• 2:14:24

Correct. Is that a good annotation?

• 2:14:25

Okay, cool.

• 2:14:27

And I think that's it for the major ones from the chat.

• 2:14:29

I know we're gonna have a million.

• 2:14:31

We'll be here all day if we answer all the questions.

• 2:14:33

So we do wanna let you all go at some point.

• 2:14:37

So we're gonna do a quick studio update

• 2:14:40

if you don't mind, Stephen.

• 2:14:42

Absolutely, a studio update.

• 2:14:45

Things are going very well here at the studio.

• 2:14:47

We continue to grow with, of course,

• 2:14:50

your guys' help out in the community,

• 2:14:51

spreading the word for Ashes of Creation,

• 2:14:53

especially our content creators,

• 2:14:55

and those of you who are our de facto headhunters

• 2:15:03

that talk about Ashes on social media and whatnot.

• 2:15:08

We have a number of listed positions still available.

• 2:15:11

We show that on social media as well.

• 2:15:14

Anybody who is watching this that's a developer

• 2:15:17

that might be interested in potentially applying

• 2:15:18

for the team, you can always visit our company website

• 2:15:21

at intrepidstudios.com and take a look

• 2:15:23

at what roles are available.

• 2:15:24

Slash Careers for the list of jobs.

• 2:15:26

Slash Careers, yes.

• 2:15:27

Our hearts go out 100% to some of the studios

• 2:15:30

that we've been seeing having layoffs recently.

• 2:15:34

That is always a very sad sight to see.

• 2:15:35

This is a very close-knit and small industry.

• 2:15:39

And many of the people who are a part

• 2:15:41

of these development studios are there

• 2:15:43

because of a sheer passion that they have

• 2:15:46

as being one of us, a gamer,

• 2:15:48

and wanting to make something that can make you guys,

• 2:15:52

their communities happy.

• 2:15:54

And it is just a very sad thing to see sometimes

• 2:15:56

when these studios get closed down,

• 2:15:58

either through mismanagement or through whatever.

• 2:16:02

And we're trying on our end to have some scalable solutions

• 2:16:06

in place for things like that.

• 2:16:07

Because we understand in development,

• 2:16:09

there's times where, hey, you need a lot of QA

• 2:16:11

or a lot of CS or influx of artists

• 2:16:14

for certain types of things,

• 2:16:15

but you don't need them for the longevity

• 2:16:17

of the entire project.

• 2:16:18

And so coming up with solutions that are like contractual

• 2:16:21

or things like that can really aid in that.

• 2:16:23

So it's not like, hey, people are getting laid off

• 2:16:27

left and right.

• 2:16:28

I think, again, that's something that we're trying

• 2:16:30

to be conscious of at Intrepid Studios as we grow.

• 2:16:33

And like Stephen has said a million times,

• 2:16:35

we are trying to grow smartly and only get people

• 2:16:38

in the roles that we really need at the time.

• 2:16:40

So that means that some teams are wearing many hats

• 2:16:42

because that's what that life is like.

• 2:16:45

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 2:16:48

We have over 150 developers now at Intrepid

• 2:16:51

and that touch the project in some way, shape or form

• 2:16:54

here in San Diego.

• 2:16:55

We are continuing to hire, so send people our way,

• 2:16:58

good people our way.

• 2:16:59

Send them our way.

• 2:17:02

And of course, we did like a potluck this month.

• 2:17:05

It's been fun.

• 2:17:06

The studio, we're constantly always trying to celebrate

• 2:17:10

the little things, the little moments that we have

• 2:17:11

internally with our internal milestones too,

• 2:17:14

because that's a good morale boost.

• 2:17:15

And just the teams in general have been kicking butts.

• 2:17:19

So sending love to all of them.

• 2:17:21

If we can get some little hearts in chat for our developers,

• 2:17:25

one of the things that I always say is like,

• 2:17:27

it's so hard when you hear players say,

• 2:17:29

oh, the developers don't care because deep down,

• 2:17:32

the ones who are working day in and out, we care a lot.

• 2:17:34

And yes, sometimes things don't always go the way

• 2:17:36

that we expect, but we're trying.

• 2:17:39

And at least Intrepid here, we care a lot.

• 2:17:42

Absolutely.

• 2:17:43

And just to give a shout out, guys,

• 2:17:45

I know I was watching chat, you guys,

• 2:17:47

it seemed that the sentiment was resoundingly positive

• 2:17:51

with regards to the visual direction

• 2:17:52

that the nodes are taking.

• 2:17:54

Just wanna give a shout out to our art team in particular,

• 2:17:58

our tech artists and our environment team,

• 2:18:02

Tristan, who's their lead.

• 2:18:04

They all do a phenomenal job.

• 2:18:05

Zachary, Scott, John, James, Hans, Hal, Charlie,

• 2:18:09

Cameron, Brandon, Brianna, Ayoung, Adam and Adam,

• 2:18:12

you guys have done a phenomenal job.

• 2:18:15

Brian as well, and Bruno, just big hearts in chat for them.

• 2:18:20

They slave away at making us the visuals

• 2:18:24

that we all wanna see, quality level in the games

• 2:18:27

that we spend a majority of our time in, our free time in.

• 2:18:30

And it is one thing to have an artist working on something,

• 2:18:34

it's another thing to have a passionate individual

• 2:18:36

who wants to play in a world they're creating.

• 2:18:39

And I feel very, very privileged and blessed.

• 2:18:43

And I express the sentiment on behalf of our community,

• 2:18:46

our team of developers, artists and all,

• 2:18:49

continue to strive and do an amazing job.

• 2:18:51

So very well done Intrepid.

• 2:18:53

I think that this was a great moment for the community

• 2:18:56

to see the direction that nodes take.

• 2:18:58

We are the node game.

• 2:19:00

This is a fundamental world building aspect

• 2:19:02

that MMOs have not historically seen

• 2:19:05

or had an opportunity to leverage or utilize

• 2:19:09

to the degree that we are doing so.

• 2:19:13

To a degree, that's the risk that is Ashes of Creation,

• 2:19:16

what will players do with this newfound power?

• 2:19:18

But at the same time, I feel it's the most appealing one.

• 2:19:21

And so for that, big props to the team

• 2:19:24

and for you guys out in the community

• 2:19:26

giving us your feedback and joining us on this journey.

• 2:19:30

Speaking of the community, we are gonna grab some Q&A,

• 2:19:32

but of course we do have a thread up.

• 2:19:35

And while we do that, I'll play more of the video.

• 2:19:38

But we do have a thread up right now for feedback.

• 2:19:40

Please give us your feedback in regards to nodes,

• 2:19:43

the village node update that we provided with you.

• 2:19:45

And we will have the 4K video up on YouTube as well,

• 2:19:48

as per usual.

• 2:19:50

Shortly after. Shortly after, so stay tuned.

• 2:19:53

So with the questions, the first one here is from Gaul

• 2:19:56

about potion chugging.

• 2:19:58

What is the intent? And I know we,

• 2:19:59

Oh, go ahead. And just real quick Margaret,

• 2:20:00

I know we have a lot of these questions,

• 2:20:02

but I do have a hard stop at 1.30.

• 2:20:05

I thought we were only gonna be two hours.

• 2:20:06

So maybe just grab the top three.

• 2:20:07

Okay, I'll grab the top three.

• 2:20:09

So the first one is about potion chugging.

• 2:20:12

What is the intent for potion consumption

• 2:20:14

during active combat?

• 2:20:15

Will we chug potions regularly

• 2:20:18

or will there be a moderate cool down?

• 2:20:21

Yeah, there will be a cool down for potion use.

• 2:20:24

It is intended that potions are relevant during combat.

• 2:20:27

There will be a mixture of potion use

• 2:20:30

as well as meals and or drinks.

• 2:20:33

That's something we'll get into a little bit in the future,

• 2:20:34

the differences between those things

• 2:20:36

and what types of benefits they confer

• 2:20:37

because they are unique to the type.

• 2:20:39

But there will also be tiers

• 2:20:42

of these different types of things.

• 2:20:44

And those tiers will share cool down.

• 2:20:46

So you might have a very strong potion

• 2:20:50

and a very minor potion.

• 2:20:51

They'll have separate cool downs

• 2:20:53

that they share with their same tier.

• 2:20:58

So the intent is not to spam potions during combat.

• 2:21:01

The intent is to be tactical in the use of these potions

• 2:21:05

because you do not have an unlimited ability.

• 2:21:07

Right, and then Sun Garden wants to know

• 2:21:10

about mounted combat.

• 2:21:11

How will it be evident to players in a PVP scenario

• 2:21:15

what types of abilities they might anticipate

• 2:21:18

from an enemy's mount if its owner has a skin

• 2:21:21

of another breed applied to it?

• 2:21:24

Sure, great question.

• 2:21:27

So mount abilities are really meant

• 2:21:30

to be a learned information source.

• 2:21:34

This is not meant to be something

• 2:21:35

that I can look at a mount and know

• 2:21:39

without interacting with that individual, that player,

• 2:21:42

what that mount is capable of doing.

• 2:21:44

And as such, when they have skins,

• 2:21:46

excuse me, when they have skins applied,

• 2:21:50

whether it be through in-game earned

• 2:21:52

or through cosmetic purchase,

• 2:21:54

you will get a learning for what that mount does

• 2:21:56

by observing its use case and taking that knowledge

• 2:22:00

that you have learned forward with you.

• 2:22:03

All right, and the next question here

• 2:22:06

is about node citizenship,

• 2:22:07

and this comes from Rinald and Azare on the forums.

• 2:22:12

And they wanna know, can a player be stripped

• 2:22:14

of node citizenship by any player agency

• 2:22:18

other than node destruction, for example,

• 2:22:21

being exiled by some government process?

• 2:22:23

If so, what happens to their house?

• 2:22:26

No, they cannot be, there is no player agency function

• 2:22:30

that allows for a citizen to be dismissed from a node.

• 2:22:36

All right, and that is it.

• 2:22:39

Oh my gosh.

• 2:22:40

We did it. We made it to the end.

• 2:22:42

It has been a long journey, but thank you all so much.

• 2:22:45

The weight is off my shoulders now.

• 2:22:47

I know, I was having like

• 2:22:49

a little heart palpitations at the beginning.

• 2:22:51

But I always do that before the streams, I get so nervous.

• 2:22:56

Don't forget that Steven will be joining

• 2:22:58

the discussion round on September 10th.

• 2:23:01

That will be streamed at twitch.tv slash Yo-kai Theater.

• 2:23:03

We'll be making sure that you're aware

• 2:23:05

of all of these things on all of the social channels.

• 2:23:07

So make sure you follow us so that you don't miss out.

• 2:23:10

There's gonna be a lot of answers, I'm sure,

• 2:23:12

about node things and variety of other stuff, we'll see.

• 2:23:14

And of course, please head on over to our forums

• 2:23:17

to leave us feedback.

• 2:23:18

We're very diligent about making reports

• 2:23:20

for our development team.

• 2:23:22

And you can find that at forums.ashesofcreation.com.

• 2:23:26

And of course, we do have the None Forgotten Cosmetics

• 2:23:28

swap over that's happening on September 13th at 11 a.m.

• 2:23:32

where our last cosmetics set will be swapped over.

• 2:23:35

So that will be our September set.

• 2:23:37

And there will be an FAQ with that set

• 2:23:39

giving you further details.

• 2:23:40

But if you have any questions, make sure you let us know

• 2:23:42

so that we can ensure those are in our FAQ.

• 2:23:46

We do have an FAQ in the August one,

• 2:23:47

so check that first to make sure the question's

• 2:23:49

not already answered.

• 2:23:51

And of course, we would like to thank you all for joining us.

• 2:23:55

We hope that you enjoyed this, that you stuck around with,

• 2:23:57

but that you were hydrated and walked a little bit during it.

• 2:24:02

But we also want to thank Bucky, Chris, James, Tristan,

• 2:24:05

Adam, and of course, Steven for their time

• 2:24:08

because these do take a little bit of time.

• 2:24:10

And we hope that everyone stays safe and healthy

• 2:24:13

and that you follow us on all of the things.

• 2:24:15

We are Ashes of Creation in every place

• 2:24:17

that you can think of.

• 2:24:18

Give us some love over in all those spaces.

• 2:24:20

We try our best to keep content and, you know,

• 2:24:22

keep you filled with some Ashes of Creation

• 2:24:25

content almost daily.

• 2:24:26

So come hang out with us over on our social platforms

• 2:24:30

and we will all see you next month.

• 2:24:34

Bye guys.

• 2:24:34

Toodles.

• 2:24:36

Shhh.

• 2:24:37

Shhh.

• 2:24:38

Shhh.

• 2:24:39

Shhh.

• 2:24:39

Shhh.

• 2:24:40

Shhh.

• 2:24:41

Shhh.

• 2:24:42

Shhh.

• 2:24:43

Shhh.

• 2:24:44

Shhh.

• 2:24:44

Shhh.

• 2:24:45

Shhh.

• 2:24:46

Shhh.

• 2:24:47

Shhh.

• 2:24:48

Shhh.