Talk:2017-01-10 First Q&A Session With Devs

Fonte: Ashes of Creation Wiki
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Oh [Music] yeah yeah it is it has it has started all right so our first Q&A session pretty exciting yeah this is um Peter over here hi Peter hey hey this is Stephen hi hi Stephen pretty good this is weird your name again um Jeff yeah yeah right I do it man Matt over here right Matt otherwise known as big no worries on that alright introductions alright so we asked the community to give us some questions that we could answer in this discussion what are some of the questions that they gave us Matt well we pulled a couple of them out and you think well there's some good you know some good points we get in here so let's just go down first one we got is from the dark crimson dark crimson okay I'm gonna paraphrase most of them I never they want quote everybody but he's pretty much asking you know how does a game flow if we don't include factions you know a lot of Western players are kind of alienated to the fact that if there's no predefined sides for them they don't really know you know what their motivations are right so so we want to take how do we feel about that yeah I think that's actually a really good question you know personally I played a lot of M Mo's as I know you guys have and I've always been I always felt restricted whenever I was a part of a game that assigned me to a faction you know like I felt I was missing out on half the community that was involved in that game and and a lot of the aspect of a massively multiplayer game like MMO czar is being able to choose your path who you want to play with forging alliances and kind of the politics the the intrigue that's involved with playing the game with so many other people and I felt factions kind of limited that so I like that at Ashes of Creation we're really focusing on allowing the community to drive their own path in those factions so to speak you know with players making guilds and right right totally I mean it's it's not like we're going to be leaving players to kind of you know decide oh I walk into the game you know who is my side we're going to be putting in things to help people create their own identities one of those things is our node system people are going to to set up in cities and those cities will be their own faction of a sort right um we kind of want to get away from the word faction but but people will have a way to say ah this is my identity and that's the other side and that might change over time you know your city might get destroyed you might go to another city somewhere else you create new friends new alliances and things will constantly be shifting which which I think will be cool for the long-term health of the game and I think that's another aspect of a non faction based game that's that's intriguing which is that there is a possibility for change right you know if you're playing a game that's faction based you're really you're set there in that faction and there's no movement and how meaningful is that faction anyway it turns into this thing of like blue players versus red players and there's not a lot of like identity there there's no okay I'm with the elves what does that mean well there's not really any mechanisms to help me like interact with that yeah I'm here you know you'll have like a battle leader a guy who you know is rallying the troops it's not gonna be some NPC who's dialog doesn't get updated you know for years and and it will stay relevant throughout the course of the game for sure a faction seemed like a very Brooke choice and I think like our focus in general is giving a more fluid choice because choosing who you play with and where you play is much more nuanced than like you said red versus blue right absolutely and it kind of coincides with the whole overarching message that ashes is trying to convey which is player choice should be paramount when you're involving this many players right right there shouldn't be restrictions in that regard philosophically we want to stay far away from us telling you what to do as far as when letting you decide what you want to do but also giving you mechanics that you can play with right right a structure there that's loose enough to to make those choices but structured enough to give you game opportunity's correct yeah good question dark crimson okay well on that speaking of the node system and a lot of rep players are reading to our recent dev journal out and cool people are interested on if the world is built from the ground up by them really because I mean it's empty is I mean there's nothing there so we have a question from Jace and he's essentially asking you know will there be things in the world will there be POS or points of interest hmm it's a good question absolutely um you know it's it's so when we say the world is going to be you know tabula rasa it's going to be a place for people to go out and kind of like plant their flag and start to grow civilization that doesn't mean that nothing existed before the players arrived there is a big backlog of lore that we have of what happened on this planet before the players come here and those are going to be part of the p/y system the point of interest system the quest system and just places that should be interesting and exciting for people to discover um there is a history to this world and part of the game is going to be discovering that history so there's maybe plenty of interesting things out there in the wood yeah I think it's less of a fact that there's a blank canvas and more of the fact that you have a lot of paint to work with and creating your own picture yeah absolutely I mean so like you know when players move out into the world they're not moving into emptiness they're moving into a wilderness that has these storylines that you can uncover these these items that you can find these treasures you come across and then you can build upon when you reach that area right so you know blank canvas not so much more along the lines of there are many different paths that a community can choose from and move down that path right right it's civilization that's not there it doesn't mean that there's not a world out there to explore so we give you that first layer right and there's a lot of stuff to do in that layer but then as players develop the world more and more layers get added and more more gameplay opportunities get created because of the push-pull between players in addition to the feedback we're giving to you in the world itself I think the you know the words player development it's the players are developing the world but like you guys said that doesn't mean it's blank that might be like balls but don't think that so it's more that there are going to be dungeons in the world or points of interest you know things like wizard towers or mines and you know woods to run through that are going to attract people and right maybe become hubs for these people but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's completely blank and that they're making every inch of the game recommend you know right you've got a job to do to it we're gonna do it good question Jase how's it safe chase chase chase JY c ua j AC e yeah Jesse James Walker alright well um tangentially related to that we have a question for or from rather Osito Osito forgive me if i'm get your name wrong which i probably am but he's curious essentially you know what do large guilds have access to what do those player organizations that spring up you know ground roots and people get themselves organized what are they gonna go out there and do what are they gonna you know be filling their game time with it's good question I think that it's been pretty common in MMOs that a lot of content for guild play focuses around large guilds and I think what we're trying to do is make sure that there's content that focuses both on small guilds medium guilds and large guilds and we show that through a lot of the mechanics that are available to this guild play whether it be leveling up the guild for certain skills or taking castles or participating in founding these nodes and towns there's there's really a a lot of focus on creating content for groups of players whether it be small or large to participate in as a community both the broad community of the game and their local community of their guild and that's something we're going to probably hear over and over again is like the local gameplay versus the global gameplay the the micro gameplay of the individual player versus the group gameplay of guilds and the rest of the world you know guilds will bite guilds guilds will recruit other guilds to help them fight guilds there's a lot of like you know layers to it that that there's going to be plenty of content for you do a lot of really exciting content I mean you mentioned taking castles right castles are going to be huge and influential and I think it's going to be a pretty big trip to watch people fight over them and and find ways of taking advantage of them so I know me personally when we used to play lineage to those Castle sieges were like the epitome of the two week 4 week period where you would see hundreds and or even sometimes thousands of players on the battlefield you know if your machine could struggle through it but but I mean being able just to see that type of participation in an event is something that really only guilds can can organize to an extent right and just because a guild organizes it doesn't mean that other people who are not part of that guild can absolutely they just I think that's one thing that we try to get away from is that the the castle sieges of old seem to be these huge massive events only and we try to make a lot of mechanics that are scalable so right you could have an individual player participating in events that are just as influential and it's fun as large Gil is participating in these huge world events right you know it could be a band of 10 guilds participating in one event instead of maybe these two massive server guilds that sometimes happen guilds will have a lot of activity driven mechanics in the game that focus on on changing the world and impacting the world around them and it's not going to be just restricted to the large gilt you know it'll be at a scalable level like Peter was saying including castles you know right um and nodes and I mean there's lots of I mean at its core right a guild is just an organization of people right and as your guild level so if you'll get perks but there are things that are extra guild that are similar to that write the node provides I guess we're talking about things outside no guild so we should really just focus on what the guilds can do so I mean guilds will have levels and skills you know the guilds participation in events in the world will help to load that guild up guilds will be able to have hols right have guild halls within nodes housing didn't they'll be able to dedicate you know time spent on developing nodes mmm-hmm to have guild specific buildings and guild specific quests within the nodes right participating in the government of nodes through a hall yep mmm-hmm the castle system of course very big guild there'll being guild specific nodes associated with the castles that people can build up in order to enhance the defense of their areas and the guilds will exert influence over zones if they own castles for those regions being able to dedicate support potentially to the economic growth and or the military growth or the divine growth or the scientific crafting growth you know guilds guilds will play a large portion because ultimately guilds focus as you said on community they're just a community of players a micro community within a larger community right and those guilds are capable of achieving certain specific tasks in a more focused manner than the broader community right yeah right so yeah I mean I think that kind of sums up guilds in a nutshell I mean there's a lot more to them but I think that's a good overview yeah okay um we have a couple questions so I'll just summarize and paraphrase but a lot of people are interested in what they can build in the world that open world static housing that claiming this little slice of heaven for myself I know we have a lot of things in the work that we're excited unveil the coming months and yeah I think as it pertains to housing I think we really have three primary focuses in that regard first and foremost being housing that's buildable by the players in the open world itself you know as long as certain parameters are met with the development of local nodes you'll be able to lay down your your your claim to a piece of land out in the world and on that land you'll have space to build a home you'll have space to build you know farms that you can grow crops in you'll have space to build different crafting stations and workshops on your piece of land that you can then use towards your proficiencies and different skill sets such as you know weapon crap staying are more crafting all that kind of stuff animal husbandry you know housing plays a pivotal role in your characters advancement in basically creating goods for the world around you right and I think we understand how important that role is outside of that player housing being built on your own and land you choose we also have housing that is static within nodes that you can participate in at an early phase of the nodes construction and then reap the benefits should that know progress to the later stages right having your home your static home growing with it and those are a finite number of homes per node right we expect those to be strongly fought over and it will cause some conflict and that's kind of what we're looking for in that there there will be a rare resource these these houses and they'll look really cool right so if you you come to a node and it starts off at a village and you grab that one housing slot as it grows through the city and metropolis level that home is going to grow too so by the end of of the nodes progression you might have a really cool mansion but but again those are going to be rare and hard to get and people might want to raise your node because they want some housings all right that's for sure yeah also just making the houses try to make them more modular because we know that players no two players are the same so making houses just completely static outside of a node you know wouldn't necessarily fit the philosophy that we want players to be able to do what they want to do and you know build the house that they right bill so making it a mom or making it a stable for animals or making it just a home that they want to furnish and look great you know that's up to them right and then aside from the static housing and the player built housing in the land we're also including instance housing in certain nodes that when they reach a development stage that players will be able to own an apartment maybe in a city that they could then claim citizenship and in order to partake in the government and that kind of stuff right just because you missed out on grabbing a house it doesn't mean you can't actually live in that node so so that's our solution to that and there'll still be plenty of opportunities to decorate those it just won't have the same kind of cachet that an actual house might have good question like housing everyone wants at home right mm-hmm um so I know we're bringing it to a close here but quickly we wanted to touch on the referral system we're pretty excited about it me we think it's going to be a pretty big hit when people you know grasp what we're trying to do here so maybe we should just clear up any misconceptions there yeah for sure so you know I in my experiences first starting to play em of those when I was seven years old back in 1992 playing a Neverwinter on AOL there was $6 by the hour dating yourself you know yeah my mom was not happy definitely no but you know my experience is getting early on in mmo's it's all about again the community and the people that you play with you know it's it didn't become so much the game that I was playing more so that the friends who I had made online they were playing those games too and I always found that as we moved from mlo to MMO you know we moved with our group go to speak right and and we the players built that the MMO without the players the MMO doesn't exist exactly and and for the players taking on that responsibility in bringing the community with them to a game they should be compensated in some way shape or form or rewarded for that and I think that that our referral system really goes to rewarding our players for helping us to organically grow this game into something that can be a very large massive multiplayer community right right so you know our referral system focuses on on who you bring to the game right which is something you do naturally regardless and by bringing people to the game you're getting rewarded with 15% of anything that those players spend on the game whether it be through the cosmetic shop or through their subscription or through any thing that the players do in the game you're getting 15% that you can then apply towards your subscription you can get cash back from it or you can use it in the cosmetic shop as credits as well I mean it's it's as simple as you are bringing value to our game and we want to make sure we thank you for it I mean it's it's it goes beyond just like here's a cool you know looking thing in the game right and and now you can actually have something that's usable yeah you know and that helps your subscription and that you know brings that that free-to-play aspect to our game without actually having to to follow that kind of economic model or go down the dreadful pay to win model exact in the market price right right and that's something we don't want to do so I think this is a good a good thing for us to do a balance because it's a good balance between offering the player something to that mitigates the cost of a subscription model which everything is something that players are normally adverse to but at the same time we don't want that pay to win that's been ruining mmo's for the past ten years in this whole free-to-play model right right and and it makes sense I understand why companies have to go down the pay to win route because they need to attract those micro transactions in the marketplace in order to keep their game healthy absolutely and that's totally understandable but at the same time if we want to get back to what made mmo's great right we need to get back to that that's close I didn't say again I didn't say great again I just said great right okay so running back to what made them great it's not that that we have to we have to kind of find that reciprocal relationship with giving the community something back for helping grow our community right right and then at the same time making sure that that pay2win aspect never enters our game right right just looking at the models and then saying well we want to create a new path of least resistance right so we think that a referral system which is common in games we're just taking it a step further for people to build the community that they want to build and have an investment in absolutely and in addition you know companies triple-a Studios that go down the route of a model that that forces them to spend a lot of money on advertising that's money that can't be spent on developing the gluten ran this system kind of helps our community grow in a more organic way that doesn't require us then to spend the millions of dollars in advertising right right because our community is growing via our community right and there's incentive to do absolutely yeah yeah good question of course I mean they all is all boils down to is were simply inviting you to play a game about your friends by the game if you guys like it you stay and play and you gave her work for it that's pretty much it yeah all right well we've got a little bit longer than anticipated but got a couple rapid-fire questions rapid-fire also yes no except for the first one sighting so Geoffrey yes a senior game designer and lead writer why the name matches of creation um so that was that was a long discussion that we had the name basically comes from so the Phoenix is is a huge symbol for us we have some gods one of those gods symbol is the Phoenix they may have or may not have created the world and he may or may not have died right um so as without the creatures answer ambiguity next as with all Phoenix's they rise from the ashes and this is what the players will be a part of is is is the rejuvenation of this world that has been abandoned then well another point there you know in correlation between the name Ashes of Creation is is understanding the nature of the world right the world is constantly creating and then there's Mechanics for change and from that change comes new creation so to speak so you know let's take for example the node system you develop a metropolis after months of work on the server and then some great battle is fought and that metropolis falls into the ashes and out of it again rises more creation it's great so so there's there's a there's a correlation there and the name and then just the general philosophy of the game break Annex yeah yeah okay um this is pretty simple but do be in plan on having geno traditional style raids and dungeons for our players were taken absolutely yeah yeah it's pretty sure so yes there yeah absolutely yeah I don't know how much we actually want to say about this but we're going to have a bunch of different types of dungeons dungeons for you know small groups dungeons for big groups some things we'll only be able to be tackled by a large number of people um and again we want to put the massive back in massively so we want people to participate together and create memories together so they're important parts of our design and and generally I think that our our dungeons are going to be for the most part open-world dungeons will have some instance dungeons as well but again it falls back to player choice those dungeons and their content is going to be influenced by the decisions that the players have made to move their civilization and in the world right and and those those decisions will impact what content you experience in those dungeons yeah and it's it's totally possible at least on our whiteboard that that one server may unlock a dungeon and another server might not and one server might be getting loot from one dungeon and another server might be getting differently so there's a lot of branching that we're going to be putting into this game and we definitely keep some scalable keep them flexible you know have them for ranges of player quantity and quality level wise so you know we're just we think it's something we know what something players wazzle yeah right yeah and then finally for our oceanic players are we considering don't you laughing here okay we just talked about this in the rear of a while ago and we had a funny conversation look we love our oceanic player yes we do yeah even though we're not players yet technically technically what was the question for the Arctic 5 are we considering server specifically in their region oh yes yeah we're gonna have regional servers and we plan on on being you know going after where our player base is so we don't want to you know have people tell netting in all the way from across the ocean so we'll be very aware of latency as you everyone to the agency so lie on their gameplay so yeah that's definitely something on on our minds well that was a pretty broad QA and like I liked it yeah we'll probably be doing tons more of these every day every single day we'll never be a game book we're gonna talk about it no no no no but yeah well we're definitely gonna do more of this it's a lot of fun for us and I think it's a good way for you guys get to know us so yeah thanks everybody cool thank you guys thank you guys No thank you saving you thank you peace be with you [Music] you [Music]