Talk:2022-04-29 Livestream

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Intro

• 0:20

hello everyone salutations and welcome to our glorious Ashes of Creation april

• 0:26

development update we hope everyone is well and safe i am margaret crone your community

• 0:32

marketing lead and with me as per usual is r1 the only the ship driver akk

• 0:39

aka creative director stephen sharif you are you're driving the ship i

• 0:45

forgot to mute my phone i'm sorry hello how are you doing

• 0:52

i'm good i'm sorry i was getting distracted by twitch yeah um yeah i'm great it's been i was

• 0:59

actually answering this to folks in twitch chat earlier uh it's been a very

• 1:04

busy month so much that i feel like i blinked and it just passed by oh yeah i know not a bad thing i think that's that

• 1:11

means there's just a lot going on and that you know i'm moving and grooving i i actually didn't get too much sleep

• 1:18

last night because our uh the magic

• 1:23

magic the gathering games that we played last night after work we were up a little late

• 1:29

and uh that was a lot of fun we had like 15 people from the studio playing magic

• 1:34

commander uh after work it was it's become a pretty considerable size group you guys always

• 1:41

play on thursdays and it's like that's not the best day for me i was like i want to play i even bought a commander

• 1:47

deck because i've never done i played a lot of mtg but not commander and i'm excited to play i love commander yeah

• 1:54

you don't get the whack especially with a big group like that oh yeah we had we had an emperor game we

• 1:59

had a penta we had a couple two-headed uh two-headed games um it was fun

• 2:06

nice well i'm happy for that uh the other element of that what i was saying was like it's been amazing working with

• 2:12

this team because everyone's super passionate and although i've worked on a lot of teams i haven't worked on a lot

• 2:17

of teams where everyone just like comes to work with like this enthusiasm for the day versus like

• 2:24

oh i'm coming to work today you know it's very different atmosphere and you know i absolutely adore

• 2:31

everyone we work with and my team personally has grown over the years i know we're going to talk about it in the studio update but it's pretty pretty

• 2:37

amazing how are you doing i feel like you need a vacation good

• 2:43

there's no time for vacations no i'm doing really good i don't know it's a little chilly today so if i'm

• 2:48

shaking it's because i'm cold but um and i left my jacket at home but no i'm i i know i'm doing good um

• 2:56

yeah a lot of work this last month the the town hall the we had an internal town hall actually was it yesterday a

• 3:01

day before i can't remember no day before wednesday before yesterday wednesday they're all building together that was like a

• 3:07

three-hour town hall session for our studios um but uh it was really great

• 3:13

and you know um it's always cool when everybody gets to see everything that everyone's working

• 3:19

on and we you know are at the end of a particular milestone internally from our uh

• 3:25

production team um getting kind of that that look um at everything is is a lot

• 3:32

of fun and very inspiring um so i loved our internal town hall and then uh of

• 3:38

course it was it was it's almost like a a diff a second stream but just for the team

• 3:43

like an internal private stream it's like an internal live stream it was very cool and um you know people

• 3:49

are in chat going what about getting some Ashes of Creation uh clothes to keep us warm and we're working on it

• 3:57

and on the marketing side for sure uh we know that a lot of people are asking for it within our community um so there's

• 4:03

lots of stuff going on on that front i think steven has teased a little bit of like a while ago in regards to it

• 4:09

but as we get closer we'll be sharing more stuff on that front but we've got a whole slew of great things to cover

• 4:15

today so just if you this is your first time tuning in with us down in the bottom left hand corner you'll see our

• 4:22

like run of show basically we have our reminders our studio update which we talked a little bit about here uh design

• 4:28

and engineering update with some eventful uh segments in there um and an

• 4:35

environment update as well as character art update and q a so we will get right to that kicking it off with our

Reminders

• 4:42

reminders first and foremost we've got our question or our comment spotlight from

• 4:48

youtube if you are a youtube subscriber and you leave us a comment on our video

• 4:53

we will be selecting a random person and we'll read your comment and if you have a question in there we'll answer it so

• 4:59

this one is from uh stephen barley thank you for subscribing to us over on youtube and leaving us a lovely comment

• 5:05

uh their comment says i love what you are doing with the game with regards to character customization i would love to

• 5:11

see certain customizations that require in-game challenges to achieve maybe there would be some extremely hard

• 5:18

to complete quests that allows you to obtain unique eye colors hairstyles scars tattoos or in especially rare

• 5:26

cases perhaps slightly glowing or animated with variations of those and i

• 5:32

don't know i think i think this stuff i think stefan might be in our studio

• 5:39

like with some bug devices or something um no sorry i called him stefan because he spelled the same steven stuff yeah i'm

• 5:45

not sure which uh um no but yeah that's absolutely something that uh that design and the

• 5:52

character creator team has been you know discussing stuff that we want to do is is have unlockable uh features uh as as

• 6:00

steven was discussing there um where you know like oh you have that scar because

• 6:06

you participated in this siege or these many sieges or um you know you have this tattoo because

• 6:13

of your of a cultural background or because of a quest that was accomplished um where you're able to get that that's

• 6:20

absolutely a level of progression that uh makes the character creator relevant not just at

• 6:26

the start of your experience in an mmo but it gives you a reason to visit those salons and make changes to your

• 6:32

character uh as it grows and has a history a a background that can be communicated

• 6:39

through these customization options and that's that's a really cool um you know an element to it uh that we want to

• 6:46

incorporate 100 yeah so what you're asking for we got you homie

• 6:51

boom uh boom done all right next up of course we have our

• 6:57

reminder for a monthly cosmetic swap over the road to desolation is scheduled for

• 7:02

uh to swap over on may 11 2022 at 11 a.m pacific so if you'd like those snag them

• 7:08

while they're hot because we're gonna have some new ones coming your way um and of course uh this month we had a

• 7:15

little bit of a different feedback it wasn't a part of our dev updates perser per se but

• 7:21

um let me go back over there we had some hairstyle feedback that we

• 7:29

requested from you all and in regards to that uh

• 7:34

i think they'll be popping some in there but we basically were asking you guys to kind of provide to us some of the

• 7:40

hairstyles and hair types that you like we heard a lot of your feedback in regards to that

• 7:45

we actually compiled all the feedback about all of the character customization and we went back

• 7:51

and talked to the design team about it steven was there as well and it seems like all most of the things you guys

• 7:57

want we are going to be implementing um obviously when it came to the character creator we weren't completely done uh

• 8:03

showcasing all of the hairstyles that we'll have we'll have a whole slew of them different textures different hair

• 8:09

types and styles um but in the interim because it was such a hot

• 8:14

topic we created a new thread where we hope you all will share images of hairstyles that you'd like to

• 8:20

see so that we can um you know share those with our team and

• 8:26

hopefully incorporate them as much as we possibly can in our development phases yeah and it's important to note

• 8:34

we've said this many times you guys are aware of this like art is a continuing work in progress um

• 8:40

and the character creator we wanted to to show you guys kind of the level of capabilities at an early stage um which

• 8:47

means many of those assets many of the ideas that you guys shared were already planned um and and kind of part of the

• 8:53

character creator roadmap um so look forward to in the future getting more updates on on those features as they get

• 9:00

implemented for sure um and we will be compiling that so make sure that you head on over to our forums uh check out

• 9:07

the discussion feedback thread requesting hairstyles for the character creator over there and

• 9:13

toss us their feedback i believe i saw um beckner and roshan posting it in chat

• 9:18

click on it leave us some images of what you'd like to see and i think with that that wraps up our reminders short and

• 9:25

sweet today next up we have our studio update which i will toss over to stephen

Studio Update

• 9:30

yeah absolutely so the studio is growing actually we since

• 9:37

the start of this year we have hired

• 9:43

23 additional people to the team um which is really cool

• 9:49

because we are getting an incredible amount of talented individuals but aside from the talent um individuals who are

• 9:56

just mmorpg fans and players and um you know they have they have a passion

• 10:03

for this genre and for the project and they were following along and um it's really nice to be in a position

• 10:09

from a studio perspective where your project is known and it's desired

• 10:14

amongst the industry uh to participate with it and you have these natural applications and interests that are

• 10:21

coming every day uh that our hr team and and is doing really great hard work

• 10:26

stacy and and cameron midori and and um

• 10:31

you know john helping to onboard and and um you know facilitate these these

• 10:37

applicants so uh very excited for that the teams are growing i love seeing the teams growing up i go out to lunch uh

• 10:43

with the teams and meet these new faces and and i love seeing just the the passion in the eyes of people who are

• 10:49

working on bringing to life what you guys want what we want and and

• 10:54

and what is going to be the next great thing when it comes to mmos so the uh the growth is is doing really good um

• 11:01

internally we also are very close to getting our graphics done and

• 11:06

um our uh logos and signs and everything put up and the studio set dress to the

• 11:12

point where we're gonna start recording some videos with the team and give you guys some insight i know we've done those in the past and we've talked about

• 11:18

how we're going to be doing them here in the future again but i'm excited to get that stuff running again

• 11:24

it's going to be really cool i think for you guys to get a behind-the-scenes look i know mark are super excited i know as well

• 11:30

my whole team has just been chomping at the bits to uh do more things like that so if you really enjoyed the dev diary

• 11:37

series we want to do more of those things and also just bite-size stuff on social you know through like instagram

• 11:42

stories snapchat maybe things like that so yes

• 11:47

um and then on top of that um we actually completed uh

• 11:55

our uh first milestone of the year um last week i believe it was in the

• 12:01

beginning of last week um can't quite discuss everything that was there because not all of it is ready yet but

• 12:08

um a lot of a lot of great things internally from a development standp from a development standpoint um that is

• 12:16

going very well and is very exciting um which will be trickling out over you know i know i'm teasing this but it'll

• 12:21

be trickling out over you know the next few months to see that kind of stuff so uh all in

• 12:27

all things are going really good on the studio front yeah it's been very very exciting um

• 12:33

for me too uh because i've gotten to experience what like we it was like when we're all

• 12:39

kind of like in a little garage studio where we could like open up the garage door and it was like oh my gosh and now

• 12:44

it's like this massive building that we're in uh and i don't get to see everybody every

• 12:50

day it's so weird right and you might see some faces and you're like who's that person you're

• 12:55

like that's a weird experience i i am fortunate uh in the company that i get to see all of the new hires as they come

• 13:02

in because we're like uh flagging their accounts and things like that so um i do get to see faces kind of like little

• 13:09

pictures of them but sometimes they don't match necessarily what they look like you know in person

• 13:15

uh especially people who use like goku as their image or something but

• 13:20

um it has been pretty cool seeing all the yeah i'm cool i'm excited and like when we

• 13:26

see potlucks and it's just like this massive amount of people in the cafeteria oh yeah

• 13:32

yeah it's always it's it is always fun to see that for sure and last potluck you guys had a little uh little

• 13:39

wren fair dress up that was cool yeah we posted some photos of folks who

• 13:44

wanted to be in photos so if you want to check that out it's on our linkedin instagram twitter facebook

• 13:52

all of those places some people brought their a game with costumes i just threw on something quick

• 13:58

um but let's move on to the design and engineering update then

Design & Engineering Update

• 14:04

let's first preface you know everything that we talk about is subject to change potentially through development as we

• 14:11

test things so just keep that in mind as we talk about things here but first let's talk about what have they been doing

• 14:17

generally on the design and engineering side maybe start with engineering and then design so we can tie it into today's

• 14:23

topic yeah um there's been a lot of stuff

• 14:29

that's been that's been worked out over the last month um engineering's really been focusing a lot on

• 14:35

let's see we have the node layout tool that's been getting some adjustments that roy's been working on

• 14:42

and the node team on the design side has been working on especially with environment it's kind of like changing

• 14:48

the way that the node layouts work um to facilitate some of the additional

• 14:53

service buildings that are going to be incorporated in alpha 2. um

• 14:58

we want to kind of create a layout tool that allows even you know each of the

• 15:03

nodes to kind of be represented in a unique way we've talked about that in the past but more importantly also that

• 15:08

we maintain consistency on certain building locations especially player housing

• 15:14

and specific building service building types as we progress into stages four five and six of the

• 15:20

node of the nodes progression so that's something that's been getting a little bit of a redesign in addition

• 15:27

uh you guys probably noticed in alpha one um how many of the nodes were relatively flat

• 15:34

there was not a lot of topography when it came to kind of sections or districts of the of the city um that lived at

• 15:41

different heights essentially kind of creating a unique um silhouette

• 15:46

that's possible um with the node layout um so now that we've had um kind of our

• 15:51

approach for for uh alpha 2 uh with the nodes that we've manually been constructing from a

• 15:57

layout perspective that that chris giusto and bucky and jason neil have been kind of

• 16:03

participating in fleshing out um the engineering team has been providing

• 16:08

for that node layout tool the type of additional requirements that are requested

• 16:15

also on the ai systems engineering has been working closely with chong and the design team on kind

• 16:23

of the requirements that the alpha two creatures uh need to have from a behavior tree perspective the ability to

• 16:28

kind of uh weigh certain actions and or uh um uh

• 16:34

response arcs that exist within that behavior tree how do we how do we value those scores how do we

• 16:40

make those um those types of actions live in parallel with one another right if i'm trying to cast an ability as a

• 16:47

monster but i'm also trying to move to a particular waypoint as a result of some other occurrence on the player's behalf

• 16:53

i need to be able to calculate that in the ai's

• 17:00

brain at the same time with one another right so a lot of engineering work has been uh

• 17:05

led by uh uh russell peltz on on um changing up the ai systems from

• 17:11

alpha one to accommodate all of the additional uh uh behaviors that we wanna see out of

• 17:16

the creatures that dyna even that the dynamic type of behaviors right um so

• 17:21

there's a significant amount of work that's been done on that front uh combat combat has been a huge endeavor

• 17:29

over the last actually several months and through a lot of the prototyping that uh

• 17:37

the design team and the engineering team and our vfx team and our animation team

• 17:42

um have been working on a team for sure 100 um character art not so

• 17:49

much in the combat prototyping um uh because the models are kind of staying consistent there but for example

• 17:56

uh with the assassin class with the um with our dagger weapons we didn't previously have that in alpha one so

• 18:01

those are entirely new animation sets uh that are required to have those dual wielded kind of daggers um and that's

• 18:07

something you guys might be seeing soon in the future um but that prototyping phase over the last

• 18:13

several months has really been to kind of flesh out the major revamp that we've been working on

• 18:20

for combat because part of the biggest amount of feedback that we got from alpha one was with regards to combat and

• 18:26

we have a lot of ideas on on the things that we wanted to try and you know the best way to kind of flesh those ideas

• 18:32

out obviously is through prototyping and development prototyping is just kind of um you know combination of rapid

• 18:38

iteration of standing up these ideas without full-fledged kind of code support doing so in a blueprint setting

• 18:46

or in a test level where you can really kind of throw a lot of different things at the wall and you

• 18:51

can rapidly iterate on how that stuff feels um get feedback from the team feedback

• 18:56

from focus groups um and then you can take the direction that that that is getting the kind of best bang for the

• 19:02

feeling buck so to speak um so it's been great to kind of see that but in addition that that phase allows

• 19:10

for us to really expand upon the versatility of what our ability system can can do and that's been spearheaded

• 19:16

by by keenan and adam um uh uh with regard on the code side with

• 19:22

regards to to what design has access to to do for all the ability systems right

• 19:28

um and not just the ability systems but but but also like your combat weapon montages and and your basic attacks um

• 19:36

so there's been a lot of work on that front it's not quite ready to show i know so

• 19:42

many people are waiting to see combat updates it's the top thing we get asked

• 19:47

a hundred percent but we have to be very careful when we present um what's been worked on uh that

• 19:56

it has to be at a particular state uh that's presentable right um obviously

• 20:01

you guys know this you're you're our core audience you're tuning in here and you're you're watching our live streams

• 20:06

uh but the moment we release an update with regards to combat that spreads like wildfire right that's what we call

• 20:13

essentially a marketing beat um this is something that is out of our control it's content creators pick it up they're

• 20:19

going to show it to very you know unengaged audiences and we want to make sure that the presentation is at a point

• 20:26

where when it grabs those legs that we don't have control over from a marketing perspective

• 20:32

that it is it'll stand it'll stand by itself it won't need our our verbal support and kind of talking about it

• 20:38

it'll be a visual component that is visceral and you know looks good and you

• 20:43

know has has people's support so we want to set the right precedent because if people look at something and it's a

• 20:49

prototype and it's in really early phases they might make comments like oh this isn't very good combat yeah and

• 20:55

it's like well we know that it's a prototype so that's why we have to make sure that it's in a solid enough state

• 21:00

the delicate blend between a transparent development process

• 21:05

but also understanding um that majority of your player audience

• 21:12

will not grasp or will not will not take into context um what a work in progress

• 21:17

looks like so certain things we have to polish to the point where they're presentable where they can be understood

• 21:24

again in its own context without my verbal support or margaret's verbal

• 21:30

support right i think a great example of that is the character creator right we've we went through many phases prior

• 21:36

to that of the character creator and we would not have wanted to share those with you all not because we don't want

• 21:42

to share the development process but because there will be people who take that and look at it and go this isn't

• 21:48

you know why would i want to play that right yeah the character creator is a prime example of what good looks like um

• 21:55

when it comes to a feature that can stand on its own right that's something that can be shared and

• 22:00

people understand that so anyways i don't want to go off on the comment too much

• 22:07

but but essentially uh the combat the ability systems the tool support there

• 22:12

has has progressed a significant amount and by the way as prototyping lends to those additional

• 22:19

uh features within the combat tools it actually is an exponential uh

• 22:27

speed modifier right when when those additional things come online we can actually more rapidly prototype and more

• 22:33

rapidly iterate as well um which which feeds feeds back into kind of the process of getting good combat right of

• 22:41

getting something that um something that feels good so there's been a lot of work

• 22:46

on that front um buoyancy and vehicle physics uh there's been a lot of work done from michael bratty and

• 22:56

from mikhail on mount controls on flight and gliding

• 23:01

mechanics that'll be present in alpha 2. the buoyancy of ships the physics behind vehicle movement uh

• 23:08

for siege weapons um you know we had some representation of that of course in alpha one

• 23:14

but since alpha one you know it was added to the schedule of course for us to go back to refine those things there works in progress we have additional

• 23:21

passes that are done on them um additional uh um uh support that's presented for those things um and i'm

• 23:28

happy to say that they are they're looking quite good and you may see some updates on those in the near future networking has been a big of course uh

• 23:35

endeavor on the on the engineering side there's been a lot of work on that front by

• 23:41

um by zach and by hunter and by ben um and uh that that actually is is pretty

• 23:49

exciting but of course i can't talk too much about that stuff um the the the platform the web teams our backend

• 23:55

services uh mark and his team have been doing an incredible job from the uh from

• 24:00

an engineering perspective on on supporting pretty much everything that um that the uh uh that the gameplay

• 24:08

engineers are needing from them um so it's exciting for my team i appreciate them greatly i work with the you know

• 24:15

that team a lot so yeah absolutely um itemization and crafting um

• 24:21

there's a lot of a lot there's actually a lot of changes that we have not yet discussed

• 24:27

on the uh crafting front so you guys have had a a pretty rudimentary um insight into

• 24:36

what crafting is in Ashes of Creation and in alpha one we just had the basic

• 24:41

core loops right which is like i collect the thing i combine a thing and i get it

• 24:47

yeah yeah exactly collect combine get um and that is a that that is a pretty

• 24:53

simplistic approach that we wanted to just have present from again a gameplay loop that was in alpha one but alpha two

• 25:00

is meant to really represent a few of these professions in their true form

• 25:05

from gathering processing in a crafting's perspective now there's some additional gameplay layers that are

• 25:11

intended to be tested as part of alpha 2. as it relates to actually crafting

• 25:16

choosing crafting something or processing something there additionally is a concept called

• 25:23

survey which is a component of gathering that makes things a little bit different than

• 25:29

what players have uh have been accustomed to in most mmos in the

• 25:34

past um and just to give you a little bit of idea uh behind kind of those

• 25:39

gameplay layers that we're thinking about you know we've talked about

• 25:44

ideas like land management and as you draw resources from your surrounding

• 25:50

area what type of effect does that have on the land and then also how effectively can you

• 25:56

draw those resources without having such a deleterious effect on the land right which might impact future resource

• 26:03

gathering for some period of time um and it makes relevant the movement of these

• 26:08

players who are collecting these goods from the environment that they actually cannot always just do so in one

• 26:14

particular area as the land management begins to degrade so it actually encourages movement

• 26:21

across the world to discover new areas that might not be as perturbed

• 26:26

as the ones you're coming from it's a it's a very interesting idea um it's something that we're going to be

• 26:31

prototyping in alpha 2 and getting feedback on and testing um corey and mai

• 26:37

con have been leading endeavors on the design side for those types of ideas which um

• 26:42

are really fun and we're going to talk about at some point in the future as well um outside of that we've also had a

• 26:49

considerable amount of of work that is has been coming out of the design side

• 26:54

from uh chris giusto's node pod uh with bucky and jason and and a few of our

• 27:00

other designers um on service buildings and the node superpowers and relics and

• 27:06

the reliquary system that's going to be present in alpha 2 the types of benefits that are conferred there the gameplay

• 27:12

between capturing those relics and stealing them or or sabotaging their

• 27:17

return to the nodes what type of passive benefits do they grant the citizens what types of

• 27:23

active benefits are being conferred upon vassal states the upgrade paths that are going to be

• 27:29

present within the service buildings working with environment to kind of mask out sections of of a

• 27:36

building until the upgrade comes online and a new room opens up or a new wing or a new story

• 27:42

it's really interesting to kind of see the specialization paths that are

• 27:48

possible on an individual node basis that that makes that particular node a

• 27:54

waypoint for certain types of players right and how it drives traffic from the

• 27:59

player base to those nodes that increases things like the taxable revenue that's possible and then that of

• 28:06

course bleeds into the types of additional buildings or defensive mechanics or initiatives and events that

• 28:12

can be done um you know incorporating things like node policies from almost a

• 28:17

civic standpoint uh that grants certain type uh certain types of actions that

• 28:23

the node government can take um whether it be diplomatic actions like potentially conflicts with other nodes

• 28:29

and the wars that happen what type of rep you need to have with those other nodes from a diplomatic perspective can

• 28:34

be influenced by these policies um there's a there's a lot of stuff that's been worked on from the node team that's

• 28:40

being supported by our engineering team with regards to this feature development uh in preparation for alpha 2. so um

• 28:47

as an engineering design kind of overview i'm sorry if i'm super long no it's crazy there's just so much stuff

• 28:53

the chat's like my brain is melting because it's just so much so much stuff and

• 28:58

stephen will not be able to go through everything there's nothing like his stuff yeah there's she'd be here all day

• 29:04

there's a lot there's a lot uh sometimes i feel like my mind is on the precipice of just breaking in half when there's

• 29:11

just what what there is to cover on a daily basis uh from my schedule um but

• 29:18

there is so much to be excited about that this team is working on and not only that they're working on but that

• 29:24

they are creating in such a way that is unlike any experience that i've

• 29:32

had as a gamer uh and as an mmo player and i'm just i'm just so incredibly

• 29:37

excited i guess i'm fresh off the heels of our last of our of our internal livestream our time our town hall so if

• 29:44

i seem overly excited it's because you know watching the presentation at the

• 29:49

end of our first you know 2022 milestone um has made me excited so i apologize

• 29:57

i apologize to you and to those out there who do not have this game in their

• 30:02

hands yet if i am hyping this i don't want to be like i'm not hyping this i'm just very excited myself and i want to

• 30:10

convey the excitement to you guys but i i also want to temper

• 30:16

that there's still development we have a lot of work development there's a lot of work and and last um

• 30:23

last last uh uh stream you know we showed a very big

• 30:28

system the character creator and we showed oh are we dying are we losing oh yeah the internet just crashed

• 30:36

uh-oh uh-oh wait oh it's back

• 30:43

wait a minute are we back uh-oh let's see if the stream drops how are we

• 30:49

doing standby it's like we're still up so

• 30:56

all right we'll wait for it to sorry about that

• 31:02

yes seems like the internet took a hiccup okay i think i think we're back but anyways i i just wanted to say um

• 31:10

the another thing is is that last last month we showed off the

• 31:15

character crater right and that's that's obviously was a was a very exciting thing for for everyone to

• 31:21

see it it gives you a level of quality for what we're hoping to achieve with all of our systems in the game in general and

• 31:27

and you guys get to see that stuff and um but that we are active actively in development and we need to be

• 31:34

conscientious of how we present the systems uh during our development um and

• 31:39

what that means is sometimes we're not going to have streams that are as exciting as visually appealing as that

• 31:46

as a character creator so i just want to make sure we temper expectations that we're going to show you guys stuff we're going to show you stuff strategically

• 31:53

that's that's smart and that can be shown by other content creators and stuff um uh but just be patient for that

• 32:00

um i know you guys have been patient we appreciate that we love the patients that our community has uh but understand

• 32:07

that patience will yield a very good product um so all right well let's transition into talking a little bit

• 32:15

about our event system and how that works if you don't mind transitioning to that

• 32:21

yeah we have a little video that we'll play i like event systems some b-roll video uh

• 32:29

will we talk about this

• 32:37

somebody said that margaret someone said that you cut the stream to stop me from leaking

• 32:44

i didn't i think it was twitch because i didn't touch anything we actually didn't stop the stream it was a like twitch

• 32:51

hiccuped and then we're back now so yeah sure um

• 32:57

i actually have mute power i can just mute stephen i know i don't own the power

• 33:03

no bully no bullying i know i wouldn't ever um so that's a joke maybe but

• 33:09

what we wanted to talk about on today's stream was a little bit more systems driven um chatting kind of about how

• 33:17

content gets introduced into the world um and things like uh

• 33:23

things like uh these little goblins that you see by the way i love these little goblins

• 33:30

yeah the shaman's cool but what i love about the goblins is they're really a unique monster race from the sense

• 33:37

that they have social organization to themselves right and a lot of monsters kind of share that

• 33:43

that aspect um that they have these kind of social organizations where you can develop uh

• 33:50

goblin tactics and you can have uh some goblin identities and you can have

• 33:55

variants and those types of um the types of goblins that you can even experience

• 34:00

um but anyways uh so when we're talking about events um we've talked about this

• 34:06

in the past a little bit some of you guys know the event system but really

• 34:12

what the events represent is a way for us to attempt and introduce

• 34:17

content in a more fluid in a more natural in a more

• 34:23

kind of progression-based way that the world is reacting to player

• 34:29

activity and what we mean by player activity is

• 34:36

in the event system we have uh certain predicates and these these

• 34:42

predicates act as requirements that must be satisfied before a particular story arc

• 34:49

or a particular event can kick off right and these events are are very

• 34:56

[Music] very wide ranging in what they can be right um this could be a plague that's

• 35:04

sweeping the lands it could be um a natural disaster that is a forest

• 35:10

fire or a volcanic eruption uh it could be a response from a particular npc

• 35:16

faction or a monster faction like here you see the goblins kind of assaulting a town but what's interesting about these

• 35:22

events and something that i think correlates to to kind of how i run d d campaigns as well

• 35:29

is that there's always a clock ticking in the world right there's always something that's happening

• 35:35

in the background regardless of what player decisions are made sometimes right these things can continue to

• 35:41

develop and if you don't pay attention to them or if you don't respond to them if you do not

• 35:47

stop them from advancing in stages right

• 35:53

these things will have effects on your day-to-day activities they will

• 35:59

create obstacles they will potentially destroy buildings they will

• 36:06

create havoc within the game player world that will force you to respond um

• 36:11

and if you if you do not um you will suffer the concept the the consequences so um

• 36:19

let's see where do did you give me let me see talking points for you here oh sweet

• 36:25

yeah steven's using the run of show you guys it's exciting i know i'm so sorry

• 36:33

i'm like where is my run of show um okay i think i have it here okay perfect um

• 36:39

so one of the things that we we kind of consider behind the uh event applications are like where these events

• 36:46

live so obviously one of the most common probably events that you guys have experienced at other mmorpgs are

• 36:51

calendar events um caliver calendar events can be server-wide events that uh you know give us unique content uh based

• 36:59

on the duration of either some type of uh real-world holiday or in-game holiday

• 37:04

or beat now that's not to say that these are going to be campy or that they're going

• 37:09

to be um you know out of immersion so to speak we're going we we have a lot of ideas on

• 37:16

how certain real world holidays can be uh contextualized within the game world

• 37:21

and it seemed fitting right we actually asked you all for your feedback in regards to events and holidays and if

• 37:27

you'd like to see those and um looking at the feedback from that it seems like you guys want to mix you want

• 37:33

a mix of in-game holidays and seasonal events and things like that that are pertinent to the culture of the world

• 37:40

and different from real life and then you also want some that coincide with real life but have

• 37:46

you know their own culture and purpose in the game and i think we can definitely incorporate all of that

• 37:51

feedback for sure yeah and part of the great thing that the content team the narrative team that's um you know scott

• 37:58

and chris and aimee and wynn um and tony um

• 38:05

you know part of the things that they're working on um is creating a lot of cultural identity for these character

• 38:11

races um and how we can um bring about kind of these um calendar

• 38:18

events from the perspective of each individual race um that's something that is that i think is going to be

• 38:25

really helping identify or giving identity uh to each of the characteristics

• 38:31

the other thing i want to say is that aimee and clayton um have been

• 38:36

uh you know working very hard on um on this event system so i want to give

• 38:42

them super kudos big props uh to to uh aimee watanabe and um clayton stamper um

• 38:49

next thing and i believe chris scott scott bacara chris holdtorf absolutely and recently

• 38:55

tony as well um so notice like you gotta

• 39:01

yes i know i'm sorry it's okay um so uh the the next thing and this is

• 39:06

kind of indicative of the little video that you see here the little loop that we're playing is note attacks um some of

• 39:11

the events that spawn have consequences that lead to node attacks right and enemies have

• 39:17

a particular type of hate list on certain buildings that a node may have access to when they attack during

• 39:25

an event and that hate list might relate to um or that building choice might relate to

• 39:32

something that is indicative of the storyline for that particular event um or it could be something that is more

• 39:38

pivotal to the defense of the city if the city doesn't respond to these types of things that might weaken them for

• 39:44

potential player attacks afterwards right um and that's something that's that's very important as well um monster

• 39:50

coin events we've talked about this in the past monster coins are obviously items that allow players to become monsters for some period of time um

• 39:56

events allow players to kind of opt in from the monster's perspective and take out their rage on other players or

• 40:02

different factions but without having to be their own player character at that time um i think

• 40:08

that breaks up the monotony of of what you know playing your character class

• 40:13

might always represent on a day-to-day basis and give you a little bit of uh uh a a fun um uh

• 40:21

a little bit of a a fun part time away from that um the other thing is uh are

• 40:27

kind of poi events um so p of i events typically tell stories of the particular poi right like why does this poi exist

• 40:34

why are there monsters here at this point of interest that might be some tower or might be some dungeon you know

• 40:40

how does that population interact with the rest of the world outside of just its point of interest right

• 40:46

and those things could be precursors for node attacks themselves um it could address the story of nearby threats as

• 40:52

antagonists to civilization in general um enemies can can only really grow

• 40:58

stronger as the node grows becoming outposts essentially for exiled or rivals of the existing order um the

• 41:04

other thing about node conflict npcs is that they might have influential inhabitants of the world right you might

• 41:09

have you know a dude who's the leader of the speakeasies and they you know have

• 41:15

information to give you and if you don't you know interact with them they might give you that information to your

• 41:21

enemies and that might spawn off some other event um so these are these are also closely integrated with story lines

• 41:27

and and story arcs uh in general um the other thing uh you could have um certain

• 41:33

type of pvp objectives and pvp driven events the event system is used to create pvp situations in the

• 41:39

open world as almost battlegrounds right open world battlegrounds and i've talked about this in the past as well

• 41:45

but usually my definition of what a battleground is and it's non-traditional it's not typically

• 41:51

something that um is defined in the same way in other mmorpgs but i kind of view

• 41:56

them as these small skirmishes that might lead up to a siege or to a war and they might have capture points during

• 42:03

node and castle fights and these pvp objectives may be more relevant for smaller groups than for giant raids and

• 42:09

you might have concurrently running objectives during a particular event where you have to dispatch

• 42:15

groups simultaneously to go address these objectives uh in order to complete

• 42:20

one particular type of event or one particular type of of success condition

• 42:26

so that is that is another element of our pvp objectives and how they work in

• 42:31

the event systems as well um one important thing to note about events in general is notifications are

• 42:38

are sent to the players right players can kind of opt into these events uh in a similar way that you would into a

• 42:45

quest right you're going to be presented with it would you like to participate um but they might not i mean they might not

• 42:51

always be that way you might hear trees falling in the forest and that may

• 42:57

be an audio cue to tell you something's happening over there it's out of the ordinary this is not normally an audio

• 43:03

cue that i hear in this area and i'm gonna go investigate that thing so it might not just be always that kind of ui

• 43:10

window represented with a participate or not but i'm going to go investigate and in that sense it could be stage driven

• 43:18

so you might have the more local stage where it is just the visual or audio cues and you get to go participate in

• 43:24

that stage and then when it advances or if you don't answer the problem in time then it starts to expand regionally and

• 43:31

then it might send out um particular uh notifications to either citizens of the

• 43:36

node from which it falls under its purview um or even broader than that right it could be global driven events

• 43:43

um and then it could have things that that are are visual cues that are really

• 43:48

big like a giant blizzard that's affecting the zone uh because the event

• 43:53

hasn't been addressed and that can affect the crop rotations or it can affect uh passages and roads and how

• 43:59

caravans move you know there's a lot there's a lot that the that the predicate system um informs to the event

• 44:06

system and then the event system reacts to those types of predicates right

• 44:13

there's also event levels uh the level of a particular event content is scaled essentially with the

• 44:19

level of the content that triggers it so for example if the event takes place in a zone that has a base population of

• 44:24

let's say average level 25 then one of the trigger conditions might be that 10 monsters of level 25 have been killed

• 44:31

recently in that zone and the level 25 event will now spawn additional content designed for level 25 players so these

• 44:38

events aren't always going to be end game they're going to be obviously appropriate based on the content in

• 44:43

which the predicate system is informing but they also could be something completely uh top level that is

• 44:51

introduced at a lower level area and brings population traffic of the players back to those types of things

• 44:57

there's one other important thing is that events are driven by what we call a state machine right

• 45:03

and there are essentially five types of states that exist for events there's the in progress state there's

• 45:09

the active state inactive on cooldown or disabled um and that is essentially a

• 45:14

way that we inform um we inform uh what types of elements

• 45:20

what what stage of activity things are coming online based on what event state

• 45:25

uh is is currently active at the moment um uh we talked a little bit about kind of

• 45:32

triggers um we have world conditions like node levels we have uh seasons and climates and calendar the

• 45:39

service building activation relics and completed raids all of these things can be part of what

• 45:45

informs i'm not going to go into what everything can be i don't want to dish out you know the the nitty-gritties of the system per se but i'm just giving

• 45:52

you an idea of what essentially um allows events to become a thing um

• 45:58

and then once those things are addressed or not addressed certain cooldown cooldowns get triggered

• 46:03

um other conditions might uh uh trigger it could form as a predicate for an

• 46:08

additional event there could be concurrent events um we are we alive

• 46:15

i feel like we're dropping again yeah it looks like twitch is hiccuping again

• 46:20

oh no yeah okay maybe we're back it's still in the red

• 46:26

we're under attack and now it's green again there's an ad playing so

• 46:33

give it four seconds not like these yay

• 46:44

fortunately it's not my internet it's twitch's side so it's not cutting it's not like making the video cut

• 46:51

yes that's true this is true okay um but anyway so that's that's the general

• 46:58

uh kind of um new information that you may or may not have had in the past uh regarding events

• 47:04

i'm not sure if i missed anything i i think it's getting going red again

• 47:11

i'm looking at the says the video skips but the audio is fine

• 47:17

interesting well you know we always can't have um

• 47:22

remember when we used to have so many issues audio issues and like you may not remember that i wasn't here

• 47:29

it was before my time uh oh but now it is your time no i'm just kidding but this is not me

• 47:35

i'm just messing i'm just messing with you but now it is your time

• 47:41

the time of the orchestra no i'm just kidding um oh gosh anyways did i miss anything in the uh

• 47:47

in the uh explanation there's any questions you have for me about events at all margaret

• 47:53

i don't think i think the only thing i would want to uh mention is that this isn't all of them

• 47:59

no no no no we wanna obviously this type of system

• 48:05

are we still alive it says we are but it's definitely maybe it's the goblin video let's kill the job kill the

• 48:12

goblin video i don't know i don't think it should be because it's my cpu is like two percent

• 48:18

maybe twitch can't handle the goblins the goblins are too powerful

• 48:25

goblins are strong okay um yeah so to margaret's point um this

• 48:32

obviously isn't everything about the system we don't want to reveal everything about the system but we do want to give you context for

• 48:38

how the system interacts with the players and we do want to give you kind of an idea of how these things advance and

• 48:44

progress and how they get um initiated and uh just to give you a general uh

• 48:51

idea of you know all all of what invents um can entail um so that you know the

• 48:58

type of living breathing you know typical cliche terminology that's used for these types

• 49:04

of systems but the goal is to really create something that is that feels immersive

• 49:10

that feels organic that feels reactive to kind of player agency in the world

• 49:16

and the event system is one of those components um yeah yeah and it's kind of basically

• 49:22

that risk versus reward versus consequence that we have talked about many times when it comes to ashes of

• 49:28

creation we want you if you ignore those goblins they're going to be plotting something so uh you will have to you

• 49:35

know deal with what the repercussions of those are but if you're you know take care of it early on maybe you're rewarded for that so kind of keeping

• 49:42

those things in mind um also i believe there will be a feedback thread about events that is going to be popped up

• 49:50

now-ish vachnar i know you're making it live uh so if you can pop that live now

• 49:56

you're welcome to go over to our forums leave us feedback in regards to your thoughts we'll also have an article that

• 50:01

will be going out i believe next week and that will also kind of give you a rundown of this again if you're you know

• 50:07

if reading is a little bit easier for you than listening to us talk but we'll also embed the video segment so you can

• 50:14

you know listen back and read at the same time along with us um i did have one question that was asked

• 50:20

oh god i feel like it was the goblin video like maybe we should have made them gremlins because they were missing

• 50:26

i'm just kidding i don't think it is i think twitch is having server issues right now um

• 50:32

yeah i looked at their thing i think they were having services got it uh in regards to this question that i saw in

• 50:37

chat i think it might be something that you you could answer and uh sure it's from

• 50:42

levi levioima i'm not sure uh they wanted to know you don't have to

• 50:48

answer this today but i would appreciate an answer on stream over the next couple days if you are going to link some

• 50:53

holidays to out of game events how will you resolve the time difference since it

• 50:58

was said that in game time will be faster than real world time like four times faster i believe and that's kind

• 51:04

of a valid question to ask oh i see so will will seasonal events in the real world align

• 51:11

with the seasonal rotation in the game world um and uh i think in that sense um

• 51:19

probably not that's going to require a little bit of suspension of disbelief um in understanding that but it's it's it's

• 51:26

also fair that um in game events do not need to be uh

• 51:33

perfectly cyclical like let's say seasonal events are in the real world um they could have a

• 51:41

non-uniform cycle associated with them um but yeah we we also you know there is

• 51:48

something to be said for having that represented in the game as long as it's immersive as long as it's

• 51:54

contextualized within the story and the world and the universe that we've created um and isn't a direct homage to

• 52:00

santa claus and the real world right like um just to use a prime example or something um

• 52:06

but it it it it can be a fun it can be a fun thing for players to experience and it doesn't always have to

• 52:12

oh thank for red again oh my god yeah twitch is uh not happy oh no

• 52:21

i am recording locally right now so um for this end bit just in case

• 52:27

it's like hardcore hiccups twitch is it twitch what are they doing

• 52:33

i don't know um okay but either way hopefully that answered your question i think that was a that was a good answer

• 52:39

yep got some ads playing

• 52:44

but they'll be able to listen to the video as well yeah that's good um what do we got next our next thing is

• 52:50

environment art rock and roll so let's go ahead and hop over there

Environment Update

• 52:57

so um the first thing is i don't know if you want to talk a little bit about what environment has been working on but i

• 53:03

know they've been working on a lot of biome oriented things in regards to alpha 2. well

• 53:09

and so this is oh so we're doing concepts so this is a some concept that that joe has done with regards to um

• 53:16

fleshing out some of the architectures of the pirae culture um so these are different types of home

• 53:24

um concepts for the pirate and you can see obviously the approach

• 53:30

here is to be as seamless between the environment that these homes exist in uh and the the

• 53:37

architecture itself so there's a lot of root structures that are incorporated

• 53:43

they're likely going to be using uh similar foliage actors that exist within

• 53:48

the world um as a means to integrate these types of structures uh with their

• 53:53

surrounding environment i really love how joe kind of captures um not just the element

• 53:59

of the building here and the design of that particular building for the modelers to kind of utilize but also uh

• 54:04

to give context for how these buildings live within the environment by incorporating uh the ancillary uh

• 54:12

natural features and this is definitely work in progress they're just kind of trying to solidify

• 54:18

you know how do these different layers live how do they interact with the environment as stephen said

• 54:23

so take note that these are not final these are just concepts to kind of give us a you know an understanding of where

• 54:29

we're headed with them uh the next thing that we're going to show here is the ayla ruins which um you know this is

• 54:36

obviously in-game screenshots uh these are modular sets that um

• 54:42

uh in the beginning of the new portal area runes for the ayla ayla elder race

• 54:47

to be used throughout the riverlands so we've shown off the riverland stuff in the past already

• 54:53

and now you're getting to see a little bit rather of those i'm watching on stream as well yeah i'm recording locally so we can yeah

• 54:59

yeah we'll use the local video yeah um so this these you know obviously you guys are

• 55:05

aware you're coming back to vera vera once had very large parent-race civilizations and um much of the

• 55:11

landscape incorporates kind of ruined um uh uh buildings and these um uh sets

• 55:19

that you're gonna come across in the in the world to kind of communicate that age and that

• 55:25

distant past uh feeling um but part of that is determining um the parent race's

• 55:31

original architecture and what their their cities did look like because there are going to be cut scenes in the game

• 55:37

that kind of take you back uh in time to visualize the fall and the apocalypse and and stuff along those

• 55:44

lines as as incorporating as certain story elements um so uh in that sense uh

• 55:50

we create kind of the pristine version of the alien architecture and then we destroy it down

• 55:57

into um these ruined points of interest and or ruined

• 56:03

set dresses for the for the environments

• 56:09

and then next we have a little teaser of a couple

• 56:15

screenshots of some of the new tech that they're going to be showing off in the future um i don't know if you want to talk how

• 56:22

much you want to talk about that but i know they wanted to tease these a little bit i actually just i went out to lunch

• 56:28

with the environment team yesterday and we were talking about um you know showcasing this in the next stream

• 56:36

and they uh pretty confident they were like don't give a timeline if they're confident hey if they're

• 56:42

confident i'm confident so um i will say that uh i have seen the

• 56:48

the preliminary tech here uh and it is freaking cool

• 56:53

these are just teaser images but wait until you see the video uh

• 57:00

about this tech and how seasons are introduced within the world it is

• 57:05

something that i think is going to be a very stable and unique aspect of the

• 57:12

Ashes of Creation [Music] mmorpg its world is going to be seeing

• 57:18

the drastic differences that are introduced visually for each biome in each environment

• 57:24

when these cycles of seasons uh are introduced and you're gonna see that that that tech which is which has taken

• 57:31

a lot of effort from our technical art teams and from the environment teams um in accomplishing uh but it is something

• 57:38

that feels just so good um and of course it has deeper uh uh

• 57:45

implications right um as it applies to certain systems like uh crop rotations

• 57:50

and um being able to kind of grow things but also how does that affect the economy like if a particular region

• 57:57

moves into a season and that week you can't grow a particular type of good but another region halfway across the world

• 58:03

can grow that good and you talk about moving those goods across regions so that they're relevant to either craft

• 58:09

workbenches or you can sell them in the local economies that is a major indicator of movement of

• 58:17

goods and movement of goods carries risks and risks can create political uh

• 58:22

foes and friends so um you know all that stuff something as simple as just a climate can have cascading consequences

• 58:30

across the entirety of the game um and yeah i think it's pretty pretty cool

Character Art Update

• 58:37

all right moving on to our character goodness um

• 58:43

i'm looking at uh oops that was supposed to be last

• 58:49

you saw nothing uh the first one here is our sleep sears uh rament as you've seen

• 58:55

before and i'll play the 3d element of this this is the 3d model of it our artists

• 59:01

are so amazing you see concept art and pretty much everything looks just like the concept

• 59:07

um so pretty sick awesome head dress you can kind of see how the light reflects on everything who

• 59:13

did this one was danny eli i didn't i i forgot to put the names on those

• 59:19

ones so i don't wanna i don't wanna give credit to someone with the wrong names um and then the next one here is our steed

• 59:26

of the frayed corpse work in progress

• 59:36

you guys might get your bingo card oh that horse looks so good all right and then the next one is the

• 59:43

lovely amethyst bow bite

• 59:50

oh it's like a little alpaca alpaca well it was basically like a

• 59:58

alpaca

• 1:00:13

turtle alpaca llama and then next we have our rock hawk

• 1:00:19

which is looking so sick rock hawk i like that and uh

• 1:00:25

don't say it too fast

• 1:00:31

[Laughter]

• 1:00:40

next up we have our work in progress ascara but we haven't really had i know there's been people asking for

• 1:00:47

for bugs so here you go oh little beetle dude

• 1:00:52

yeah how big is that i would assume it's probably a big beetle that you're gonna fight

• 1:01:00

um but i'm sure they can make little ones too yeah then we've got

• 1:01:07

the thing you totally didn't see earlier which is the work in progress of the scorpion boss

• 1:01:14

and we do have an image for scale right there

• 1:01:21

oh yeah this guy is scary so sick i think either ginsee or keith is

• 1:01:28

working on this one i don't want to say who it is if i have

• 1:01:34

it wrong um but yeah you know he he just looks

• 1:01:40

like he's a misunderstood totally

• 1:01:45

probably not gonna attack you and eat your face no he seems like a like a cuddle bug you know what i mean no pun

• 1:01:51

intended so cuddly with all those spikes yeah imagine those spikes no they're not meant to poke you they're meant to

• 1:01:57

embrace you all right whatever you're into steven

• 1:02:07

and of course that wraps up this uh segment for our character art um we'll move on to our q a and try to answer as

Outro and Q&A

• 1:02:14

many questions as we can here i know we do have a hard cut off at some point because steven has another meeting he is

• 1:02:21

a fairly booked man the first one here we have here is about roleplay

• 1:02:27

um and the question is well the custom text chat command slash e slash emo emmy

• 1:02:32

or some variant of it be in the game for role play and they don't mean like emotes like dancing and stuff like that

• 1:02:39

that they mean like can they type in the text that they want to type in yeah

• 1:02:44

i think that was wasn't that present in alpha one i think it was an alpha one like you could type the slash

• 1:02:51

uh emote you wanted and it would play like a you know wave or you could clap or you could do something like victory

• 1:02:56

stuff yeah they don't want it to be an animated they're saying like can i just type whatever i want like uh slash

• 1:03:03

uh you know emmy uh and then what does that do in the what

• 1:03:08

do they want that to do other than put text there i think oh then yes

• 1:03:15

you can chat in the chat box for sure well yeah like you can say slash

• 1:03:20

chuckles but it's not like tied to an anime yes you can do that

• 1:03:25

karthos wants to know naval combat uh can i equip my ship with a ram and plow

• 1:03:30

into other ships and maybe raid bosses to inflict damage while not completely yes

• 1:03:36

there might be particular ship components and or classes that excel at

• 1:03:41

that type of activity awesome the next one is from goalid and they

• 1:03:48

would like to know about vassal nodes village nodes and higher level nodes give out certain certificates for

• 1:03:54

freeholds to be placed in their zoi zone of influence for those who don't know

• 1:04:00

if i place my freehold in a vassal node can i get citizenship in the parent node

• 1:04:07

uh that is a very good question actually um right now guys are doing a lot of value yeah

• 1:04:13

yeah right right now actually we are intending on the um uh the freehold

• 1:04:19

system to work in both scenarios uh there will

• 1:04:24

but that may change but you would have an option depending on where you achieved where you procured the

• 1:04:31

certificate from um as long as it is either in the parent or the vassal area it could be a part of

• 1:04:38

either you you kind of you give that declaration when you lay down the freehold but

• 1:04:44

like i said that may change because we are actively um defining a different approach on some of the vassal systems

• 1:04:52

awesome awesome next up we've got nia asking about emotes uh will there be interactions

• 1:04:59

with pets and mounts such as petting hugging or playing with them oh yeah i

• 1:05:05

would love to i mean it's a um i think actually a long time ago uh

• 1:05:10

animation did do some of that um

• 1:05:15

as a matter of fact in alpha one you might have seen some of the anims on the rider of a horse that they went down and

• 1:05:21

kind of padded the side of the neck or they would pet kind of

• 1:05:26

those but those would be separate actions that you could potentially do as just additional emotes but interfaces

• 1:05:32

with a mount or pet that you have active all right

• 1:05:37

and then we've got uh questing lore from dismiss and they want to know will we be

• 1:05:43

processing through an overarching story and chapters of a narrative or will it

• 1:05:49

largely be exploration and contained in small regional quest lines dotted throughout the world

• 1:05:55

both um there will be a healthy dose of both of those um that the the approach of the

• 1:06:02

narrative team is that there is of course a meta-story that meta-story gets informed by

• 1:06:09

regional stories and regional outcomes and depending on how players progress within

• 1:06:16

their personal stories that could be either racially based or

• 1:06:21

could be their class-based they could be a per node basis like all

• 1:06:27

of those things support a grand structure of the meta-narrative but that's how you effectuate kind of

• 1:06:34

outcomes and then we've got schmucky asking about

• 1:06:41

leveling will each node have a couple or have a complete and unique path

• 1:06:46

for a player to get to max level so this is like could i just go to one node and level up to max level

• 1:06:54

um could you do that the way that the nodes influence spawners around its area

• 1:06:59

if the node were high enough level it would have relevant um experience grants

• 1:07:06

that you could likely just live your life at a particular node however that probably would not be the most effective

• 1:07:12

means of leveling um is it possible perhaps yes um but

• 1:07:17

it would be probably at a reduced pace okay and then ronius

• 1:07:25

sipony i don't know if i'm saying your name right wants to know about monster coins if an economic building is

• 1:07:31

disabled in a monster coin event will it have economic consequences in regions

• 1:07:37

other than the node in which it was destroyed uh potentially yes depending on what the

• 1:07:42

what the service building was that got disabled um so for example if the service building that got disabled

• 1:07:48

was a blacksmith's building that housed a workbench which was the only workbench in the region capable of crafting a t5

• 1:07:55

or tier v or you know high tier quality equipment then of course that would have

• 1:08:01

ramifications economically as those pieces of equipment that are already readily available would raise in prices

• 1:08:09

and because there would be a issue within the supply chain of those

• 1:08:16

items being introduced into the economy you would potentially have some supply and demand

• 1:08:21

changes economically and that could span regions that could be global um even so yeah

• 1:08:27

and then we have a question from schwann36 wanting to know about naval content since you need to be at a port or harbor

• 1:08:35

to summon a ship and that's only big ships small ships you could you could do not at those um if a ship is destroyed

• 1:08:42

will's out at sea will the player need to slowly swim back to shore

• 1:08:47

or get a ride or how would are they just stranded out there what's the yeah i mean there's a real fast ride that they

• 1:08:54

could take and um typically that would involve them kind of just swimming under the water and letting life take its you

• 1:09:00

know take them away but now stephen oh my god by the way do not

• 1:09:07

advise doing that in real life or anything i'm just saying like in the game world there's a fast way and there's a slow

• 1:09:13

wave but those are really kind of your options at that point okay because some games have uh you know

• 1:09:20

things that will let you go back to shore or recall back or something of that sort yes um no we don't have a

• 1:09:26

recall we don't have that type of there there is consequence for you losing the means of your mobility um and if you

• 1:09:34

lost the means of that mobility then um those consequences are it's going to take you longer to get to where you need

• 1:09:40

to go or you're going to have to suffer suffer some experience debt all right and then dabs 16 wants to know

• 1:09:48

about sieges if a person is a citizen of a node when a siege scroll is dropped on

• 1:09:54

the node can they move their citizenship before the siege occurs

• 1:09:59

very interesting question um for the most part uh yes they could do that do

• 1:10:05

they get a deserter tag or something so there are certain policies

• 1:10:10

um that the node could have active at the time that might exacerbate the penalties for

• 1:10:17

departing the city as a citizen prior to a siege taking effect but during the

• 1:10:22

declaration period so that is a answer that has a variable

• 1:10:29

component to it okay and then richie sh wants to know about the under realm can we expect the

• 1:10:36

underrealm and tulnar starting area to be more built up civilization-wise since those inhabitants have existed on vera

• 1:10:44

since the apocalypse well it's important to note actually that the the tulnar's locations within

• 1:10:51

the underground that they took refuge in during the um

• 1:10:57

after the exodus um that portion is

• 1:11:03

was protected well actually i don't want to get into that too much i know i almost i almost slipped there

• 1:11:09

i'm glad uh i did not actually um but uh how can i answer that question uh i'm not gonna

• 1:11:15

give an answer you don't have to necessarily give an answer yeah um okay and then sorry richie you'll have

• 1:11:22

to experience in game to find out uh the next question is about mounts and

• 1:11:27

and this is from lashing and they would like to know will gliding tier two mounts have to sacrifice speed

• 1:11:34

other stats or an ability slot to keep tier one mounts relevant

• 1:11:40

um [Music] no tier one route mounts are relevant um

• 1:11:47

and this is something that's going to be explained in our stable systems and how mounts are

• 1:11:52

accounted for uh later on um we haven't gotten into an article about the stable

• 1:11:57

systems yet or or discussed really how they work um but generally you're gonna have active mounts and those active

• 1:12:04

mounts um i'll just i'll tease this a little bit the active mounts are determined based on um you

• 1:12:11

having that active mount as part of a slot within the stable that you um you're within the area of

• 1:12:18

and what that means is that mounts are relevant in battle and if you lose your mount in battle it's it's it is a

• 1:12:24

detriment there are ways for you to bring that mount back there are active potions that you can have available to

• 1:12:30

you to do fast resurrections to reduce that cooldown potentially and you can also interface with the stable

• 1:12:36

itself if you want to uh swap that mount out mount out with a different mount but

• 1:12:41

tier one mounts will have certain type types of abilities that are unique to the tier ones and the tier twos will

• 1:12:48

have certain abilities that are unique to the tier twos in some cases those will be horizontal um in other cases

• 1:12:53

they'll be vertical power gain um so it just depends on the situation it's it's it's a situational element

• 1:13:00

perfect and then we have our last question is going to be about end game from gizmo gizmo as in like m-o-w like

• 1:13:08

moe in the lawn uh and they want to know how do you plan to balance professions

• 1:13:13

to keep them equally useful and relevant at endgame well that's hard balance is a hard

• 1:13:20

question it's a it's a big question

• 1:13:25

balance is um you know of course something that is done through testing through iteration

• 1:13:32

um and uh and also watching player behavior so um

• 1:13:38

you know when it comes to balancing a system that's something that we do during testing phases when it comes to architecting the system itself and

• 1:13:45

identifying the areas in which certain certain professions excel

• 1:13:50

where they interact with ancillary systems their interconnectivity across the artisanship system as a whole

• 1:13:56

you know the the important part there is to identify um how that the the interconnectivity

• 1:14:04

lives with the other professions in the artisanship system um and and and what

• 1:14:11

type of reliance you have on particular professions to complete the path of

• 1:14:16

crafting or introduction of new items into the economy and i think that

• 1:14:23

one of the things you need to strive to do is not to create arbitrary and one-off

• 1:14:29

bespoke professions that aren't part of that integration that whole holistic kind of view of the depression system

• 1:14:36

corey and mike are doing a great job in kind of identifying uh the importance of

• 1:14:41

each profession across the artisanship as a whole the artisanship systems as a whole

• 1:14:48

and right now we have 20 i believe we have 22 professions

• 1:14:53

and we're talking about masteries like ultimate masteries uh living within only

• 1:14:58

two of those to start for any one individual character so there's a uh that doesn't mean that

• 1:15:04

that you can't achieve like tier three and tier four um intermediate proficiency within those

• 1:15:10

systems and have some uh some interaction across the whole but when it comes to complete mastery we're

• 1:15:17

really kind of identifying around two or three right now but that's something that gets play tested something gets iterated upon

• 1:15:23

something that we get feedback on um that's an important aspect for sure yeah

• 1:15:29

well we appreciate you answering all those questions stephen i know it's a lot

• 1:15:35

um but of course uh we hope that you all enjoyed our april development update as

• 1:15:41

we said there will be an ebb and flow of those big ones where we showcase a lot of cool in-game stuff

• 1:15:46

versus the others where we kind of give you little pieces trickling here and there but we hope that you enjoyed hearing about the event system we will

• 1:15:53

have an article going out next week or sometime coming up that you can check out as well as there

• 1:15:59

already is a feedback thread up if you have any you know thoughts on the event system thus far feel free to drop them

• 1:16:05

over there and then of course we also have our hairstyle feedback thread up we would love to hear your thoughts on

• 1:16:12

those things especially for the hairstyles if you can provide some imagery that assists our

• 1:16:18

artist quite greatly and you know we're really excited we hope that you have enjoyed um seeing our update and uh just

• 1:16:26

quick reminders that the road to desolation cosmetic swap over will be on may 11th so if you'd like that check it

• 1:16:32

out thank you all for watching thank you steven for your time we hope that you all stay safe and healthy and of course

• 1:16:38

if you uh didn't get to watch this or you kind of came in later it will be immediately available over on

• 1:16:44

twitch if twitches mods want to work with us otherwise we will be putting this up on our youtube channel

• 1:16:49

youtube.com Ashes of Creation and if you subscribe to us over there and leave us a comment on the video your comment

• 1:16:56

could be selected randomly to be uh spotlighted on our next live stream which we will you know if it's a

• 1:17:03

question we'll answer if not we'll maybe discuss it a little bit maybe it's about tacos i don't know what it's going to be

• 1:17:08

about but we hope to see it and of course follow us on all the places we you know

• 1:17:14

we of course do this big update on live streams once a month once a month but we do a ton of updates on our social media

• 1:17:21

throughout the month so if you want to see daily content twitter facebook instagram snapchat go check us out uh

• 1:17:28

pop on over to our discord bacner and roshan are and are always interacting with people daily over there as well as

• 1:17:34

over on our forums we would love to have you join us and be part of our ashes family and we will see you all next

• 1:17:41

month for another development update bye everybody have an awesome weekend

• 1:17:47

[Music]