Talk:2022-04-29 Livestream
תמליל גולמי
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
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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
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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
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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
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the start of this year we have hired
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23 additional people to the team um which is really cool
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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that's been that's been worked out over the last month um engineering's really been focusing a lot on
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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
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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
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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
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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]