Talk:2017-05-08 Livestream

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1:50

Hello guys out there in stream land this is Steven Sharif creative director at Intrepid Studios I'm joined by Jeffrey Bard lead designer

Hi everybody

And game designer Peter Pilone

How's it going

We're excited to be here we have an amazing guest who's going to be asking some awesome questions today one of my personal favorite twitch streamers out there when it comes to the MMORPG community Doc Got Game everybody

What is up

Whoo

Yeah

Woo ready [laughter]

Doc I got to tell you when when we heard that you were going to be our guest today I was super ecstatic because you have always been one of my favorite MMORPG specific twitch streamers just because of your passion for the genre I think you have a great show and you have awesome input when it comes to the industry and when it comes to just MMORPs and MMORPGs in general so I was really excited to to be able to do this with you I know we all are

Yeah totally

No I'm stoked and I'm so happy for you guys I mean you guys know how to put on a Kickstarter let me tell you my goodness oh wow one minute I look up I mean I look up and I'm like okay cool you know they're they're trucking along quite nicely the next thing I know you guys are already surpassing the goal and everything so congratulations to you guys on an amazing freakin Kickstarter and it's nowhere near over I I haven't put anything in there yet so hold on a little bit

Alright cut the stream [laughter]

I mean give me a few minutes here guys

No it has been totally awesome we couldn't do without everybody out there um you know it's it's it's been one heck of a ride and it's only been a week

I know officially one week today yeah and I think we're we're 3,000 dollars away from hitting our 1 million five hundred thousand dollar mark that unlocks our expanded naval content additional ships and content under the water so we're pretty excited about that we

It might happen on this stream

Oooh

That would be awesome

Got my finger's crossed

Wait we can't hear Doc

Yeah doc

Doc

Yeah can you guys hear me?

Oh no yeah we got you we got

Got me okay cool cool

[Cross-talk]

4:12

I got a I'll put the poster on my mouth

I haven't yet [Cross-talk]

Jeff doesn't have Doc neither does Matt uh Peter sorry

It's alright it happens

On no

Oh man so let's make sure we got that Doc give us a test real quick

Sure sure test test test one two one two microphone check ree ree ree ree

I don't have him got him from Peter

Check check one two one two microphone check

My doubts the first one

He's good for me

All right he's good for Peter

Yeah

I don't have him

No?

He's like he's like silent

Are you sitting on it Jeff? There you go and then plug that in

I think we were just changing the levels a little

Yeah sorry about that sorry guys so um

Can you test again? I literally can't hear you talk

How about now?

Check check testing um testing

All good okay

We're good we're good okay we're back so sorry about that little audio to slip up so Doc you got some pretty awesome questions we don't know exactly what all the questions are that you have but that's just the way that we like it here so if you want to give us some some pretty tough ones you're welcome to

Sure sure no I appreciate it you guys have been I watched a couple of the the other vol the other two pieces of them and you guys have been very open so I'm ready to get going here um if if I do ask a question that you guys have already answered feel free to just shut up doc we got that covered and I'll move on to the next one you know so um but uh I I figured I'd warmed you guys up a little bit start off with some general questions and then get down to the nitty gritty arm we be focusing a little bit on PvP and Guilds cuz that's you know Steve you know that's what I love so

Oh I know I know

But uh but well I guess the first question would be as the first major MMO gaining traction in the Unreal Engine how do you feel you guys are going to hold up on a technical level how do you feel the Unreal Engine is gonna is gonna is going to work I mean do you feel that it can live up to the expectations of you and the community?

6:10

Well that's definitely a really good question and I'll let Jeff answer a little bit of it but first to let you know you know Unreal Engine being an engine created by Epic is is a really versatile engine that offers access to the to the source code and allows us to get into that back-end and customize all the networking code that we need to do from us as developers in order to accommodate the goals that we have in game when it comes to large battles whether it be PvP or PvE raids that we intend to have and you know Epic has awesome support we have amazing engineers here in the in the Studios engineers who have been working with MMORPG specifically for over 15 years and I've done a lot of that networking code so we feel extremely confident that Unreal 4 is going to be able to to allow us that that versatility and customization that we can introduce our own proprietary networking code when it comes to accommodating those goals

Yeah I mean I guess we can say it pretty simply and that we haven't run into anything that is going to be causing a problem you know it's it's the flexibility of it has been amazing and like Steven said the support that they give us is pretty incredible so so yeah there's there's so far so good there haven't been any problems all of our tests have been really good really positive so our guys know what they're doing and you guys know what they're doing and together we form Voltron so it's yes

[Garbled] I like so um my next question is going to be on you guys really how communicative does the team plan on being when presenting changes to the you know to the to the community about the game or garnering feedback from the community and in my time of playing MMOs I've come across some great initiatives where you know developers and publishers are communicating with their community hey this is what we want to do what do you think about it we can make some changes if you don't like Lannon and then i've been on the other the other side of that spectrum where the game developer is like this is what you're getting suck up and love it cuz we're not changing it so you know I've seen both spectrums of that where do you guys see yourself in that in that mix there?

So I mean the most important aspect of gaming for me and my life has always been the community and I wanted to to take that into the development end of things when it comes to MMORPGs because I personally really haven't experienced the super communicative aspect that you have with some games you know I've really only ever been on the other side of that spectrum where as a gamer I didn't get any communication and they were just saying you know suck it up and and enjoy the RNG boxes so yeah and you know for me going into Ashes of Creation it's always been at the forefront of what we are doing to make sure that we are as communicative as possible with our community you know I'm on discord our rest of our team is on discord we're on Reddit we're on our forums you know where we're engaging with the community on not just a developer with you know player interaction but kind of like hey we're all a part of this MMORPG family you know our genre isn't a giant genre we need to stick together so that what we're able to produce as an industry is going to be something that reflects the will the desires of our players

Absolutely

Yeah no 100% you know it's it's it's a challenge right there's a reason why a lot of developers don't do that because it takes work you know and and we're willing to put in that work and to make sure that those those communication pathways are back and forth right and you know ultimately at the end of the day we want the health of the game to be to be what drives us so that's having that feedback is super critical to making that kind of thing happen

9:55

Yeah absolutely absolutely no great answer and I appreciate it you know um what what will the content release tempo be once the game is launched how often will we see updates to the game on both the minor scale and a major scale again I've been on both sides of the spectrum where you know there's you know the MMO developer is constantly releasing content every three months and it's kind of what we're accustomed to if we're lucky but I've also been on the you know again uh uh enjoy the RNG boxes where do you guys see yourself falling in in terms of how often are we can we expect to get new shiny stuff?

I think the answer to that question is very often I mean first of all being a subscription model allows us that ability to constantly be producing content and when that is coupled with our node system and how we can release certain content through the node system you're going to be seeing often there being you know developer updates and new chapters and new quest lines and story lines and you know a lot of stuff that that relates to you know what is possible in this world based on player decision and then we're just adding to that you know we're constantly adding to that

Yeah I like these are these are really cloudy numbers right a lot of what we're going to do is going to depend on what the game is like at launch but I know right now in my head we're planning on on it at the very least quarterly quarterly big releases of of stuff and probably minor ones in between that but again like until we get to that point is going to be hard to really nail down exactly how often those will come but though they'll be at least quarterly and maybe faster than

And that's for the major ones like every three months for the major ones you know there could be smaller ones that come out you know every month even maybe like me questlines to like that it just depends our node system is really versatile in that regard

Yeah

Makes sense it makes sense so now I'm gonna hate you for a bit of a dinger here guys I've been easy on you I gotta get out gotta do a little something here so gonna switch gears a little bit and ask the question why PvP in Ashes of Creation what benefits outside of the node associated benefits are there from PvP in the game why why bother why PvP in Ashes of Creation?

Well you know the the primary goal or central tenant in Ashes of Creation is you as the player you as the community are here on this world to develop to rebuild repopulate you know explore and bring civilization back to this forgotten world and in PV you know that's the PvE aspect of it the PvP mechanic is necessary to help catalyze change because our node system works in a way that allows doors to be open for for certain and and when you open a door you know you leave a door behind sometimes and we want PvP to allow you to go back and open up that door you left behind potentially to explore that content that was locked off by development of a certain node so you know PvP for us is an aspect that is necessary when it comes to bringing meaning to the game's development in it inside the storyline itself allowing players to to work together against not just an AI but also against your fellow player if they have different different objectives different goals different interests and you know for me in the past playing MMORPGs oftentimes PvP was done in a way that really didn't bring a lot of meaning to the game it was really just something that was available and and you know players could could exercise their political intrigue through PvP but but here in Ashes of Creation PvP inflicts meaningful change throughout the world

Yeah change is basically the the big word right there you know our node system really kind of almost depends on it where if we let it go and there was no way to destroy these things then they would just grow out and then that would be it that would be the game we want people to be able to tear things down as much as we want them to build them up so that's kind of the engine that keeps things going

Right and it keeps it fresh and keeps it new you know it is that that Phoenix of rebirth that comes out of the ashes of what PvP

Right

Sorry did

No absolutely now um I know that uh there's going to be I know you mentioned in a previous segment that there's going to be some form of you know battleground or arena um other are there any plans well can you elaborate on on that you know I we I I love the notion of this node centric MMOs you know with with with the PvP surrounding it what about that that arena or that battleground PvP can you elaborate a little bit on what we can expect from there are there any rewards for participating in that PvP that's outside of the you know the influence of the nodes

Yeah absolutely so I mean we are intending to have battlegrounds we do intend to have arenas we intend to have ladders and participation that reflects your your skill and abilities within those specific systems we definitely are going to have those in Ashes of Creation in addition to that you know we have open-world battlegrounds that can can be organic in the sense that our Caravan is a necessary tool a mechanic that transits goods between regional marketplaces and systems localities that that depend on resources being brought there which is dependent upon the players to do that in and these caravans you know bring with them a static PvP zone that's based off of proximity and if there are players within that area they're going to be queued with a user interface that says do you want to participate to attack defend or ignore this Caravan and players get to participate in this kind of moving dynamic battleground that exists out in the open world which which has a lot of you know risk versus reward Mechanics for players to either succeed in transiting those goods or be taken by these bandits whose interests are to take those goods we have castle systems that reflect you know can exert control over the world around it and the nodes that exist within the regions but can can be a source of additional protection for the transit of those goods or for the protection of those nodes or could not you know we have a lot of systems in place both open world and in the arena

16:32

Yeah yeah I mean sometimes with arenas it's just like you want to break from the world then you want to go out and do something fun for a short period of time so we want people to have that option and to be able to just like hey I'm gonna take a break from the world for a second and and and kill some fools

Right right

I know people have that competitive edge we want to enable them to you know live that out and be competitive

Yeah

Now can a can a pirate or player killer flourish in this game or is he limited by the penalties that he has you know kick so you know can a can a bad guy can a bad guy make it in this game if he wants to ?

Well I think to a degree I mean we want to incentivize you know meaningful conflict meaningful PvP obviously we don't want it to become a gank box or murder box which is why we've instituted our open world flagging system which kind of deters just outright PKing of non-combatants I mean if you're running around and you see other players and you want to just murder them you know we don't want to incentivize that and our flagging system get you know gives you corruption if you do kill non-combatants and and corruption is not a good thing all right it is not beneficial for you and in addition to that you know that corruption decreases your effectiveness when it comes to combat so you just can't go down a PKing spree and can expect to be effective after a period of time

Right like if your goal is just to make another player's day worse right there's there's probably not a game there for you if you're there to actually accomplish something then there's going to be a good reason to do it and there's going to be plenty of opportunities for you to succeed so it really depends on what your motivation is and what you're trying to gain and yeah

Yeah and it's not going to be a scenario in which like you know I've seen definitely people discussing our PvP flagging system saying well hey you know people are just going to kill me anyways you know this corruption doesn't sound like a significant enough deterrent and you know I'm going to get spawn camped or something I assure you in our flagging system that's not possible somebody's not going to be spawn camped you know the corruption system will accrue enough penalties after a short period of time that that person's effectiveness and PvP is not going to be capable of allowing them to sit there and spawn camp you in addition you know we have a bounty hunter system as well that's going to take people who do accrue that corruption they're going to be a target for people that want to go out there and and take these take out these murderers and

At the same time you know to the lesser degree of away from the gate box you know when Steven referenced caravans you know if your identities that you want to go and you just only want to attack them with the open PvP zone you'll be totally do you know there's a meaning behind that right and there's a motivation there's a meaning there's a reward you know there's an identity associated with that act you know these are the types of things that we want to incentivize

19:26

And and it's the same thing I mean you know everything it reverts back to a risk and reward I mean oftentimes if your reward carries no risk it has no meaning to you there's no satisfaction and having achieved something so we want to make sure that whether it comes to the transit of goods or it comes to the development of civilization or comes to the keeping of a whole of a castle you know there is significant risk that's applied to those based on the activities of your opponents in the world that that makes it satisfying for you to hold that keep or to defend that city or to earn your reward for transiting that mithril or iron or whatever you know that balance is necessary and you have to make sure that there is a significant realm of of playground for you in the PvE aspect of things in the crafting aspect of things in the trading aspect of things so that you bring both meaning to that reward and you also give meaning to those who just want to tear stuff down I mean because those people exist

Absolutely

And and and we in and they're a healthy dynamic when it comes to creating a world that rewards both sides

Yeah

Fair enough fair enough now I gotta ask this question Steve I know I know you can relate a little bit is there is there any RNG when upgrading gear can you gear be broken or downgraded when we're talking about upgrading or doing anything at all with crafting here?

So crafting is going to be recipe based and it is not going to involve RNG when it comes to crafting up no it will not involve RNG will involve getting out in the world and and and getting rare items and and killing monsters and bosses epic bosses that are going to create epic gear and it's going to come down to potentially even taking that epic gear and and deconstructing it to learn how it works so that you can produce it in the future as a master crafter it's going to come down between working together with different paths of the artisan class whether you're a processor or gatherer or an item creator we're not going to see RNG in our crafting system there may be some elements of RNG when it comes to you know over enchanting beyond what an item is but you'll be able to determine what that item is going to be when you're crafting it based on the recipes that you're using and the materials that you found and the resources that you've gathered but if you want to take that extra step and risk thing when it comes to you know making your sword of you know Jeffrey

The Sword of Jeffrey

You know if you want to make it a +10 sword that's a different story you know obviously there's going to be some some potential RNG to that and then in addition you know there's drop table RMG's that are going to obviously exist in the game or well for like what you kill things but

22:09

Okay yeah not when it comes not not a game that should not be spoken no you will not see that degree of RNG

Fair enough fair enough

Yeah we're really trying to focus on making crafting fun making crafting something that everybody can like work together towards and that there's a game there right that it's not just I'm sitting at a UI window all day long and that's all I do right we want it to be a fun engaging part of your gameplay

Yeah

You know

Absolutely absolutely um my next question is about mounts I don't know if this has been asked before but you know is there going to be mounted mount specific combat and if so or if not can mounts be killed by the other players?

So mounts could be yes killed by other players there will be some mounts specific abilities that that will be had by particular mounts and those abilities could pertain to some combat scenarios but specifically if you're asking like can I use my you know Ranger abilities while a top a mount we're not going to be doing that no you won't be able to to participate with your class skills while mounted it's just going to be it's going to be limited to what the mount specifically is capable of doing

Okay fair enough now um how will smaller guilds be able to compete with larger guilds I understand that there's an alliance system that's going to be in place but are there any integrated systems from the game standpoint to prevent one mega blob from ruling everything you know or or

Right

Or or having multiple guilds grief one smaller guild is there anything in place for that?

So absolutely I mean when designing Ashes of Creation you know is very important for us to make sure that we were able to focus on certain systems that apply to smaller groups smaller organizations and they a place within those systems and then also having the the application of larger guilds and larger groups there's a lot of different things that smaller groups can do better than larger groups and we wanted to make sure that we we focus focused on excuse-me focused on those systems when it comes to sieges there will be roles for smaller groups to play when it comes to developing certain structures within a node smaller groups will have an advantage of you know and in another thing that's a huge aspect of probably something you and I both Doc have experienced in the past is with games that that really emphasize Zerg play you know one of the primary components is the ability of that Zerg to form in a very short period of time and port immediately to some location that needs their their attention right and that's that's part of what Zerg play is and I think in our game with with removing that fast travel mechanic and including you know meaningful travel that takes time to reach certain places you're not going to see as much of a development of that Zerg play if a caravan is moving out from a city and a large guild doesn't catch wind of it until it begins moving they likely will not have the time to organize form and reach that point by the time that caravan reaches its location and I think that's a big aspect of you know cutting back the potential for Zergs to control things in the game

We really want strategy to be a part of the guild lexicon right we want guilds to have to plan and to have to have people in the right place at the right time in order to to like exert their influence on the world so that's that's a big part of it and having alliances with smaller guilds allowing them to you know get into places that a bigger guild might not necessarily be they're you know guilds that call their home in one town which is another town is going to really kind of affect how the world works so so there's there's definitely going to be a lot of small parts we were talking earlier about

Guild leveling

26:01

Yeah about how guild levels may actually maybe we don't talk about that

[Cross-talk] we do a little overview okay so so obviously whoops did we lose the stream are we good I can't see okay sorry so you know obviously everything we're saying is is brought into the light of you know we have alphas and we have betas where we're going to test some of these philosophies okay and and part of part of that testing is obviously going to be getting the community's feedback on certain systems and mechanics I mean we one of the things we're talking about is when it comes to guild progression specifically and what skills are available during the guild progression we have a very intricate guild system that involves different levels and different progression aspects in questing specific guild questing and as you're advancing that guild in in its progression you have the ability to either expand or focus in on a smaller guild so let's say for example you're a group of twenty people and you want to level your guild but you're not interested in expanding it to you know a hundred people or 150 people because you really just want to stay that tight-knit group right well if you're going to forego the additional membership slots you'll have the ability to focus in on some stronger skills or some more honed skills specific skills that are available to your group of twenty that the larger guild who chose to go the route of more membership slots doesn't have access to and you know I think that that's a good way to balance you know how smaller guilds can interact with larger guilds in the game in the game [Laughter] I see that elephant just running across the screen

We've also talked about fortresses being having like right oh yes so having smaller sized skills being able to siege fortresses

Oh oh

We did just reach 1.5 million congratulations

Yeah

Congratulations to you guys

That's awesome well done

That's a huge milestone for us

That is awesome so that what comes with that is our enhanced ocean

Yes yes so that's going to be coming

That's exciting

Ship warfare and underground or underwater zones

Gotta get an update on that just to show a little bit talk a little bit more about that but know what Peter was saying I'm sorry about world events and in world specific locations like guild halls you know fighting over guild halls we have mechanics that are geared toward smaller guilds and larger guilds and and a place for those those two separate identities

Absolutely that sounds fantastic I I oh that just tickles me pink [laughter] now speaking of guilds I mean in at you know I I played MMOs where you know you can you can thrive as a solo player I played MMOs where you know you really you really need to be in a guild his Ashes of Creation fit into that Kenna solo play your thrive with the mechanics of the game or do you really want to be in a guild to experience the most of what Ashes of Creation has to offer?

Excuse me

You know I mean

Go ahead

Sorry I was gonna say we always focus on the micro and the macro when it comes to our design we want to make sure that as a solo that we realize there are soul players out there and they should have a role right it doesn't mean that they don't necessarily need to not they don't have to work with other people that's that's always going to be part of it

Right um

But but our content isn't locked behind guilds right

That's absolutely true and I think I think it's important to note that by merely joining an MMORPG you are becoming a part of a community already right I mean yes you can be a solo player but simply playing an MMORPG makes you a part of the community in some degree and I think there's as Jeff was saying micro-macro there's a lot of macro systems that that include solo players in some sense of community within the game whether it be developing a node that you're a citizen of or you know working on certain buildings and getting those buildings up and running in those nodes or participating in the raids in the dungeons and building your freehold those systems those mechanics while not necessary needing to you to be a part of a guild does have you a part of a community and I I think that that's that's why it's possible to both be a solo player or a guild player in our game because ultimately at the end of the day you are part of a community no matter what

I think we approach to trying to understand and you know very cognizant of the fact that motivations differ there's a wide spectrum of motivations and that the solo player let's say that they're going out and just either today they decide to do only quest and that's all they're going to do today by doing that they are contributing to the area they're in you know they're affecting my play experience Jeff Steves you know we wanted that that's the whole reason for the node system is that everyone gets a contribution you know into the pool right so to speak so we want everyone having some type of feedback no matter what your motivation

Right that's true exactly good point

31:10

So speaking of speaking of guilds I I heard the tingling of guild skills and and how big leaders are gonna be able to you know specialize their guilds what tool will guild leaders have to bring the guild together there you know the um are there gonna be any guild missions or guild specific activities that a guild leader can initiate or an officer can initiate to get the guild rolling or is it all about just collectively doing whatever individuals are doing at the time?

There's going to be a lot of tools to guild leaders and

Stevens a big guild guy

I know I know

He's got some wants and desires I said

I am definitely a big guild guy but but don't don't get that wrong if you're a solo player there's a lot of I mean there's an equilibrium there but we had to do yeah no I know but no I'm a big guild guy and there's going to be I mean gosh I don't even this it's going to knock your socks off Doc I'm telling you right now the amount of guild activity in this game from from a tool standpoint from from a leadership standpoint from a delegation standpoint from activities and quest lines and storylines and in development and skills and passives that are available to the guild halls and the castles and the and the node political systems I mean there is just so much that these these communities within the game can partake in and and it's I think it's going to be one-of-a-kind

Yeah the tool set that that guild leaders are going to have is going to be pretty robust we're going all out on it so so guild leaders should should should have plenty of good ways of recruiting good ways of you know managing and maintaining their guild good ways of communicating to their guild and getting motivating that guild and getting that guild to an actionable place

That's amazing that is amazing I'm excited I'm excited if Steve said it's gonna be good then it's gonna be good dammit so um I'm not sure how much time we have left um but uh

I think you got some time okay

Alright

Maybe five ten more minutes

Five or ten more minutes

Okay yeah so going back a little bit to uh to PvP in your opinion from where you sit can someone play the game and live purely in the PvP of Ashes of Creation can i log in and get a good solid but let me let me be nice here you know four or five hours of just raw PvP content in Ashes of Creation?

Um that's a tough question

That's a really hard question

I don't I don't -

[Cross-talk] Depends on the community what it's doing

I would say my first inclination as an answer to that would be purely No I think that that you're going to naturally if you're playing the game come across aspects that are going to to involve you with the environment and you know going out there and and either questing for certain things you know killing certain monsters even you know interacting with the economy if you need gear stuff like that but a large predominant portion could be reflected of you know the arena system and you know battlegrounds and being a bandit and yes there would be a large portion of that that's possible obviously but

It just it just really depends on what that server is doing right like like I imagine that they're going to be servers that are pretty PvP heavy and there's always something crazy going on and I imagine quieter servers where people kind of keep to themselves so it really just depends on what the community is doing and and what they decide to do with their day

34:56

I mean there's a lot of avenues to PvP

Yeah right

I think it really depends on with that question what specifically like you're wanting to do on that day you know there's so many avenues to get your endpoint of the broad-stroke PvP right that I you know there's so much that I think you can just approach that from that really I don't know the hours down to the minute or

I just get

I know there's a lot that you can

I just get hesitant when I hear the word purely I mean I don't want to make an emphatic statement but yes there is a you can purely do it this way obviously there's gonna be some some give-and-take between your time to advance and progress in the game that that might require certain things you know that are PvE reflective of course but there's going to be a large possibility of PvP oriented players having a lot of PvP oriented things to do and the same is true on the PvE side like if you're a PvE player who doesn't want to participate in PvP all the time or really wants to avoid PvP to a large degree there's going to be many things that are possible for you to do in the game that reflect only a PvE experience you know we're not we're not forcing players to do one or the other there is a healthy balance in the game that's going to reflect those two systems and they both have to have a lot of tender love and care with it right but you know I would stay away from words like purely just makes us you know I can't I can't predict

Yeah it's really hard to predict

So absolutely it makes sense it makes sense now speaking of speaking of servers I I heard servers how how do the servers get broken down are there going to be multiple channels per server where you can switch kind of like an MMO that's currently in existence now or is it if you're on the server you're on the server I can find you wherever you are?

It's going to be the latter if you're on the server you're on the server he's talking about servers with separate channels rock we're having separate servers run

Right

And those servers will have their own population

Yeah for the for the node system we really need a system like that because thanks we need a system like that because of how different each world is going to be you know based on how nodes evolve and things evolve there may be things unlocked on one server that aren't unlocked on another server right and so so it's pretty necessary that the populations remain where they started

And that's and that's one of the most defining aspects of what sets Ashes of Creation apart from what's been done in the industry for the past you know 17 years 18 years whatever it is it is the fact that each server will tell that different story

Right

You know our system is designed so that content is is chosen by the players it's like that maybe when I was a kid I really loved the goose bump goosebumps I loved goosebumps okay right and there was a version of the Goosebumps book that was called choose-your-own-adventure anyway I mean it wasn't a goosebumps specific thing but it was it was my favorite book to read because at the bottom of the page you'd have a choice do you you know open the door on the right or do you walk down the hallway on your left and if you open the door and you write you turn to page 67 something happens obviously so like it was that kind of philosophy of choosing your own adventure that I had never seen done before in an MMORPG and it just made sense like why is this not the case I mean all the technological tools are there from a design element to get this thing done this way and no one just has done that they played with it a little bit but from from a purely you know server architecture standpoint from from a design pillar it has never been done before and I thought it was the coolest idea for a population as close-knit as the MMORPG community is to have that agency over the direction of a narrative in the server and I think it's going to be really cool when you see those servers have different narratives

Right

You know

39:01

Yeah I think it'd be cool for players right because one thing that happens on one server might not happen on another server and people can talk about that right like like there's there's like we talke about player story all the time and player story is where that real story happens when when we talk about MMOs and we talk about our experiences it's those stories that that we love to tell so we want we want as many opportunities for that kind of storytelling to happen across as many places as we can

Absolutely

Yeah I think every every time I would speak with it you know anybody old guild mate guildmates who maybe come into my teamspeak server or whatever after four years of not coming in when we begin to rehash stories of the past it's always about man do you remember that one time outside this city when we had that fight that lasted four straight hours and like yeah I was rezzing you and you like lost an entire level or something that's like those are the stories that that really stick with you as a gamer that you can't get from just doing other social activities like you know watching [cross-talk]

And a story like that changes the server right

I know it does entirely [cross-talk]

Right like there's actual consequences

Absolutely

Rather than just being a story we're telling each other

And that's what we really wanted to do we wanted to give the tools for players to do that over and over again to have those server defining moments to have those stories that are going to stick with them you know years down the road that they can remember man that was a really fun night stuck with me you know

I love it I love it I hate the channel system so that answer couldn't have gone any better for me so thank you [laughter] oh my goodness so uh next question would be um will

This will probably have to be the last

Last question okay last question of the night

So choose wisely

40:39

Okay you guys have hit me good so will there be an autorun pathing system in the game?

An auto-run pathing system?

I don't know about pathing system but you could you could potentially press like the num lock key in your character just means

You mean like you a personal character directed due to a button press?

Like I choose a waypoint and I run to it?

Yeah yeah yeah

Probably not

Probably not

What?

Yeah you basically

Yeah we might have some fast travel options that are similar to that

Oh you mean between like right right time to point yeah like you could have fast you could have faster travel right not fast travel look at a faster travel where you summit amount or something from the gate of one node and you're like hey I want to go to a node over here and it's just like alright so you begin moving along the road potentially yeah with that mount um maybe

Okay

I don't know that's a good question we haven't answered totally

I got you baby!

The last one should've cut you off

Saved the best for last

Saved the best for last oh my goodness

41:51

Well hey Doc Got Game it was a pleasure for us to have you

Yeah

I'm a huge fan of your of your stream I love your passion when it comes to MMORPGs and I was honored to have you here with us today asking us all those cool questions

Thank you no thank you guys thank you so much for having me and I can't wait to plunk down some money on what's gonna be an amazing MMO thank you for giving us thank you for giving us

Thank you

Thank

We appreciate man

We appreciate it later buddy

Alright take care guys

Alright I love Doc Got Game

Yeah no that was a lot of fun

He's a cool guy yeah he's a great guy and he has he has a really strong passion for the community and I think that uh I love I love his take on the industry in just the genre

Yeah totally agree

42:36

Um we had some questions that we didn't get to last time

One point five million guys

Hey 1.5 awesome that is so cool amazing support amazing community we really cannot express enough our heartfelt gratitude for all the support that you guys have shown us in and it means so much to us to just look out in the sea of the MMORPG genre and say all these people coming out saying hey you're onto something yes this is you guys are go in the right direction

Feels good man feels good

It does feel good so we didn't get to some questions last time what ah questions we have Peter?

All right

We do um I have so much water

Thank you I love water

Okay the first one comes from

[Laughter] I didn't want to drink out of that sorry

First one comes from Big One Chris will races affect your classes?

Yes

Yes races will affect your classes so

So we've talked about the secondary system for classes how you pick a primary class in a secondary class race is going to function similarly to that

Yeah so like you'll have you know racial augments that are that are capable of being applied to active skills and and those augments are going to be a reflection of the flavor of that specific race in addition races will have differing degrees of stats and and our game in our class system relies on certain stats to achieve different metrics in the game when it comes to you know damage defense and landing rates and all that kind of stuff

Yeah we wanted race to be an identity and and that's part of that system right we don't want it just to be a skin we want it to actually mean something when it comes to the actual gameplay so yeah it will in [cross-talk]

And it doesn't mean anything is race locked

Right

Classes are playable through all races so you know and there could you know potentially there can be some meadows for certain classes with some races but you know there's a high customization so like there's a lot of different focuses that each class can have

Right there's a lot of space

Right there's a lot of space there

44:47

Okay this next one is by weknow sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name what kinds of benefits will religion give players and will players be able to practice multiple religions?

So players will not be able to practice multiple religions at the same time you will focus on your religious class and progressing down that class and if you want to switch religions there may be a mechanic for that obviously

But we haven't got to that point yet

But probably lose progression in the religion that you come from

Right and and there's going to be some type of hierarchical structure to the religion class that involves the community as a whole and people's progressions in that religion and then that religion's progression in the development of the world as well whether or not certain temples are built right nodes are going to progress that religion and in each religion we'll also have if it's progressed far enough potentially augments that become religious specific augments as well you know we're still working on that so

Yeah but we were to make a long story short we want to religion to be a pretty big motivator in the game it's it's a big part of the lore and we want that reflected in the mechanics too

This guy's name all right anamnesis-007

Anamnesis

Sorry i'm sure i butchered that so my apologies how easy will it be to get to other portals in starting zones so that you can play with your friends early on?

How easy will it be

Ahh

How much time will it take?

Yeah I mean it could be relatively easy but just take a good amount of time

Anyway so I think it's like a problem it's an issue that we understand is there right and I think that were we want fast travel to not be an easy method of something happening we want travel to matter right that's its you know we want that to be a theme in our game

I think another thing is is you know we haven't fully discussed this so I think we're deciding that it could be possible for you to choose your starting portal right right you don't have to be locked behind what your race is you can choose your race and then choose your your divine portal as well

Right and and that probably would be more along lines of where we want to go with that rather than making it easy to go from one portal to another because it is it is they are going to be pretty far apart and the distances are pretty considerable so

Right and the world is pretty large

Yeah right

47:23

Oh okay next one is by sandal um right

Great name oh wait hold on

Okay thank you there you go appreciate it

Will Ashes have a character client that will allow players to create and customize their characters and test their PCs before the game launches

Um so let's see that's they want a separate client for their character

Early access client to the character customization screen

So that's something we would very much like to do

Yes

Um it's not something we can promise at this point we're gonna be way more focused on getting the game done right if we can break that out into a client pretty easily and you know have enough cycles for that and are in our design we will do that it's something we want to do but again it's gonna really depend on where we are at that point I want to it's a goal but yeah it's a soft goal

I feel like it's a very achievable goal yeah you know but we just don't want to say something and not hold true to it

I think it's achievable and it will probably have that because it's a really cool aspect to be able to like sit and play with your character customization suite

Oh yeah no doubt I mean

And like ready to go with it and that kind of stuff I think it's I think it's cool it's a great idea

48:36

Okay the next one is by Zoot101 will players be able to have optional surnames for their characters?

Yes

Yeah easy one next question

Why'd I even put down my phone all right doubleDZ99 can we expand on the character customization and emoji packs available in the Kickstarter like can we talk about them?

Oh sure yeah no totally

Wanna talk about it?

You can talk about it Peter

Sure so for example in the character customization we're talking about things that are like hairstyles or tattoos or things like scars yeah things like involved in your actual character creation portion that would go into that type of pack form emojis you could talk about you know let's say you're an elf you could buy the elf emoji pack so now it looks like elves or you know smiling right right that type of stuff

Yeah I think it's just an additional flare right to like you know you're you're either chat or your character representation I mean we're gonna have a wide array of character customization and like eye colors and you know skin colors and hair colors and hair styles and like eye brow things and chins you know there's gonna be a lot of stuff that's available just out of the box

Right

And then the additional stuff from the character customization packages are going to be like you know this what kind of scars you can have like different types of scars like you said or you know different hairstyles or different eyebrow things or you know whatever eyebrow thing soon as

The idea there is definitely to be robust upfront and you then have additional options like you see on the Kickstarter

You're not gonna have like one face to choose from and like [cross-talk]

Right it's like you better buy this package or you only get to be one person [cross-talk]

There are plenty of options

[Cross-talk] a whole stuff that you can choose from without having any of the additional packages

50:32

Okay so tacoman2014

Alright

Will Ashes have epic quest lines such as in EverQuest?

Okay so in EverQuest there were these really amazing class defining items that you could go on epic quest where these quests would take sometimes months at a time to complete we're not going to have a system that's exactly that but there will be there will be epic quests right not in not in the EQ sense right but in the like oh my god

In the Ashes sense

In the in the Ashes sense um you know they probably won't be for specific items right they'll be more for you know maybe a God Forge hidden somewhere or maybe you know it'll help you to do things in the world and to unlock extra content but not necessarily maybe to find the best most class defining sword it might help you make the best most class defining sword but it won't be an end in and of itself

Right that's true yeah but I think that the main tenant there is like hey this is something that took a lot of time right half of the player or players

And and has a lot of secrets and a lot things to figure out and a lot of depth to it we're definitely going down that route

[Cross-talk] And it has a strong reward too yes there is absolutely going to be those epic legendary quests just not in the same way

Right

Okay nycos86 will players be able to easily swap between builds?

So at the moment you know we've discussed and are very likely to have the ability for players to swap between their secondary classes and we said a little earlier even between their like religious stuff but you know that could that could reach out a little bit further potentially we're going to be play testing that too when alpha comes around obviously but I think right now on the primary class aspect of things we haven't decided on whether or not that swapping is going to be

Yeah we keep going back and forth it there's a lot of reasons to and a lot of reasons again so it's something it's something we're still playing with and you know when we get to a decision on that we'll definitely let you guys know

Yeah

52:38

Okay

But to fix that a little bit for the build that you've built for your character right that will probably be fairly easily changed whether your class can change is a different question

Yeah yes sure what about the build for water?

There's no water.

I'm sorry my mouth get's dry

It's like the endless water thing

Oh it's wonderful

This one doesn't have a name but what are the available loot distribution mechanics

So available loot

Master loot need greed that kind of stuff

Yeah there's

Yes the answer to that is yes

Right basically all of them yeah we're gonna go probably pretty standard with that it's a system that works and it works well right um so no need to reinvent the wheel on that there there may be specific things like events and how we

Did you see the new Goodyear wheel that's like perfectly circular

I did not see that

They are reinventing the wheel so maybe we should on loot mechanics

Well maybe [laughter]

No yeah pretty standard

Pretty standard yeah I don't think we're gonna be [cross-talk]

That's that's all the questions for -

53:48

Alright

Oh all right

How about what time is it do we have any more time?

We've got

It's 352

So we got eight more minutes let's field some questions from the twitch chat

Oh god here we go ah we're doing it live

Do it live

Throw the table over now

Don't throw the table on me

Okay

They'll see what's in the briefcase

Oh we can't show that we're gonna

Close that thing

Oh sorry I didn't know was open I was getting stuff

Oh I think they can see what's inside it now on the reflection on my screen

Oh it's locked the football's locked

Will resources be replenished ie you find mine something will it come back at a later point or [garbled] area

So I think the answer that is a combination of both

It's it's like as when right it's when will that happen it's not it's not going to be like the little rock that you've been hitting for the last five seconds it disappears and then another rock appears 45 minutes later right that's not going to be how the crafting system works

It'll be you know more like vein oriented where you discover a vein of ore right instead of a single Rock that goes away and that vein of ore has so much of a supply right and when that supply is diminished that vein is gone and who knows for how long and it could reappear halfway across the world it could come next season back to this region you know

Right there's there's a lot of things involved in the repopulation of assets there will always be stuff to mine right there will always be something to gather but you won't always be able to find it where you expect to find it

Right yeah

55:28

And I think that that plays again I mean the reason for that is is because our economies are separated into these regional economies that that incentivize transit of goods so you know we want to make sure that like if a town forms next to a mithril mine because that mithril mine was there and it disappears like

It changes the whole flavor of that

Exactly [cross-talk]

I mean it's incredibly important for an economy to actually replenish in general right you know to say that like if you cut down all of the trees in the world you need trees to come back somehow yeah right so yeah so that's like yeah

Plant some trees

Right a tree planting class

Will there be a Baconator world boss?

Ohhh

The answer to that in real life is there he is he is a raid boss we read can't comment

We don't want to reveal too much of the lore

Right [cross-talk]

[Garbled] the amount of people to be in a guild to own a castle?

Um no I don't know the yeah like I mean there's there's obviously it's dependent on the rest of the server and like what their activity is

Sort of like the overall development currently I serve early how it splits than actual

And who's actually participating in that right like you know it it could be just a few people right

I mean it if nobody's defending at nobody's attacking it

If nobody's defending it well that'd be an interesting scenario but yeah it could be you know could be as small as 30 and as big as a couple hundred it all depends on like what the situation is what the political landscape

But it is scalable right

Like sure yeah absolutely it's totally

It's if that's the what you're looking for that's the answer to that I think

57:25

Helix asks what are we going to do to make orcs great again?

Were orcs ever not great

I think orcs we're always pretty cool

I think they're great

They're pretty cool

They're pretty pretty they're definitely big-league

I'm ooh [laughter]

I'm sorry I said big league not bigly

Okay doesn't make it better um so one of the orc races that the Vec they are they are I am such a big fan of them

Now you've just slanted the entire population of some server to Vec

I'm sure I have I want to [cross-talk]

58:04

Oh my god

But yeah they will be great and I'm pretty excited

Unbelievable

Well we'll be doing more lore announcements here probably

Soon

Relatively soon

Soon trademark

Um soon trademark TM but yeah we're pretty excited about the direction we're going on

Well I think that's all for the questions today congratulations everybody on 1.5

Yes!

Amazing

We're we're about to post a couple of new backer goal and a stretch goal in recognition of our latest achievement and you know again from everybody here at Intrepid Studios we cannot thank you all enough for the amazing support that you've shown Ashes of Creation it is absolutely just a reinforcement of our passion and will to get this game done and the way that it should be done we're happy to see that that all of you are on board and get out there and help us spread the word as you have been doing we appreciate it feel free to join us on discord make sure you guys are on our forums and we'll see you out there we'll see you on Wednesday three o'clock Wednesday at 3 o'clock thank you guys

Bye everybody