סביבות

Volcano area concept art by Ricky Ho.

We are a high fantasy game... That means that outside of the traditional sorts of environments you're going to start seeing some pretty crazy and wild stuff that will also change based on seasons. – Jeffrey Bard

Verran environments video.

אלפא-1 Oasis environment preview.

This is a second one of two of the large water oasis areas that we incorporated into the tropics biome. – Michael Bacon

There are approximately 18 biomes (environments) in Ashes of Creation.

We just wanted to represent just about every biome type under the sun really and just have enough diversity over the world that like when you went from area to area , you really just got a contrast of different biome types. – Michael Bacon

Ren'Kai architecture concept art.

Part of the biome that the Ren'Kai are accustomed to is a more swamp or marsh oriented, so they have these almost stilt-like foundations on some of the assets because they're intended to sit above that marsh. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation will have a higher graphical fidelity than most western games. It will not be too stylized or "cartoony".

We can push the limits a little bit on the graphical fidelity, especially using Unreal Engine 4... My desire was not to see very cartoony games. I'm not a big fan of highly stylized art. – Steven Sharif

• The game will not have steampunk elements.

It's not to say that people can't do steampunk well. I've enjoyed some steampunk stuff. I'm a very high fantasy oriented type of storyteller; and the inspiration for Ashes obviously comes from my pathfinder campaigns that I ran long ago; and those are always set in a high fantasy world. So it just compromises what I believe is the perspective of the storytelling in the environment. – Steven Sharif

• Intrepid Studios does not use AI for art production.

We do not use AI for production, except in unique internal cases when communicating fast reference material. – Steven Sharif

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מזג אוויר

אלפא-2 dynamic weather change caused by the Beneath the Stone Shadows event.

Since you instigated this event, which changed the weather, that will also now influence spawns nearby. You could potentially be spawning- well you are spawning side quests that relate to the rain, changes in enemies that relate to the rain, and that's driven on player action. So it is like a feedback loop. – Skott B

Some environments (Biomes) have fixed climates and others are variable. Dynamic weather of varying intensity can triggered by certain events.

During those weather events, the area of effect that the event is occurring in will likely have its climate descriptor overridden by whatever the event is specifically. So tornadoes might be windy, blizzards might be cold. And if an arctic dragon comes into a temperate climate it brings the cold weather with it; and that can be interacting with skills and abilities or other functions like farms. – Steven Sharif

• Certain abilities and also professions (such as Farming) may be enhanced or hindered during certain climates and seasonal weather events. For example: lightning might be stronger in the rain.

There are climate effects that occur from a buff standpoint. They can also affect skills like, let's say you're using a frost bolt in a winter climate. There's the ability for those effects to be enhanced and/or stronger in those climates. – Steven Sharif

• Weather conditions affect mob spawning, side quests, gatherables, vehicles, mounts, ships, resistances, targeting, and boss mechanics.
  • Access to dungeons and raids may also be hindered or blocked by changes in climate.
  • It was later stated that loot tables will likely not be affected by weather conditions.

They affect crops and gatherables, vehicles, and mounts, ships, creatures; and loot tables change: their behaviors might change. Resistances and weaknesses or synergies might be relevant in certain seasons or weather systems. Targeting might change the AoE radius might grow for a fire effect if you're in the middle of summer, or it might shrink if you're in the middle of a storm. – Steven Sharif

• Some weather conditions can be hazardous to mobs and players.

Weather events and encounters themselves can include hazards that can appear and shake things up. They can also help too, if you can kite enemies into the lightning strikes or whatever. – Skott B

Seasons

Ashes of Creation Seasons in the Riverlands.

Part of the triggers that can create seasonal change is not just time related for each of our biomes, but they are also indicated by events that occur on the server. Whether that be certain raid bosses forming, or a relic being acquired by a particular node and being activated to change potentially the weather out of a winter state into a spring state: and the reason why a node might have interest in doing that of course is because weather and the seasons also affect skills and abilities. – Steven Sharif

Seasonal change teaser.

Seasons affect different zones (environments/biomes) based on their location in the world.

• A majority of environments will experience either two or four seasons, excluding corrupted areas, which is considered a "season" itself.
• Some biomes will have seasons that are less (or more) temperate. For example: Northern, Southern and Tropical regions. Other biomes will have fixed climates.
  • Biomes that are affected by seasonal cycles may experience drastic visual differences between seasons.
• אירועים may radically change the current season a zone is in, or elongate it. This includes weather changes.
• There will also be magical seasons where you might be in a tropical zone and suddenly it's snowing.
• חפצים, crop cycles, buildings, and crafting mechanics might gain certain buffs or debuffs in certain seasons.
• Ocean and underwater areas will not have seasonal changes.

Winter might have a spawner that activates on a road that spawns at large fallen tree and players who see that will have an opportunity to go up and exert some type of one-time action that helps in removing that tree and it might require X number of people to do that before the tree gets removed; and that as an example is not beneficial for the transit of goods because as caravans require- well they don't require but they move better on roads and if that tree were present let's say blocking a road that led to a bridge per-se that they would have to off-road. – Steven Sharif

• Different seasons may affect access to various roads.
  • Pathways that are open during summer may be closed during winter.
  • Seasonal affects may cause obstacles or blockages to the transit of goods via caravan.
  • Water turning to ice in winter, enabling players to walk over the water but blocking access to what is underneath.
    • Ice will make roads bumpy and slippery.
  • Seasonal flooding is something the developers are talking about internally, but will not be present in אלפא-2.

Seasonal events

Calendar Events can be seen as holiday-related celebrations or other seasonal content. Imagine these Events as things you may experience annually, based on the cultures within the world. Some of these may derive from the seasons, and how the nodes in those areas are affected by them. These will most often be server-wide and provide unique content for a specific duration of time during the calendar year.

Calendar events (seasonal events/holidays) in Ashes of Creation can be in-game events or they can relate to the real-world in some way.

• Events are not a direct parallel with real world events. Instead, there will be in-game lore behind seasonal events that can relate to the real-world in some way.
• Certain calendar events will incorporate the cultural identity of the various character races.

Part of the things that they're working on is creating a lot of cultural identity for these character races and how we can bring about these calendar events from the perspective of each individual race. That's something that I think is going to be really helping identify or giving identity to each of the character races. – Steven Sharif

• Seasonal events in-game may not exactly align with real-world seasons due to the different in-game seasonal cycle.

Will seasonal events in the real-world align with the seasonal rotation in the game world? And I think in that sense probably not. That's going to require a little bit of suspension of disbelief in understanding that. But it's also fair that in-game events do not need to be perfectly cyclical like let's say seasonal events are in the real world. They could have a non-uniform cycle associated with them... There is something to be said for having that represented in the game as long as it's immersive; as long as it's contextualized within the story and the world and the universe that we've created; and isn't a direct homage to Santa Claus in the real-world, just to use a prime example of something. – Steven Sharif

• Holiday events are not going be "campy" or immersion-breaking.

We have a lot of ideas on how certain real-world holidays can be contextualized within the game world and seem fitting. – Steven Sharif

אירועים may bring seasonal change.

• A raid boss, such as a winter dragon, may appear because a node has developed to עיירה (שלב 4). This may bring an eternal winter that affects crop rotations until it is killed.

אלפא-0

אלפא-0 river that runs through the center of the map.

אלפא-0 flood plains environment.

אלפא-0 forest environment.

There are four over-world environments (climates/biomes) in אלפא-0.

• Flood plains
• Forest
• Desert
• Snowy mountains

אלפא-0 העולם התחתון preview by Trystan Snodgrass.

אלפא-0 has a bio-luminescent העולם התחתון environment.

One of the important aspects of color play is going to be the distinguishing factor between different Underrealms and the regions that exist in the world: Their color influences set them apart from different regions. – Steven Sharif

Day and night cycle

אלפא-2 day/night cycle.

Day and night cycles in Ashes of Creation are actually over the course of a few hours. – Steven Sharif

There is a day/night cycle in Ashes of Creation.

• Day and night cycles occur over the course of a few hours.
  • Fifteen IRL minutes may equate to one hour in game time but this is subject to change.
  • Day and night cycle tied to server time will be tested in אלפא-2.

The day night cycle is tied to server time, yes. So there is a number of hours that exist between each of the cycles. That's something that we'll be fine-tuning of course during Alpha 2 as well, but it is intended for players to interact with certain systems even based on in-game time as well. – Steven Sharif

• The developers requested feedback on the intensity of illumination and darkness that will be present in אלפא-2.
  • Based on feedback the developers increased the nighttime darkness.

• Some resources are only gatherable at specific times of the day or night.

• דמויות ללא שחקן and mobs may be awake or have varying behaviors at different times of the day. This might also influence abilities and/or buff/debuff vulnerabilities.
  • Different monsters will spawn at different times.
  • Different emissive effects may be more prevalent on night creatures.

Certain creatures will react differently. Certain spawns react differently during night times and different day/night cycles. Those might also influence things like abilities and/or buff/debuff vulnerabilities. You'll have to find out based on the type of creature you're experiencing. – Steven Sharif

• Constellations and moons rotate and change throughout the night.

Darkness

אלפא-2 Winstead node at night.

You guys will probably notice that the nighttime is significantly darker than when you guys last saw our nighttime update. We saw feedback from the community that bringing in the field of vision through the lighting in the environment was something you guys wanted to see; and that's what we have adjusted a bit. – Steven Sharif

Darkness as an environmental obstacle is being considered as part of the game mechanics.

• The developers are requesting feedback on the intensity of illumination and darkness that will be present in אלפא-2.

In more survival oriented games you're expected to have really dark night times because you utilize instruments like torches and lights that can be present, but when you think about an MMORPG and you think about the types of player numbers and player count you're expected to have in certain locations and dungeons, you need to be able to accommodate those types of visibility lines and those mechanics around that large multiplayer environment. So when you guys are giving feedback think about whether or not you want the outside night time to really be very dark, or if you want that to be reserved for specific locations in game, like certain dungeons and towers where we can utilize mechanics like different types of lighting mechanisms in order to facilitate that more dark feel. – Steven Sharif

Elements

There are elements (such as Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Electrical) in Ashes of Creation each with their own resistances.

• Other elemental influences may include Darkness, Light and Planar. The Air Strike ability has a nature based root.

• The Mage archetype offers four elemental schools as augments to a character's primary skills.

• Elements may have more influence in certain seasons and weather conditions. For example, frost abilities may be stronger in winter and lightning might be stronger in the rain. This affects both PvE and PvP.

• There may be ley lines and strong magical places in the world that change or alter the way spells work.

We've discussed a little bit about how the seasons and biomes will react with different types of skills. Like if you have a fireball and it's summer it might be a little bit different. If it's winter and you have a frost ability it might be different. – Steven Sharif

Landmarks

200 foot tall Pyrian statues in אלפא-1.

Landmarks are scattered throughout the world, allowing players to judge their position on the map.

From a lore perspective these statues have been around for a long time; and they are representative of the civilizations that existed once on this world before. – Steven Sharif

Major visual landmarks. You can look all the way across the horizon have an idea where you're going or where to meet friends or where to meet just based on these huge landmarks in the world. – Mat Broome

העולם התחתון

העולם התחתון node concept art.

One of the aspects of the Lore behind the Tulnar was that in the pantheon of gods that exist- having foretold the future through the Goddess of Fate to the Goddess of Creation- these areas in the Underrealm were created in to allow for refuge for which the gods knew would be left behind that couldn't make it to Sanctus. So that was a pre-thought there in the creation of the Underrealm to facilitate that realm where refugees could seek. – Steven Sharif

אלפא-0 Underrealm Sharptooth cat mob concept art.

We plan to have the Underrealm really pervasive throughout the game itself, a part of the open world. It will introduce some unique elements such as the type of monsters you see, the type of crops you can grow and houses you can have. – Steven Sharif

The העולם התחתון is a rich environment where bio-luminescence abounds in the fauna and flora that exist here. These deep caverns and underground valleys provide new destinations for civilization to develop. Bringing the node system into the depths of the world may awaken darker creatures than the surface.

• The Underrealm is estimated to be not too much bigger than 100 km² in area. It is not contiguous space across the entire map. There will be areas that are obstructed by chasms or other features.

The expansiveness of the Underrealm itself is quite large. It does persist across across a lot of the playable game area that's above ground. So there are alternatives in the Underrealm for passages and traversal throughout the world. – Steven Sharif

• The location of Underrealm entrances throughout the world is focused around natural geographic choke-points that exist above ground. This provides alternate subterranean routes that can be used by caravans, raids, and other player activities.

The Underrealm is intending to be bespoke segments of Underrealm territory that are available around areas of choke-point in the world map that are above ground, which are provided for caravan transit across the world. So those caravans as they're approaching these choke-points on land, they will have alternate route options to go down into the Underrealm and to try to traverse that space, as opposed to the choke-points. – Steven Sharif

• Not all entrances to the Underrealm will be open at the same time. This can shift dynamically (based on node states) that cause different routes to open up, which may be more or less advantageous than other routes.

• There will be bodies of water such as rivers and lakes in the Underrealm that house unique species of fish.
  • There won't be boats and other water vehicles in the Underrealm.

There will absolutely be Underrealm lakes and rivers. Those will be locations and very important ones for unique material goods like certain types of fish that players will be able to go down and fish with. But there will not be the use of boats and vehicles within the water- water vehicles of the Underrealm, at least not for launch. – Steven Sharif

Environment

אלפא-0 העולם התחתון environment.

Underrealm environments are vast.

• קרוואנים should be able to operate as they do above ground.
• If there's insufficient room for דרקונים, another mount type may be utilized.
• Burrowing mounts are being considered as an alternative to flying mounts in the העולם התחתון.

One of the important aspects of color play is going to be the distinguishing factor between different Underrealms and the regions that exist in the world: Their color influences set them apart from different regions. – Steven Sharif

Seasons above ground will affect the העולם התחתון.

• This will not be a one-to-one correlation: for example, it won't snow in the Underrealm.
• Tunnel flooding and other effects will be related to the weather above ground.

The seasons above ground will inform what happens underneath. I mean, it's not going to be a direct one-to-one correlation right, not like it's going to be raining in the underworld, but you will see the effects from above happen down below: You might find tunnels being flooded. – Jeffrey Bard

Coastal and island nodes

Pre-alpha naval concept.

There will be healthy amounts of sea content within the coastlines of the continents that does not fall into the "open sea" area. – Steven Sharif

There will be nodes along the coast and on islands.

• These nodes will have specific water oriented influences, services, and questlines, that relate to the seas.
  • There is a healthy amount of sea content within the coastlines of the continents that does not fall into the open sea area.

• The open sea does not contribute to the advancement of coastal nodes, even if it falls within the אזור השפעה of the node. This is subject to change during אלפא-2 testing.

• Coastal nodes change the spawn tables of the nearby water content and can also trigger specific events.

• Coastal nodes are not directly siegeable by sea. Instead, harbors offer objective-based naval gameplay during node sieges.

We've gone back and forth a little bit on whether or not the design intent for sieging of nodes is intended to include, for certain nodes, the naval component. The concern there was that it would be a difficult thing to balance around that particular node having accessibility from the water for those types of defenses. So what we've presented as an opportunity where harbors are the focal point of those naval interactions; and during sieges you are aware that nodes have certain objectives, which have ramifications and can influence the outcome and/or the ongoings of a particular against a node. And if one of those objectives is a naval objective, because that node might own a harbor, which is a point of interest that gets adopted by a node which advances far enough around it. So you might have one harbor and five nodes that can own that harbor. And the first to hit the village stage adopts the harbor. Then that can become an objective point during a siege that has naval interaction. So that's the direction we've moved towards, rather than allowing the naval component to interact directly with sieging the node itself as opposed to being a part of the objective-based gameplay that exists for a node siege. – Steven Sharif

• Island chains are part of Ashes of Creation naval content.

תת-מימי

אלפא-1 swimming.

Tidesnapper early אלפא-1 water animations.

תת-מימי content will be accessible, not cumbersome.

• Characters are able to utilize their abilities while in the water.
• Stamina does not limit swimming, however breath does.
• Navigational instruments are available to allow ships to detect movement under the water, such as aquatic mounts.

Treasures may be obtained through fishing and by exploring naval content.

Underwater nodes

תת-מימי points of interest that have NPC structures may appear to be like cities, but they will not be nodes.

• There won't be nodes underwater or in the water.

סביבות הניתנות להריסה

אלפא-2 Destructible props at the Remains of Oakenbane Keep.

סביבות הניתנות להריסה is a core element of how players interact with the world, in Ashes of Creation.

• Buildings, siege weapons and other structures (such as walls and gates) during events, such as sieges that have been damaged or destroyed will be able to be repaired or re-crafted.
• Destructible props in the open-world will typically respawn after 10 minutes.
• The terrain itself is not destructible.

סרטונים

• 2016-12-04 Video - Environment First Look
• 2017-01-22 Video - Seasons - first look
• 2017-05-16 Video - It's a beautiful world
• 2017-05-30 Video - Winter wonderland
• 2017-05-31 Video - A diverse world
• 2017-07-28 Video - Pre-alpha environment
• 2018-01-23 Video - Alpha-0 Underrealm Preview
• 2018-07-09 Video - Ashes of Creation - Alpha-1 Environment Preview
• 2019-01-11 Video - Ashes of Creation Apocalypse Siege Maps Preview
• 2021-01-29 Livestream
• 2021-02-01 Video - Tropical Biome in 4K - Alpha One Zones Preview
• 2022-07-29 Video - Ashes of Creation Alpha Two Desert Biome Preview
• 2022-12-02 Video - Ashes of Creation Alpha Two Night and Day and Other Heavenly Things
• 2022-12-23 Video - Meet the Devs and Year-in-Review

See also

• Seasons
• מסעות גילוי
• העולם התחתון
• תת-מימי