Talk:2018-05-11 Ashes of Creation Community Podcast with Steven Sharif

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3:23

Good morning good day and good evening to everybody who's watching and welcome to the one year anniversary of the Ashes of Creation Community Podcast I'm your host the Big Cheeked Giant and today we have a special guest Mr. Steven Sharif are you doing sir?

I am doing well thanks for having me big fan of your guys's show it's always fun to watch I'm glad to be on it

Well thank you also today's guests are Greypelt Okies and Truth Eternal how you doin guys?

Hey

Hello

Doin great

Nice okay so for the ones that are new to the show because normally we do this at a later time and there's a little backstory about the show and today is our one-year anniversary which which makes me really really happy because a year ago I decided that the Ashes of Creation community and is such a great community that it needs a podcast about itself and so a year ago I decided you know what every two weeks it's got a couple of community members together and let's just have a chat about the game and so far it has been really well received and yeah I'm really really I'm really enjoying really enjoy doing this and I'm really happy that so many people are watching that people kept on watching and yeah let's get right into it

Congratulations by the way on a year under the belt very cool

Thank you I'm really I'm really happy because I wasn't sure if the community would receive this sort of thing well but yeah it's been going it's been going great and I'm really looking forward to keep doing this still I don't know until I die I guess okay

Which is hopefully a very long long long ways away

5:12

Oh yeah lets hope so because yeah I got stuff to do okay so normally and we we theorycraft on the show based on the information we get from Intrepid and today we're gonna do it a little bit differently because today we got the main source with us the main source of everything Ashes of Creation so for the good for a good amount of the podcast we kind of ask Mr. Sharif a couple of questions and hopefully we got to get some couple cool answers and but first up and I would like to talk about a couple other things with everybody who is with us today and we're gonna start off with with you Steven give me in one quick sentence describe to me why you prefer MMORPGs em to other game genres

Ooh that's a good question for me you know an MMORPG is really a very unique style of gaming obviously with the with the recent explosion of just MMOs not necessarily MMORPGs but just massively multiplayer games this kind of provides the same ability that I love in an MMORPG and that's just the ability to connect with people all across the world I mean I started my guild my first excusing my old guild I've resigned when I started Ashes but I started my guild back in 2002 I believe it was he had 2002 and you know over that time we had thousands of members and it was really a unique thing for me to just be able to turn on Ventrilo or Teamspeak and get in in in chat with people from anywhere across the world and just experience a friendship with with a great diverse group of people and then RPGs kind of give that added element of this progression and achievement to to encounter you know adversaries people who you don't get along with and to fight against them become emotionally invested in the outcome of these these server wars and and strive towards a you know crafting and achieving the best gear you can get with these people and you know it's it's something that is is very unique and and isn't offered in in very many other genres or just really very much else in life so that's why MMORPGs are you know near and dear to my heart

7:49

ok I agree with a lot of the things you just said Truth what about you because I know you always a big fan of the MMORPG genre?

Yeah for sure yeah so I you know I guess if you really kind of focus me down into one sentence I'd say that it's I love to play in more than one dimension so having having games like FPS' is and MOBAs where you do kind of similar things over and over can be tons of fun right especially when you're playing with friends but there's really no other you know no other genre that gives you story arcs that gives you combat excellence gives you kind of long-term goals with crafting gives you meaningful achievements gives you kind of social structures and player added content you know all these things kind of wrapped into one it just seems like kind of in general the most complete genre

Okay Okies what about you?

Oh well I come from an age where computers weren't readily available at all times and we grew up on the indie and the MMORPG genre sort of suits that role the sense of family and connection with other people is more what I look for in those games because in other games you play you leave them you find someone else it's it's that sense of meeting someone becoming their friend I know someone who met online and they got married just from playing in the game together I have people that have been my friends for a long time we a 10-year standing World of Warcraft together

Okay

It's just that that sense of that's what draws me to those games and why I prefer them

So that sense of community

Yeah

Okay Greypelt what about you?

Long-term social connections are the like real reason I'm in love with the MMO genre

9:33

Okay okay let's jump right into the next topic you can do this you know really quick so we can get to the good stuff um Ashes of Creation has been received really really well but a lot of MMORPG communities a lot of hardcore MMORPGs fans so I want to know again in one sentence or shorter and why do you guys think that Ashes of Creation was so well received by its community and by the overall MMORPG genre and in general because I think and at least this is my opinion I think the whole concept of the node system and a changing world is something that a lot of people are really interested in because it's because it hasn't been done before Truth what do you think what do you think was the success and why was it well-received?

You know and I I I think that you know a lot of people are gonna look at the actual features of the game and kind of point to those and absolutely those are draws but I think it's so well received because the team at Intrepid has this development process that is kind of unique in the space right and being so transparent and actually taking feedback in being kind of agile in the way that it decides to address where the game goes and really listens to its community that's that's number one in my mind and you know Steven's here so thanks Steven by the way

Hey thanks buddy

Okay and Greypelt what about you?

For me why Ashes really stands out is that it's anti-pay2win which is my like first thing and looking at an MMO I feel like it does do some things to revitalize the genre the developers really involved with the community and it's a like play experience focused development versus being focused on some of the other things that it could be focused on

11:33

Okay okay so Steven I gotta ask you the same question but not as you know the CEO of Intrepid or the head of the studio but rather as a gamer what do you think the people and the community are so excited for Ashes?

You know I I think that the the reason why Ashes as a project resonated so well with people is that for a long time a lot of us have been seeking a company slash game that knew what was an interest of the population they were making a game for and it just seemed like many of the decisions being made were geared more towards the bottom line being able to turn a profit and and not taking risks and innovating I think the reason why Ashes resonated with people was because you know we were telling we were willing to take risks with the design of the game by instituting a pretty a relatively innovative concept in the nodes and one that hadn't been brought to to market yet it may have been talked about some features by other projects we really hadn't been focused on so heavily in the development of the world and then additionally our stance on how marketplaces should be without interference in the in-game economy without any pay2win elements and then the passion and experience of the team I think I think all of those combined really showed the way forward for for certain die-hard fans of this genre that there are many things we have players have been asking for for a long time that really were not employed in projects that we have experienced recently

Okay Okies so what do you think well I think that with the community and how we were real receiving it it's it comes down to the passion from the team just how well open it is for everyone how it's a direct line there's no deviation from what Stephen said but we're going to be doing the lot of the people I know the community said that they like the passion and they like when they ask who else is involved with the company and when we say noone they doing it themselves they love that and just watching that first video Steven made just makes them want to come to the community

14:04

I see what you are saying and I agree on that part speaking about coming to the community this is a community project and me personally everything I do is to get more and more people interested in the game what do you guys think and Okies were gonna start off with you on this one what do you think is the best way of introducing new people to Ashes of Creation oh I actually had a friend go to PAX and I introduced him to the game and he actually when he played the game there thought it was a lot further on than what we explained him which he thought was amazing but when I introduced someone who can't play the game at the time like I get them to watch videos and a couple of podcasts like our one here and the the community that gets around that they have like more questions and we direct them to the discord to talk more and give more feedback

Okay Greypelt what about you what do you think would be a good way to do somebody who has never heard anything about Ashes to the game?

I'll show people some of the like nodes 1 & 2 videos I'll show them some Ashes summary videos I'll direct them to the wikis a lot of what I do is like one-on-one conversations with people

Okay Truth what do you think

Yeah I'm kind of in Greypelt's arena here I guess I mean I think introducing them slowly is usually pretty good right we have a lot of snippets of kind of fine detail but right even kind of the outline can be a lot of stuff to digest right so yeah watching Intrepid's kind of official videos first is awesome diving into their blogs then is kind of great right so so slowly kind of branching out and then in and then incorporating those you know personal MMO experiences they've had showing them where Ashes really shines compared to those you know those kinds of things are good ways to intro people

15:59

Okay so Stephen what do you think what would be a good way to to sell me Ashes of Creation

You know I think that I hate to say use the word sell but I think that the the important thing when discussing something that you're excited about is conveying your passion conveying your feelings on it so talking about some of the aspects of the project that excites you the most is probably the best way really to introduce people to to Ashes of Creation obviously everything you guys said about showing them you know content released by either the company or some of the content creators is is good from an informational standpoint but I think that the the most the best way that you can really share in excitement with someone is to convey why you're excited about the project focus on those points that are that are really interesting to you about Ashes

Yeah I agree on that I think I agree with everything you guys said um I personally I would add one thing which is I would invite whoever is interested or who wants to know about Ashes I would throw them onto the Discord because the Discord at the end of the day was actually the thing that that sold me or the thing that I that made me really excited about Ashes is because the the passion that we are getting from Intrepid and you guys Steven and also the passion that we're getting from from most of the community about the game that's something that I personally have not ever experienced in all my years of gaming and that was the point where I was like yes I'm really looking forward to this game

Yeah I think a community obviously getting back to the first question you're asked you know why MMORPGs well community is is really the central figure of what makes an MMO MMO and you know that was why early on going to Kickstarter wasn't wasn't necessarily a means to fund the project at all it was more a matter of building a community around it you know we obviously additional features that the funding is nice to have and can employ that in the in the development of the project but it was really about beginning to build that community and allowing people to have a voice in the development of the game

Yeah I agree on that okay so let's get into the good stuff let's get in the Q&A part of the podcast and so the way it works the way it always works is we take questions from the community and topics from the community and we answer and we talk about on the podcast so we did the same thing and this time around and what we're gonna do now is each one of us has several questions for you for Steven um and afterwards we have some community questions listed which we also gonna ask and even after that if we still have time we will be taking questions from the chat so Truth Eternal why don't you start us off

18:52

Oh sure awesome okay so Steven oh this is just so great it's such a treat so meaningful conflict is something you like to say a lot right its cornerstone and Ashes so in what ways and with what other institutions will social organizations most commonly conflict?

Well social organizations are going to have quest lines that players participate in which some will include sabotage espionage intrigue it's while it's not necessarily player versus player in the combat sense it is player versus player in pitting communities in those organizations kind of against each other in a competitive atmosphere where some only some things can be accomplished by certain communities and not everybody can succeed at a particular task so I think that that's a that's a unique way to involve meaningful conflict that doesn't necessarily have to relate to PvP because obviously we have a lot of PvP systems in the game and and there are many ways for players to participate in player versus player combat but we also want to make sure that from a progression standpoint from a system standpoint there are going to be abilities of individuals to follow these these questlines these tasks that will pitch organizations against each other specifically from an organizational standpoint

20:17

Gotcha perfect okay so I'm just I just have one or two more here for you so in your last livestream we got a glimpse of kind of an unconventional weapon I think it was called the potion launcher should we expect kind of one or two more surprises from Ashes in terms of weaponry?

Yeah you know we want to kind of I mean obviously fantasy as a genre has been done many many many times and there are many things that we all love about the fantasy genre we want to make sure that those those staples are catered to but at the same time we're we are thinking a little bit outside of the box and some of those some of those thoughts may rear their heads in the coming months for development that you might see so yeah there could be some more surprises

21:07

You're the teaser always always all right awesome and I have one more here so what are kind of one or two pieces of functionality around the alliance system that you think makes it kind of unique in the MMO space?

Well you know alliances previous games that I've played you know there are different formats for alliances you could either make a nation and invite guilds to you could literally send an invite to an alliance it would share a tag you'd have a chat system with I think that what I haven't seen however is content that revolves around alliances specifically and and progression within the development of that alliance and the ability to share some common services between guilds that are part of that alliance I think that additionally allowing alliances to toggle certain relationships with nodes as an interaction is beneficial that's going to provide an interesting dynamic for players who are either members of the particular node that has the relationship established or members of the Alliance so I think that obviously building systems is is about creating the channels by which these players can form bonds and the more layers you have around those you know channels of bonding between the different guilds or players the the more sustainable that relationship so that's really our focus in creating content that that revolves around these different types of systems including the Ashes the Alliance system sorry

Great thanks so much no

That was that was really interesting really likely the Alliance part okay let's let's go let's keep going Greypelt why don't you go next

22:56

Recently we got a notice that the number of developers working on Ashes has gone up is there anything that you can tell us about some of the new developers working on the project?

Yes yes and no the answer to the yes part is that growth obviously is a very difficult thing to do in any industry right especially when you're wanting to maintain both the culture that's been established at a at a place a studio like at like Intrepid as well as making sure that the talent behind the individuals being brought on the project are up to par with what you need what you require obviously the initial individuals who have brought on the project are very established veterans you know we have three engineers who are here in the office that have been working on MMORPGs for the past 20 years we have an additional group of designers who have been creative directors on franchises like EverQuest we have Star Wars Galaxies designers I mean the important thing about the number of people working on the project now is that it is scaling up eventually we will be at that around 200 mark and you may see in the coming weeks about a probably about a half a dozen additional team members who are being brought on board in-house

24:23

Great does Intrepid have any plans to have AI perform tasks for the game other than just controlling NPC behavior?

There are some additional AI parameters that are set that don't relate necessarily to controlling NPCs there are AIs with regards to the development of the borders for nodes in the direction and also the decisions that are made of which lower nodes to enslave as vassal states there's AI that relates to a little bit of the stock market that's going to be present in the economy there's kind of there's some AI systems that are going to be announced also that are pretty innovative I think with regards to the MMORPG genre and that's going to make the the triggered event system very interesting I think and that's you know with regards to how nodes kind of develop and the the environment reacts to that development by you know spawning or these triggered events of you know a horde of zombies attacking a city or a legendary raid boss coming out of the mountain I think there's a lot of opportunity for some of the innovations that's been in the AI sector of game development too to come out in ashes

Okay that was really interesting Greypelt got anything to add?

Oh no I think that was very interesting

Okay so Okies is why don't you go next

25:58

Okay there was one thing that you quoted about a while ago that I've been waiting to get the full scope off but I don't know if you can yet because still in development but I was interested in the core identities and if we could possibly get some more examples of them from the other classes so we know like the rough way the archetypes will work?

Sure I think that from an identity standpoint on these core classes were we're fairly similar to the Holy Trinity of class identity I think that that the way our primary archetypes and secondary archetypes the combination of that creating these 64 different classes it it is a goal to kind of blur the line between those identities those the standard that standard Trinity that's present I think additionally the way that that we're developing classes is to be that rock-paper-scissors type of interaction especially balance them around group V group kind of dynamics or group of dynamics and that allows by utilizing the augment system allows for a players to kind of take skills outside of just the realm of their identity and into a different area

27:15

Okay there was another question I had which was we with the professions and being skill based could we possibly see a difference between crafting which is just they set and forget to craft multiple things and maybe a skill system to improve them?

Oops did I lose you there at the end?

I cut out with the professions system we people were asking can you get a skill based system where you do a like a mini game where we could have a scaling difference of if you can just set the skill to craft or play a mini game to improve the quality of the item?

I see so we we did early on in our designs we did discuss that type of a feature where the skill of the crafter would grant a greater window of skill based type crafting so the higher master level you have of crafting a certain item the greater your potential to impact the quality of that item might be for the for the for the better the concern obviously that that we have when going into developing this type of system is is that we don't want what is a fun you know for lack of a better term mini game to be something that becomes repetitive and and kind of makes it monotonous right like like not fun and then just becomes cumbersome so you know if if when we start to flesh out the crafting system and we take a look at that at that interaction of melding crafting the actual activity of making something there is room in the in the design sheet for different iterations of that particular action and we may see something come about that can be skill oriented but that's something that's going to require a lot of testing and different iterations from a design standpoint

For sure I think though we're talking more about things like fishing now asking that question

Oh fishing got it I'm sorry I thought you're talking about crafting no ok fishing yeah so fishing we have some fun designs that we want to play with and will likely include the community during alphas to play with those designs and and it's possible that we may you know even take into consideration a popularity among the community of which designs they like best fishings very a fun pastime that's become relevant and MMOs over the past several years and i think that we have some some interesting ideas to implement with that that players will get to try out in alpha

30:19

Okay and last question for me was with what was quoted as possible for the visual abilities for for like from key sources like a race a religion or in augment were there any possible examples of how they would like be in the game versus a real-world martial art or something look could you tell us anyway like say a race acts like this in the real world when it comes to combat?

Um that's a good question I'm not sure that that we would necessarily have a reference like that I mean obviously they're going to have you know their own identities but I don't think that the reference can really be exactly related to something in the real world I mean we have cultural identities and those cultural identities definitely take some inspiration from real world cultures but from a combat perspective you know it's not like I can say you know the orcs are practicing you know Taekwondo and the humans are doing you know Krav Maga or something

31:35

Okay it was I think the this with that with the race if the race has something tied to a real world thing I think that's more why I was asking that

Yeah so I mean the different races have inspirations from real world cultures right like you know we have the Empyreans they have a greco-roman type inspiration when establishing their cultural thematic you know the the Py'Rai have a more Navajo or native-american the Kaelar are more European the Valune a more Middle Eastern you know the Vek are more Mesoamerican I mean that there are there are obviously cultural influences that we use from a thematic standpoint for these races to draw inspiration from but in the end when these races are fleshed out they you may not be able to necessarily derive that information from what you see in the game yeah

Okay Okies so you got anything to add

That was it for now

That was it for you all right okay so and we're gonna take a quick going take one or two quick questions from chat before I get into my questions and let's see what we got em Slowly Waby asks how easy will the learning curve be for people who have never played this game before and what is the target age range of the player base?

I'm sorry you cut out for me there sorry

33:09

No problem so Slowly Wahby from the chat asks how easy will be the learning curve for people who have never played this game before and what is the target age range for the player base?

That's a good question with regards to the learning curve I I think that from a control schema you know it's it's gonna be a pretty standard MMORPG control system so if players have been familiar in the past with MMORPGs or have played them in the past they should be fairly easy to pick that up there's obviously a lot of intricate systems and design work that's present in the world and you know we don't the learning curve should be fairly easy to understand but very difficult to master with regards to those systems and and we want there to be time dedicated from from individuals to to really take control over these certain types of systems and stuff the age group that we're targeting I mean that's a difficult question because you know you with the recent release of games like you know Fortnite and and PUBG and and you know the MOBAs you're you're in fluxing a different a younger demographic into the video game genre but then you also have the old guard of MMORPG players from the original Neverwinter to the Ultimas to the lineages to the you know the old vanilla WoW players like those are older demographics so I think our target demographic obviously we have a very high graphic fidelity in the game that's attractive to younger players but at the same time we have a very roleplay game orientation a kind of a play back to that pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons feel that perhaps younger generations may not know but is very near and dear to the hearts of older gamers so I think we have a broad appeal from a demographic standpoint

Okay that was a good answer let me ask you this because this is another question from one of our community members will there be any pop-culture references in the game?

From an immersion standpoint there really is not I mean I'm trying to think about this right now for a second there there is no current pop culture reference and I don't believe we would ever have pop culture reference okay you know I I specifically want to keep the the immersion of the game centered around the lore story and world that it exists in now I know that that can be I mean if you go back to the demographic discussion the younger generation of gamers tend to be more meme oriented and obviously memes revolve around pop culture references but I don't think we're going to see that type of stuff in Ashes of Creation

36:28

Okay okay and so let me get into my questions and I'll which one okay okay so let me let me ask you this because you always had a strong understanding against things like DPS meters and anything in that nature and my question now is because there are a lot of people including myself who used to raid a lot in games like World of Warcraft and and so on and on a high-level competitive level and things like DPS meters agro meters and skill rotation optimization are in need to are must stay competitive so you've talked about open world rates and open world boss fights and what sort of role can people like myself who used to be competitive raiders what sort of role can we look forward to when it comes to instant raiding complexity and competitiveness in Ashes?

Well I think by the sheer nature of our PvP systems and how we emphasize a legendary item slash economy in Ashes of Creation is going to all but demand certain performances from the more competitive player base right I think that that where there is an opportunity to excel and succeed past the the performance of your competitors that's when things become competitive and I don't believe that that these DPS meters are necessarily I don't believe the DPS meters are a necessity for that it may make things more difficult it might require some more clerical work and investigative and effort on behalf of the competitors to ascertain the information they're looking to gather but at the same time it won't be as widespread and prevalent this type of divisiveness that can come as a result of those types of tools so the key obviously in a massively multiplayer online game is to form bonds of community cooperation and also divisiveness and we don't want to import tools that are going to hinder that and one yeah sorry one more thing I would say with regards to the to the pop culture references when I think of pop the term pop culture yes I think I think of a current event type thing when when I was referencing real world references there will be some real world references particularly with regards to potentially real world holidays as well as some historical events or cultures for example the PAX East kind of ship that was named Eleanor that we released a cosmetic of you know being a reference to the Eleanor ship that the tea was thrown off of or kind of colonialesque look there there will be references but it won't be as immerse immersion it won't be out of place immersion it will be just homage

39:59

Okay no I got ya I got ya so to go back to to your your answer about the instanced raiding a quick and something I want to add can we expect a long hard and complex instanced raids?

Yeah I think so I think that from a PvE standpoint I mean a lot of talk goes into the PvP systems but you know PvE systems need to be dynamic they need to be challenging they need to be something that is not a cookie cutter type of experience where you know I can experience the exact same thing every time and it becomes you know this this this boring kind of duty we want there to be with the changing of the nodes that may exist in the world changes in the raids as well and though that can make them fresh and it can make it as something that is interesting each time and and it will be challenging I mean it has to be challenging PvE encounters must be challenging if something is not a challenge if there is not a dynamic nature to those types of events then it's not appealing to people it is not satisfactory when you accomplish something you need a challenge to be satisfied

41:26

That is by far the best answer I've gotten for the questions since I joined the community thank you so much for that answer

I think everybody feels that way I mean I think nobody joins a game and says I want to breeze through this you know I I just I wanna I want to breeze through this thing you know is so funny back in the day like you know 10 plus years of 15 plus years ago you when you'd play like if I play like Civilization 2 there was this option up in the top up in the top file corner and it would say like turn on cheats right yeah and and if you were losing there was always this like this if I was losing to an AI or whatever at SIPTU I don't think they'd multiply but if I was into like an AI I would always look at that button and I'd be why would anybody want to touch this like why how would that be fun to do something along those lines? it takes the challenge out of it so I think that that that reward satisfaction comes from the effort that was necessary to achieve it and if you don't have to put that effort forward then and the achievement means nothing and it's not fun

Yeah like the reason I asked this question is because like I just said I'm one of those guys who for example back in World of Warcraft I'm one of those guys who raided eight to nine hours a day for the entire week just so we can get the server first kill and I feel now with within the last couple of years in the MMORPG genre the PvE aspect of the game has just become something that people rather not do because it's boring and repetitive and it's not a challenge there's a lot of people that I talk to lately for example they they don't want raids to be hard they just want raids to be free loot and in that and that perspective I completely disagree because I want raids to be something that make me cry something that that that are so hard and competitive that I really have to put effort into it

Mm-hmm yeah I mean those of you guys who played like Lineage 2 I remember the first time I went and did Antharas and Lineage 2 is a real grind fest I mean you you had to grind out levels like crazy it was horrible but the great part was that you know going to that Antharas I think everyone in the raid like we we spent four hours trying to kill that boss and I think I might have lost like ten levels because when he died you lost percentages and you could delevel and it was it was horrible but it was so much fun like that's that's the thing that I remember maybe not in the moment it might not have been something I was excited about losing those levels but later on it sticks out as a memory of something that was grueling and when we when we did kill it it was such it was so satisfactory it was a fun event

44:26

It's the best feeling right okay so let me let me ask you one more question one more quick question um we after we get the the classlist and the namelist for every of the classes and subclasses I notice for example that the mage has a subclass which is the warlock and fantasy wise mages and warlocks are always a little bit different and so I just want to know what are going to be the the major differences between let's say mage mage and a mage summoner which is a warlock like stat wise and everything that goes into it because in most MMORPGs for example a warlock is mostly playing with demons and curses while a mage is doing arcane and elemental magic so what can we expect in that regard Steven?

Oh oh can you hear me now?

Yes we can hear you

Sorry okay so you were asking about the Warlock and it was at the Arch Wizard or

Yes the Arch Wizard

It the Arch Wizard okay so a warlock really is going to to be I mean obviously with the way that our archetypes types work your primary class is the source of your active skills you're going to augment your active skills with the choice of your secondary class right so if your mage primary and you're an arch wizard or warlock you're going to share a lot of the interaction of your primary skills the way that mage that arch wizard is going to work is it's really going to double down on the role of that mage class it's going to be something that depending on how you choose spec out your skills it's your are they're going to be highly focused in this DPS magical DPS elemental damage you're going to have high mobility the ability to kind of teleport around the battlefield you're going to have CC capabilities you're going to be in tune with the ability for you to empower your spell's with with certain types of damage that can be beneficial for certain types of encounters whereas if you are a mage primary with an summoner secondary class you're really going to be able to pull from the identity of that summoner being being able to temporarily put a servant on the battlefield that might be this fire elemental elemental damage instead of firing off a fireball you summon this this fire elemental that that surrounds your target and deals this damage over time and perhaps even slows them or or decreases their attack speed by by entangling or encumbering them with their attacks from the summons momentarily it's a it's the idea behind the secondary classes really being able to to skirt the line with your traditional role as your primary archetype with the roles that identify your other archetypes

Okay I like that because you know warlock is always my main class so I do like that answer and that's all the question that we have we're gonna go into some community questions now and other questions that we gather from the community and Truth why don't you start us off?

Sure yeah so here's one of the many questions here it says will buildings on freeholds have a leveling system that allows for unlocking of recipes or upgrades that provide bonuses for artisan activities? If you're there I think you cut out again

Oh darn it I was just saying I think I have a bad connection yeah you cut out for me as well I'm sorry could you repeat that one more time?

48:29

Sure yep will buildings on freeholds have a leveling system that allows for unlocking the recipes or upgrades that provide bonuses for artisan activities?

Yes absolutely buildings so imagine a freehold to be this this type of interaction with the the construction of this infrastructure that will be leveled up we we want there to be progression in many systems and part of the freehold progression is that when you establish these base buildings the longer and more productive you are and exist with that freehold the more opportunity those buildings will have to both level up offering new bonuses new abilities new capabilities and just surviving in this world is a feat in and of itself so its rewarded by allowing progression with those things

Awesome

49:20

Okay so Steven let me let me ask you this during one of the live streams you mentioned that a group of summoners is going to be able to summon a big big summon like a golem and so when what so I'm wondering what can for example eight mages in one group do?

Nice yes so really when we were talking about those those summoners that that's stemmed from a desire to have primary archetypes that band together to be able to do something monumental on a siege field and the reason why obviously you know summoners would be able to construct this you know Voltron of summons to participate in some fashion in that siege battle the same is true for every archetype a full group or or just a necessarily have to be in a group they could be in raid but a of of eight other seven other and including yourself eight total primary archetypes will have certain combined effects combined effects yeah basically we're we're these archetypes can do something together say for instance you may have eight of the tank archetypes if eight tank archetypes each use one of their summon wall abilities it might construct a larger wall that can be that can divide two raids in a moment and would require damage and block skills and abilities for a momentary lapse of battle between those two those two raids you know these these are the types of systems that we want to put in place where groups of a single primary archetype can come together to summon these types of effects that play off of what the identity of that archetype is

It's cool it's like it's awesome um okay um Greypelt why don't you take the next question

Will there be lore based around the respawn points throughout Verra?

Whoops now that was definitely very scratchy for me

51:39

Will there be lore based around the respawn points throughout Verra?

Will there be lore based around respawn points um yes there is lore but about the respawn mechanic there is absolutely lore about it's not just a matter of hey you know characters need to respawn give them respawn we obviously have a storyline that relates to how and why characters do respawn and the location in which they respawn and that will be revealed as players explore the game

Okay Okies you up Okies

52:20

Okay will they be rewards for the arena based PvP will it will it be something that's influential to make people play in the arena versus outside as well?

Will there be rewards based on arriba arena PvP so there will be rewards based on PvP accomplishments there will be titles that can be received from arena play specifically there will be ladders that are present for arenas there is arena even there is an arena tied to a specific type of player government the military stick node has a gladiatorial arena for mayorship will there be specific rewards and/or like arena points that you get to buy gear with or something not not at the moment in the design that is something we definitely talked about it is something that's prevalent in many other games we will see if the systems and rewards we have in place already for PvP and arenas is sufficient during testing and if not we have some secondary we have some backup ideas that we can employ to make that more rewarding but I mean obviously if people are spending their time doing something in game you know we want that time to be both fun and rewarding so it is definitely a focus of ours

53:44

I do know that it come up as a theory crafting discussion of people you know the game so you just sit at that queue thing to keep doing that rather than being in the real world

Yeah we that's another huge thing about arenas obviously the the downside of an arena from an MMO perspective is that it draws player draws players out of the real world but at the same time you know the the reason for that in my opinion and why that's a concern for other games is that sometimes the real world doesn't have content that stays interesting through endgame right the reason why people end up going to those arenas is because there's not enough content and or activities that exist in the world to compel them not to join the arena necessarily and I think that ashes it doesn't have that problem which is why I'm not concerned with an arena system pulling players from the real world

54:40

Okay so Steven let me let me ask you something um about the combo system I know and I actually kind of liked the combo bar personally and can you share anything about the the new system you guys are working on?

Well we have several systems I mean the the combo system from a design standpoint is really to replace the Auto Attack feature that's that was present in in games and MMOs you know we won't we don't want mindless combat and we also want to provide again for another progression path and that's not necessarily skill tree related but instead is works around your weapons and being able to to use a vehicle like the combo system to employ that progression right and and you know our my mistake I think in early on PAX West was was not understanding the two side the two two gosh what's the what am I trying to say here I'm sorry it's a little late not not recognizing the double-edged nature of transparency you know the thing about showing something that's undone is expecting that that everyone is going to understand the direction of it and will see it for its work in progress state the combo system really should not have been shown until it was represented by a state of work-in-progress that can be recognized for its goals and that UI was just so rudimentary you know from a testing standpoint that it didn't communicate our goals with it what we're implementing now are many different features to represent the system something that doesn't draw your attention away from the world or the center of your screen necessarily something that can work on a more of a a visual cue and/or auditory cue it's important to note what the objective of the combo system was the objective was a vehicle to take weapon progression to implement skill skills that can be demonstrated to fuel a secondary energy type that's focused that players can spec into focus oriented skills and to provide a non mindless skill based interaction with combat from a weapons standpoint so with that with that being the focus you know we're going to implement ways to make that better received I think by players and if it's not if it is something that we are unable to achieve we're not going to ram it down our players throats we're going to take it back to the drawing board

57:42

Okay so and can we expect em the new combat combo system to be in alpha one for testing?

So it depends on the phase of alpha one right alpha one is now divided into two phases there's phase one and phase two phase one focusing on the arena combat that's going to have castle sieges and city sieges and that's going to also give us an opportunity to really explore more action-oriented combat as well because Ashes of Creation is a hybrid combat system where players can spec into more action-oriented skills or tab targetable skills you know tab targeting is a tried tested and true method of combat in MMOs for the past 20 years 20 plus years action-oriented has been prevalent over the past several years from a development standpoint with certain types of games but it's finding a comfortable blend between those two in the same combat system is going to be a task for us so phase one will allow us the opportunity to really double down on some action-oriented skills and part of that might include some of the new combo systems that we're working on

Okay I'm reading forward I'm reading forward to Alpha 1 okay so we are always trying to do the podcast and within one hour maybe sometimes we go a little longer so what I say we do now is that Greypelt Okies Truth Eternal one of you gets one more question and because we know it's late for Stephen and I think we're gonna call it a day so who wants to go first?

59:25

I will if you like um I'll ask this one because this is one that keeps getting asked repeatedly because I know that we're in the alpha zero testing at the moment and we're getting further on in training to be able to we're only really early but people been asking when can testers be able to try out the crafting gathering and processing professions?

So in Phase two of alpha one is when many of those systems will be tested so phase two of alpha one is where a lot of the crafting and artisan ship tree will have a first iteration and players will be able to test phase two of alpha one

Nice okay Greypelt you're up

1:00:07

Will gatherables have use in crafting a high level items if they are low level gatherables?

It depends certain low level gatherables will have a tiered progression into higher level crafting so for example you know if I'm if I'm gathering you know leaves of the blue petal flower to craft a pigment that's going to be used in the development of a tunic that I can wear at level one then I may need to collect those in order to craft the pigments to craft a greater pigment that might be present in the in the crafting of a higher level item so it's going to be kind of a tiered progression so that materials have relevancy throughout the different levels of of crafting and that's important from an economic stability standpoint you need to have layered demand from a supply standpoint so that players who are interested in collecting and gathering those materials still are relevant when the later level items are crafted

Mm-hmm okay so Truth last question go for it

Alright a lot of Tulnar love in chat so I'm sad I can't ask about them but my last question is will there be a limit on combinations of pet and mount breeding options available or will like a butterfly plus the tiger actually be a butterflyger?

[Laughter] nice I'm sorry repeat the first part of that question I got butterflyger and then I was kind of contemplating how it could be incorporated into the game I'm sorry go ahead

1:02:02

Right alright will there be a limit on the combinations of pet and mount breeding options right there'll be a certain number right that that'll be a kind of a hard cap of of options available but will there be some some animals that won't be compatible with others to make up breeding?

Yeah I think I think the important part of breeding is really that there is a compendium of of acceptable parameters for breeding and that compendium isn't going to be known until players discover it and that discovery may be different for different players so yes there is a cap yes there are acceptable parameters for breeding and that discovery is going to be necessary from the players both from a trial-and-error standpoint to a exploration and discovery of certain breeding habits on the winds and different quests that you might discover which grants you access to a slot in your compendium for animal husbandry that grants you access to a specific type of mount so there is there I mean there's definitely going to be odd combinations whether it's a butterflyger giraffealope I don't know but there will be definitely caps that are present kind of fine

Oh that's that's interesting is now I'm going to want to see what I can mix with say a scorpion

There you go

1:03:36

Okay I have one more community question and that's gonna be it for today and when can we expect to see additional 3D renders of the other races for example the Tulnars the Orcs or the Dwarves

You know at the studios I'm I'm very how do I say this when when there is a milestone that needs to be met and we have our we have our roadmap set out everyone in the studio is laser focused on reaching that milestone and some features are present in different milestones so some studios will approach a development cycle around kind of doing many of the differents things that are that are going to be needed at the end stage of the of the development and other studios are really focused on on segmenting their sprints of development towards deliverables that are necessary at each milestone that's really more my focus and and things like what you've just asked for aren't necessarily necessary for phase one of alpha one which means that they won't be worked on until that net until that milestone is the next milestone coming up

Okay no that's fair okay okay everybody Steven Greypelt Okies and Truth Eternal thanks for joining me for the one year anniversary of the podcast I had a lot of fun

Yeah absolutely it was a lot of fun I enjoyed chatting with you guys thank you for having me and congratulations on your one year anniversary