Nyílt világ

Alfa-1 open world Dungeon bejárat.

80% of the content that will exist in Ashes of Creation is open-world and there's a specific reason for that. So because of the way that friendships and or enemies are forged in the game and people have the opportunity to create their own friends or foes. We want that to play out from a contesting standpoint as well. So a lot of these hunting grounds or raid bosses that people are going to have opportunities to kill, they're going to be essentially contested potentially by your your enemies that you've created in the game or you can work together to create alliances in order to defend those contested zones. – Steven Sharif

Az Ashes of Creation zökkenőmentes open-world élményt nyújt.

• Nincs töltő képernyő / töltési idő a régiók közötti haladás közben.

Lesznek open world Dungeon-ök és Raid-ek. A cél az hogy az open world érzés megmaradjon, miközben a példányosítás előnyei is ki legyenek használva.

• A példányosítás csupán bizonyos Dungeon-öknél fordul majd elő, ahol nagyobb a hangsúly a történet-elbeszélésen. Ezeket, és az arénákat leszámítva nem lesz gyakori a példányosítás.
• Az open world és a példányosított helyszínek elosztása 80%-20% lesz.

We're probably going to do instancing only in certain dungeons and in arenas. You probably won't see instancing too much anywhere else. What you see is gonna be what you get. – Jeffrey Bard

A PvP megjelölés rendszer megnyitja a kapukat a nyílt összeütközések előtt.

Battlegrounds

The Event system will also create a variety of PvP situations in the open world. From small skirmishes that lead into sieges to battles over capture points during a node or castle siege, PvP objectives will play a crucial role in determining the tide of battle.

The majority of Ashes of Creation players will experience Pvp through opt-in objective-based battlegrounds (also called sanctioned PvP events). These are high risk and high reward encounters that do not utilize the corruption system.

The majority of PvP that players will encounter- the vast majority- will be through consensual systems, meaning opt-in systems like sieges, like caravans, like wars, or going out into the open sea. These are conscious decisions that players will make knowing the risk profile- assessing that- and they will opt-in to those things.. – Steven Sharif

• Sanctioned PvP events allow players to join different teams during the event.

There are going to be events with sanctioned PvP, where there are multiple team options to join. – Clayton Stamper

• These events will flag participating players as Combatants (purple) and players will remain flagged for a period of time after leaving that battleground. Corrupted (red) players will remain red during PvP events.
  • Ostromok vár (potentially).
  • Lakókocsik.
  • Guild Wars.
  • Naval PvP in the open sea.
  • Node ostromok.

In a sanctioned event- sanctioned meaning that this is something you have the option to opt-out of. That's a castle siege, that's a node siege, that's a caravan, that's a guild war, that's a node war. You can drop your citizenship. You can drop your guild tag. You can drop participating in one of those things. In any of those types of opt-in and opt-out events, the death penalties do not exist. These are sanctioned. They're intended to allow people to engage in PvP. Now if I die to an NPC while I'm out hunting, or if I die to another player through the flagging system, those are where death penalties come into play; and that's where debt experience can be earned; and that's where corruption can be had. So it's important to separate those two realms. – Steven Sharif

• Death penalties (mostly) do not apply to objective-based/sanctioned PvP events.
  • Gear degradation applies on death during Caravan PvP.

• Outside of these events, normal PvP flagging and corruption rules apply.

During PvP events such as caravans, guild wars, and sieges, the death penalties are disabled between participating characters on opposing sides. Attacking and killing players on the opposing side doesn't trigger the purple and red flags, nor does dying drop any resources or loot. However, you can't hide in this state as a Red corrupted player either. If you are Red, you'll still be Red in the siege or caravan and open to anyone to kill you and drop your loot, regardless of the side you are on. Being Red trumps everything.

• There will be limited functionality for spectating battlefields and potentially castle sieges from ghost cameras at fixed positions.

We will have limited functionality where players can spectate from either ghost camera from fixed positions at certain battlefields; some of which might include castles. – Steven Sharif

• The caravan system and other systems in Ashes of Creation that rely on intrigue do not lend themselves toward livestreaming the game.

We will have certain systems that won't lend well to streaming, because certain systems have a requirement of secrecy and/or at least some level of strategic ambiguity. So players need to be conscientious of that fact when they're intending to both stream and play Ashes of Creation. Those are things that we cannot solve because intrigue is an intrinsic part of the game. – Steven Sharif

• Open-world skirmishes may lead into sieges or other battles.

Our castle system, our sieges against nodes, the caravan system, battlegrounds that exist, guild wars: We want there to be a meaning to this conflict. We want players to actually have some skin in the game when it comes to participating in PvP. – Steven Sharif

Hunting grounds

You are on the prowl, and notice an unsuspecting player chopping trees. What would you do?

Hunting grounds are open-world Pvp corruption-enabled areas that encompass most of the map.

• Hunting grounds refer to killing monsters or NPCs in the open-world.
• This also refers to contesting resources.

One of the interesting components of Ashes of Creation and our flagging system is that it presents the potential for two conflicting parties to have open conflict in the open world over pretty much anything that they may want or disagree with; and if that pertains to a hunting ground, not just the caravan or the castles or the nodes or whatever, it can exist in that area. – Steven Sharif

Outside of PvP for certain things like caravans, sieges of nodes and/or castles is that you're going to have those open-world hunting ground fights that may occur. You're going to have resources fights that may occur. You're going to have political fights that may occur between members of guilds; and we're taking the guild politics to a whole new direction in regards to playing those conflicts out. – Steven Sharif

Our PvP mechanics follow a flagging system, as well as static PvP zones at certain points of interest; fight for control over cities, castles, caravans, or hunting grounds. Our PvP is designed to offer the players a well-balanced and fair world to shape through the pen, or sword should they choose.

Környezetben

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.

Alpha-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

List of biomes

Tropics biome concept art.

Node simulation with placeholder biomes and node locations.

• Badlands
• Corrupted areas
• Desert
• Flood plains
• Forest
• Jungle
• Riverlands
• Snowy mountains
• Tabletop mountains
• Tropics
• Tundra
• Altartomány
• Volcano area

Nevezetességek

Alpha-1 preview pirate themed dynamic point of interest.

This is actually a dynamic POI. This one will evolve as players evolve the node that it's attached to. So this is its final state. – Jeffrey Bard

New points of interest (such as dungeons, world bosses, and corrupted areas) spawn as nodes develop. This content adapts to the node progression of the zone it is in.

• Additional buildings will spawn.
• Additional mobs will spawn.
  • Different antagonists/leaders with different story lines.
  • Populations will change.
• Content difficulty will change.
  • The content may be different altogether.
  • Additional quest hooks.
• Dungeons will be unlocked when certain nodes advance to certain stages.
  • Multiple nearby nodes may collectively influence larger POIs.
  • Larger dungeons will gain higher level content as nearby nodes advance.
  • Storyline objectives for players inside dungeons will depend on the story arc paths chosen through the node system.
• Drop tables in areas and dungeons will be tied into the progression of certain areas.
• POI events are events that relate to specific points-of-interest (POI).
• The location of points of interest will be the same on each server, but some servers may have limited or no access to them.

Certain dungeons and other points of interest across the map will all be affected by the server’s node development. Some dungeons will only be unlocked if nodes are developed to certain stages. The storyline objectives for players inside dungeons will also be dependent on the story arc paths chosen through the node system. The drop tables in area and dungeons will also be tied into the progression of certain areas. For example, let’s say that the humans have developed a node in Region A, and a storyline has opened up that leads players to inspect the ruins (dungeon) of a nearby area. And let’s say that this node was developed in a scientific (crafting) zone… Well before the node developed, this dungeon was accessible… But now the dungeon has propagated new monster assets that include a drop table catering to a crafting emphasis because of the development of that academic node. And perhaps, a new boss appears in different rooms of the dungeon that includes different adventure quest starts, like a mysterious item with a storyline that can only be progressed if a node develops to the metropolis stage in a certain region, across the world. Our system is so vast, when it comes to interconnectivity and how the world reacts to the players.

Corrupted areas

Alpha-2 corrupted area in the Riverlands biome.

We just saw a corrupt zone and that zone becomes corrupt after a period of time in which players are not addressing some issues that arise through certain events or through certain story arcs; and that corruption can spread and corruption changes the spawners for resources and for monsters; and that has a fundamental effect on the resource economy of the game. – Steven Sharif

Corrupted areas (zones/points of interest) can dynamically evolve with the progression of nodes and story arcs.

• Harbingers that exist on Verra as dungeons are where The Ancients are capable of pushing into the material plane. They can continue to do so under the guise of the effects of corruption as it spreads.

• These are sources of NPC events that players need to address before they grow out of hand.
  • Players need to participate in these events to stop the spread of corruption and hold back the intrusion on the material plane.
  • If players fail to address these corrupted areas, the frequency of NPC events against their node will increase. These can lead to node buildings and services being disabled, increasing the node's vulnerability to node sieges.

It can be a very detrimental thing if corruption is not addressed; and that's the intent of corruption, is to present a challenge to the players that if not addressed it becomes exacerbated and a problem over time. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupted areas do not confer corruption onto a player. Only Pvp related activities lead to player corruption (in the flagging system).

To degree your mortal coil, as we call it, or what some might consider a soul from your character's perspective within this story- can be influenced and can be changed into a shape that's more in tune with corruption; and that's through doing PvP things you can accomplish that. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupted areas will likely be impacted less by seasons and weather.

When it enters the corruption state outside of weather, in that corrupt state, you will probably see a little bit less of the influence of the season because really it's adopting that corruption, which in-and-of-itself is a season. – Steven Sharif

• Corrupted areas will spawn variations of mobs and resources.
  • Corrupted resources are only available in corrupted areas or during certain story arcs.

Továbbiak

• Pvp
• Dungeons
• Razziák
• Környezetben