Currency
Currency may refer to:
- Gold is the general in-game currency in Ashes of Creation.[1][2][3]
- Bound currencies are progression-based currencies that cannot be traded.[1][4][2]
- Embers is a virtual currency that can be used to purchase cosmetic items within Ashes of Creation.[9]
- Intrepid Bucks are earned through the Referral program.[10]
Gold

Money will play a big part in the in-game. However, with that being said, there are organizational specific currencies that can't be traded. So there is like a general gold that will be very important end-game, but then there's also your progression within certain religions, societies, or nodes will also have... there will be progression-based currencies as well.[2] – Steven Sharif
Gold is the general in-game currency in Ashes of Creation.[1][2][3]
- Gold, silver, and copper coins are present in the game.[12]
- Maximum gold that can be carried is 200.[13] Previously there was no cap on how much gold a player can hold.[14]
- Monsters don't drop gold, they instead drop glint. Glint is the primary method for players to generate gold.[5][6][7][8][2][3]
- Game currency does not have weight, but glint occupies space within the spatial inventory system and must be transported via crates when in large quantities.[15][16]
- Players do not lose gold upon death, no matter their corruption level, but glint will drop as stolen glint on a character's death, based on applicable death penalties.[7][17][18][19][2][20]
Bound currencies
Bound currencies are specific progression-based currencies that cannot be traded. Bound currencies are utilized by various systems.[1][4][2]
- There are bound currencies that exist within the game; and then there is the general currencies that's usually achieved through certificates and the ability to trade those certificates in to get gold that we've talked about in the past. But some of those bound currencies are like favor: these are points that you achieve doing some divine questlines, participating in divine story-arcs; or honor, which is like PvP-oriented unique currency stuff like that.[1] – Steven Sharif
- Religions.[2]
- Social organizations.[2]
- Tavern games (potentially).[21]
- Glint is a bound currency that drops from mobs and players, and is offered as a reward for completing certain quests, events, and achievements.[5][6][7][8][2][3]
- Node types have specific bound currencies that are earned through personal progression within the node.[1][4][22][2]
- Honor at military nodes for completing PvP-related activities.[1][22]
- Favor at divine nodes for completing divine questlines and story arcs.[1][22]
- A bound currency that's used to purchase a number of different types of vendorable items that exist within nodes. It is not player-to-player currency. It is not intended to be traded between players, but instead it interacts with these unique vendors that supply a large segment of necessary components for a number of different things: whether it be crafting, enchantments, a lot of different things that exist within the node. This is the reason why you would want to acquire that currency so you have access to those types of items.[23] – Steven Sharif
- Node currencies stay bound to the player, even if their node is destroyed or they drop citizenship. They will be able to use their node currency once they are a citizen of a new node (of the same type).[24][1]
- Node currency stays with the player even if their node is destroyed or they drop citizenship. This is something that you have available to you and you carry forward to your next location. But you may only spend your node currency at nodes that you're a citizen of.[24] – Steven Sharif
- Players must have enough node reputation in order to purchase certain items with node currency.[24]
- You have to have enough node rep to be able to buy certain tiers of things from the node with your node currency. Even though the currency is generic, you still need the rep with the node to unlock better purchases.[24] – John Collins
Embers
Embers are a virtual currency that can be used to purchase cosmetic items within Ashes of Creation and previously within Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.[9] Embers may be obtained in the following ways:
- By redeeming Intrepid Bucks (post-release).[25]
- By purchasing Pre-order packs (prior to January 17, 2024).[26][25]
- By direct purchase from the Ashes of Creation cosmetic store (post-release).[9]
- 1,000 embers cost USD $9.99
- 2,750 embers cost USD $24.99
- 4,025 embers cost USD $34.99
- 7,200 embers cost USD $59.99
- 13,500 embers cost USD $99.99
- Embers can be saved and used in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG to purchase cosmetics after launch.[27]
- Embers were able to be be used in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse to purchase unique cosmetics or to purchase the Legendary adventure path.[27]
- Adventure paths in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse, allowed players to earn embers just for playing. Those embers will carry over into the MMORPG.[27]
- Once used, embers cannot be refunded or exchanged for different items.[9]
Referral program
Players who refer and invite new players can receive 15% of their account purchases back as Intrepid Bucks.[10]
- This only applies to purchases made with an applicable payment method. Purchases redeemed using Intrepid Bucks are not eligible.[10]
- Personal information, including usernames, are not used for referrals due to privacy constraints.[28]
Referrals require the registration of a new account, either with a personal referral code or via a referral link.[10]
- Referrals cannot be retroactively attached to an existing account.[29]
Looting
In the group loot obviously there's a lot of functionality here that parties have the ability to customize. There can be loot master, there can be round-robin, there can be need/greed/pass that's applied on a per rarity basis depending on the party's choices.[30] – Steven Sharif
Ashes of Creation intends to use traditional loot rules, selected by the party or raid leader.[32][33][34]
- Loot in Ashes of Creation encounters is finite and must be distributed between party or raid members who complete the encounter. There is no individual loot system that grants loot to all participants. This essentially acts to balance the lowered risk in large numbers against lower chances of gaining rewards.[35][36]
- Group loot rules are defined on a per-rarity basis.[30]
- A majority of party members must vote to approve any changes to group loot allocation changes.[31]
- The winners of loot rolls must directly interact with loot containers to claim the items in order to encourage friction between players wanting to protect the loot container. If the loot isn't claimed within a period of time, it will become public. This design may change based on further testing.[37][38] Previously, the developers were considering using a double-tap interaction to loot all containers within a close proximity radius.[39]
- Q: Why did need and greed change from going into your bag to now doing it where you have to go and pick up the item?
- A: The intended design is twofold: One, on an engineering side there was some concern about preserving the rights currently based off of net relevancy and distance, so we tried to cut down the time that you could roll need or greed; and then we also introduced a pause to the public loot rights timer on the loot container. But more so on the design side of it, part of I think the PvX engagement of an environment is not just, let's say, killing the mini boss, or killing the boss, or killing the creatures, but it is controlling the space after that to the point where you can ensure when that rolling is complete that you have access to the loot container to claim your reward as well; and that other players could potentially kill you during that process and wait until the loot container goes to a public permission setting. And we were having situations where players could sit in a node, or sit in a town in a raid or in a party and be granted the reward being nowhere near the loot container. So as an interim solution we incorporated this needing to interact with the loot container after successfully passing the rolls. And we're going to test with that and see how that goes with certain PvX situations.[38] – Steven Sharif
- There won't be auto-looting pets.[40]
- It will be possible to kick a player from a party prior to them acquiring loot.[41]
- Yes, technically it would be possible for you to kick a player prior to acquiring loot. However, again because we are a game that relies on social interactions, there are reputations to be had; and if you acquire a reputation as a raid leader, or as a party leader, of doing something dirty like that, then it's unlikely you'll be able to Garner the support of future party members and/or raids to lead efforts against these raid bosses.[41] – Steven Sharif
- Free-for-all.[34]
- Whoever is first to loot gets the loot.[32]
- A master looter (or lootmaster) is a player designated by the party leader to decide how loot is distributed in a dungeon or raid party.[34]
- With round-robin looting, party members take turns looting.[34]
- This is a traditional need before greed system based on dice rolls.[34]
- Since there is very little gear binding in Ashes of Creation, it's left to the party to deal with players who excessively roll Need on loot.[42]
- Bidding system.[34]
- Intrepid are investigating a potential bidding system, which allows players to bid on items instead of rolling for them.[34]
Subscription payment
Intrepid Bucks earned through the Referral program can be used to reduce subscription costs (to zero).[10]
- In-game currency will not be able to be used to purchase subscription time. This may change in the future.[43]
We want to make sure that there's no "interactability" between any type of pay-to-win scenario where our players can exchange those in-game types of currencies to pay for subscriptions.[43] – Steven Sharif
Item rendering
Items that are dragged out of a player's inventory are destroyed.[44]
- Allowing player-dropped items (such as Gear and Currency) to exist in the world is likely not going to be allowed.[44][45]
Security systems

What matters most in any MMO... is that you protect the integrity of the player activity. The player activity is what should be driving the in-game market, is what should be driving the in-game economy. These things are are paramount in making sure that players feel comfortable logging in each day and exerting effort to achieve whatever they're achieving.[46] – Steven Sharif
Security systems are in place to combat cheating, exploiting, botting, gold selling, real money transactions (RMT), item duplication and other things that affect the economy.[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54]
- A broad spectrum of approaches are going to be utilized in order to try to protect the integrity of the game once it launches. Testing of these systems will begin leading up towards Alpha-2.[46][49]
- Security is always at the top of any concern when you have a closed system like an MMO is... We've seen a lot of MMO is launch without security in place and the economy gets ruined as a result thereafter. And every band-aid that's slapped on top of that wound is just making things worse. And so part of why you take the time in order to ensure that things are done correctly is also the security component of things; and that's where testing with a live audience is a bit different also than testing with a Q&A audience as well, because you're going to get those bad actors- and we call them bad actors because ultimately they're attempting to destroy the fun for others... So what we've done is we've hired some security experts who've worked on massive other MMOs like World of Warcraft and other games, and they bring with them lot of experience; and we're going to be testing that in leading up towards Alpha-2. It's a very important part of Alpha-2. It's not something that we really addressed with Alpha-1 because again, that was a much more barebones functional testing experience. We did see some issues during Alpha-1 and we made it important for Alpha-2 to test those systems. We have a broad spectrum of approaches that we're going to be utilizing in order to try to protect the integrity of the game once it launches.[49] – Steven Sharif
- These systems collect user data and flag abnormal activities for investigation. This combined with player reporting functions generates a live "heat map" that draws attention to unusual behavior.[55][47][46][48][50][51][54]
- We do have already built into the game on the outset is essentially behavioral metrics. So in the game, as a player does normal things and they acquire normal gold, that's all good and well, but if there starts to be item IDs that appear on the player account that are out of the norm, like either a large amount of gold, or significant legendary items, what it does in the back-end it flags the account for view so that we can take a look at where did this item come from. Is it coming from a known gold seller or a flagged bot, or whatever; and then we investigate. So we're going to be pretty hard on the ability for players to subvert the natural economy systems by RMT or botting.[51] – Steven Sharif
- Botters, cheaters, gold sellers, and RMTers, will face severe penalties from the active GM/community team.[47][48][56][57][54]
- It's important to note that there is a sanctity that must be protected within the game from RMTing; and let me just go into a little diatribe about this: But in games that I've played where the company or the publisher does not enforce rules, it becomes the standard that you buy gold if you want to be competitive. If you want to compete at the top tier levels in certain games, and everyone's buying gold, you almost either have to buy the gold or you're just not going to be able to compete with those people and that's a really shitty feeling to have. Excuse my French, I apologize. That is sucky; and in order for that not to be the case it is the responsibility of the publisher or the developers both to make sure that we have stringent practices from a CS- from a customer customer service perspective- to enforce our rules and to make sure that players are aware if they partake in this there is a huge risk in doing so. It's not going to be a slap on the hand. It's not going to be a "we told you once, we told you twice, we told you three, four, five six times okay. We're just taking some gold away", that thing. We have got to ensure that it is feared to do those things because that ashes has active GMS, it has active customer service, it has an active community team.[57] – Steven Sharif
- Q: Is trading in game gold for non tangible resources like information allowed? And if so, how will the system distinguish between that and RMT?
- A: We take into account behavioral metrics as well, right. So, can you sell information in game? Yes, you can. Where it becomes a problem is if that information you're selling is consistently being sold to gold that is generated fraudulently or through exploits or through botting. Then that becomes a pattern, that becomes a heat map. We identify those heats and we take action against them.[55] – Steven Sharif
Visuals
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Podcast, July 15, 2023 (15:14).
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 Interview, July 18, 2020 (27:11).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Livestream, May 24, 2017 (44:14).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Livestream, October 31, 2023 (1:06:32).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Video, October 31, 2023 (3:34).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Interview, September 10, 2023 (53:47).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Livestream, October 29, 2021 (1:06:31).
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Zendesk - What are Embers and how do I use them?
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Ashes of Creation referral program.
- ↑ Ashes of Creation Press Kit.
- ↑ Video, January 27, 2023 (4:09).
- ↑ Alpha-2 update notes: 2024-11-14.
- ↑ Livestream, March 26, 2021 (1:07:00).
- ↑
- ↑ Livestream, May 26, 2017 (54:00).
- ↑
- ↑ Livestream, March 26, 2021 (1:07:33).
- ↑
- ↑ Podcast, May 5, 2017 (43:05).
- ↑ Interview, June 13, 2021 (18:40).
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Interview, July 9, 2023 (19:56).
- ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (1:01:10).
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (1:05:23).
- ↑ 25.0 25.1
- ↑ Newsletter - Pre-order packages are ending reminder.
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Livestream, December 6, 2018 (1:00:52).
- ↑
- ↑ I created an account before I knew about the referral link. Can I add someone’s referral to my account?
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 30.4 30.5 Video, January 27, 2023 (16:44).
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 Video, January 27, 2023 (32:01).
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 Livestream, November 30, 2020 (1:01:40).
- ↑ Livestream, July 25, 2020 (1:24:56).
- ↑ 34.00 34.01 34.02 34.03 34.04 34.05 34.06 34.07 34.08 34.09 34.10 34.11 Group dynamics blog.
- ↑ Livestream, January 3, 2025 (23:11).
- ↑ Podcast, May 10, 2024 (50:37).
- ↑ Livestream, January 2, 2025 (1:20:35).
- ↑ 38.0 38.1 38.2 Interview, November 10, 2024 (1:29:08).
- ↑ Livestream, January 27, 2023 (1:08:06).
- ↑ Livestream, April 29, 2022 (1:04:52).
- ↑ 41.0 41.1 Livestream, May 31, 2023 (1:07:45).
- ↑ Livestream, November 30, 2020 (1:12:03).
- ↑ 43.0 43.1 Livestream, June 1, 2017 (20:47).
- ↑ 44.0 44.1 Livestream, April 30, 2021 (1:14:49).
- ↑ Livestream, May 24, 2017 (13:19).
- ↑ 46.0 46.1 46.2 Podcast, October 12, 2024 (53:37).
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 47.2 Interview, November 10, 2024 (10:54).
- ↑ 48.0 48.1 48.2
- ↑ 49.0 49.1 49.2 Interview, July 9, 2023 (1:47:04).
- ↑ 50.0 50.1
- ↑ 51.0 51.1 51.2 Interview, July 19, 2020 (1:12:37).
- ↑ Livestream, November 17, 2017 (38:35).
- ↑ Massively OP, 2017-06-1
- ↑ 54.0 54.1 54.2 Livestream, February 9, 2018 (20:40).
- ↑ 55.0 55.1 Livestream, January 31, 2025 (47:19).
- ↑
- ↑ 57.0 57.1 Livestream, August 26, 2022 (1:32:45).