Racial influences
Cultural influences manifest in many ways, from node and gear aesthetics to NPC languages and lore.[2][3][4]
- Gear appearance of certain armor sets is influenced by the player's race.[2]
- Node layout and style is influenced by the race that contributes the most to that node.[2]
- There is an attrition and that attrition on experience and influence is heightened based on the performance of the race in the world. So if all these nodes are Orc nodes then their attrition rate is very high to compete with the cultural establishment of new nodes because they have more influence in the world and a popular opinion is against them in their outlying regions that they do not have influence in.[5] – Steven Sharif
NPC racial interaction
- NPCs will react differently to different character races.[6]
- Languages will be distinct between NPC races and in the lore.[2]
- Certain quest givers and NPCs may only be present at nodes with certain cultural influences.[7]
- Depending on the cultural influence of the node activates certain types of quest lines and/or sponsors. Some of those are shared, some of those are general. Some of those relate to a progression path that is a first time user experience. Those will be constant across all culture types. Some of them, however, are predicates that spawn when certain story arcs and/or events, or commissions or buy orders become present within the node; and those might change based on the cultural influence of the node. So there is a separation between those populations.[7] – Steven Sharif
NPC languages
The race of a NPC influences its language and nomenclature in terms of its dialogue tree.[2]
Artistic influences
- Aelean architecture has a French medieval influence.[10]
- Dünir have a Nordic cultural influence.[11]
- Empyreans have a Greco-Roman imperialistic feeling.[12]
- The Kaelar have a European influence.[13]
- The Niküa have a Polynesian influence.[14][12]
- The Py'Rai have a Navajo Native American influence.[12] Py'Rai architecture has a woodland inspiration.[15][16]
- Pyrian architecture has a Greco-Roman influence.[17]
- Ren'Kai architecture has an Asian influence.[8]
- The Vaelune have a Middle Eastern influence.[18]
- The Vek have a Mesoamerican influence.[18]
- You will see in the different races that are available from a player character standpoint a lot of different influences that reflect many cultures in the world: Not just European, not just Africa, not Mesoamerican. These cultures are going to be present in many of the races.[19] – Steven Sharif
- The idea is just to find a base component in the real world as a starting point and then to begin to fantasize.[10] – Steven Sharif
Racial weapons and armor
Weapons and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.[2][23][24]
- The customization of equipment per race is really focused on Armor sets not Weapon props. Weapon props will, from a model standpoint, will translate pretty one-to-one across the races.[25] – Steven Sharif
- Racial appearance of gear is focused on Armor. Weapons will not change in appearance but will scale in size based on race.[26][25]
- Let's say for example you have the Eagle set or something, right: The Eagle set has in art, it has a thematic design that's going to include certain attachments to the armor. It's going to include color palette and theme. It's going to have some aspects to it that define it as the Eagle set, right. When a Elf wears the Eagle set or when an Orc wears the Eagle set, you obviously have two different cultures there; and you don't want to stomp out that culture by assigning a de facto 'This is the Eagle set and this is how it looks on everybody.' What we want to have is cultural influences play a role in showing how that set looks.[25] – Steven Sharif
- Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.[27]
- When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race.[27] – Steven Sharif
- Q: Since a single armor set will look different on each race, how will we have large varieties of in-game achievable gear for each race if we have to make nine different looks for each set?
- A: The approach for that is to create a modular piece set for armor creation; and the way we achieve that is by two steps: So, on the modeling side, each race has these geo sets basically where you're creating pieces of the armor for heavy plate armor, for medium, for robes; and you get to grab those modular pieces and mix and match as design makes a request for a particular set to the art teams. So, design comes along and they say, "hey we have a theme for a set that we want to create", so let's use Carphin in that example; and that theme from design's standpoint is going to include color, it's going to include materials, it's going to have an etymology for the set to give a background so that they can incorporate certain types of attachments- whatever they want to include on the art side. Then, the character team says, "okay let's take our base sets of geo and let's mix and match those pieces to create the Carphin set and then we're going to do a materials pass on it, and then we're going to do a color pass on it"; and that way we have a lot of essentially pieces of the puzzle to create these many different unique sets. Now we can also deform pieces across from race to race. So, even if we create unique geo on a per-race basis, we can grab the pauldron from the Human set and put it onto the Vek representation; and the end game there is that we have a particular set, for example Carphin, and that Carphin is communicating the theme; and when you don the armor for the Carphin set- you've acquired the Carphin set and you put it on- it is going to look Vek if you're a Vek. It is going to look Kaelar if you're a Kaelar, but it is still going to have the identity and the theme of the Carphin set.[28] – Steven Sharif
Node layout and style
Node layout and style is determined by several factors:[30][31]
- The way that the node system is built is that they can exist across a spread of 18 biomes, but at the same time have to represent the cultural influence of these cultures that are intrinsically a part of a specific biome.[32] – Steven Sharif
- Environment (biome) and location of the node.[32][30][31]
- Nodes will adjust the local topography to fit the aesthetic and mechanical requirements of the node.[33]
- Currently the way that the platform system is set up, is it's capable of adjusting the topography of the node's footprint, regardless of the surrounding terrain. So the reason for that is we want to have flexibility in the presentation of the node's layout and how it is essentially both from an aesthetic standpoint as well as a mechanical standpoint with node sieges- how it's constructed and that construction should have the ability to take on a variance of different types of topography. So it shouldn't be dependent on the surrounding area. Now that's not to say that the surrounding area isn't going to have some influence over. So for example... we're experimenting a little bit with the platform tech and putting up a node up against the side of a mountain or on the edge of a cliff or something that has a beautiful vista. Those are things that we're going to test out obviously as we continue to work on the node tool and how that platform system works, but the idea is to have the node independent of the surrounding terrain.[33] – Steven Sharif
- Some parts are determined by the area it's in. Some parts are determined by the type it is. Some parts are determined by the race it is; and then the rest of it is determined by the mayor.[31] – Jeffrey Bard
- Race that contributed the highest percentage to the node's advancement will alter the racial appearance of its buildings, NPCs, and props.[2][34][30][4][31][35][36]
- All nodes, whether they're associated with a castle or associated with normal node structure, has cultural influences that replicate over to the buildings that are produced and the NPCs that are present.[38] – Steven Sharif
- The rest is determined by the node's mayor.[31]
- It should be possible for a node to complete several building projects within a mayor's one month term in office.[39]
- Q: How long would you say it will take players on average to fill/build up a node completely from wilderness to metropolis?
- A: It's one thing to get a node to a certain level: it's another thing to develop the node; and I can't really give you an on-average expectation, because there's a lot of variables at play. There's how many citizens does the node have attracted to it; what's the type of traffic that the node is attracting to it based on things like its tax rates, or the specialization that it chose to spec into, based on the building types it's chosen to build. All of those things are variables that can affect the quote-unquote "average build-out time" of a particular node. So it's difficult to give you an average when there's so many variables along those lines. But the idea is that if there is a particular project that players are interested in in developing based on the node stage, that they would have the ability to complete several of those projects as within a single term of a mayor; and a term of a mayor is one month.[39] – Steven Sharif
Racial quests
Quests may be based on a character's race.[6]
Different quests may relate to who the primary cultural contributor is to a node. This won't lock out content, but will add flavor to the quests.[6]
There might even be different directories of the quest that exist for specific races, and even though you're sharing a quest to kill a boss, if you're human and I'm an elf, I will have a different arc potentially that leads in a different direction than you, even though we took the same quest; and this can relate to who the primary cultural contributor is to a node unlocking different arcs for cultures that share the primary culture of a node - not that locks out content but it gives a flavor in a different direction so that not everything is so cookie cutter.[6] – Steven Sharif
Race matters because narratives have paths that also are influenced based on the primary contributing culture to the node... If you're a Niküa and you have you're in a Niküa node that's predominantly Niküa, you're going to have certain services and/or abilities as a member of the Niküa race that other races may not have access to... They may have alternative quest lines, but they won't have specific ones. Now those specific Niküa quests will then relate to the meta-narrative that's present in the world and they'll start to direct some of that meta-narrative; and that'll be beneficial for your kind because it will unlock certain content for your race that other races haven't unlocked yet. So there is an incentive there to see progression along that line now in order to curb the progress of a dominant race.[5] – Steven Sharif
Quests that are race specific, title specific, or guild specific will likely be less than 10% of the total number of quests. 90% of quests should be able to be shared by everybody.[40]
See also
References
- ↑ Livestream, June 26, 2020 (45:32).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Livestream, March 31, 2022 (4:57).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Interview, February 7, 2021 (33:00).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Blog - Know Your Nodes - Advance and Destroy.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Interview, May 11, 2018 (1:00:19).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Podcast, April 23, 2018 (29:56).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Interview, July 9, 2023 (1:35:28).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Livestream, October 31, 2019 (40:27).
- ↑ Livestream, February 25, 2022 (49:42).
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Interview, October 20, 2018 (3:47:17).
- ↑
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Interview, May 11, 2018 (1:03:21).
- ↑ Podcast, May 11, 2018 (31:35).
- ↑ Livestream, September 30, 2022 (1:08:24).
- ↑ Livestream, February 25, 2022 (44:28).
- ↑
- ↑ Livestream, October 16, 2017 (15:58).
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Podcast, May 11, 2018 (31:35).
- ↑ Interview, May 11, 2018 (1:04:27).
- ↑ Video, September 30, 2020 (2:44).
- ↑ Livestream, September 30, 2020 (47:47).
- ↑ Livestream, July 26, 2019 (54:06).
- ↑ Livestream, May 26, 2017 (44:11).
- ↑ Livestream, May 26, 2017 (20:46).
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Podcast, August 4, 2018 (53:43).
- ↑ Livestream, October 28, 2022 (1:41:06).
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Podcast, August 4, 2018 (55:17).
- ↑ Livestream, February 29, 2024 (1:15:51).
- ↑ Blog - Know Your Nodes - The Basics.
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 Livestream, October 30, 2020 (39:17).
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 31.5 Livestream, September 27, 2018 (53:06).
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 Livestream, February 25, 2022 (41:00).
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 Livestream, February 26, 2021 (1:12:18).
- ↑ Podcast, April 11, 2021 (29:47).
- ↑ Interview, May 11, 2018 (54:34).
- ↑ Livestream, May 26, 2017 (21:23).
- ↑ Podcast, April 11, 2021 (23:36).
- ↑ 38.0 38.1 Interview, May 11, 2018 (47:27).
- ↑ 39.0 39.1 Livestream, July 29, 2022 (1:13:09).
- ↑ Livestream, July 26, 2019 (1:13:23).