Roleplaying

Backpack sockets (slots).

A big component of the MMORPG that - half of that acronym is RPG role-playing game. And in order to role-play you need to be able to represent what your character is doing in that world and part of what animation is doing is creating these sockets on the let's say the belt or the back that can plug in certain types of props or items that are created by the character team, like Carson, might be a scroll tube, it might be a potion, it might be whatever: Those players will have the ability as we've discussed in the past will have the ability to select what they want to be represented in those sockets and then animation will make sure that jibe well in movement. – Steven Sharif

Roleplaying is supported by various systems in Ashes of Creation.

• Musical instruments.
• Social animations such as dancing and emotes.
• Chat bubbles.
• Roleplay-specific items, such as flowers.
• Roleplaying events and ceremonies, such as weddings.
  • Some NPCs may be specifically oriented around RP events, such as a NPC with quests relating to marriage that may be added post-launch.
• Easter eggs out in the world.
• Social buildings provide spaces for players to gather and tell/share stories, while also affecting the game and interacting with the world.
  • The node government system builds into this.
• Parlor games.
• Players can run businesses based on role playing.

A MMO lives and breathes on its community and we don't really want to give short shrift to any one of those types. All of them are important: the RPers are important, the people who just want to hang out in the Inn and talk are important, they all add to the game and so we want to make sure that we take care of all of them... You can run a business based on RPing. – Jeffrey Bard

Character naming

Characters will have a first-name and an optional surname (last name).

• Character names are unique per server realm.
  • Character name changes will be possible during server merges.

• There is a minimum length of three for a character name.
• Special characters, including apostrophes and hyphens, are currently not allowed in character names.

Currently we don't allow special characters in character names (including apostrophes and/or hyphens). It's possible this changes in the future. – Ry Schueller

Character names will appear on the character sheet and optionally on the character website page.

• In-game a character's name is displayed above their head. This can be the first or last name.

Character nameplate

Nameplate in the Alpha-2 party UI.

The icon in the corner next to Steven's nameplate: that little icon is actually his secondary archetype that he hasn't unlocked. – Margaret Krohn

Alpha-2 nameplates, targeting plates, and raid frame UI.

There have been some updates to a little bit of the nameplates that Colby and the UI team have implemented, as well as some of the targeting plates as well. – Steven Sharif

Nameplates are displayed above the head.

• Player character nameplates will have first, and optionally last name (surname).
  • The name of the character's guild is displayed next to their name.
  • An icon will identify the character's class.
  • Hovering over a player nameplate will show information such as level, class name, and archetype combo.
  • A buff icon will indicate the character's gear and grade.
  • Players that are not in the same party, raid, alliance, or guild will not be able to see other player's exact health bar values or percentages. This information will instead be displayed in quarters. A player may be able to progress to see sixths or eighths.
  • Nameplates in the party UI indicate the player's choice of secondary archetype.
    • A padlock icon indicates that the secondary archetype is not yet unlocked.
• The size and priority of nameplates will be relate to their distance (away from the camera).
• The visibility of nameplates can be obscured by in-game objects, such as trees; by utility skills, such as Camouflage or Stealth; or through the use of disguises.
• UI settings will enable nameplates to be hidden, resized, and customized.

You can set nameplates to always appear. You can set it to only appear on targets. You can set it to only appear on targets that have taken damage. You can set it to only appear on targets that are aggroing you or your party members. You can set it for your allies, for yourself, for whatever: There's a lot of highly customizable options that are currently in the game. – Steven Sharif

• Summoner summons' creature type appears in the nameplate above the summon. This cannot be changed by the player.
• Mob nameplates will have indicators that identify resistances, buffs, end elite status.
  • A star format may be utilized to indicate hit point allocation.

Character sheet

There is no planned in-game functionality to leave personal notes regarding player characters.

We don't plan to have in-game tools to provide that tracking. Instead you will be expected to track that yourselves. – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

A character sheet will be available closer to live launch that shows the following:

• What a character looks like.
• Achievements and server firsts.
• Info on a player's class.
• Character's back story via journal entries (that are shared publicly by the player).
• Traits can be applied that describe a character's history.

You will have a unique homepage for each character and that homepage will be able to be customized by the user to display unique information. It will have a small out-of-game RPG component where you can construct background and traits and stuff like that. – Steven Sharif

The character page will be accessible in game by opening a browser through the UI.

That's part of the character sheet desire for us which hopefully will be accessible in game as well by opening a browser through our UI where you can get back history of a character that that character has input themselves into journal entries that they may choose to share with others... For role play perspective we want people to be in depth with their characters. – Steven Sharif

The player can manage what info is shown on the character page.

Housing decoration

Alpha-1 housing decorations.

Alpha-2 freehold homestead with furnishing and decorations.

Players may decorate their player housing and other types of buildings.

• Houses will be empty when purchased.
  • Players may be able to upgrade to pre-furnished sets when they purchase their home.
  • Pre-furnished sets will be almost entirely visual and aesthetic. Only items crafted by the Carpentry profession will have in-game functionality.

• Players may place furniture, artwork/paintings and other decor items in their player housing.
  • Items may only be placed in locations that are suitable for that item. For example: Statues, may only be placed in exterior locations (of Freeholds and Static housing).

• Each size, grade, and type of player-owned housing determines the number and type of items that can be placed in it. For example: You can place only the best furniture in mansion grade in-node housing.
  • Building skins may change the shape of a homestead but the space available for furnishings should remain consistent.

  When it comes to if you put a cosmetic house on top of your normal house, those cosmetics should be similar in size. The shape will change, so maybe the room layout will be different, but it'll still be like a one-story building. – Margaret Krohn

• Characters will be able to interact with furniture items such as sit in chairs and lay in beds.
• Players will not be able to alter structural aspects such as windows and walls.
• There may be decor items that are representative of unique weapons that are available in the game.

Quality furniture can be crafted in-game based on the skill of the craftsperson and availability of recipes, components and workbenches suitable to craft them.

• Furnishing items with in-game functionality will be restricted entirely to those created by the Carpentry profession.

Your ability to craft more luxurious furniture comes with how much of a master craftsman you've become in the furnishing profession... This isn't like , I want my house to look good, I got to fork over 50 bucks in cosmetics... Players can craft in-game based on their dedication and focus in that aspect the artisan tree. – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

• Prized items such as achievements and trophies may be displayed.

Social organizations

Trader's company screenshot.

Social organizations are ways for players to interact with the world around them in a different manner. They are about creating micro communities within the game.

• Social organizations start to patronize Nodes once they advance to Town (stage 4).

The whole idea of these societies is that they are a mechanism for progression that do not have to rely on your level progression. These are different progression paths that players can participate in. If you don't want to leave a node in your gameplay experience and you want to find as much as you can do within that city, these offer those things. Now, some quests might take you outside of the city to hunt and pursue things, but you could also perfectly be a person that is a merchant and purchases them from other travelers instead of having to go do it yourself. We want to offer players a diverse method of progression; and these systems house those benefits. – Steven Sharif

• Social organizations function a little bit like factions, but without flagging mechanics.

Sometimes two organization's goals might not align with each other and there'll be conflict there, but it's not going to be like everybody in the Traders Guild is at war with everybody in the Thieves Guild. – Jeffrey Bard

• Social organizations are run by NPCs, however there will be ranks that certain members can attain that will grant some influence over the organization.

• Social organizations cater for solo players who don't wish to engage in guild-oriented organizations.

Q: Is the team developing social and religious organizations in a modular way so that player created ones could be made to exist later?

A: We are not developing those in a modular way because there is a very specific intent for those those disparate paths; and they are unique paths of progression that's intended both with a religious system as well as the social organization; and there are certain reward structures that live at the end of those paths- at the top of those paths you might say that we might not want to leave in the hands of players to modularize. Not that it's not something we can do, but rather keeping containers for certain types of reward structures helps to guard against more balance breaking issues. – Steven Sharif

Social animations

Alpha-2 cheer animation.

Pre-alpha social animations.

There are interactive social animations and emotes.

• Sitting.
• Leaning.
• Bowing.

Some animations will be agreed-upon emotes that you can initiate with other characters.

• Dancing.
• Hugging.

Q: Can we dance on tables?

A: Technically the tables are in world, so yes... – Steven Sharif

There may be emotes associated with mounts and pets, such as petting, hugging, or playing with them.

In alpha one you might have seen some of the anims on the rider of a horse that they went down and patted the side of the neck, or they would pet those; but those would be separate actions that you could potentially do as just additional emotes, but interfaces with a mount or pet that you have active. – Steven Sharif

Emoji

Emoji adds additional flare either for chat or character representation (social animations).

• Race and class emoji packs were available in the Kickstarter and Summer crowdfunding campaigns at the Explorer level and above.

• There will be role-playing emoji such as dice rolling.

Music

Alpha-2 Carphin Theme and Exploration work-in-progress music by Inon Zur.

Alpha-2 Nimble Dance Bard skill blending with ambient biome audio.

A lot of the Bard abilities, because they have so much musicality to them, we have to make sure that they stay ambient enough that they don't mess with the overall feel of the music, while also matching up in tonality and key for the musical ones. So, there's a lot of stuff going on, but I think we're doing a pretty good job of combining it so it feels in-world and in-place. – Tory Bader

Ashes of Creation's Lead Composer is Bear McCreary. His music will be unveiled in Alpha-2 and Beta-1.

• Inon Zur's music is currently in Alpha-2.

• Certain bosses and encounters will feature specific original sound tracks.

• Nodes will feature thematic music based on the dominant culture of the node.

• Biomes and POIs will have specific musical themes associated with them. The presence of certain story arcs may weave layers into the theme for that area.
  • Melodies are intended to blend harmoniously with other music in the environment, such as the biome and other skills.

If we're talking about biomes and we're talking about POIs: each of those will have distinctive themes that are associated with them. So when you're out in the wilderness, or you're out at a specific POI, those will have soundtracks that will play. As well, each of those systems will encompass a layered effect that can reflect the stage of certain types of events within an area. So, for example, the POI that is Carphen: that will have a general theme for Carphin that will play as you move into the area, but depending on the effects of a particular story arc we may weave in a layer of the soundtrack that reflects perhaps the voice of the raid boss when she's present. – Steven Sharif

• Combat states may also feature different musical themes.

• Music from Alpha-1 and on livestream Dev updates is placeholder music. It is not intended music for Ashes of Creation at launch.

The soundtrack is going to incorporate either elements of intrigue or mystery or horror that's part of winding through that level to get to that boss, it's building up to the crescendo of the fight. Music is such an important part of setting the scene- the emotional presence of what you are doing in this immersive world. It elicits emotional responses. And we have a great composer Bear McCreary who has worked on God of War, Battlestar Galactica, Outlander, Black Sails; a lot of great franchises and great IPs; and I think he is going to do an awesome job in capturing the essence of what that emotional response should be from a player. – Steven Sharif

• Intrepid Studios will own the rights to the music of Ashes of Creation.

When we put out any music in our game... we want content creators to be able to create content utilizing our game. So just message us and we'll try to resolve any of those [DMCA] problems if you encounter any. – Margaret Krohn

Musical instruments

Musical instrument 3D renders.

The Bard archetype chooses a musical instrument on the first tier of their skill tree.

• Musical instruments are currently cosmetic, but there are plans to add functionality to instruments in the future, such as adding custom music creation.

Instruments are at this moment in time cosmetic, but we have plans for instruments in the future... including custom song authoring for players to utilize- to have skills within; and then for you to be able to to use those also in a roleplay fashion. – Steven Sharif

• Other musical instruments, such as bagpipes, may be possible in future.

The way we decided to do instruments is they're mainly just a cosmetic choice right now. So, players can choose as their first choice at the Bard what instrument they want to play all their melodies with. And so this will actually change the animations and change the sound effects of how the melodies will play. – John Collins

• Other archetypes may also be able to play certain musical instruments at some future time.
• There may be a specific gear slot for musical instruments, but this has not been finalized yet.

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Instrument Drum		Bard	Choose to play your melodies with a drum.
Instrument Fiddle		Bard	Choose to play your melodies with a fiddle.
Instrument Flute		Bard	Choose to play your melodies with a flute.

Tavern music

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Music within taverns can be set by players.

Parlor games

Parlor games (tavern games) are games that are played in player-built taverns or in-node taverns.. Some will be dice games, others will be card games; and some will be less savory.

The idea behind the tavern games is to create another social interface. This is where players that are loving the RP aspect of MMORPGS- they want to walk into a tavern and meet new people and play games. – Steven Sharif

• These games will involve aspects of both chance and skill.
• They must be played between 2 or more people.
• Players will be able to wager in-game currency against other players.
  • The developers are considering a secondary currency for tavern games that would enable purchase of cosmetic items through a secondary currency market.
  • There may be a ladder system that contributes to gaining this currency based on placement on the ladder.
  • The alternative is to use the regular currency (gold).
• A portion of the income from the game goes to the tavern owner or node.
• Parlor games will vary based on the predominant race of a node.
• There may be unique games that can be acquired through adventuring in the world.
• Tavern owners dictate the table cost of parlor games. The node's mayor dictates the tax rate that applies when money exchanges hands.

When a player wants to engage in a game, they may sit at a table, and another player may sit down with them. At that point the gameplay layer for the mini game will open in a user interface window. Depending on the type of game. – Steven Sharif

Parlor games were a Kickstarter stretch goal.

Mobile interface

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

A companion app (mobile app/web interface) allows players who are not logged into the game to have authority over certain services and mechanics. Some functionality may come post-launch.

• Crop rotations.
• Player stalls (Kiosks).
• Mayoral duties.
• Pay taxes.
• Fishing (potentially).
• Parlor games (Tavern games).
• World event notifications.
• Node citizenship notifications.
• Player housing notifications.
• Guild leadership tools such as calendar notifications is a possible feature.

Specific dates that you can have running as reminders in your guild UI, this will also be something that I would like to be available on the mobile companion app as well. So essentially you can receive notifications via a calendar update on guild events that the leaders or the officers have the ability to pin within the game will also give you notifications on the mobile app as well. That's my intention at least. – Steven Sharif

Some of it may come post-launch... but we do want people to interact with the game on their phones when they're away from the computer; and we're going to do as much as we can to make that cool. – Jeffrey Bard

Character appearance

Facial adjustments in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).

There is a great variation that's going to be available from a character standpoint when creating your character, especially around the face. Whether it be the shape of the jawline, the cheeks, the ears, the nose, the lips. You know we want to provide a lot of options and an agency to the player to customize their character appearance. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 Py'rai female and male character models.

Character appearance can be customized in the character creator (CC) and via in-game salons/barbershops.

We want there to be a lot of room for people to manifest their own identity, to role play how they want to from an appearance standpoint. There's going to be parameters within which you will be able to customize a character. We want the culture and the identity of the races to exist in a range that makes them easily identifiable from other players and other cultures. So, because of that, we have to have a spectrum you can exist on. There will be a lot of hair variants you can do, body art tattoos that you can apply. You'll be able to play with the scales of the facial structure, the bones, the height, width, the body fat percentage. You'll be able to add body hair on different parts of the body. If you want to have hair on your feet, you can dial that up. – Steven Sharif

• Character models are focused on realism.
• A player will see a generic character before customization.
• Character designs will have influences from a wide range of cultures, such as European, African and Asian.
• Lolis will not be in the game.
• Sliders and other controls, such as color palettes, will offer flexibility in customization but there will be limits based on race, gender, and the artistic style guidelines that the developers are adhering to.

There's going to be constraints to the sliders, so that was one of those big questions as work began on the character creator: How much agency do you want to allow pulling like the lower lip all the way down in this weird deformed look, or having like [an] offset cheek that's just asymmetrical to the side of the face. There's not going to be the ability or agency to create those types of weird character things. However you will have the ability to move, slide, change, grow, decrease all those components, but they'll be kept in a more reasonable and presented way in the same sense you won't be able to change the appearance of the dwarven, nor the Dünir or the Niküan races to, in my opinion, create what would be traditionally considered a Loli character. – Steven Sharif

Body appearance

Vaelune, Dünir and Empyrean Alpha-1 early character model 3D renders.

So many options coming down the road. Our character team continues to refine our customization options! – Steven Sharif

• Body presets.
  • Body tone: Overweight, skinny, muscular.
  • Body fat percentage.
  • Bone structure.

• Body type.
  • Height.
  • Weight.
  • Chest (boobie slider).
    • The scale is not going to be ridiculous.
  • Crotch (bulge) slider.
  • Bottom (booty) slider.

• Skin.
  • Wrinkles (age).
  • Base skin color.
    • Hue.
    • Pigmentation.

Head appearance

Alpha-2 character creator hair and beard customization (first pass).

Every hair color uses the accent and the fill differently, but usually the fill is the root color and the accent is the tip color. – Zachary Mallet

Alpha-2 Vek hairstyles.

• Full face presets.
• Hair.
  • Hair preset.
    • Length.
    • Contrast.
    • Gradient.
  • Fill color.
  • Accent color.
  • All (color).

• Beard.
  • Chin.
    • Chin length.
  • Cheek.
    • Cheek length.
  • Lip.
    • Lip length.
    • Contrast.
    • Gradient.
  • Fill color.
  • Accent color.
  • All (color).
  • Female Dwarven beards will not match that of the male. It will be more of a braided option that is not as voluminous.

Face appearance

Vek presets in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).

Heads will be relatively proportional to the body size, with some limited variability.

• Eyes.
  • Iris.
  • Eye color.

• Facial features.
  • Forehead presets.
  • Brow presets.
  • Eyes presets.
  • Ears presets.
  • Cheeks presets.
  • Mouth presets.

Appearance details

• Nails.
  • Nail color.
    • Strength.

• Tattoos, scars, and body art.
  • Decals.
    • Angle.
    • Strength.
    • Size.
    • Discoloration.
  • Color.

A "default player appearance" may be automatically applied during sieges or other large scale battles to improve client-side performance.

Character creator

Scars in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).

The cool thing about this character creator is that it's not just intended for your character. It has application with NPCs that you might hire. – Steven Sharif

We're gonna use similar tech for implementing things like Animal husbandry. – Zachary Mallet

Kaelar Alpha-2 character creation (first pass).

This tech is 100% created in-house at Intrepid and is not metahuman. – Steven Sharif

We'll be adding many, many more customization options to the character creator. – Cody Peterson

The character creator (or character customization system) allows players to define the look of their in-game characters, hired NPCs; and potentially creatures raised by the animal husbandry profession.

• Character appearance can be adjusted through a wide range of presets and sliders.
• Character blending provides easy to use customization by morphing together two or more character presets.
• Character sculpting allows detailed customization of every aspect of the body.

The Ashes of Creation character creator is 100% developed in-house by Intrepid Studios and is not MetaHuman.

Additional character creator features include.

• There will be unlockable features for character customization.

You have that scar because you participated in this siege, or these many sieges; or you have this tattoo because of your of a cultural background, or because of a quest that was accomplished where you're able to get that. – Steven Sharif

• The ability to save and potentially to share characters with other players.

The beauty of it is that you can save your character- and we already have some of those features available- and load them; and in the future we want people to be able to share those characters amongst each other. – Margaret Krohn

• The ability to undo changes (Ctrl + Z) will be supported, including undoing changes that were made several edits earlier.
• Choosing base idle animations of characters will be possible in future.
  • Certain animations, such as blinking, will be present when they don't interfere with the customization process.
• Certain ability sound effects will adhere to character customization selections, such as race.
• Adjusting the background scene and lighting is a planned feature.

There's going to be a lot of environmental controls that are offered to the character creator so that people can set it up their scene the way they want to grab screenshots or to grab recordings or whatever they want to do. – Steven Sharif

• Asymmetry in terms of manipulating different components of the body or different body features such as hair, beard, and eyes.

Asymmetry is going to be functionality that's possible in manipulating either different components of the body or different features like hair. The beard we saw a little bit of that blending with highlights that you can do. Margaret talked a little bit about the eye asymmetry that you can include. Obviously those are going to exist within certain parameters that we want to define on a per-race basis, but it is something that we think is cool. – Steven Sharif

• Body adornments, such as piercings will be possible within cultural limits.
• The developers are considering whether to allow custom tattoos to be uploaded by users.
• A future development, post-Alpha-2 launch, may enable users to upload an image to use as a basis for a character's appearance.

The aim is for the character creator to be on par if not much better than that of BDO.

Character sheet

There is no planned in-game functionality to leave personal notes regarding player characters.

We don't plan to have in-game tools to provide that tracking. Instead you will be expected to track that yourselves. – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

A character sheet will be available closer to live launch that shows the following:

• What a character looks like.
• Achievements and server firsts.
• Info on a player's class.
• Character's back story via journal entries (that are shared publicly by the player).
• Traits can be applied that describe a character's history.

You will have a unique homepage for each character and that homepage will be able to be customized by the user to display unique information. It will have a small out-of-game RPG component where you can construct background and traits and stuff like that. – Steven Sharif

The character page will be accessible in game by opening a browser through the UI.

That's part of the character sheet desire for us which hopefully will be accessible in game as well by opening a browser through our UI where you can get back history of a character that that character has input themselves into journal entries that they may choose to share with others... For role play perspective we want people to be in depth with their characters. – Steven Sharif

The player can manage what info is shown on the character page.

Marriage

Harmony Attire pre-order pack cosmetic costume.

There is a marriage mechanic in Ashes of Creation, including same-sex marriages.

• Marriage increases family size by one to allow player housing permissions to be shared.
  • This size increase only applies if the family's head is married.
• A NPC may offer quests relating to a marriage ceremony. This may come online post-launch.

You might have a NPC that is specifically a RP event NPC. This is a person who marries you and you come up to them and they have a quest that relates to finding the cosmetic attire for the wedding; and once you have that achieved you must find a Best man or Maid of honor- these are systems that can be created around immersion in the game. – Steven Sharif

Marriage may unlock different activities that are not available to characters who are not married.

• Interaction with the freehold system.
• Unlocking certain node quests.
• Impacts on social organizations.
• Other mechanics will be discussed in the future.

There are not plans for gender neutral neutral pronouns. However our marriage system which will be present does not take into account gender. So two individuals of any sex will be able to utilize the marriage system and we feel that that's pretty important to really reflect the nature the cultures in Ashes of Creation: That it does not have that conflict present in this fantasy world that we may have experienced in the past in our real world; and that's a good place both from a sanctuary standpoint through people who are maybe experiencing that in the real world to get away from it in the fantasy world: We wanted to provide that type of outlet. – Steven Sharif

Families

Families are a means to relate up to nine characters.

• Family sizes are normally limited to eight characters.
  • Marriage increases family size by one to allow player housing permissions to be shared.
  • This size increase only applies if the family's head is married.
• A character may only belong to one family at a time.
• Leaving one family and joining another family will have a cooldown period in the order of days.

• There are costs associated with family creation and maintenance.
  • Some costs are shared among the family members and other costs are specific to the family head.

• Freeholds are intended to work with the family system.

If you can be a family member and you have a whole family owning a freehold together, it'll allow many more players to see the system and partake in it. – Kory Rice

• Players can charge for access to their family via player-to-player trading, but there won't be game mechanics or UI systems around this.

• The family system is not a core pillar of the game and will be changed based on testing and feedback.}

Server types

• There won't be separate PvE and PvP servers but some servers may be more PvP focused than others.

• There won't be separate roleplaying (RP) servers.

NPC languages

Languages in Ashes of Creation may refer to:

• Racial and geographical influences on nomenclature in the lore.
  • NPC races influencing the way NPCs speak in terms of their dialogue trees, greetings, and incantations.
  • Language-specific lexicons in the game from a lore and immersion standpoint. These do not have real player-to-player implications.
  • The long term goal is to develop detailed dialects for the NPC races.
• Localization/Internationalization of the game client for specific regions.

Visuals

• 

  2023-06-27
• 

  2019-06-08

See also

• Lore
• Cosmetics
• Taverns
• Marriage
• Social organizations