Quests

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Alpha-1 early quest user interface.[1]

Questing in our world combines the best elements of traditional MMO’s as well as the introduction of our unique player driven experiences. Ashes of Creation offers area quests, public quests, and quest chains that change dynamically and in real time based on the player’s experiences and choices. Players will have the ability to directly alter world events and change the landscape through their actions, as an individual and as a community. Server quests will allow political rivals to compete for the fate of the world.[2]

Alpha-2 quest journal user interface early preview.[3]

We actually used the journal as one of our test cases for the style guide because it's a very complex screen. There's a lot of things that are going on, where we have different tiers of story arcs that might be available for players; and so we wanted to make sure the color denoted different information for them. We also have iconography to support that as well; and we have a little bit of a twist on what a traditional quest system would be like. With these story arcs we wanted to make sure that it was organized in a familiar way, but also something that supported all of the designs needs.[4]Colby Marchi

Quests in Ashes of Creation are divided into three main categories: Events, Commissions, and Story arc quests.[5][6][7][8]

  • The various questing systems are intended to direct player activity toward content that affects the development of the world.[10]
Nodes act as a hub; and one of the ways they direct player traffic is obviously through the commissions, the buy orders, things that essentially are supplying that demand of activity or action from the player; and then what the players choose to do is essentially the agency that's provided in helping to dictate how the world state will change.[10]Steven Sharif
  • Every type of quest can be shared with other players in the same party. This may be tuned based on Alpha-2 testing.[11][12]
Q: Will dialogue choices have any impact on the quests in regards to how NPCs respond to you or the overall outcome of that quest, or is it more just a role-playing perspective without any major impact?
A: No. The dialogue choices are intended to provide an impact, both with the response of the NPC, it might also serve as predicates for other systems. If there are certain paths chosen within the dialogue tree it might unlock different side arcs and story lines that other players may not experience. The dialogue trees are not meaningless. They're meant to provide gameplay related context.[14]Steven Sharif

Events

The world of Verra is a dynamic and ever-changing landscape filled with wonder, adventure, and danger. One of the many mechanics that allow us to achieve this adaptability is Events. Events are one of the primary ways that players will experience content. Events focus on delivering a reactive world that keeps players on their toes while changing up gameplay in a fun and unique way, providing challenges, and shaping the world around them. Players will encounter events throughout their entire time on Verra - from early progression to high-level dungeons and raids.[17]Peter Bisulca

Corrupted area in Alpha-1, design by Mia DelCasino.[18]

I think Ashes' whole premise is to incorporate events and changes and evolution that not only represents player activity but also incorporates random story driven interruptions to the normal flow of the world; and whether that be through blocking off specific roadways that are the lifeblood of a particular node's incoming resources, or having random raid boss appear in a zone that never traditionally they did before; and as a result it incurs a complete change of climate that's now affecting crop rotations; and only specific crop can come from that zone; and now the whole economy of the world has been thrown into chaos because no one's been able to down this boss yet, we can't get the corn we need in order to build the reagents on the alchemical side to create this craft- That's the type of domino effect system or event you want that appears in a natural non-injunction way, but it presents a problem to the players to that they have to accomplish something at least if they want to change it back to the status quo. Those I think are compelling events and those I think are ways that the world can introduce an element of randomness that reflects what we experience in the real world.[19]Steven Sharif

Events are things that happen in Ashes of Creation as the result of development in the world.[19][20] There are several different types of events that are triggered due to certain conditions (predicates) being met.[21][22][17][23] Events are scaled to fit local, regional, and global needs.[24][8]

Events... can be local, regional or global, and consist of boons or banes. They’re triggered based on a lot of different variables, and some may be one-off Events that occur once, and never again. If an Event is handled successfully, then something good happens to the local, regional, or global area. If it fails, then something bad befalls the local, regional or global area. They’ll relate to the overall Narrative, but don’t fall into its overall structure (for the most part). These are the things that will be written into history, and we imagine that as time grows, each server’s history will diverge more and more.[25]
  • Some events incorporate random story-driven interruptions to the normal flow of the world, such as blocking off specific roadways, having a random raid boss or mobs appear unexpectedly in a zone. Some may lead to wider consequences, such as climate change, plagues, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, or other natural disasters.[26][19][27][28][29]
    • There are events that lead to the spreading of corruption that players will have to fight back against. When these events occur players will need to participate to keep the intrusion on the material plane back.[30][31][32]
  • Events that are taken care of successfully have positive consequences and provide rewards based on the contribution of players during the event.[33][8]
There are certain effects that can happen in a world that does not have a proper response from the player population and that's the whole idea behind these events that can happen; that feel like these are natural world progression events if corruption starts to show itself as a response- as a push back to the player's development of nodes in the world itself.[30]Steven Sharif
There is the ability to fail. I know that is a strange concept for a lot of us nowadays playing more modern games, but there is absolutely a way to fail.[34]Steven Sharif
  • Events have cooldowns in addition to the predicates that are required to trigger them.[34]
Events absolutely do have cooldowns that cannot be forced to spawn repeatedly over and over again. Those cooldowns are not just something that's based on a timer, they're also predicated on certain actions occurring within the world.[35]Steven Sharif
  • If events are not triggered within a certain time period, they could occur randomly.[20]
  • There may be one-off events.[25]

Event types

There are a variety of different types of events that are triggered due to certain conditions (predicates) being met.[21][22][17][23]

Monster coin events

Monster coin concept art.[17]

Let's say for example you have an event- that is the predicate for this event kicking off was that a raid boss was killed in a nearby dungeon; and it was killed for the 50th time, or it was killed by some particular storyline end or whatever the predicate system is in the world state to say "hey kick this event off". Well, when that event kicks off a number of spawners activate around the node and NPCs start moving towards a node. The node is notified, like "hey there's something happening here, you guys should put up your defenses focus on this thing"; and those with monster coins who are within the area and are not a citizen of the node or an affiliated node can choose to activate the monster coin to become one of the monster types that exist within that event; and that event has a number of targets; and let's say for this particular story arc the thing was we need to find artifacts and better weapons in order to defeat these bosses at the bottom of this dungeon; and a lot of players went through that process they found those weapons and whatnot. Well those things might be stored in three buildings that exist within the node. They might be stored within the armory; they might be stored within the barracks; and they might be stored at a workshop that has access to a workbench that they've chosen to build and that could also potentially serve as a predicate; and when you become the monster those are your three objectives; and you don't need to destroy all three. You potentially just need to destroy one, or you destroy as many as you can if it's a time selected event; and you might have targets that are NPC-related as well, such as the blacksmith that's at the workbench, or the captain of the guard who's at the barracks, or whatever who's at the armory; and you get to go in and you get to kill other players potentially during this who are helping to defend the city; and you can also make it to the objectives and potentially help in destroying the building, or killing the NPCs. That is the type of objectives that would exist within a monster coin system for an event.[46]Steven Sharif

Pre-alpha monster coin system.[47]

Sometimes the disturbed beings could take the form of packs of dire wolves, hordes of zombies roused from their graveyard, or even, rarely, an epic-tier dragon flying out of a volcano once a node reaches its maximum level. In any case, the disturbed monsters have to tackle a series of destructive objectives, which can either be handled by the AI or, more interestingly, by a player. The player in turn would attempt to complete all those actions much as in a multi-objective quest, hopefully before other players brought him or her down.[48]

Monster coins enable players to play as monsters within the monster coin event system. This ranges from playing as a horde of zombies, to becoming a massive dragon.[49][42][43]

During a Monster Coin Event, players will be able to activate Monster Coins, allowing them to become monsters and wreak havoc! These Events can be triggered in a variety of different ways, and in some cases they may even provide cosmetic rewards.[17]

Monster coin events are system spawned events.[42][50]

  • They are structured in a way to prevent groups from gaming the system.[50]
  • Monster coin events are triggered by activity in the world, such as node advancement, defeating a boss or constructing certain types of buildings within a node.[51]
  • Server messages appear for players in the vicinity of these dynamic events.[52]
  • The player will have a number of potential objectives they can choose to attack during the event. This may include node buildings, points-of-interest, dungeon, NPC, or other open-world objective.[46]
When you're playing as a as a monster from the monster coin use as part of an NPC event that might be targeting a node, or other some other open-world objective or POI, or dungeon, you get to participate as a monster and your focus is completing objectives that have already been prescribed as part of the event.[46]Steven Sharif

The Ancients are not going to be part of the monster coin system.[55]

Traditionally, the Ancients are not going to be part of the Monster Coin system. These are the primary antagonists of the story. From a lore perspective, and one of the reasons why they're not a part of the Monster Coin system, is because their souls have really developed almost to the point of perfection in manipulating the Essence for more corrupt uses. They haven't quite gotten there, and who knows if they ever will, but that attunes them out of the possibility: The reason why the monster coin system is possible with other creatures.[56]Steven Sharif

Tasks

Template:Tasks

Narrative quests

Narrative quests will focus on gameplay that reflects the story and won't contain "filler".[8]

What you find in the Narratives category is where you’ll find most of what you might call traditional quests. Because we’re jettisoning filler, we’ll have the resources to craft a really excellent story, with gameplay that reflects the scope of that story.[8]

One of the major goals I feel like we have is to allow player decisions to have consequences and to have meaningful results from the decisions that they make, so it seems like people can really create their own stories.[57]Aimi Watanabe

The world of Verra will be the same on each server, but Nodes will develop differently. Different servers will have different narratives. Things that happen on one server may not happen on another.[58]

We want as many people as possible to experience the main server Narrative. These will branch at different scales, but largely at the personal level. Where things change is at the Node level – different parts of the story will be unlocked based on where and when Nodes grow. Unlocking a part of the story in a certain way locks out progression of the story in a different way. You’ll see different antagonists, different NPCs, and different calls to action depending on what’s happening with the server at that time.[25]

It redefines what the players will experience in an MMORPG to come into a wilderness that is devoid of really any structure outside of what the community creates themselves; and then what can be created can be changed, if they want to experience a storyline that's been seen on another server, but you're fighting a dragon because you're near a mountain and the other server's fighting a Kraken because they're near the coast and you want to fight that Kraken because of its drop table. If you want to meta it or because you just want that under your belt: to be the server first to take out that Kraken and you have yet to develop the node there, it's incumbent upon you to manifest that in the game.[60]Steven Sharif

Story arcs

Alpha-2 early preview of the story arc UI.[61]

Story arcs are like a pre-packaged tabletop campaign. They contain all of the NPCs and quests and monsters- all the things you need to make a cool fantasy story. They're not procedurally generated... We write all the dialogue and we construct all the narrative beats and everything like that, but they will enter the world dynamically depending on the state that the world is currently in; how players have built up specific nodes, what races control various nodes. We have plans to include lots of different things on top of that, but we don't have any quest hubs or anything like that in this game, because players build up all the cities. So we had to get a system that looks at what players are doing and can inject content into the world that makes sense for what they're doing.[62]Skott B

The Blood Still Due story arc unlocking at The Tower of Carphin.[63]

When story arcs come online, they change a lot the environment. They update what monsters are in the world. They create quest NPCs... and then new Pathways can open up through the environment.[64]Skott B

Story arcs are unlocked by multiple types of player activity within each server.[65][63][62][66]

Every stage a node develops it's unlocking narratives, storylines, it's changing the spawn population of the area around it, changing what bosses exist, it's triggering events where you may have legendary dragons attack the city. It's basically writing the story of the server based on the actions and determination of the players. So, you may experience a dungeon one month earlier and have a completely different story that relates to this location the next month, because something has changed either geopolitically or from the node standpoint.[66]Steven Sharif
Even player driven mechanics will still have story components. There will be a reason why the player driven mechanic is available or required of the player; so every system that's created touches a story.[74]Steven Sharif
  • If there are too many other major arcs happening at the same time in the same zone, a story arc may need to wait its turn, even if conditions are right for it to be unlocked.[65]
  • Story arcs drive one or more storyline quests within the game.[76][77][78][79][69]
    • Story arcs can branch into different stories with multiple possible endings depending on the quest objectives that players complete during each chapter.[76][77]
    • The developers will try to ensure that story arcs in future expansions flow on from existing story arcs, regardless of the different possible outcomes.[76]
  • There will be a variety of different types of story arc content at different scales, with different cooldowns to suit different types of players in the game.[80]
We must provide enough of this content at varying scales such that it isn't worthwhile or economical to control every single story arc in the world. Some will be smaller in scale and production value, and thus, will move faster and have shorter cooldowns before they're reintroduced.[80]Skott B
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Certain story arcs can be unlocked through the bulletin board system. Certain requirements would need to be met in order to access story arc quests.[84]

Storyline quests

Story arc quests (Storyline quests/Narrative quests) contain objectives for each chapter of a story arc.[76][77][78][79][69][8]

  • Players can progress each chapter by completing story arc quests within the timeframe that each chapter is active.[78]
    • Phase timers are shown (in the quest UI) to indicate how much real-world time is available to complete the quests in each phase.[77]
    • If the player completes all quests in a particular chapter, they will need to wait until the next chapter to obtain further quests.[36]
  • Story arcs can branch into different stories with multiple possible endings depending on the quest objectives that players complete during each chapter.[76][77][79]
You can't really farm the quests in any meaningful way, because once you've done the quests in a chapter, that's it until the next chapter. Whether 1000 people participate or 10, the chapters will stay active for the same length of time, and as long as you participate in the clearly-marked time frame in your quest journal, you're good. The only thing that a concentrated effort can help with is influencing the narrative paths through the arcs.[36]Skott B
  • These quests stages can be failed. The ability to retry a failed quest depends on Node progression.[79]
There will be many different quests that actually have stages of the storyline; and these stages can actually be failed. You can actually fail a storyline; which sucks when you think about it, but at the same time that risk makes your investment that much more important.[79]Steven Sharif

Epic/legendary quests

Epic and Legendary quests affect the narrative of the game.[7] These quests will unlock gated content.[87]

There is a small RNG chance of looting rare and legendary items or crafting materials from mobs based on the level, status and type of mob. This also applies to harvesting resources with a gathering profession.[88]

At each stage from Gatherer to Processor to Crafter you are required to have certain prerequisites before those elite types of materials can be essentially gathered, processed, or crafted.[90]Steven Sharif

The amount of effort needed and interdependencies across the different types of players – between raiders and PvPers and crafters and even role players and the taverns and businesses: the processors and gatherers – all of those systems will likely have a component that lends toward creating or crafting that legendary item... We want to stay away from the highly RNGd system, and instead take our multiple progression paths that we are offering the players and put the construction components for achieving these legendary items within them so it encourages communities to work together because it's going to be difficult for just one person by themselves to gather everything. Not to say that they couldn't in an economic sense, by buying those components, that's possible. But achieving them from a time investment standpoint we want it to be considerably less RNG focussed.[91]Steven Sharif

Certain legendary items may be limited to one per server at any given time.[94][95]

  • If the player character leaves the server then the item will become available for acquisition through whatever means it was acquired previously.[94]

There are absolutely legendary items and they're not items that are attained easily nor are they granted out in a volume. There might even be items that are single items that will exist on the server at any given time.[95]

A legendary weapon is easily distinguished by its visual appearance.[91]

It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon.[91]Steven Sharif

Legendary items are not intended to be temporary.[96]

The fact there is only one of them... or very very few of them depending on what it is. I think that in and of itself is a balance component right and you need to make sure that the players who are striving for those legendary things and who are devoting the time energy, resources in order to achieve them are accurately rewarded... We do not intend on having legendary items that are temporary.[96]Steven Sharif

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Discovery of legendary items will unlock further chapters of the Lore.[98]

Server history

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

The history of each server will be tracked and visible to players in a node's library.[100][101]

  • This design may have changed.[102]
We're gonna keep track of the history of the world so that we can tell people the story up to the current day. A player who's brand new, who's come in at the six-month mark can take a look at each server, what each server has done, how each server has tackled the storyline; and they can decide for themselves what community they want to join; what version of the world that they want to take part in.[101]Jeffrey Bard
  • Scribes may be able to collect and record information about the events of the world as they see it from their point of view.[103]

Daily quests

Daily quests will not be prevalent in Ashes of Creation.[104][105]

We don't really have dailies.[104]Steven Sharif
I don't think those will be RNG based. Those will be probably- you will see the reward structure for those types of quests. Will they be dailies? No they won't be in the sense of what we've experienced dailies in the past where you feel so obligated to log in and like you'll miss these things. It's more gonna be focused around like how the world is changing and how the changes in the world relate to your opportunities; and then if your location's gonna matter because fast travel is not a thing, where you're located at is going to determine your the risk versus reward opportunities that are present; and then depending on the time that those occur.[105]Steven Sharif

Grinding

Repetition will not be part of progression in Ashes of Creation.[107]

  • There will be no "grindy" quests.[107]
  • There will not be repetitive quest lines through a single dungeon to obtain gear.[108]
  • The aspiration is to have more things to do in the game than a player has time to do.[107]

Racial quests

Quests may be based on a character's race.[109]

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.[109]

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.[109]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.[110]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.[111]

NPC race

Template:NPC race

Class-specific quests

There will be class-specific quests in Ashes of Creation.[112]

There's going to be a lot of shared quests but there's also going to be class-specific quests; and the reason for that is that some classes are better at others than doing certain things and that'll play itself out through the general community quests. That's fine, but there are certain periods from a designer's perspective where you want to make an encounter be the antithesis of what a player is good at. It also gives them perspective because we have a more fluid class combination system where you can play the line in your traditional role by adding a secondary class that's different from your primary classes role. The benefit of having these class-specific quests early on especially in an archetype is that you can come to a determination and have greater experience for the things you're not good at. So you know how to progress your class in the future with the things you have access to that are different from what you're good at.'[112]Steven Sharif

So you want to give them storyline that's relevant and make sense for them to their class progression. If I'm a fighter I should be going to a barracks and learning from this dude early on. Later on if I want to take on that mage secondary and I'm more arcane in the things I do, or more based in the essence, then yeah it makes sense for my also again for a catered quest to me that lets me focus on that route in the narrative.[113]Steven Sharif

Quest driven caravans

System driven caravans (also referred to as Quest driven caravans) are system spawned caravans that are used for trade routes between nodes.[114][115][116]

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • These are initiated by players with a diverse choice of routes and launch windows, making them difficult to zerg.[117]
  • Initiating a caravan from one node to another will create a PvP objective that players will need to defend while it moves along its chosen route to the selected destination.[2]
  • Roads will upgrade as nodes advance. Different roads will dictate the speed and type of caravan required (off road vs on road).[118]
The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location. As far as mass guilds securing trade routes, there is always a bigger fish in the pond. Also caravans will have limitations on carrying capacity and launch windows that will segment mulitiple caravans by several minutes, which would space out the caravans, making it difficult to "zerg" a defense.[117]Steven Sharif

Mayoral caravans

Mayoral caravans (also referred to as Trade caravans) are launched by Mayors to obtain needed resources from other nodes.[21][114][115]

  • Players can participate in helping to defend the caravan if they wish.[114]
Mayors who need certain resources that either they don't have enough of, or that they're prospectively investing in: they will initiate a mayor request, and any node that sees that request on the mayoral caravan drop-down menu will have an opportunity to attempt to fulfill the trade request. In order to fulfill a trade request, a node must have a certain level of relationship with that requesting node. At a minimum it has to be a trade agreement relationship; and then there's a limited number of those trade relationships that you can have; and that scales up to eventually alliance perspective. And then, once the node requesting mayor accepts a potential fill order, then a system spawned caravan is generated and the transit is completed. Players can participate in helping to defend that or not.[114]Steven Sharif

Mayoral quests

Template:Mayoral quests

Soloable quests

Template:Soloable quests

Collection quests

There will be collection quests.[120]

Quest givers

Maho, Streamweaver quest giver outside of the Miraleth node in Alpha-2.[121]

As opposed to what we may be used to in other MMOs where you see giant question marks or exclamation points, we've gone a little bit more subtle with the way that certain NPCs reflect their dialogue or quest availability. There's a slight shimmer that exists over the name and their color: Green represents quest logs- quest paths and then the gold represents the shops.[6]Steven Sharif

  • Quest giver NPCs in Ashes of Creation have subtle indicators rather than obvious question marks or exclamation marks. Quest givers are identified by a green shimmer on their nameplates.[6]
  • Not every quest/quest-giver will originate from within a node.[122]
  • Quest giver NPCs cannot be killed by players.[123][124]
When there is an ability to kill a NPC, there should be a good reason for killing that NPC; and denying content to other players is not necessarily a good reason. So, the quest givers themselves are not killable.[123]Steven Sharif

Quest markers

There are not going to be obvious quest markers, such as question marks and exclamation marks telling players where to turn.[125]

  • There will be subtle ways that players will acquire knowledge that something is to be done in an area.[125]

Quest sponsorship

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Players can sponsor quests on a bulletin board.[126]

Removing player corruption

The primary means to remove corruption is through death. Multiple deaths may be necessary to remove all corruption.[128][129]

  • Dying removes a significant portion of a player's corruption score.[130]
  • Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score.[131][132][128]
    Any experience that's gained by the player, whether it be through achievements in crafting, or in adventuring, or through other types of achievements: All of that experience goes towards your adventuring class experience gained; and then some experience can dual purpose towards professions as well. So if I reach an achievement in my crafting profession and that grants me additional experience within that profession to rank up, it will also grant the same amount of experience over in my adventuring level; and to that point, anytime you gain adventuring experience you tick away at the corruption.[131]Steven Sharif
  • A quest may be utilized to reduce the player kill (PK) count of a corrupt player in order for them to accumulate less corruption score in the future.[133][130]
    • This is a design shift from a religious quest being used to directly reduce the corruption score.[134]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Adaptive content

Alpha-1 preview pirate themed dynamic point of interest.[136]

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.[136]Jeffrey Bard

New points of interest (such as dungeons, world bosses, and corrupted areas) spawn as nodes develop.[137][138] This content adapts to the node progression of the zone it is in.[136][139]

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 scientific 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.[8]

Zones and progression

Dungeons, Raids, World bosses, Mobs, Quests, Events, Resources, Narratives and other content within a node's ZOI will have a diverse level range; but will scale with the advancement of that node and its racial influence.[143][144][145]

  • Portions of the spawn tables (for mobs and resources) are static and other portions are dynamic and adapt to node development.[146]
We don’t have a strictly level 25 zone. Instead, that zone might have some level 10 creatures near the road, some level 20 creatures deep in the forest, and some level 30 creatures up the mountain. These ratios will change based on the Nodes that inform them, becoming generally more dangerous as the Node grows. All this civilization attracts the attention of Things-That-Should-Not-Be. This does not mean that wilderness areas are safe, by any means. Some may be safe-er, but all will have dangers that even the most experienced traveler needs to watch out for.[25]Steven Sharif

Theft

There will not be a theft (stealing/pickpocketing) mechanic in Ashes of Creation in regards to living players.[147][148]

  • There may be quest related actions that involve some form of stealing, but not of actual items from a player's inventory, where the player is identified as the quest's target via a title or some other means.[147][149]

That emergent gameplay is obviously the objective behind how can we accommodate a non-static quest-line; and the way you do that is you can apply a flag to a title and whoever holds that title becomes the target of that quest segment. And this can change too because that title can change- different people might rise up in the ranks of different societies and organizations.[149]Steven Sharif

There is not a theft mechanic for you to walk up to a player that's alive and steal something.[148]Steven Sharif

Lore

Ashes of Creation logo.[151]

Ashes of Creation is a direct reference to the storyline. Without giving too much away, the phoenix is going to be a persistent symbol throughout the first phase of the storyline, and the world that the players will be inhabiting is a long-lost world that has suffered devastating calamity.[152]Jeffrey Bard

The Phoenix is the celestial avatar of the Goddess of creation. Her sacrifice protected the people of Verra during the apocalypse.[153]Steven Sharif

There are different parts to the Lore in Ashes of Creation.[69]

It is about mythology and discovering what truths mythologies are talking about and finding out what really happened on this world so long ago; and that's part of that discovery process; and we want people to feel that throughout the game, not just in terms of lore but in terms of the world itself.[154]Jeffrey Bard

Story arcs drive one or more storyline quests within the game.[76][77][78][79][69] Story arcs branch into different stories with multiple possible endings depending on the quest objectives that players complete during each chapter.[76][77][79]

We're keeping lore very close to the chest and the reason for that is because it is very rich. It is diverse. It will have applications outside of just the MMORPG. We intend to take it much further, but I want it to be something that the players get to reveal themselves, that's not just handed to them and then the experience is lost. They should feel when they're experiencing this that it relates to them on a personal level.[156]Steven Sharif

Screenshots

See also

References

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