Read more about Ashes of Creation ➜ https://ashesofcreation.mgn.tv
Steven Sharif, our Creative Director, did an /r/AshesofCreation Reddit AMA. Throughout the week (Oct 5-14) folks upvoted their questions, and on October 14, 2022, we live broadcast the answers to the top upvoted ones! Timestamps are below for your ease!
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:54 Server Merges
06:41 Milestones Before Alpha 2
09:07 Number of Abilities per Archetype
10:45 How are you Steven?
15:49 When to Expect Secondary Archetype Demo
17:10 Pre-Alpha Spot Tests
18:40 Differences Between Orbs, Wands, and Spell Books
20:15 Healing Skills and Action Camera
23:15 Primary Leveling Systems
25:44 Biggest Challenges Before Alpha 2
30:13 Render Distance When Out at Sea
32:45 List of Professions
37:21 Active Players at Launch
42:25 Progress on Class Combat
45:36 Travel and The Leveling Experience
48:46 Nameplate Obfuscation
51:27 Tanks and Bards in Small Scale PVP
52:37 Ruins of Destroyed Nodes
55:34 Viewing a Node Level Up
57:51 How Many Skills Can We Slot
58:47 Castle Sieges Near the Ocean
1:00:07 Outro
💬 Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/xwfyjh/ashes_of_creation_ama_w_steven_livestream_friday/
🔔 Reminder that Ashes of Creation is an open and transparent development project. As such, you will see work-in-progress art, systems, and mechanics. Leave us your thoughts on our progress in the video comments!
💕 Join the Development by registering at http://www.AshesofCreation.com
Follow us on
👉 http://www.facebook.com/AshesofCreation
👉 http://www.Twitter.com/AshesofCreation
👉 http://www.Twitch.TV/AshesofCreation
👉 https://www.instagram.com/ashesofcreation
👉 http://www.Discord.gg/AshesofCreation
🧡 Visit our shop at https://www.ashesofcreation.com/shop/
📺 Watch live the last Friday of every month at https://www.twitch.tv/ashesofcreation
source
Thank you all for your continued voice in our development. Reading your feedback and thoughts means a lot and helps us create a better product. See you all at our livestream this month! ❤️❤️❤️
Great AMA! Also, inb4AsmongoldReactionVideo
Best copium AMA
I hate to ask this and distract from the epic AMA, but I've been following the game for quite a while and have noticed that Steven has had a cough for at least the last 6 months. I'm starting to get concerned for him and really hope he's okay. There aren't many things that give you a cough for that long…but again I don't want to make assumptions or put any negativity into the world. Hopefully he's alright, but if anyone has more context on his health state I'd love to hear some good news ❤
feedback on crouch in a pvp game that is a required skill. Why would you not have crouch?
mmo game is not the most difficult type of game you can build…. a good game is the most difficult type of game you can build.
I am so excited to hear that crafting has an additional gameplay layer! This is a feature that I've been sorely missing out on in other MMOs that I've played, and I'm excited to see how it's implemented. I think it would be interesting to see a mechanic where higher-tier items have an appropriately higher difficulty, mechanics-wise, to the crafting gameplay layer. For example, crafting a stronger or more complex sword would require greater precision in the smithing gameplay, etc. I also think that it would be important to have a "fast craft" option available for situations where it could be beneficial. For example, allowing fast crafting for some of the recipes for the processing classes, with the output being influenced by the level of the player's profession. A crafting gameplay loop would be cool, but I also feel like it could get repetitive at times, especially if you are doing a mass crafting session.
Regardless, I'm super pumped for this to be implemented. It's really cool to think that a player's actual skill can have an effect on the items that they craft. Thanks for sharing all this with us, I'm excited to try the game out once Alpha-2 releases!
5 minutes on 'how are you'
One word sums up this video for me…. Hope. This video gives me hope that we are not too far away from being able to play a version of this game (i.e. A2) in the not so distinct future. Steven covered a lot of great material that provided a lot more insight into the timeline, systems and mechanics of AoC. Great job to Steven, Margert and the whole Intrepid team!
They should treat server merges as like an actual part of the game and make it like a final fantasy sort of in game cinematic. Maybe a portal opens up that sucks everyone into the new server or something crazy like that 😂
Thanks for the AMA. Please take your time with Ashes. I have small children, and no free time 😆
I was playing the "predicated" drinking game, and now I'm f'n wasted.
Character names need to be region based. Being forced to change your name will be a huge negative to many players, it's your identity.
Holy crap, it's already been a year since the last extra life live stream… 👀
Good that you are considering different archetypes viability in different game modes. The open world is one area that I am concerned for healers and tanks. Their roles are well defined in boss encounters, but lose purpose in encounters with weaker open world enemies. Often the best choice in those scenarios is to kill things quickly, and that makes supports and tanks operate like worse dps classes.
I think one of the biggest things to help with attrition is to make the game feel modern from the start with good animations/graphics. Obviously its mostly there with the graphics and UE5 helps. Animations can be further improved. A game with a lot of smaller details in the world also helps..
I know these all seem disconnected from attrition, but giving players a jaw dropping experience from the start helps. Then after launch, improve on the base of the game over time.
One thing I disliked about WoW is that they never really improved on graphics, core gameplay, etc. over time. Just lots of little features and new dungeons/land all the time. They also added a lot of features that fans didn't ask for or care about to have.
The game needs to feel fresh, even 5yrs after launch.. Maybe expand on ocean gameplay, let players manually build houses, expand on AI, and other cool things using UE5's capabilities. This is obviously going to be a big challenge for Steven.
It would also be cool to get the community involved more.. A community wishlist.
Guys take what black desert did with there combact system improve on it make it 1000 times better fast paced combact that isn't tab targeting will be sick an new
Nice video, what about release date? Can you answer now when you have millions of people registered why your "estimation" of release date was december 2018? 4 years.. Answer in public video/livestream. That would be awesome to watch. Thanks.
Is the world manager God?
Yo is Steven ok? Every time I see him he’s coughing
when hes talking about crafting he never mentioned anything about ship weapon building and accessories D:
When will Intrepid tell us they have ditched the corruption system and are replacing it with an EVE Online style of PvP rules?
So much coughing.. Steven is obviously Dying. Great AMA. I hope you make it to launch.
i started sceptical. because 99% of fund raisers are scammers. until 20 minutes i gave a upvote. then a downvote. ships with radar etc., it's overkill and nonsense. you better show some footage to your well prepared answers. the only question which the community should ask, is, how does the end game look like. and the dungeons. all other things are bla bla 😉
I liked how BDO handled going prone, where it removed your name/guild tag. 🙂
WOW! Skill-based crafting sounds amazing!!
the real question is. what level of drip is the armor sets?
Also i would love a good looking katana in game. thank you.
The type of crafting system is INSANE !!! That would be the greatest thing that could happen to a crafting system in a mmo , man hope u go with it and make it feel great , also making it so … u can invite people watch u (or be able to join and watch u craft ) something like a message appearing that would say "This guy is crafting would u like to join and watch him craft this item" Would be insane !!
Thank you. I have some super high hopes for this game. Like, this might be the last MMORPG to keep me interested in said genre. I hope it's great.
Personally, if you have dynamically allocated resources for your servers I would be happier if there were no server merges but the option for individual player to switch if server activity is under a certain threshold. This allows people to play on less dense servers if that's the kind of experience they want, which sounds interesting to me as a way to have a greater effect on the world systems.
I hope all classes/archetypes are just as important and viable in everything tbh.
I'm so glad he mentioned questing not being only primary way for leveling. I hate bouncing from quest to quest to level. I feel hands on experience like fighting mobs should bring advancement to a level. I know some games might be too hardcore for some, like BDO, but I enjoy it. A good balance is great. I like how they are looking at all audiences for this. Too many games, especially now with auto mobile games that are just mind numbing fake advancement to where you feel like you are achieving nothing real.
Manily it would be nice if we got a announcemet about Alpha 2 launch?
I concerned about two things, mostly. Pvp all the time every-were? NOT GOOD. I hate gankers and if you haven't noticed in classic wow most players are on servers w/just pve. Horde is on Mankirk and alliance is on just one pve server and most of the populations is just horde on Mankirk like 90% and the same w/all server 90% alliance. And then there is tab targetting. If you are going to use tab targetting I would appreciate the ability to dodge attacks by either moving back or left and right movements. It is not realistic to have a npc cast a spell at you that can follow you even if you are moving at a 90 degree angle and still get hit. I always dislike that in wow were you can get hit even thru a rock or tree. NOT IMMERSIve?
POGGERS
I am afraid that this game will game more bureaucracy than fight gameplay.
Please make each Profession a minigame, depending on the performance of the player, not some grindy skilllevel.
Thanks for this AMA it sure clarified a lot of points, but there was one question where i would see it differently, it concernes the "viewing node lvl up" i think this is an experience that evry player should witness so i hoped that when a node is leveling up we would see like some workers NPC randomly poping all over the node and start like working on the walls, the buildings, going in and out of the node, walking the street holding some tools and most importantly "the sound effects" of hamers etc… all of this for 24 hours straight befor the node lvl up to the next stage and the higher the lvl of the node the longer it takes to make the transition and 24h would be a lvl 3 or 4 node. I dont want to miss the lvl up of a node and i think that a simple teleportation outside of the node and the caravane would be enough, it should take some time to lvl up in my opinion and it should be longer enough to be witnessable by all players (at least those active for the last 24h), it should be memorable, i dont want to be working outside the node and giving it experience and then the node lvl up and when i am back to see it lvling up i just witness a caravane, or not even that if i dont reach the node soon enough to see it, and i want to witness it even if i was asleep that's why for some levels of node i wished it to be at least 24h so evryone could have the chance to see it hapenning live, please i would hope and love you to consider this please.
With that beeing said i loved this AMA thanks for all the answers and the questions, they both was spot on, especially the question about "the nodes ruines", the "classes skill numbers" the "the healing skills and camera action" etc… and so much others, all the question was very well choosen and steven did an amazing job answering them, thanks again very much to all intrepid studio staff.
A lot of info dump. Some things that we already know (people who follow development) and some things that wasn't mentioned before (we are treasure hoarders now?LETS GOO… I can see being bloodbath already) also….coast siege with ships?? (reminds me of AC black flag…attacking a fort with a ship…which was one of my favorite activities in that game)..lastly ship builder no longer on profession list? (or i missed something)
I would have liked to hear something about music in ashes. How much Intrepid will invest in music and if each zone will have a unique particular music that will enhance that zone feeling. Music creates nostalgia y memories.
Steven you been Coughing a lot, hope it's not bad and you get better.
#Protect this one!
Great AMA
I truly hope your game succeeds Steven 🙏
In my opinion, crouching and proning is a very important component for games today. It gives you more control of your character allowing you to be more immersed in the gameplay. It also allows for players to interact with the world more like having to crouch down to duck into a hole to escape a chasing enemy, or prone under a ruined building to steal some loot on the other side, or to hide and ambush a caravan on the road. Player control over the character adds so much depth
I will try the game for sure!|! Thank you for all the informations. Hug from Portugal
Ashes of SCAM!
If there is a single point login… is it possible to have a "naming database" call which functions globally, such that server merges will not have any character naming collisions?
Thanks Steven
We are lucky to have Steven. Sure, critics may claim there is no proof the game will be good. Regardless, Stevens approach to the "problem" and challenges in designing his teams product is lightyears ahead of the mainstream approach in my opinion. At a certain point other leaders believe their opinion or opinions of their inner circle matters more. I don't think that's right, sure it does matter, but not more than the people who purchase and are paying for your services.
Thanks Steven, I hope more leaders and investors approach problem solving like you do.
To put it simply, You dah man.
-Stan
minigames while crafting will only lead to botting those minigames
Most important thing to me is you release a finished product. If I have to wait 5 years that's fine.