Transcript (by Youtube)


2s [Music]
9s [Music]
17s hello everyone and Welcome to our
20s glorious ashes of creation made
22s development update we hope that you've
24s been having a wonderful month uh
26s Stephen's looking extra cool today I'm
29s sorry I'm just kidding yeah no I just
32s want to explain real quick super sorry
34s about that I I have a small scratch on
37s my right eye and uh I'm super light
40s sensitive right now so bear with me I
42s know it I have my cool shades on
44s everyone's gonna zoom in on what they
46s can see because we can see Reflections
47s here oh
49s really um but yeah so um you know while
54s Steven's looking cool I offered to put
55s some sunglasses on too so we could have
57s a Vibe going but oh I'm cool with that
59s yeah you put glasses on for sure let's
62s go um but we hope that you've been
64s having a wonderful month um of course
66s Stephen is our creative director and I'm
68s Margaret Crone I'm your director of
69s communications here today and as you can
71s see below we have a whole slew of things
73s that we're going to be doing uh today we
76s did cut our art update because let me
78s tell you the node Wars preview section
81s is going to be long so it's going to be
82s one of those Buckle in if you haven't
85s grabbed some snacks and some water maybe
88s a catheter no I'm just kidding oh my God
91s go I don't know I can't hold my pee very
94s long stepen I'm so I'm like super
97s pregnant now the belly is growing my
99s goodness oh my goodness we've got our
102s next pvper on the way yeah they're
105s they're coming along oh my gosh we need
107s Little Ashes
109s onesies I know oh that's a good idea we
112s should um but you know
115s whatever we will also have our studio
117s we'll talk a little bit about that and
119s we'll do some Q&A um we'll also do some
121s Q&A right after the video but yes we
123s have quite a bit planned for you but
125s before we get into that we do want to go
129s over our YouTube Spotlight so today's if
133s you didn't know um if you head on over
135s to our YouTube development update Pages
138s you can become a subscriber make sure
139s that you are it shows you as a public
141s subscriber otherwise we don't we can't
143s see that you're subscriber it's really
145s strange um and you leave a comment over
148s there and then we will select someone at
150s random and today we have hga Lord
154s 7252 with the question as we start to
157s see more talent trees and abilities I
160s start wondering how AOC will handle
162s unique play Styles and maybe different
164s builds for example when we see unique
166s items and or enchantments with support
169s uh which support a health instead of
171s Mana as a resource build and with
174s classes skill Tre or class skill trees
176s augments and weapon talent trees won't
179s there be too many uh play styles to
181s balance so it's really kind of a
183s question will there be a variety and
185s then the other part of it is um how do
189s you balance a how do you balance that
190s much yeah exactly okay well so will
193s there be a variety yes there will be
195s many varieties um you know the the the
198s approach with regards to kind of player
201s being able to customize you know how
204s their Arch type and how their weapon and
207s choices and gear choices interact with
209s the broader ecosystem of other players
213s and the encounter designs right um is to
216s provide maximum flexibility for the
218s types of decisions you can make as a
220s player those are the types of scenarios
223s I find most intriguing from a balance
226s perspective where you know historically
228s what we've talked about is we're not
230s trying to balance everything that is not
233s the goal this is definitely not a goal
235s for it to be balanced in a 1V one
237s scenario our balance is definit more
240s focused around group composition and
243s when we say group composition what we
245s mean is having present a number of the
249s archetypes right and those archetypes
251s aren't going to stand on equal footing
253s with each other there is going to be a
255s rock paper scissors design when it comes
258s to innate advantages that certain
261s archetypes have over each other and
265s giving or affording the customization
267s options lets you flirt a bit with
270s where your rock paper scissor lines live
274s right perhaps you are a little bit
276s better against The Rock you know as a
279s scissor would normally be um and that's
282s because you've made certain Selections
283s in either your arch type skill tree your
286s passives your weapon selection your gear
287s choices right those are all pieces of a
290s puzzle that interact with the
293s overarching kind of balance choices
296s between these different rock paper
298s scissor designs um so you know I think
301s modern MMO gameplay has has moved away
304s from that they want everyone to to
307s harness the same power from a 1V one
310s perspective and I don't find that
313s interesting I don't find that MMO like I
316s I think that it has its place but I
319s think that it is um it is a more
321s compelling scenario to afford the player
324s a bit more options when it comes to
326s customizing their space within the world
328s from a trinity perspective um and having
331s some innate built-in rock paper scissor
335s design fabulous fabulous yeah it's uh
339s balance is always one of those things we
340s you get asked it every time um and you
343s know sometimes there are also as we have
346s game updates you'll see things where
348s some classes will be different than
351s others and we'll continue to change that
352s and move things along as we move for and
354s and we kind of have to retrain this idea
357s right like a lot of people also you know
359s have a similar question which is like I
361s want to change my base Arch type at any
363s given moment right or I want to change
365s my spec at any given moment the the idea
368s is that you are making choices and those
371s choices have consequences good or bad
374s like you your choice is relevant right
378s and sometimes you need to live with that
380s choice and every scenario you come
381s against you're not going to be optim
383s optimally primed for right it's going to
386s be a struggle bust sometimes or it might
388s be an easy breezy sometimes right like
390s it just kind of depends we want to have
392s that fluctuation in your encounters so
396s that it's not always a breeze right you
399s you don't you can't always predict how
401s you're going to perform in any given
403s situation sometimes you're going to have
405s to make decisions strategically or
407s tactically that you're not accustomed to
410s because you can't predict the outcome of
412s the scenario and that requires that
414s you're not always perfectly balanced for
416s the world you're not always perfectly
418s balanced for other characters
420s other adversaries or friends right that
423s that is something that keeps things a
425s bit more lively I think and on that same
428s or on like juxtapose note to that
430s there's still going to be customization
432s within realms for your your archetype
435s that you will want to spec into knowing
437s you're going into a certain fight or
439s into a certain raid or into a certain
441s war or whatever it may be and you may
443s want to spec specifically and gear
445s specifically and you know have people
447s set up in a way that makes the most
449s sense for that yeah and that's and
450s that's the hamster wheel right like
452s that's that's that's where's your Chase
455s right what's your what's your biss right
457s and there isn't going to be a single
459s answer on the bis front right you may
461s have to chase multiple goals of endgame
465s gear and the more you achieve on that
468s front the more prepared you will be for
471s a wider variety of encounter design for
474s for wi wider variety of difficulty or
477s challenge ratings that you need to um
479s approach and and having having more of
482s those options available um I think makes
484s it an interesting and compelling
486s progression
487s story all right and then the next thing
490s that we have to discuss here is our Dev
492s discussion uh this month's topic is
495s cutcenes so if you haven't headed on
497s over to the forums we always put up a
499s new Dev discussion about topics this one
501s is when it comes to cutscenes what
503s entices you to not skip them tell us
506s about your favorites and what makes them
508s unique um and of course just share your
510s feedback your thoughts on cut scenes
512s with us we'd love to hear them uh you
514s know we are exploring some areas where
517s we may want to use them uh sparingly but
520s we would love to hear your guys's
521s thoughts on on that you know what you
523s know what my one of my favorite games
525s and their cutscenes was uh and it's a
527s recent one but it was balers Gate 3 I
530s thought they did that game is just a
532s masterpiece job oh my gosh chef's kiss
536s it was so good when the first cut scene
538s that really got me where I just started
541s laughing hysterically was Big Bertha in
543s the barn when that
546s one uh that I was not expecting what was
550s going to happen in that okay so you just
553s said what is it what is a what makes a
555s good Cuts scene one of those things is
558s hey I did not expect to open that barn
560s door and see what I saw it was it was
563s definitely captivating but also cringy
566s and also gross but like totally
569s unexpected
570s it was one of those things where you're
571s like you're not going to forget it but
573s then I've also experienced on the flip
575s side I'm not going to call out a
576s specific game but you might know which
578s game I'm talking about there are some
580s where it's like I feel like the entire
581s game is just like I'm in a cut scene
583s hell and I'm like I really just want to
585s play the game and I don't want to be
586s stuck this is not a movie I'm not here
588s to sit down and play a movie I want to
589s play I agree yeah so I think there's
591s like a balance for sure where you can
593s find that that is that is definitely
595s true like cutcenes you know you're not
598s playing an Interactive story you want to
601s be the story and not watch the story all
604s the time in mm like the story in the
606s game that I'm referencing it's just I
607s also I'm like just put that somewhere
610s else so I can watch it because I really
611s just want to play uh so it's kind of a
614s balance and of course our next one is
616s going to be on Wars SL Siege systems
619s which I think is perfect coming into
621s this node Wars topic that we have here
624s today um and we also wanted to just
625s remind you guys that we do a um office
628s hours right now our wonderful Community
631s managers are over in Discord and they're
633s doing a watch party so if you want some
636s company while you're watching uh you can
638s head on over there but I know some
639s people find that distraction or
641s distracting um but we also do an office
643s hours where we this is something I
645s haven't really seen other companies do
647s but we uh have you guys join us and we
649s ask you some questions and you're able
650s to give your feedback to our development
653s team through voice so not only do we
655s allow for dub discussions through forums
658s and things of that sort but we're also
659s doing something that's a little bit more
660s active where we're communicating with
662s you in in like a voice Channel as well
665s and it's a program that we piloted and
667s it's been going very well and so if
669s you're interested uh stay tuned as we
670s will be sharing what our next topic will
672s be for
675s that um and with that I think we may
679s begin
680s prefacing the next segment let us start
683s the prefaces yes yes many of the
686s prefaces um so guys this is going to be
690s a fun one I think you're all going to
692s enjoy this I I want to say um you know
695s this is a longer one I think it's like
697s almost an hour in 20
698s minutes is that
700s right roughly correct um yeah so so keep
705s in mind you know some people say like
707s why are these presentations so long well
710s you know this despite what it may appear
713s like to some people this is not a a
716s marketing thing right we're we're not
718s we're not trying to acquire new users
722s with this we're not trying to make sales
724s we can't make sales right now um You
728s Know This is Our obligation and also our
732s opportunity there's there's two points
733s there right obligation and opportunity
735s one obligation to keep you informed in a
737s breast of progress for the games
739s development that is we are a we are
742s public development process we believe in
744s that process we think it's a good thing
746s that companies should should should
748s should do um because ultimately there is
752s no stronger relationship in consumer to
754s corporate like you know uh perview than
757s that of a gaming company right literally
760s as a player you're the lifeblood of the
763s company right so so it's Our obligation
766s to keep you breast of of progress on the
769s second side of that coin it is our
771s opportunity to collect live feedback
774s from you guys so that we can make sure
776s the product we're making is going to be
780s received in a way that is something you
781s want right it's positively it's yes I
784s I'm aware of what you're building as a
786s player right and I've given you my
788s thoughts on the player now not everybody
789s is into that right like probably 98 to
793s 99% of players in the world are not
796s watching a stream like this where it's a
798s development update you are a select few
801s a unique cohort of people who take
806s interest uh to the next level right of a
809s game that's up and coming right most
811s people they wait around for the trailers
812s they see the launch date and they're
814s like all right cool you know I'll I'll
815s wish list this or something right like
818s that is the vast majority so you guys
820s you're one of those folks come back
822s later we'll have the game for you later
825s if if you don't if you're impatient you
826s don't want to watch The Journey that's
828s fine that is that is a stage that is
831s coming there's no way that stage doesn't
833s come right that that is that is our
835s launch stage right so it's like
838s understand that that we're not skipping
840s out on that it's just we're adding an
842s additional phase to it which is this
844s phase the development phase that you
846s guys get to participate in so with that
849s being
850s said remember
853s that this showcase is a work in progress
857s it is work towards our Alpha 2 which is
860s our a true Alpha we've talked about this
863s in the
863s past particularly two
866s points VFX and UI those are in a very
871s functional state which means that they
874s haven't received the level of attention
876s that we still need to provide that's
879s Polish that's optimization that's
881s further fleshing out right those things
884s still need to be worked on so as you're
886s observing this and you're thinking of
888s your commentary and how you can best
890s provide us feedback along the lines of
894s this particular system right this
896s gameplay Loop what you will be
899s experiencing within the game talk to us
903s about the functionality of the game of
906s the node War system the interaction
908s between the mayor and the citizens the
911s objective based gameplay within the open
913s world uh some of the ability designs uh
917s some of the effects that occur like
918s those topics are
920s where your feedback is best used if it
925s is something about you know UI looks
927s clunky or visual effect soup is you know
930s indistinguishable we we for sure are
932s aware of that we know that that is still
935s a a thing that we are planning to work
937s on and will be improved right um so take
942s that with a discussion with VFX about
945s that recently so yeah absolutely so so
947s we will improve there um but I think you
950s guys are really going to enjoy this I
952s think the team did a phenomenal job in
954s creating this Chris juusto was a
956s champion of champions uh as our
960s uh node now excuse me our our designed
963s systems uh team owner he is a very
967s exceptional individual um and he did a
970s phenomenal job in spearheading a lot of
972s the work that revolves around uh the
975s nodes and the node War system so kudos
977s to him um in addition you know a lot of
979s people on the team from the engineering
981s side to the art side come together to
983s obviously make ashes of creation and
985s what you're going to see today I think
986s you're going to enjoy and what you're
988s going to play soon in Alpha 2 too is
989s going to be a lot of fun so with that
991s being said enjoy the show and the
993s premiere is playing over on YouTube you
995s can check it out over there in 4k if
996s you'd like or you can watch us here but
998s please come back because we will be
999s gathering questions and answering those
1001s as well so we'll see you all shortly
1003s well in an hour plus
1008s [Music]
1011s [Applause]
1012s [Music]
1028s hello everyone and welcome to another
1032s day in Vera and today we have an
1035s exciting showcase one that has been long
1039s in the making probably one of our
1041s largest systems that we have actually
1044s shown to date I know that there are a
1048s lot in the audience who are excited
1050s about what we're going to be talking
1051s about and what we're going to be showing
1053s today many of you have been waiting for
1055s this particular showcase and I am joined
1059s by some pretty awesome developers who
1062s have made what you're going to see today
1064s reality three of our glorious
1067s Engineers Kyle Kenan Zach how are you
1071s guys
1072s doing doing pretty good thanks for
1075s having excellent yeah thank you very
1076s much for having me absolutely excited to
1078s chat with you guys about what it what it
1080s took to bring this particular feature to
1083s life I know that each of you in your
1085s respective rights have had different
1087s purviews over uh this kind of massively
1090s multiplayer engagement the unique system
1092s work that's involved for the war and the
1094s events itself uh along with obviously
1097s combat and player movement um for you
1099s guys so a lot of insights there which
1101s I'm going to be exciting excited to chat
1103s with you guys about as we kind of go
1104s through this um
1106s also we have two of our glorious
1108s designers regulars on the show uh Chris
1111s Trad how are you guys
1113s doing uh wonderful thanks for having me
1115s it's great to be here yep I'm hyped for
1118s some PVP oo some PVP and and this
1123s amazing War system Chris that I know
1125s that you have been slaving away over the
1128s course of the last few months in in in
1130s helping to author and set up and doing a
1133s lot of testing with our PI group and and
1135s iterating on the system as well um a lot
1138s of hard work has gone into this going to
1140s going to be excited to to kind of
1141s showcase that off and then of
1144s course no true
1147s project can be successful without the
1150s absolute amazing responsibility of
1152s production we have one of our glorious
1154s producers here Nathan Nathan how are you
1156s doing my friend oh I'm I'm so excited
1159s I'm EXC this was a big step for us to
1161s put the massive back in MMO and uh I'm
1164s excited to show that off to everyone
1165s today excited to show it off too now
1170s many of you may be asking yourself where
1173s am I what are we looking at we are
1176s currently in the node of Mirth where I
1179s have been bestowed with the great honor
1182s of mayorship leading these these
1185s beautiful wonderful people to success
1188s all across the riverlands and Vera
1191s Beyond and we have
1194s recently gotten into maybe some some
1198s interchanges that happened been so
1199s polite with one of our neighboring nodes
1201s and this can happen in the world of Vera
1204s there are a lot of systems set up to to
1206s provide players and Outlet to kind of
1209s govern themselves govern their
1210s relationships with each
1213s other um come hither Steven Winstead
1216s shall show you the way to win
1218s unbelievable they they are already trash
1220s talking look at this this disrepute that
1223s comes from Margaret as the mayor of
1225s Winstead we must respond in kind Chris
1228s what are some of the options we have
1230s available to us when our honor is being
1233s questioned as a node yeah so um as you
1237s kind of alluded to we're going to
1239s declare war on them because they're big
1242s meanies um soit a minut can we rephrase
1246s that it's not that they're big weenies
1248s it's that I said meanies
1251s me they're big meanies it's not that
1254s they're big meanies it's that we must
1257s exert our dominance and we can can only
1259s truly achieve respect through Power and
1262s if we don't demonstrate that power to
1264s these peons that are at Winstead then
1267s how will they know to fear us uh that's
1270s a much more eloquent eloquent way to put
1272s it Stephen um so we have to jump through
1276s a few Hoops before we can declare war uh
1278s you know we don't want Mayors running
1280s around in ashes a creation just like
1282s Perma flagging the whole world into a
1284s state of PVP
1287s right so some people just said wait a
1289s minute yes I
1292s do well it's going to cost you some
1294s resources to do that um so Stephen as
1298s the mayor you have access to a special
1301s panel in your uh node UI all right I
1305s pulled up my node my node interface now
1309s I must take this moment as is normally
1311s the case to remind everyone in our
1313s audience that everything you see here
1316s today is a work in progress that means
1318s that we are currently working towards
1320s our Alpha 2 which we have announced for
1323s third quarter this year um so UI visual
1327s effects performance just the general
1330s content within the game is in an alpha
1333s State please remember that as you see
1334s this things will continue to get better
1336s and continue to be developed and the
1338s reason that we do these live streams and
1340s these development updates is to keep our
1342s audience a breast of that progress but
1344s also to elicit necessary feedback as we
1347s iterate on these particular systems
1349s because there are a lot of them um so
1351s sorry Chris I am in this node window and
1354s I see that I have available to me some
1357s number of Merl commissions that I can
1359s begin with correct now this tab is only
1361s available to the mayor hence why it's
1363s called the mayor tab um and if you hit
1366s that button in the top right corner the
1368s manage commissions button oh okay very
1371s nice you'll see we have a list of
1373s commissions and a bunch of available
1374s slots for you to initiate now these are
1377s much like regular commissions that uh I
1379s think we've shown off in the past the
1381s difference here is the mayor is picking
1384s which ones are going to be available to
1386s players and okay when enough players
1390s complete them the node gets a reward
1393s right very good so this is this is a bit
1395s different than your standard commissions
1396s your non-moral commissions because those
1399s are generated by the system based on
1401s predicates of the surrounding area uh
1403s from an narrative perspective and this
1405s mayoral commissions are really more
1407s predicated on what the mayor needs to
1409s have done to collect resources or to
1413s enable certain actions such as War
1416s correct now additionally like more
1418s mayoral commissions will become
1420s available as the node progresses and the
1423s commissions that are available will
1424s change based on how the node is built
1426s right so if you build a blacksmith you
1429s might get some special smithing related
1431s commissions uh that you could elect to
1434s initiate for your players um but if you
1437s don't upgrade that blacksmith you're not
1439s going to be able to do that got
1442s it very cool okay so I see here there's
1445s one called War preparations and that's
1448s the one you're going to want to use if
1450s we want to go to war so what you're
1453s going to do is you're going to go ahead
1454s and initiate that commission if you see
1457s in the top right of that panel there's
1460s the um some glint available that's the
1463s reward players will get for doing this
1466s activity oh okay should I should I
1468s confirm this selection go confirm the
1471s selection okay okay so player so when
1473s players complete this commission they do
1475s their part and this is essentially them
1478s buying on to this Choice correct got it
1482s so so it's not just unilaterally and
1484s obviously guys as you're watching this
1486s some of these some of these system
1488s designs are in an effort to provide
1491s these gameplay Loops um with the
1494s resources that we have available to us
1496s at this stage in the development for
1497s Alpha 2 Purp pures longterm and we'll
1500s talk about this a little bit later how
1502s some of those designs will change and
1505s incorporate other systems which we are
1507s still pending development on um but here
1510s the the players that are citizens of
1512s this node must opt in with the mayor's
1515s decision by completing this Commission
1517s in order to grant that power and and for
1520s their participation they're getting
1522s rewards as
1523s well absolutely correct very cool and so
1527s what are these Awards they getting
1529s so they're going to get some glint which
1531s uh We've also shown off in the past that
1533s they can turn in for money
1535s mhm okay so they're getting paid very
1539s cool should we select any other ones
1541s here too um yeah I mean they all offer a
1545s varying breadth of things right uh the
1548s primary thing we're rewarding through
1551s mayoral commissions is what we call node
1553s Buffs um and these are benefits that are
1557s applied to your zone of influence uh so
1561s for example you might want to do a
1562s mayoral commission that
1564s increases uh Gathering speed for 24
1566s hours in the node and if enough players
1568s do that you guys get that
1572s benefit
1573s okay let's do the building
1577s Foundation you know cuz I'm not all
1580s about as a mayor just War right we must
1583s make safe the grounds around us as well
1586s let's get rid of some of those goblins
1591s um and perhaps we should acquire some
1595s forages Okay cool so we have a number of
1598s different commissions now that are
1599s available to the
1601s players correct now if you want to close
1604s out of that window and walk over this is
1606s our fancy mayoral commission board over
1609s here oh very cool okay and if you
1612s interact with
1614s it it'll show the commissions that are
1616s currently that you've initiated
1620s nice now we have obviously a fire that's
1622s closest to the door being of course our
1624s war preparations because honestly the
1626s Shifty characters over at Winstead
1628s really can't be trusted especially in
1630s the proximity they are to our node um so
1633s how am I going now how am I going to go
1635s ahead and complete this uh so first
1638s accept the commission by clicking on it
1640s got it um if you notice it's popped up
1642s in your objective tracker all right and
1646s I believe it says turn in 20 T1 material
1648s do you have enough T1 material Steven
1651s you know I think um just by pure
1654s coincidence I happen to have exactly 20
1657s um that are available yes so this little
1662s treasure box next to the commission
1663s board is where you can turn
1667s in all
1669s right ah okay very cool um yes I will
1674s turn in some of my stone and I got my
1677s reward objective is now
1681s complete awesome now currently for the
1684s sake of this showcase that ml commission
1687s is set to only require one player to
1688s complete it so that we can you know
1691s speed things along for us and we don't
1692s have to wait you know a couple of days
1694s for hundreds of players to do this um
1697s but that is the intent right is that
1699s these commissions do require a heavy
1702s opt-in from the player base in the order
1705s of magnitude being hundreds of these
1707s commissions need
1709s and that'll depend on the scope of the
1711s commission right M so some commissions
1713s with very minor effects might not
1715s require a large amount of players to
1718s complete them but something like going
1720s to war will require a larger amount of
1723s players and a larger amount of
1725s dedication per player got it and we have
1728s we have our company of ready able and
1732s willing citizens here to to provide the
1735s support we need in order to succeed in
1737s our war preparation so hurah to you well
1740s done well done everyone um okay so now
1744s that we've effectively completed the
1746s commission yep so if you want to press n
1749s again to open up that node UI got it
1751s you'll notice that there is a completed
1753s tab next to your node UI which shows
1756s that enough players have done the
1758s activity for you and now this
1759s commission's on cool down so when your
1763s hand rolls once a day if that commission
1767s cool down is longer you will lose that
1769s slot and you won't be able to use that
1771s commission until that cool down has
1773s ended oh very nice okay so obviously the
1776s mayor needs to be somewhat prudent in
1779s the choices that they're making even if
1782s they do get the optin from their
1784s citizens there is so much power they
1788s have available to them to affect that
1790s change it is governed to a degree by
1791s some time exactly cool but now that
1795s we've completed it you've received as a
1797s result of this Commission War token
1799s specifically for the territory War type
1802s of War so if you want to go ahead to the
1804s node relationships
1807s tab ah okay you'll notice there's a list
1811s of notes Here specifically
1815s Winstead I do see that uh and if you
1818s want to go ahead and click on that
1819s declare war
1821s button we won't do it we won't do it
1823s right now but just to show you the uh
1826s steps here that you would take you that
1828s declare war button there and it shows
1831s there is a couple different types of war
1834s that you have access to oh okay very
1839s cool all right so so territory control
1843s obviously makes sense test node war is a
1846s is obviously one of our QA testing war
1849s types um there will be a number of
1851s different war types that are
1853s available um that we'll talk about in a
1856s little bit as as well
1861s awesome um well so Stephen now that we
1863s have what we need to declare this war do
1866s we want to go over to Mir or over to
1868s Winstead and uh kind of rub it in their
1870s face yeah I think so I think that would
1872s that would probably make sense um Let me
1875s give a a quick inspiring uh Speech if I
1877s can of course to our to our glorious
1882s citizens what's the name of our not this
1885s is mirth Mirth mirians
1889s Noble great and honorable
1892s merians our city has been
1895s denounced by arrival node the Winstead
1899s node they know nothing of our ways of
1902s our people but they
1906s know something something not good
1911s and anguish there thank you fear anguish
1915s thank well done you're one of my
1916s lieutenants well done uh fear anguish
1919s they will know that soon enough for they
1921s chose to stand against the will of Mirth
1924s let us go forward and teach them the
1926s ways of our
1928s people all right we've done this mirle
1933s best prepare your brooms you'll need
1935s them to sweep up
1940s something I didn't get that
1943s broadcast Mar's just loving this the
1946s trash talk oh sweep up our ashes our
1949s ashes well well done well done so Chris
1953s where are we where are we planning to go
1955s well we were going to go to Winstead but
1957s I I think we have company we have
1960s company wait we have unwanted company
1963s they been spying on us who are these
1968s people I well they're not they're not
1971s affiliated with us you would they would
1973s dare to come to our town like this after
1977s we've just just laid The Gauntlet of War
1983s down what well you haven't you haven't
1986s declared the war yet oh I haven't
1988s declared should I declare the War I mean
1991s I feel like this is an optimal time to
1993s declare the war cuz we might get some uh
1996s some easy kills you know what I think
1999s you might be now now okay now of course
2001s they can't hear or know what we're going
2004s to do here but they have no idea what's
2007s coming no they have no clue what is
2010s about to happen but the territory
2013s control node War talk to me first Chris
2016s a little bit about the territory control
2018s node yeah so
2022s um we'll get into some of the more depth
2024s of War while we're walking but the
2026s territory control War as it kind of
2029s sounds is about controlling territory
2031s right so what this is going to do is
2033s it's going to flag us against each other
2035s um the citizens of our node and the
2037s citizens the node you declare on and
2040s then we'll do battle over certain pois
2043s in both of our zones of influence and
2045s gain control over them based on winning
2048s those events and those
2050s pois and once we've accumulated enough
2053s victory points we'll win the war which
2055s gives our Zone a big buff as well I
2059s approve of the node war and let us
2062s destroy them in 3 2 1 oh get him
2085s oh
2087s no oh
2093s dear did we get them I think we cleaned
2096s them out oh put wall up I don't know
2099s where the dragon went
2101s but that sounds like a Futures
2105s problem sure that won't come by to bite
2107s us I think we did destroy them you know
2109s I think I'm missing my blink where is my
2112s blink you got to close your eyes and
2115s then you open them again no not that
2119s blink and my bubble oh there they
2123s were and I should probably get this
2125s Arcane eye
2128s there we go okay sorry about that guys
2131s um okay so they tried to they tried to
2135s stop us but they we can't be stopped
2138s um where should we go now well so before
2142s we before we run off uh open up your
2144s node relationships tab again okay got it
2149s and you'll notice you'll see there's an
2151s active war and we've earned some points
2153s in this War uh if you go to the top of
2156s that yeah right there
2158s okay and we have five points cuz we
2160s killed five
2162s people oh nice okay so in during the war
2167s obviously we have available to us this
2170s this that tracks kind of performance and
2172s each individual player can track their
2173s performance within the war as
2175s well
2178s correct okay and then it says earn a
2180s th000 victory points uh in order to win
2183s the war correct now it's the the end
2186s condition of this war
2189s uh now victory points are earned via
2191s kills and earned by via completing
2194s objectives
2196s okay all right cool awesome now um the
2201s event that it talks about talk to me a
2204s little bit about that event so open up
2207s your map
2209s M and scroll yourself over to you'll see
2212s that scroll to the left there and you'll
2216s see there's a big circle around High
2218s women
2220s Hills OH harness the god
2224s Spike currently it's say active as 31
2227s players does that mean they have 31
2228s players already there that means they
2230s already have 31 players there we better
2232s get a move on we need to
2236s go let's let's start
2240s moving let me um let me see if I have a
2243s little
2244s horse that I could summon
2251s I where' my horse
2254s go I being left behind Steven I know oh
2258s here we go I got
2259s it okay
2262s um so talk to me about the different
2266s types of
2268s War events and war
2271s types yeah so war types are going to be
2274s pretty predicated on what they're
2276s actually delivering to the the winners
2278s and losers right so this one's a
2281s territory control the Crux of what this
2284s does is you claim territory which
2287s siphons the node XP from the nodes that
2291s you from the pois that you're winning
2294s these objectives at um it's also
2297s providing uh a luck buff there to
2300s prevent or to you know incentivize the
2302s players who win to to go farm there
2305s right and generate more node XP for your
2307s node
2308s um we have other different types that we
2311s plan to have Post St 2 um like disabling
2316s services in the opposing node uh
2318s siphoning
2319s gold um taking over mayorship
2325s temporarily very cool so there's a lot
2327s of different options that we intend to
2329s provide um obviously for the war system
2333s and this is one of the primary methods
2334s of player friction right so um we want
2336s to keep that kind of comp telling
2338s interesting from a design perspective uh
2340s which all of these different war types
2342s are intending to provide um and
2345s throughout Alpha 2 will'll be
2346s introducing additional War uh node War
2350s event types as well
2352s correct very cool talk to me Kyle a
2356s little bit about authoring this uh node
2359s War system how did you go about you know
2362s keeping it modular and you know capable
2366s of supporting all these different types
2368s of
2369s Wars well given the game design document
2372s that juusto provided uh the goal was of
2375s course to provide something as flexible
2376s as possible to be able to give all of
2378s that designed Freedom so we were able to
2381s leverage existing systems such as the
2383s game event system and the local system
2385s to be able to give the a massive amount
2387s of varing content from war to
2390s war
2391s awesome and and you know obviously talk
2396s to me a little bit about kind of the
2397s difficulties of of authoring a system
2400s like that yeah the difficulty is
2403s definitely having to work between
2405s different teams uh because the game
2408s event system and the local system are
2410s authored by The Narrative engineering
2412s team so we have to make sure that we can
2414s work discipline to discipline to uh get
2417s the needs that are required to bring
2418s something like this to life nice
2421s awesome
2423s and Zach
2426s obviously knows Wars node events those
2430s are some of the
2432s more High player
2435s density types of gameplay Loops talk to
2438s me a little bit about some of the
2440s difficulties you had on the performance
2442s side uh working with tech art
2445s engineering and and artists to kind
2448s of get performance where we needed it to
2451s be for this higher player density oh
2453s yeah for sure for performance it's
2455s really been a refinement of our
2457s pipelines and processes and workflows
2460s with a pretty tight iteration loop on
2462s you know
2463s testing profiling like auditing those
2466s profiles like seeing what we're at and
2469s then like correcting things that need to
2471s be corrected and especially with an MMO
2474s we really have to support like a large
2477s array of player experiences so the game
2480s has to run great whether you know you're
2482s a solo player or you're playing in a
2484s group and then it also has to run great
2486s for you know big events like these where
2489s there's going to be upwards to 100
2490s players sometimes right so it's really
2493s been all handson deck from all the
2496s disciplines to refine our current
2497s existing standards and make sure that we
2500s can hit performance while continuing to
2503s uh look good awesome well I have arrived
2507s at what I believe is our headquarters
2509s and there appears to be a significant
2512s portion of our Garrison from the node
2516s that has arrived here guards where is
2518s the rest of our group oh you guys should
2520s uh meet let's meet up here if we
2523s can at the um at the headquarters and
2527s let's and let's do some planning I'm
2529s sure there's some significant strategies
2531s that we can
2534s employ right Chris oh yes there is um
2539s so the
2541s lowdown uh first things first is if you
2544s look at your objective
2545s tracker there's some stuff going on um
2549s we need to gather imbued blood and
2551s imbued materials now imbued blood is
2554s going to drop off Bandits that have this
2556s glowy particle effect to them and imbued
2561s materials are going to drop off uh Ruby
2563s caches that are all around the
2566s POI okay well let me um and we we have
2571s to do that before the enemy
2574s team I see uh if they complete it before
2578s we still can finish ours but we'll be
2580s behind and they'll be on the victory
2583s condition okay so we're looking for
2586s these imbued Bloods and the um the
2591s imbued
2593s material um and the Bloods come from the
2597s bandits in the area correct okay and the
2601s material are the are rubies that are
2603s kind of spawned throughout the out this
2605s particular Zone and let me open up my
2607s map real quick quick yep so marked on
2609s your map is all of the Ruby locations
2611s but the Bandit locations are not marked
2614s oh okay okay so the bandits are are kind
2616s of sprinkled throughout the area and
2619s these these locations here that I'm
2621s hovering over these imbued material
2623s caches those are spawns around the area
2626s and presumably that's where the enemy is
2628s going to be located as well because
2631s we're all trying to acquire these in
2632s order to progress to the next stage
2634s correct got it okay cool okay so we
2638s should probably split up into three
2642s teams um if you are in party group four
2646s or group five you're going to be
2649s responsible for trying to acquire the
2651s Ruby so you're going to be going to
2653s those imbued Ruby cach locations your
2657s primary objective is to avoid
2660s interacting with the Enemy you do not
2662s want to engage the enemy if you see them
2665s run you're just acquiring these
2667s resources
2668s and trying to bring them back to where
2670s Chris you got to bring him back here and
2673s talk to good old scholar
2675s Thompson okay all right cool so you guys
2678s in group four and five you're going to
2680s acquire those um and probably if you're
2683s a ranger and can be camouflage it would
2686s be beneficial for you to go out and try
2687s to acquire those if you're in groups one
2690s two or three you're going to be running
2692s cover while killing the um the uh
2697s Bandits and then when they get the
2699s bandits Bloods those they're bringing
2701s those back as
2704s well sorry what was that I was
2706s multitasking Steven no worries no
2708s worries when they when they grab the
2710s bandits blood they're bringing those
2711s back as well they are bringing those
2713s back as well now worth noting they do
2715s drop on death so if you end up with too
2717s much of them be very
2719s careful okay um guys I think before we
2723s head
2724s out I'd like hold on let me uh
2728s I'm get in a good position for you I'd
2730s like you to all gather around in front
2731s of the Dragon I'm going to give you an
2733s inspiring
2739s buff perfect perfect
2742s perfect
2745s now I
2746s know that this
2749s Venture would strike fear in the heart
2752s of normal men and women but not in the
2756s hearts of
2758s mirians go forward bring back the
2762s trophy that is oops hold on hold on
2767s bring back the trophy that is the
2770s blood go
2773s forward let us move let's get them Lads
2777s get them okay so where are these Bandits
2780s at that groups one two and three can go
2782s oh I see over here yeah they're going to
2784s be all over the POI they've got this
2787s Lely little glow to them to signify
2790s their
2792s importance
2794s okay
2797s cool then if you come over here we got a
2799s nice little cach of rubies as well
2801s where's the rubies at just
2805s uh I see
2808s West I'm just kind of I'm I'm kind of
2811s watching out for the enemy while you
2812s guys are harvesting those rubies and
2814s killing the bandits ooh
2816s [Music]
2818s very
2819s nice so far I don't see
2822s any I see this light emanating from the
2825s center of this area over
2827s here y the god Spike that's the god
2830s Spike now that is what we are gathering
2832s these materials for and then we're going
2834s to channel these materials
2836s into harnessing that like raw power
2840s that's emanating from the center of
2842s highw women Hills so that we can steal
2845s the node experience and get ourselves a
2847s nice little luck buff in the
2850s POI um after we win because we never
2855s lose we have some enemies over
2859s here that I can
2862s see we should probably get groups one
2865s two and
2866s three over here to interrupt them it
2868s looks like they is that us with the
2870s progress of two that is us with the
2872s progress of two okay all right we've
2874s taken the lead
2877s see I'm running
2879s back a small stack of materials here let
2882s me see where the raids
2886s at okay looks like we
2889s are bringing in a bunch of
2897s materials talk to me um talk to me
2900s Nathan about what this process has been
2902s like from a production
2904s standpoint yeah it's been a super
2906s interesting one for us like games
2910s are really always these really janky
2913s combinations of software and Art and
2916s Design and all of these things are kind
2917s of coming together in in a way that
2919s makes them inherently difficult to put
2922s out to the public I've uh had my fair
2924s share of Rocky launches in the past and
2926s so what we've been really focusing on
2928s this time around is making sure that
2930s we're kind of honing that process early
2934s uh to try to make alpha 2 um you know
2937s one as smooth as possible obviously it's
2939s going to have some hitches but uh this
2941s has been a really good opportunity for
2943s us to get in the habit of pushing a
2946s build out getting feedback from people
2950s around the world uh figuring out like
2953s what's wrong with their specific you
2955s know setup at home so that then we can
2958s identify those issues triage those
2960s issues fix the ones that we can in order
2962s for us to push a build out for the next
2964s round of play testing which we've been
2965s doing every one to 2 weeks for the last
2968s uh couple of months I think and so
2970s that's um that's been like from a
2972s production standpoint a really awesome
2974s kind of test run for us to get in the
2976s habit of this you know like live service
2979s game that we're going to be supporting
2980s for a really long time uh so that's been
2982s a lot of fun you know a lot of lot of
2984s work but you know it's good oh yeah yeah
2986s you guys have done a great job on
2987s production side of this this feature is
2989s obviously a
2991s very very detailed and encompassing
2994s feature touches a lot of different
2996s pieces um
2997s um I I see we have some great uses of
3000s the tank wall some of you from APO may
3003s be remembering that particular
3006s wall oh this we're having a significant
3009s little battle over
3014s here yeah that's been one of the things
3016s we've been trying to work on right is um
3018s you know making sure that those
3019s objectives really help funnel the G
3021s people towards those points of of
3023s conflict I think some of our what was
3025s interesting here is some of our earlier
3026s iteration had us you know it was kind of
3030s like this phase one where people just
3032s kind of PVE Eed the whole time and well
3034s we you want to find that balance between
3037s PVE PVP where we become this really pvx
3040s game and so that's been an area of focus
3042s for us uh like making sure that these
3044s objectives are things people want to
3046s interact with and then fight
3051s over this was a good little fight oh I'm
3054s getting hit
3056s hard I think I lost one of my abilities
3059s let me grab it
3061s back there we
3066s go oh I see I see dread and he's
3070s down only took 10 of you
3074s unbelievable it's the skill
3081s difference Focus fire and doing
3093s perfect let's move
3098s forward let's keep pushing go on
3103s nerys oh I got
3109s rooted there we go and
3113s slow oh there's Margaret oh get her
3117s she's on the dragon
3119s though SL
3121s no
3125s no okay we're pushing them
3132s back I've got Brian on my
3138s target think he's tank he wants you to
3141s Target him oh God oh God need
3144s help backed out
3149s protect the king wildly in
3153s danger all right let's get the group
3155s around me if you can I'm going to use
3156s one of the mayor abilities to give us
3157s some offensive
3160s power and Chris as I do this talk to me
3163s a little bit about this ability yeah so
3166s um forward different node types have
3169s different mayor abilities um that can be
3171s used in different scenarios right so the
3175s what you just used is
3177s the war ability afforded to a scientific
3181s node
3183s push um and those abilities give a very
3186s large uh mitigation and damage buff to
3189s the players within your range when you
3192s use
3196s them how long does that ability last um
3200s I believe the buff is 5
3205s minutes our wonderful Dr Bucky made
3208s those for
3211s us oh he got away they're fling on the
3214s bridge on the
3218s bridge coming back
3221s around oh they are how's the progress
3225s going 76 for them 15 for
3227s us oh my
3230s gosh we have two objectives Stephen the
3233s top one is uh we're at 15 out of 100 the
3236s bottom one we're at 76 out of 100 oh
3239s okay perfect that was concerning but
3241s you'll notice there is an enemy progress
3243s bar right below that too to show how far
3245s long they are good call good looks like
3247s they're slacking
3251s though okay I've got a couple flankers
3254s over
3255s here TP noodle ooh that's a good little
3263s blink it's also been really fun to see
3266s The Meadows kind of evolve over these
3267s play tests uh you know we had a uh point
3271s where there was the tank wall ability
3273s was a little too strong and um you know
3277s uh got a chance to fix that before the
3279s recording and that's just kind of been
3281s the really fun process over over the
3283s last uh couple of months here uh cleric
3286s thankfully still op for me so um you
3289s know you love to see
3292s it yeah that cleric is a very strong
3296s cleric always have a free pass at being
3298s op and it's one role that it excels at
3301s if nothing else got to be the best
3304s healer I got Fant MX
3311s down let's get that nice him to let you
3313s do I know
3315s right he's almost
3325s dead like Trad and I'm I'm curious if
3328s there have been any like big you were
3329s talking earlier about some of the
3330s surprises that have come out of the play
3332s testing I was wondering if you guys had
3333s any um examples of things that you
3336s weren't expecting but you know saw when
3339s we started really putting this uh
3340s Compass system to
3342s test um I mean nothing that we weren't
3345s really expecting completely but it has
3348s definitely been a huge help just like
3351s uncovering you know smaller imbalances
3354s here and there like the wall thing that
3356s you mentioned for example was was a
3357s thing we actually uh knew knew was an
3360s issue and had fixed on on like a another
3363s build but like it was still funny seeing
3366s that like get
3368s completely um taken advantage of it yeah
3371s and it like showed some interesting like
3374s strategies like how people would use
3376s them to Zone each other in these little
3378s hallways and almost create your your own
3380s effective like little corridors on the
3382s open Battlefield so we definitely want
3384s to see some of that sort of thing it's
3386s just you know a matter of balancing
3394s that I think I died Behind Enemy
3397s Lines
3399s no May's
3402s down don't worry I turned don't worry
3405s guys I turned in two
3406s blood oh putting in so much work Nathan
3410s yeah we still need more of the imbued
3412s Bloods that's the uh that's the bandits
3415s right that's the Bandits yep all right
3418s I'm going to try to find some Bandits to
3420s kill while you guys continue to hold
3422s them off we need more people on
3425s Bandits yep and bandits for this event
3428s are a little bit more scarce but respawn
3431s a lot faster than the rubies where the
3434s rubies are a bit more plentiful but have
3437s a much slower reset
3441s rate got it
3447s there's my
3451s healers coming in at the last
3456s hour not finding any
3460s Bandits they killed them all oh oh
3467s no yeah there's a definite balance
3469s between targeting the PVE objectives and
3472s then PVP because um the the drops that
3476s you need to turn in um also can drop
3479s from players so sometimes you'll want to
3481s gank people that you see it cuz they
3482s might have some of the stuff that you
3484s need to turn in for credit toward the
3488s war see the god
3491s Spike but it's also really easy to get
3493s trapped in long drawn out PVP
3495s engagements and let the enemy team just
3498s grind out
3501s resources and that's part of the
3503s strategy is like you know sometimes
3505s you'll you'll want to tank up and have a
3507s bunch of people distract uh the group
3510s from doing the the objectives while
3511s you're sending out those little side
3513s squads we've done that a few times in
3516s our own testing for
3523s sure found some
3530s Bandits oh no oh that's us never mind
3539s all right getting some Bandit bloods oh
3541s there's an enemy
3543s here an enemy and a PVP down that's
3547s crazy oh no I might need some
3564s help so it's looking like at least is
3568s done with the rubies so we need to focus
3570s on Bandits now so there's going to be a
3572s lot of competition on those yeah we're
3574s done with rubies too so you're in
3582s danger what is this PV
3589s PVE oh I'm getting shot from above
3603s went all right we got some Bandits over
3605s here I'm going go turn them
3608s in just do do you want to talk about
3610s some of the other uh use cases that like
3614s we're hoping people will incentivize
3615s people to want to uh engage in
3618s war yeah I mean we have uh
3623s like the goal here is kind of twofold
3626s for war right there is the player reward
3628s side of it and then there's the like
3631s node reward side of it uh obviously we
3634s want players to be invested in nodes and
3636s invested in what they have and what they
3637s can do so you know those things are
3641s relics they are Services their resources
3644s and you know these wars can deny and
3648s even steal those things from other nodes
3652s but also they're personally rewarding
3653s right like we want to make sure players
3656s are getting
3657s something immediate for themselves
3659s because obviously we know most players
3661s aren't going to run a node and not every
3664s player is going to be invested as nodes
3666s as some other players yeah um so you
3669s know those personal rewards as we've
3671s talked about a little bit um in the case
3673s of this event uh will result in a buff
3677s farming in this POI so if there's some
3679s sweet loot that you're looking for from
3681s this POI uh winning here is really
3683s valuable cuz you're higher odds of
3686s getting it in the future or you know
3688s while you're farming here post this
3690s event yeah on top of your oh go ahead oh
3693s on top of your traditional just like
3695s some XP and some glint you know
3699s potentially those kinds of things and
3701s node currency well that's been kind of a
3704s like a big part of the I think we talked
3706s about this actually last time we were
3708s talking about uh nodes during the
3709s Caravan live but that's been a big part
3711s of the design ethos of of uh the nodes
3714s team is like making Mak sure that there
3717s are a lot of reasons to uh participate
3720s in nodes so that you don't just like
3722s node participation isn't just um
3725s relegated to that like top 1% most
3728s active most attentive players like you
3730s can still you still have reasons to
3732s contribute and participate for a lot of
3734s on a lot of axes well and it's also
3736s about making sure that like you're not
3739s just doing it out of the good of your
3740s heart right you're doing it because
3742s you're getting something for your player
3744s progression immediately
3747s and you can let like the big brained
3749s kind of Zerg
3752s leaders manage the more high end
3760s right holy smokes dude that is insane I
3764s just ran into a
3774s m we had some flankers over here
3778s did not work out for
3780s them well it feels like they're like
3783s outnumbering us as there are there any
3785s uh planned uh protections for just uh
3788s Zerg V Zer fights for uh large scale
3793s PVP you know some of that comes down to
3796s how we design the events right but some
3799s of it also comes down to combat design
3801s uh this this event in particular we're
3803s trying
3804s to fan players out by having lots of
3807s small things they have to do um and then
3810s at the end when we need to fight over
3813s this uh channeling this God spike is
3815s when zergs are supposed to come together
3817s right so creating a place for zergs uh
3820s to have something that they want to do
3822s cuz there are people that do like zg
3824s Combat versus people that prefer the
3826s smaller
3828s skirmishes I think really the way you
3830s incentivize it too is is like there's no
3833s stopping players from Zerg V zerging if
3835s they want but if the objectives reward
3838s maximally like splitting your forces um
3841s and and ways we do that is we'll we'll
3843s create simultaneous objectives in VAR
3846s highly different areas of the map so if
3848s you're if you're a one big Zerg ball you
3850s might be willing or winning your your
3852s encounters but you're not winning at um
3855s you know dividing conquering so to speak
3857s so uh eventually like players will learn
3860s like yeah if if we play this way we're
3862s not going to be as effective
3869s we need
3870s more imbued
3872s blood yeah we're falling really far
3875s behind oh
3885s no those are the uh those are the off of
3889s the
3890s bandits those are off the bandits right
3892s maybe we should break up and um have the
3896s have everybody kind of try to get the
3900s bandits yeah I know a pretty good spot
3903s for the bandits but it's kind of in
3905s dangerous
3907s territory I think at this point we have
3909s to take the risk they the enemy progress
3911s is pretty high I do believe danger is
3914s all of our middle names so that should
3916s work out true all right so it's just
3920s south and west of
3924s the of the enemy's camp
3929s okay let's try to move South and
3944s West South and West not going to make it
3948s there social media man why social media
3954s man truly the of everyone's existence
3957s dude that guy just got a crazy KD on me
3960s oh
3962s no got a got to work on that Nemesis
3965s system
3967s right that's right well I got him though
3972s right in time for cry to kill me from
3975s hell's
3981s heart okay I oh who's our raid leader I
3984s need to raid it B
3988s I just saw a ranger run past me in
3992s Biz that was concerning mild concerning
3995s I'm in
4003s danger who's our a raid
4008s leader uh I'm not sure the
4013s vagnar vnar is on his way
4020s see if faar can give me a invite oh oh
4024s no they've beaten us to the channel
4029s point so now Things
4031s become even more challenging for us cuz
4034s we've got
4035s a balance holding on holding them off of
4038s the objective while also trying to get
4040s more resources so this is a tough spot
4042s for us to be in for sure yeah is rough
4045s now we have ways to deal with that
4046s though right now there is some built-in
4048s catch-up mechanics um in a few minutes
4051s here some Scholars are going to spawn
4053s across the POI they'll be marked on our
4056s map um and they're going to increase the
4059s time it's required for the enemy to
4061s channel and drop a hefty amount of the
4064s materials we need to turn in to be able
4066s to channel
4069s ourselves okay that's good so but these
4072s guys are you know
4076s group difficulty for people above at our
4078s level um we're definitely not going to
4080s be able to send just like a small Squad
4083s of one or two
4086s people where are those where we should
4088s gather up gather up at the headquarters
4091s yeah Yep looks like they're popping in
4093s right now if you look at your map
4095s they're these little red
4102s swords okay let me
4107s let's get the team to kind of
4110s regroup let's regroup at the
4111s headquarters and then we
4114s can try to make our way to those
4117s locations and what are those again those
4120s are Scholars that are helping the
4123s process of channeling so if we kill them
4125s it'll make it slower for them and we'll
4126s steal some of their materials got
4132s it I am grouped up at the base that also
4134s has a respawn point they are not related
4136s facts I definitely didn't just get
4138s killed by
4139s trat oh no no that can't happen no trat
4143s has never killed anyone in his life I'm
4145s a pacifist pacifist
4150s fighter all right let's let's head
4154s out all right so there's going to be a
4156s scholar over here looks like some of our
4157s guys are already engaging it all right
4160s let's go let's do this oh we got it oh
4162s we actually already killed him you love
4165s to see it
4168s all right
4169s nice now they're really taking their
4171s sweet time going to channel
4173s though that's good so we've killed one
4176s out of four of the scholars yep yep I'm
4179s heading to the next one right now but
4181s I'm going to need some
4183s healers I'm going to keep an eye on them
4186s see what they're
4189s doing justo you have
4192s my focus wand no tr's here camping
4197s me oh no I hate to see
4202s it okay they're definitely about to
4205s Channel or they are
4208s channeling I need
4212s heals I think we might need to try to up
4215s their Channel
4235s all right Dre's down we got to take the
4237s scholar
4238s down yeah we got a good group
4243s here they are is that so the uh the
4246s progress bar is that their Channel
4248s progress that's their Channel progress
4250s yeah oh
4252s no so it should have just gone down we
4255s just took one of the scholar down
4258s nice uh and killing all the scholars
4260s effectively doubles their Channel
4264s time
4265s okay uh we've got two Scholars left to
4268s kill if we can hold them off long
4271s enough and yeah we're almost at 100 of
4275s the imbued blood so we still need people
4277s killing the um Bandits while we delay
4281s them with the channel nice I've engaged
4284s the next one but it seems like no one
4285s followed me
4287s here oh
4290s no going to checked out their I'm right
4293s here where you just
4299s St check out their
4307s headquarters oh
4313s no I'm in danger
4317s here turn on these
4328s guys oh
4331s no I'm going to see if I can
4335s uh try to distract them I'm at like
4340s 50% goat I think is the
4344s one oh no Keen keenage is the one he's
4346s almost at 50% no leave me
4348s alone we need to take out
4351s keenage where's the squad it looks like
4354s all we're coming
4356s in don't mind
4358s me oh we only need two more uh we only
4362s need two more
4363s blood hey I'm just vibing over here what
4365s are you guys
4369s doing all right we got to clear uhoh we
4373s have to clear the enemy team off the god
4374s Spike to be able to channel
4380s I did a uh did a little dive bomb on
4384s Kenan that's a lot of red oh god oh
4389s boy
4395s uhoh nice good retake down okay there we
4399s go hell well
4407s all right we've got some clerics on the
4409s point if we want to have people try to
4412s channel really it would have been
4414s embarrassing to lose to a ranger you
4422s know they're definitely pretty in all
4424s right if we can push
4427s in keep heals on zon in
4441s take my
4450s buff let's see if I can dive bomb them
4462s again got the pocket heels down Nathan
4465s you got pocket
4466s res
4470s no I'm never having you on my team again
4473s dude oh no cion
4479s left are you even in the raid bro how am
4482s I supposed to Res you if you're not in
4483s the raid no I fell out of the raid oh
4486s man well sounds like a skill issue looks
4489s like we're
4490s channeling oh we dropped a channel
4508s [Music]
4511s better heal your Channeler it's going to
4512s be Death from Above oh
4516s no trying let me give you some of May my
4519s Moll abilities
4528s oh nice nice big Buffs coming through
4531s love it
4536s push oh
4538s no I'm super
4542s stunned why TR
4545s why it was worth the death I had
4549s to it's like he doesn't even want me to
4551s play the game got to go Zerg diving
4554s every now and then
4556s keep
4565s pushing all right Eli I Channel her
4567s Channel her get them heals on
4580s them we're pushing we're pushing nice
4585s [Music]
4588s so these uh mayoral and uh dragon
4591s abilities are pretty impactful to
4593s uh uh combat team you all want to talk
4596s through like what you guys were going
4598s for there what you're kind of seeing
4600s these look like as we kind of move
4602s forward and do uh
4603s A2 yeah I mean the the point at at least
4606s of the um the flying Mount having such
4609s powerful abilities is there's there's
4611s only really expected to be one of them
4613s per side um in at least Wars like this
4617s um you know because these would be more
4620s exclusive to the to the mayor um so
4623s they're intended to be really impactful
4625s um and also a high priority Target cuz
4627s you can kill the mount and you can kill
4630s the rider uh so it's on the mayor to to
4632s be very careful like when they're
4635s putting themselves you know in danger to
4637s activate these abilities because they
4638s they themselves are such a high priority
4640s Target mhm
4649s oh man how we doing on the channel not
4653s good we keep getting pushed off of it
4662s unfortunately I think like we need to we
4664s need to try to organize everyone to move
4666s along the left side and try to push into
4672s them see if I can give us one more
4674s ability
4686s here's some let's try to push
4693s together
4697s nice I need some pocket heals on
4699s Winstead don't do that
4710s grad stop trying to kill our channelers
4712s it's not nice it isn't
4715s nice there we go nice use to the walls
4718s was this a tea party I wasn't was not
4723s [Music]
4725s informed so we're having a lot of deaths
4728s here uh I'm sure people are uh worried
4730s about like what does war being in a war
4733s mean uh when you're rate of dying
4736s probably increases a lot more than what
4737s you'd expect when doing normal kind of
4739s like PVE gameplay uh yeah so during
4742s sanctioned PVP events we turn off
4745s typical death penalties right like
4747s you're not going to get um res penalties
4750s you're not going to get XP debt um
4753s you're not going to get durability
4754s damage you will still drop the things
4756s you have in your inventory though
4759s mhm or in your material inventory
4761s specifically
4766s so obviously that's like a big part of
4768s uh this game mode um as far as like the
4772s larger idea for material inventory what
4775s was sort of the the thinking behind that
4778s or is that just sort of like a
4779s convenient thing to make sure that it
4781s we're used to things oh there you go I
4784s mean don't stuff your material inventory
4787s full of stuff before you go to war makes
4790s sense to me you know when you when
4792s you're right you're right what can I say
4799s oh okay oh my goodness oh no now we
4803s clean up that's a
4807s problem victory in
4810s death wi dead
4814s scum oh my God they've taken it back how
4818s are you guys are going to take advantage
4819s of that luck bonus if you don't quite
4821s control the Zone we won Steven did we
4824s win we win you weren't even paying
4826s attention oh how did we win we finished
4831s channeling it was it was my clutch heels
4834s ignoring the siren song of juusto
4838s endlessly asking for reses and focusing
4840s on real
4841s targets you guys may have won the war
4844s but you will not win the the battle
4848s battle I think that's a little backwards
4850s well I you may say that Keenan but if
4853s you look at the point distribution we're
4856s 800 to 304 right now ooh that's right
4860s let's take a look at
4861s that how' you guys get so many points uh
4864s well we won objectives and killed you a
4867s lot oh my
4869s God so okay so we we completed the the
4873s event that's obviously not the end of
4875s the war though right correct
4878s so basically the way Wars are structured
4881s is a war contains phases and phases
4884s contain events so there are conditions
4886s to win a phase and then there are
4888s conditions to win a war um winning a
4891s phase gets you some amount of like in
4894s the- moment rewards and some more
4896s long-term rewards uh winning events gets
4899s you some amount of in the- moment
4901s rewards and long-term rewards and then
4903s the war is like the massive objective
4906s that you're competing to towards got it
4910s so what we have gotten if you open up
4912s your
4913s map you can hover over this blue
4916s Banner uh you notice high womman hills
4919s is controlled by mirle now ah so we've
4922s made an incursion into their into their
4924s area yeah so now all of the territory
4927s associated with highw women Hills is
4929s ours and the node XP from here goes to
4932s our
4933s node um and as a way to kind of
4935s incentivize players to play here we've
4937s given a luck buff in this area as well
4940s so you can uh get increased loot drops
4944s while you're here here farming for your
4946s node nice so the the citizens of Mirth
4950s are rewarded for some period of time
4953s based on the event outcome correct so if
4955s we had lost we would not be getting this
4957s buff or siphoning this node XP and
4960s Winstead would be getting this buff for
4962s successfully defending their home now
4966s obviously this is one of many different
4969s War events and one of the war events um
4974s reward type
4976s um what are some of the other events
4978s that we're going to be introducing
4979s during Alpha
4981s 2 yeah so a big one we want to do uh is
4985s the service denial so that'd be like
4987s turning off your caravaner or uh
4990s shutting down your construction
4992s buildings for a period of time right so
4994s like you've built the best blacksmith on
4997s the server and we don't want this node
5000s gearing up for something or we we're
5002s trying to compete with them and we want
5004s the best blacksmith our node so we're
5005s going to go to war and try and shut down
5007s that service for a period of time okay
5012s cool that's awesome you know the kind of
5016s most exciting post2 one that we want to
5019s do is uh like is Relic based where you
5023s could potentially steal a relic from a
5026s node or uh destroy their Relic so it's
5028s reintroduced into the world and you can
5031s um and now your node can acquire it
5036s awesome and then um obviously we have
5040s you know we talked a little bit about
5042s the the mount and how we're going to be
5043s moving that
5044s to um level three the level three
5047s village note for the purposes of of
5049s entrance A2 same with the mayoral
5052s abilities and and those mayoral
5053s abilities are only activatable during
5056s events or outside of the events as well
5058s so the marrow abilities you used in the
5061s Showcase are only activatable during a
5063s war so that means you could activate it
5066s you know now that the event's over you
5067s could still use that ability um but only
5071s within the context of this PVP kind of
5074s state that the two nodes are
5077s in but
5079s the Mayors will also get access to like
5081s special abilities they can use during
5083s sieges as well that are uh unique to
5087s sieges oh very cool love it
5091s um now obviously uh people watch
5094s watching the um the Showcase today about
5097s the node War and the node War events
5101s performance is something that we are
5103s going to be getting really into over the
5105s course of the next we have gotten into
5107s over the course of the last uh couple of
5109s months but we're really going to be
5111s digging into it over the course of the
5112s next couple of months as well um what
5115s can players expect to see both on the
5117s client side and on the network side uh
5119s talk to me a little bit about that Zack
5120s that work so for the client side we
5123s really expect this to be like a seamless
5124s was experience to where we're going to
5127s have some like Dynamic load balancers
5129s that help um you know the best case and
5132s the worst case where the best case is
5134s you're you know in a group by yourself
5137s and the visual Fidelity of that should
5140s be just as good as the visual Fidelity
5143s of you know the large scale seizures or
5145s node Wars and things like that so um we
5149s be refining our character shaders and
5151s everything is going to be really in the
5152s back end right so
5155s the player experience should really be
5157s seamless and we handle everything under
5159s the hood to make sure that you know you
5161s get good frame rate during these
5163s different types of experiences and
5165s players are also going to have a lot of
5166s option when options when it comes to
5168s kind of tuning that experience for their
5170s specific Hardware uh I know one of those
5172s that we recently have instituted is dlss
5174s you want to talk to me a little bit
5175s about that yeah so the dlss intergration
5179s has been great uh on the 40 series and
5181s video cards we're been able to like
5183s nearly double our frame rate just by
5185s enabling the feature right so it's been
5187s a pretty big win for us yeah and then
5191s obviously um one aspect of of you know
5195s the game that you guys are are
5196s witnessing currently in the in the
5199s showcases that we've given over our
5201s different features has been you know
5203s visual effects as a whole um there is
5206s currently underway a lot of revisiting
5209s some of those effects uh from a
5210s performance standpoint um as well as
5213s from like a visual soup s standpoint uh
5215s with regards to these larger scale
5217s battles and this hasn't been you know
5220s something obviously that we have
5221s traditionally focused on because you
5224s know we're still actively in the
5225s development process of these particular
5227s archetypes and and all these abilities
5229s uh but now that we have kind of those
5231s base kits ready to go for for a start of
5234s Alpha 2 we're going to be focus on
5236s focusing in on refining them uh and
5240s making them uh more friendly both on the
5242s performance side as well as on the
5243s visual language side as uh also right K
5246s Trad yeah that's right um it's nice when
5249s those things go hand in hand like you
5251s don't want to see too much but what you
5253s do want to see you want it to look good
5255s so also not just from a um aesthetic
5259s standpoint but reading the most um
5261s important gameplay information is going
5264s to be key like we have to identify like
5266s what are the most important telegraphs
5268s for someone to be able to identify an
5270s ability that they're expected to respond
5272s to versus just the other kind of FL
5274s noise that is more for the you know the
5277s the visual fantasy of it um so we we
5280s have to kind of consider gameplay
5282s information
5285s first absolutely hey if everybody wants
5288s to come over um near the uh mirror leth
5292s side um headquarters um we're kind of
5295s gathering up here as we as we finish
5296s chatting about the Showcase a little bit
5300s um yeah I mean you know obviously I
5303s think U people will kind of see the the
5305s progression that we are reaching now
5307s towards Alpha 2 there's there's a lot of
5310s kind of uh performance related tasks uh
5314s polish and and getting ready for you
5316s know external players to come in and
5319s participate I will say one thing that
5320s has been very beneficial and and the
5323s studios
5325s is you know very appreciative of our
5328s interaction with the Phoenix initiative
5330s group but they have been um really
5334s successful in assisting us play test you
5338s know this particular uh gameplay feature
5340s that is Wars and the war events but also
5343s you know they did so with the Caravans
5345s and and we'll continue to do so over the
5347s course of the next couple of months and
5349s we will begin to at some point in the
5351s very near future extending that out um
5354s uh as we draw closer to Alpha 2 uh to
5357s some alpha 1 participants uh also hey
5360s let's let's keep it friendly let's keep
5362s it friendly let's not let's not attack
5363s these poor people I I can solve that
5366s Steven oh okay here we go let's see oh
5370s to The Peacemaker we have done it well
5374s done while rubbing the score in our
5376s faces I know really you got
5379s to very nice got to let them know um now
5384s mass mass combat is going to be
5385s something that is is tested as part of
5388s uh obviously Alpha 2 um you guys are
5391s seeing here a a brief taste of that um
5394s as it relates to these node Wars and
5396s these node War events um but there are
5400s going to be PVE contents raids um world
5403s bosses that players are going to be
5405s expected to kind of interact with um in
5407s a similar fashion of player density so a
5410s lot of that performance work we were
5411s talking about obviously goes to make
5412s sure that those experiences are
5414s enjoyable um that they are running
5417s smoothly for the players um that's going
5419s to be our Focus over these next uh few
5421s months here um talk to me about War
5424s rewards um what are the the types of War
5428s rewards that we are going to be starting
5429s Alpha 2 with but also going to be
5431s implementing um in the long run
5434s Chris sorry multitasking again Stephen
5436s one more time yeah yeah just talking a
5438s little bit about kind of the the war
5440s rewards um that are going to be
5442s available obviously now but also as we
5444s continue into Alpha 2 what are some of
5446s those rewards that we want to kind of
5448s get up and running yeah you know there's
5451s a a large laundry list but I can hit you
5454s with a couple few here um the big ones
5458s that we want to hit are pulling up my
5462s list um so obviously like you're seeing
5465s the Buffs with winning teams I talked a
5467s little bit about like disabling Services
5470s uh siphoning gold from the enemy node uh
5474s we want to do temporary mayorip
5477s control where the winning mayor can kind
5480s of take over a
5482s limited uh limited control of the node
5485s that they defeat um reducing taxes for
5488s the citizens within that winning node
5489s obviously stealing their node XP which
5491s is what we're doing
5493s here um and then we also want to do
5497s stuff where this enables new content
5499s that is exclusive for the winners right
5501s like doing this means a raid boss spawns
5503s that um you know that the winners can
5507s participate in
5508s killing awesome very cool um what are
5513s some other topics that we I was
5514s definitely zoned in a little bit during
5517s the during the uh the game play there
5520s for the event so um what are some of the
5523s topics that we kind of you know wanted
5525s to chat about as well we can we can
5526s bring up now um I know that we had
5530s mentioned uh
5533s the um excuse me the mount abilities we
5536s talked a little bit about the mounts uh
5538s how that's going to work there's also
5539s going to be Mount abilities that are for
5541s Basic Land mounts as well um those will
5544s be at entrance uh for for Alpha 2 um so
5549s it's not that just obviously the Mayors
5551s have access to these cool you know
5553s Dragon Mounts uh but players will
5555s obviously have access to mounts and some
5556s Mount abilities um also that's work that
5559s you've been uh doing right Trad with uh
5561s with red exactly yeah um those are
5564s already in progress as well they won't
5566s be as spectacular epic and you know raid
5569s raid uh impacting as as the uh mayor
5572s ones cuz we have to account for
5574s potentially a hundred of them present
5576s instead of two but like you'll still
5579s have you know stuff you can do to more
5582s more at a personal level like you know
5584s getting you know like a cc break or a
5586s Sprint um you know that kind of stuff um
5589s so cool awesome
5593s um all right well guys that was fun I
5597s really enjoyed it and and you know
5599s played well and and obviously there's
5601s still ways to go when it comes to you
5603s know continuing to develop this ahead of
5606s A2 um but I think that you know what
5609s we're looking for from the community is
5610s to kind of talk to us
5613s about how you felt with regards to the
5616s event the node War system as a whole um
5619s the mass PVP um you know these are
5623s obviously things that that we want to
5624s get feedback on um we've gotten as I
5627s said a tremendous amount of feedback
5628s when it comes to our PI testers but now
5631s as you guys are getting an opportunity
5632s to kind of see this for the first time
5634s um what it plays out as and just to
5636s remind everyone like these events are
5639s not the node War and the node war is not
5641s just these events outside of the Prime
5644s Ed events which is for a particular
5647s server location may occur between you
5650s know 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. um local time
5653s for that
5654s server uh outside of that there is still
5656s the war
5657s overall and that war overall is
5660s essentially being openly flagged uh for
5662s PvP with the the citizens of the two
5665s nodes um you know give us your thoughts
5668s about that about this system it is a key
5671s component of the of the pvx aspect uh
5674s and it does carry with it some
5676s significant uh rewards obviously keeping
5678s in mind that visual effects uh
5680s performance UI are still a work in
5682s progress a lot of that is getting
5683s touched up over the next few months uh
5686s but give us your thoughts about what you
5687s saw here today with that being said I
5690s must say to our Phoenix initiative job
5692s well done your assistant is always very
5695s much appreciated as well as our glorious
5698s guests our Engineers Kyle uh Keenan Zach
5702s um along with our designers TRD and
5704s Chris and of course our lovely prod
5706s producer Nathan you guys have done a
5708s phenomenal job in standing up this
5709s particular feature for a too I think I
5710s speak for the community when I say uh
5713s everyone is very excited to to play this
5715s to compete with one another their
5716s friends uh and to have some some um some
5720s rivalry and Gest uh as it is meant to be
5723s obvious viously That's What MMOs are all
5726s about um with that being said thank you
5729s guys for joining us I hope you guys out
5730s in the community enjoyed it and we will
5732s see you back on stream very soon bye
5736s everybody thanks y'all cheers GG
5750s bye we are back and um I'm going to play
5753s the video whilst we chat so you can um I
5757s kind of fast forward here so we did it
5760s we did it we said did not win I didn't
5762s even
5763s notice that's funny you're like we
5766s won but to be fair that's what I was
5768s talking about earlier right there's
5769s still a lot of UI work you know the
5771s proper toasts and like Fanfare when the
5774s pop I think you it was just it was I was
5777s like too D drilled in on the on the
5780s battle it's hard sometimes and you can
5781s tell whenever like folks stop talking
5783s it's cuz they're like concentrated on
5785s the battle but I do want to preface
5787s again before we get into some questions
5789s that we we gathered questions so thank
5790s you vagnar and rooshan and our social
5793s media social media man as well for
5795s popping in questions and making some
5797s notes Here for us um but of course we
5800s did say at the preface that everything
5802s here is work in progress you know all of
5803s our UI everything but specifically we
5806s made a mention of the effects and
5807s performance that we're very aware of and
5809s that we're working towards um I don't
5811s know if you want to talk a little bit
5813s more about that against
5815s I saw it like as a a lot of people were
5818s talking about it and we're very much
5819s aware that's why we prefaced it yeah for
5821s sure um we did preface it just to just
5824s to what's what's the opposite of preface
5826s suffice suff just just no wait no
5829s wouldn't be I don't know whatever we're
5831s making a sandwich just to
5833s reiterate um obviously the focus uh over
5837s the course of the next couple months is
5838s going to be really to drill in on the
5841s visual effects language that soup that
5843s we kind of see in the middle of battle
5845s um some refinement to be there and it's
5848s already been underway there's been some
5850s reapo to the MJ effects that you guys
5852s have seen um also keep in mind like we
5856s have significant lighting changes that
5857s are happening as well that can affect
5859s visual effects and need to kind of go
5861s back and iterate on the visual effects
5863s based on the lighting changes we're
5865s deploying those lighting changes over
5867s the course of this Sprint so that's over
5869s the next week or so week and a half um
5872s and that's going to and we've been
5873s waiting to kind of really go and tune
5875s the visual effects until those changes
5877s come in otherwise we'd have to do it two
5879s times right so keep in mind we're aware
5882s of that that is something we are working
5883s on because you're seeing something in a
5886s work in progress State you're going to
5887s see things that aren't quite up to where
5890s we want them to be yet because we're
5892s actively working on them on the UI front
5894s our UI team is phenomenal they're
5896s they're unbelievable team um very
5899s capable artists and designers they just
5902s saw a lot of icons engineers where it
5904s says icon you know because we're still
5905s making those icons and and and again
5908s like part of the fact that you guys get
5910s to see the game and development without
5912s the veil is you're going to see those
5914s things right and um you know UI is under
5917s the gun to service pretty much every
5919s system in the game um and because of
5922s that some of this stuff is just
5924s somewhere in their backlog and not as
5925s high priority uh because they're still
5928s getting some of the functional systems
5929s up and running but those passes will be
5931s had also before entrance of A2 on the
5934s performance side um Zach Mallet and
5938s strange Zack strange have done a
5940s phenomenal job on the networking team uh
5942s engineering team Tech art side um in in
5946s kind of you know taking what is the
5949s malstrom of development and starting to
5952s now kind of hone it in in better client
5956s performance uh but also Network
5958s performance side um next month we're
5961s going to have a deep dive on performance
5962s and kind of give you guys some insight
5964s there I guess I'm spilling a little bit
5965s of the beans on what that's going to
5966s look like but little teaser um it's
5969s going to be very Tech heavy so prepare
5971s yourself but we'll we'll make it
5972s entertaining it'll be Tech heavy but
5974s it'll be entertaining but also it's it's
5976s very important and I think it it gives
5978s you guys a look at some of the um some
5982s of the more Nitty Gritty side of
5985s development it's not it's not going to
5987s be as shining and awe as the node warart
5989s demonstration but it's going to give you
5990s insight to how we approach these massive
5993s problems not just problems for us as a
5994s project but problems for games in
5996s general how do they service such high
5998s player densities um what is our
6001s proprietary approach to doing that and
6003s and basically the ASAP the sleeve that
6005s is trying to make another massively
6008s multiplayer you know online role playing
6010s game um so that is something that is
6013s still having work done they're doing a
6016s phenomenal job towards that uh towards
6018s that front and I think you guys will see
6019s the fruits of that labor come um come
6021s Alpha too yeah so so I'm going to get
6024s into these questions we have a lot so
6026s let's get through them um the first one
6029s here is is there going to be a system
6031s that lets opposing Nations sabotage War
6033s preparations like a rogue sneakily
6035s burning food storage or poisoning the
6037s water supply prohibiting a war from even
6040s starting yeah I I think um so so
6043s important note on the war starting right
6046s we talked a little bit about at the
6048s start of the video um how Mayors kind of
6050s need Bon from the citizens in order to
6053s achieve that part of that Bion requires
6056s the acquisition of certain resources so
6059s when you think about like Espionage okay
6062s I have someone who's telling me that a
6063s war
6065s commission has just been initiated by
6068s the mayor now that's that that approach
6071s is somewhat placeholder for the purposes
6073s of of introducing this node War gameplay
6076s Loop for Alpha 2 long run goal there is
6080s that there will be reputation scores
6083s that we have an imp imped yet between
6085s nodes and you will see as in as
6087s reputation scores deteriorate and when
6090s they deteriorate it serves as a
6092s predicate for the mayor to now have the
6094s option to start those War procedures now
6097s still in the long run you're going to
6099s require buyin from the citizens and when
6102s people catch wind of that there are ways
6104s to disrupt to prevent the acquisition of
6108s some materials in order to acquire the
6109s wars scroll uh to influence the Land
6112s Management score of the surrounding area
6114s to capture Caravans that are moving
6115s those supplies to the node like those
6117s are all you know 10,000 foot level
6121s strategy not tactics but strategy in how
6125s do I stop a rival node where I see my
6129s reputation score with them is low enough
6131s that they could start these actions and
6134s now I'm starting to see rumors and
6137s Whispers of the citizens supplying the
6140s things that the node needs in order to
6142s act on this war so just keeping in mind
6145s like the intent is to provide that
6147s political Intrigue to give those types
6149s of actions to the players where they can
6151s disrupt um those
6153s activities and likewise if if your mayor
6156s initiates something like that like a
6158s commission like that if you as the
6160s citizens do not want to complete that
6163s you do not have to do those objectives
6165s right yeah yeah yeah AB absolutely that
6167s that that is so so again like the
6170s commission approach is a temporary
6171s approach just for the purposes of alfha
6173s to to give the gameplay Loop a space um
6177s but it still represents what you just
6180s described citizens have to buy in and
6182s the way in Alpha 2 they're going to buy
6183s in is by completing those commissions
6185s now let's say the majority of citizens
6187s don't want to complete those commissions
6190s then the pay the mayor is not capable of
6194s utilizing the action and they've wasted
6197s that commission slot for some period of
6199s time and the cost associated with
6201s deploying it uh as a result so may kind
6203s of has to be in tune with the desires
6206s the will the Mandate you might say from
6209s a political perspective of what their
6212s populace wants right and then the next
6214s question is something we've talked about
6216s a few times but I feel like it's
6218s something that you know was brought up
6221s because of the massive scale of War um
6225s is will there be VoIP options for people
6228s like voice over IP options not not at
6231s the entrance of A2 that's not in scope
6233s for what entrance A2 will be however
6235s during A2 we are going to have regular
6237s updates to the game where we're
6239s introducing new content new zones new
6241s features you know kind of uh essentially
6244s these will be regular updates Voiceover
6246s IP is an intended feature that exists
6249s within three spaces taverns parties and
6253s rates um so otherwise we're going to
6256s rely on you and your Social Circle you
6258s know in Discord to kind of have
6260s Voiceover IP but in the areas where we
6263s expect players to interact with people
6266s they don't know right or to meet new
6269s people that they don't want to have to
6271s share a Discord link with or you know
6273s take the interaction Beyond just the
6275s surface level hey you're in the same
6277s rate as me we will provide that option
6280s through a v Voiceover IP within those
6283s areas yeah and we've talked about this
6285s before so those of you who have been
6287s here for ages you know that but I just
6289s want to preference cuz some people are
6290s just joining us today this is your first
6292s time seeing ashes of creation I want to
6293s make sure that you're aware and it has
6295s context the next question is are there
6297s any plans to have upkeep cost to war in
6300s addition to the initiation costs um it
6303s would be incredibly compelling to know
6305s that crafters and gatherers would have
6307s to work double time to ensure that the
6310s war can go on or even stop supporting
6312s the war if they find it
6315s unnecessary um not necessarily within
6317s the war context however I think the Crux
6320s of that question is how do we include
6323s kind of like what I said earlier yeah
6325s how do we include material resource
6328s requirements active artisanship
6331s engagement like all of these other
6334s gameplay systems how are they
6336s interconnected with a political event
6339s like War um and the way we achieve that
6341s is you know obviously there are things
6344s that can enhance your War preparedness
6347s or your War efficacy through the use of
6350s unique weapons during war unique um uh
6355s uh upgrades to your guards by supplying
6358s resources to the Barrack so that you
6360s have stronger guards at your
6362s headquarters uh or weapons and Shields
6365s and armors that can be utilized through
6367s the Barrack system um in addition
6369s vehicle support for sieges like there's
6372s a lot of different ways where crafting
6374s and artisanship plays a role as
6377s enhancing not necessarily maintenancing
6380s a particular war or feature I did hear
6383s some people asking about that stuff um
6385s so I think that Crafters out there will
6387s be excited um C craft just to be clear
6392s Crafters are the [ __ ] in ashes I said
6396s that in the past our world revoles
6398s around them AB absolutely so it's it's
6401s not just Crafters are relevant for
6403s player-to-player trading Crafters are
6405s relevant for a lot of gameplay Loops
6408s within ashes and not again in a way to
6412s kind of inhibit those things from
6413s occurring but rather to enhance them uh
6416s to give you a leg up or the your side a
6419s leg
6419s up all right and then people want to
6422s know is it possible to be hired as a
6424s mercenary when I'm not a citizen of the
6426s node uh which are in war like if I want
6431s to um as a mercenary you know there's
6435s not a direct like mercenary contract
6438s kind of system
6441s however there will be certain War
6444s Scrolls that will be available in the
6446s future not obviously at the entrance of
6448s of A2 but there will be certain War
6451s Scrolls that could be cooperative right
6454s that allow multiple nodes to kind of
6457s joint declare war um and also potential
6461s defensive packs and treaties that exist
6464s at the um at the uh uh uh diplomacy
6468s level between nodes so those types of
6470s systems are
6472s intended and I guess the people over on
6474s Discord got a bingo uh for those of you
6477s who don't ever hang out in their Discord
6479s I highly recommend it there's like a
6480s watch party going on they make a bingo
6482s card every week where or every month
6484s where they try to like guess what's
6486s going to show up on the live stream um I
6489s didn't look to see what it was but they
6490s got one what was the Bingo they got a
6492s bingo yeah it was probably that I cursed
6495s I don't know what the final thing that
6497s got them the bingo was um then I just
6500s saw someone screaming we got Bingo um
6503s can we declare oh can we declare war
6506s outside of a server Prime out of server
6508s Prime Time and PVP for 20 hours without
6512s gaining
6514s corruption you can declare war outside
6517s of the server Prime Time the key
6522s about the key about um server prime time
6526s is that uh events cater to Prime Time
6529s right so these inflection points where
6533s our expectation from a gameplay design
6536s is to allow or afford players an
6538s opportunity to participate in highly
6541s impactful you know events within the
6544s game those get delegated to Prime Time
6546s so this event that you saw today while
6549s the whole war is not determined by that
6551s event success within the event grants
6553s additional score uh uh Point score to
6557s the overall war and there may may be
6560s multiple events that occur over a
6561s multi-day war
6564s between nodes that players that the
6566s sides can catch up in um prime time does
6569s not influence War declaration so you
6571s could have a war declaration occur at an
6574s off hour time um but ultimately a war
6578s declaration is primarily just we're
6581s openly flagged against each other and
6583s these events will spawn during prime
6585s time that we need to make sure our
6588s organization our citizens are um uh
6591s organizing for and where yes
6594s exactly uh and it was a naughty
6597s word that guy I've been informed from
6600s all spaces people are pinging me uh they
6603s really wanted me to know um the next one
6606s is would a team get more points for
6608s killing a
6610s mayor uh yeah so we've talked about that
6612s in the past um that is not just a mayor
6616s we've talked about expanding that out to
6618s special positions within the node so
6621s like head of a social organization or
6623s head of a religious
6625s organization
6627s um uh we want those positions to be
6630s potentially more prized positions so
6632s they could score more points but
6634s alternatively they also might have some
6636s powers during war as well as we saw with
6638s the mayoral abilities um so yes that is
6641s that is those mayoral abilities you can
6643s only really use during the wars when
6646s those Wars are happening you can't just
6648s like use them Wily all the time CU that
6650s was something that people brought up
6652s correct oral abilities are used during
6655s war or during sieges um so to be clear
6658s what we're talking about is Wars there
6660s is a different type of conflict that
6661s occur for nodes those are sieges um
6665s those are very acute event-based
6667s situations um where you are you know
6670s warned ahead of time that this is up and
6672s coming and the sieges are also uh
6674s delegated to Prime Time cool cool and
6677s then will there be any way to
6680s differentiate color-wise between Ally
6682s and enemy
6684s spells that's a good question um I do
6687s not believe that that is something that
6689s we are intending to do um that could
6692s potentially be considered some type of
6694s accessibility option uh that we might be
6697s able to service from a tech art side of
6698s applying some type of Fel you know to
6701s the effects or um I'm not sure that's
6703s that's a good question I know that
6704s there's been discussion and some plans
6706s around that potentially as an option um
6708s but I don't have a good answer at this
6709s point right now yeah uh it's definitely
6712s a thing because people are like well how
6714s do I know if that's an enemy thing that
6715s I need to stand in or a friendly thing
6717s that I need to stand in um so we' we've
6720s had the conversations for sure um after
6723s declaring after declaring war uh are
6726s your enemies also autof flagged in the
6728s war zone or just your
6731s citizens I'm sorry say say that one more
6733s time after declaring war are your allies
6736s also autof flagged in the war zone or
6738s just citizens so let's say I'm not a
6741s citizen of this node um um I walk into
6744s high women Hills and there's a fullon
6746s battle happening um am I autof flagged
6749s as an ally of that node so previously we
6753s had discussed in the past about
6755s alliances being on the hook for sieges
6758s we had historically gone back and forth
6761s with regards to Wars uh I believe that
6764s the position we're in now from a design
6766s perspective is that certain War Scrolls
6768s and war types will induct alliances as
6773s participants of the uh declared war but
6776s not all wars will so um that is
6778s predicated on the on the war scroll used
6781s I
6782s believe right and then is there a cap of
6785s how many players can do a node War
6788s objective and can more people join while
6791s it's still in
6792s progress a node War objective you mean
6795s like in the event yeah yeah so the the
6798s events are not intended to be capped uh
6801s right now our goal is to provide a
6804s setting um where in the open world
6808s players can if they are citizens of the
6811s node or participants of the event or the
6813s War uh that they can move in at any time
6816s during the
6817s event um and participate that may be
6822s something that depends on the event type
6826s as juusto said during the during the
6828s node War live stream um there will be
6832s different types of events um I wouldn't
6835s rule rule out that some of those events
6837s might
6838s be participant
6840s restricted you're okay um and then PE
6844s people want to know about the dragons
6846s obviously they were you know each mayor
6848s had a dragon that is specific to node
6851s Wars um Can the dragon be killed what
6855s happens if a dragon dies and is there a
6857s cool
6858s down yes so um there will uh so for the
6863s purposes of Alpha 2 entrance the intent
6865s is to provide dragons to Mayors um we
6869s had talked about dragons being delegated
6871s to level six nodes uh that is still the
6874s case in the long run however we have the
6876s technology and the system built uh so we
6879s want to afford players the opportunity
6881s to interact with that during Alpha 2 uh
6883s and as a result we are going to amend
6886s the predicate requirements uh to to only
6889s be a mayor of any node level um now
6893s that uh Mount that particular Mount and
6896s any potential armors that might also be
6899s Associated as a mayoral Grant uh will be
6902s timed and associated with the mayor's uh
6904s term uh when that term ends they will
6906s lose access to those things um the
6909s intent for the gameplay space that the
6911s mount exists within is that during
6913s certain events whether it be a war a war
6916s event or a Siege the mayor will have the
6919s ability to uh utilize that mount um and
6923s that will likely come with some cost
6925s upfront that the mayor needs to um uh
6928s needs to pay in order to do that and
6931s when the mount dies they will have to
6934s essentially um uh be subject to a
6936s cooldown period for the mount to uh to
6938s be available again to use and have to
6940s pay the cost again um so it is a it is a
6943s high risk High reward uh type setting
6945s because that mount affords a unique set
6948s of abilities that the mayor then has
6950s access to for that particular event and
6952s for this demonstration we asked people
6954s to not kill the dragons not steal the
6956s dragons uh just to leave them alone
6959s specifically for this battle just
6960s because we were trying to resolve some
6962s things so just yes there's still some
6965s outstanding there's still some
6966s outstanding work there uh on on on the
6968s mount Tech right now the mount the mount
6970s Tech is very Universal and we need to
6974s have some uh specific additional um uh
6978s work done on how the mayoral Mount
6981s exists so uh part of that is like it's
6983s death state so we didn't want it to die
6985s during this because uh the death
6987s animation isn't respective of the fly
6989s versus ground state for the for The
6991s Locomotion of the dragon that would have
6993s looked weird so we kind of made sure
6994s people wouldn't attack and kill the
6996s dragon for this demonstration uh because
6997s we're still working on that um and in
7000s addition uh rights to mount the dragon
7003s uh have to be predicated on alignment or
7005s uh uh title um which is still
7007s outstanding work and just cuz I know
7009s that some people who have bought packs
7011s might have a question about this
7013s um as a mayor will I be able to swap out
7015s the Cosmetics for um the gliding Mount
7019s or flying Mount look yeah the the co the
7022s Cosmetic overrides might not be
7023s available at the start of Alpha 2 we'll
7025s we're going to see about that um however
7028s the intended experience uh uh going
7030s forward beyond the entrance ex uh
7032s criteria of Alpha 2 uh is that you will
7035s be able to apply the relevant Mount
7037s cosmetic to the type of Mount that it
7040s can be applied to um so if you have
7042s Royal Mount Cosmetics you can apply them
7044s to Royal Mount types in game yeah and
7046s the obviously the Drake of the canopy is
7048s a a cosmetic so it will not be the
7051s default it's just what we're using right
7052s now to be to set the preface for that it
7056s was cool so I wanted to use the you know
7058s it was year I'm glad you think it's cool
7059s I got to design that one so for me I was
7061s like it's cool being able to see it in
7063s the game um yes I I saw uh some people
7066s were calling at the Canadian dragon
7067s mount yeah cuz it's supposed to look
7069s like the whole point of it was it's
7070s supposed to look like a leaf kind of
7071s coming down I feel like in that
7073s situation we should have had like like
7075s syrup dripping off of the wings or
7077s something if we wanted to be fully
7078s Canadian but I wasn't going have just
7081s said AB boot oh
7084s no uh moving on from there uh we have
7088s can all nodes go to war or is this
7090s limited to
7093s vassals um all nodes of stage three or
7099s higher can declare war or be declared
7101s upon
7103s however um the jury is still out from a
7105s design perspective on whether or not uh
7108s nodes within a vassal structure can
7110s declare war against other vassals they
7113s surely cannot do it against their parent
7115s but there is some discussion about
7116s whether or not nodes can have wars
7119s potentially with each other or certain
7121s types of War Scrolls against other
7124s vassals um that probably is not going to
7127s be the case it'll probably be the case
7129s that Wars can only be declared against
7130s other vassal structures and could you uh
7134s declare war on a node that's really far
7136s away from you or do it have to because
7139s okay cool cool yeah no no no no
7140s proximity requirements cool um and then
7143s the next one here is
7146s uh wa we I think we already answered the
7149s mayor ability one and then why are some
7152s enemies Health plates shown completely
7155s and why are others shown in quarters I I
7157s know that we've I don't know if we've
7159s answered this before but we definitely
7161s were answering this in uh voice chat and
7163s in text chat so I just wanted to clarify
7165s for people who are watching The Stream
7168s So they have an understanding yeah so so
7171s enemy name enemy name plates are shown
7175s in quarters and the reason for that is
7178s as we've discussed in the past um that
7180s there is an element of decision making
7183s that happens differently in PvP when you
7187s do not have direct insight into the
7190s exact percentage of your enemy Target
7192s this Pro this provides a bit of fog of
7195s war and non-specific calculation to the
7198s types of rotation and abilities that
7199s you're going to use um that obfuscation
7203s in my opinion is more compelling um now
7206s why can you see other name plates with
7208s full health that's because those are
7209s your allies those people are or their
7212s NPCs correct their allies or NPCs so you
7215s will see NPC exact hit points because
7218s prescribed rotations is is I don't feel
7221s anything unique in a PVE setting and
7224s then obviously if you're in a raid if
7225s you're in a guild if you're a fellow
7227s citizen if you're in a party you can see
7229s their hitpoint uh um exact values as
7232s well um and then Additionally you may
7235s have seen from the different
7236s perspectives you know each of us as a
7237s player had different settings that we're
7240s comfortable with uh with regards to name
7242s plates there's a lot of optim there's a
7244s lot of customization options that are
7246s available for uh name plate settings
7248s that players have the ability to kind of
7250s you know curate for their own EXP
7253s experience all right and with that we're
7256s going to wrap up our node Wars preview
7258s section and a lot of questions I know
7260s and move on to some more stuff uh but
7263s before we do so I do want to know that
7264s there is a thread up over on our forums
7267s um we would love for your feedback on no
7269s Wars on this node Wars preview so if you
7271s do have thoughts please send them over
7273s to us are there any specific questions
7275s you want to ask people um as they're
7277s they're thinking about their feedback
7278s and they're posting feedback for us over
7280s on the forums yeah I mean you know
7283s obviously uh the the interaction of the
7287s node event was the central focus of this
7290s particular live stream um you know what
7293s we're wanting to collect feedback on is
7295s where's the balance between kind of PVE
7297s objectives and PVP objectives what is
7301s the kind of um you know expectation from
7305s you know a mass battle perspective and
7307s like small group teams kind of uh um uh
7311s achieving smaller group objectives um
7315s what is uh the frequency of these events
7318s that you want to see and how much of an
7320s impact do you want these events to have
7323s on the overall War um what are some of
7326s the uh um types of interactions between
7330s nodes that you want to see in these war
7332s types these different types of War
7334s rewards that you think might be cool um
7337s some of the event rewards that we talked
7339s about you know incentivizing players the
7341s incursion of territory the stealing of
7343s relics that we talked a little bit about
7346s um this is obviously a very big system
7349s it has a lot of connective tissue across
7351s other systems as well um and so because
7354s of that you know any kind of commentary
7356s that you guys have from the players's
7358s perspective and other games that you've
7360s played which have had either similar
7361s features or unique features that you
7363s think could be applied feel free to give
7365s us that feedback talk to us a little bit
7367s about it and what did you like about
7368s today's presentation what do you think
7370s could have been done better keeping in
7371s mind of course that uh visual effects UI
7376s um the performance those are three main
7378s categories of areas that we are
7380s continuing to work on so when you see
7382s anybody either in twitch chat on YouTube
7385s in Discord on Twitter wherever you see
7387s conversation about what we've showed
7389s today and people say the visual effects
7392s look you know like soup or the UI needs
7394s work or whatever you can feel confident
7396s saying we Intrepid has addressed that
7399s that is something they are working on um
7401s we expect to see up dates on that in the
7403s future you know let's talk about these
7405s things in the presentation what did you
7407s think about these things right yeah
7411s sounds perfect um with that we will move
7413s on to Studio updates so let's pull back
7419s to the bigger macro of uh interpret
7422s Studios how are things going how are you
7424s feeling things are going towards Alpha
7426s to because I feel like that is really
7427s the question that players have uh we
7430s have announced that we will be uh
7432s launching Alpha 2 in quarter 3 that is
7434s where we're at least where we're
7436s planning if that is that changes we will
7438s let you guys know but that is currently
7439s still where we're planning to to launch
7442s yeah I think I I think that like you
7444s know from a from a studio like you know
7447s 10,000 foot picture you know progress
7449s towards Alpha 2 um I'm still confident
7453s that we're going to hit our third
7454s quarter date uh I believe that um that
7458s what I'm looking for our team to
7459s continue focusing on going into
7461s Milestone 10 and completing mil
7463s Milestone 9 is buttoning up the last
7466s remaining um Feature work which is
7467s relatively minimal at this point um
7470s polish up uh some of the gameplay
7472s systems some of the visual effects some
7473s of the UI that we talked about making a
7476s big hit on performance both Network and
7478s client performance um and then
7480s addressing golden path and economy uh
7482s work those are kind of like okay we've
7485s set the stage features are in a good
7488s spot for where we expect to enter into
7489s Alpha 2 um we're representing all the
7492s core gameplay systems that we looking to
7494s collect feedback initially from alpha
7496s 2's entrance um and then we have a plan
7498s to kind of trickle out additional
7500s updates post Alpha 2 entrance um but we
7503s need to get the golden path down we need
7504s to get the econ uh side of things down
7507s both from an artisanship available drop
7509s lists reward tables and and uh material
7512s components like all of those things uh
7515s econ is working on heavily right now and
7516s will continue to work heavily on and
7518s then of course the VFX pass the UI and
7520s the and the performance and all the bug
7523s fixing sorry I don't want interrupt I
7524s was trying to find a space when you
7525s weren't talking I don't want to
7527s interrupt you um can you talk a little
7529s bit about more what the golden path is
7531s because I know what that is but I don't
7532s think the audience is aware of yeah yeah
7535s I think I think the golden path is
7537s different for every game right like um
7539s you have a much stronger railroaded
7543s golden path when you talk about theme
7545s park games that's like hey the player
7547s starts out at level one and by the time
7550s they're level two they should have done
7552s this by the time they're level four they
7553s should have done this by the time
7555s they're level six they should be here
7557s right we have a little bit of a a more
7562s difficult approach to the golden path
7563s because our game is not as prescribed it
7566s is intended to be more sandboxy and
7569s because of that the golden path can
7570s really take a lot of different
7571s directions and we need to provide those
7574s options right exactly it's not you can
7576s come back and do something at a totally
7578s different time you could just straight
7580s 90° bolt over towards the sand Squall
7583s desert or something right like those
7585s those are kind those are kind of the
7586s complications that we have when defining
7588s a golden path but essentially what a
7590s golden path is like you know by the time
7592s a player reaches a certain level they
7594s should have acquired their first Mount
7596s they should have completed their first
7598s Mastery of profession they should have
7600s done these things that have introduced
7602s them in a shallow way to a lot of the
7605s core gameplay systems and narratively
7609s they should have kind of gotten a sense
7611s for the world where they are who they
7612s are why they are right and now be an
7616s awareness of you know these major iconic
7620s landmarks and points of interest nowhere
7623s you're you know all of that stuff goes
7626s into creating identity for the game and
7629s familiarity for the player um and that's
7632s essentially what a golden path is people
7634s want you to rename it to a golden tree
7636s instead um a golden on fire Lavar ridden
7640s tree you know
7643s um but terminology aside um hopefully
7646s that answers the question for you guys I
7647s think everything else was pretty
7648s straightforward um do you want to talk a
7650s little bit about our hiring and where we
7653s are with that as well we we we have been
7656s on fire um with regards to hiring we've
7660s we have brought on board some
7662s significant number of people um who are
7666s talented best-in-class developers who
7668s are MMO Centric players that are excited
7672s about the product we're producing and
7674s can't wait to play it themselves that's
7676s always the the the best um that you can
7680s hope for when building a team that is
7682s trying to deliver on a promise like
7684s ashes um and so I couldn't be any more
7686s ecstatic with that I know that we've had
7688s a lot of applications we've had a lot of
7691s interviews for the team that can be a
7693s bit disruptive to kind of the workf flow
7696s that we need to have but I think the
7697s team has Managed IT well Cameron's done
7700s a phenomenal job from a recruiting St
7702s point with regards to our HR team um so
7705s yeah things are going great on if you
7706s haven't heard back from us just give us
7707s some Grace um you know we we've got one
7710s awesome recruiter trying to respond to
7713s hundreds of applications so uh give us
7716s some time but we will get back to you
7717s whether you are moving forward with us
7719s or not you will get a response so just
7722s um you know hold hang tight um and then
7725s with that I'm going to move us on to our
7728s Q&A from the forums and as usual I will
7733s provide some visuals from our uh node
7737s preview so the first one here is from
7740s netos who wants to know about war
7742s Logistics to what extent will Logistics
7745s and supply lines be integrated into node
7749s Wars yeah so um there has been some
7753s discussion around certain event types
7757s requiring um those types of supplies
7760s within certain time frames right so kind
7763s of
7764s um kind of acquiring material resources
7767s transporting those material resources to
7770s specific locations being stage
7773s components of event types um so in that
7776s sense we do want to simulate these ideas
7778s of logistics and supply lines uh but
7781s that's delicated to specific War event
7783s types right and then Frosty Thunder trod
7787s wants to know about avoiding War can a
7789s mayor voluntarily derank their node to
7792s avoid war no they cannot and then demsky
7796s wants to know about node War instancing
7798s are node Wars or any part of node War's
7801s instance or will they entirely take
7803s place in the open world so that
7804s alliances can influence the
7806s war we have talked in the past about
7809s certain objectives being instanced in
7811s order to control the participation
7814s number so like for example if you're in
7816s the middle of a war and there's a cave
7818s off to the side that holds a a special
7821s fountain
7822s with water that you need to like
7824s magically imbue the primary objective
7826s for the war Victory um only eight people
7829s can enter right and so you you pick your
7832s best exactly pick your Champion so like
7835s that could be potentially some type of
7837s feature component that we incorporate as
7839s part of War events in the future um so
7841s it could be right now the predominance
7843s of War events and War activities will be
7845s delegated to the open award all right
7848s and then top wombat I don't know how he
7852s was selected as the top wombat but they
7854s are uh vassel they want to know about
7856s vassel wars can you please explain the
7858s reason why nodes canot be or cannot
7862s declare war on their parent or vassal
7865s nodes um they've lost that battle
7867s already the reason that they're a vassel
7869s is because they they were outranked by
7871s their parent um and that's right the
7873s clutch the yeah the clutches of vassal
7877s ship are strong and any insubordination
7880s or upright
7882s is killed in its roots uh so if you want
7884s like a lore reason like that's the
7886s reason why uh if you want from a game
7888s design perspective reason like vassel
7890s structures are intended to be supportive
7892s it's not really meant to be a depressing
7896s event you're not supposed to a [ __ ] you
7897s know I got we're vassel I'm not going to
7899s level up this is trash I want to go to a
7902s different no no when you get vassal like
7904s you are getting benefits from your
7907s parent node you are now a part of a
7909s structure that can assist others
7912s uh and yourself uh as a result of that
7915s relationship if you don't want to be
7917s vassal then you have an option to leave
7919s that node and become a citizen elsewhere
7920s and that's a that's a choice that you
7922s can make now with that being said I did
7924s allude to earlier us considering some
7928s War scroll types that might provide
7932s vassals the opportunity to declare a war
7935s against other vassals whether or not
7937s that's going to be something at the
7938s launch of the game is a different
7940s question that sounds to me like a could
7941s be an interesting expansion kind of
7943s update where you know certain structures
7946s get a little bit kind of complacent and
7948s boring and they let's shake it up a
7950s little bit and have some rivalry within
7952s the vassal ship that sounds kind of cool
7954s but I don't think it's going to be a
7956s part of the initial launch of the game
7958s all right so definitely keep that in
7960s mind uh Leonardo wants to know about
7962s large scale Wars will node Wars between
7964s two Metropolis nodes mostly manifest in
7968s the bordering vassel node Network or
7970s will there be systems that incentivize
7972s players to invade farther Into the Heart
7975s of an opposing Metro vassel
7978s Network yeah I I I I I don't think that
7983s these events are delegated just to The
7985s Fringe um I think that there are event
7987s types which might have an objective to
7990s steal a relic from the heart of a vassel
7992s territory right like you know a deep
7995s dive into uh a territory I think I think
7999s that you know Chris and and some of the
8000s ideas that the system team have come up
8002s with with you know regards to these war
8005s types and these event types um
8008s absolutely could could utilize some
8010s really deep dive into territory I think
8013s that's cool all right and then falth
8016s wants to know about war scoreboard uh we
8018s didn't show this on the screen for some
8020s reason it didn't pop up for you but we
8022s do have one uh will there be a
8023s scoreboard detailing the most active
8026s participants achievements during the
8028s node War things like players KDA damage
8031s heing D objectives Etc absolutely you'll
8034s be able to see yours and um you will be
8036s able to see if um I believe it's if
8039s people choose to share we might have
8041s added that addition to it but uh you'll
8043s be able to see
8044s yours for sure and you may be able to
8047s see others if they opt in yeah like it
8050s pops up when event is over and it kind
8052s of shows you your scores yes yeah yeah
8054s yeah but um we do have it actually in
8056s game right now it's I I just don't know
8057s why Stevens didn't pop up I thought I I
8059s thought I did take a look at that maybe
8062s after we killed after we initially
8064s murdered you guys at the gates of Mirth
8066s I think I opened that up but um but that
8069s will be expanded upon in the future it's
8070s kind of bare bones right now it just
8072s reflects your score during the war gotta
8075s and then dra o6 wants to know about war
8078s objectives how many objectives must be
8080s completed in order to win a node war and
8083s will they all be PVP style objectives or
8086s will PVE players have a chance to shine
8090s yeah I think that there there will be so
8092s again depending on the war scroll type
8095s there will be unique objectives some of
8098s which intersect with non-pvp style um uh
8104s uh um achievements right pvx so yeah
8108s well I mean I just mean yeah pvx or PVP
8111s right there might be purely PVE
8113s objectives uh that could be a part of
8116s acquiring points for the overall War it
8120s kind of depends on what your mayor
8121s chooses to select right as like the
8123s options yeah absolutely the war scroll
8125s type is is instrumental in the purview
8128s of that particular engagement and so how
8130s many we be here all day if we list them
8132s all out I know and and again again just
8134s to be clear like the purpose of these
8137s demonstrations isn't to fully lift the
8139s skirt up and show everything we have
8142s right it's like Ste well excuse me let
8144s me phrase that full fully lift the jeans
8146s up and no I'm just kidding but um the
8149s the idea is to get your guys's feedback
8153s before we further flesh these out and
8156s further develop the additional war types
8158s and the additional event types and you
8160s know everything that goes into making
8162s this type of a system compelling now is
8165s your opportunity to take a look at what
8167s we've done at a base level at an alpha
8170s level and say yeah I really like your
8173s goals and ideas about this this this
8175s this and this and that validates for us
8178s this direction is accurate and now we
8180s are going to continue continue develop
8181s in that direction um again it feels
8185s maybe a bit foreign to have this
8187s approach from a development perspective
8189s but the best way in my opinion to ensure
8193s that what we come out with on launch day
8196s is what players want is to take this
8199s course of development um and so with
8201s that being said don't look at the
8203s presentation and say you know this is
8205s going to be every war this is going to
8206s be every event take a look at it and say
8209s okay I've now heard him talk about where
8212s they're going with this that all sounds
8214s great or I would like it to change in
8216s this way provide that feedback and then
8219s Margaret and her team put together that
8221s in a nice beautiful buttoned up package
8224s and takes it straight to the developers
8226s and then the developers get to use
8228s everything you guys have said and that
8229s their team has highlighted and say you
8232s know what that is a good freaking idea
8233s let's let's talk about that a little bit
8235s or no that doesn't fit because of this
8237s this this this or this and we punt that
8240s idea like that's that's generally the
8241s interaction yeah and you will see some
8244s of your feedback being put into CA into
8247s action as you play through node Wars in
8250s Alpha 2 once we compile this and send it
8252s over they're going to make they're still
8254s going to be making changes to the system
8255s before you see it again and just to be
8257s clear like several years ago uh I
8260s mandated at the company that we record
8261s all of our meetings and so one thing
8264s that I think is going to be real fun do
8267s series is after we launched the game and
8270s you know people are playing and whatnot
8272s we can go back and do like In-Depth docu
8275s series on how did this particular
8277s feature come to life and you can hear
8280s Margaret and her team talking about well
8282s this player and then she'll say the name
8284s said this and then Roshan will say this
8286s player said this and you'll hear the dev
8288s team come back and say what they think
8291s about that right and and I just think
8292s that's such a unique interaction that
8295s that doesn't exist across the majority
8298s of teams and it's a shame because
8301s it is such a
8303s strong interaction to have I have
8306s mentioned this before that um maybe not
8308s on the live stream but that it has been
8310s amazing working for a company that uh
8313s really respects Community I've you know
8315s I've been in Community Management for a
8317s really long time giving feedback to
8319s developers and often sometimes you're at
8321s companies where they don't appreciate
8324s that as much or they're like okay cool
8326s whatever um or you look at who watched
8328s and looked at the reports and you can
8330s tell that no one read them or no one
8332s comes to the meetings to hear the
8334s feedback so I think that for us it's
8337s been pretty awesome having those people
8339s be really engaged and reading our
8341s reports and actually taking action and
8344s making changes based on uh things that
8346s we send um the next question here is
8348s from neurotoxin and they want to know
8350s about war occurrences how often do you
8353s suspect node Wars will occur between
8356s nodes across the
8358s server um the node Wars how often do I
8362s expect them to occur M
8365s um like for Alpha 2's purposes uh
8368s probably pretty often because the way
8371s we've delegated it to the commission
8373s system um I think affords the mayor a
8376s bit more power than what some
8379s constraints in the reputation system
8381s will provide nodes uh for launch so I
8385s think in Alpha 2 we're likely going to
8387s see it a bit more prevalent than what we
8389s will see for the intended version of it
8391s come launch because it will be governed
8393s to some degree by a reputation score
8396s which has a lot of different influences
8398s and factors kind of keeping those values
8401s up and
8402s down okay uh and then we this is the
8404s penultimate question then we have one
8406s more uh from the hippo they want to know
8408s about war pugging what types of benefits
8411s will there be for people acting as
8413s mercenaries for each side of the node
8415s War actually you already answer this
8417s there won't be there won't be
8419s mercenaries right
8422s there are not there are not mercenaries
8424s there are mercenaries that are NPC
8427s mercenaries uh that will be um available
8431s for node sieges and Castle sieges but
8433s not in node Wars okay cool uh so we'll
8435s move on to kadak question from about no
8438s dipl no diplomacy by what means can
8441s Mayors conduct diplomacy with other
8443s Mayors are there any tools that are
8446s available to them for Alpha 2 entrance
8449s that diplomacy is going to be primarily
8450s had had within chat um for the uh for uh
8456s updates during Alpha 2 and for launch
8458s obviously um there will be a number of
8460s different powers mechanisms that include
8463s uh trade routes trade agreements certain
8466s Cooperative um uh events uh trading um
8472s uh um uh relics that could be had you
8476s know which kind of influence and um keep
8480s the relation ship and reputation score
8482s between those nodes at a level where war
8484s is not even possible um so uh that's the
8488s long-term share resources instead of
8491s beating you to ashes absolutely and and
8494s again just to come back to like what is
8496s the core design philosophy and tenant
8498s behind you know conflict versus
8501s cooperation cooperation builds the world
8504s right and that's usually through PVE
8506s objectives and then conflict through PVP
8510s or pvx is what changes that Paradigm um
8513s and so you know that's that's kind of a
8515s relationship where when it becomes out
8517s of balance you're going to see the world
8520s State be unique uh as a result of that
8524s and different servers are going to have
8526s different achievements and situations as
8529s a result of that interaction between the
8532s players all right and with that that
8535s concludes the questions and answers we
8538s answered a lot to things today hopefully
8543s sustained um but of course we do want
8545s your feedback head on over to Ash's of
8548s creation or forums tell us your thoughts
8551s on on all the things it doesn't even
8553s have to be just this live stream but we
8554s do have a thread up for this live stream
8556s specifically um and we just want uh to
8561s preface this because I know that a lot
8562s of people are going to ask this question
8564s now that they're knowing and seeing that
8566s Pi have been actively testing with us we
8569s are currently testing with pi that's
8570s going to be our Focus right now but we
8572s will we do plan to expand that to our
8575s alpha 1 users at some point and when we
8577s do we we will notify you all via email
8579s so just kind of keep an eye on that and
8581s we'll make sure you're aware as we move
8583s forward and I and I would like to give a
8585s very specific shout out to Pi um because
8589s but go for oh I'm sorry no no I don't
8591s want to usur I don't want go for it all
8594s right yeah I just I just wanted to say
8596s that um you know testing isn't all fun
8601s and Rosy right it it can be it can be
8604s exhausting um it can be
8607s frustrating uh it can be a lot of no fun
8610s and um I think for the purposes crashing
8613s a lot a lot of yeah lot of a lot of [ __ ]
8615s can hit the fan with regards to to
8617s testing um now we have our internal QA
8620s teams right and we test internally but
8623s there's there's nothing quite as real as
8627s having actual players actual Gamers that
8630s are a part part of the testing process
8633s and you know in certain capacities we
8636s are not yet um able willing or want to
8639s invite larger portions of the community
8642s to participate in that testing right
8643s that's what we're working towards and so
8647s we must and we have successfully and in
8650s much in in M much of this is attributed
8653s to just the quality of people who are
8657s part of the Phoenix initiative group um
8660s built a rapport with those players where
8662s we can rely on a relationship with them
8666s they're going to give us unbridled
8668s feedback they're going to be real about
8670s the feedback they're going to be raw
8672s about their
8674s experience and I think we went through
8676s six different play tests uh over the
8678s course of the last couple of months with
8680s pi yep around this particular feature um
8683s or the set of
8684s features and they stuck in there
8687s sometimes it was I think one time we had
8688s like an eight hour straight day
8691s not for these we've we've mostly been
8694s doing like three hour segments okay so
8697s the last one was longer it was six hours
8701s um okay got it that was a recording day
8704s we had a six hour we had a six hour day
8706s right um where where they stuck through
8710s so I just want to say to the community
8712s Bravo to the quality of community that
8717s this project this game has attracted
8721s um I think it is a testament to what
8725s sets MMOs apart from other genres is the
8730s connectivity the elasticity that exists
8734s Within These players right those of you
8737s who are fundamentally interested and
8741s invested in the outcome of a game that
8744s you get to enjoy for hopefully years to
8747s come um and so they just hats off to
8751s they did a phenomenal job they stuck
8752s through it um and they afforded us an
8754s opportunity to really iterate on the
8756s game to improve the performance um and
8760s just want to give a big thanks to Pi we
8762s should get some hearts in chat for them
8764s they did a phenomenal job they they were
8766s amazing so we definitely want to give
8767s them a shout out and also we have lifted
8769s the verbal NDA for them and we also gave
8772s them approval on a few screenshots that
8774s they are welcome to share so we're
8775s letting them have the have the glory of
8777s sharing those and sharing their thoughts
8779s so you can definitely reach out to those
8781s folks and ask them what their thoughts
8782s are I saw a bunch of them already
8783s sharing their thoughts in Discord um so
8786s if you do want to pop in Discord and
8787s hear their thoughts on things they've
8789s already been sharing a bunch of their um
8792s experiences from those six spot tests
8795s that they were part of so
8798s yeah uh and with that uh we also want to
8802s extend a thank you to all of you for
8804s sticking with us for this long stream um
8807s and of course with our journey uh it's
8809s been a long one and I think that you
8810s know those of you who have been with us
8812s for a long time you've Contin continued
8814s to see the progress we've made that's
8816s the whole point of these like Stephen
8817s had mentioned earlier is to share that
8819s progress uh we want you to see it um I
8821s know it's a lot different than what
8823s you're used to many games do not share
8825s this early on so like we said
8827s everything's work in progress um but we
8829s do want to thank you for for joining us
8831s and if it's not your bag of tea if this
8832s is the first time you tuning you're like
8834s I don't want to wait long time for a
8836s game you know we welcome you to step
8838s away too for your own sanity cuz it is
8841s this is not going to be a game quite yet
8843s until we get closer to launch um and
8845s with that we also want to thank our
8847s Zachs we have both our wonderful
8850s performance and client side Zachs uh we
8852s have Nathan who is our producer thank
8855s you so much he was phenomenal and trying
8857s to keep track of everything it was a
8858s wild time me and him had some late
8861s nights together trying to make sure
8863s builds were ready to go for next days um
8866s Chris for all of the work and Kyle and
8869s TRD and Keenan uh we super duper appre
8872s all appreciate you all and for all the
8874s things that you've worked on and then of
8875s course all the other folks that were not
8877s able to partake in the Showcase but we
8879s have a lot of developers working very
8880s hard uh to make ashes of creation come
8883s to life and they are very much
8886s appreciated and of course Stephen even
8889s here with his eye in pain oh my God you
8892s have no idea everyone keeps going like
8894s why is he wearing sunglasses yeah I'm so
8896s I'm sorry I have a scratch on my right
8899s eye and right now any any light that I
8901s see is like incredibly painful so I
8906s apologize for that the sunglasses are
8907s helping this video will be up over on
8909s our YouTube channel the uh the showcase
8912s for just the node War preview is already
8914s up we'll be sharing that out with
8915s everybody so you can go watch it relive
8917s it you know check it out I'm sure the
8919s content creators are going to enjoy
8921s every moment of all of that content um
8923s and of course we will have this full
8925s development update tomorrow pending
8927s YouTube and twitch want to cooperate
8929s with each other um and of course I when
8933s we upload that if you would like to get
8935s your comment spotlighted in our next
8937s development update make sure that you
8938s are subscribed publicly and leave a
8941s comment on the development update for
8942s May and you may be selected for next
8945s month and of course we are on all of the
8947s things that ashes of creation WE Post
8949s daily sometimes multiple times a day uh
8952s so we definitely try to share with you
8953s guys things throughout the month uh for
8956s you to engage in and be part of and
8957s sometimes it's stuff that you get to
8959s vote on and it changes in the game like
8961s if I for inventory or B for bag is your
8964s preference one time we did that so uh
8968s definitely keep an eye out on all of our
8970s social channels and join us on Discord
8971s and forums as well and we will see you
8973s all next month for another update where
8976s we'll be getting really Tech heavy so
8979s prepare your brains for
8981s that all right bye everybody bye
8984s everybody
8985s [Music]
8990s n
8999s [Music]

👀 Take a look at our May Development Update to see all the glorious PvP combat! https://youtu.be/9NdAdmJJkvA

https://preview.redd.it/ox1anidy404d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=c81cbc0f6858b827fc4a71c1d34802052aae85be

❓ What did you enjoy most about this month’s stream?

External link →