about 1 year ago - Ashes of Creation - Direct link

Transcript (by Youtube)


1s thank you
20s hello everyone and welcome to another
24s stream
25s from Vera
27s we have been building
31s up I think to this moment a little bit
33s in the showcase for the tower at Carfin
37s and
39s I think there's been some lore that
42s we've released during last November's
45s extra life live stream
47s we played through a portion I believe of
50s this Tower
51s and now we have an opportunity to take a
55s look together a little sneak peek a
57s small portion of this area and the lore
61s behind it
63s and we're also going to take a focus
64s with
66s some of the developers that will be
68s joining us here in a second I'll
69s introduce them
70s into the system of our story arcs and
73s how that system works in reflecting the
77s changes that players
80s elicit from the world of era
83s so I want to introduce
86s um
87s one of our senior designers
90s Scott
91s how are you doing buddy
93s doing very good thank you for asking
95s welcome welcome to your design become
99s reality
100s thank you
103s this is Scott has been working on the
106s narrative for this particular story arc
108s that we're all going to see in a second
111s um with his with his team with whom we
113s are joined by one of our designers I
116s mean I me how you doing
118s hi I'm doing good Stephen
121s welcome this is I think is this your
122s first time on the Stream
125s it is yeah that is awesome I mean is one
128s of our incredibly talented designers who
132s is helping create the narrative around
134s Vera
137s and um
139s you guys may have played some of her
140s quests in uh Alpha One actually one in
144s particular is the I believe it was the
146s Lost pages and the um that spider Quest
150s was that right I mean were those yours
152s those were my quests yeah thanks to
155s remembering that I know they're great
158s yeah and we're super excited to join
160s today
162s we're very excited um to have you and
166s then in addition we have uh what is soon
170s becoming a regular on the streams
172s um Mr Jeremy one of our senior designers
175s how you doing buddy
176s doing good happy to show off Scott's
179s Masterpiece creation here yeah
182s oh my goodness laying it on thick I know
186s wow I love it pretty exciting it is
189s exciting it is exciting I mean I've
190s always said that noses that do hotness
193s that we've been showing and story arcs
195s are the new hotness we've been hiding
196s yes agreed totally agree so one of the
200s first things that you guys are going to
202s notice in this environment
205s is that we have this perspective of the
208s of the Tower
209s and I think
212s Scott do you want to talk a little bit
215s about story arcs as a system
218s uh yeah sure so
220s it's it's helpful I think to think about
223s story arcs is kind of like a like a
225s pre-packaged tabletop campaign they
227s contain like all of the NPCs and quests
230s and monsters like all the things you
231s need to make a like a cool fantasy story
233s uh they're not procedure generated we
236s author them uh we write all the dialogue
237s and we construct all the narrative beats
239s and everything like that but uh they
242s will enter the world dynamically
244s depending on the state that the world is
247s currently in how players have built up
250s specific nodes like what races control
252s various nodes uh we have plans to
255s include lots of different things on top
256s of that
258s um
258s but yeah it's it's we don't have any
261s Quest hubs or anything like that in this
262s game because players build up all the
265s cities so we had to get a system that
267s kind of looks at what players are doing
268s and can inject content into the world
271s that makes sense for what they're doing
273s it as like the um the world decides in
276s the state that it's in that we're gonna
278s now play this module we're gonna because
281s of the state of the nodes beating this
283s way and certain races have this one
285s we're gonna play first of straw we're
288s gonna do blood still do we're gonna do
290s this modules and things so one of the
293s things that I find most unique about our
296s story arc system is that they're
298s intended to
300s represent change change within the story
305s of what Vera is telling and we don't
308s just do that through
310s these new Quest logs and and and
312s dialogue but also by literally changing
316s the environments and showing these
319s active states that represent what is
322s happening and what choices the players
324s have made previously in the different
325s chapters perhaps
327s of other story arcs Scott I know that we
331s have been working hard on this your team
332s has been working particularly hard and
334s with engineering to kind of stand the
336s system up over the last several months
339s but you have the ability to push us into
342s the next chapter manually correct
345s yeah uh normally this is a story that
348s would require us to have built up some
351s of the nodes in the area either you
355s could just build up Miralax directly to
357s get access to where we're going or any
359s of the nodes in the riverlands could
360s have leveled up to a certain amount to
364s have
364s basically enabled the story to spawn but
366s I'll just
367s I'll just turn this on for us now
369s manually let's see that's good get ready
372s ladies and gentlemen all right welcome I
375s push it takes a second but it will kick
377s on to the Tower
379s of carfa
384s and
386s Houston
388s there it goes
392s uh-oh
402s oh things are getting red
405s the complete at
408s what is that
411s the blood oh the blood's still do
416s there it is it's paying right now oh my
420s gosh
423s so yeah when sterics come online they
425s change a lot the environment they update
427s what monsters are in the world
430s um they create Quest NPCs you can see
433s Oren he's not normally here we've moved
435s him for the sake of this
438s um and then yeah new Pathways can open
440s up
441s through the environment
444s is the bridge moving
446s yeah
449s oh my gosh
452s oh that's nasty what are the vines
456s uh it's you know it's corruption there's
459s so a very
462s a very terrible curse uh is sort of
466s remaining here after a
468s uh sort of desperate spell was cast
471s during the harbinger apocalypse uh you
474s saw a bit of that spell being replayed
476s at the top of the tower there
478s but when the Ancients were advancing
481s toward the alien Capital where Carfin is
484s sort of strategically positioned between
485s where the harbinger Comet landed and the
488s alien Capital
490s the Mages here and Carfin was known
492s throughout the alien Empire for its
494s magical prowess the head Mage here did a
498s very desperate and dangerous spell to
501s slow the Ancients advance and that was
504s to buy the time for the for the capital
507s of Ayla where they were building one of
510s the Divine gateways yeah exactly yes
513s right they needed more time they needed
516s they needed to make space for them they
519s did something pretty terrible to do that
521s they bought them a time but as you can
523s see this once great city has suffered
526s a great cost
528s wow this is um I like the little jump
530s puzzle this is awesome
534s what is that here all the time
537s um the story arc helped this bridge form
541s this bridge might also appear if you've
543s leveled up uh miralith enough to create
546s kind of this pathway otherwise there's
548s other ways to get there but more
550s dangerous ways is that a uh
553s what is that down there
559s oh I like how the light just lit up to
562s showcase the uh
564s the body that's crazy that's super cool
568s and the so now the the spawn tables
573s around the
576s city of Carfin
578s have changed as a result of the story
580s arc progression
582s right so normally uh when the city is
586s not in its cursed State you've got a
588s whole subset of like uh
590s like constructs and various other like
593s Arcane things like you saw the animated
595s armors and stuff like that well the
597s answers yeah yeah well the curses and
600s effects we've got these uh watch Holes
603s um these Seekers here uh who they have
605s their own sort of story and reason for
607s being here while the curse is active
610s um Ultra sneakers yeah yeah
615s wow oh my God there's someone uh
619s watchful watching their backs
622s as they're doing what they're doing
624s wow
626s the environment team did an unbelievable
629s job here I did a killer job on this yeah
632s this looks so good
637s it's a blood curse they really took that
640s personally
641s they said oh you want to see what
643s corruption looks like I know
645s what is talk to us a little bit about
648s blood Magic versus just normal
650s corruption
652s so yeah blood magic is a sort of illegal
656s kind of magic and using it in any
659s amounts creates a certain amount of
661s corruption in the caster
664s um and that corruption can bleed over
665s into the environments and things that
666s they draw Essence from in order to cast
668s those spells this was uh this is a blood
672s magic that
673s obviously consumed a whole heck of a lot
676s of it she wasn't intending for this kind
679s of After Effects no no uh
683s yeah the the major cast of this did not
686s was not able to understand the scope of
688s the destruction that that would cause uh
691s but also in the final you know the final
694s days of you know ancient Vera during the
696s harbinger apocalypse like you didn't
699s have a lot of research there was not a
700s whole lot of deliberation there wasn't a
702s lot of uh
703s a whole lot of like magical research and
705s safety precautions that they could take
709s um
710s so yeah
714s did his job but you know
717s yeah it seemed to
719s um like even if it delayed a lot of the
722s a lot of the progress they made towards
724s the portal it seemed like they really
726s created a lot of Destruction along the
727s way
730s uh Carphone itself has a lot of History
732s built into the environment here too
734s you'll see lots of statues and stuff
736s around that uh go into it one of the
740s five of the five main city-states by
743s primary city-states of the island people
746s then they would form into the island
749s Empire following the Great War of the
751s undyne with Ancient King aatrax right
754s now so many people
756s orange are just like oh my God we're
759s finally getting lower
762s oh we could go all day on it if you want
764s we could yeah no we don't want to give
765s it all away
768s well the story uh is kind of told over
771s the course of four phases four chapters
774s uh each chapter will update spawns
778s change the quest givers change what
780s quests are available and that's across
783s the server not it's not like your
785s individual progress
787s um faces that is the actual quests
789s themselves you can progress kind of at
791s your own pace but as long as it's within
793s the window that quest's phase being
794s active I mean
797s who honestly has this much blood to
799s spare this is crazy this is
802s we're actually trying to figure out the
804s signs of like if you took an entire
806s saves worth of people how many cups of
808s blood would you have
810s probably not very many
814s less than you think but it wouldn't be
815s as dramatic if we're super realistic
817s with it oh it's magic
819s yeah it's magic
821s persistent and eternal yeah
824s unless we can do something about this
826s curse
832s foreign
839s if you stopped and talked to Oren and
842s pick up that Quest or not oh no I did
844s not oh that's okay I think you still
847s have how can I all the quests that were
849s in there before yeah let me grab it what
850s how do I open my journal again what is
852s that that's uh it's l l that's right
854s yeah let's open your journals oh yeah
855s there we go yeah you can see there's
857s other story arcs going on as well uh the
860s phase timers in there indicate how much
862s real world time is available to like do
865s the quests in that phase I see um and uh
868s what quests you do or the quest that you
871s do like it's not just a matter of
872s completing the the laundry list of
874s things that the NPC has you do but you
876s pick from a whole bunch of objectives
878s many of them optional some of them if
880s not most of them hidden when you first
882s undertake the quest
884s um so you know go dig up a guide or
885s Blaze your own trail or whatever but
887s depending on which objectives you
889s complete those are the things that help
890s the server aggregate what is going to
893s happen in later phases of the story arc
895s and that's like across all the players
897s participating
898s um during that time frame what what
900s objectives they decide to complete all
902s right that's what drives what happens in
904s later
905s awesome what quests are available what
907s what NPCs are pulling ahead of other
908s NPCs in terms of their progress toward
910s their goals
912s and how you complete your your quest
915s matters
916s yes
917s yeah with some objectives you know being
919s exclusive of one another so helping one
921s NPC will lock you out of helping a
922s different NPC
924s um
926s so yeah it's
927s no no no
930s wow I'm just I'm just taking in the
933s sheer
934s Beauty but also like a kind of gross
937s Beauty
938s um of this environment
942s it is so eerie
945s I think even the um corrupted trees you
948s can Harvest them
951s you can find some of them that you can
953s Harvest
955s and chop them down oh really
959s yeah they're a little bit hard to spot
961s though
962s well also the um
966s I believe that
968s as part of these environments changing
971s you're also activating rare resource
974s spawners that might only occur during
976s certain events
978s yeah that's correct so yeah yeah like
981s corrupted Soul Bloom
984s um and there was one that Corey had just
986s put in
987s uh all those things are only available
989s during certain Storyworks and every
990s Stark has its kind of
992s special things that you want to try and
994s take advantage of and that one they're
996s in your backyard swing by and pick him
998s up yeah for herbalism for making certain
1000s potions
1002s um sometimes you want to take advantage
1003s of the limited and then you know time
1006s you have during the story arcs to get
1008s some of these rare resources for
1009s crafting things certain poisons and
1012s potions from these limited uh corrupted
1016s Spirit balloons right yep
1019s sorry I just I just disabled my uh my
1021s HUD right now I want to like this area
1025s is just too crazy
1028s huge Tower it looks so good
1032s Jeremy and Hal and um Adam I think and
1037s who's who's all working on this um
1040s Jeremy Zach and Brandon and everybody
1044s Scott yeah not me Tristan Tristan's
1048s entire team yeah this is
1050s absolutely beautiful and talk to me a
1053s little bit about the dungeon
1055s so the dungeon and we're heading to
1058s right here that's the Tower of Carfin
1060s that is the Mage University that
1063s following the um War of the undying the
1066s elves that oh these these humans there's
1068s there's something to them Let's uh let's
1071s gift them the uh the gift of magic and
1075s how let's show them the advanced stuff
1076s you can see some of that story reflected
1080s here on these murals
1084s and we can teach them the way we want to
1086s teach them
1088s and the human said yeah show us
1093s I think we ran by the the demons the
1095s first teens of them the statues back
1097s here oh yeah we should go look at this
1103s the ornate detail in the building have
1106s so much symbolism attached to them it
1109s really makes it feel like there's a kind
1111s of deep life
1117s oh yeah
1119s all the former Headmasters these are the
1122s former University right yeah so this one
1125s up front here that's uh 10 fillerus Rin
1128s he's the uh the the elf that came over
1131s from the elves and uh from the
1135s perian elves at the time
1137s and uh you can see he's
1140s he kind of built the temp the tower for
1142s him
1143s uh started training the first students
1148s and then one of the other Towers is his
1150s best student
1151s uh Aristotle we can point out his statue
1155s in a bit here so he was the first human
1157s Dean
1158s and here's this one here you can see him
1161s kind of with the book open
1164s that was Aristotle wow the first one
1167s after 10 felleris went back to the elves
1170s after a few decades
1172s we've got
1174s uh Dean over here is
1178s the woman that's that's Jennica
1181s and the good an interesting thing about
1183s her is that she never died she was into
1186s teleportation and that was her her big
1189s area of expertise and she just never
1192s came back
1202s then we have one of uh Lamont's Orange
1206s uh over here that's uh Darwin Darren
1209s Lamont he was a dean of the student of
1213s the college
1214s he looks yeah the wise guy
1217s um orange family is uh quite
1220s uh they're quite Central to the to the
1223s story here there'll be lots of
1225s opportunities to learn lots of them in
1227s this story arc actually that is awesome
1228s yeah and the final one there's uh Clan
1231s Zander he's he was all into Alchemy so
1233s that was his area of expertise that he
1235s really uh oh yeah so if you see a lot of
1239s um
1240s maybe some potions in the game with a
1242s clone or
1243s you know Zanders so and so that that's
1246s the guy what do we have here
1250s just a very normal looking door probably
1253s nothing terrible oh no I mean this mural
1255s it's like oh oh the humans
1258s asking the pirate
1260s for help with magic
1261s the appearance yeah oh yeah
1266s if you're in teaching the killer or the
1269s alien at that point yeah the aliens
1274s and over here
1276s oh the five moons the towers
1279s construction and the five lines phases
1281s of the moon three moons
1285s the three phases
1287s or five faces
1288s yeah
1289s perfect
1291s very cool and we also have theirs yeah
1293s the symbology for the
1295s yeah
1296s you have a lion head on one side
1299s representing humans and the Griffin hit
1302s on the other representing the elves who
1304s are the guys pulling the doors open
1308s just a couple of uh guards
1311s what is this sandal
1318s oh my God
1324s I'm sorry that made me cough a storm
1326s um that is hilarious that is hilarious I
1330s love it
1331s all right so what is our objective here
1334s what are we looking for inside right now
1335s now this is just the entrance the the
1338s foyer of the Tower of the University
1343s yeah so we're not going to obviously
1346s take you through everything a lot of
1347s it's still a work in progress always
1349s remember that this is a work in progress
1351s right now this is part of the Alpha 2
1353s experience you'll be able to explore
1356s delve into this dungeon
1359s so what are we going to see in here
1363s even more corruption and blood more more
1367s blood uh for sure I like the Bell
1377s bowling
1380s oh my God
1392s wow
1394s this looks great I love this interior
1398s the lighting is so moody
1403s oh my God this is like the Supreme Edge
1405s Lord environment
1407s take a look around at this just over
1410s there to get our Luke Bryan styles
1414s even the gothic-esque lamp
1417s with the nasty like flesh
1420s environment oh God
1424s ah we have some
1427s loot is this like a treasure chest
1429s that's a treasure chest whoa or not oh
1433s no no no not like that nuke it from
1435s orbit nuke it from orbit
1438s oh thank you perfect where'd it go where
1441s did it go behind us now oh come here
1449s oh my God this thing is crazy
1453s look at it these are the just the the
1455s entrance mobs
1456s yeah oh no
1462s oh
1466s no this guy is nasty
1470s now these tend to do some nasty things
1472s when they die right I mean this is
1474s basically like a what is this a hoarder
1477s mimic no I'm just kidding yeah
1480s this is Baron Porter
1483s get away from it get away
1486s yeah Robin get back get back
1492s get away no you're pulling it into the
1495s party
1498s oh that is nasty
1502s this is absolutely phenomenal
1508s yeah this they did an incredible job on
1510s this it just looks so good
1512s well is there anything else
1514s that you guys want to touch on from the
1516s story arc perspective
1521s uh oh I guess there's one thing people
1523s might be curious about I mentioned how
1525s you could do what you needed to do
1527s uh as long as the face like you do any
1529s quests available in that phase while
1531s that phase is available so what happens
1533s if you you know Miss something you go on
1535s vacation or whatever and you can't you
1537s can't log in during the week to
1538s participate in the quests that are going
1540s on in the phase of that story arc
1542s um for most story arcs they do repeat
1544s after they complete they'll go on a cool
1545s down and they will repeat again you can
1547s you'll have another opportunity to get
1548s involved with them the next time they
1550s come through
1551s um for our big major
1554s like World spanning story arcs that will
1557s sort of tell your servers Edition like
1559s your server's Own Story
1561s um those ones don't repeat those are
1562s sort of one and done but you can replay
1564s them there's a different system for
1566s replaying
1568s um previous phases for the big main
1569s story arcs
1571s um however decisions and objectives you
1573s make in those won't count toward your
1575s servers uh what's canonized for your
1578s server which is our way of saying you
1581s know what decisions they make for the
1583s objectives and stuff that you completed
1584s and all this goes to really kind of
1589s creating that experience
1591s of player agency being excusing being
1594s seen
1595s through World building and actually
1597s changing the locations the environment
1600s the story and how it influences future
1603s arcs
1604s down that path
1606s for the world to kind of reflect it it
1608s creates such a unique I feel environment
1610s between different servers and the the
1613s histories that they create
1616s exactly I think
1618s Jeremy said it really well earlier when
1620s we were trying to help figure out the
1622s right words to describe these very
1624s complicated systems when he said yeah
1627s there's a different in MMO you have
1629s different philosophies on kind of
1632s Storytelling we're going to more old
1633s school like the world has a story and
1635s you're playing within the world story
1637s and in our case you're helping to guide
1640s that by the decisions that you make
1641s while doing your quests and the
1643s different players if one goes one you
1646s know if a bunch go one way and a few go
1647s the other way that kind of canonizes
1649s down that way uh more you know more
1652s recent MMOs have just focused a story on
1654s the player and used instance and fading
1656s you know phasing to tell individual
1658s stories at different
1660s um
1661s times and at different uh
1664s durations we're we're more old school
1667s saying the world is evolving you
1670s participate in how the world story is
1672s going more on the
1674s uo and EverQuest and perhaps uh those
1679s games lineage
1682s yeah everybody is playing it in the same
1684s world and the state of that world is
1686s something that everybody's building
1686s together all great games absolutely oh
1690s go ahead I mean sorry
1691s I was going to say that one of the major
1695s goals I feel like we have is to is to
1699s allow player decisions to have
1701s consequences and to have meaningful uh
1704s results from
1707s uh from the decisions that they make so
1710s it seems like people can really create
1712s their own stories
1713s absolutely
1715s phenomenal work guys well I want to
1717s thank you three for joining me to help
1719s kind of give players a peek a little
1721s peek under the hood for the Tower of
1723s Carfin as I train your party I apologize
1726s um and I cannot tell you how beautiful
1729s and unbelievable this this area is I
1732s mean the
1733s artists are just are phenomenal so
1737s um
1739s with that being said we're gonna go run
1742s back to the Stream
1743s super exciting stuff and we will be back
1747s with you in just a moment thank you guys