Game design

In order for sandbox mechanics to mean something, there must be curated content to accompany the player’s choices. Which means, as the developers, we must create that Themebox style content but for every possible path the community may take. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation is a PvX game built on the foundational principle of risk versus reward. The developers may seek feedback and make changes to portions of the game, but the core design pillars of the game will never be changed.

We will refine systems, we will iterate on systems, but we will never change the core identity of the intent and philosophical approach to what Ashes of Creation as an MMO brings to the MMO genre space... What we want to do is express that Ashes of Creation is endeavoring to build a risk-versus-reward centric PvX style game. And that intent and purpose will be delivered upon, and it will not change. – Steven Sharif

• Ashes of Creation is referred to by the developers as a "themebox" or "sandpark" game as they aim to create a reactive player-driven world accompanied by curated content.

When it comes to how MMO’s have been traditionally designed, most gamers are familiar with two distinct types of gameplay loops: the “theme park”, and the “sandbox”. The vast majority of MMO’s we’ve all seen come and go in the gaming industry have been of the theme park variety – these games put the player onto a specific path, guiding them along, with plenty of pretty sights in between the same old quest hubs, very little in divergent paths, virtually no freedom in player progression. Recently the MMO genre has seen some games of the sandbox nature come onto the scene, but despite the ultimate freedom the sandbox affords players, many are left wanting more, as there is by definition no pre built world content, no human touch, just the vastness of the “sand” for lack of a better term. Thus many MMO players often find themselves caught between the repetitive rock of the theme park or the vast dead spaces of the sandbox’s hard place. This chasm between the state of MMO gameplay loops is where we intend to inject Ashes of Creation’s Node system.

Q: How do you go about designing some of the more old school systems such as XP debt, minimal fast travel, and open world raiding that have really gone away for the most part in modern MMOs?

A: When looking at the reasoning behind why some of those old systems existed, a lot of it was centralized around the idea of risk versus reward. I mean, let's take a look at the three that you name, XP debt, minimal fast travel, and open world raiding. Experience debt is a cost of failure. Experience debt is the bite of not achieving success. If I die to a monster because my strategy was bad, because my performance was bad, because my planning was bad: all of that means that debt is the cost I pay for the bad choice... Minimal fast travel: My location matters; and the time it travels there is the cost I pay. Open world raiding: I'm not the only person interested in completing this objective. I have competition. That competition represents pressure. That pressure represents a desire to succeed and perform. All of those are touch points on player emotional connectivity. There is a reason why I want to succeed: Part of that reason can be incentivization through reward; part of that reason can be distance; it can be incentivization through failure. So that I think are one of the core fundamental philosophies as to how you design some of the more old-school systems. – Steven Sharif

Il design di Ashes of Creation aderisce a cinque pillars principali.

1. Storia coinvolgente e coinvolgente
2. Mondo reattivo
3. Interazione del giocatore
4. Agenzia di gioco
5. Risk vs reward

Nel progettare Ashes of Creation, ci atteniamo a cinque pilastri principali per ogni dettaglio: Storia Avvincente ed Immersiva, un Mondo Reattivo, Interazione tra Giocatori, Agenti sui Giocatori, e Rischio vs Ricompensa. Anche nell'ambientazione, tutto ciò che farete come giocatori interagirà con questi pilastri, mentre tutto quello che la vostra gilda fa, tutto quello che il vostro server fa servirà a mantenere il mondo fresco, in costante cambiamento, e cosa più importante... emozionante.

Inspiration from other titles

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Ashes of Creation ha tratto ispirazione da diversi altri titoli MMORPG.

• Eve Online, con la sua economy regionalizzata e risk vs reward nel transportation.
• ArcheAge, con i suoi building systems, transportation e naval combat.
• Lineage II, con i suoi castle sieges, flagging, open world PvP e guild progression.
• Star Wars Galaxies, col suo crafting systems.

Parlando di quello che è venuto prima, stiamo cercando di capire chi ha fatto cosa meglio e trarre ispirazione da quello: Portare il genere avanti; rendere le cose innovative e portarle nel ventunesimo secolo. – Jeffrey Bard

PvP background

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Mentre Ashes of Creation si ispira a Lineage II (e altri giochi), ha anche preso in considerazione parecchi difetti nell'implementazione di quei giochi. L'approccio verso il sistema di attivazione in Ashes of Creation è di disincentivare maggiornmente il griefing ma nel contempo mantenere il rischio rilevante nell'ambiente open-world.

Innanzitutto, PvP in Ashes esiste sia tamite adesione ed eventi, sia con il nostro sistema di attivazione in Open World. E mentre è vero che mi è piaciuto e mi sono ispirato fortemente a Lineage 2, abbiamo innovato e adattato il nostro approccio al sistema di attivazione di Ashes per disincentivare il Griefing ma nel contempo mantenere il rischio rilevante nell'ambiente Open World. La stragrande maggioranza delle esperienze PvP in Ashes sarà tramite sistemi a consenso come carovane, assedi, guerre, il mare aperto ed altri eventi. I giocatori faranno una scelta se partecipare in quei sistemi o no. E se decideranno di partecipare ci saranno ricompense significative per vince. – Steven Sharif

• Pvp in Ashes of Creation esiste sia come sistemi ad adesione ed eventi sia come open-world PvP con un sistema di attivazione (e corruzione).

In Open World, quando c'è competizione per le risorse, raid, dungeon e campi di caccia, il nostro sistema di attivazione introduce un elemento importante di rischio contro ricompensa. I giocatori devono tener conto di ciò che è attorno a loro e la reputazione degli altri giocatori che possono essere nelle vicinanze. Il sistema di attivazione è mirato a dare un elemento di rischio in qualsiasi situazione, ma anche strutturato per assicurare che il Griefing e il PK'ing non valgono quasi mai la pena. – Steven Sharif

• L'incremento di Corruzione tiene in considerazione la disparità dei livelli tra l'assalitore e il giocatore che è stato ucciso. Più grande è la disparità e più grande è la corruzione attribuita. All'ottenimento di corruzione delle penalità vengono applicate.

• Aumentando il livello di corruzione aggiunge livelli sempre più grandi di riduzione delle abilità di combattimento in PvP.

• Rimuovere la corruzione tramite il guadagno incessante di esperienza richiede molto più tempo che in Lineage II.

• Esiste anche un sistema di taglie che rivela la posizione dei giocatori corrotti sulla mappa.

• Le abilità di Crowd Control non hanno effetto su giocatori non combattenti. Questo è per prevenire che i giocatori inizino l'ingaggio con attacchi che stordiscono giocatori non attivati per PvP.

Artistic style

Ren'Kai architecture concept art.

Part of the biome that the Ren'Kai are accustomed to is a more swamp or marsh oriented, so they have these almost stilt-like foundations on some of the assets because they're intended to sit above that marsh. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation will have a higher graphical fidelity than most western games. It will not be too stylized or "cartoony".

We can push the limits a little bit on the graphical fidelity, especially using Unreal Engine 4... My desire was not to see very cartoony games. I'm not a big fan of highly stylized art. – Steven Sharif

• The game will not have steampunk elements.

It's not to say that people can't do steampunk well. I've enjoyed some steampunk stuff. I'm a very high fantasy oriented type of storyteller; and the inspiration for Ashes obviously comes from my pathfinder campaigns that I ran long ago; and those are always set in a high fantasy world. So it just compromises what I believe is the perspective of the storytelling in the environment. – Steven Sharif

• Intrepid Studios does not use AI for art production.

We do not use AI for production, except in unique internal cases when communicating fast reference material. – Steven Sharif

Asian influenced Ren'Kai architecture.

Character races are super important. These are the choices that we make at the onset of our adventure in an MMORPG: what race- not just mechanically aligns with our decisions, if those races have game mechanics behind them from a stat perspective, but visually and culturally and historically: What are these? What do these races represent? So it's important that visually they're distinct. And everyone's seen fantasy games do Elves, so everyone's seen them do Humans, everyone's seen them do Orcs: There's an established expectation almost behind what these traditional fantasy races represent; and there's a risk, because whenever you're creating a new IP or a new story or a new world- a new Universe; a realm in which things don't have to always be the norm, you can take a little bit of creative liberty to redefine some of the aspects of a particular race; and that can be a good thing, because it's something that is new to players. It's something that is unique to the realm that we're building- the surroundings that you have. So what we wanted to do was push a little bit more on the unique side of what the Py'rai would look like from a visual perspective. – Steven Sharif

• L'architettura Aelan prende spunto dalla Francia medievale.
• Dünir have a Nordic cultural influence.
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Gli Empyrean hanno un che di imperialistico Greco-Roman.

• The Kaelar have a European influence.
• The Niküa have a Polynesian influence.
• The Py'Rai have a Navajo Native American influence. Py'Rai architecture has a woodland inspiration.
• Pyrian architecture has a Greco-Roman influence.
• Ren'Kai architecture has an Asian influence.
• The Vaelune have a Middle Eastern influence.
• The Vek have a Mesoamerican influence.

You will see in the different races that are available from a player character standpoint a lot of different influences that reflect many cultures in the world: Not just European, not just Africa, not Mesoamerican. These cultures are going to be present in many of the races. – Steven Sharif

The idea is just to find a base component in the real world as a starting point and then to begin to fantasize. – Steven Sharif

Cultural references

Ci saranno riferimenti a culture del mondo reale, particolarmente in riguardo a holidays del mondo reale ed events storici.

• Questi non stoneranno con il senso di immersione. Saranno degli omaggi.

There will be some real world references, particularly with regards to potentially real world holidays as well as some historical events or cultures. For example the PAX East ship that was named Eleanor that we released a cosmetic of, you know, being a reference to the Eleanor ship that the tea was thrown off of; or colonialesque look. – Steven Sharif

Open development

Intrepid Studios has embraced an open (transparent) development approach, rather than sharing information through carefully curated press releases and announcements.

• Player feedback is important, but the developers will not change what they consider to be the core identity and vision for the game.

Player feedback is important, however the identity and the vision of the game is not up for discussion; and so when we talk about the core systems and tenets and philosophies behind what the game that we're trying to make is, we believe that the game we are trying to make resonates with a large enough section of the MMORPG player base that it is a sustainable and profitable venture for us to create that core game. Now, the ancillary systems that live around the core philosophy of Ashes of Creation, or the subtleties and what we need to do in order to make a particular system or feature better... that we want to collect player feedback. – Steven Sharif

• Some game aspects will be more polished than others before they are presented.

The delicate blend between a transparent development process, but also understanding that [the] majority of your player audience will not grasp, or will not take into context, what a work in progress looks like. So certain things we have to polish to the point where they're presentable; where they can be understood- again in its own context without my verbal support or Margaret's verbal support. – Steven Sharif

I think that we live in an age where it's easy to be transparent if you're not trying to hide something. The downside is if you're showing something that's not a completed or finished product, it is incumbent upon the viewer to understand that fact. – Steven Sharif

• The purpose of transparent development is to enable participation and feedback from the community without the need to purchase access.

The whole purpose of our development process being transparent being open is that you don't have to buy a package actually to participate. You can be a voice from the community. You can observe people playing. You can give your experiences and feedback. – Steven Sharif

I don't answer to a board. I don't answer to a publisher. We answer to our players; and we try to be as transparent as possible with showing our progress; and showing it in a timely manner. – Steven Sharif

• Certain aspects of the game will not be revealed early to avoid spoilers.

There are obviously going to be some aspects of the development that we will not reveal, like lore and some system mechanics in order not to spoil the game for release. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Pilastri di disegno
• Ashes of Creation