Gear binding

There may be some gear binding (BoE or BoP) but it will be an exception rather than the rule, as this doesn't facilitate the objectives for the economy.

Q: Right now, there's no soulbinding on any of the gear. Is that intended game design or is that something that'll be addressed later?

A: No, it is intended game design... Very little to no things are intended to be soulbound. They're all a part of an open economy, which are missing a few features in phase one. As we know phase one is about stability and performance, and as we enter into phase two and phase three, some of those additional features and systems will come online: one of which is deconstruction, tempering, over enchantments. Those are are expected to sink open economy items out of the economy to help reach that balance between the faucets and the sinks. – Steven Sharif

• Very little gear will be account bound or soulbound in Ashes of Creation. The game economy is based around crafting and degradation of items.

A lot of what we experienced in games that usually come before us is that many things are account bound and they're soulbound to your character... Instead very little here is character bound. Very very little. The vast majority of gear- yes you will get quest related gear as rewards- but it won't be let's say one set in one dungeon and you must run the dungeon over and over. Instead we want to really emphasize the reliance on the economy and crafters and gatherers and processors to support a majority of the gear structure in-game, combined with that of world raid bosses and dungeon bosses; not a repetitive quest line through a single dungeon. – Steven Sharif

• Gear is obtained via crafting, gathering and processing along with raid and dungeon bosses.

• The developers are investing in security systems, customer services and game masters to combat RMT, rather than relying on gear binding.

Q: If items are intended to not have soul-binding, how is your team going to effectively plan to fight RMT?

A: We are going to be investing heavily in our GMS and in our CS teams, which we have a plan and we have some rudimentary elements of that plan currently in Alpha that relate to player heat-mapping, action heat-mapping, and RMT flags that will then cause some investigative things to occur on our side. This is something that I think has to be done in order to preserve the integrity of the economy of the game. RNT is obviously, even in a game where you had 100% soulbound, can still be done. Whether that be through things like power leveling, purchasing accounts, whatever it might be: a soulbound approach to the economy doesn't solve that per-se. You still have to, as a company, choose to invest in combating those things. And I think many players who played in this genre know that at some point the lights get turned off for many publishers around making those investments. However, that's not our mandate. Our mandate is to ensure that in order to provide a environment where integrity matters, we have to be willing to invest, not just in the tools that discover these types of things, but also in the CS response that includes the GM's availability. – Steven Sharif

Bound currencies

Bound currencies are specific progression-based currencies that cannot be traded. Bound currencies are utilized by various systems.

There are bound currencies that exist within the game; and then there is the general currencies that's usually achieved through certificates and the ability to trade those certificates in to get gold that we've talked about in the past. But some of those bound currencies are like favor: these are points that you achieve doing some divine questlines, participating in divine story-arcs; or honor, which is like PvP-oriented unique currency stuff like that. – Steven Sharif

• Religions.
• Social organizations.
• Tavern games (potentially).
• Glint is a bound currency that drops from mobs and players, and is offered as a reward for completing certain quests, events, and achievements.

• Node types have specific bound currencies that are earned through personal progression within the node.
  • Honor at military nodes for completing PvP-related activities.
  • Favor at divine nodes for completing divine questlines and story arcs.

A bound currency that's used to purchase a number of different types of vendorable items that exist within nodes. It is not player-to-player currency. It is not intended to be traded between players, but instead it interacts with these unique vendors that supply a large segment of necessary components for a number of different things: whether it be crafting, enchantments, a lot of different things that exist within the node. This is the reason why you would want to acquire that currency so you have access to those types of items. – Steven Sharif

• Node currencies stay bound to the player, even if their node is destroyed or they drop citizenship. They will be able to use their node currency once they are a citizen of a new node (of the same type).

Node currency stays with the player even if their node is destroyed or they drop citizenship. This is something that you have available to you and you carry forward to your next location. But you may only spend your node currency at nodes that you're a citizen of. – Steven Sharif

• Players must have enough node reputation in order to purchase certain items with node currency.

You have to have enough node rep to be able to buy certain tiers of things from the node with your node currency. Even though the currency is generic, you still need the rep with the node to unlock better purchases. – John Collins

Cosmetic items

All cosmetic store items will be non-tradeable.

• Cosmetics are not tradeable with other players but can be reassigned to other characters (alts) within the same account.
  • This is a reversal of the earlier statement that assignment of account-bound cosmetics to a character cannot be undone.

Transferring cosmetics to alts

Ashes of Creation web site design preview (WIP).

The account management page is used to assign or reassign cosmetics to characters within an account.

• Cosmetics can be reassigned to other characters (alts), but can only be active on one character at a time.

• There will likely be a cooldown for reassigning cosmetics between characters.

See also

• Player to player trading
• Loot rules
• Security systems
• Economy