Alts

• There will be a "comfortable" number of character slots available for alts.

• Progression pathways in Ashes of Creation are per-character.

• Storage space is shared between characters on the same account.
  • Gear will be able to be transferred between characters on the same account.
  • Transfer of resources and materials may only be possible via player housing storage, which is localized to a particular house.

• Characters on the same account are able to share player housing, including furniture and freehold workstations.

• Cosmetics can be reassigned to characters within an account, with a potential cooldown period.

• Alts within a single account may have different professions.

Account

Players are permitted to own multiple accounts, but are subject to rules relating to multi-boxing.

Character slots

There will be character limits during the Alpha and Beta testing phases. These are probably going to be more relaxed than for live launch.

• Allow testing of different builds as needed.
• Provide equipment needed to test various scenarios.

There will be a "comfortable" number of character slots available for alts.

Guild membership and alts

A character may only be a member of a single guild.

• Alts on the same account can join different guilds.
  • Intrigue, espionage and intelligence gathering is a legitimate aspect of the game.
• A guild may only have a single guild leader.
  • Transfer of guild leadership is possible, but mechanics on transferring leadership if a guild leader has abandoned the guild have not been finalized.
• Guild masters can issue payouts to guild members.

Player housing and alts

Player housing	Type.	Availability.	Starting count.	Limit.
Apartments	Instanced.	Village stage and higher.	50.	One per character per server realm.
Freeholds	Open world.	Village stage and higher.	Low thousands per server.	One per account.
Inns	Instanced.	Starting areas and Nodes.	Most accessible.	-
Static housing	In-node.	Village stage and higher.	8.	One per character per server realm.

If you were to think about the level of exclusivity between the different types of housing that we have, obviously the most exclusive when it comes to a quantity is going to be Freeholds, followed by In-node housing, followed by Apartments, then followed by Inns. – Steven Sharif

Q: Freeholds specifically are locked one per account?

A: Correct. – Steven Sharif

Q: If I put an alt on a different server I could have in-node housing or at least an instanced house?

A: Correct, yes. – Steven Sharif

Node citizenship and alts

Node citizenship.

Citizenship is, aside from nodes existing, one of the most important parts. So you as a player will get to become a citizen of these nodes: you're going to need to acquire some form of housing to be able to do that within that node's jurisdiction, it's zone of influence. – Chris Justo

Player housing grants the ability to claim citizenship of a Village (stage 3) node or higher. Gaining citizenship through player housing is not automatic. It must be claimed.

• Players interact with Town Hall Administrator NPCs to apply for citizenship at that node.^{[ citation needed ]}

• There is not a hard cap to node citizenship, but there is a soft cap. Citizens pay dues and property taxes based on the stage of the node when the player became a citizen.

When you become a citizen you enter in at a certain citizenship due structure; and citizens pay taxes to their node in the form of both property taxes based on what type housing as well as citizenship dues, which are necessary. And as you enter later into the stage of a node's development, you will pay a higher value on the citizenship dues or vice-versa: if you own a property later, you will be entered into a property tax that is higher based on where you enter that property ownership within the node's history. So those help to form a soft cap. Now, if payers are willing to pay more to be a citizen of a particular node, they have that option, but at some point it becomes restrictive.

• A player can only claim citizenship to one node per server realm per account at a time.

  You can declare citizenship to only one node and when you declare that citizenship. Let's say for example, one guild perhaps wanting to take all their members and have them all declare the same citizenship to a location. The longer a node exists the higher the prize it is to take and some systems with regards to crafting progression and/or rewards and bonuses or the reliquary that we haven't really touched on a lot, those systems are going to be so enticing that from an incentive standpoint it will compel other groups to either potentially break alliances or siege the city in order to take the goods that are potentially in it. So, from an incentive standpoint we have that at play. Additionally, we don't have a cap per-se that we've announced yet on the citizenship aspect of being in a node, but we do have soft caps. It becomes costlier the higher number of citizens each time one new person wants to join to be part of a node. So, there is sort of a soft cap on how many citizens one node can have and it might be that not all in the guild can participate in that area. So, there's a natural divide: A pseudo faction, so to speak between who is a part of that node and who is not. – Steven Sharif

  Your account is bound to one declared citizenship per server, which means that if you have two alts and your main character on one server you may only be a citizen of one node between those three... If you have an alt on a different server, it could be a citizen of a node as well. – Steven Sharif

  • Citizenship in Alpha-2 phase-2 currently allows alts on the same account to also be citizens on the same realm.

  Point of clarity, eventually the design is for one citizenship per realm per account. So alt's cannot have multiple votes etc. – Steven Sharif

• Players lose their node citizenship after their node is destroyed in a node siege without entering into a cooldown period.
  • Apart from node destruction, there is no player driven system that can strip another player of their node citizenship.

• Node citizenship is not tied to membership of a guild. Guilds don't "own" nodes.

There's a reason why mayorship, citizenship, and guilds are intended to be separate. Guilds I view as very much a territorial "I own this thing. My guild is the owner of these things." Nodes are really not intended to be that space. Nodes are intended to be content hubs that any player has access to, whether that content is narrative arcs that send you out into the world and the POIs around you, whether that be housing that you have access to, or artisanship services, or vendor tables. These are things that, should players choose to be a citizen, they have access to. – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

• Players can interact with the node board to get a list of citizens of the node. Clicking on a citizen will reveal information about their guild, society, religion, and property ownership.

• A player does not need to declare citizenship of any node. These players won't need to pay taxes but will miss out on benefits of citizenship.

• Citizenship tickets may also grant citizenship to certain node stages. This mechanic will be decided based on testing.

Artisan classes and alts

Artisan progression.

Artisan level	Artisan certification	Profession limit per character
1-10.	Novice.	22.
10-20.	Apprentice.	5.
20-30.	Journeyman.	4.
30-40.	Master.	3.
40-50.	Grandmaster.	2.

Leveling up in the Lumberjacking profession in Alpha-2.

Artisan progression occurs based on experience (repetition of tasks) as well as achievements of certain benchmarks within each artisan branch (Gathering, Processing and Crafting). Progression in each artisan profession is per-character.

• Artisans start off as novices in all 22 professions. Only 5 professions may be Apprentice and higher. Only 4 professions may be Journeyman or higher. Only 3 professions may be Master or higher. And only 2 professions may be Grandmaster.

All 22 professions, the players get to be novice of; and then it starts narrowing from there. So, after that you'll only be able to be apprentice of five things. You can be a journeyman in four things. You can be a master in three things; and you can be a grandmaster in two things. So you'll need to narrow, but you can also diversify to support the professions that you want to first push further in. – Kory Rice

• Progression to each "tier" within a profession grants skill points that can be utilized in a character's artisan skill tree.
  • Artisan certification quests must be completed to gain proficiency in that tier of artisan progression. Completing certification unlocks benefits for that profession, such as artisan tools for gathering professions and recipes for crafting professions.
  • There are limits to the number of professions at each certification tier across the three artisan branches. For example: a character may only ever be a Master in up to 3 professions and Grandmaster in up to 2 professions across all artisan branches.
  • Grandmaster artisans can max out their entire profession skill tree, but a character can only be a grandmaster of up to two professions.
  • Achieving an artisan certification in a profession also implies that the character also achieved any lower-tier certifications up to that point.

If you are grand master in that profession you can max out the entire tree. But you can only grand master 2 things. – Kory Rice

• Choosing a specific path in the skill tree allows the player an opportunity to specialize in a certain area. This encourages player inter-dependency, enhancing the artisan experience.

• Artisan progression does not directly relate to progression in a character's adventuring class, but is designed to be complementary to character progression. Additionally, there are requirements that take into account dangers, locations, toolsets, and surveying options that are level dependent.
  • Characters gain XP as they progress their artisan professions, but it should be expected that some artisans will have significantly higher artisan level than their adventuring level.
    • Leveling entirely through artisan progression, while technically possible, is not considered a very efficient way to level by the developers.
  • Choice of profession does not affect a player's stats.
  • Artisan classes and their professions are not affected by a character's religion, or class.
  • Race likely won't affect the artisan system. Certain influences may instead be housed in a background selection that isn't intrinsically tied to race.
  • The developers will tune and balance the adventuring and artisan leveling curves during Alpha-2 phase-2.

When it comes to balancing a system that's something that we do during testing phases. When it comes to architecting the system itself and identifying the areas in which certain certain professions excel, where they interact with ancillary systems, their interconnectivity across the artisanship system as a whole, the important part there is to identify how that the interconnectivity lives with the other professions in the artisanship system. And what type of reliance you have on particular professions to complete the path of crafting or introduction of new items into the economy. – Steven Sharif

Q: In regards to character level and artisan level. We know that currently there are two separate things. That being said, what prevents a player from staying level one and partying up with a level 50 player to then gather level 50 resources in the high zones? That way, anyone who wants to take those resources will have to kill the gatherer who is level one and get a large amount of corruption for killing a level one as a level 50.

A: Gathering higher level resources requires significant advancement within a particular profession for that gatherable resource. So, if I'm a Miner and I want to access the highest possible mineral, I need to be a master miner; and in order to achieve the master minor status I am going to be gaining adventuring level experience through that process, because many of those quest lines, many of those achievements are facilitated through quest lines. Some of those quest lines interface with adventuring difficulties that are out in the wild at certain levels. So that's going to predicate me- that's going to be a predicate for me to achieve a certain level in order to complete some of these quest lines and achieve that master status. So you will you will likely not see the ability of a level one alt character having the access to high level mineral mining, or any other type of gatherable out there. – Steven Sharif

Banking and alts

• Guilds will have banking/storage/warehouses starting in late Alpha-2 phase-2. This feature was previously scheduled for Alpha-2 phase-3.

There is a roadmap with the guild warehouse having been moved up a little bit. It was planned to be a little bit later- I think it was like March or April, but we have moved that up slightly. – Steven Sharif

• Nodes advance to the first stage quickly. This enables NPC services such as vending or banking items.

• Banking between characters will likely be restricted to furniture and completed items.

Account management and 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.

Mailing items to alts

Alpha-2 mailbox user interface in the Lionhold starting area.

• Raw gatherables and materials are not able to be mailed by players.
  • Purchases of anything other than materials and gatherables from integrated auction houses will be mailed to the purchaser.
• Social messages sent via mail will be received instantly.
• It hasn't been decided whether crafted items such as gear will be able to be sent via mail.

From an item standpoint obviously we can't allow mailing to include any type of resource material or raw gatherable because those are central to the gameplay and transiting through the caravan system and economic regions. But it may be possible to send completed crafted items like gear, equipment, stuff like that. But it's something we're still discussing. – Steven Sharif

Families

Families are a means to relate up to nine characters.

• Family sizes are normally limited to eight characters.
  • Marriage increases family size by one to allow player housing permissions to be shared.
  • This size increase only applies if the family's head is married.
• A character may only belong to one family at a time.
• Leaving one family and joining another family will have a cooldown period in the order of days.

• There are costs associated with family creation and maintenance.
  • Some costs are shared among the family members and other costs are specific to the family head.

• Freeholds are intended to work with the family system.

If you can be a family member and you have a whole family owning a freehold together, it'll allow many more players to see the system and partake in it. – Kory Rice

• Players can charge for access to their family via player-to-player trading, but there won't be game mechanics or UI systems around this.

• The family system is not a core pillar of the game and will be changed based on testing and feedback.

See also

• Accounts
• Character
• Economy
• Gear