Character naming

Characters will have a first-name and an optional surname (last name).

• Character names are unique per server.
  • Character name changes will be possible during server merges.

• There is a minimum length of three for a character name.
• Special characters, including apostrophes and hyphens, are currently not allowed in character names.

Currently we don't allow special characters in character names (including apostrophes and/or hyphens). It's possible this changes in the future. – Ry Schueller

Character names will appear on the character sheet and optionally on the character website page.

• In-game a character's name is displayed above their head. This can be the first or last name.

Nameplate

Nameplate in the Alpha-2 party UI.

The icon in the corner next to Steven's nameplate: that little icon is actually his secondary archive that he hasn't unlocked. – Margaret Krohn

Work-in-progress nameplates in Alpha-2.

Nameplates really actually require a big refactor on our end that we haven't done yet. However, that is something that tech art and engineering, as well as our UX/UI team are going to be doing over the course of probably the next month to month and a half. It's a big refactor both from performance reasons- how we're going to be able to occlude those nameplates within world obstacles and line-of-sight as well as prioritizing and clamping their sizes and distances that need a bit of a refactor; and of course their visual appearance. So that's work that's still outstanding. – Steven Sharif

Nameplates are displayed above the head.

• Player character nameplates will have first, and optionally last name (surname).
  • The name of the character's guild is displayed next to their name.
  • The character's nameplate will deteriorate to give an indication of how much damage they have taken.
  • An icon will identify the character's class.
  • Hovering over a player nameplate will show information such as level, class name, and archetype combo.
  • A buff icon will indicate the character's gear and grade.
• The size and priority of nameplates will be relate to their distance (away from the camera).
• The visibility of nameplates can be obscured by in-game objects, such as trees; by utility skills, such as Camouflage or Stealth; or through the use of disguises.
• UI settings will enable nameplates to be hidden, resized, and customized.
• Summoner summons' creature type appears in the nameplate above the summon. This cannot be changed by the player.
• Mob nameplates will have indicators that identify resistances, buffs, end elite status.
  • A star format may be utilized to indicate hit point allocation.

Nameplates in the party UI indicate the player's choice of secondary archetype.

• A padlock icon indicates that the secondary archetype is not yet unlocked.

Threat assessment

You decide to gank the player, but find out that you have been ambushed!

Players will have a buff on their nameplate that indicates the gear set they are wearing. Other players will be able to see this buff by targeting that player at a distance.

• This will indicate the type of armor (cloth, leather, plate) that they are predominantly wearing.

You can target a player. You're going to see what type of armor they have based on a buff they have available to them because obviously cosmetics can change appearance. You might have different silhouettes as a result of that. – Steven Sharif

• The border will indicate the level and quality of the tier set.
  • This also indicates if the gear is enchanted, along with visual effects associated with enchanted items.
• The developers believe that inspecting gear to obtain an exact equipment list or gear score may lead to "unwelcome behavior".

When you see a player approaching you and they're wearing a transmog you know you don't know if that person is a high damage mitigation against physical damage or against magical damage and essentially the way we overcome that is through you being able to target a player at a distance and they will have a buff that's present on them that you will see, which indicates that essentially the piece set that they are wearing. It is important for players to be able to ascertain from a threat assessment standpoint what they're going up against if they're actively checking that, and that will be available. – Steven Sharif

Health

Health is a stat in Ashes of Creation.

• Players that are not in the same party, raid, alliance, or guild will not be able to see other player's health percentages or exact health bar values.
  • This is not currently implemented in Alpha-1.

• A player's name plate will deteriorate to give an indication of how much damage they have taken.

With regards to seeing another player's health: As you know their name plate will deteriorate or give you an indication of like hey they've taken damage they're significantly injured, but you're not going to get a percentage. You're not gonna get an exact bar value, unless you're in their party or in their raid. – Steven Sharif

Character page

A character web page (character sheet) will be available closer to live launch that shows the following:

• What a character looks like.
• Achievements and server firsts.
• Info on a player's class.
• Character's back story via journal entries (that are shared publicly by the player).
• Traits can be applied that describe a character's history.

You will have a unique homepage for each character and that homepage will be able to be customized by the user to display unique information. It will have a small out-of-game RPG component where you can construct background and traits and stuff like that. – Steven Sharif

The character page will be accessible in game by opening a browser through the UI.

That's part of the character sheet desire for us which hopefully will be accessible in game as well by opening a browser through our UI where you can get back history of a character that that character has input themselves into journal entries that they may choose to share with others... For role play perspective we want people to be in depth with their characters. – Steven Sharif

The player can manage what info is shown on the character page.

Name reservations

Name reservations were rewards for backing at the Pioneer level and higher and are currently available through the Voyager plus pre-order pack.

• Accounts will have name reservation tokens, that entitle its holder to reserve a name on a specific server when the reservation time comes.

Character creator

Scars in the Alpha-2 character creator (first pass).

The cool thing about this character creator is that it's not just intended for your character. It has application with NPCs that you might hire. – Steven Sharif

We're gonna use similar tech for implementing things like Animal husbandry. – Zachary Mallet

Kaelar Alpha-2 character creation (first pass).

This tech is 100% created in-house at Intrepid and is not metahuman. – Steven Sharif

We'll be adding many, many more customization options to the character creator. – Cody Peterson

The character creator (or character customization system) allows players to define the look of their in-game characters, hired NPCs; and potentially creatures raised by the animal husbandry profession.

• Character appearance can be adjusted through a wide range of presets and sliders.
• Character blending provides easy to use customization by morphing together two or more character presets.
• Character sculpting allows detailed customization of every aspect of the body.

The Ashes of Creation character creator is 100% developed in-house by Intrepid Studios and is not MetaHuman.

Additional character creator features include.

• There will be unlockable features for character customization.

You have that scar because you participated in this siege, or these many sieges; or you have this tattoo because of your of a cultural background, or because of a quest that was accomplished where you're able to get that. – Steven Sharif

• The ability to save and potentially to share characters with other players.

The beauty of it is that you can save your character- and we already have some of those features available- and load them; and in the future we want people to be able to share those characters amongst each other. – Margaret Krohn

• The ability to undo changes (Ctrl + Z) will be supported, including undoing changes that were made several edits earlier.
• Choosing base idle animations of characters will be possible in future.
  • Certain animations, such as blinking, will be present when they don't interfere with the customization process.
• Adjusting the background scene and lighting is a planned feature.

There's going to be a lot of environmental controls that are offered to the character creator so that people can set it up their scene the way they want to grab screenshots or to grab recordings or whatever they want to do. – Steven Sharif

• Asymmetry in terms of manipulating different components of the body or different body features such as hair, beard, and eyes.

Asymmetry is going to be functionality that's possible in manipulating either different components of the body or different features like hair. The beard we saw a little bit of that blending with highlights that you can do. Margaret talked a little bit about the eye asymmetry that you can include. Obviously those are going to exist within certain parameters that we want to define on a per-race basis, but it is something that we think is cool. – Steven Sharif

• Body adornments, such as piercings will be possible within cultural limits.
• The developers are considering whether to allow custom tattoos to be uploaded by users.

The aim is for the character creator to be on par if not much better than that of BDO.

See also

• Character creator
• Name reservations
• Alts