Biomes

Volcano area concept art by Ricky Ho.^[1] ^[2]

A biome is the assets that make up a visual type of terrain. It's the foliage. It's the rocks and cliff faces. It's the terrain textures, the grass types, and shrubbery that creates a biome. And then zones are a game mechanic that denotes content boxes. Those content boxes might be collections of nodes that's specific to the Sandsquall area, or it houses points of interest, like each zone has one grand dungeon or X number of pocket dungeons and a unique number of NPCs that might exist there.^[3] – Steven Sharif

Verran environments video.^[4]

There are approximately 18 biomes (environments) planned for Ashes of Creation.^[5]^[6]

The Riverlands biome is the test bed used by the developers to build the tools and content pipelines required to create the other biomes in the game.^[7]^[8]^[9]

Give us time over the course of phase one and phase two especially; and when we get into phase three you're going to see a lot of those different biomes come up in a very quick amount of time; and the reason for that is because we very much so establish our development tools through the process of creating the Riverlands, the Tropics, and the Desert, so that... when we are ready to scale into production of the additional biomes, all of those pipelines, those processes, those tools are ready to go.^[7] – Steven Sharif

Every biome will be tested before Alpha-2 testing ends.^[5]

Q: How do you plan to feasibly deliver the other biomes before launch? We first saw the Riverlands in May 2022 and when Alpha-2 starts in October it will be the only biome properly in the game, as Desert and Tropics do not have any nodes planned for phase 1. You have said in the past that it gets quicker to create biomes as you go on, but even the phase 3 slide only had five of the 20 planned zones.

A: As you prepare the tools and define the needs and what goes into creating a biome, the Riverlands is very much the Alpha-2 test bed of what it took to stand up our node tool, our pop tool, all the services associated with those things that developers become familiar with as they're generating content to put into the game; and as that thing starts to expand and become extensible and we start proving that model out and moving forward with that we've defined what each of these biome needs and takes; and how much time it generally takes to stand up a particular point of interest, or a particular NPC type, to curate the encounter design: all of those things are something that becomes now rooted as a production path for us to follow. We can also then start to refine our outsource potential as a studio as well, because obviously we have the ability to leverage our internal teams, but as we're talking about content creation, whether that be asset production, VFX requirements, animations: all the things that go into expanding the content of the game become now pipelines that we can extense out to outsource studios as well as we move forward in the games production.^[8] – Steven Sharif

Q: Is there a ballpark figure of what you think it will take to make a biome from beginning to finish state and how many people will it take to do so?

A: The short story is, we need to find nice ways to build awesome content quickly; and I will talk about our approach to Alpha-2 a little bit in the answer of this question, because we've made conscious decisions and commitments to build the Riverlands to the place that we felt could represent what our core loops look like: Our combat loop, our crafting loop, our node loop, our artisanship loop; and we've been very very focused on continuing to push that; and by doing that we committed to a single place to push. And I know you're probably sick of seeing the Riverlands in these. I get it. Me too. Doesn't mean the other ones aren't being worked on. Doesn't mean the other ones aren't in flight, but our commitment has been to build this vertical slice and that's been a nice experience for me in the past with other games, because if we could put all of our core loops and all of our features into a place to prove that the vision stands on its own, to find the fun, to iterate on that, to work with you guys on that, and to listen to you on that, then when it comes time to build the biomes, I'm less concerned about building biomes and more concerned about building it right the first time. It's been a while since we started making this game and here we are. And trying to make good decisions now about implementing things we can ship now has been a guiding light for us. It's what's led us here. It's the reason we worked our butts off this year so far. We're not done yet, but we've been after it for reasons and it delivered us this day. I feel super good about being here on October 25th and not being here in February or March or December. This feels really good to me and I guess that's a long winded answer to how to build a biome, but I wanted to provide a little context.^[10] – Jacob Beucler

List of biomes

Tropics biome concept art.^[11]

Node simulation with placeholder biomes and node locations.^[12]

Underrealm biomes

Alpha-0 Underrealm environment.^[13]

Underrealm environments are vast.^[14]

Caravans should be able to operate as they do above ground.^[14]
If there's insufficient room for Dragons, another mount type may be utilized.^[14]
Burrowing mounts are being considered as an alternative to flying mounts in the Underrealm.^[15]

One of the important aspects of color play is going to be the distinguishing factor between different Underrealms and the regions that exist in the world: Their color influences set them apart from different regions.^[16] – Steven Sharif

Seasons above ground will affect the Underrealm.^[14]

This will not be a one-to-one correlation: for example, it won't snow in the Underrealm.
Tunnel flooding and other effects will be related to the weather above ground.

The seasons above ground will inform what happens underneath. I mean, it's not going to be a direct one-to-one correlation right, not like it's going to be raining in the underworld, but you will see the effects from above happen down below: You might find tunnels being flooded.^[14] – Jeffrey Bard

Seasons

Alpha-2 seasonal change to winter in the Riverlands.^[17]

Ashes of Creation Seasons in the Riverlands.^[18]

Part of the triggers that can create seasonal change is not just time related for each of our biomes, but they are also indicated by events that occur on the server. Whether that be certain raid bosses forming, or a relic being acquired by a particular node and being activated to change potentially the weather out of a winter state into a spring state: and the reason why a node might have interest in doing that of course is because weather and the seasons also affect skills and abilities.^[19] – Steven Sharif

Seasons affect different zones (environments/biomes) based on their location in the world.^[17]^[20]^[21]

Visually the seasons are you relevant to changing the visual appeal of a playable space, keeping it a little bit fresh; but, mechanically it affects the crop rotations, it affects the resource gatherables within the world, it informs certain types of mob spawners as well, which affects obviously loot reward tables. So, from a dynamic world perspective, this system-driven event is influencing player activity.^[17] – Steven Sharif

A majority of environments will experience either two or four seasons, excluding corrupted areas, which is considered a "season" itself.^[22]

Some biomes will have seasons that are less (or more) temperate. For example: Northern, Southern and Tropical regions.^[23] Other biomes will have fixed climates.^[24]
- Biomes that are affected by seasonal cycles may experience drastic visual differences between seasons.^[17]^[20]

Events and relics may radically change the current season a zone is in, or increase/decrease the speed of transition.^[25]^[26]^[27] This includes weather changes.^[21]

There will also be magical seasons where you might be in a tropical zone and suddenly it's snowing.^[23]

Items, crop cycles, freeholds, buildings, and crafting mechanics might gain certain buffs or debuffs in certain seasons.^[17]^[25]^[26]^[28]^[21]

Ocean and underwater areas will not have seasonal changes.^[29]

Winter might have a spawner that activates on a road that spawns at large fallen tree and players who see that will have an opportunity to go up and exert some type of one-time action that helps in removing that tree and it might require X number of people to do that before the tree gets removed; and that as an example is not beneficial for the transit of goods because as caravans require- well they don't require but they move better on roads and if that tree were present let's say blocking a road that led to a bridge per-se that they would have to off-road.^[21] – Steven Sharif

Different seasons may affect access to various roads.^[26]^[27]^[21]
- Pathways that are open during summer may be closed during winter.^[21]
- Seasonal affects may cause obstacles or blockages to the transit of goods via caravan.^[26]^[27]^[30]
- Water turning to ice in winter, enabling players to walk over the water but blocking access to what is underneath.^[21]
  - Ice will make roads bumpy and slippery.^[31]
- Seasonal flooding is something the developers are talking about internally, but will not be present in Alpha-2.^[32]

Seasonal changes

Right now we're getting some rain which will usher in springtime and so you'll see all the flora that's growing up right now out of the ground.^[33] – Brian Gans

Seasons change on a regular basis, but may also be triggered or elongated by certain events.^[34]^[35]^[36]

Each season will be approximately 15 days long.^[25]^[34]^[35]^[36]

They might last longer if you don't deal with the dragon, or if you keep that relic active, but these on a cycle on a cyclical perspective as a normal season transition might be exist within a one week timeframe right and then it transitions over a period of hours.^[35] – Steven Sharif

The final duration of seasonal cycles is subject to testing during Alpha-2.^[37]

The weather systems, the season systems, that's going to be a obvious point of testing for Alpha 2 of course. We're going to play around with the different cycles and times and how they impact the economy, the rotation of resources, the movement of goods: all of those things play into the purpose- one of the purposes of having seasonal systems. So that is something that we are going to play with during our Alpha 2 testing and will land on what feels both most comfortable- is visually appealing, but also has the impact on the economy that we desire to see on the design side.^[37] – Steven Sharif

Environmental seasons are not to be confused with PvP seasons, which last for six months.^[38]

In Ashes of Creation the world will change on a regular basis. Zones will progress in a seasonal cycle, which will alter the very nature of the environment around you. Snow may block pathways that are accessible in warmer months, spring may encourage creatures otherwise unseen to come to the surface, and fall might be the only time that certain crops thrive. This cycle can then take in the state of the world’s Nodes and shift depending on their progression.^[30]

Climate

Alpha-2 dynamic weather change caused by the Beneath the Stone Shadows event.^[39]

Since you instigated this event, which changed the weather, that will also now influence spawns nearby. You could potentially be spawning- well you are spawning side quests that relate to the rain, changes in enemies that relate to the rain, and that's driven on player action. So it is like a feedback loop.^[40] – Skott B

Some environments (Biomes) have fixed climates and others are variable.^[18]^[24]^[41] Dynamic weather of varying intensity can be triggered by certain events.^[40]^[18]^[26]^[42]

During those weather events, the area of effect that the event is occurring in will likely have its climate descriptor overridden by whatever the event is specifically. So tornadoes might be windy, blizzards might be cold. And if an arctic dragon comes into a temperate climate it brings the cold weather with it; and that can be interacting with skills and abilities or other functions like farms.^[43] – Steven Sharif

Certain abilities and also professions (such as Farming) may be enhanced or hindered during certain climates and seasonal weather events.^[44]^[45]^[18]^[43]^[46] For example: lightning might be stronger in the rain.^[44]

There are climate effects that occur from a buff standpoint. They can also affect skills like, let's say you're using a frost bolt in a winter climate. There's the ability for those effects to be enhanced and/or stronger in those climates.^[46] – Steven Sharif

Weather conditions affect mob spawning, side quests, gatherables, vehicles, mounts, ships, resistances, targeting, and boss mechanics.^[40]^[45]^[18]
- Access to dungeons and raids may also be hindered or blocked by changes in climate.^[45]
- It was later stated that loot tables will likely not be affected by weather conditions.^[45]

They affect crops and gatherables, vehicles, and mounts, ships, creatures; and loot tables change: their behaviors might change. Resistances and weaknesses or synergies might be relevant in certain seasons or weather systems. Targeting might change the AoE radius might grow for a fire effect if you're in the middle of summer, or it might shrink if you're in the middle of a storm.^[19] – Steven Sharif

Some weather conditions can be hazardous to mobs and players.^[39]

Weather events and encounters themselves can include hazards that can appear and shake things up. They can also help too, if you can kite enemies into the lightning strikes or whatever.^[39] – Skott B

Artistic style

Jungle biome concept art.^[47]

I want to make sure that we distinguish between what style is and what graphical fidelity is, because they're two different things. Ashes goes more towards a realistic style. We're not a highly stylized game. We don't have a lot of heavy saturated colors and whimsical designs that are just exaggerated. We try to be more on the realistic side. Not ultra realism, but a bit more on the realistic side.^[48] – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation is a high-fantasy game with a high graphical fidelity. It will not be too stylized or "cartoony".^[49]^[48]^[50]^[51]^[52]^[53]

When we talk about the art style of Ashes, our focus is more on the realism side than it is on heavily saturated colors or highly exaggerated shapes. So, we're not going to be a World of Warcraft environment when it comes to the visuals of the game. That won't change. But, if we're talking about signature fantasy theming, if we're talking about iconic style that we could point to and say, "That's Ashes of Creation, I recognize that." Those elements will be coming online as we continue down the content creation path towards prop sets that are uniquely identifying of different player factions and NPC factions in the world. We may introduce elements of high fantasy type characters as assistant NPC races within nodes, within playable environments. Obviously we have a wide range of mounts that exist within the world as well that are signature style. As well with- we get into different biomes and we see unique foliage types, or in the desert you have unique pink trees that are in the desert location, or the large crystals that are incorporated into the rock faces. Those types of fantasy elements are going to be more pronounced as we continue to refine the world and grow them.^[49] – Steven Sharif

More signature fantasy elements are intended to be introduced into the game over time.^[49]^[48]

I'm not a big fan of highly stylized art.^[52] – Steven Sharif

The game will not have steampunk elements.^[51]

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.^[51] – Steven Sharif