Node progression

Alpha-2 node leveling countdown.

Citizen and non-citizen player activity (questing, gathering, raiding, etc.) within a node's ZOI counts toward that particular node's advancement (progression) to a higher node stage.

The advancement of a node unlocks its unique content, which comes at the cost of locking out an increasing ring of neighboring nodes from progressing to the next stage.

• Nodes advance to the first stage quickly. This enables NPC services such as vending or banking items.
• The more advanced the node is, the larger its ZOI becomes.
• Less advanced nodes (referred to as vassal nodes) that fall within a more advanced node's ZOI can still gain XP, but must remain at a lower advancement stage than the dominant node.
  • The vassal system begins when a node hits Village (stage 3), but neighboring nodes starting from Expedition (stage 1) also block the growth of their immediate neighbors.
• Certain quests, such as story arcs, may not be able to be turned in after a node has advanced.
• The territory expansion algorithm takes into account the nearest coast, neighboring nodes, and the heatmap of players in surrounding areas over the last weeks or month.
  • Due to the way the progression algorithm calculates territorial (ZOI) expansion during node advancement, there is a small possibility that two nodes of the same stage end up being close to each other.

The way that the algorithm expands the territories takes into account a few things: One it takes into account the coast like where's the closest coast. Two it takes into account the neighboring nodes so it can take over and essentially vassal state those nodes, but what's more important is essentially the initial population based on like how players choose their races. Because we have nine different races and four different starting points that branch out, each server's population density is going to dictate essentially the first few nodes that are highly populated and then that initial seed is what's going to determine the node structure as it moves inland into the into the world essentially; and based on the performance and successes of different sieges will determine which nodes that got locked out from the previous the initial advancements what nodes can now be available to advance further. So I really think that with so many variables that are present in the equation of how nodes advance and stay existing with the more variables you have, the higher likelihood there is for there to be a significant diversion in world progression. – Steven Sharif

Normally the algorithm that's applied to the node territorial expansion will prevent significant nodes from being in close proximity to each other... There could be a perfect storm where all of the algorithmic progression of territory leads to having these nodes very close to each other because there's certain requirements that should that need to be available to satisfy node vassal takeovers; and it's possible that two nodes would never take each other over as vassals and end up close together and spanning their territories in opposite directions: The Tale of Two Cities thing. – Steven Sharif

• A node does not receive XP from the nodes within its ZOI until these nodes have reached their cap.

• Citizens of one node can contribute to the advancement of other nodes.

• Node experience gain opportunities will be equitable across the four node types.
  • The exact percentage of advancement from obtaining items or killing monsters is not going to be explicitly known to avoid "gaming" the system.

Different people have different resources invested in nodes progressing and it would be a little "gamey" if you could know exactly what was necessary at that point because that would disincentivize people from participating. – Steven Sharif

Node advancement spawns a series of animations and visual effects (within the footprint of the node).

• Players within the node are teleported to a safe location, likely a respawn area near the node.
• Supplies will spawn around the node and system driven caravans are spawned to bring these supplies into the node. These caravans are not able to be attacked.
• NPCs will begin construction activities.
• Players outside the node will see the new facade of the node pop into existence as the node advances in stage.

The Development Area of a Node is where civilization will appear as the Node advances. As the Node Stage increases, different buildings, NPCs, and services will become available in the Development Area. The higher the Node Stage, the more complex and populated the Development Area becomes. Development Areas will also vary depending on the Node Type - Economic, Military, Scientific, or Divine. – Margaret Krohn

Vassal nodes

Vassal node structure.

This vassal mode structure tells you what it looks like for a sovereign at a level six metropolis stage; and what it can control at a maximum vassal network is two level five nodes, of which a level five node can control one level four and one level three as direct vassals; and then the four can control a three; and every three can control a one or a two. Now if the three gets removed through siege, the one or the two is removed as well. So that's an important distinction between the three's vassals, which technically isn't really a vassal relationship because there's no citizenships possible. Those vassals don't exist between three and X, but they do exist between four and three, five and four, and six and five. And what this also allows is that because there are 85 nodes that are within the world, we have a buffer zone of about 20 nodes that lives in a max server state. So if you had maximum five metropolises form in a world, you will have a number about 20 nodes that can live alongside those metropolis networks; and when or if a metropolis falls, that extra cushion of nodes around the five metropolis structures allows for the map to be redistricted in a way that is unique. It doesn't mean that one of the fives is just going to pick up where the last six left off and form the same exact metropolis structure. From a territory perspective it has ancillary nodes to play with and expand towards that redistricts the map, so that if a metropolis falls there's a significant difference in the layout of the world and the layout of these almost nation-like territories. – Steven Sharif

Village (stage 3) or higher nodes enslave nearby nodes, converting them into vassal nodes.

• A Metropolis (stage 6) can control up to two City (stage 5) nodes. A City (stage 5) can control one Town (stage 4) and one Village (stage 3) node. A Village (stage 3) can control an Encampment (stage 2) or an Expedition (stage 1). If the Village (stage 3) gets destroyed through a siege, its dependant Encampment (stage 2) and Expedition (stage 1) nodes are also destroyed.

There is a layer of intricacy between how the neighboring nodes advance and what potential parent structure they have in the vassalship tree. – Steven Sharif

• Vassal nodes gain benefits from their regent node (also referred to as sovereign node or parent node) even if the node type of the parent is different to the vassal.

It is not a bad thing to be vasseled, it is a good thing to be vasseled. It brings many benefits from the Sovereign, which is the ultimate parent of that vassal network down to the vassal node itself; and it allows that vassal node to even live outside of its normal mechanics. You get to adopt some of the benefits that the node type of your sovereign is, even if your node type as a vassal node isn't the same. – Steven Sharif

• Vassal nodes can extend across seas, and also include islands.

• Regent nodes collect taxes from their vassal nodes. These taxes cannot be taken by the mayor or other players.

• Vassal nodes must remain at least one node stage below their parent node.
  • Neighboring/Adjacent nodes from Expedition (stage 1) upward block the growth of their immediate neighbors. This was intended to be tested in Alpha-1.
  • Vassal nodes first apply any experience earned to their own deficit (see Node atrophy). It then applies excess experience earned to its parent node.
  • If the parent node advances, the vassal is once again able to advance.

• Vassal nodes give excess experience to their parent node and may have their own vassals; so long as they fall within the parent node’s zone of influence.
  • If a node is capped and is both a vassal and has its own vassals, any experience earned from itself or its Vassals is first applied to its own deficit. Experience beyond that is then sent to its parent node.

When the vassal reaches its cap it overflows experience up to the parent; and so it can be very good early on for parents to get vassal nodes that are very productive- that have a lot of traffic. – Steven Sharif

• Vassals are subject to the government, alliances, wars, taxes, and trade of their parent node, and are able to receive federal aid from them.
• Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals.

Q: During phase two testing you are hoping to test vassals. Would you be open to test the game implications of vassal sieging their parent node?

A: I don't think that that's something we necessarily need to test at this stage. I think what we what in testing the vassaling system- what we are getting feedback on is: what is the relationship between the parent node and the vassal node, and the benefits that they provide the citizens of each, and how is that looked upon by the player base through this testing. Is it being looked at as a negative relationship, and if so then probably we need to talk about the intent: what is the intent? The intent is that it should be reflected upon positively, so then how do we start tuning the knobs and levers in order to make that relationship feel better for the players. So that's where we would start, is if we get negative feedback from that relationship of the parent to vassal node then we would start by tuning the levers and the knobs around how to increase the benefit for that reciprocal relationship between those two, before we thought about, 'oh okay well players don't seem to like being vassals of a parent node, let's just let them kill the parent node', because that has much wider architectural design concerns; and we wouldn't go to that step unless we just come to some determination that like, no matter what knob and lever we turn, players just don't like being a vassal. Okay then, let's talk about how players can stop being a citizen of one node and go become the citizen of another node if it's just not their cup of tea to be a vassal citizen, regardless of the benefits that we offer. – Steven Sharif

• Citizens of vassals are bound by the diplomatic states of the parent node.

If a Node is a Vassal Node and is capped from advancing further, it first applies any experience earned to its own deficit (see Node Atrophy section), and then applies excess experience earned to its Parent Node. If the Parent Node advances and the Vassal is able to grow, it becomes uncapped. If a Node is capped and is both a Vassal and has its own Vassals, any experience earned from itself or its Vassals is first applied to their own deficit. Any experience beyond that is then sent to its Parent Node. – Margaret Krohn

Neighboring nodes

Adjacent nodes (Neighboring nodes) starting from Expedition (stage 1) may block (lockout) the growth of their immediate neighbors.

• Vassal nodes must remain at least one node stage below their parent node.
  • Encampment (stage 2) and Expedition (stage 1) nodes are technically not vassal nodes as they do not support citizenships. If their parent Village (stage 3) node is destroyed by a node siege, these nodes are also destroyed.

Node atrophy

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

Nodes accumulate an experience deficit each day based on the node's level, called node atrophy. The deficit is subtracted from any experience earned that day. If any deficit remains, then this is subtracted from the node’s experience pool.

• An atrophy system may be implemented, where accumulated atrophy points will progressively disable services within a node. The node may be destroyed if a significant points threshold is reached.

• A previous design concept was that nodes could delevel based on accumulated atrophy.

There are intrinsic problems with reducing a nodes level as opposed to removing the node and it may be possible I'm just gonna say now that we don't actually atrophy nodes to delevel but rather accrue atrophy points that must be replenished over time; and if not it begins to disable services and further compound the atrophy problem; at which point when it reaches a certain atrophy point then the node would just disappear. – Steven Sharif

Relics

Reliquary concept art.

Each city has what's called a reliquary and the reliquary begins to spawn unique items for the citizens to take advantage of based on the performance, progression and achievements that those citizens have within the world. So if your citizens are part of downing a world boss or completing a dungeon in a record time or crafting a legendary item or whatever: all of these different types of progression paths for the cities could result in the production of a relic that exists within the reliquary. – Steven Sharif

Relics are achievements for a node that unlock over time. They allow node citizens to craft certain legendary items and progress in certain legendary quest lines.

Relics are embodiments of certain types of achievements. You may have the scale of a dragon that's been defeated- the all-scale aspect of it- and from that every week a citizen might be able to derive one scale material component that can be used across a plethora of high-end types of crafting. – Steven Sharif

• Relics automatically manifest in the node's reliquary when specific conditions are met by that node. For example, it may require a certain number of citizens to accomplish a particular achievement a number of times before the relic is granted to the node.

Let's say for example there is a dragon nearby and this dragon is a large raid boss; and the number of citizens that the node has that participates in that raid the first time- if you have 30 citizens present you may not achieve the relic. And it's not a matter of capturing it at that location taking back to the city. It'll automatically manifest within the reliquary if a number of citizens accomplish a particular achievement a number of times necessary to create the relic. So if you only have 30 citizens present at that raid boss you may need to do that raid boss four or five six times in order to unlock the achievement which grants the relic in the reliquary. So it's essentially incentivizing the citizens to participate in the world events around the node. – Steven Sharif

• Relics can also be awarded for accomplishments that span many different progression paths, such the number of citizens achieving advanced stages of their artisan classes.

The other component of relics that's important to note is that it's not just adventuring relics, these are accomplishments that span a lot of the different progression paths. So you could have accomplishments get unlocked by how many number of citizens achieve the creation of a particular type of item. You may have now an alchemical genius that is a citizen of your node and as a result there is an alchemical relic that's been granted to your reliquary in a similar fashion to the dragon. – Steven Sharif

• Relics stored in a node's reliquary grant passive and active benefits to node citizens and vassal states.
  • Area-of-effect buffs to damage, attack range or the health of the defenders.

• Limited access to the relics stored in a node's reliquary are granted to players after a node is destroyed by a node siege. Benefits are also conferred to those who capture, steal, or sabotage relics held the reliquary.
  • Looting a relic from a node will create a shard of the relic, which can be used in recipes for certain crafted items and enchantments; or it can be consumed for a single-use buff that reflects the original relic's purpose. These shards can be traded.

• Relics include the four Ancient artifacts of Verra that were originally discovered by King Atrax in his pursuit of the power of The Essence.
  • These artifacts were in close alignment to The Essence on Verra due to their proximity to the ley lines of Essence spread across the world.
  • These artifacts were originally housed in the vault of Fallow's Hold, which is one of the great dungeons of Ashes of Creation, located near the capital city of the ancient Toren empire, Torall.

• Constellations enable the acquisition of certain relics.

• Certain relics can only be discovered through exploration.

Ancient artifacts

Toren Godspike concept art.

A staff of the Ancients 3D render.

This is not the Staff of the Ancients per-se, it's a staff... Here in the curvature and design of this staff you'll see that it has a very specific and unique looking type of mold so-to-speak. So there could be some relationship between these designs of the staves and/or weapons that you'll see, which are used to harness or focus the use of the Essence, or magic; and how perhaps those structures relate to the types of magic that those creatures are using. – Steven Sharif

The Ancient artifacts of Verra were originally discovered by King Atrax in his pursuit of the power of The Essence. These artifacts were in close alignment to The Essence on Verra due to their proximity to the ley lines of Essence spread across the world. These artifacts were originally housed in the vault of Fallow's Hold, which is one of the great dungeons of Ashes of Creation, located near the capital city of the ancient Toren empire, Torall. They are now considered relics that can be acquired by nodes and housed in their reliquary.

• The Golden Chalice was believed to bring everlasting life but was actually allowing the corruption of manipulating The Essence to enter the soul through the physical representation of drinking something.
• The Crown represented a direct link The Ancients had into the thought process of King Atrax that the Ancients were able to manipulate.
• The Sword brought unusual power through manipulation of the evil side of the Essence, which is how Atrax maintained his dominance over his people: through physical might, essentially striking down any foe that opposed him among his administration.
• The Staff enabled Atrax to project his magic across great distances, which enabled him to extend his power and manipulation throughout the lands of Verra and allowed him to maintain vigilance over his realm.
• The Toren Godspike is an artifact that could initiate a fissure that can siphon out Essence that lies within Verra. It is used as a PvP objective in certain node war types.

Racial influences

Alpha-1 Village node layout.

We have essentially sets that exist across all races; and each race that dons those armor sets is going to have their own racial influence on the presentation of those particular sets. So that's something that's unique in how each of the races get diversified. Additionally, the more that one particular race contributes to a node's development, it's going to manifest in that particular node's architectural influences. You're going to see the architectures of those races become manifest within the nodes as well: That's another way that we diversify each race and we present each race's culture in the game as through those architectures, through those props that exist, through the tailoring of the armor sets that the NPC might wear, to the different factions that exist. Factions will have their own affiliation with different races as well. Each race will also have some different nomenclature when it comes to the lore, or comes to locations in the world. They're going to have their own language influences as well: The way they speak is something that's going to be distinct between races; when you have dialogue trees with particular NPCs. So all of those things really go into setting an immersive world where the cultures have their own identity. – Steven Sharif

Cultural influences manifest in many ways, from node and gear aesthetics to NPC languages and lore.

• Gear appearance of certain armor sets is influenced by the player's race.
• Node layout and style is influenced by the race that contributes the most to that node.
  • Benefits may apply to citizens of the dominant culture but can also apply to mechanics of the node, which can also be of benefit to members of other races.
  • There are attrition mechanics that affects experience and influence to curb a single race from dominating the entire world.

There is an attrition and that attrition on experience and influence is heightened based on the performance of the race in the world. So if all these nodes are Orc nodes then their attrition rate is very high to compete with the cultural establishment of new nodes because they have more influence in the world and a popular opinion is against them in their outlying regions that they do not have influence in. – Steven Sharif

NPC racial interaction

• NPCs will react differently to different character races.
  • For example, Elven NPCs may interact differently with Humans compared to Elves.
• Languages will be distinct between NPC races and in the lore.
• Certain quest givers and NPCs may only be present at nodes with certain cultural influences.

Depending on the cultural influence of the node activates certain types of quest lines and/or sponsors. Some of those are shared, some of those are general. Some of those relate to a progression path that is a first time user experience. Those will be constant across all culture types. Some of them, however, are predicates that spawn when certain story arcs and/or events, or commissions or buy orders become present within the node; and those might change based on the cultural influence of the node. So there is a separation between those populations. – Steven Sharif

Node layout and style

Racial architecture of the same Village (stage 3) node on different server realms. Dünir Dwarven influence (top). Kaelar Human influence (bottom). Alpha-1 Non-NDA screenshot.

The layout and architecture within a Node’s development area are determined by influential race. For example, a stage 3 Node with the majority of player contribution being Py'rai would have a Py'rai village with Py'rai architecture. Most NPCs would be Py'rai elves, and offer questlines within the Py'rai narrative. – Margaret Krohn

Each player’s contributed experience is flagged with their character race and other identifiers. When a Node advances, the race with the highest experience contribution determines the Node’s style and culture. This style and culture change can happen at every Node Stage. For example, if a Node advances to Level 2 - Encampment Stage and 51% of all experience was earned by Ren’Kai players, the Node will be a Level 2 Ren’Kai Node. If that same Node advances to a Level 3 - Village Stage Node, but the Py'Rai contributed 62% of all the experience earned, then the Node will be a Level 3 Py'Rai Node. – Margaret Krohn

Node layout and style is determined by several factors:

The way that the node system is built is that they can exist across a spread of 18 biomes, but at the same time have to represent the cultural influence of these cultures that are intrinsically a part of a specific biome. – Steven Sharif

• Environment (biome) and location of the node.
  • Nodes will adjust the local topography to fit the aesthetic and mechanical requirements of the node.

Currently the way that the platform system is set up, is it's capable of adjusting the topography of the node's footprint, regardless of the surrounding terrain. So the reason for that is we want to have flexibility in the presentation of the node's layout and how it is essentially both from an aesthetic standpoint as well as a mechanical standpoint with node sieges- how it's constructed and that construction should have the ability to take on a variance of different types of topography. So it shouldn't be dependent on the surrounding area. Now that's not to say that the surrounding area isn't going to have some influence over. So for example... we're experimenting a little bit with the platform tech and putting up a node up against the side of a mountain or on the edge of a cliff or something that has a beautiful vista. Those are things that we're going to test out obviously as we continue to work on the node tool and how that platform system works, but the idea is to have the node independent of the surrounding terrain. – Steven Sharif

• Node type.

Some parts are determined by the area it's in. Some parts are determined by the type it is. Some parts are determined by the race it is; and then the rest of it is determined by the mayor. – Jeffrey Bard

• Race that contributed the highest percentage to the node's advancement will alter the racial appearance of its buildings, NPCs, and props.
  • Parent races do not combine their cultural influences. For example, Py'Rai and Empyrean count as different cultures. Their parent race, the Pyrian, no longer exists.
  • This style and culture change happens at every stage.
  • This applies to all nodes, including castle nodes.

All nodes, whether they're associated with a castle or associated with normal node structure, has cultural influences that replicate over to the buildings that are produced and the NPCs that are present. – Steven Sharif

• The rest is determined by the node's mayor.
  • It should be possible for a node to complete several building projects within a mayor's one month term in office.

Q: How long would you say it will take players on average to fill/build up a node completely from wilderness to metropolis?

A: It's one thing to get a node to a certain level: it's another thing to develop the node; and I can't really give you an on-average expectation, because there's a lot of variables at play. There's how many citizens does the node have attracted to it; what's the type of traffic that the node is attracting to it based on things like its tax rates, or the specialization that it chose to spec into, based on the building types it's chosen to build. All of those things are variables that can affect the quote-unquote "average build-out time" of a particular node. So it's difficult to give you an average when there's so many variables along those lines. But the idea is that if there is a particular project that players are interested in in developing based on the node stage, that they would have the ability to complete several of those projects as within a single term of a mayor; and a term of a mayor is one month. – Steven Sharif

NPC racial interaction

• NPCs will react differently to different character races.
  • For example, Elven NPCs may interact differently with Humans compared to Elves.
• Languages will be distinct between NPC races and in the lore.
• Certain quest givers and NPCs may only be present at nodes with certain cultural influences.

Depending on the cultural influence of the node activates certain types of quest lines and/or sponsors. Some of those are shared, some of those are general. Some of those relate to a progression path that is a first time user experience. Those will be constant across all culture types. Some of them, however, are predicates that spawn when certain story arcs and/or events, or commissions or buy orders become present within the node; and those might change based on the cultural influence of the node. So there is a separation between those populations. – Steven Sharif

Unique node buildings

Alpha-1 Node buildings.

Each node type has a unique service building associated with it that can be activated at Village (stage 3) of node advancement. The unique building plays a central role in the progress of civilization for a server realm.

Racial quests

Quests may be based on a character's race.

Different quests may relate to who the primary cultural contributor is to a node. This won't lock out content, but will add flavor to the quests.

There might even be different directories of the quest that exist for specific races, and even though you're sharing a quest to kill a boss, if you're human and I'm an elf, I will have a different arc potentially that leads in a different direction than you, even though we took the same quest; and this can relate to who the primary cultural contributor is to a node unlocking different arcs for cultures that share the primary culture of a node - not that locks out content but it gives a flavor in a different direction so that not everything is so cookie cutter. – Steven Sharif

Race matters because narratives have paths that also are influenced based on the primary contributing culture to the node... If you're a Niküa and you have you're in a Niküa node that's predominantly Niküa, you're going to have certain services and/or abilities as a member of the Niküa race that other races may not have access to... They may have alternative quest lines, but they won't have specific ones. Now those specific Niküa quests will then relate to the meta-narrative that's present in the world and they'll start to direct some of that meta-narrative; and that'll be beneficial for your kind because it will unlock certain content for your race that other races haven't unlocked yet. So there is an incentive there to see progression along that line now in order to curb the progress of a dominant race. – Steven Sharif

Quests that are race specific, title specific, or guild specific will likely be less than 10% of the total number of quests. 90% of quests should be able to be shared by everybody.

Trophy park

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

Trophy park is an area within Town, City or Metropolis nodes that has available spots for trophies. These trophies show the character names of players who are the first to complete world bosses and dungeon bosses that were spawned as the result of the development of that particular node.

• Server announcements and achievements are designed to encourage groups to experience new content.

Node leadership

Alpha-1 winner of Mayoral election.

There are a number of different seats that can exist within a node, and carry different responsibilities. – Steven Sharif

Node leadership positions (also referred to as Node government positions) are attained through seasonal titles that grant special powers and benefits within a node.

There are other node-based positions. Most of them relate to social organizational structures like the temple and the social organization building that the node might construct. Those are ladder systems of achievement that players can work through on a seasonal basis to achieve the highest level of that for the particular node; and by doing so they will then have titles bestowed upon them, which grants certain types of powers and benefits. – Steven Sharif

• Mayors.
• Priests, bishops, or acolytes of temples.
• Social organization positions.
• Patron guild leaders.
• Chief bounty hunter.

Leadership powers

Alpha-1 Empyrean city node information panel.

The government has a lot of say in the direction of the node's development. Directing assets, building projects, tax allocation, defensive ability etc. Players have the ability to not only create these cities, but they have the right of self-governance.

Mayoral leadership powers are granted to mayors via the use of mandates.

• Initiate buy orders using gold from the node treasury.

• Initiate mayoral commissions to aid node development.

• Adjust node taxes. This includes setting tax rates that apply to tavern games.
  • Tax money may only be used to fund node development.

• Initiate service building construction and expansions.

• Improving node defensive structures, such as stronger walls and gates, traps, and siege equipment.
  • Hiring mercenary NPCs to defend the node during sieges.

• Declaring war on another node and rallying citizens to the cause.
  • Resources are required to declare a node war. These are able to be gathered through special mayoral commissions relating to war preparations.

We don't want mayors running around in Ashes of Creation just perma flagging the whole world into a state of PvP, well it's going to cost you some resources to do that. – Chris Justo

• Set a message-of-the-day for the node.

• Proposing node policies that are voted on by citizens.
  • Mayors won't have formal systems to carry out surveys/polls of node citizens, but they will be able to utilize node citizen chat or message-of-the-day services.
  • Mayors may have special color names in node chat channels.

• Entering into trade agreements and defining routes between nodes.
  • Coordinate the transfer of needed supplies with citizens operating caravans.

• Mayors don't get a free home, but they do have offices in the town hall.

• Mayors cannot denote players as enemies of the state. Previously this was a potential option.

• Mayors are notified when their node is named on a siege declaration scroll.

• The mayoral title unlocks special high-effect abilities and stats during sieges, wars, and events.

  Mayors and lords of castles have spells they can use on the battlefield with high effect and long cooldowns for their teams.

• Mayors will have an emblem generation suite that allows them to create their node flag.

• Mayors gain new powers and responsibilities as their node advances.

• Some leadership powers are specific to node type, biome, or dominant race, others are universal.

There definitely are differences... Some of the things that mayors can do are more universal, but then some systems have very specific if your node has a certain dominant race, or your node is a certain type, or it's in a certain biome. So there's even differences between where it is too. – Chris Justo

• Some decisions require the mayor to be present in the ZOI of the node. Most do not.

• If a mayor does not make certain decisions within a set period of time then the system will make a decision for them.

Q: The idea behind all these nodes are awesome, but I wonder how it will actually play out in the live version. The problem is having player run or the problem with having player run towns is that people come and go in video games. So, will towns die out etc?

A: We incorporate as part of those designs certain fail-safes, certain protections, certain automated progression that takes over when some of those decisions are lacking or are not made; and those decisions can be defaulted. Now, of course, that would have a deleterious effect on the direction that a particular node might want to go, because they're going to be doing default behaviors, or default actions, as opposed to something that might be in line with the strategic objective of that particular node, or the specialization that the node has previously been attempting to do. But that is why we have a regularly recurring election period where players can take the reins of power and can elect someone else to come in and participate and and re-right the ship, so to speak. So it is absolutely a component of having player-driven mechanics that there is an opportunity for things to be less than ideal, or less than strategic when certain bad-faith actors or people leave, but there are safeguards in place. – Steven Sharif

• Mayors cannot de-rank their node to avoid war.

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

• Choosing a node name from a predetermined list.

• Guilds do not control nodes.
  • Guilds hold separate roles in the direction of the node than the roles held by private citizens.
  • Only a certain number of guilds may participate in these roles.
  • Separate guild roles are reserved for small, medium and large guilds.

Node taxes

Alpha-2 Node treasury work-in-progress advanced node taxes UI.

As the node levels up, you're gonna get access to deeper controls on the taxes, so that you as a Mayor can incentivize players to come to your node to do certain things. If you're a node that loves smithing, you're probably going to want to lower your taxes on artisanship to incentivize players to be here. But then you might want to drive up taxes on other avenues that players aren't necessarily coming to your node for, but are using out of convenience. – Chris Justo

Alpha-2 Citizenship dues and node taxes work-in-progress UI.

Mayors are able to set a generalized node tax rate as well as overrides for different activities within their node. Mayors gain additional taxation controls as their node advances.

• Amenities tax override.
• Artisanship tax override.
• Commerce tax override.
  • This may include taxes that apply to tavern games.
• Property tax override.
  • Freehold property taxes scale according to the number of freehold building permits issued for that freehold.
• Citizenship dues and property taxes scale based on the stage of the node when a player became a citizen.
  • The goal is to exert financial pressure on node populations by making taxes increasingly expensive as nodes advance, rather than putting in place hard population caps.
• Node tax rates will be visible on the world map by hovering over a node location.
• Tax revenue only goes toward funding node development. This cannot be withdrawn by the mayor or any other player.

Regent nodes take a cut of taxes from various activities that occur within their vassal node structure.

• This tax doesn't necessarily impact the individual citizen, because citizen's tax levels are determined by their node, but the node's finances are affected by the taxation levied by its parent nodes.

Node wars

Miraleth channelling the Godspike in an Alpha-2 Territory control node war.

God Spike Scholar PvE objective during the Harness the Godspike node war event.

Scholars are going to spawn across the POI. They'll be marked on our map and they're going to increase the time it's required for the enemy to channel; and drop a hefty amount of the materials we need to turn in to be able to channel ourselves. – Chris Justo

Node war map icons

	Friendly node
	Enemy node
	Node war objective
	Controlled POI

Mayors may declare war on another node and rally citizens to the cause.

• Different node war types can be declared by the Mayor.

• It costs resources to declare a node war. These are able to be gathered through special mayoral commissions relating to war preparations. Additionally, Mayors may only declare war on nodes with sufficiently low Node-to-node reputation scores. This requirement may be disabled or reduced for Alpha-2 testing. Accordingly the frequency of node wars in Alpha-2 will likely be higher than in the final game.

We don't want mayors running around in Ashes of Creation just perma flagging the whole world into a state of PvP, well it's going to cost you some resources to do that. – Chris Justo

• Node wars can be declared at any time, but node war events will only spawn during server prime-time.
  • Node wars mutually flags the citizens of the warring nodes, including their allies (in the case of certain war types), as combatants.
  • Players can kill each other at any time during the war (not only during server prime-time).

• Node wars are structured into phases, and each phase consists of events. Winning phases and events offer long-term and short-term rewards.

A war contains phases and phases contain events. So, there are conditions to win a phase and then there are conditions to win a war. Winning a phase gets you some amount of in-the-moment rewards and some more long-term rewards. Winning events gets you some amount of in-the-moment rewards and long-term rewards. And then the war is the massive objective that you're competing to towards. – Chris Justo

• Node wars affect reputation between the warring nodes.

We have conditions that you can set between nodes with regards to either nodes being friendly with each other and acting trade alliances, or they can declare war on nodes similar to how guild wars may function in different games, where those citizens become hostile to each other based on the player government that's elected in the particular node. So those systems all cater to allowing a conflict that's meaningful and that also provides a non-imbalanced relationship between stronger guilds and not as strong guilds. – Steven Sharif

Q: Are there any plans to have upkeep cost to war in addition to the initiation costs? It would be incredibly compelling to know that crafters and gatherers would have to work double time to ensure that the war can go on, or even stop supporting the war if they find it unnecessary.

A: Not necessarily within the war context, however I think the crux of that question is, how do we include material resource requirements, active artisanship, engagement, all of these other gameplay systems: How are they interconnected with a political event like war? And the way we achieve that is obviously there are things that can enhance your war preparedness or your war efficacy through the use of unique weapons during war. Unique upgrades to your guards by supplying resources to the barracks so that you have stronger guards at your headquarters, or weapons and shields and armors that can be utilized through the barracks system. In addition, vehicle support for sieges. There's a lot of different ways where crafting and artisanship plays a role as enhancing, not necessarily maintaining, a particular war or feature. – Steven Sharif

• Killing the Mayor and other special positions within the opposing node, such as heads of religious or social organizations, will accrue more victory points during the war. These positions may also have powerful abilities that can be used during war and sieges, such as Mayoral skills.

Q: Will there be a scoreboard detailing the most active participants achievements during the node war. Things like: players KDA, damage, healing done, objectives, etc.

A: You'll be able to see yours for sure and you may be able to see others if they opt-in. – Steven Sharif

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

• Social organizations quests will either be cooperative or adversarial based on the war status of their parent nodes.

Alliances

Ashes of Creation may have specific content that revolves around Alliances.

• Progression pathways within alliances.
• Guilds sharing common services with alliance members.
• Node alliances.

Content that revolves around alliances specifically and progression within the development of that alliance; and the ability to share some common services between guilds that are part of that alliance. I think that additionally allowing alliances to toggle certain relationships with nodes as an interaction is beneficial. That's going to provide an interesting dynamic for players who are either members of the particular node that has the relationship established or members of the Alliance. So I think that obviously building systems is is about creating the channels by which these players can form bonds and the more layers you have around those channels of bonding between the different guilds or players, the more sustainable that relationship. – Steven Sharif

Sharemarkets

Stock exchanges (also called Stock markets and Share markets) enable players to buy and sell shares in Nodes, Guilds and Social organizations.

• Stock exchanges were a Kickstarter stretch goal unlocked for reaching the $3 million dollar mark.
• This is a planned feature for the launch of Ashes of Creation.

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

• The value of stocks is influenced by world events and the performance of nodes, Social organizations or guilds.
  • Hard metrics, such as quest lines, nearby resources, citizen progression, and purchases of local real estate, will determine the value of purchasable shares.

• Sieges will halt trading of shares in a node. This opens up potential for economic sabotage.

• There is no regulatory commission to restrict the purchase and sale of stocks.

See also

• Nodes
• Progression