Quests

Alpha-1 early quest user interface.

Questing in our world combines the best elements of traditional MMO’s as well as the introduction of our unique player driven experiences. Ashes of Creation offers area quests, public quests, and quest chains that change dynamically and in real time based on the player’s experiences and choices. Players will have the ability to directly alter world events and change the landscape through their actions, as an individual and as a community. Server quests will allow political rivals to compete for the fate of the world.

Alpha-2 quest journal user interface early preview.

We actually used the journal as one of our test cases for the style guide because it's a very complex screen. There's a lot of things that are going on, where we have different tiers of story arcs that might be available for players; and so we wanted to make sure the color denoted different information for them. We also have iconography to support that as well; and we have a little bit of a twist on what a traditional quest system would be like. With these story arcs we wanted to make sure that it was organized in a familiar way, but also something that supported all of the designs needs. – Colby Marchi

Quests in Ashes of Creation are divided into three categories: Events, Tasks and Narrative quests.

• All three categories of quests will be available from a variety of local, hidden and discovered sources, such as bulletin boards and NPC quest givers.

We’re going to be breaking up what is traditionally called ‘questing’ into three different categories: Narratives, Events, and Tasks. We want to avoid going down the path of trying to force narrative into gameplay where it doesn’t really fit (ie: filler stuff that doesn’t really relate to what’s happening in the world).

• Dialog choices within the quest UI are intended to affect gameplay, such as unlocking side-arcs and storylines.

Q: Will dialogue choices have any impact on the quests in regards to how NPCs respond to you or the overall outcome of that quest, or is it more just a role-playing perspective without any major impact?

A: No. The dialogue choices are intended to provide an impact, both with the response of the NPC, it might also serve as predicates for other systems. If there are certain paths chosen within the dialogue tree it might unlock different side arcs and story lines that other players may not experience. The dialogue trees are not meaningless. They're meant to provide gameplay related context. – Steven Sharif

• Questing will be placeholder until Alpha-2.

List of quests

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

Quest givers

Alpha-1 early quest giver nameplate indicator.

As opposed to what we may be used to in other MMOs where you see giant question marks or exclamation points, we've gone a little bit more subtle with the way that certain NPCs reflect their dialogue or quest availability. There's a slight shimmer that exists over the name and their color: Green represents quest logs- quest paths and then the gold represents the shops. – Steven Sharif

Quest giver NPCs in Ashes of Creation have subtle indicators rather than obvious question marks or exclamation marks.

• Quest givers are identified by a green shimmer on their nameplates.
• Not every quest/quest-giver will originate from within a node.

Quest markers

There are not going to be obvious quest markers, such as question marks and exclamation marks telling players where to turn.

• There will be subtle ways that players will acquire knowledge that something is to be done in an area.

List of quest givers

Alpha-2 work-in-progress quest dialog designed by Colby Marchi.

When you're servicing multiple dialogue trees that have many different options, this approach is really conducive to keeping those options front-and-center to the player: letting them see that and navigating through the dialogue tree with a very easy to interact with quest window. – Steven Sharif

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

• A featureless tome
• Archscholar Denari
• Attendant Wynden
• Captain Quinn
• Corporal Cuhlum
• Eswyn
• Headmaster Varus
• Jhal
• Lieutenant Griori
• Olexia Fobrasna
• Private Tarston
• Scholar Lodi
• Scholar Rhea
• Sergeant Landry

List of quest rewards

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

Item	Icon	Item type	Rarity	Level requirement	Set
Frayed Cloth Gloves		Gloves	Common	7	Frayed
Iron Longsword		Sword	Common	1	Iron
Iron Wand		Wand	Common	1	Iron
Lava Forged One-Handed Sword		Sword	Rare	12	Lava Forged
Lava Forged Wand		Wand	Rare	8	Lava Forged
Refurbished Plate Gauntlets		Gloves	Common	7	Refurbished
Sharpened One-Handed Sword		Sword	Uncommon	5
Tiller		Tool	Uncommon	1
Tome Of The Tundra		Spellbook	Epic	15

Story arcs

Alpha-2 early preview of the story arc UI.

Story arcs are like a pre-packaged tabletop campaign. They contain all of the NPCs and quests and monsters- all the things you need to make a cool fantasy story. They're not procedurally generated... We write all the dialogue and we construct all the narrative beats and everything like that, but they will enter the world dynamically depending on the state that the world is currently in; how players have built up specific nodes, what races control various nodes. We have plans to include lots of different things on top of that, but we don't have any quest hubs or anything like that in this game, because players build up all the cities. So we had to get a system that looks at what players are doing and can inject content into the world that makes sense for what they're doing. – Skott B

The Blood Still Due story arc unlocking at The Tower of Carphin.

When story arcs come online, they change a lot the environment. They update what monsters are in the world. They create quest NPCs... and then new Pathways can open up through the environment. – Skott B

Story arcs are unlocked by multiple types of player activity within each server.

• Cultural activity.

• Regional activity.

• Node progression.

Every stage a node develops it's unlocking narratives, storylines, it's changing the spawn population of the area around it, changing what bosses exist, it's triggering events where you may have legendary dragons attack the city. It's basically writing the story of the server based on the actions and determination of the players. So, you may experience a dungeon one month earlier and have a completely different story that relates to this location the next month, because something has changed either geopolitically or from the node standpoint. – Steven Sharif

• Personal or class-based activity.
  • It is possible for some storylines to relate to a darker/evil path, if a character should choose.

Even player driven mechanics will still have story components. There will be a reason why the player driven mechanic is available or required of the player; so you know every system that's created touches a story. – Steven Sharif

• If there are too many other major arcs happening at the same time in the same zone, a story arc may need to wait its turn, even if conditions are right for it to be unlocked.

• Story arcs can branch into different stories with multiple possible endings depending on the quest objectives that players complete during each chapter.
  • The developers with try to ensure that story arcs in future expansions flow on from existing story arcs, regardless of the different possible outcomes.

• There will be a variety of different types of story arc content at different scales, with different cooldowns to suit different types of players in the game.

We must provide enough of this content at varying scales such that it isn't worthwhile or economical to control every single story arc in the world. Some will be smaller in scale and production value, and thus, will move faster and have shorter cooldowns before they're reintroduced. – Skott B

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

Certain story arcs can be unlocked through the bulletin board system. Certain requirements would need to be met in order to access story arc quests.

• Mayors require certain resources.
• Buildings are required within a node.
• Social organization tasks need to be completed.

Story arc chapters

Quest journal showing story arc chapters.

Within the context of these story arcs, there are specific points that they can pivot to tell a different story. That different story can be based on predicates that are in the world: from a player decision standpoint, from a cultural representation standpoint, from situational to which node gets developed. There's a lot of different components that interact with the way the dialogue and narratives play out on a particular server; and what that means is- and I've said this from the beginning many sandbox MMORPGS, they do not create as much curated content as theme-park MMORPGS; and their excuse for doing that is because they incorporate player-driven mechanics. But that's a bit of a cop-out and it's the opposite approach that we've taken with Ashes of Creation; and the reason for that is, if you give the player a door and there's nothing behind that door then opening the door is meaningless. So what we have to do is we have to create a very functional story arc system that provides content in many different ways, but is behind a door of world progress or world development that is then executed by the player population. And that's how we construct our narrative systems. – Steven Sharif

Each chapter (phase) in a story arc can cause changes across the entire server, such as environments, monsters, NPCs, Quests, and pathways.

• Players can progress within the timeframe that each chapter is active.
  • Phase timers are shown (in the quest UI) to indicate how much real-world time is available to complete the quests in each phase.
  • If the player completes all quests in a particular chapter, they will need to wait until the next chapter to obtain further quests.

You can't really farm the quests in any meaningful way, because once you've done the quests in a chapter, that's it until the next chapter. Whether 1000 people participate or 10, the chapters will stay active for the same length of time, and as long as you participate in the clearly-marked time frame in your quest journal, you're good. The only thing that a concentrated effort can help with is influencing the narrative paths through the arcs. – Skott B

• Story arcs can branch into different stories with multiple possible endings depending on the quest objectives that players complete during each chapter.

It's not just a matter of completing the laundry list of things that the NPC has you do, but you pick from a whole bunch of objectives, many of them optional. Some of them, if not most of them, hidden when you first undertake the quest. So go dig up a guide, or blaze your own trail, or whatever; but depending on which objectives you complete, those are the things that help the server aggregate what is going to happen in later phases of the story arc. And that's across all of the players participating during that time frame: what objectives they decide to complete. – Skott B

• Story arcs can last for days, which reduces pressure to log in daily to remain competitive.

Story arcs normally progress according to the passage of real-time, which is clearly indicated in your quest journals. Even if a zerg guild throws all their resources at a story arc, they can't lock anyone out of participating by doing all the participation on their own. You'll have the time indicated in your quest journal to finish the content available in that chapter. – Skott B

• Most story arcs will repeat with a cooldown, but major story arcs will only occur one-time: These can be replayed, but in a non-interactive way where any choices made do not impact the world.

The cooldowns between arcs repeating will also be quite long- proportional to the length of the chapters, but we're still in pursuit of the right numbers there. You can't do the individual quests again until the entire arc restarts. – Skott B

• Some events will only be available while story arcs are in certain chapters.

Read more...

Storyline quests

Storyline quests can have multiple stages. These quest stages can actually be failed.

• The ability to retry a failed quest depends on Node progression.
• Quests involving citizens from multiple nodes are unlocked based on the alliances and other relationships between the nodes and their progression.
• Quests may differ based on the stages of nearby nodes, seasonal influences, and events such as world bosses.

There will be many different quests that actually have stages of the storyline; and these stages can actually be failed. You can actually fail a storyline; which sucks when you think about it, but at the same time that risk makes your investment that much more important. – Steven Sharif

Epic/legendary quests

Epic and Legendary quests affect the narrative of the game. These quests will unlock gated content.

Server history

Map concept art.

The history of each server will be tracked and visible to players in a node's library.

We're gonna keep track of the history of the world so that we can tell people the story up to the current day. A player who's brand new, who's come in at the six-month mark can take a look at each server, what each server has done, how each server has tackled the storyline; and they can decide for themselves what community they want to join; what version of the world that they want to take part in. – Jeffrey Bard

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

• Scribes may be able to collect and record information about the events of the world as they see it from their point of view.

Events

The world of Verra is a dynamic and ever-changing landscape filled with wonder, adventure, and danger. One of the many mechanics that allow us to achieve this adaptability is Events. Events are one of the primary ways that players will experience content. Events focus on delivering a reactive world that keeps players on their toes while changing up gameplay in a fun and unique way, providing challenges, and shaping the world around them. Players will encounter events throughout their entire time on Verra - from early progression to high-level dungeons and raids. – Peter Bisulca

Corrupted area in Alpha-1, design by Mia DelCasino.

I think Ashes' whole premise is to incorporate events and changes and evolution that not only represents player activity but also incorporates random story driven interruptions to the normal flow of the world; and whether that be through blocking off specific roadways that are the lifeblood of a particular node's incoming resources, or having random raid boss appear in a zone that never traditionally they did before; and as a result it incurs a complete change of climate that's now affecting crop rotations; and only specific crop can come from that zone; and now the whole economy of the world has been thrown into chaos because no one's been able to down this boss yet, we can't get the corn we need in order to build the reagents on the alchemical side to create this craft- That's the type of domino effect system or event you want that appears in a natural non-injunction way, but it presents a problem to the players to that they have to accomplish something at least if they want to change it back to the status quo. Those I think are compelling events and those I think are ways that the world can introduce an element of randomness that reflects what we experience in the real world. – Steven Sharif

Events are things that happen in Ashes of Creation as the result of development in the world. They can take the form of quests, pop-up triggered events or other narratives that happen throughout the world that are triggered due to certain conditions (predicates). Events are scaled to fit local, regional, and global needs.

Events are where you’ll find your public quests, though these will be scaled to fit local, regional, and global needs. They’ll also have consequences locally, regionally, and globally, for good (if they’re taken care of successfully) or for ill (if a fail condition is reached).

• Some events incorporate random story-driven interruptions to the normal flow of the world, such as blocking off specific roadways, having a random raid boss or mobs appear unexpectedly in a zone. Some may lead to wider consequences, such as climate change, plagues, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, or other natural disasters.

Events... can be local, regional or global, and consist of boons or banes. They’re triggered based on a lot of different variables, and some may be one-off Events that occur once, and never again. If an Event is handled successfully, then something good happens to the local, regional, or global area. If it fails, then something bad befalls the local, regional or global area. They’ll relate to the overall Narrative, but don’t fall into its overall structure (for the most part). These are the things that will be written into history, and we imagine that as time grows, each server’s history will diverge more and more.

• Events that are taken care of successfully have positive consequences.

There are certain effects that can happen in a world that does not have a proper response from the player population and that's the whole idea behind these events that can happen; that you know feel like these are natural world progression events if corruption starts to show itself as a response- as a push back to the player's development of nodes in the world itself. – Steven Sharif

• Events that reach a fail condition have negative consequences, such as:
  • Natural disasters.
  • Node attacks from NPC mobs, such as dragons, or hordes of zombies.
    • Certain mobs may target specific buildings for storyline reasons.
    • These attacks may weaken node defences against any future player attacks against the node.
  • Local events that have not been addressed successfully may start to expand regionally or even globally.

Some of the events that spawn have consequences that lead to node attacks; and enemies have a particular type of hate list on certain buildings that a node may have access to when they attack during an event; and that hate list might relate to- or that building choice might relate to something that is indicative of the storyline for that particular event; or it could be something that is more pivotal to the defense of the city. If the city doesn't respond to these types of things that might weaken them for potential player attacks afterwards. – Steven Sharif

• Monster coin events are system spawned events that enable players to play as monsters within the event system.

• There are events that lead to the spreading of corruption that players will have to fight back against. When these events occur players will need to participate to keep the intrusion on the material plane back.

• If events don't occur within a certain time period, they could occur randomly.

• Some events will only be available while story arcs are in certain chapters.

• There may be one-off events.

• Events do not target personal belongings such as freeholds.

• Events do not directly impact class effectiveness but there may be ancillary effects in terms of availability of equipment, enchantments or tattoos.

Event types

"EVENT-ful" livestream teaser.

There are a variety of different types of events that occur based on random chance and other interdependencies.

• Calendar events.
• Node attacks.
• Monster coin events.
• Pop-up triggered events.
• POI events.
• Narrative events.
• PvP events.

Monster coin events

Monster coin concept art.

Let's say for example you have an event- that is the predicate for this event kicking off was that a raid boss was killed in a nearby dungeon; and it was killed for the 50th time, or it was killed by some particular storyline end or whatever the predicate system is in the world state to say "hey kick this event off". Well, when that event kicks off a number of spawners activate around the node and NPCs start moving towards a node. The node is notified, like "hey there's something happening here, you guys should put up your defenses focus on this thing"; and those with monster coins who are within the area and are not a citizen of the node or an affiliated node can choose to activate the monster coin to become one of the monster types that exist within that event; and that event has a number of targets; and let's say for this particular story arc the thing was we need to find artifacts and better weapons in order to defeat these bosses at the bottom of this dungeon; and a lot of players went through that process they found those weapons and whatnot. Well those things might be stored in three buildings that exist within the node. They might be stored within the armory; they might be stored within the barracks; and they might be stored at a workshop that has access to a workbench that they've chosen to build and that could also potentially serve as a predicate; and when you become the monster those are your three objectives; and you don't need to destroy all three. You potentially just need to destroy one, or you destroy as many as you can if it's a time selected event; and you might have targets that are NPC-related as well, such as the blacksmith that's at the workbench, or the captain of the guard who's at the barracks, or whatever who's at the armory; and you get to go in and you get to kill other players potentially during this who are helping to defend the city; and you can also make it to the objectives and potentially help in destroying the building, or killing the NPCs. That is the type of objectives that would exist within a monster coin system for an event. – Steven Sharif

Pre-alpha monster coin system.

Sometimes the disturbed beings could take the form of packs of dire wolves, hordes of zombies roused from their graveyard, or even, rarely, an epic-tier dragon flying out of a volcano once a node reaches its maximum level. In any case, the disturbed monsters have to tackle a series of destructive objectives, which can either be handled by the the AI or, more interestingly, by a player. The player in turn would attempt to complete all those actions much as in a multi-objective quest, hopefully before other players brought him or her down.

Monster coins enable players to play as monsters within the monster coin event system. This ranges from playing as a horde of zombies, to becoming a massive dragon.

During a Monster Coin Event, players will be able to activate Monster Coins, allowing them to become monsters and wreak havoc! These Events can be triggered in a variety of different ways, and in some cases they may even provide cosmetic rewards.

Monster coin events are system spawned events.

• They are structured in a way to prevent groups from gaming the system.
• Monster coin events are triggered by activity in the world, such as node advancement, defeating a boss or constructing certain types of buildings within a node.
• Server messages appear for players in the vicinity of these dynamic events.
• The player will have a number of potential objectives they can choose to attack during the event. This may include node buildings, points-of-interest, dungeon, NPC, or other open-world objective.

When you're playing as a as a monster from the monster coin use as part of an NPC event that might be targeting a node, or other some other open-world objective or POI, or dungeon, you get to participate as a monster and your focus is completing objectives that have already been prescribed as part of the event. – Steven Sharif

• Drop tables are disabled for player controlled monsters.
• Monster coins only allow a character to participate in events on their own server.
• NPC hate lists do not affect monster coin events.

The Ancients are not going to be part of the monster coin system.

Traditionally, the Ancients are not going to be part of the Monster Coin system. These are the primary antagonists of the story. From a lore perspective, and one of the reasons why they're not a part of the Monster Coin system, is because their souls have really developed almost to the point of perfection in manipulating the Essence for more corrupt uses. They haven't quite gotten there, and who knows if they ever will, but that kind of attunes them out of the possibility: The reason why the monster coin system is possible with other creatures. – Steven Sharif

Tasks

Tasks are quests without excessive amounts of text.

• Tasks refer to node-based objectives that are narrative based.
• Tasks come and go in regional areas; and react to events in the world.

Tasks are hyper-local to individual Nodes, and will be centered around developing the Node that they belong to. If you want to go kill five wolves, this is where you’d do it. You can kill five wolves on your own, and that will count toward Node progression, but if a Task is offered to kill five wolves, then both the Node and your character will get bonus XP when that task is completed. Tasks will be numerous and varied, and will reflect the different gameplay styles that players can engage in within Ashes – there will be crafting, exploration, combat, and gathering oriented tasks (among many others).

Narrative quests

Narrative quests will focus on gameplay that reflects the story and won't contain "filler".

What you find in the Narratives category is where you’ll find most of what you might call traditional quests. Because we’re jettisoning filler, we’ll have the resources to craft a really excellent story, with gameplay that reflects the scope of that story.

One of the major goals I feel like we have is to allow player decisions to have consequences and to have meaningful results from the decisions that they make, so it seems like people can really create their own stories. – Aimi Watanabe

The world of Verra will be the same on each server, but Nodes will develop differently. Different servers will have different narratives. Things that happen on one server may not happen on another.

• The overarching narrative of Ashes of Creation is that players are the returning children of Verra but they will not be characterized individually as "saviors".

We want as many people as possible to experience the main server Narrative. These will branch at different scales, but largely at the personal level. Where things change is at the Node level – different parts of the story will be unlocked based on where and when Nodes grow. Unlocking a part of the story in a certain way locks out progression of the story in a different way. You’ll see different antagonists, different NPCs, and different calls to action depending on what’s happening with the server at that time.

It kind of redefines what the players will experience in an MMORPG to come into a wilderness that is devoid of really any structure outside of what the community creates themselves; and then what can be created can be changed, if they want to experience a storyline that's been seen on another server, but you know you're fighting a dragon because you're near a mountain and the other server's fighting a Kraken because they're near the coast and you want to fight that Kraken because of its drop table. If you want to meta it or because you just want that under your belt: to be the server first to take out that Kraken and you have yet to develop the node there, you know it's incumbent upon you to manifest that in the game. – Steven Sharif

Daily quests

Daily quests will not be the same as past experiences.

• There will not be an obligation to login each day.
• Will likely not be RNG based.
• Focused around how changes in the world relate to a player's opportunities.
• Location matters due to the lack of fast travel.

I don't think those will be RNG based. Those will be probably- you will see the reward structure for those types of quests. Will they be dailies? No they won't be in the sense of what we've experienced dailies in the past where you feel so obligated to log in and like you'll miss these things. It's more gonna be focused around like how the world is changing and how the changes in the world relate to your opportunities; and then you know if your location's gonna matter because fast travel is not a thing, where you're located at is going to determine your you know the risk versus reward opportunities that are present; and then depending on the time that those occur. – Steven Sharif

Grinding

Repetition will not be part of progression in Ashes of Creation.

• There will be no "grindy" quests.
• There will not be repetitive quest lines through a single dungeon to obtain gear.
• The aspiration is to have more things to do in the game than a player has time to do.

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.

NPC races

NPCs are going to react differently to different tags on a character.

• For example, Elven NPCs may interact differently with Humans compared to Elves.

Class-specific quests

There will be class-specific quests in Ashes of Creation.

There's going to be a lot of shared quests but there's also going to be class-specific quests; and the reason for that is that some classes are better at others than doing certain things and that'll play itself out through the general community quests. That's fine, but there are certain periods from a designer's perspective where you want to make an encounter be the antithesis of what a player is good at. It also gives them perspective because we have a more fluid class combination system where you can play the line in your traditional role by adding a secondary class that's different from your primary classes role. The benefit of having these class-specific quests early on especially in an archetype is that you can come to a determination and have greater experience for the things you're not good at. So you know how to progress your class in the future with the things you have access to that are different from what you're good at.' – Steven Sharif

• Those Quests will be influenced by the player's class progression via their choice of primary and secondary archetypes.

So you want to give them storyline that's relevant and make sense for them to their class progression. If I'm a fighter I should be going to a barracks and learning from this dude early on. Later on if I want to take on that mage secondary and I'm more arcane in the things I do, or more based in the essence, then yeah it makes sense for my also again for a catered quest to me that lets me focus on that route in the narrative. – Steven Sharif

Solo quests

Alpha-2 solo PvE ranger combat.

Ashes of Creation provides gameplay options for solo oriented players.

For those solo players who don't really care about finding a community to play with but they want to have one when they need it, there's going to be a lot of opportunities from a dialogue perspective, in-game chat options; you can join as part of citizenships: there's a lot of pseudo factions there- social organizations that give you an in to other players without the strong bonds that typically come with guild-oriented organizations; and I think that that's a comfortable medium between the two. – Steven Sharif

• Certain quest lines and hunting grounds are devoted towards solo players.
• Node citizenship and social organizations provide the ability to interact without the strong bonds that typically come with guild-oriented organizations.
• Mechanics exist within larger conflicts for small groups and solo players to impact the battle.
  • This includes systems that will likely focus on single group sized participants while the larger battle is occurring.

Voice acting

NPCs will have voice acted audio greetings.

• Narrated quest lines are not currently planned.
• Adding voice acting into the game at a later point is a fairly cosmetic change.

Is it difficult to add voice acting later? No, it's definitely not... It's a fairly cosmetic change. – Steven Sharif

Voice acting is a fun luxury to have, but it is not only a costly one, but it is also one that takes a lot of logistics. – Steven Sharif

Quest driven caravans

Quest driven caravans are used for trade routes between nodes. These caravans are system driven.

• These are initiated by players with a diverse choice of routes and launch windows, making them difficult to zerg.
• Initiating a caravan from one node to another will create a PvP objective that players will need to defend while it moves along its chosen route to the selected destination.
• Node-based caravan stats and capabilities scale with their node's advancement.
• Roads will upgrade as nodes advance. Different roads will dictate the speed and type of caravan required (off road vs on road).

The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location. As far as mass guilds securing trade routes, there is always a bigger fish in the pond. Also caravans will have limitations on carrying capacity and launch windows that will segment mulitiple caravans by several minutes, which would space out the caravans, making it difficult to "zerg" a defense. – Steven Sharif

Mayoral caravans

Quest to launch a mayoral caravan.

Mayoral caravans are launched by Mayors.

• Establishing trade routes with another node.
• Obtain resources by doing a caravan quest.

Mayoral quests

Mayors are able to initiate quest-driven systems that non-citizens can participate in. The mayor can use a portion of their node's treasury or goods as rewards for quest completion. Players will be able to interface with the node to view the quests that are available to them.

• These quests can be used to bring in material components to help combat node atrophy.

Escort quests

Escort quests will require different movement speeds based on the challenges being faced.

There are going to be different speeds that are going to be utilized. So you might be walking through one area and then they might start running and you might have to keep up and that might be time for certain ambushes that are intended along the design path. If you don't address that ambush in a quick manner your escortee has already started running off to the next thing and now he's getting ambushed by the next thing. – Steven Sharif

Quests and reputation

Good actions, such as participating in civilization building, may result in that character gaining positive Node reputation. Bad actions taken, such as failing certain quests, may result in gaining negative reputation. This reputation is gained or lost on a per-node basis.

• Certain NPCs react differently to player characters based on their node reputation.
  • This might result in higher prices (for goods or services sold at that node).
  • NPC guards will kill corrupted players on sight.
  • NPCs will add a player to their hate list if that player heals, buffs or otherwise assists any player on their hate list.
• Negative reputation may also open up certain quest lines that the darker, seedier side of the world are interested in.
• Excessive negative reputation may cause a character to be deemed "enemy of the state" of a node.
  • Mayors may also declare foreign citizens of other nodes as enemies of the state.

The more good aligned or civilization building aligned tasks that you complete, you get higher positive reputation. But if you get low or bad reputation you could be deemed enemy of the state of a node. You could be deemed kind of a bad actor and it might raise prices for you, but it also might open up certain quest lines that the darker, seedier side of the world are interested in. – Steven Sharif

Collection quests

There will be collection quests.

Quest sponsorship

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

Players can sponsor quests on a bulletin board.

Removing player corruption

Cemetery concept art by Tad Ehrlich.

The primary means to remove corruption is through death. Multiple deaths may be necessary to remove all corruption.

• Dying removes a significant portion of a player's corruption score.
• Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score.

  Any experience that's gained by the player, whether it be through achievements in crafting, or in adventuring, or through other types of achievements: All of that experience goes towards your adventuring class experience gained; and then some experience can dual purpose towards professions as well. So if I reach an achievement in my crafting profession and that grants me additional experience within that profession to rank up, it will also grant the same amount of experience over in my adventuring level; and to that point, anytime you gain adventuring experience you tick away at the corruption. – Steven Sharif

• A quest may be utilized to reduce the player kill (PK) count of a corrupt player in order for them to accumulate less corruption score in the future.
  • This is a design shift from a religious quest being used to directly reduce the corruption score.

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

• Corruption duration is reduced in military nodes.

Adaptive content

Alpha-1 preview pirate themed dynamic point of interest.

This is actually a dynamic POI. This one will evolve as players evolve the node that it's attached to. So this is kind of its final state. – Jeffrey Bard

New points of interest (such as dungeons, world bosses, and corrupted areas) spawn as nodes develop. This content adapts to the node progression of the zone it is in.

• Additional buildings will spawn.
• Additional mobs will spawn.
  • Different antagonists/leaders with different story lines.
  • Populations will change.
• Content difficulty will change.
  • The content may be different altogether.
  • Additional quest hooks.
• Dungeons will be unlocked when certain nodes advance to certain stages.
  • Multiple nearby nodes may collectively influence larger POIs.
  • Larger dungeons will gain higher level content as nearby nodes advance.
  • Storyline objectives for players inside dungeons will depend on the story arc paths chosen through the node system.
• Drop tables in areas and dungeons will be tied into the progression of certain areas.
• POI events are events that relate to specific points-of-interest (POI).
• The location of points of interest will be the same on each server, but some servers may have limited or no access to them.

Certain dungeons and other points of interest across the map will all be affected by the server’s node development. Some dungeons will only be unlocked if nodes are developed to certain stages. The storyline objectives for players inside dungeons will also be dependent on the story arc paths chosen through the node system. The drop tables in area and dungeons will also be tied into the progression of certain areas. For example, let’s say that the humans have developed a node in Region A, and a storyline has opened up that leads players to inspect the ruins (dungeon) of a nearby area. And let’s say that this node was developed in a scientific (crafting) zone… Well before the node developed, this dungeon was accessible… But now the dungeon has propagated new monster assets that include a drop table catering to a crafting emphasis because of the development of that scientific node. And perhaps, a new boss appears in different rooms of the dungeon that includes different adventure quest starts, like a mysterious item with a storyline that can only be progressed if a node develops to the metropolis stage in a certain region, across the world. Our system is so vast, when it comes to interconnectivity and how the world reacts to the players.

Zones and progression

Dungeons, Raids, World bosses, Mobs, Quests, Events, Resources, Narratives and other content within a node's ZOI will have a diverse level range; but will scale with the advancement of that node and its racial influence.

• Portions of the spawn tables (for mobs and resources) are static and other portions are dynamic and adapt to node development.

We don’t have a strictly level 25 zone. Instead, that zone might have some level 10 creatures near the road, some level 20 creatures deep in the forest, and some level 30 creatures up the mountain. These ratios will change based on the Nodes that inform them, becoming generally more dangerous as the Node grows. All this civilization attracts the attention of Things-That-Should-Not-Be. This does not mean that wilderness areas are safe, by any means. Some may be safe-er, but all will have dangers that even the most experienced traveler needs to watch out for. – Steven Sharif

Lore

Ashes of Creation logo.

Ashes of Creation is a direct reference to the storyline. Without giving too much away, the phoenix is going to be a persistent symbol throughout the first phase of the storyline, and the world that the players will be inhabiting is a long-lost world that has suffered devastating calamity. – Jeffrey Bard

The Phoenix is the celestial avatar of the Goddess of creation. Her sacrifice protected the people of Verra during the apocalypse. – Steven Sharif

There are different parts to the Lore in Ashes of Creation.

• Origin story.
• The story of the fall.
• The story of deliverance/return.

These story arcs drive one or more quest lines.

• It is possible for some storylines to relate to a darker/evil path, if a character should choose.

We're keeping lore very close to the chest and the reason for that is because it is very rich. It is diverse. It will have applications outside of just the MMORPG. We intend to take it much further, but I want it to be something that the players get to reveal themselves, that's not just handed to them and then the experience is lost. They should feel when they're experiencing this that it relates to them on a personal level. – Steven Sharif

It is about mythology and discovering what truths mythologies are talking about and finding out what really happened on this world so long ago; and that's part of that discovery process; and we want people to feel that throughout the game, not just in terms of lore but in terms of the world itself. – Jeffrey Bard

Screenshots

• 

  2023-04-01
• 

  2023-04-01
• 

  2023-02-26
• 

  2023-02-25
• 

  2023-02-25
• 

  2023-02-25
• 

  2023-02-09
• 

  2023-01-29
• 

  2023-01-29
• 

  2021-07-25
• 

  2021-07-25
• 

  2020-08-29
• 

  2020-08-29
• 

  2020-03-28
• 

  2020-03-28
• 

  2020-03-27
• 

  2020-03-27
• 

  2020-03-27
• 

  2019-07-19
• 

  2019-02-24
• 

  2018-11-16
• 

  2018-10-31
• 

  2017-11-20
• 

  2017-10-20

See also

• Lore
• Monster coins
• Node layout and style
• Bulletin boards