Talk:2018-01-18 Livestream

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Character count: 39160 | Duration in seconds:3251 | Characters per second: 12.05

1:44

[Music] Hey everybody welcome to our regularly scheduled livestream today January 18th I cannot believe we're actually three weeks almost into 2018

I know it's going by [cross-talk]

I know it's crazy it's going by so fast

So fast [laughter]

It's crazy actually feels like we are already a year in [laughter]

No it kind of does

Yeah

It's good to see you guys all again we're gonna be answering some questions from discord so if you guys are not on the discord please make sure to go to our official discord which is discord.gg/ashesofcreation I said discord there a lot of times

It's okay

There is a livestream Q&A channel where you can post some questions you're limited to one question per 10 minutes so make sure it's a good one in addition we do have a couple of videos to show you today they're short and sweet one is Michael Bacon his amazing Dunir dungeon

Mm-hm

Which looks pretty cool

Looks really sweet

2:48

Threw together a quick video of that and then we also have a alpha zero first look at the under realm that Tristan put together so we'll be showing you guys those videos here shortly we actually as many of you are aware we began our alpha 0 testing December 15th and we did that by the way how's the audio good

Are we good? [cross-talk]

Fantastic 2018 is gonna be good

So yeah we had our Alpha 0 December 15th we have multiple phases of alpha zero in fact our next one is coming up here and just about under a week now

Yep gonna shove some some more people on that server

Yes and a very actually interesting aspect of our first officer to some 15 is that we we learned a lot I mean it was an immense help for us to to actually have that first

Live experience for us yeah we got a lot of really really good data that's what we've been working on last couple weeks doing tons and tons of optimizations and really making a lot of progress on that side of things

And we got good about running around with our heads on fire [cross-talk]

Yeah yeah

Wondering what's going on and why

Yeah

There was a decent bit of that

Those are always fun [cross-talk]

Yeah it brings it back to reality [cross-talk]

It was just working what's going on!?

4:13

So interesting aspect actually of alpha zero is that I got a hand it to our alpha zero participants you know we didn't offer it as a purchasable phase because it is such a raw testing phase right and it's not something that is that is something we're comfortable giving as a product that is people are going to purchase but with that being said those participants who did win the random drawings for alpha zero have been absolute troopers you know

Super patient

Super patient you know I think they enjoyed the experience

I hope so

And hearing the feedback they did but most importantly you know there were times where they would have to redownload the game

Right

And you know they would stay up late with us because we wanted to get in like midnight session testing of certain things and it was really just it was cool to have such an engaged and and and patient community that was there with us every step of the way [cross-talk]

Who wanted to participate and wanted to help us make things better I mean that's that's really what we needed and that's what we got which was really cool

Absolutely and I gotta say another aspect of that similar to us being at PAX at PAX West and having this community engagement every time I engage with the community we engage the community it is just more fuel for that fire of passion and baking this product oh yeah it's just seeing that excitement and dedication from the community members it does nothing but but revitalize and re-purpose why we're here and building Ashes

Yeah it's good to know we've got an audience right like that's the most exciting part about this is that we're building it for you guys we're building it for us and and we're working together so well I gotta say I'm really proud of you guys everybody's been fantastic

Thank you

Well done so 2018 is upon us

It is here it's arrived

2017 was actually a an amazing year I mean as you guys know who have been with us since we first launched the website and made the announcement for Ashes of Creation back last December [cross-talk]

A year ago yeah

Not this last time but the year ago right it was it was a crazy journey right I mean I think I remember distinctly getting our hundredth member on discord

Oh yeah

Right and it was awesome!

And our thousandth member on the website registration

Uh-huh

And now to see what that [cross-talk]

I remember when our website went live accidentally and people found us when we weren't ready

6:37

That was crazy

That was a year ago can you believe that? [cross-talk]

Who broke the story? who was the first to break the story?

I can't remember

I think it was massively OP

I think it was

Yeah massively OP I think it was Justin from over at massively OP was the first to break the story about Ashes of Creation because we did have that accidental website life

Yeah

Yeah and they were yeah that was I mean it has been an unbelievable journey that the month of Kickstarter was the most distinct month I think of my life just every day seeing that progress and that that just wildfire [cross-talk]

Enthusiasm

Absolutely it was it was unbelievable and now here we are in 2018 and the future looks brighter than ever I mean it truly is an understatement for me to say that I'm astonished by the progress that - oops somebody ordered a pizza

Oh oh pizza should I open it?

Yeah you go for it

Alright I'm opening it for the pizza

Oh man there's probably pineapple on it again

oh no if it's pineapple send it away who's it who's it for?

Who's it from?

For Steven or Peter

Okay

Peter!

This is from somebody in the community

It's a it's another pineapple pizza [laughter]

Okay so someone from the community ordered a pineapple pizza

No it's actually barbecue chicken I think

Oh oh well well done!

Thank you for ordering [cross-talk]

Thank you for the pizza we appreciate it you've timed it perfectly well done what was I saying so the future is is is brighter than ever I mean looking back and I think it's an understatement for me to say that what we have accomplished from a production standpoint with regards to where the game is at right now is astonishing I know I know we have have some unbelievable veterans on the team and you know in our department meetings when I'm talking about the current state of our production even they in their history of experience with large titles like you know EverQuest or Vanguard or Star Wars Galaxies we're in a good spot

8:38

Yeah I mean it's it's we're agile and we are so focused on getting things done right I think it's it's one of the things that I is one of our philosophies where it's we just work and we we get it done and that's I mean every time we get a milestone and every time we we get past it we get to look back and say like man we just built something cool and we're gonna continue to do that month in and month out so

And I think one of the most important aspects of these milestones and how aggressive they are is that as a team it's beneficial for us to like Akil said run around to our hair on fire right because it's during those those tense moments of just of just hard production that we we learn things we might not have learned if the hair wasn't on fire right

Right yeah I mean all in all we're doing a lot of learning and building and and kind of it's very organic the way that we're kind of everything is structuring kind of around itself as its expanding

Yes absolutely

Hard sometimes

Hard most of the time

If it was easy [cross-talk] everyone would be doing it

Exactly absolutely so I mean we have we have a we have an awesome road ahead of us for the year 2018

Yep

We have big announcements we're going to be making in 2018 we have some big testing phases that perhaps we'll be getting to in 2018 and we also have some awesome community interaction dates that we'll be getting to interact with the community for example we've already announced PAX East and Boston

Yep

Which is first week of April I believe

Can't wait to see you guys there

It's gonna be fun we're going to have a great time we're actually looking at a community after kind of party thing we're gonna do after one of the days I know it's gonna be tough on the team because that PAX west it felt like

I'll be I'll be wearing shoes so!

I'll be wearing sandals

Yeah I don't know how you do it man I was dying after that first day

Didn't I when we went to PAX West didn't I say that everybody needed to have sandals?

Yeah yeah you said you said that was the dress code [cross-talk]

But some people couldn't cut it

Some people couldn't cut it I cut it for the first day

Okay I couldn't cut out any of the other days

Yeah I think I was up like [cross-talk]

My feet still hurt from that

I think I was up like 36 hours straight that first day

Yeah

Right

It was it was it was just about that yeah

10:49

Yeah that was crazy but no we have we have awesome things planned for 2018 we cannot wait to see where we will be at different points in this year just looking back at where we came from in 2017

From our Kickstarter

Right absolutely it's gonna be gonna be fun so why don't we do this why don't we show one of the one of the videos I will let the Baconator choose which one we will show first ooh

Ooh I'm excited

Well I'll be surprised

I'll be surprised it'll be something totally not

Mics off let's do mics off for the video

[Music]

14:00

Alright guys so that was Michael chose the underrealm preview in Alpha Zero that's just to give you guys a first look on the on the first iteration pass of the underrealm how it's gonna feel you know when we were discussing it during Kickstarter we were explaining how are they they're these wide large open caverns

It's not just a little tunnel

Right

Ut's it's it's an old it's an entire ecosystem unto itself

Absolutely and one of the important aspects of color play as well is going to be some of the distinguishing factor between the different under realms and their regions that exist in the world what their color influences are that kind of set them apart from different regions

Right the way we want them to kind of feel like you have gone you know to the north or you know you're hanging out in the tropical zone except underground we want to kind of vary those environments and may give them their own feel their own climate

Absolutely

So to speak I mean it's it's not a climate underground yeah

Yeah and it was I think you know a lot of the alpha0 participants their feedback was you know awe at the under realm it was beautiful it was it was a distinct different feeling between above-ground and in the underwhelm and that's kind of what we're shooting for is is is making those two worlds exist in different parts

Yeah and just really really trying to nail that fantasy feel

15:28

Right and another I mean another important aspect of the underrealm obviously is that in the lore this the underrealm serves as the the home the sanctuary the hideout where the Tulnar developed right this is this is where they they fled to

The last safe place

Exactly yeah well but yes absolutely it's still very dangerous place but ya no we're very happy with it love love doing seeing the artists take different iterative approaches to to implementing new aspects of the under realm particularly with the bioluminescence and just that light that exists it's very cool so we'll show the next one as well and this is this is going to be one of the dungeon areas that Michael Bacon created this is a Dunir dungeon well not necessarily even dungeon really it's just a keep kind of underground keep you know but I believe it actually a dungeon it so it might be a dungeon

I'll call it dungeon [cross-talk] absolutely yeah

[Music]

18:42

Very cool I love seeing I love seeing anything regarding the Dunir

Yeah

They have such a distinct feel

Yeah

And it is you know it's it's definitely closer to traditional Dwarven fantasy feel but it is just such a fun fun race and culture

And you can feel it in there

Absolutely

I mean I love watching what Bacon does

Yes Bacon is the Baconator so we we actually we found out that the pizza is from Deathfyre

Thank you

Thank you Deathfyre we appreciate it

Hopefully it's not all gone by the time we get done with this

It's gonna be gone [cross-talk]

It's gonna be gone [cross-talk]

It's already gone [cross-talk]

It's already gone [cross-talk]

Definitely already gone [laughter] but actually interesting note that was in the pizza says hire me

Yes

So I think I could segue that into an important development that we're going to be doing soon which

Good point good point I like how you did that

19:33

Which is that actually we as Intrepid Studios are starting our next hiring phase here in the next what I think a couple of days probably by Monday we're gonna post those up we're looking to bring on ten additional team members within a very short period of time so that's a it's a pretty big number because there's currently 25 that are in-house so 10 is just about half of that

Yep

Yeah

Yeah that's how numbers work no but it's keeping up with our pace right yeah I mean we're really really moving forward fast

Every time we hit a milestone we figure things out we'd bring more people in

Absolutely which is which is great from a production standpoint because you know that the senior team the leads here they get a understanding of the production environment and then they can train those who come on board after to accommodate so keep an eye out for that if you are an industry professional who is excited about our project and

Yep we want to talk to you

Absolutely yes absolutely another important point is as we post these these job postings will also be bringing up the intrepidstudios.com site it'll be very simple landing page but it will contain some information about the company and also offer advice / procedure for applying for one of the positions so that's an important thing to look out for we have some we have some concept art updates excuse me that we could show and we might want to show those actually while we're doing some QA

That sounds like a great plan

Yeah I like it

Might be a good idea

I like it

Alright let's do it we have some let's start with the forums

Forums

Yeah you have that?

I think I do

All right

Yep I do all right so we'll start with BCGiant their question is when are we going to upgrade when are we going to be able to upgrade our packs on the website?

That's a very good question actually our web dev team is currently working on that functionality and our expected delivery date is around the 26th of January give or take several days in case there's some unexpected testing errors that need to be addressed but I would say it safely around the end of this month you'll be able to see the upgrade paths for the pre-order packages in addition you'll also see the add-on functionality available if you are a Kickstarter backer or summer campaign backer you will have the ability to purchase the cosmetics that are present in those pre-order packages independent of having to purchase the package itself and the cosmetics that are offered are themed on a monthly basis this cosmetic that's currently the package has been on a little bit longer than a month but that's because we haven't had those functionalities in place but we expect to have once the functionality's in place for upgrades and add-ons done probably a one to two week period of those cosmetics remaining before the next month's cosmetic comes into place

So make sure you go shopping

22:46

Yes

Mosta Mosta69 my question is on the last alpha zero stream the Quick Time event bar was not present can you share an update on you're thinking of this mechanic is it still there has it evolved or was it removed? Thank You team XX O O XX

Aww that's nice so I mean with regard specifically to the the Quick Time event that was present in the PAX demo you know we explained then that it is it is an iterative process on an idea a mechanic that we were exploring and a heavy portion of that mechanic relies on a on a on a UI representation that feels good you know the basic concept is that there is a there is a skill quotient to to that aspect of combat and how that is portrayed is the UI dependent aspect we did not have time to iterate on the UI for that mechanic come alphas this last out of zero so what we did is we widened the success range on those combo systems so that it was not really I mean it was a pseudo skill time

We basically took the mini game out because together hot we couldn't get it to a fun place in time and so it's it is now kind of in its most basic boiled down

Right

Form where it's got a little bit of a cadence to it you can tap you can generate focus and so from here we'll look at ways in the future to kind of like take that and make that more interesting and more fun and more engaging

Absolutely

It's gonna be a core loop of ours and we really want to spend a lot of time massaging it so

Yes

You know it's different now at alpha zero it's gonna be different at our next you know milestone it'll continue to change you'll continue to see it evolve until we land on exactly what we want

Right and the most important thing there with regards to it changing is that that that change is is really going to incorporate feedback from the community in these different testing phases that we implement those out and see you know how fun is this is this a good mechanic

We use the data that you guys give us to make good decisions [cross-talk]

Absolutely yes

25:58

Pinkberry will there be cute pixie and fairy pets fae team theme stamp staffs with lanterns maybe?

I think a safe answer to that is yes there's going to be cool / cute / interesting pets that are available and some may feel very fae like yeah

I think it's safe

Yeah

Yeah Axios is alpha 2 the only persistent test or god will the betas also have persistent servers? I understand this will come with regular character wipes and no transfers

So persistent for us means that we're going to keep those servers up all day and night or until launch so alpha two's persistence doesn't mean that there will not be character wipes that there will not be perhaps testing wipes that are done will betas have persistence I don't know yet probably not I would say with I mean that they will have periods of of access points and then that period will close another aspect to alpha 2 was our promise that past launch the alpha to the alpha 2 servers will be the public test servers so those are what we will spool up again when we want to implement patches updates and we will allow people to go there for testing and stuff like that

Yeah kinda preview

Exactly

26:28

Chylock Shylock during your last livestream aka pew pew fest I was left with the impression that ranged attacks are highly preferred at the moment is there going to be a balancing aspect integrated into the gameplay for those of us that like melee?

No no we're not going to balance anything we're gonna that's my goal and [cross-talk]

Next question!

No balance

Ohh go ahead

But I don't think there's any preference if there appears to be a preference to ranged attacks it is not intentional and we will we would like it the combat to feel balanced and fun no matter what range you play at so

And for there to be a reason to be [cross-talk]

And for there to be a reason to be a ranged yeah and that is that is an ongoing thing we will do it all throughout alphas all through betas once we're alive we will continue to do that like balance is something that it just it just never stops it is the game from now till 50 years from now

Nice

I like that it's a good number

That was a good number [laughter]

27:31

So solo Szolo according to its S Z O L O so Szolo

Zolo

Zolo

Zolo?

Zolo the s is silent

Okay I thought the z would be silent but that's okay according to a website blog entry players will be able to buy food and drink from the tavern some of which will be supplied by the tavern owner or other patrons that they get their menu from does this mean that players will have an effect on the dishes served in the tavern for example every tavern will have some basic food and special dishes with limited quantity will only pop up in case players supply the tavern with certain meat vegetables spices etc?

Yep

The answer that is yes?

Oh yep

That was the end of the question

Yeah okay yes the characters will have a defined region of agency over what is available in the different taverns whether they be taverns located within the city or taverns located on a freehold and those could be tied to supply quests that are then done by the players they could also be regionally determined of availablity

Based on what resources are there

Absolutely

Like if you're a tavern over on the western side you might have different you know grains spices and yeah mead there and then over on the other side of the world it might be taverns with completely different things

Right and those foods have different effects

Mmm hmm

Yes

28:51

Yeah all right Taikan is there any plan to make Bear McCreary soundtrack available outside of the game my mini like myself are huge fans of anything he does and would love to get their hands on it

So I know I've expressed this on multiple occasions not just to the community but also in my discussions with Bear I usually lead with by the way did I mention I'm a great fan

Yeah

Yeah no yes the that is the intent Bear is a phenomenal composer I mean he is he is unbelievable in his artistic expression and music and for me personally music plays such a pivotal role in the immersive factor of a game being able to to lose yourself in the world has such such musical implications for me right and Bear being the amazing artists that he is actually I got an awesome gift from Bear last week it came in the mail he sent me these he sent me these gummy bears

All right

So one I love gummy bears but two I noticed the Gummy Bears didn't say gummy on the front they just said Bears

Oh

I was like oh I get it! [laughter] I understand now no but yes that is our intent we fully intend to utilize Bear's amazing talent when it comes to the immersive quality of our game

So this question I actually don't know if we can answer but I'm gonna ask it anyway

Oh wow look at you're getting daring in 2018 [cross-talk]

It's a new [cross-talk]

My goodness

DracDoc are there any we may have actually already talked about this are there any plans to offer some sort of mobile tie-in with the game what I mean is some way to see character information node information perhaps sales of your merchants or manage your guild alliance etc?

I believe we spoke about this a little bit before

Did we?

I think we're did yeah so a little bit before we spoke about having these certain types of services and/or mechanics that are available in game and translate well to a mobile application that you're capable of influencing while not in the game but elsewhere

In a meeting

Oh my goodness we don't want to know you know whatever you're doing having that authority over certain mechanics that translate well we want to implement that yes

31:04

All right Adrienne asked Audrian and asks if I owned an open-world player home in a mountain somewhere next to a peaceful River well me and my in-game wife Gretchen be susceptible to griefing or PKing by other players if so do I have the option as a taxpaying homeowner to obtain or hire protection through mercenary bodyguards or perhaps guard dogs?

It's an interesting question that's an interesting question so I believe we've also mentioned before that if you're on your property or in your home you don't have to worry about being PKd

Yep you're safe inside

You're safe inside

Inside

Inside if you are around your home or freehold then that is a part of the open world and depending on the proximity of that location to a node might determine whether there are relevant patrols of NPC guards which may not enjoy that type of behavior among players right and might intercede

Maybe

But whether or not you can purchase higher rent deploy guards just as an all time status around your freehold I don't believe that's an intention we we [cross-talk]

You can always ask another friend

Right that's true absolutely reliance on community and friendship that's a MMO staple

Yeah

Yeah all right that's pretty much for we probably should check some [cross-talk]

32:33

All right let's check some discord questions so what do we have here let's go to the top Wow okay sorry question from Poisons god of all am i awesome?

You you are

Yeah

Alright you're awesome buddy that's the first question

That's the first question? I thought it was his name [laughter] it's a long name wow

33:03

Okay let's see here we go will there be a wide variety of tameable animals to use as combat pets?

Probably i mean i so kind of at at it at the simplest level what I could see us doing is as you can tame something and it'll fit like a creature template and so even though you've got a certain creature you could tame like it can be a wolf it can be a dog be anything in the world and we just kind of like balance it so it just looks like whatever you just tamed and it looks like whatever you just tamed but it has like the behaviors of kind of a real pet in the world and so that's something that's not super complicated

Right

Easy to balance but beyond that like saying you could tame anything I think that's cool

It's cool but

It's a whole set of other difficulties but yeah I'd love to see it and I there's something [cross-talk]

I would love to see it as well

Shoot for and I don't think it's a reach

34:04

Yes okay next question from Inori could you please allow us to tame many many mouths so we can choose everyday again which mount we want to use?

So I mean you're going to be able to have many different mounts

Yeah

To choose from

Yeah

And you can you can deploy them as you wish

Yeah

Yeah or you can breed them as you wish

Correct or you can yeah

Are we gonna limit that somehow? [cross-talk]

Yeah I mean there may be there may be some type of mechanic that that requires infrastructure to house a greater number of mounts right but

But it's gonna be big

Right

It's definitely definitely one per day of the week

34:56

Yes okay here we go Nightwolf what kind of things would we be able to climb in the game since the days of EverQuest I've always wanted to climb the trees and just wait either [laughter] either a way to escape a predator or to wait for something to come to us?

Basically he wants to be a drop bear

Drop bear yeah that's cool

Climbing is problematic

It is

It's problematic in a lot of different ways

Especially when it's open like that it's it's something we of course would love to do it would add a lot of you know variety to your gameplay but but again the difficulty in implementing a system that's so broad like that it's something we'd really have to take a look at it would be something

There's definitely going to be scenarios in which climbing is present whether or not it will be as free-form as I just choose any tree I want right or any cliff I want and I can climb it probably not

Yeah we're not making breath of the wild

35:56

Yes there you go okay very cool all right next question question from MutinyMcBob in any of the alphas or betas will we be able to test siege mechanics?

Mm-hmm

Absolutely

It's gonna be a big system that's going to need a lot of banging on

It is a huge system because I mean not only sieging mechanics there's a variety there between the different things that are siegable right such as castles or nodes and those are two very different design aspects scenarios but they share many of the common engineering development that requires the number of players on the team the factions between attackers and and and defenders putting them all in a zone you know how many participants a lot of people may be the present in that we need to test [cross-talk]

The system will have a lot of moving parts [cross-talk]

Yeah

And we'd be crazy to not test that absolutely with many people as we can as many times as we can for as long as we can [laughter]

37:02

Question from influenza what kind of siege weapons will be used in game craftable bought from NPCs limited to carrying certain ones?

Yes

All of the above

Yeah

Yeah all of the above absolutely so I mean part of part of this endeavor of sieging a player held location or non player held location is is time to prepare and that includes gathering and crafting these these mega weapons or collecting the resources whether it be gold or specific quest items to purchase from NPCs some of these weapons and and obviously we want choice to be a factor so you know you're not going to be able to carry a trebuchet in one hand and a ballista the other and just walk up to [cross-talk]

Dual wielding ballistas!

You know so yes answer's yes all right question from oh how funny that's a the Gretchen one was in here so yes tell your wife hello

In game wife

38:13

In game wife okay question from Laylee Lolly oh wait IMPLaylee is there a limit to the number of taverns that can be in an node?

Yes there's going to be defined parameters for in-node building locations and once that defined limit is reached presumably then you cannot have more taverns otherwise they're just being node of nothing but taverns

So just be taverns everywhere

Just taverns

As far as the eye can see

I'd be interesting though

Tavern world

Tavern world world of taverns okay question from [cross-talk]

World of taverns [laughter]

Watch that's gonna be a game soon [cross-talk]

There is you made it [cross-talk]

39:04

Okay here we go question from from Amnesty Burnt Slayer lore question is Steven the only person that worked late is Steven the only person that's working on the lore for this game or is their small team under Steven's guidance and painting his vision of vera? that's a good question so there's there's kind of different parts to the lore right there is the origin story there is the story of the fall there is the overarching story of kind of deliverance/return and then each and then all of those fall into a subset of different personal quest lines cultural quest lines regional quest lines and Jeff has been working a lot on those with regards to alpha zero and will continue to do so as we move into to the broader category of the world itself for alpha one and two

I mean for the most part Steven is the guy who comes up with the story and then I write it

Right

And that's kind of how it usually works he's a creative director this is his idea and it's so it's a lot of talking with Steven and trying to like you know pull things out of his head and you know what do you think about this what do you think about that

There's a lot of stuff up here

There's a lot of stuff up there and

That's half the battle

So I mean it's it's a collaborative effort but I mean Steven generally [cross-talk]

It is [cross-talk]

Drives it

Yeah

Steven is not capable of writing it all

Right absolutely there's a lot so in part of my approach towards towards the grand idea of of the world of Ashes of Creation is there I'm a very collaborative kind of focused person I want there to be input from from people of different walks of life that have different experiences because they can relate in a way that I may not be able to

Right

And a Jeff Akil Joshua Peter you know the team in general we get input in our meetings on the direction of certain things right and and that's important to me because you know from a from a director's perspective I can hear these things and pull the best parts from everything and form kind of these overarching narratives

And anything creative right like

Yes

Critique is how you kind of make things better

Yes

So that's that's a lot of what we do

41:29

Absolutely good question okay question from Alerian how does water get into the underrealm will there be little holes for rain and potentially players to fall through? that's a great question there actually are holes that will be present in the ceiling perhaps of of some of the great big caverns that exist in the world whether or not a person falls into it

It's up to them

Yeah

Yeah [cross-talk] first running water underground

Absolutely

It'll just be there

Yeah a hundred percent okay question from a question from Zakgayly ik ZakKolak Zakelik in terms of use is there any reward for being an alpha zero tester such as a badge or a title? there is indeed rewards for being an alpha zero tester and they're twofold one yes I believe there will be a badge that we will implement on the forums eventually and then the second thing is funny thing that happened early on in the testing for a technical reason some of the players coming into alpha 0 would get stuck at a certain loading screen

A certain

A a very specific loading screen and it was very beneficial for us to get these players stuck there

Yeah

Because it illuminated an issue that needed to be fixed which is the purpose of testing in the first place but as a as a compensation for just this interesting loading screen issue I decided that we would create a house decor item of this particular thing that they could put on the mantel of their home

So they can always remember it

Remember

Yes

Yes right and and just to give some insight as to what it was one of the loading screens was a countryside that you could see with a volcano in the background and a large windmill near the front so as as it was aptly then named the windmill boss it grew bloodier by the day for certain testing phases so these these particular alpha zero phase of testers will receive a windmill decor item that will sit on a mantle and the home

Yeah

And you also get our thanks [laughter]

43:57

Yes eternal thanks absolutely okay sorry so question from SaruBot any eta on a page on the website or pages that will contain info on the skills for classes a more visual graphic to help others somewhat theorycraft their hopeful classes?

That will come eventually yes

It'll probably be pretty pretty close to launch but

Yeah late late beta [cross-talk]

Right

When things are pretty final

When things are pretty final yeah

Absolutely okay

We'll probably have something like that internal when for a beta testers when we let them into beta but

Question from Infante EnFuryk with the additional hiring are you on schedule for how far you wanted to be in production maybe ahead or behind?

I would say as an initial response to that I am extremely comfortable and happy with where we are at the moment if I were to give a general response to that without eliciting hope for an earlier delivery date then was estimated in our Kickstarter I would say that I would feel were slightly ahead or in a better position than I anticipated we would be at this point that would be my general response I'm very very happy with with where production is I'm great I'm grateful that we were able to get hundreds of players in alpha0 in and and actually testing in a game environment and collecting good information from that I feel good about where we're at

45:35

Let's see next question from question from let's do Zeki the Phoenix what role would you like bards and summoners of any class combination to play within a party?

So summoners are kind of your flex guy they fill the hole that your party may not have filled they can do things maybe not they can shift their roles easily support I think bards specifically will be more of a force multiplier they will make the party as a whole better so that's kind of the roles that they play remember our parties are fairly large so support is going to have kind of this pretty intense multiplicative effect and then and then whenever you're not able to get that full party in a summoner is always going to be a good person to bring

Mm-hmm good answer okay question from from Rodsor how will you deal with gold sellers how will you handle player to play their trading?

Well

We're just going to ban them all

I know so how will we deal with gold sellers? there will be a lot of security features in place that collect user data and flag for inspection certain unusual data that may not be normal so we'll have heat map there and additionally

A live heatmap

Right a live heat map and additionally gold sellers will be banned and there will be report function report player functions available in game to also drive the that to our attention what was the second part of that?

Will there be trip player trades?

Will there be player to player trading

Yes

Yeah absolutely

That's a core core component

47:46

Mmm-hmm will AOC you have a system in place to prevent bots from ruining the game?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Bots will not win

Bots will not win

They may try [cross-talk]

We shall smite them [cross-talk]

But they will lose [cross-talk]

We shall smite them in your honor okay next question let's see let's see let's see how many how many different weapons from Lecake how many different weapons will there be with all the classes or will there be only one weapon for each class

So weapons are agnostic of class and I always forget how many weapons there are I want to say twelve

Classes?

Fifteen if you count off-hand shields and stuff [cross-talk]

It's around there

Yeah

Around there there's a good amount of you know magic weapons [microphone noise]

And there's some some kind of funky stuff where like a halberd is is the same weapon to us as like a spear because you can attack the same way so we'll get some like multiple weapons out of a single like

Right

Weapon

Yeah

49:04

Very good okay next one

Sorry

What? that's crazy okay next question

Too much caffeine [laughter]

There was a good question that I saw but I lost it I can't remember where I put it oh here we go question from Dot for players that get into the alpha or beta of the game is there an NDA that prevents streaming during those times?

There will not be an NDA present for alpha 1 2 or the betas

Yeah as a matter of fact did I mention about the NDA

You did not know

I did not okay so as a matter of fact in our next alpha 0 phase which is going to be coming up at the end of this month I am very very likely going to be removing the NDA so that participants of that phase are capable of streaming and doing some content creation around the current state of our testing phase which again you know I've discussed this before with you guys as a community that there are great upsides to this type of transparent development and then there are also some downsides to it so but with that in mind I am still of the opinion that that it is more beneficial for us as a studio for us as a community and a a new IP project to be transparent in the development of Ashes of Creation and have trust that our community and those who see it will see it for what it is an iterative process that is very early in development and a lot of that polish aspect to it comes pretty late in the production phase and production process I think that that this is the way gaming companies should operate because as our our genre grows as a community it is it is something to to say that Studios like ours and other MMORPG creation studios they have more to benefit from the input of their audience by showing them these things through the iterative process

Especially such a huge game as an MMO right like like there is no way for us to know whether something is good or not unless we give people exposure to it

Yes and sometimes you know like I I came into this to this venture purely as the perspective of a gamer and and it was my my dream my passion to start a studios and to implement some of the the key components of an MMORPG that I felt other companies were lacking and and now having been here for just over two years and being at the state we're at sometimes it's possible to to get stuck in that perspective of developing the game and and you may lose out on the perspective of what was previously there a gamer like I'm always a gamer heart but I think it's just a better environment if the community has a hand a voice

Yep

In and seeing what's going on and being able to communicate with developers

Yeah they're part of the board right so yes it's one of those things it seems silly to me that you wouldn't do it that way just because you guys are the ones who are going to be playing it you were the ones that were going to be consuming it we're only 25 people here

Right

Here yeah you know there's so many more of you guys so so that's what it was us a better perspective

Absolutely so look forward to near the end of this month you'll start to see some some content created around the Alpha zero experience and and keep in mind that there is trust on behalf of the studios with you that you will take it for what it is which is a very early iterative process of of Ashes of Creation yeah

There's a long way to go from here

So with that we will have another stream at the end of this month mm-hmm I know these two are a little close to each other but again we do two streams a month so we will have an on the stream at the end of this month look forward to some of those those examples of gameplay from alpha zero that may be coming soon in addition to some website functionality will be in place hopefully by the 24th or 26th and thank you guys for tuning in we appreciate it and we will see you soon

Thanks everybody

Thank you

Take care