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 main categories: Events, Commissions, and Сюжетные задания.

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

• The various questing systems are intended to direct player activity toward content that affects the development of the world.

Nodes act as a hub; and one of the ways they direct player traffic is obviously through the commissions, the buy orders, things that essentially are supplying that demand of activity or action from the player; and then what the players choose to do is essentially the agency that's provided in helping to dictate how the world state will change. – Steven Sharif

• Every type of quest can be shared with other players in the same party. This may be tuned based on Alpha-2 testing.
  • Сюжетные задания and events can be shared within a raid group.
  • Other types of quests, or commissions, if allowed within a raid group, may be selectively distributed with members of that raid. For example: kill objectives may be shared, but drop objectives may go to the first member looting the drop.

If we do allow progression within narrative systems like a quest or commission, I think that's going to be distributed based on the number of raid or party participants. So, killing a particular monster is not going to get everybody a check mark on their progress towards killing 20. It's going to be one person's going to get that progression; and then it'll continue to the next person and so on and so forth. If we're talking about some questlines, like story arcs or events that have phases, or that have overall participation by many members then that progress can be shared at a party raid level. So there's different settings depending on what objective there is within a quest. Some of them will share, some of them will be distributed. – Steven Sharif

• Certain quests, such as story arc quests, may not be able to be turned in after a node has advanced or has been destroyed.

• Dialog choices within the quest UI are intended to affect gameplay, such as unlocking side quests 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 is placeholder until Alpha-2.

Расовые задания

Задания могут основываться на расе персонажа.

Различные задания могут выдаваться той расой, чей вклад в опыт узла оказался наибольшим. Это не значит, что какой-то контент окажется заблокированным, просто задания будут иметь разные тона.

Могут быть даже разные направления одного задания для разных рас, и даже пусть вы делитесь заданием убить босса, если вы играете за человека, а я - за эльфа, у меня потенциально может иметься альтернативная сюжетная линия задания, ведущая в ином направлении, чем у вас, хоть мы и взяли одно задание. Это может зависеть от того, чья культура привнесла больший вклад в развитие узла, разблокировав различные сюжетные линии для культур одной основной культуры узла - это не будет закрывать доступ к контенту, а создаст различные тона и различные направления, чтобы кругом не было сплошных шаблонов. – Стивен Шариф

Раса имеет значение, потому что у повествования есть ветви, на которые влияет культура, внёсшая больший вклад в развитие узла... Если вы Никюа и вы находитесь в узле, принадлежащем преимущественно Никюа, вам как представителю этой расы будут доступны определённые услуги и/или способности, доступа к которым может не быть у других рас... У них могут быть альтернативные линейки заданий, но конкретно ваши им доступны не будут. Потом эти характерные для Никюа задания окажут влияние на мета-повествование, существующее в мире, и они станут его направлять. Это будет преимуществом для вашей расы, поскольку разблокирует определённый контент, который прочие расы ещё не разблокировали. Так что есть смысл развиваться в этом направлении, чтобы сдержать прогресс доминирующей расы. – Стивен Шариф

Задания, характерные для определённых расы, титула или гильдии скорее всего будут составлять менее 10% от общего количества заданий. 90% заданий смогут взять все игроки.

Player driven narrative

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 Верра will be the same on each server, but Узлы 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 Верра 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 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'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, it's incumbent upon you to manifest that in the game. – Steven Sharif

История серверов

Этот перевод может быть устаревшим

Концепт-арт карты.

История каждого сервера будет отслеживаться и будет видна игрокам в библиотеке узлов.

• Писарь имеет возможность собирать и записывать информацию о событиях мира со своей точки зрения.

Мы будем записывать историю мира для того, чтобы иметь возможность рассказать людям историю до сегодняшнего дня. Новый игрок, присоединившийся спустя полгода после старта, сможет посмотреть на каждый сервер, чего он достиг, в какую сторону двигался сюжет на сервере; и они смогут сами решить, к какому сообществу им присоединиться; в какой версии мира они хотели бы поучаствовать. – Jeffrey Bard

Предметы легендарного качества

There is a small RNG chance of looting rare and legendary items or crafting materials from mobs based on the level, status and type of mob. This also applies to harvesting resources with a gathering profession.

• There is a much higher chance that materials and unique recipes are dropped that can be used to craft items of equitable value.
• Легендарный equipment is only dropped by Legendary world bosses.
  • Legendary equipment will have a roughly 6-12% improvement in base stats, subject to testing and balancing.

At each stage from Gatherer to Processor to Crafter you are required to have certain prerequisites before those elite types of materials can be essentially gathered, processed, or crafted. – Steven Sharif

• Gatherers must have high quality tools to gather rare resources.
• Processors must have high tier processing buildings on their freehold to produce rare materials.
• Crafters must also satisfy certain prerequisites to craft legendary equipment.

The amount of effort needed and interdependencies across the different types of players – between raiders and PvPers and crafters and even role players and the taverns and businesses: the processors and gatherers – all of those systems will likely have a component that lends toward creating or crafting that legendary item... We want to stay away from the highly RNGd system, and instead take our multiple progression paths that we are offering the players and put the construction components for achieving these legendary items within them so it encourages communities to work together because it's going to be difficult for just one person by themselves to gather everything. Not to say that they couldn't in an economic sense, by buying those components, that's possible. But achieving them from a time investment standpoint we want it to be considerably less RNG focussed. – Steven Sharif

Certain legendary items may be limited to one per server at any given time.

• If the player character leaves the server then the item will become available for acquisition through whatever means it was acquired previously.

There are absolutely legendary items and they're not items that are attained easily nor are they granted out in a volume. There might even be items that are single items that will exist on the server at any given time.

A legendary weapon is easily distinguished by its visual appearance.

It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon. – Steven Sharif

Legendary items are not intended to be temporary.

• A notable exception to this is Royal mounts.

The fact there is only one of them... or very very few of them depending on what it is. I think that in and of itself is a balance component right and you need to make sure that the players who are striving for those legendary things and who are devoting the time energy, resources in order to achieve them are accurately rewarded... We do not intend on having legendary items that are temporary. – Steven Sharif

Некоторая из приведенной ниже информации не была подтверждена разработчиками и может не входить в текущую дорожную карту разработки.

Discovery of legendary items will unlock further chapters of the История мира.

История мира

Этот перевод может быть устаревшим

Ashes of Creation логотип.

Название Ashes of Creation является прямой отсылкой к сюжету. Не выдавая слишком многого, феникс будет постоянным символом во время первой фазы сюжета, и мир в котором будут обитать игроки давно утерян в результате страшной катастрофы. – Jeffrey Bard

Феникс — небесное воплощение богини творения. Ее жертва защитила жителей Верры во время апокалипсиса. – Steven Sharif

История мира Ashes of Creation состоит из нескольких частей.

• История происхождения.
• История грехопадения.
• История освобождения/возвращения.

Эти сюжетные арки продвигают одну или несколько линий квестов.

• Некоторые сюжетные линии могут быть связаны с более темным / злым путем, по выбору персонажа.

Мы принимаем историю мира очень близко к сердцу, потому что она очень богата. Она разнообразна. Она будет иметь применение и помимо MMORPG. Мы собираемся повести ее значительно дальше, но я хочу чтобы это было чем-то таким что игроки открывают сами, а не просто выдается игроку и становится неинтересным. При испытании истории игроки должны ощущать что она относится к ним на личном уровне. – Steven Sharif

История про мифологию и открытие правды о которой говорят мифы и выяснение того что на самом деле случилось в этом мире давным-давно; это часть процесса исследования; и мы хотим чтобы игроки ощущали это всю игру, причем не только касаемо истории мира, но и собственно самого мира. – Jeffrey Bard

Сюжетные арки

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

Сюжетные арки 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 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.

• Сюжетные арки drive one or more storyline quests within the game.
  • Story arcs can branch into different stories with multiple possible endings depending on the quest objectives that players complete during each chapter.
  • The developers will try to ensure that story arcs in future expansions flow on from existing story arcs, regardless of the different possible outcomes.

• Сюжетные арки can initiate world events.

• 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

• Corrupted resources are variations of resources that are only available in corrupted areas or during certain story arcs.

Некоторая из приведенной ниже информации не была подтверждена разработчиками и может не входить в текущую дорожную карту разработки.

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.

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. There are several different types of events that are triggered due to certain conditions (predicates) being met. Events are scaled to fit local, regional, and global needs.

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.

• 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.
  • 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.

• Events that are taken care of successfully have positive consequences and provide rewards based on the contribution of players during the event.

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 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 can have negative consequences.

There is the ability to fail. I know that is a strange concept for a lot of us nowadays playing more modern games, but there is absolutely a way to fail. – Steven Sharif

• Events have cooldowns in addition to the predicates that are required to trigger them.

Events absolutely do have cooldowns that cannot be forced to spawn repeatedly over and over again. Those cooldowns are not just something that's based on a timer, they're also predicated on certain actions occurring within the world. – Steven Sharif

• If events are not triggered 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 are triggered due to certain conditions (predicates) being met.

• Calendar events.
• Caravan events.
• Monster coin events.
• Narrative events.
• Node attacks.
• POI events.
• PvP events.
• World events.

Эпические/легендарные задания

Эпический and Легендарный quests affect the narrative of the game. These quests will unlock gated content.

Solable quests

Questing may be individual and group oriented.

Collection quests

There will be collection quests.

Гринд

Repetition will not be part of progression.

• There will be no "grindy" quests.
• The aspiration is to have more things to do in the game than a player has time to do.

Quest markers

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

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

Quest sponsorship

Некоторая из приведенной ниже информации не была подтверждена разработчиками и может не входить в текущую дорожную карту разработки.

Players can sponsor quests on a bulletin board.

Зоны и развитие

Подземелья, рейды, мировые боссы, мобы, квесты, события, ресурсы, сюжет и другой контент в зоне влияния узла будет иметь различающийся уровень, растущий с развитием данного узла и расвого влияния.

У нас нет просто «зоны 25-го уровня». Вместо этого, в зоне могут быть немного существ 10-го уровня возле дороги, немного существ 20-го уровня глубоко в лесу и немного существ 30-го уровня в горах. Соотношение количества созданий будет меняться в зависимости от узла, на территории которого они живут, становясь более опасными с его развитием. Все цивилизации привлекают внимание Того-что-не-должно-существовать. Это не означает, что необжитые места безопасны. Некоторые могут быть безопаснее, но вас везде могут подстерегать опасности, которых следует опасаться даже опытным путешественникам. – Steven Sharif

Removing player corruption

Этот перевод может быть устаревшим

Концепт-арт кладбища за авторством Tad Ehrlich.

Основным способом снятия скверны является смерть. Для того, чтобы сбросить всю скверну, может потребоваться несколько смертей.

• Смерть игрового персонажа снимает с него значительную часть значения уровня скверны.
• Получение опыта также постепенно снижает значение скверны игрока.

  Это даёт охотникам за головами забавный опыт, когда они пытаются поймать игрока, пока тот занят сбросом с себя скверны. – Steven Sharif

• Для снижения счёта убитых игроков осквернённого игрока может использоваться определённое задание, чтобы в будущем их уровень скверны накапливался медленнее.
  • Изначально планировалось, что будет иметься возможность непосредственного снижения уровня скверны при помощи задания, связанного с религией.
• В военных узлах длительность действия скверны будет снижена.

Смотрите также

• История мира
• Monster coins
• Node development
• Доски объявлений