Ashes of Creation Everything Known

Introduction

A big thanks to those who helped make this Ashes of Creation Everything Known Website and Video Possible.

The Ashes of Creation Wiki Team including Lex

Diura from the Ashes of Creation Last Week’s News Today Channel

Accompanying Ashes of Creation Everything Known Video

2016 Announcement, Funding, and Interest Levels

Ashes of Creation is one of the most anticipated upcoming MMOs.  They have had over 100,000 people buy Alpha 2 packages and they have had millions of people register on their website.  The game was first announced to the world back in 2016. 

In 2017 they launched a Kickstarter that raised over 3.2 million dollars, a record for an MMO on the platform.  Since then they have continued to raise more funding via website backer packages and cosmetics.  They are a very well-funded project with the founder of Intrepid Studios having put in over 45 million dollars himself, and the total funding likely being much higher after factoring in all the different crowdfunding sources.

Studio, Development, Testing

Intrepid Studios started very small with around 20 employees in 2017 and has grown slowly year by year with them finally getting to 100 employees in 2021 and now they have somewhere around 170 employees total.  

COVID setbacks and a 1-year setback with the network code have added development time to the project as well as the slow employee build-up.  But in the last few years, the project has seen massive progress.  2021 saw the Alpha 1 test which was not a content test but instead focused on server stability and the back-end networking code in order to support the large-scale siege warfare the team has planned.  Despite not being a content test, Alpha 1 did have a pretty good amount of content with over 200 quests, a placeholder version of the Artisan System, several dungeons and world bosses, and a placeholder Castle Siege mode.  

Alpha 2 is said to be a much more content-rich test, at least toward the end of the test.  In addition, the test is known as the persistent alpha as the Alpha 2 servers are planned to be on all the time except for updates and maintenance and eventually become the Test Servers after the game launches.  Like Alpha 1, Alpha 2 will not be under an NDA.  There is no current release date for Alpha 2, but they did give a very rough timeline that suggests Alpha 2 will not happen until 2024, with possibly some spot tests in 2023.

Game Overview

As for an overview of what the game actually is before we get into all of the details, the game is defined as a Sandpark MMO that has both Theme Park and Sandbox elements. Theme Park content includes familiar content like dungeons and raids.  Sandbox elements primarily consist of a destructible world that revolves around the Node system, which we will get into in-depth later in the video and is the main system that differentiates this MMO from other MMOs.  

In a nutshell, Nodes are locations on the map that level up when players do things within the Zone of Influence of that Node.  Nodes have 7 total stages, starting at stage 0 in which they are a wilderness Node, all the way up to stage 6 the metropolis node.  As nodes level, the surrounding zone of influence will undergo many changes, spawning new mobs, new dungeons or changing existing dungeons, new world bosses, different drop tables, and many, many more things.  Nodes can be sieged and destroyed in PVP as well.  We will go in-depth on the Node system later in this video but do know that Nodes are the defining feature of this game.

Risk versus reward is a key element of the game, with PVP always on except in a few rare cases but with very harsh penalties for those that gank the unwilling.  Despite having a lot of PVP elements, the developers will have a lot of PVE elements and are billing this game as a PVX game, and not a PVP-only game.

The design of Ashes of Creation adheres to these five main pillars:

1. Engaging and immersive story
2. Reactive world
3. Player interaction
4. Player agency
5. Risk vs reward

Open Development and Payment Model

Intrepid Studios has embraced an open development policy with the development of this game, which is counter to how most game developers handle development currently.  The reason for this approach is to get constant feedback from the community in order to improve the game during development.

As for the payment model, Ashes of Creation will have no box cost but will have a $15 a month subscription fee.  The developers are adamantly against Pay to Win, and in fact, this is one of the main reasons Steven Sharif the founder of Intrepid Studios decided to make this game. The game will be monetized by the monthly sub fee and a cosmetic-only, non pay-to-win cash shop.  

The cosmetics achievable in the game will be on par with the purchasable cosmetics, and in the case of the in-game only attainable legendary cosmetics, those will exceed the quality of the purchasable cosmetics.  Purchases from the monthly cosmetic packs have two purposes, one it gives the players usable cosmetics after the game launches, and two the cosmetics will have variations that will be used on various NPC mobs throughout the game.  So the art assets are being used to build the game, not just for players.  Costumes that cover the entire character model outside of the weapons will also be a purchasable cosmetic item.

They will have DLCs and expansions for the game, but they will not charge for them, and they will be included as part of your subscription.

Localization and Servers

The game is planned to be localized into English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Portuguese with more languages potentially supported based on interest.  Intrepid is also self-publishing the game in North America, Oceanic, and Southeast Asia regions.  They will be opening offices to self-publish in EU and CIS regions.

The developers want to have 8-10K concurrent players per server, and at launch they want the registered player limit to be 15K per server.  They plan to expand this to 50K registered accounts per server eventually.

There will not be server channels, and there will not be PVP or PVE server types.

Voice Acting and Music

There will not be voice-acted quest lines, but there will be some voice-acted audio greetings from NPCs

Ashes of Creation’s Lead Music Composer is Bear McCreary.  His work will be unveiled in Alpha-2 and Beta-1.

Game Masters and Security, Platforms, System Requirements

Intrepid wants to have present and active game masters, and they want to be very aggressive against gold farmers, RMTers, and griefers.  They want to have very robust security systems in place to catch malicious behaviors quickly as well.

Ashes of Creation is also being developed exclusively for PC only and will not have native controller support.  

As for performance, this is one of the biggest goals for this project to have very high levels of performance in large-scale encounters.  In Alpha 1, the game was achieving 50-60 FPS on a 1080Ti.  They will have a lot of customization settings to ensure players can turn down certain elements to achieve great performance.  The following were the system requirements for the Alpha 1 test, and they are said to not have changed with the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade.

Game Engine and Game Difficulty

As for the Engine they are using, as mentioned they are using Unreal Engine and they are on version 5.1.1 currently and recently finished upgrading to this revision.  

Ashes of Creation is aiming to be on the harder side of difficulty compared to most modern MMOs, but they do want the overall game to be easy to understand for beginners but hard to master long term.  They want to cater to many different player types with Ashes of Creation, from Raiders to PVPers, to Role Players, to Crafters.  They also want to have a place for both casual and hardcore players within Ashes of Creation, with some things easily attainable by casual players while still having plenty of content and progression systems that cater to the hardcore audience.

Previous MMO Inspiration

The game of Ashes of Creation takes inspiration from many different previous MMOs, but these are the ones that are the most prominent.  

• Eve Online with its regionalized economy and risk vs reward in transportation.
• ArcheAge with its building systems, transportation and naval combat.
• Star Wars Galaxies with its crafting systems.
• Lineage II with its risk vs reward, castle sieges, flagging, open world PvP and guild progression.

User Interface

The user interface is being built with customization in mind from the beginning.  They want the players to have total freedom in how they set up their UI, and to be able to quickly change their UI setups based on what encounter they find themselves in.  Part of the reason for this high level of customization is because Addons, DPS meters, and threat meters will not be supported.

The character nameplates in the world will operate a little differently than in other MMOs.  You will see the health and mana of friendly players, but you will not see the health and mana of enemy players.  Instead, the nameplate will degrade to show the approximate health percentage remaining.  Additional threat assessment buffs will be present on the nameplate that show what gear set the enemy player is wearing, the type of armor, and the tier set of the armor.  The developers do not want players to be able to inspect gear as that can lead to unwanted behavior, so the information available is less granular.  Enemy mob nameplates will have resistances, buffs, and elite status.  A star format might be utilized to indicate hit point allocation as well.

Open World

The world of Ashes of Creation is said to be a seamless open world with no loading screens between regions and minimal instancing.  Most dungeons will be open-world, and all the hardest PVE content with the best rewards will be in the open world.  Approximately 20% of content will be instanced, with the instanced PVE content being for story-driven content.  

Some PVP content might be instanced.  Arenas will be, but Castle and node sieges may also contain instanced locations where specific groups can participate in certain objective-based waypoints.

Lore, Story, Roleplaying, Art Style

This is one of the few areas of this game that I will not do a deep dive on for this video, and that is the lore as it would make an already massive video MUCH longer.  If you want the full rundown of the existing lore, there are some fantastic articles on the wiki that I will link.  But for a basic rundown, the world of Ashes of Creation is known as Verra.  This world was hit with an Apocalyptic event known as the Apocalypse, The Fall, or the Exodus.  This Apocalypse caused the majority of its citizens to flee in the Exodus to a world that is void of magic known as Sanctus, via portals known as Divine Gateways.  Some unlucky citizens didn’t quite make it through the gateways in time and fell back to the planet to fight for survival.  These divine gateways were dormant for millennia.  The game will start with players returning to the World of Verra via these Divine Gateways after all of this time has passed.  That is as far as I will go with the lore for now, but be sure to check out the links in the description if you want to know more.

Story arcs are the method the game will use to drive the narratives that play out on a particular server.  These story arcs will be delivered via player decisions and personal or class-based quest lines, cultural representation and quest lines, regional quest lines, and node development.

Some story arcs can be unlocked through the bulletin board system in-game.  Some requirements might need to be met to unlock some story arcs as well, such as certain node buildings being built or a node hitting a certain level.  Once a story arc unlocks, players will receive quests and they will have plenty of time to finish them.  Each player can finish the quests and get the rewards, it will not be first come first serve.  Some story arcs will repeat, and some will be one-time-only events that forever change the server.  But, even those can be repeated but the server changes will not occur.

Story arc rewards will be balanced to avoid certain paths becoming meta. Story arc rewards will not provide the best in-slot loot, or be the best source of XP or currency.

Roleplaying functionality will also be in the game in many forms.

Intrepid is going for a higher graphic fidelity than most current Western MMOs.  It will not be too stylized or cartoony.

Here you can see the various artistic influences present in Ashes:

There will be some cultural references as well, especially regarding holidays.  But they will fit into the lore and immersion of the world.

World Map And Zones

The world map is absolutely MASSIVE in scale.  The total size of the above-ground world is 1200 square kilometers, and that does not even include the underrealm content of the world.  The land mass is 480 square kilometers and the ocean is 750 square kilometers.  The world map was recently expanded to give more distance between nodes, and the total number of nodes was reduced from 103 regular nodes down to 85 regular nodes as well.  The old map had 100 square kilometers of underrealm, and that is said to be increasing with the new map but only by a slight amount.

Ashes of Creation does not have typical MMO zone level ranges for their zones.  Instead, every Zone will have content that accommodates multiple level ranges, and the amount and difficulty of the content will vary based on the level of the corresponding node.  

The map uses a traditional fog of war mechanic that hides details until you explore an area.  In addition, the world map is full of imperfect information, meaning players will have to still search and explore to find certain things.

New points of interest including dungeons, world bosses, and corrupted areas will spawn based on node progression, and continue to adapt as the node adapts.  New buildings might spawn, additional mobs might spawn, and the difficulty might change.  Drop tables might also change.  

Roads in the world of Ashes of Creation are both player-generated and player-influenced.  The largest roads are referred to as arteries and are the remnants of what was once the ancient highway systems of Verra before the Apocalypse.  As nodes advance smaller roads referred to as veins will connect the main artery roads to the nodes.  Further node advancement could even connect capillaries roads from the node to major points of interest.  Seasons and events, which we will get into in-depth later, might affect the accessibility or function of these roads as well.  Underrealm routes will also open or close dynamically based on node development, and sometimes these routes might be a way to circumvent natural choke points above ground.  Finally, freeholds, which are player-owned housing that is placed in the world and that we will go into in depth on later are not able to be placed in close proximity to roads.

Climate, Weather, Seasons, and Day-Night Cycles

Moving on to the climate of Verra.  Some environments will have fixed climates, while others have variable climates.  Certain events, such as world bosses spawning or weather events might temporarily change the climate of an area.  Weather will exist and it will vary in intensity.  Wind and precipitation can have different intensities, and the effect of wind will be visible in the world with the trees and grass swaying in the wind individually.  

Wind will also influence the speed and direction that ships travel on the open sea areas of the map.

Precipitation can affect the world in terms of snow that might block certain paths, while rain might fill certain areas.  The player’s abilities can be affected by the climate and weather.  Frost bolts might be more effective in a cold climate or winter storm for example.  Artisan skills such as Farming are also affected by climate and the weather.  Weather conditions also affect gatherables, vehicles, mounts, ships, resistances, targeting, and boss mechanics.  Access to dungeons and raids may also be hindered or blocked by changes in climate. However, loot tables will likely not be affected by weather conditions.

Seasons affect different zones based on their location in the world.  Some biomes might have a more or less fixed climate, while some might see all four seasons.  The biomes might see radical visual shifts based on the current season.  Events can change the season temporarily, or extend it.  There will also be magical seasons where you might be in a tropical zone and suddenly it is snowing.  Items, crop cycles, buildings, and crafting mechanics might gain certain buffs or debuffs in certain seasons. Finally, Ocean and underwater areas will not have seasonal changes.

Each season will be approximately one IRL week long, and during testing, they might change the length of the seasons.  They might last longer based on the result of dynamic events.  

There will also be seasonal resources.  Some gathering materials will only be available in specific seasons.  Access to some gatherable’s might be blocked by snow or other seasonal effects.

Day and night cycles will also exist in Ashes, and the entire cycle will last a few hours.  15 IRL minutes may equate to one hour in-game, but that is subject to change.  The day/night cycle is also tied to server time.  Nighttime is still fairly well-illuminated.  

As for day and night affecting the game world, NPCs and Mobs may be awake or have varying behaviors at different times of the day. This might also affect player abilities, or mob or player buffs or debuff vulnerabilities.  

Different monsters will spawn at different times of the day.  And nighttime mobs might have more glowing effects on their model.

Constellations are a part of the nighttime sky and can only be seen at specific times and specific locations in the world.  These constellations will have relevance across many different game systems, such as the narrative of the world, and the acquisition of node relics, they might also empower certain abilities or items, and they are used for general exploration purposes.

Biomes and the Underrealm

As for the types of Biomes present, the developers have stated there are approximately 18 different biomes in Ashes of Creation.  So far we have seen 11 total Biomes.  

The underrealm is an environment that is lighted with natural bioluminescent lighting.  The underrealm on the old map was 100 square kilometers, but we don’t know the size of the underrealm on the new map although they recently stated it has not increased by much with the map size increasing.

Caravans can operate in the underrealm and in some cases they might be the better path to take.  More on caravans will be later on in the video.  Mounts can be used, and due to the size of the underrealm the flying mounts, which are very rare, might also be usable in some parts of the underrealm.  Seasons above ground will affect the underrealm as well, flooding certain tunnels is one example given.  And the Underrealm will have different gathering resources than above ground as well.  Nodes do exist in the Underrealm, and while above ground Node Zones of Influence might overlap, they are considered adjacent and not within the same Zone of Influence.  Node sieges can occur with these nodes as well, and Underrealm Nodes can reach the highest stage of Metropolis.  The Tulnar Race is native to the Undderealm.

Finally, the underrealm will have lakes and rivers, but you cannot use naval ships on these waterways.

The Node System

And now, we are ready to take a DEEP DIVE into the biggest feature of Ashes, the node system.  We have already touched on Nodes a few times, and Nodes touch nearly every aspect of the game so that is to be expected.  As stated before there will be 85 regular node locations on the world map, and there will also be 15 additional Castle nodes for a total of 118 nodes. 

Node Types

There are 4 node types, each of which has unique specializations.  Players can identify the node type at its first stage of development based on the types of NPCs present.  The node types are as follows.

• Divine which has Priest NPCs
• Economic which has Merchant NPC Types
• Military which has Guard NPC Types
• And Scientific Nodes which has Scholar NPC Types

Node types are predetermined and are the same across all servers.  Node types are static and do not change no matter what players do in the world.  Node types will affect the various services and systems at each level of the node’s advancement.  Such as Node governments, narrative, NPCs, Node buildings, and amenities.  

Node Benefits

Each Node type has a superpower ability that is unlocked when a node advances to stage 6.  

Divine nodes at Metropolis (stage 6) may unlock a procedurally built “mega catacomb” dungeon beneath it that connects to its divine vassal nodes. These may house unique bosses with unique drop tables.

Economic nodes that have reached the metropolis stage unlock the linked economy superpower. Economic nodes with this superpower share their Auction house listings with all others. Up to two economic metropolises may be linked in this manner.  Metropolis-level economic nodes enable worldwide sale prices for auction houses across Verra.  Items listed in one linked economic node can be bid on from any other linked economic node.  Linked economies also connect the economic metropolis and its vassal economic nodes.

Military nodes enable Bounty hunters and potentially reduce the duration of corruption.

Scientific nodes that have reached the metropolis stage unlock the Teleportation superpower.

Citizens of metropolis scientific nodes may teleport between the metropolis and any of its vassal nodes, regardless of the stage of the vassal node, so long as the vassal node is not at war.  Citizens of vassal nodes may teleport to their metropolis node and back.  If there are multiple scientific metropolises, then an airship will provide faster travel between those scientific metropolises for citizens of those nodes and their vassal nodes, so long as the metropolises are not at war.

Node Citizenship

In order to become a citizen of a node, players will need to obtain one of the housing types within that node’s zone of influence.  There might be another option for citizenship as well in the future based on testing feedback.  Players can only be citizens of one node at a time on a server, per account.  There is no limit to how many citizens a node can have, but there is a sort of soft cap in that it will become much more costly to become a citizen the more citizens a node has.  Citizenship will be lost if a node is destroyed, and players can then become a citizen of a different node.  Node citizenship is not tied to guilds, and guilds do not own nodes.  

Node Patron Guilds

However, guilds can become a “Patron” of a node by contributing the most XP to a node.  With Patron status, the following benefits will unlock:

• Emblems can be applied to guild armor that can be purchased from the node.
• Participation in the node’s stock market will unlock
• Ability to participate in specific guild-based missions that will progress the guild’s leveling and development.
• Allocation of guild points to unlock specific node abilities for guild members.
• And the ability to claim an in-node guild hall. These have different perks and benefits to halls placed on freehold plots.

Any number of guilds can be in a node, but the number of patron guilds within a node is limited by node stage.

• Villages and lower do not have patron guilds.
• Towns can have up to 1 patron guild.
• Cities can have up to 2 patron guilds.
• Metropolises can have up to 3 patron guilds.

Node Citizenship Benefits

Players can interact with a node board to see who is a citizen of that node, and get some details for each player.  Further, players are not required to become a citizen of any node and thereby will not have to pay node taxes but of course, there are many benefits to doing so.

Those benefits of node citizenship include access to limited functions and service buildings within the node.  Access to merchants that offer specific types of enhancement stones or stat migrations, upper-tier crafting benches, a weekly allotment of core material that can only be accessed from the node’s reliquary, buffs from certain events, titles, organizations, and religions.  And participation in the node’s government.

So there are a LOT of benefits to node citizenship.  Non-citizens will still have access to generic node services, mundane crafting benching, and standard rewards from node quests.

Node Zones of Influence

Moving onto the Zone of Influence controlled by the Node.  Each node controls an area of the world called the Zone of Influence.  When players undertake actions such as questing, gathering, or raiding within the zone of influence of a node, that node will receive experience toward leveling up the node.  The entire world map is covered by Zones of Influence, so wherever players are exploring and questing in the world, they will be contributing node experience to a node.  Underrealm Node ZOIs might overlap, but they are considered adjacent.  

Zones of Influence will expand based on the progress of the node.  A metropolis node will have a much larger zone of influence than a stage 1 node.  Up to 1/5th of the world will be encompassed within the ZOI of a metropolis, and there are a maximum of 5 metropolis nodes on a server.  The developers have a node simulation in which they simulate what could happen with nodes on a server.  Nodes can advance and nodes can be sieged and destroyed.  NPC events can damage certain buildings and reduce the XP gained by a node until repairs are made.

Node Stages

As stated there are 7 node stages.  The following chart shows the Names for each stage, the amount of time to advance to each stage, and the type of player housing available.  

Player Housing

The Stage 3 Village Node is the first stage to get in-node player housing, but the housing will be small houses only.  Stage 6 metropolis Nodes will have mansions for in-node houses.  In-node housing will be limited, as there will just be 8 in-node houses at the level 3 stage, and these are the houses that eventually do become mansions so they will be contested.  The amount of houses does increase when the node levels up.  

There will be three other housing options, one is apartment buildings.  These are smaller instanced spaces within a node.  There will be 50 apartments available for purchase at node stage 3, and the mayor can build more apartment buildings at node stage 4.  The number of apartments per building does increase when the node levels as well.  Inns are another housing option.  Finally, freeholds are sizable player housing plots that can be situated within the Zone of Influence of a Village Stage or Higher node.  A player can only have 1 freehold per account.  They are approximately half an acre in size, and they do not change size when a node levels.  Upgrades to the Freehold do become available when a node levels.  Freeholds cannot be sold to other players.  Players can build multiple freehold buildings on a freehold, but they will need blueprints to build these buildings.  The best processing for the Artisan System happens within the Freeholds, so there is a lot of value in owning a Freehold.  These are all the systems Freeholds interact with:

• Node progression.
• Artisan classes.
• Spawn actors.
• Quests.
• And Taxation.

Freeholds will be hard to obtain, but there will be several easier ways that a player can obtain housing, such as apartments and inns.  In Node, housing will be hard to obtain and will probably be hotly contested, especially the 8 houses that eventually become mansions at stage 6.  In-Node houses can be bought and sold by players.  The devs are considering an auction system for when new in node housing becomes available when a node levels.  An apartment costs will go up the more a node levels, which is part of the soft cap for node citizenship.  Apartments can also be sold to other players, and there is no cap to the price a player can charge for an apartment or in-node housing.  Taxes will have to be paid on a player’s property, and if the taxes are not paid the house can be transferred back to the node.  The next owner will be responsible for paying the back taxes and penalties when purchasing the home.  The developers are also considering rental and leasing options for real estate owners in Verra.

Node Layout and Style

The node layout and style is determined by several factors.  First, the biome the node is located in, second the node type, and third the race that contributed the most experience to a node’s advancement will alter the racial appearance of buildings, NPCs, and props within the node.  This racial appearance can change if another race does more XP when a node levels up.  Finally, the rest of the node’s appearance is determined by the mayor of a Node.

Node Advancement

Getting into node advancement and how that affects other nodes.  Nodes will advance to level 1 quickly.  At that stage, NPCs, vendoring and banking will open up.  As a node advances, its Zone of Influence will expand.  Less advanced nodes, which are referred to as Vassal Nodes, can still gain XP but they will be forced to stay one level below the parent node.  As of August 2022 there is no longer any blocking of nodes leveling up until one node reaches stage 3.  The vassal system starts when a node hits stage 3.  There is a territory expansion algorithm that takes into account a heatmap of where players earned XP in the Zone of Influence, among many other factors when determining how the Zone of Influence will expand when a node levels up.  Once a Node becomes a Parent Node and has Vassal Nodes, the excess XP from the Vassal nodes that are capped out will transfer to the Parent Node.  Citizens of one node can contribute to the advancement of other nodes.  Node advancement will teleport players out of the Node and spawn some interesting events for the players to watch as the node advances.

Vassal Nodes

At stage 3 of a node, surrounding nodes will become Vassal Nodes.  The following chart describes the limitations to how many Vassals each node stage can have. 

A stage 6 node can only have two stage 5 vassals.  A stage 5 node can control one stage 4 node and one stage 3 node.  And a stage 3 node can control a level 2 or a level 1 node.  If a stage 3 node is destroyed in a siege, the vassals are also destroyed.  Vassal networks can extend across the sea and include islands, and the vassals do get some benefits from the parent node.

Parent nodes will also collect taxes from vassal nodes.  These taxes are only to be used within the node system and not by players themselves.  

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

As stated before, Zones in Ashes of Creation do not have specific level ranges.  The level of content with a Nodes Zone of Influence will vary based on node level and accommodate multiple level ranges.

Node Atrophy

Nodes will receive Note Atrophy every day and that atrophy amount will be subtracted from the total XP earned for the day.  If there is more atrophy than XP, the node will lose experience.  If enough Atrophy occurs node buildings might be damaged, and nodes might even be destroyed if enough atrophy occurs.

Node Governments

The government of a node is chosen by the citizens when a node reaches level 3.  Patron guild leaders, Chief bounty hunters, and leaders of religious organizations will also have special access to certain node NPCs.  Mayors control the development of a node.  They allocate resources for node defense, and they coordinate the transfer of supplies via the caravan system, as well as some other powers.  Only node citizens can be elected mayor.  The king or queen of a Castle can also be a mayor, more on Castles will be in the PVP section of the video.  Mayors get more powers the higher a node levels. 

Node Policies

There are a number of node policies a mayor can declare and then are voted on by the citizens of a node.  We have seen only a few examples of these so far.  The amount of node policies will vary based on the “happiness” level of a node.  Node happiness is based on MANY factors, based on the history of the node.

Leadership Powers

Mayors can also mark foreign citizens as enemies of the state, declare war on another node, enter into trade agreements with other nodes, set the tax rate for the node, and then allocate that money for node improvements or defenses.  Mayors can also initiate quest-driven systems that non-citizens can participate in.  So the mayor elections will definitely matter.

Node Elections

Node mayor elections happen one week after a node hits stage 3, and will re-occur every month.  Elections last for one week.  The election process will be different for each of the 4 node types.  Divine nodes elections are done via service-oriented quest lines, Economic node elections are won by the player who pays the most gold, military node elections are done via last-man-standing gladiatorial arena combat, likely using a champion that the players have to level up and skill out, and scientific node elections are a traditional democratic process.  

Node Buildings

There are many node buildings.  Some of which are built by the mayors and players, some that are automatically placed based on the node type and level.

Constructible node buildings include apartments, marketplaces, and royal stables.  The mayor will place the building in a build plot, but the players will have to deliver the supplies to complete the project.  

Node types will have unique buildings associated with them.

The reliquary is a very important node building that will house node relics.  These relics have a lot of different effects depending on the relic, such as allowing certain legendaries to be crafted or unlocking certain legendary quest lines for node citizens, or just buffs for all citizens.  Relics automatically manifested in a node based on a node achieving certain conditions.  If a node siege is successful, shards of these relics can be looted and can be used in certain crafting recipes.  Constellations and exploration also play a part in Relic acquisition.

Node buildings can also be destroyed via various in-game systems, such as node sieges and wars, and npc and weather events.  At 25% damage the building will not be usable by players until repaired.  

Node Reputations

There will also be node reputations.  Node citizens can have a good or bad reputation based on their history within the node, and can affect things like NPC prices.

Node Sieges

Node sieges enable players to destroy nodes.  This paves the way for new development and access to the locked content in surrounding nodes, which we will explain later when we talk about the Vassal System.  Sieging nodes will not be an easy task for attackers as the defenders will have an advantage.  The majority of content in Ashes of Creation is open world, but some or all aspects of node sieges might be instanced.  I will get into all the details of Node Sieges in the PVP section of this video.

If a node siege is successful, the node will be destroyed and returned to level 0.  Players lose their node citizenship and housing, but their designs and decorations are retained and can be placed later in the next house a player owns.  Even unsuccessful node sieges could see in node apartments destroyed if it is destroyed during the siege.  I will get into more details of node destruction in the PVP section.

One final thing about Nodes before we move on there will not be underwater nodes, but there will be nodes on the coast and on islands.

Ashes of Creation Economy

With the big topic of Nodes out of the way, we can finally move on to something that is very related to Nodes, as all features are in Ashes of Creation, the Economy.  The economy of Ashes is incredibly diverse and complex just like every feature in Ashes.  

The economy of Ashes of Creation is designed to be regional.  Prices might vary based on location and supply and demand in that region.  The reason for this is there is no central global auction house, there is no fast transportation of materials, and some materials will spawn more frequently in some areas of the world.  

There will be population-based scaling of NPC-sold items based on the economic activity of a server.  Prices will rise to combat inflation and fall as the population diminishes.

Gold will be generated in a unique way in Ashes of Creation.  Most mobs will not drop gold, instead, they will drop hunting certificates that must be turned in at hunter NPCs in nodes in exchange for Gold.  A percentage of these certificates will drop on a player’s death.  The value of these certificates will vary based on several factors.  The distance of the node from the drop location, certificates in different economic regions from the one they dropped in will have more value, and the world manager algorithm will also adjust the prices based on the number of certificates that are turned in at each node.

Economic regions are static areas defined by geographic points of interest.  

Trading

Player trading is done via several methods.  Simple player-to-player trading, or through player stalls, player shops, or auction houses.  Player stalls can be rented at locations near the unique building in an economic node, or in marketplaces built within a node.  An attendant NPC is assigned to the stall, the player does not need to be present to sell goods within a player stall.  The storage for a player stall is linked to the player’s warehouse in that node.  The listings are posted on bulletin boards in the region and possibly even in the auction house.  Player stalls are one of the very few PVP-safe zones in the game as well.  

Personal shops are acquired by players by purchasing a placement certificate.  They can then build them on their freeholds, or near the unique node building in node, or if the node is an economic node and a metropolis, they can be placed anywhere in the world.  Players must be present and online at these shops to sell goods, and the listings are tied to the player’s inventory.  PVP is allowed in player stalls, with applied corruption penalties enabled.  Corruption will be discussed in depth in the PVP section.

Auction Houses are only available in economic nodes.  Vassal nodes of the auction house node can view items that are on sale, but unless the parent economic node is a metropolis the vassal node citizens will still have to travel to the auction house to bid.  Materials and gatherables won at the auction house will still need to be transported by the player wherever they need them.  Finished items will be mailed to the player.  Historical auction house data might be available via constructed node buildings.  Bulletin boards within player-run taverns or in nodes will display auction listings as well.

There will be very little bound gear in Ashes of Creation.  Most gear will still be tradeable even after equipping it.  Gear will be acquired primarily via crafting, with small chances of finished items dropping from raid and dungeon bosses.  But the primary way to acquire the best gear in the game is from crafting.

With crafting mattering, that makes the gathering and processing matter a lot as well, and should make the economy of Ashes very robust.   I will get into gathering, processing, and crafting in depth later in the video.  

Storage exists as warehouses in nodes, and chests created in player housing.  

Taverns are a building type within Nodes and on player freeholds, and are classified as a player-run business.  There are a lot of benefits within taverns, such as quests, buff food, and specific recipes.  

Stock exchanges are also a planned feature of the economy of Ashes of Creation.  These are places where players can buy and sell shares in Nodes, Guilds, or Social Organizations.  The value of these shares will vary based on the progression of these various organizations.  Sieges will halt the trading of shares until the siege ends.

Races and Classes

Races

Now we can move on to the Races and Classes of Ashes of Creation.  Ashes will offer 9 playable races.  4 parent races each having two subraces, and the Tulnar.  Aelan Human Races include the Kaelar and Vaelune.  Dunzekell Dwarf races include the Dunir and the Nikua.  Kaivek Orc races include the Ren’Kai and the Vek.  And the Pyrian Elf Races include the Empyrean and the Py’Rai.  

Racial mounts will be available via a quest in that race’s starting area.  We already talked about nodes taking on the appearance of the race that contributes the most, but in addition to that armor will also take on the appearance of the race.  

Races will have base stats, so some races will work better with certain classes than others.  Races also get specific racial augments that can modify their combat skills.

The 4 divine portal starting areas on the map are for each of the 4 parent races in Verra.  Any race can start at any divine portal, however.  The tulnar has a starting area without a divine gateway since they never left Verra.

Players will not be able to change their race, that choice is final.  The races have many different artistic influences as well, which you can see here.  

Character Creator

The Intrepid team is planning to make their character creator the best we have seen in an MMO, or at a minimum on par with Black Desert Online’s character creator.   We saw a brief glimpse of an early version of the character creator in 2022.  Players can also change their appearance in-game at salons or barber shops.  There are some really innovative ideas in the character creators such as blending and sculpting systems that you can see here.  The developers are planning for players to be able to save and share character creations, and the plan is for the character creator to be available before the launch of the game so players can pre-make characters.

The devs plan to offer a comfortable number of character slots for alts, but keep in mind most progression pathways are per character in Ashes of Creation, so alts will be harder to get up to speed.

Ashes of Creation will not have factions, but there are pseudo-factions that develop naturally based on guild and node wars, and social organizations.

Classes

As for classes in Ashes of Creation, there are 64 different class combinations.  The classes are formed by combining one of the 8 archetypes with another archetype at level 25.  Primary Archetype is chosen at the start of the game and cannot be changed, and includes Fighter, Tank, Rogue, Ranger, Mage, Summoner, Cleric, and Bard.  Tank is the only main tank archetype in the game, Cleric is the only main healer archetype in the game.  Bards are more of a support class, and summoners can fill multiple roles but cannot be the main tank or healer.  

The secondary archetype does not provide additional skills, it instead augments existing skills.  These augments can have a dramatic effect on the way an ability works, however. The secondary archetype can be changed, but it cannot be done on the fly, players will have to do it at a specific node building.

So despite there being 64 classes in Ashes of Creation, in reality, there are just 8 classes that are highly customizable.  So those that are concerned that it will be impossible to balance it might not be as bad as you think.  

Augments and Skill Points

In addition to augments from the secondary archetype, players will also get augments from social organizations, religions, and their chosen race.  

In addition to augments, players will also receive skill points as they level.  These can be used to level up skills within their active, passive or combat weapon trees.  It will not be possible to max all skills in a tree.  In terms of skill progression, players can choose to go wide and get a number of different abilities, or they can go deep into leveling up a few specific abilities.  

The Artisan System

With classes and races finished, we now need to talk about the Artisan system within ashes of creation.  The artisan system encompasses the gathering, processing, and crafting systems.  Players can specialize in one of those three trees.  Within each of these artisan classes lies different individual professions.  A player can only master two professions within their chosen artisan skill line, and it will not be possible to achieve mastery of a profession at low character levels.  Players can achieve Tier 3 or 4 proficiency in non-mastered professions.

Artisan gear can be acquired that can boost a player’s artisan skills.  And players can easily switch between artisan gear and adventuring gear.

Gathering is the first artisan class and in Ashes of Creation most of the visible resources in the world are harvestable, similar to games like New World.  The exact type of resource present within a resource node is not known until the node is harvested.  Gathering requires the creation and use of tools, and you will need higher-level tools for higher-level gathering.  Players can make their own tools, they will not need to rely on others to create them.  The developers are considering making gathering tools that require multiple players to use them but give increased rewards.  Surveying is a system that can help gatherers identify what resources are available in a particular location.  Gathering does contribute to node XP as well.  Some low-level gatherables have a tiered progression into higher-tier crafting, similar again to how New World approached it.  This gives value and need to lower tier gatherables.

There is also a land management system in Ashes of Creation.  Player’s can affect the health of the land in both positive and negative ways.  Overharvesting of one resource in an area might reduce it’s spawn rate.  Removing an invasion species my improve the health of the land.  

Gathering professions include:

• Fishing
• Herbalism
• Hunting
• Lumberjacking
• and Mining

Processing is the second artisan class.  It involves refining the gathered raw materials.  The bulk of the time spent in the Artisan system resides in the processing branch.  The time to process varies based on the quality of the processed goods.  Some processing can be carried out in nodes, but the best processing is done on player-owned freeholds.  Freehold crafting stations can be upgraded over time.  There will be some steps in processing that require player input, which is a way to timegate processing times.

Processing professions include:

• Alchemy
• Animal husbandry
• Cooking
• Farming
• Lumber Milling
• Metalworking
• Stonemasonry
• Tanning
• And Weaving

Crafting is the third and final artisan class in Ashes of Creation.  It requires the acquisition of recipes in order to craft items.  Crafting stations are located on freeholds or within nodes.  Higher tier crafting stations are unlocked with node progression.  Artisan gear will enable the crafting of stronger items.  Crafting times might vary between professions, but the bulk of the time spent in the artisan system resides in the processing branch.  The developers are considering using a crafting mini game that could increase the power of an item based on how well the player performs the mini game.  Unlike Archeage, there is no labor system that caps what a player can craft in a day.  

Crafting professions include:

• Arcane Engineering
• Armor smithing
• Carpentry
• Jewel cutting
• Leatherworking
• Scribing
• Tailoring
• And Weapon smithing

Crafting is recipe-based and not RNG based.  Players can adjust dials within a crafting recipe to increase one stat at the expense of another.  

The artisan supply chain and the regionalized economy play a big role in the artisan system.  The caravan system, which we will detail in the PVP section, plays a huge role in supplying processors with raw materials, and crafters with processed materials.  Raw materials are acquired by gathering, but also mob and boss kills, and from deconstructing finished items.  Bosses will drop materials that will be critical for some crafting recipes, so bosses will still need to be killed to craft the best gear.  Plus some recipes will drop from bosses.

Player Inventory

The inventory of a player is tied to their backpack.  Material and gatherable items are subject to quantity and stacking restrictions and not weight restrictions.  Inventory restrictions are meant to be the reason that players need to rely on the caravan system, as well as a special mount known as a mule which has its own inventory.  Mules can carry roughly 10 times what a backpack can, and Caravans can carry roughly 10 times what a Mule can carry, or 100 times what a player can carry.

I will get in-depth with Caravans later on.

A player’s inventory will have sections for different types of items.  Quest items for example will not fill the main inventory, and materials also have their own section.  Inventory expansion can be purchased at City stage or higher Economic Nodes.

Backpacks crafted by Artisans also provide additional inventory space, and there are different backpacks for holding gatherables versus finished items and consumables.  

Additional storage is found in node warehouses, and player created storage.

Gearing

As for gear in Ashes of Creation, the gear is said to influence a maximum of 40-50% of a player’s overall power level.  So gear absolutely does matter in Ashes.  And remember, the best gear is made by crafters, and will be by far the most reliable way to gear your character.  There are no stat requirements to equip gear, but there will be affiliation and level requirements.  Some necessary crafting materials for higher tiers can only be obtained by salvaging lower-tier gear, which keeps the lower-tier crafting relevant throughout the course of the game.  

All gear in Ashes is designed around the PVX nature of the game, and there will not be separate PVP and PVE gear.   There is a large assortment of weapons in the game, and they offer different passive and proc effects from the weapon skill tree.  Every class can use every weapon, and the weapons will operate the same on each class.  There will not be different abilities on each weapon for each class like a lot of modern MMOs have done, and the weapon does not create your class, your class choice does.  The gear rarities are as seen on screen. Best in slot gear will depend on the encounter, there might not be a one gear set that works best for every single encounter in the game.  Gear will have tiers and there will be tier sets.  As said before, most gear will not bind to a player and can be freely traded.

Gear enhancements such as power stones or runes can be applied to weapons to add elemental or energy types of damage.  Enchanting of gear is available.  The scribe creates scrolls that can be used by different professions to create enchantments relating to that profession.  Enchantment scrolls can be sold on the open market, and enchanting does not increase an item’s level requirement.  

The developers plan to limit power creep via item sinks, the lack of gear binding, and the absence of pay-to-win mechanics.  Players can equip up to two hand-held weapons and one ranged weapon.  Ranged attacks will automatically switch to a ranged weapon.  Players can swap their active equipped weapons in combat, but not weapons in the inventory.

Ashes of Creation will also have a form of gear transmog, with an appearance slot that is used to copy the appearance of one item to another item.  In addition, attachments are able to be unlocked as flair pieces to armor to create a customizable look.  There will be hundreds of attachments, ranging from a clasp to the entire front plate of a breastplate.  Some gear dyeing will also be in the game as well.

Consumables

There will also be multiple consumables in Ashes, similar to most MMOs.  Food, potions, etc.

Combat

Which leads us to combat.  Ashes of Creation’s combat is said to be a hybrid of tab and action combat.  However, from what we have seen so far, it seems to lean more towards tab than action to me.  There is the ability to free aim templated skills similar to how games like Guild Wars 2 have done it.  Players can play in either tab target mode, or in action mode by pressing a hotkey to switch between the modes.  Players in action mode can still hard lock onto a target by pressing the applicable keybind when soft locked onto a target.  Targets become soft locked when moving the cursor near a target, similar to how Elder Scrolls Online works.  

The developers are going to have projectile physics and collision in the game, and they are going to use a standardized hitbox.  All melee attacks have a forward cone attack and can cleave, with some attacks having a bigger arc and therefore a bigger cleave.  

Player collision is also a feature of Ashes, but inertia and momentum physics will prevent body blocking of doorways and access points.  

The developers want to have a lot of mobility in combat, but there is still some spit body root motion.  Large melee weapons will root more than smaller melee weapons.  Casting or shooting on the move is also possible with most skills, with some more powerful skills rooting the player.  Animation locking is not in the game, and clunky animation canceling like is seen in ESO is not a part of Ashes combat.

The time to kill is said to be anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute, so there will likely not be one shots in Ashes of Creation.  

Sprinting is a part of usable outside of combat and will consume mana when using the sprint skill.  Evasion moves such as dodging and dashes are a part of combat as well, and the developers are considering making dodge a universal skill that all classes have.  Dodging will not use I-frames, it is just a way to quickly reposition away from bad things.  Active blocking is a universal skill that applies to all classes as well.  Shields are better for active blocking, but all classes and weapons can active block.  

There are no auto attacks, instead there is a basic weapon attack that differs based on the weapon, but still requires player input to use. This is referred to as a weapon combo system, with each weapon having a chain of abilities that occur as they use the basic attack.  The animation, damage, and other modifiers change throughout the chain.  Some procs can occur as well that can be a bonus to the other skills in the class kit.

Hard Crowd control abilities potentially might be more of an action based skill, and soft crowd control might be more of a tab lock on skill.  In PVP CCs do not apply to non combatants.  We will get into the corruption system in the PVP section later.  Interrupts will also be available skills.  

Aggro is based on a hate table like in most trinity MMOs, and Tanks will have taunt abilities.  

Combat balance is not based on 1v1 combat, instead it is based around group play and around a rock-paper-scissors dynamic.  The devs want to avoid having cookie cutter builds by making encounters require different setups, so that a true meta might be harder to form.

Naval Gameplay

The naval systems and naval combat of Ashes of Creation are a large part of the game, especially with how much of the world is covered by oceans.  There are aquatic mounts, and a wide variety of naval ships that players can acquire.  There will be ocean raid bosses and other PVE content.  And recently, the devs made a change to the open seas areas of the game which will be open PVP zones that do not have the corruption penalties enabled.  So the transit of goods across the ocean using Naval Caravans will come with enhanced risks.  

Mariner skills can be leveled up by the player as they perform naval content in ashes.

Most player ships will be built by the players themselves, using components created from various crafting professions using a recipe.  The ships will vary in size from 1 person craft to 40 person raid ships.  Players can customize the offensive and defensive capabilities and other stats such as movement speed, durability, turn rate, and hit points.  Future upgrades are also possible to add to your ship later.  

Coastal Nodes and their development can affect the content that exists within the ZOI of the node.  A developed coastal node will become a harbor and as a result, it will provide a lot of naval gameplay, such as being a place to launch merchant ships, new quests, and services such as ship upgrades.

Also, As stated before, winds will affect a ships speed and movement.

Naval combat will be a combination of ship weapons and player ranged abilities.  Some ship weapons can generate threat against the sea raid bosses.  Naval combat is even a thing for some of the sieges, for instance there is a castle node in the middle of the ocean that can only be affected by naval combat.  

In addition to the above water content, there is also underwater content planned for Ashes of Creation.  There will be underwater dungeons, and some aquatic mounts can travel underwater.  The developers want to make the underwater content accessible and not cumbersome.  There will be many different methods to get underwater breathing, from potions, food, or utility skills.  There will be underwater points of interest, but there will not be underwater nodes.

Mounts and Animal Husbandry

That covers the underwater content, which brings us to mounts.  We have already covered mounts some, but let’s get into the details as the mount and animal husbandry system is a huge part of Ashes of Creation.  Players can get a mount fairly early through a quest in the starting areas.  They can also be found in the wild in tamed through the taming gathering profession, and then bred and improved via the animal husbandry processing profession.  The bred mounts from animal husbandry can have different rarities that can influence mount skills and visual effects.  There are three tiers of mounts: ground mounts, gliding mounts, and royal flying mounts.  Aquatic mounts have their own tier.  Each tier of mount has different abilities that are unique to that tier, these abilities provide horizontal or vertical power gain.  Aquatic mounts are faster in the water and slower on land, and land mounts are faster on land and slow in the water.  

There will be mounts that are purpose-built for specific tasks.  Some might have great jumping ability, some might have great gliding ability, some might be fast and great for transportation, and some like the mules will be great for inventory space for gatherers to bring more materials back to their node.

Mounts will have their own health bar and can be targeted and attacked, and killed separately from the player.  Players would then be able to respawn the mount after a cooldown.  If the mount is a mule with an inventory, players can loot the mule’s inventory.  Some mounts will have combat abilities such as charge abilities, and a lance to pull players, but players themselves cannot use their own combat abilities while mounted.  Some group mounts might even have mounted weapons that players can use.  Some crowd control abilities will dismount the player.

Tier 2 mounts are gliding mounts that can glide fairly close to the ground.  If ridden by someone that has unlocked Tier 3 mounts by being a Metropolis mayor, or a King or Queen of a Castle these mounts will be able to fly.

Tier 3 Royal Mounts are flying mounts that will be rare indeed.  Each server will have a maximum of 10 to 20 royal mounts at any given time.  These mounts will be available to mayors of metropolis nodes, of which there is a maximum of 5 on a server.  They will be available to Kings and Queens of Guild Castles, of which there are 5 on a server.  Legendary world bosses will also have a chance to drop an egg that can be hatched by players with the animal husbandry processing profession and a high enough stable upgrade on their freehold.  The eggs themselves have a lifespan, and once hatched these flying mounts will live for 15 to 30 days maximum.  Royal mounts will be 3 or 4 times larger than the tier 2 gliding mounts.  There are different types of royal mounts as well.  There are dragons, which seem to have great PVP capabilities for Castle and Node Sieges.  And there are royal horses, and many other royal mounts.

The guild leader of a castle can grant the use of flying undermounts for the monthly castle siege based on how many nodes the castle has built up during the month, up to a maximum of five if all three castle nodes are developed.

Aquatic mounts are faster on water and will have utility skills that are useful for fishing, such as fish finding.

Animal Husbandry is an integral part of acquiring the best mounts in the game.  Animal Husbandry is an explorative profession that will require experimentation with cross-breeding to find the best traits.

Mount barding is also a planned feature.  So players can attach armor and that armor can boost various stats for the mount.

Racial mounts are available as a quest reward in each race’s starting area.

Some mounts will also have skin variations that change with the seasons and time of day.

Group mounts will be rare and harder to obtain, but will allow multiple people to mount them and some of them might have mountable weapons that one of the passengers can use.

Some mounts will be very rare world boss drops, including the royal egg mounts.  

In addition to using mounts to help traverse the world, there will be some other faster travel options such as public transport land and flying mounts.  There will not be auto pathing for your personal mounts, however.   

Player Death Mechanics

With mounts out of the way, let’s get into player death mechanics in Ashes of Creation.  Death does matter in Ashes and there will be consequences for dying.  

When a player dies, they disintegrate into ash.  The ashes contain items lost by the player due to applicable death penalties.  The loot in these ash piles is lootable by other players.  Players are not flagged for PVP by looting these piles.  

There are three flagging states in the PVP corruption system, which we will detail in the PVP section.  These flagging states are non-combatant, combatant, and corrupt.  The flagging state will be visible on the character nameplate based on the color, with non-combatant being green, combatant being purple, and corrupt being red.  A green, non-combatant player who dies suffers normal death penalties, which include the following.

• Experience debt which is a negative experience that players will have to earn back before they start to earn experience again.  This does not de-level a player, or reduce their earned experience, it is more like a debuff that must be worked off before XP can be earned again.  Experience debt caps out at 2 to 3 percent of the XP of a max-level player.
• Players when dying also receive Skill and stat dampening.
• Lower health and mana.
• Lower gear proficiency.
• Reduction in drop rates from monsters.
• Durability loss.  The durability loss is both a gold and material sink.
• And dropping a percentage of carried gatherables, materials, and hunting certificates.  Non-combatant players will not drop finished items, only unfinished gatherables and materials.
• The player’s mule if they are using one can also be killed and gathered from.
• A combatant or purple player will suffer the exact same penalties but at half the rate of a non-combatant.  All that is required to become a combatant is to fight back when attacked in PVP, so players will be encouraged to fight back to reduce their death penalty in PVP.

Finally, a corrupt or red player, which is a player that kills someone who did not fight back and therefore died as a non-combatant, will suffer death penalties at 4 times the rate of a non-combatant.  This is the main mechanism to reduce griefing in the always-on PVP of Ashes of Creation.  In addition to the huge increase to the normal death penalty, corrupt players are also the only flagging state where players have a chance to drop items upon death.  This along with the increased drop rate of materials and gatherables means corrupt players will become big PVP targets, especially since killing them does not make you corrupt as well, only a combatant.  That covers death penalties, so let’s now move on to PVE.

PVE

There are a lot of PVE options in Ashes of Creation.  Much of the available PVE content revolves around the nodes and how they progress.  Some PVE content might be available on one server but not on another because of differences in how nodes are developed.  

Questing

Questing is divided into 3 categories.  Events, Tasks, and Narrative Quests.  All three of these will be available from various places such as local bulletin boards, NPC quest givers, and other sources that players will discover.  Quest givers in Ashes of Creation are not marked with an exclamation point above their head as most modern MMOs do.  Instead, NPCs that have quests have a green shimmer for their nameplate.  And not every quest will originate from a node, some quest givers will be separate from the node system.  

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.  Events are scaled to fit local, regional, and global needs.

Essentially events are like public quests found in previous MMOs.  They will have major consequences within the world if players do not successfully complete them.  This could be things like an NPC event that attacks a node building and players need to defend it or the building gets damaged.  Some events could change the climate temporarily, or block off specific roadways if not dealt with.  

Monster coin events are system-spawned events that enable players to play as monsters within the event system.  This ranges from playing as a horde of zombies to becoming a massive dragon.

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 objectives.

Here is the list of all the event types that have been talked about by the devs so far.

Tasks are Quests without an excessive amount 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.  

Narrative quests will focus on gameplay that reflects the story and won’t contain filler and are part of the story arcs that build the narrative of the game.   

PVE Difficulty

As for the difficulty of PVE content, raids and dungeons will adapt based on the performance of the raid against previous bosses in an encounter.  Higher performance in earlier phases will increase the difficulty of subsequent phases, and boost the loot tables of bosses.  Bosses and mobs will not auto-scale based on group size, but AI behaviors may dynamically adapt to the number and types of combatants in proximity to the encounter.

Dungeons and Raids

Dungeons will be approximately 80% open-world and the open-world dungeons will have the hardest content and the best loot.  The instanced dungeons are more tailored for delivering story elements.

Raids will either be based on triggered events or more traditional systems. Traditional world bosses will change based on node development.  When world bosses are killed, there will be an ancillary effect that happens that affects everyone.  The bosses that spawn will vary based on node development.

Adaptive PVE

Adaptive PVE content such as new POIs spawning, new buildings and mobs spawning, and the difficulty of content changing will all happen as nodes advance.  New dungeons and new pathways in larger dungeons might open as nodes develop.  Drop tables will change as well as nodes advance.  Storyline objectives for players in dungeons will depend on the story arc paths chosen during node advancement.

Some raids will have elements that will change randomly with each encounter, and some elements will change based on the surrounding node progression.

Leaderboards

Dungeons and raids will also have leaderboards.

Corrupt Areas

Corrupt areas in the world can dynamically evolve with the progression of nodes.  These are sources of NPC Events that players need to address to stop the spread of corruption before it grows out of hand and causes the frequency of NPC events against their node to increase.

Adaptive AI

Ashes is planning to use adaptive AI which means that different encounters with similar creatures will yield different player experiences.  Bosses are scripted and make dynamic decisions during boss fights.  Certain AI behaviors might activate based on progress within an encounter.  There might be a higher frequency of AOE attacks depending on the number of players participating.  Rage, Recovery, and buff effects might vary with each encounter.  There are also other AI elements in place regarding node advancement, the stock market, and triggered events.

Groups, Looting Rules, Solo and Casual Players

As for groups in Ashes of Creation, the party group size is 8 and the raid group size is 40.  PVE Content will be tailored for 8, 16, and 40-man group sizes.  

Looting rules in Ashes of Creation will follow traditional loot rules, selected by the group leader with the group needing to approve any loot rule changes.  

Solo and more casual players will have plenty to do in Ashes of Creation as well.  Some quest lines and hunting areas are tailored to solo players.  Node citizenship and social organizations provide a lot of progression for solo and casual players.  And even in the larger PVE and PVP encounters solo and casual players can have a role.

PVP

And that covers the PVE of Ashes of Creation, which brings us to another big topic and a big part of Ashes, the PVP.  PVP is the catalyst for change in Ashes of Creation.  The PVP is intended to be meaningful, ranging from small-scale Caravan battles to large-scale Castle Sieges with hundreds of players.

Objective Based PVP

Most PVP will be experienced through opt-in objective-based battlegrounds.  These are high-risk and high-reward encounters that do not utilize the corruption system.  These include Castle and Node Sieges, Caravans, Guild Wars, and Naval PVP in the open seas.  Death penalties for the most part do not apply to these objective-based events, with the exception of gear degradation during Caravan PVP.  

In addition to these structured PVP systems, there are some reasons to engage in PVP in the open world where corruption IS enabled.  Some of the reasons could be to contest open-world dungeons or raids.  Or to contest scarce resources and hunting grounds.  However, corruption penalties are so severe that griefing or killing players that do not fight back should be minimal. 

Caravan PVP

Caravans are rolling open PVP zones that flag all players for PVP and do not have corruption enabled.  Players when encountering a caravan can choose to attack, defend, or ignore the objective entirely.  A group will be needed to successfully attack a caravan.  Players can only participate in one caravan event at a time.  

There are incentives and risk-reward for both attackers and defenders.  A quest system will track a player’s history of success or defeats with caravans, and provide rewards that scale up over time.  There are also plenty of social incentives and rewards for participating in caravan PVP.

Caravans will likely be needed to transport materials for crafting and processing and to help build up nodes and castle nodes.  There will be a massive amount of materials needed for these things and caravans will be by far the most efficient means to transfer these materials since they cannot be moved quickly via fast travel and there is not a global auction house.

There are three types of caravans.  Mayoral caravans, quest-driven caravans, and personal caravans.  

Mayoral caravans are launched by mayors and they establish a trade route with another node and can give a node extra resources when completed.

Quest-driven caravans are also used to establish trade routes between nodes.  These are system-driven caravans that scale in capability based on the progress of a node and do not have to be built by the players.  

Trade routes are described as economic relationships between nodes that are established to trade commodities that are unique to particular nodes or node types via NPC-driven caravans.

Personal caravans are initiated by the player, who essentially becomes the caravan.  These are land-based and water-based caravans that the player directs and drives.

Personal Caravans are initiated from and arrive at the caravanserai node building in every node type at stage 3 and higher nodes.  Caravans are constructed from various components, and you can get improved components to boost the hp and carrying capacity, and other values of the caravan.  Once constructed it will be available at the caravanserai and will then appear in your list of built caravans to choose from and launch.  Launching the caravan will be done in an area surrounding the node that the player chooses, and not at the same place every time.  This makes it easier to conceal the start of a caravan launch from attackers.

The various storage compartments of the caravan can be loaded with crates that are filled with goods and can be assigned to various interested parties.  Crates will have small, medium, and large capacities.  The higher the quality the greater the capacity.  

Personal caravans can also transition to naval caravans.

PVP opponents in Caravan PVP will not be able to see the exact contents of a caravan before they decide to attack or defend, however, there will be some visual clues as to the cargo contained in the caravan though it will not be granular.  

Mercenary NPCs can also be hired to participate in objective based PVP in Ashes, including Caravan defense, node siege defense, and castle siege defense.  

When a caravan is destroyed it will drop a portion of the goods it is carrying.  The remainder of the goods will be destroyed.  Anyone may loot the wreckage of the caravan including the defenders.  Caravan components might also drop, and they can be salvaged for raw materials if desired.  The heavy goods in the caravan will drop certificates that are redeemable at the origin node for a percentage of the goods.  But for the rest of the goods, the players will have to figure out how to transport themselves.

Caravan performance will also be measured during the PVP seasons, which last for 6 months, and at the end of the season, players will receive rewards based on performance.  

Castles and Castle Sieges

Castle Sieges are an integral part of PVP in Ashes of Creation as well.  But before we get into Castle Sieges, we need to talk about Castles first.  There are five guild castles, and each will influence 1/5th of the world.  One castle is located on an island and can be affected by naval combat.  The castles will initially be occupied by an NPC adversary.  These are the primary antagonists in the storyline.  

Once a guild first takes a Castle from the NPCs, then there will be Castle Sieges every month.  During the lead-up to the Siege, guilds will need to upgrade Castle Defenses. 

Each castle has three nodes that will need to be developed each month by the Guild that controls the castle in order to bolster the Castle Defenses during the Siege.  Questing is the method that is used to upgrade these Nodes.  One of the ways the castle nodes are developed is every weekend leading up to the siege, caravans will move towards one of the castle nodes carrying the taxes collected during the week.  Successfully defending these caravans will bolster that node and increase the defense of the castle during the siege.  Enemies of the guild that owns the Castle will obviously be incentivized to attack and destroy these caravans.  Citizens of the nodes that are under the control of the castle cannot attack the caravans, they can only defend.

The controlling guild will likely not be able to fully upgrade these Castle Nodes on their own, they will likely need some assistance from other guilds to do this.

The castle nodes are always military nodes, and cannot advance past stage 3.  They exist outside of the normal node system.  Mercenary NPCs can be hired to protect Castle Caravans and during the Siege, depending on how well the Nodes have been developed.

There are MANY benefits given to the guild that owns a Castle, so expect them to be highly contested.  As said, each Castle controls one-fifth of the world map, and any developed nodes under the control of the castle will be taxed by the castle.  A portion of these taxes can only be used exclusively for building up the defenses of the Castle, but a portion can be used by the Guild for whatever they want.  In addition, the Castle owners can activate special events and abilities that benefit the node citizens under their rule.  And, they can unlock special node buildings within the nodes under their control as well.  

As for the monthly Castle Sieges, the Sieges will only happen during a server prime-time window.  The minimum goal for these Sieges is for them to accommodate 250 versus 250 on a single battlefield, but the developers are hoping for as much as 500 versus 500.  There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short-duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.  The fourth and final week before the Castle Siege is declaration week.  During this time, guilds can sign up to defend or attack the Castle.  Once a guild registers to attack a Castle, a Siege Scroll Declaration Quest is initiated that guild members may participate in, and it is possible to lay the declaration scroll down as soon as the quest is completed.  Multiple guides may register to attack and the first to complete the scroll and lay down the declaration will be the one that is chosen to be the attacking guild.  

The siege scroll deployment is a 5 min rooted in place cast that alerts the region at the cast initiation and names the caster.  The caster MUST be the guild leader.  The casting can only be interrupted by killing the caster.  The scroll can only be cast in a ring around the castle.

Following siege declaration, the defending guild can approve defenders, hire mercenary NPCs, and set up defensible positions.  The attackers will need to approve attackers and craft all the siege equipment needed for the siege.

Group summons is also a feature of sieges, in which a full group can activate powerful summons that are used in the siege.  One example was a Tank wall ability.

The Castle Sieges will have waypoints that attackers can capture and when they do their respawn timer is diminished.  Legendary NPCs will act as mini-raid bosses that can be killed by either side for various benefits.  The defender’s goal is to survive until the 90-minute siege timer ends.  The attackers will need to reach the inner keep of the castle, and once there a guild leader or designated officer must cast a 3 to 5-minute cast to seal ownership of the castle.  Casting time will be diminished based on how many capture points the attackers hold.  There is an opportunity for any guild leader in the attacking alliance to capture the castle themselves, even if they did not lay down the declaration scroll, which creates potential for inner guild drama between the attackers.

And as already mentioned in the mounts section, the flying mount dragons for the defenders will be a strong weapon for the defenders.

Node Sieges

And that concludes the Castles and Castle Sieging discussion.  Now we move on to the Node Sieges, which are another non-corruption-enabled PVP system in Ashes of Creation.  A successful Node siege will fully destroy a node and take it all the way back to stage 0.  Sieging nodes will not be an easy task, and will be harder the higher the node level is.  

Mayors can purchase and allocate defense mechanisms to bolster siege defenses using treasury funds from node taxes.  These include stronger walls and gates, traps, and siege equipment.  Relics in the Node Reliquary can also bolster the damage, attack range, or player health of the defenders.  

Declaring a node siege is similar to declaring a Castle Siege.  Except Node Sieges are not scheduled to happen automatically every month, and ANYONE can declare a Node Siege, not just a Guild leader.  There is a substantial investment required in order for someone to acquire a node siege scroll, and the scroll is specific to one node only.  The mayor will be notified when their node is declared on a siege scroll.  There is a cooldown period that varies based on the node stage before the actual siege occurs.  There is also a siege declaration cooldown of 21 days following a node advancing to a higher stage node.  If a node levels up during the Siege Declaration, the level-up will not happen until after the siege, if the defense is successful.

Sieging a node will require a similar amount of resources and time to what it took to develop the node being sieged.  Siege equipment will need to be crafted by both sides.  

During the declaration period, individuals or guilds can register to attack or defend providing they meet the criteria.  The player who declared the siege cannot exclude anyone from joining the attack.  Citizens of the node or provincial nodes are automatically registered as defenders.  Players do not need to be citizens of a node in order to register as defenders, but they cannot be a citizen of a node that is at war with that node.

Many node services are shut down during a node siege declaration and instead quests and services that prepare for the siege will be available.  Players can also not move goods out of any sort of storage system within the node.

Like Castle Sieges, Node Sieges will occur during server prime time.  Flying dragon mounts will also be usable in Node Sieges.

During a Node Siege, each node will have a number of districts, depending on what stage the node is.  Districts are taken by defeating a Raid boss level guard NPC in each district.  If attackers take over a district, they gain that area as a respawn point.  Attackers can also kill the quartermasters to increase the respawn times of the defenders and reduce their own respawn time.

Defenders can also assault the siege outposts of the attacking team to hinder them.  And if the attackers destroy the headquarters of the attacking army their defenders will instantly win the siege.

Attackers cannot de-level a node, but they can disable certain services-oriented buildings by destroying them during the siege, even if they do not win the entire siege.

A node siege lasts 2 hours.  For the defense to win, they need to destroy the attacker’s outpost or survive the full 2 hours.  Defenders will need to hold a central point and channel a 5-minute cast on the defender’s flag on this point.  This channel cannot be interrupted by CC, only by killing the player that is channeling it. 

If the node survives, there will be a cooldown period before a node can be sieged again, based on the level of the node.  Citizens of the node will need to repair any damaged infrastructure after an unsuccessful siege.

If the attackers do succeed in the siege, the node is destroyed and returned to level 0.  The node citizens will lose their citizenship.  After the node is destroyed, the footprint of the node will enter a ruined state and will become an open PVP zone for a number of days equal to the node’s level.  The loot from the ruins will be a free-for-all for anyone to claim.  Recovering the treasures from the debris field will take time and tools to recover.  The warehouse debris field will contain a portion of all materials and gatherable that were stored in the node.  The reliquary debris will contain a stockpile of shards of the relics that were stored there.  The town hall might contain tax-oriented certificates that were stored there.  The stables debris field might contain mount certificates.  Gatherables and processed goods from in-node housing and apartment storage chests also become lootable.

Player freeholds can be attacked by any player for a period of two hours following a successful node siege, any remaining freeholds will exist under a grace period for roughly 1 week where another node may take over the zone of influence of the freehold.  If a node does not control a freehold after that time it is destroyed.  Players will have to complete a quest to transfer their freehold to a new node if one is available.

If any node housing is destroyed, designs and decorations are retained and can be placed again in the next house the player owns.  Blueprints are mailed to the player to utilize for future placement.  Freeholds will have some materials lost when destroyed.  

Guild Wars

And that concludes the Node Sieges section.  Now we move on to the next PVP system, guild wars.  There is not a lot known about Guild Wars just yet, but the goal of Guild Wars is for them to be objective based with great risk involved for both sides.  Guild war objectives are designed to be more fluid than castle siege objectives.  

Guild wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during server prime time.  Guild wars will not be permanent.  Definitive victory conditions exist that will end the war.

Some examples given of guild war objectives are capturing some objective near the enemy guild hall on a freehold.  There also might be bounty objectives to kill a specific guild member.

Quickly on Guild Halls since I mentioned them.  These can be placed on guild freeholds or in nodes.  In-node guild halls are only available to guilds that are patrons of a node.  The guild will need to achieve a certain guild level to unlock guild halls.  

In addition to guild halls, there are also guild fortresses. It has not been decided if these will actually be in the game yet, but if they are they will likely be siegeable during guild wars and be a guild war objective.

Guild wars will be one of the activities that is shown on the guild ladder.  Castle Sieges and World Bosses will also appear on the Guild ladder.  

Guild wars will also be a part of the 6 month long PVP seasons.

PVP Affiliation Tree

One important thing to cover regarding PVP in Ashes of Creation is the affiliation tree.   This determines what has priority in terms of war in Ashes of Creation.  Node citizenship is the highest priority affiliation a player has, so for example, if two nodes are at war, and both nodes have members of the same guild in them then those members will be at war with each other.

Naval PVP

Another PVP option in Ashes is Naval PVP.  We have already covered most of this, but the open seas will not have the corruption system enabled.  Close to the shoreline corruption IS enabled.

Arenas

Arenas are an instanced PVP option in Ashes of Creation as well.  There will be 1-man, 3-man, 5-man, and possibly 20-man free for all group sizes in the arenas.  There will not be guild vs guild arenas, but players can queue as teams.  Arenas will have a minimum level requirement, and there will not be arena brackets, just one arena mode for all players that meet the minimum level requirement.  There will be an arena ladder and the arenas will be a part of the PVP seasons.

The PVP season rewards include gear enhancement rewards, achievement ranks, and currency.

Open World PVP and The Corruption System

That covers all of the structured PVP options that do not have the corruption system enabled.  Now it is time to talk about the open PVP and how the Corruption system works.  Corruption is a system that is designed to prevent the griefing of players in the open world.  The penalties for those that gank players who do not fight back IS EXTREMELY severe.  There are three flagging states in Ashes of Creation, Non-combatants which have a green nameplate, Combatants with a purple nameplate, and corrupted with a red nameplate.  

The flagging states and all the possible flagging combinations are seen in this chart.  It looks very complicated at first glance, but in reality, is not that complicated.  The only way someone can become corrupted is to first become a combatant by attacking a combatant or non-combatant and then they get a killing blow on a non-combatant.  Combatants killing combatants do not become corrupted.  Non-combatants are free to attack corrupted players without becoming combatants themselves.

All players start as non-combatants.  Any non-forced player attacks such as AOE and status effects will not hit a combatant player.  If a combatant player is fighting a non-combatant and the player dies to a mob, then the combatant will not become corrupted.

Players are flagged as combatants if they attack another player, if the player fights back they are also flagged as a combatant.  Non-combatants who heal or support a combatant will be flagged as combatants as well.  Killing a combatant player will not flag a player as corrupt.  Players remain flagged for 90 seconds after their last attack, and cannot log out while flagged as a combatant.  

The only way a player can become corrupted is by killing a non-combatant.  Their corruption score will increase with each subsequent non-combatant killed and killing a non-combatant that is much lower level will cause that score to increase much faster.  

Players will also have a lifetime PK value score, which will also increase the rate at which they become corrupted.  There might be quests to slowly reduce this score, but this is something that will be a long-term negative for a player that ganks the unwilling, further disincentivizing PKing.

As stated in the death penalties section, once a corrupted player is eventually killed they will see a 4X increase on the standard death penalty, and they will have a chance to drop gear.  And the penalties increase in severity the higher the corruption score of the player is.  

Even more penalties for corrupted players are that they cannot trade with other players, they cannot interact with vendors or NPCs, and they cannot access storage.

And since players cannot become corrupted by themselves killing a corrupt player, and can then loot the corpse that has dropped 4x the normal amount of materials, players will be incentivized naturally to attack and try to kill these players.  And remember, corruption will decrease the combat effectiveness of corrupt players a substantial amount, so it might be a fairly easy task to kill them.

On top of that incentive, there is even a bounty hunter system in place as well that will encourage even more players to seek out and kill corrupted players.  Starting at Stage 4 in military nodes, citizens of that node and potentially even the citizens of vassal nodes of that military node can become a bounty hunter.  With this, they can see active corrupt players on their map to make it very easy to track them down and kill them.  

The primary and quickest way to remove corruption is through a corrupted player dying.  Gaining experience will slowly reduce corruption as well.  

Suffice it to say, I believe that corruption will be very punishing and prevent a lot of griefing.  But at the same time, those that don’t mind PVP might fight back when ganked to reduce their own death penalty by 50% and have a chance to loot their enemies.  In theory, this system could allow for natural organic open-world PVP, but still be very punishing for griefers, but we will have to see when we finally get to test this in Alpha 2 next year.

Guilds and Alliances

And with that, we have fully covered the PVP section. And can now move on to covering Guilds and Alliances.

We have already covered a lot of what we need to cover with Guilds in terms of Guild halls, Guild Fortresses, and Guild Castles in the PVP Section.  But let’s cover the basics of guilds and guild alliances here.

Forming a guild is similar to how it is in most MMOs, you will need at least 5 players to start a guild, there is a minimum level requirement, a questline to complete, and a gold and material cost.

Currently, the guild size cap is 300 players.  This is done to reduce the effectiveness of Zerg guilds, but of course, most massive guilds will probably just make several guilds.  Smaller guilds will be allowed to have bigger guild buffs in the guild leveling system, which is another method to strengthen small guilds and weaken Zergs.  The maximum cap for a guild to have the max buffs to their guild is 30 to 50 players.  

Guild alliances are also a mechanic that allows up to 4 guilds to form an alliance.  There will also be a guild alliance bank, alliance-specific chat channels and quest lines, and affiliations and gear that can be attained as well.  

There are also many other planned benefits to guild membership as you can see here.  

Religions and Social Organizations

Religions

That covers Guilds, now let’s move on to Religions and Social Organizations.  Ashes of Creation has six primary religions as well as the Tulnar Religion.  Choosing a religion allows a player to walk a light or dark path through their choice of quest lines and other actions.

The main way to progress a religion’s influence on a server will be to build the corresponding temple in a stage 3 or higher divine node.  

As players advance their rank within their chosen religion, they will gain access to the following benefits.  Unique titles and shop items, discounts from various vendors, roles that open up during events or node sieges as long as the node has a temple dedicated to the player’s deity and the player is a citizen of that node.  

Unique augments can be unlocked as a top-tier achievement within a religion.  And unique crafting recipes can also be unlocked.

Players can only follow one religion at a time, and changing religions will cause all progress to be lost.  

Players can also build shrines on their freeholds which unlock some new features and some of the same features that node temples have.

Social Organizations

There are also social organizations in Ashes of Creation such as The Trader’s Company, the Thieves Guild, and The Scholar’s Academy. Social organizations start to unlock in Nodes at Node Stage 4.  Players can only be in one social organization.  Progression in social organizations provides rewards such as Titles, special shops, Abilities that can only be used in node sieges or other events, and up to 3 to 4 augments.  There will also be special cosmetics and a role for social organizations within artisan class progression.

Progression in social organizations is based on tasks or quests that are completed.  These quests will either be cooperative or adversarial against other nodes based on node war status.

With religions and social organizations done, it is time to move on to leveling in Ashes of Creation.  Leveling will not follow a traditional leveling path, although classic mechanics for leveling do exist.  

Leveling

Players will earn XP in a wide variety of ways from events and questing, gathering, processing, and crafting, to killing mobs.  Group XP gain will use a formula of roughly 1.3 to 1.4 times the number of players in the party, which is then split evenly amongst the party members.

The developers do not want grinding to be the primary method for XP gain.  The goal is for there to be more things to do in the game than players have time for.

There will not be level boosts or AFK leveling.  There will not be any level scaling mechanics in PVP or PVE.  In theory, a player could level to max at one node since nodes will have content for all or most level ranges, but that will likely not be the best choice.

The level cap at launch is expected to be level 50.  Alpha 2 is expected to have a level cap of 35.  It will take a long time to hit max level, with it taking approximately 45 days playing 4-6 hours per day.  

There will be a mentorship program where upper-level characters can help new players get situated in the game.  Certain node builds and organizations offer quests that can be initiated by a mentor to assist new players, and both the mentor and mentee will get rewards for completing them.

These include things like leading a mentee through a dungeon or escorting NPC caravans.

Progression

That covers leveling, now let’s talk about all of the progression options in Ashes of Creation. 

The objective is to provide both horizontal and vertical progression options.  Repetition is not said to be a large part of progression in Ashes.  Progression pathways are per character.

The end game is said to be different in that the developers want people to be experiencing similar content at the end game that they experience while leveling.  

Players can progress their class, gear, pets, artisan classes, religions, mariner classes, they can help progress nodes, they can help progress their guilds, and they can progress their social organizations.  There is alliance progression, freehold progression, and even monster coin progression.  The bottom line, you are not likely to run out of things to do any time soon in Ashes of Creation.

Combat Pets

We have already touched on most of these progression systems in Ashes of Creation, other than pets.  Yes, Ashes of Creation also has combat pets that players can buy and even gear up.  These pets do not provide vertical progression for the player, instead, they offer a horizontal progression path.