- With the massive scope and complexity of the design of Ashes of Creation, is there a point that you would consider removing some of the ancillary systems that were originally intended for launch? If so what ancillary systems would you consider removing first?
- We know that the normal death penalty incurs a myriad of penalties for the player, but we don’t know the numbers behind this penalty. For instance, what percentage of materials do players drop? What percentage of glint is dropped? How severe is the skill and stat dampening? What is the average time it will take a player to work off xp debt from one death?
- We know very little about Guild Wars. We know they are objective based and the objectives occur at server prime time. Is there anything else you can tell us about Guild Wars?
- We know very little about Node Wars. We know they are objective based and the objectives occur at server prime time. Is there anything else you can tell us about NodeWars?
- Can you tell us more about Guild Halls?
- What are the contingency plans should Intrepid need more funding to continue development?
- Can you tell us the scope of the LAUNCH of Alpha 2 that is currently planned? How many zones, how fleshed out will the professions be, how fleshed out will the archetypes be, etc.
- How much of Alpha 1 development has carried over to Alpha 2?
- Where is Bill Trost?
- We have seen a lot of MMOs that launch on a brand new IP that struggle. How do you plan to navigate the difficulties of launching a new IP with the many past failures of new MMOs launching with brand new IPs?
- What are the Benefits to In-Node Mansions. We know freeholds have a lot of benefits, especially regarding boosting the processing branch of the artisan system. But what are the benefits to owning one of the few In-Node Mansions at the Metropolis stage of a node?
- With a 21-day grace period where a node cannot be sieged after advancing to a new node stage, and with stage 4 only taking “many days”, and stage 5 only taking a few weeks, how will nodes that are actively being leveled and not restricted in level by the vassal system actually be sieged until stage 5 or higher?
- Can you go into more detail on how you plan to make Tanks relevant in PVP? What MMO’s do you think had good PVP Tanks?
- With the adaptive boss scaling in open-world dungeons, which affects the drop tables for a group, how does that work with multiple groups in the dungeon? For example, if Group A has killed the first two bosses in a dungeon and did well on them, thereby increasing the drop tables of the third boss, and is currently fighting this boss and Group B comes in and kills them and then kills the boss, does this group get the enhanced drop tables or just a standard drop table?
- With the massive world map, minimal fast travel, and the idea of players having a home node, and each node having content for multiple level ranges are you at all concerned that too many players might stay in one area of the map for a majority of their play time? Or, do you have incentives for people to explore besides just for getting resources that are rare in their location?
- It is said that after a Node is destroyed in a Siege, any Freeholds that were attached to that node have a 1 week grace period where they can fall under the purview of a new nodes ZOI and not be destroyed. However, isn’t the entire map always covered by some Nodes ZOI at all times? If so how would a Freehold ever actually be destroyed by a Node Siege?
- Is there any sort of plans for lower death penalties or diminishing returns on death penalties on repeated deaths for players that repeatedly die to very difficult PVE encounters?
- Siege Summons were a mechanic mentioned for the Summoner Class, and Potentially other classes as well in Sieges. Is this still a planned mechanic and can you tell us more about them?
- What is the current average Time to Kill in PVP combat?
- Will leveling to 50 and gearing up as you go be hindered by the higher tier processing being only available on Freeholds at level 50, or can the lower tier processing in Nodes give adequate leveling gear and the higher tier processing is only for end game gear?
- Have you finalized whether Castle Sieges will be instanced or in the open world for Alpha 2 and beyond?
- With the defenders in a Node Siege having a “considerable defensive advantage” that increases with Node level, and with the Siege said to require a similar amount of resources and time as it took to develop the Node that is being sieged how often do you think Metropolis Nodes will be successfully Sieged?
- Do we know if Monster Coin Events will be able to be used when a node is under protection?
- What would be the corruption score from 1 corrupted kill of a same level player? How many deaths would be required to erase this corruption score? Without dying, how long would it take for this person to grind off this corruption score?
- Are you concerned that a player not having to fight back in order to give a ganker a penalty via the corruption system might feel bad to a lot of players?
- You’ve hinted at a lifetime PK value score during the Asmongold interview that is separate from the corruption score of a player, and will that influence how fast a players corruptions score will increase. Is this still planned, if so can you share any more details about it?
- Ashes is a highly complex game. Not every player watches 10 guides before playing a game. With that in mind, how robust of a tutorial is planned?
- Can you expand upon how Stealth is planned to work in Ashes of Creation? The last information on stealth was that it would not render a player completely invisible? Is that still the case? Will players be able to bring another player out of stealth by doing damage to them, or does the player remain stealthed even when taking damage? Also, How do the stealth augments work for the other Archetypes when choosing a Rogue secondary archetypes?
- Can you elaborate on Relic transportation. When looting a Relic after a successful Node Siege, how are they transported? Is there a special bag needed? Is it obvious to other players when a relic is in their bag? Does the Relic drop upon player death? Are they situations where Relics can be captured during say a Node War, and transported to another Node.
- How are you planning to make evasion and block chance stats work with active blocking?
- How do you plan to balance guild levels and limit zerg guilds?
- Patron guilds are said to be guilds that have contributed the most to a Node. Does this mean only large guilds will become Patrons or is there some balancing to give smaller guilds a chance?
- What is the highest level a node can reach that is not in a vassal chain(Buffer Nodes)?
- Why were buffer nodes added?
- What happens when a Node Siege is declared on a Node during a Node election process? Is the election postponed until after the Siege?
- You have said that Castle Sieges happen every month. What happens if no one declares for the Siege? Do NPCs siege instead?
- Is the 5-minute cast of the Castle Siege Scroll Deployment subject to the corruption system?
- Why have we not seen the Rogue or Bard yet? Is it because of the complexity of the classes? Are they not as far along as the other classes?
- At what character level will the race, religion, and social organization augments open up? Are they more or less powerful than the augments given by the secondary archetype at level 25?
My questions are about Unreal Engine updates and is in a couple of parts. 1. Has the recent 5.2 release been evaluated as worth incorporating into AoC? Is it planned to also take about 8 weeks to perform the upgrade?
2. Given that Unreal Engine appears to be on a trajectory of 5.x releases every 6 months, and that 5.1 took about 8 weeks to incorporate into AoC, the previously stated process of assessing each release as to whether it is worthwhile to incorporate appears to need refining given that each release may be very worthwhile. At some point in development the Unreal Engine updates need to be stopped no matter how good the update is, or a much more effiicent process of upgrading needs to be in place to continue.
I agree with those questions as well. At some point they need to settle with a version unless, as you said, the upgrade process gets smoothed out. They did get asked about UE in the community Q&A at this timestamp, but to me they didn’t fully answer these questions. Thanks for the comment!