Ashes of Creation: A New Era for MMORPGs?
Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMORPG that has gained immense support from fans of the genre for its innovative open-development approach and trailblazing systems that breathe new life into MMOs.
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment, trading, or legal advice. The views and opinions expressed herein are exclusively those of the author.
TLDR:
What is Ashes of Creation?
Why is it a highly anticipated game?
The five design pillars
Can web3 elements improve the user experience?
Introduction
If you're a diehard fan of MMORPGs, chances are you have heard of Ashes of Creation (“AoC”). Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMORPG developed by Intrepid Studios (“Intrepid”) that has been in development since December 2015 and has the potential to redefine the genre at large. What makes AoC one of the most anticipated games in recent memory is its design pillars, systems, and open development approach. As MMORPGs struggle to retain players due to a lack of innovative gameplay, AoC's goal is to provide a new and improved experience that offers a deeper sense of immersion, escapism, and interconnected social experiences through authentic roleplaying. AoC aims to deliver exactly what players are looking for in their gaming experience. While AoC doesn’t plan to utilize blockchain components, we will present ways for the game to implement the technology that could benefit the end user. Before addressing the game’s parallels to web3 and how blockchain elements might be able to enhance the overall end-user experience, we must explain what AoC is and the five design pillars that are unique to the game.
What is Ashes of Creation?
Ashes of Creation is a Sand Park MMORPG that started development in December 2015 by Intrepid Studios. Intrepid was founded by Creative Director Steven Sharif and Chief Financial Officer John Moore, two avid gamers that longed for a new kind of MMORPG experience that deepens the relationship between publisher and gamer. Intrepid defines AoC as a world of high fantasy where player’s choices will shape and define the world around them.1 The game is designed to be a dynamic and immersive experience, focusing on non-linear content and player choice. Players can choose to be a part of several different races and classes, each with unique abilities and characteristics. The game features a variety of different gameplay mechanics, including combat, crafting, and a player-driven economy. Overall, the mission and purpose of Ashes of Creation is to provide players with a dynamic and immersive gameplay experience that allows them to shape the world around them and make meaningful choices that impact the game's narrative and progression.
AoC has amassed an immense following within the gaming community not only for its innovative design pillars, exhilarating gameplay, and stunning environments but also because the studio decided to embrace an open development approach. While a lot of gamers understand what an MMORPG and high fantasy game is, most gamers have most likely never experienced a game where users directly influence and define the world they are playing in. What exactly do we mean by this and how is AoC’s approach different from other MMORPGs? The answer: the five design pillars.
What are the 5 Design Pillars?
Reactive World
This design pillar is perhaps the most anticipated by the Ashes of Creation community. The world of Verra will evolve based on the player's actions and decisions, and there are a number of ways that this can occur: Node System, Routine Biome Changes, Naval Combat, Destructible Environments, and more! To illustrate an example of how one of these elements can create a more reactive world, let us explain the highly anticipated Node System.
AoC has a novel system within the game called nodes. Intrepid defines nodes as “pre-set points in the world, wrapped in a Zone of Influence (“ZOI”), and surrounded by geographic areas that change over time based upon player participation.”2 Simply put, nodes are areas where players can develop their camps, villages, towns, and cities, and eventually, they become metropolises. A player’s actions, whether it be battling mobs or completing quests, will not only contribute to their character’s experience, but also to the development of the node residing inside the specific ZOI they are in. As a node develops, additional content and benefits that were previously locked, will now become accessible to members of that node and continue to evolve. As Intrepid notes, “The world itself is reacting to the advancement of specific nodes.”3 The advancement of a node comes in the form of stages (Stages 0-6). Depending on where nodes are discovered, whether near a mountain or along the ocean, impacts the type of resources surrounding that area. Given this dynamic, no two Ashes of Creation servers will be the same; and players must work together to master their respective environments. That being said, let’s dig deeper into this novel concept that can spur inspiration for the future of MMORPGs.
Each server in AoC will have a total of 85 hidden nodes waiting to be discovered as players explore the territory. Each node will have a different layout and appearance depending on the race that contributes the most XP toward it. Nodes influence and have material changes on player benefits, citizenship, stages of development, governments, questlines, reputation, buildings, housing, sieges, caravans, guilds, and more. Nodes are one of the most differentiated elements that sets AoC apart from “just another MMO”.
There are four types of nodes including Military, Scientific, Divine, and Economic. Each with its own unique benefits and ultimate ability that unlocks when the node is advanced to its final stage.
Military nodes: Leaders in this node type are chosen in the arena, where players will have the opportunity to participate in a last-person standing combat-style competition. These nodes focus on combat and class trading. They are protected by guards and have the ability to enable a bounty system to kill corrupted players. Unique buildings in these nodes include barracks, house training, and questlines related to combat and defeating enemies.
Economic nodes: Leaders in this node type are selected in a less democratic fashion. Economic nodes are governed by an elite class of oligarchs and these positions are purchased and sold.4 These nodes focus on trade and merchant services. They are staffed by auctioneers and have the ability to link their economies with other economic nodes and share auction houses. Unique buildings in these nodes include markets, exchanges, galleries, and emporiums.
Scientific nodes: Leaders in this node type are chosen via a democratic process by the citizens residing in that node. These nodes focus on artisan classes such as gathering, processing, and crafting. They are staffed by scholars and have the ability to enable teleportation between the metropolis node and vassals of that metropolis once the node reaches the metropolis stage.5 Additionally, if there are multiple scientific metropolises, players will be able to travel by airship between these metropolises and their vassal nodes. Unique buildings in these nodes include libraries, colleges, universities, and academies.
Divine nodes: Leaders in this node type are nominated via service-oriented quests that prove their faith and commitment to the node. The quests aid the node and its citizenship.6 These nodes focus on faith and skill & equipment augmentation.7 They are staffed by priests and have the ability to unlock a "mega catacomb" dungeon beneath the node that connects to vassal nodes (with unique bosses and unique drop tables). Unique buildings in these nodes include temples to progress religion.
With the complex node system, players have the opportunity to experience a wide variety of immersive gameplay through the availability of different node types. Each node offers its own unique blend of structures, amenities, non-playable characters, governance, and belief systems contributing to the game's vibrant and multifaceted virtual world. As players progress through the game and become more skilled, they can explore different node types and eventually choose the node that best aligns with their personal preferences, goals, and motivations.
Player Interaction
While player interaction is commonplace in an MMORPG, it’s typically in the form of instanced content like raids and dungeons, along with streamlined progression systems that can be completed as a solo player. AoC plans to take player interactions to an entirely new level by incorporating new systems and mechanics that bring the community to the forefront. A goal of AoC’s is to have players progress through the game while interacting with and against players in the form of caravans, castle and node sieges, land and naval-based world player vs. player (“PvP”), the economy, dungeons and raids, and the node progression system.8 Players will have a better chance of reaping the benefits from each of these activities more efficiently if they choose to work with their peers rather than progressing through the game on their own.
By contrast, in an MMORPG like Lost Ark, you as a player can progress through the game and raise your item level by completing content such as the story, dungeons, and raids, or by discovering islands via sailing. Even though you’re queued with a group of players to complete Chaos Dungeons or Guardian Raids, AoC aims to create a significantly more meaningful interactive experience between players than just eliminating a raid boss or earning low-grade crafting materials. The main way that AoC aims to accomplish this is by ensuring all players have a stake in the game, and there is no better example of this than the incorporation of the node system and sieges.
One of the most exciting activities in AoC that illustrates this pillar is castle sieges. At the game’s launch, there will be five castles in Verra that will be occupied by NPCs and act as high-level raids. When a castle is conquered by a guild, they will have three weeks to repair any damages sustained during battle, as they prepare for another siege in the following month.9 The opportunity to bring together members of your guild and node allies to either protect your own castle and continue your reign, or attack a neighboring castle to dethrone a rival guild and potentially become the new ruler of that castle region, is a very appealing aspect of the game for many players!
How do guilds initiate a castle siege?
At the beginning of each month, sieges will occur in all five guild castle regions. This gives guilds an opportunity each month to attempt to conquer and control one of the five castles in Verra. It also creates an incentive for guilds that currently occupy a castle to defend their home, livelihood, and the benefits that come with it.
To conquer and claim a castle, a guild must defeat all enemy combatants.10 The guild with the highest damage per second on the raid boss will be able to claim the castle. There are five castles located in different regions of Verra, each with unique terrain and enemy combatants, requiring guilds to develop new strategies for each castle.11 Currently, castle sieges involve 250 players on each side, but the game plans to increase this to 500 players per side for an even more immersive experience.
Castle sieges greatly increase the interactions between players because a significant amount of risk is at stake, which incentivizes players to participate in the sieges. For instance, by conquering and controlling a castle, guild leaders will become known as Kings and Queens, and have direct power over the nodes within the castle's region.12 Nodes located in the castle region will be required to pay tax transfers directly to the monarchy. The monarchy will have the ability to alter the tax rates of all nearby nodes. They could decide to pursue a more collective approach by reducing taxes and working as a guild to prepare for the next siege, or the monarchy could decide to rule maliciously by increasing the tax rates across the region.13 In sum, players are going to want to participate in these monthly sieges to fight for the style of government they would like to experience.
When a guild conquers a castle, they will gain access to three sub-nodes known as castle nodes. These nodes serve as a way for the castle to expand its influence by improving its defenses, offensive capabilities, and maneuverability.14 Castle nodes increase player interaction because players will need to work together to level them up to better prepare for the next siege. It is vital to note that castle nodes do not function the same as standard nodes, meaning their growth will not impact any of the 85 nodes on the server.15 As players level up the castle nodes, they will further increase the benefits provided by these nodes. This is of great interest to the ruling guild because it will make it more difficult for rival guilds to try and dethrone them. The victors of castle sieges will also receive additional rewards such as cloaks, flying mounts for the guild leaders, and more. The longer a guild holds onto its reign, the more benefits they will receive.16
Immersive and Engaging Story
Immersiveness and engagement are at the forefront of any exceptional gaming experience. Players want to lose themselves in the experience and attribute their time to something that provides emotional value. While AoC is tackling this pillar through several traditional methods employed by MMOs, such as classes, races, skill trees, raids, and dungeons through a horizontal and vertical progression system, the team is also placing emphasis on the various world environments. AoC’s innovative environmental approach interests us the most, and we believe the ever-changing seasons and their impacts on the player base and economy, will play a key role in revolutionizing the genre.
Environments in Ashes of Creation consist of biomes, seasons, climates, day and night cycles, constellations, and more! Each of these elements will impact how players perceive and interact with Verra.17 Two of the elements that best illustrate this pillar are the biomes and seasonal changes.
Biomes
In AoC, there will be 18 unique and diverse types of biomes. Biomes range from entire world-like geographies like forests, deserts, tropics, volcanic, jungles, and snow mountains, to providing the player with ever-changing environments that are fun, interactive, and have their own benefits and challenges.18 Biomes are significant in AoC because they will affect a user's playstyle, albeit in the background of the game. For example, weather and seasonal changes will impact a player reliant on crafting or gathering certain essential materials for their livelihood. If a player relies on mining certain gems to sell in a neighboring node during the summer season, they will experience hardships if the next seasonal change removes the ability to continue extracting resources from the specific gemstone. This forces the player to continue developing new strategies and tactics to make money, improve gear, support their node or castle, and more. Changes in climate can also occur due to certain events being triggered by players, like when battling a raid boss. For a player, these environmental changes affect everything from gatherables, vehicles, mounts, ships, creatures, targeting capabilities, skills, and even boss mechanics (very intriguing!).
Seasons
Not all biomes will have seasons, but the ones that do can drastically change the appearance for set periods of time, affecting how players traverse the land. The effects of certain items, crop cycles, and crafting mechanics on a player's abilities will change depending on the season. This may result in the player receiving temporary enhancements or hindrances in the form of buffs or debuffs. A neat component of seasons is that they may affect predefined paths requiring players to venture and create their own paths, whether traveling on a mount or transporting goods in a caravan. The point is each interaction within the same location over time can be altered, creating an increased element of immersion that can keep the player engaged in the broader world.
Seasons and weather systems change the behavioral actions of the player.19 The triggers that alter seasons and weather for each biome are not only time-related but also initiated by events that occur in the server. According to Steven Sharif, the formation of a raid boss or a relic that has been acquired by a node and activated can cause a seasonal change (from winter to spring).20 You might be asking, why would a node community be interested in initiating a seasonal change? Well, changing a season from winter to spring will affect everything from skills and abilities and the necessary item resources to craft gear or complete quests.
The season and weather system will have a great impact on the overall economy. Take gatherables for example. After a seasonal change occurs, a specific crop of interest in the prior season might not be as harvestable for an extended period of time in the new season. Not being able to harvest that crop is likely to have a rippling effect regionally and potentially across Verra, since those outside nodes relied on that resource. As a result of this, the transportation of those gatherables between nodes becomes subject to a greater amount of risk by enemy combatants.21 The AoE radius could also change for a particular ability depending on the season; for instance, a fire AoE ability might have a larger radius in the spring and summer than if it was cast in the winter. Another example of this would be waiting until it is raining before your node community takes on a fire dragon boss. These seasonal and weather system changes are unique to Ashes of Creation and create an innovative immersive experience for the player.
Player Agency
Player agency gives players the interactivity to affect and change the world of Verra.22 The example of player agency within AoC that Sequel is most excited about is player housing. Players will be able to create their own properties in the form of houses and will earn citizenship in the node in which the house resides in. This allows players the ability to become a mayor of a node. There are three primary types of housing, each with varying use cases and benefits. These include apartments, freeholds, and static houses. Housing is intended to be at the center of player socialization, resting, and crafting, while each housing type will have varying cosmetics, architecture, and benefits for the player.
Apartments: These are instance-based housing units for players to purchase based on supply and demand. As more apartments are purchased within a node, the higher the price will be for each unit. Based on the node’s development level, there will be 50 initial apartments with additional units made available if:
a) the node increases its stage level
b) the mayor allows for additional housing
c) there is enough land available for a new housing plot23
Freeholds: These are half an acre plots of land that can be placed within a node’s ZOI of at least a stage 3 node.24 Freeholds can be placed throughout the ZOI, unlike apartments that must be in-node. Players can build their homes, barns, gardens, farms, and processing stations like stables, mills, and smelters within the freehold. Additionally, players can run their own businesses like inns, taverns, and player shops as well. Freeholds are not able to be sold by players and additional benefits will appear as the node stage increases.25
Static houses: These are non-instance-based in-node houses, also known as in-node housing.26 Players can host gatherings and build processing areas within the premise as well. These houses are purchased from the node directly and can be sold to other players. Players will be granted citizenship of the node that the static house resides in. As a node's stage increases, all houses within that node will become more valuable.
Player housing allows players to achieve agency by marking their territory within AoC, enabling an innovative role-playing and simulation gateway for users to socialize, operate businesses, and take a break from live-action environments. In doing so, the associated effects of the housing system, including jobs, gives players an increased sense of agency and immersiveness. While competing MMORPGs also have jobs and or crafting disciplines like Guild Wars 2 (“GW2”), these are typically less encompassing. In GW2, the crafting discipline mechanic is meant to turn raw materials into upgraded gear vs. buying it for more money through the auction house; and it’s certainly not the primary reason to play the game. Meanwhile, in AoC, jobs are true role-playing experiences that can be fulfilling enough to be the main reason why players engage and return to the game vs. how players interact with jobs in other MMORPGs: a mundane, non-competitive, and unvalued process. While player housing is a single aspect of the broader game, we believe it will be at the heart of player interconnectedness because it supplies them with a perceived sense of influence, power, and control over the game world.
Risk vs Reward
In Ashes of Creation, players will frequently encounter situations where they must weigh the potential risks and rewards of their actions. Verra is filled with a variety of activities that offers rewards to players but also carries inherent risks. These activities can be both PvP and PvE in nature and may involve personal investments such as a player's resources, home, or a castle within a node area. This creates a dynamic and unpredictable game environment, where meaningful conflicts between players are a common occurrence.
One of the most anticipated ways Intrepid plans to incorporate risk vs. reward into the game is through the caravan system. The Caravan system is a player-driven economy feature that allows players to create and manage trade routes between different cities, harbors, and outposts in Verra. These trade routes can be attacked by other players, leading to PvP conflict.27 The purpose of the system is to facilitate the transfer of goods for players for a multitude of reasons. Players will be able to transfer items related to quests, materials for castle construction, supplies to construct defense weapons needed for an upcoming siege, and more. There are endless possibilities with what players will be able to transfer via the caravan system. A caravan is also the best method for a player to transfer bulk resources. Players can transfer 10 times more storage than a mule, and 100 times more storage than a player.28
Players that sign up to attack a caravan will earn rewards by eliminating their target, while those who sign up to defend the caravan will earn rewards by thwarting off any attackers and arriving at the final destination. As the caravan’s manager, if you reach the final destination, your quest will be completed, and your efforts will contribute to the residing nodes' stage experience. You will now also be able to sell these goods in the new node area, essentially introducing a new product to the market. It is important to note that there is no centralized auction house in AoC, and only 20% of the goods in Verra will be made available on an auction house, which is only possible if an economic node reaches the metropolis stage.29 Additionally, if you signed up to defend the caravan, you will earn a reward in the form of a certificate that can be redeemed for a variety of benefits. Lastly, defenders will have the opportunity to mitigate a portion of the financial damages if their caravan is destroyed. Defenders will be able to purchase caravan add-ons such as insurance, armor rating, caravan speed, and storage capacity at a Caravansary, an NPC located in each node area.30 Now, if the attackers are successful in eliminating the caravan, they will receive a portion of the goods in the form of a certificate. These certificates will be redeemable at the caravan’s origin.31 The attackers will also be able to loot caravan components as they drop during battle. There will be three types of caravans in AoC: the mayoral caravan, the quest-driven caravan, and the personal caravan.
Mayoral Caravan: Used to establish trade routes between nodes. These caravans are initiated by the mayor of the town, attached to their mount, and then taken to the town that they are interested in trading with.32 This allows two nodes to enter a trade agreement to establish a trade route to enhance each other's growth. This also results in nodes being able to work together to contribute to each other's success by sharing vital resources and becoming part of the same group (state, county, etc.).
Quest Driven Caravan: These caravans will allow the player to choose from a variety of travel times and route directions.33 This makes it more challenging for enemy combatants to coordinate an attack on these types of caravans due to number of launch and route options the player has access to. The route options will each have varying degrees of difficulty and each route will be susceptible to open-world PvP attacks.
Personal Caravan: These are land and naval-based caravans that players navigate and direct.34 These caravans will be single-player operated and can have varying capacities and sizes (depending on what items the caravan is storing). Enemy combatants will be able to decipher the value of what players are storing inside their caravan due to its appearance. Merchant ships, for example, have a significantly larger storage capacity compared to other land-based caravans.35
Parallels to Web3
Intrepid does not utilize blockchain components within Ashes of Creation. The game has been in development since 2015, prior to the blockchain-gaming craze, and the team has publicly stated that they have no plans to incorporate NFTs or any other “play-to-earn” mechanics as of 2022. As Sequel previously stated in prior pieces, NFTs fail to provide novel benefits to games but are better viewed as an alternative method to building specific aspects of a game.
To understand if NFTs make sense for AoC, we need to review their monetization strategy.
Simply put
$14.99 monthly subscription to play the base game
Microtransactions - every item within the store is strictly cosmetic
So how can NFTs be incorporated to improve the theoretical user experience when the game is released? We would argue there isn’t a necessarily “better” experience to offer but Intrepid could certainly use NFTs as an alternative or supplementary technology within the game, sparking innovation within the genre.
For instance, specific store items could be eligible to mint as an NFT, which would enable out-of-game p2p trading. The revenue generated from trading fees could be used to subsidize the monthly subscription of $14.99 and offer a lower price point to consumers.
To increase secondary revenue, Intrepid could release these optional NFT items each quarter in limited batches, never to be sold again. These items can be asset factories, meaning, if a player holds one of these items and mints them as an NFT, they will receive additional items for free or for a discount, increasing the demand and encouraging greater secondary sales.
In other words, imagine if a CS:GO skin offered a free monthly battle pass, a new sticker each quarter, or a new color option each year. The demand for this skin would increase along with the associated trading volume.
Are NFTs needed for this? No, but the technology lends itself well to seamless trading with maximized provenance for the studio and players. Players could view the exact amount of revenue generated from an asset and the exact amount given back to the community, in an extremely transparent manner, as opposed to trusting the studio to do the right thing behind closed doors.
Riot Games has been conducting this mechanic successfully with their Valorant Champions Collection bundles. These bundles are available to purchase for a fixed time frame and will not be sold ever again. For the 2021 and 2022 bundles, Riot stated they will collect 50% of the proceeds for themselves and the remaining 50% will be given to the participating teams.
In 2021, Riot Games raised $7.5M for the 10 qualified Champions teams, amounting to $750K per team (First place prize: $350K). 36
In 2022, Riot Games raised $16M+ for the 16 qualified Champions teams, amounting to $1M per team (First place prize: $300K).37
If AoC deploys this same strategy with limited edition bundles or singular items, they can give back a % of the primary sales and a % (or all) royalties for ongoing rewards. We believe the community will appreciate a discounted, potentially free month of gameplay which in turn could result in increased sales within the store from the saved funds. NFTs in this case augment the traditional publisher/gamer / end-user relationship that has grown stale for years.
But, to be fair, there are some obvious issues with this model.
Riot conducts this model successfully because the money helps the teams which in turn provides a healthy and competitive Valorant esports scene. The teams are more motivated and determined to qualify for Valorant Champions, which leads to a higher quality product that people want to watch.
Since AoC doesn’t have esports (yet), we believe the argument to incorporate NFTs in this capacity for the consumer benefit is a tougher task. A few glaring issues include:
How does AoC give away the subscriptions? Do they give them to the most active players or to newcomers to reduce onboarding friction? Perhaps a lottery where everyone gets a spin or maybe it’s random? Or to users that were hyperactive during their free trial period?
How does this benefit AoC? You might think that the game could bring in more players by reducing the barrier of entry but will this idea retain players? By giving players a free month, will they use this saved capital to buy additional items in the store?
There is no question that this NFT implementation has potential issues and Intrepid would need to experiment with the idea and model out a solution that makes sense for them. But if a team were to test it, at least internally, it would perhaps be Steven Sharif and the Intrepid team.
After all, Steven Sharif did mention the following last year regarding genre-specific innovation:
“We might not be your cup of tea. And that’s ok! But don’t shit on us...The genre needs people/companies who take risks. Who try to innovate. Who maybe respects the player again?” (05.20.21)38
Until Next Time
Want to continue the conversation? Feel free to reach out to us on Twitter (Sloan & Tyler Matses), or on LinkedIn (Sloan & Tyler Matses). We would love to hear from you and chat about all things video games!
We are off to play WoW Classic now, see you later!
https://web.archive.org/web/20170404005015/https://www.ashesofcreation.com/a-reactive-world-nodes/
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Scientific_nodes
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Divine_nodes
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_interaction
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Nodes
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Environments
https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/8/20/what-is-player-agency#:~:text=Player%20agency%20is%20about%20giving%20players%20the%20interactivity%20to%20affect,of%20what%20will%20happen%20next
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans#Quest_driven_caravans
https://twinfinite.net/2021/12/the-valorant-champions-skin-bundle-has-raised-7-5-million-for-10-esports-teams/
https://www.dexerto.com/valorant/riot-games-reveal-valorant-champions-skin-bundle-raises-16-million-for-teams-1934118/
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/ngo2pi/comment/gyt3gat/?context=3
Great read !!
sequel continues to pump out high quality content!