In an interview with the Paradox Gaming Network, Intrepid Studios’ Steven Sharif answered a whole slew of questions regarding Ashes of Creation, whether it’s about the game’s servers, its housing, node sieges, and dealing with unruly players.
In the interview, Sharif talked about the importance of servers having a timezone-specific prime time for events like node sieges, and stated that he wants servers to have the prime time hours marked on them. According to Sharif, the prime time rules are driven by player-instigated events, meaning the window for declaring sieges is set by that behavior so players won’t have to worry about someone waiting to siege their stuff at 2:00 a.m. local. Sharif also confirms that there will be Oceanic/SEA servers to better serve Australian players, the devs have just not tied down where that server will be located.
The interview also probed about the game’s in-node housing and open world Freehold housing systems, with Sharif noting that Freeholds can become established business like taverns or shops as well as explaining how Freehold levels don’t change the size of the plot itself. He also promised that more in-depth blogs about housing features will be shared as the game heads closer to beta. Sharif rationalized the decision to not reveal too much about systems like housing, which is largely done in the interest of preserving the sense of surprise or discovery.
Finally, Sharif touched on matters of player moderation such as tracking down offensive or inflammatory user created content like icons. According to him, the fact that the game has an active GM base, is a subscription-based game, and that account punishments for unruly players tie into the overall risk vs. reward vibe of AoC will be a strong deterrent. Sharif also addressed gold buying, stating that actions could be as simple as stripping assets or as severe as permanent bans depending on the nature of the infraction.
There’s a whole lot more to the interview, including discussion about cosmetics purchasing and the relationship with My.games and Xsolla, an overall temperature check of the community, and a look back at five years of development among other topics. The entire interview is embedded below.
Also worth a note? Sharif told Discord fans that the company may turn back on alpha 1 access buyables.
Ashes of Creation Alpha 1 Access may be purchasable again in the future! from MMORPG
