Events

Deze pagina is momenteel een concept.

The world of Verra is a dynamic and ever-changing landscape filled with wonder, adventure, and danger. One of the many mechanics that allow us to achieve this adaptability is Events. Events are one of the primary ways that players will experience content. Events focus on delivering a reactive world that keeps players on their toes while changing up gameplay in a fun and unique way, providing challenges, and shaping the world around them. Players will encounter events throughout their entire time on Verra - from early progression to high-level dungeons and raids. – Peter Bisulca

Corrupted area in Alpha-1, design by Mia DelCasino.

I think Ashes' whole premise is to incorporate events and changes and evolution that not only represents player activity but also incorporates random story driven interruptions to the normal flow of the world; and whether that be through blocking off specific roadways that are the lifeblood of a particular node's incoming resources, or having random raid boss appear in a zone that never traditionally they did before; and as a result it incurs a complete change of climate that's now affecting crop rotations; and only specific crop can come from that zone; and now the whole economy of the world has been thrown into chaos because no one's been able to down this boss yet, we can't get the corn we need in order to build the reagents on the alchemical side to create this craft- That's the type of domino effect system or event you want that appears in a natural non-injunction way, but it presents a problem to the players to that they have to accomplish something at least if they want to change it back to the status quo. Those I think are compelling events and those I think are ways that the world can introduce an element of randomness that reflects what we experience in the real world. – Steven Sharif

Events are things that happen in Ashes of Creation as the result of development in the world. There are several different types of events that are triggered due to certain conditions (predicates) being met. Events are scaled to fit local, regional, and global needs.

Events... can be local, regional or global, and consist of boons or banes. They’re triggered based on a lot of different variables, and some may be one-off Events that occur once, and never again. If an Event is handled successfully, then something good happens to the local, regional, or global area. If it fails, then something bad befalls the local, regional or global area. They’ll relate to the overall Narrative, but don’t fall into its overall structure (for the most part). These are the things that will be written into history, and we imagine that as time grows, each server’s history will diverge more and more.

• Some events incorporate random story-driven interruptions to the normal flow of the world, such as blocking off specific roadways, having a random raid boss or mobs appear unexpectedly in a zone. Some may lead to wider consequences, such as climate change, plagues, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, or other natural disasters.
  • There are events that lead to the spreading of corruption that players will have to fight back against. When these events occur players will need to participate to keep the intrusion on the material plane back.

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

There are certain effects that can happen in a world that does not have a proper response from the player population and that's the whole idea behind these events that can happen; that feel like these are natural world progression events if corruption starts to show itself as a response- as a push back to the player's development of nodes in the world itself. – Steven Sharif

• Events that reach a fail condition can have negative consequences.

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

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

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

• If events are not triggered within a certain time period, they could occur randomly.

• Some events will only be available while story arcs are in certain chapters.

• There may be one-off events.

• Events do not target personal belongings such as freeholds.

• Events do not directly impact class effectiveness but there may be ancillary effects in terms of availability of equipment, enchantments or tattoos.

Event types

"EVENT-ful" livestream teaser.

There are a variety of different types of events that are triggered due to certain conditions (predicates) being met.

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

Quests

Alpha-1 early quest user interface.

Questing in our world combines the best elements of traditional MMO’s as well as the introduction of our unique player driven experiences. Ashes of Creation offers area quests, public quests, and quest chains that change dynamically and in real time based on the player’s experiences and choices. Players will have the ability to directly alter world events and change the landscape through their actions, as an individual and as a community. Server quests will allow political rivals to compete for the fate of the world.

Alpha-2 quest journal user interface early preview.

We actually used the journal as one of our test cases for the style guide because it's a very complex screen. There's a lot of things that are going on, where we have different tiers of story arcs that might be available for players; and so we wanted to make sure the color denoted different information for them. We also have iconography to support that as well; and we have a little bit of a twist on what a traditional quest system would be like. With these story arcs we wanted to make sure that it was organized in a familiar way, but also something that supported all of the designs needs. – Colby Marchi

Quests in Ashes of Creation are divided into three main categories: Events, Commissions, and Story arc quests.

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Dialog choices within the quest UI are intended to affect gameplay, such as unlocking side quests and storylines.

Q: Will dialogue choices have any impact on the quests in regards to how NPCs respond to you or the overall outcome of that quest, or is it more just a role-playing perspective without any major impact?

A: No. The dialogue choices are intended to provide an impact, both with the response of the NPC, it might also serve as predicates for other systems. If there are certain paths chosen within the dialogue tree it might unlock different side arcs and story lines that other players may not experience. The dialogue trees are not meaningless. They're meant to provide gameplay related context. – Steven Sharif

• Questing is placeholder until Alpha-2.

Monster coins

Monster coin concept art.

Let's say for example you have an event- that is the predicate for this event kicking off was that a raid boss was killed in a nearby dungeon; and it was killed for the 50th time, or it was killed by some particular storyline end or whatever the predicate system is in the world state to say "hey kick this event off". Well, when that event kicks off a number of spawners activate around the node and NPCs start moving towards a node. The node is notified, like "hey there's something happening here, you guys should put up your defenses focus on this thing"; and those with monster coins who are within the area and are not a citizen of the node or an affiliated node can choose to activate the monster coin to become one of the monster types that exist within that event; and that event has a number of targets; and let's say for this particular story arc the thing was we need to find artifacts and better weapons in order to defeat these bosses at the bottom of this dungeon; and a lot of players went through that process they found those weapons and whatnot. Well those things might be stored in three buildings that exist within the node. They might be stored within the armory; they might be stored within the barracks; and they might be stored at a workshop that has access to a workbench that they've chosen to build and that could also potentially serve as a predicate; and when you become the monster those are your three objectives; and you don't need to destroy all three. You potentially just need to destroy one, or you destroy as many as you can if it's a time selected event; and you might have targets that are NPC-related as well, such as the blacksmith that's at the workbench, or the captain of the guard who's at the barracks, or whatever who's at the armory; and you get to go in and you get to kill other players potentially during this who are helping to defend the city; and you can also make it to the objectives and potentially help in destroying the building, or killing the NPCs. That is the type of objectives that would exist within a monster coin system for an event. – Steven Sharif

Pre-alpha monster coin system.

Sometimes the disturbed beings could take the form of packs of dire wolves, hordes of zombies roused from their graveyard, or even, rarely, an epic-tier dragon flying out of a volcano once a node reaches its maximum level. In any case, the disturbed monsters have to tackle a series of destructive objectives, which can either be handled by the AI or, more interestingly, by a player. The player in turn would attempt to complete all those actions much as in a multi-objective quest, hopefully before other players brought him or her down.

Monster coins enable players to play as monsters within the monster coin event system. This ranges from playing as a horde of zombies, to becoming a massive dragon.

During a Monster Coin Event, players will be able to activate Monster Coins, allowing them to become monsters and wreak havoc! These Events can be triggered in a variety of different ways, and in some cases they may even provide cosmetic rewards.

Monster coin events are system spawned events.

• 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 objective.

When you're playing as a as a monster from the monster coin use as part of an NPC event that might be targeting a node, or other some other open-world objective or POI, or dungeon, you get to participate as a monster and your focus is completing objectives that have already been prescribed as part of the event. – Steven Sharif

• Drop tables are disabled for player controlled monsters.
• Monster coins only allow a character to participate in events on their own server.
• NPC hate lists do not affect monster coin events.

The Ancients are not going to be part of the monster coin system.

Traditionally, the Ancients are not going to be part of the Monster Coin system. These are the primary antagonists of the story. From a lore perspective, and one of the reasons why they're not a part of the Monster Coin system, is because their souls have really developed almost to the point of perfection in manipulating the Essence for more corrupt uses. They haven't quite gotten there, and who knows if they ever will, but that attunes them out of the possibility: The reason why the monster coin system is possible with other creatures. – Steven Sharif

Zie ook

• Tasks
• Lore
• Seasons