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Everything We Know About Ashes of Creation So Far

Everything We Know About Ashes of Creation So Far

Ashes of Creation is a highly anticipated upcoming MMO game that offers players a unique take on the classic formula. With its focus on dynamic world-building and player participation, Ashes of Creation promises an immersive and engaging experience unlike any other.

It has been in development since 2015 and has already gathered a passionate fanbase along the way.

Ashes of Creation is inspired by early MMOs such as Everquest and newer titles like EVE Online and ArcheAge but promises to bring something new and fresh to the genre.

AoC will be a sand park MMO, a mix between the two traditional types of MMO, the sandbox and the theme park. This means that the game will for a large part let the players craft their own journey in a big open world, but it will also offer well-crafted story content and other elements to keep players entertained.

The game is being made by San Diego-based developer Intrepid Studios, with Steven Sharif at the helm who has also stood for most of the game’s funding. AoC is their first game. It was successfully backed on Kickstarter back in 2017 for over $3.2M, with additional funds secured over the years from the various pre-order packs available on the official website.

Ashes of Creation hopes to cater to all kinds of MMO players by bringing together systems inspired by many different games. Whether you enjoy PvE, PvP, gathering and crafting, or roleplaying, Ashes of Creation will offer something for you, or at least it will attempt to.

The developers have also promised that there will be absolutely no pay-to-win elements in Ashes of Creation and that the shop will only ever sell cosmetic items.

The game is currently in alpha testing, with no release date scheduled as of yet. However, the developers have promised regular content updates and lots of exciting features coming in the future.

Alpha

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From the AoC Alpha 1.

Alpha 1 was AoC’s first stage of Alpha testing and was completed last year, preparations are currently being made to prepare the game for Alpha 2.

Many of the core mechanics of the game was tested during the first round, and now the team is working on implementing content for those mechanics, along with improving and fixing any issues that arose during testing.

More classes, quests, and events are also being prepared for Alpha 2.

Spot testing for Alpha 2 will begin under NDA with selected members of the community this year, but there is no official word yet on when Alpha 2 will start.

The Setting

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Verra will be truly massive.

The world which Ashes of Creation is set in is called Verra. The size of the world will be around 1200 square kilometers, with 750km being ocean for naval content. Which is approximately three times the size of Black Desert Online.

9 playable races will be available for launch including humans, elves, dwarves, orcs and the unique tulnar.

The character creator will be one of the most detailed and extensive ever seen in an MMO game, allowing players to fine-tune their avatar’s look down to the smallest details.

Combat

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A total of 64 different class combinations will be available in AoC.

AoC will feature a hybrid class system that mixes the best aspects of action combat with a more traditional tab-target system, similar to the combat system in Guild Wars 2.

The class system has been inspired by ArcheAge where you can mix and match classes to suit your playstyle.

Players will be able to choose one of the 8 available classes as their primary class, and then another one of the classes as their secondary class, resulting in 64 different class combinations. The classes are Fighter, Tank, Rogue, Ranger, Mage, Summoner, Cleric and Bard

Travel

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All kinds of mounts will be available.

Travel in Ashes of Creation will happen mostly on foot or on normal ground mounts. This is to help make the world feel more alive and immersive, as well as to give players a chance to interact with the environment around them.

Flying mounts will be very limited to only a select few players and will also be time limited. Teleporting will also be very restricted and will only be available for short distances within a node.

Unreal Engine 5

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Ashes of Creation promises to deliver some of the best graphics seen in any MMO with the implementation of UE5.

The game is powered by Unreal Engine 5, one of the most advanced and feature-rich engines in the gaming industry. The choice to use UE5 was driven by AoC’s desire to create a truly dynamic world that responds to player actions in real time.

With its powerful tools and features, UE5 enables developers like the team at Ashes of Creation to create rich and immersive gaming experiences.

A Dynamic World

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Players will be able to assist in the creation of small villages and sprawling metropolises.

One of the biggest draws of Ashes of Creation is its dynamic world. The game’s world is not static, but instead changes based on player interactions and actions.

Each server will be a unique world, as it will develop according to the actions of the players on that server.

This is done by the game’s Node System. A system that will enable villages, towns, cities, and points of interest to appear all over the world as players progress in a certain area.

These towns will evolve differently on each server as many factors play in on how and why a node evolves.

As an example, towns may have different appearances depending on what race the majority of players that have invested time and resources into that particular node is.

Evolving a node will also evolve the area surrounding it with new content like quests or bosses that appear in and around the node.

Players can even hold positions of power in a city, and players can become mayors of the towns, enabling them to choose how the town will be upgraded and how much to tax other players that inhabit the town.

Players will be able to own both houses in the open world as well as instanced houses.

Another feature of this dynamic world is the season system that will be implemented in-game. The seasons will change at specific intervals, changing weather and bringing seasonal events with them.

Other notable features include a caravan system for transporting valuable goods, a criminal system, player shops, PvP wars and a naval system.

Creative Director for Ashes of Creation, Steven Sharif has confirmed that there have already been millions of pre-registrations on the Ashes of Creation website for the game and that the company is expecting at least one million players at launch.

Most of the feedback during the development of AoC has been positive, but critics have pointed out a few concerning points, the main one being that it seems like the game is already suffering from feature creep, with new systems being added long before the release of the game.

If Ashes of Creation can actually deliver what they are promising or if they are setting overambitious goals that it will under-deliver on, as many MMOs have in the past, only time will tell. But for now, Ashes of Creation is one of the most anticipated MMOs on the horizon and is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

What do you think about Ashes of Creation so far? Are you excited for its release, or are you skeptical about all the hype around it? Let us know in the comments!​