Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Factions in game
I read in FAQ, there wont be a Team A vs Team B, But I feel adding in game factions enriches the game. Examples :
The Harpers.
The Order of the Gauntlet.
The Emerald Enclave
The Lords' Alliance
The Zhentarim.
Adventurers League.
Red Wizards of Thay
The Scarlet Brotherhood
Seekers of the Arcane
To name a few .In Dungeons & Dragons and Greyhawk. These factions add heroes to the world, lore and legends and tales of great renown. I hope you guys won't be so fast to discount this in your game.
Cheers.
The Harpers.
The Order of the Gauntlet.
The Emerald Enclave
The Lords' Alliance
The Zhentarim.
Adventurers League.
Red Wizards of Thay
The Scarlet Brotherhood
Seekers of the Arcane
To name a few .In Dungeons & Dragons and Greyhawk. These factions add heroes to the world, lore and legends and tales of great renown. I hope you guys won't be so fast to discount this in your game.
Cheers.
0
Comments
Factions add more "depth" to the lore imo, cause lets say you find a city in ruins; the lore for that could be that X faction destroyed that city..
Just throwing ideas out there.
Cheers!
I bet they will have NPC factions and the like, since they are planning to have PVE in the game.
That said, they could just as easily be wanting the players to create and establish those renowned factions on their own, since the game is focused on players running the world. I mean, in theory, players could just as easily start a faction like The Harpers... though, admittedly, they would need reasonable faction/guild support systems in place.
Slight aside: I'm assuming there will be some starting NPC cities where players start out and such... but, since the focus is on player-built cities, do we even know that for sure? If there are NPC cities, then I assume there will be some type of NPC factions system alongside.
To start off with a quote from the blog for a bit of reference for the next part:
"Players in Ashes of Creation will find themselves thrust into the forefront of an inhospitable world filled with bountiful undiscovered treasure and ancient evils lurking just over the horizon. The very first pioneers into Ashes of Creation will find the wilderness a bleak reality, but even the harshest environments can be tamed. This is where Nodes come into play."
When you start the game it seems you, and every other player, is brought into a world with undiscovered treasures yet ANCIENT evils lurking over the horizon. You and the other MMO player characters (and technically the NPC's that come to the villages and nodes after players 'settle' it) are discovering, exploring, and settling a relatively untamed environment. There is an ancient evil, which is likely responsible for the entirety of the reason the wilderness has grown unchecked. Are there factions currently? It'll be interesting to find out, but most likely those are formed by the player characters settling the world, and the "ancient evils lurking just over the horizon" could be a PvE aspect?
Also, side note: Undiscovered treasure. Treasure normally means something valuable. To be valuable it would have to be a rare resource or the more likely option: Created by something in the past. What were the things that created it? Why was it created? Could it be a weapon, armor, or even special items of power that give abilities? In many common MMO's and Fantasy worlds there are items of power which are unique and have special powers confined to them. E.G. A ring that instantly heals the user for some X amount, or possibly even a necklace that when activated provides 75% fire reistance for a few seconds. All of which could have lore text of who made them or why (in-lore this would be inscribed on the item itself). These are all possibilities if the treasure route goes that way. Then again it could just be large amounts of gold!
This is how lore is formed. You place the things in the world, and you let the players discover and unravel them.
Why not try a system like SWG? Everybody would start out as neutral and would choose to align with a faction by completing specific quests/actions granting alignment/reputation points. - Changing factions could be allowed through the same process.
Players would be able to choose a faction or stay neutral; neutrals could fight for the faction of their choice a bit like mercenaries do.
Why not try a system like SWG? Everybody would start out as neutral and would choose to align with a faction by completing specific quests/actions granting alignment/reputation points. – Changing factions could be allowed through the same process.
Players would be able to choose a faction or stay neutral; neutrals could fight for the faction of their choice a bit like mercenaries do.
[/quote]
I kinda agree about your "natural enemy point", but it can become a bit black and white, if you get what I mean. So a more neutral starting approch is nice, and seems like what they more or less go for.
About the "choosing faction", isnt that basicly what guilds are for? You/we more or less make our own factions and then choose its way in the world + enemies and friends :) But this does also mean that if you're a Lone wolf player then it could get hard/annoying regarding allies/enemies. So maybe a few "world guilds/factions" operating all over the map, that you can join in addition to a guild.
The main point is that I fear guilds-driven conflicts can never be on the scale of a faction conflict be it concerning the in size of battles or number of occurrences. Let's say my guild have one or 2 enemy guilds, the chances of stumbling upon a member of those guilds, around the same level as me while levelling up is quite small.
It doesn't have to be factions. Like you said, it can be world guilds or whatever as long as there are 2 or 3 wider organisations (sides) encompassing the smaller guilds. It would probably be best if there weren't too many of those 'world organizations' though.
It's just my opinion and I'm more than open to try another system even without traditional factions or sides but I fear having only (players') guild-level organizations will not be enough :/
The point about guild being like factions was also to point out that you can't really have large scale factions, since you also have guilds. Cause if you have large factions that are at war with eachother, then you can't have a guild with different factions, this will limit the gameplay a bunch :( So I can't really imagine having large factions like ESO or WoW, cause those kinda factions need to be choosen as a beginning and not in the middle of gameplay. So at most it would be something like Thief's guild or Crafter guild, something that won't cause "spite in guilds".
Also I wanna say I'm quite unbiased as to large faction/no faction meta, honestly I don't care. But since the information so far points towards a common ancestry/spawnpoint, it wouldn't really make sense to have factions. Unless they slowly start "infecting" large city's, and the guilds can then choose to fight them or keep them :) But time will tell, hope theres gonna be a new blog post or the developers Q&A soon :)
I know its exciting to quest and never know when you'll encounter a member of the other faction. But I think its even more exciting when you're questing and you can't tell wether to trust a player or not because he's not Red yet. There's no telling when someone will decide to double cross you or just attack you on a whim. This is far more exciting to me than having the simple "oh this guy is part of faction B, I have to kill him" mentality. It may not happen as often.. but it depends., there will likely be entire PK guilds out there who will be red on a regular basis simply for the thrill of it.
The continuation of a faction's existence decided by the enthousiasme to carry the banner after a town has fallen.
For factions you could be choosing much more than just the color of a banner and the crest;
At the creation of a faction when a town is at its glory,the community of that town decides with what category of creatures they ally themselves.
So if you fight for a faction that is behind the druids,wildlife will go from hostile to -neutral and perhaps even allied.
Another node town could be allied with the necrotic corrupt creatures and players that decide to fight for that banned gain different allies
There could be other perks
Like if you are allied with druids ,stonehenge like structures could become safehavens.
If you become allied with the necrotic category you could accept the gift to rise your character as an undead when you die,....