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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.
A built in encyclopedia-type system?
ArchivedUser
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An "encyclopedia"-type system is something I've seen in a fair amount of RPGs use to deliver lore, and I can't think of an example where it didn't really help flesh out the world and give players interested in learning more some perspective.
As an example, Dragon Age has the "Codex" where you could gain knowledge on topics. The Witcher has the Journal/Bestiary that also tosses relevant information into it. Even Black Desert Online actually has the Knowledge system, that works in this way as well.
In all cases, it allows players to go back and easily reference information their character would have learned. Sometimes it's very useful, such as it hinting what combat approaches to take from an in-world perspective against a certain type of enemy—while other times it's simply "fluff" and you learn about something like the history of an area after having a conversation with an NPC about it.
I think, given Ashes's focus on adding so many elements around roleplay and storytelling, something like this could really go a very long way to helping people understand what they're encountering and become immersed in the setting. Maybe Kaelar have stories of hippogriffs being majestic and peaceful beings but they find that wild Verran ones are incredibly dangerous, aggressive, and hard to tame. Or maybe doing a quest on the Sladeborn gives players a few knowledge entries throughout about their former majestic home in the sky and how far they've fallen as a people.
There's just a lot of potential, in my opinion!
As an example, Dragon Age has the "Codex" where you could gain knowledge on topics. The Witcher has the Journal/Bestiary that also tosses relevant information into it. Even Black Desert Online actually has the Knowledge system, that works in this way as well.
In all cases, it allows players to go back and easily reference information their character would have learned. Sometimes it's very useful, such as it hinting what combat approaches to take from an in-world perspective against a certain type of enemy—while other times it's simply "fluff" and you learn about something like the history of an area after having a conversation with an NPC about it.
I think, given Ashes's focus on adding so many elements around roleplay and storytelling, something like this could really go a very long way to helping people understand what they're encountering and become immersed in the setting. Maybe Kaelar have stories of hippogriffs being majestic and peaceful beings but they find that wild Verran ones are incredibly dangerous, aggressive, and hard to tame. Or maybe doing a quest on the Sladeborn gives players a few knowledge entries throughout about their former majestic home in the sky and how far they've fallen as a people.
There's just a lot of potential, in my opinion!
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EQ2 does it thru books, and collecting body parts to earn a Lore book, that gives info in some sort of story form. You can also purchase books that give you quests to learn more on a subject.
In Ashes, we have had glimpses of libraries, so there is hope that there will be some sort of book knowledge to procure.
However, I did enjoy in the BDO knowledge system is where you could go back and re-read anything you had learned and potentially see if you had any missing info to find or just review, without having to search for a physical book.
And the NPC should be named Belewyn.
It wouldn't even necessarily have to be every element to be impactful—but I do completely understand what you mean. If they can't do it due to time constraints and stuff like that, it's entirely understandable. I have, however, seen it in enough new games that it doesn't seem to be an impossible task either, so much as needing to be managed so that it doesn't spiral into thousands and thousands of entries. Not every creature needs a mention, nor every major NPC, or every location, etc. etc. Some of the finer details don't really require one. Walking up to a tree and getting three paragraphs of knowledge on that type of tree would be extremely excessive. It can be as simple as killing a demonic bunny and getting a couple sentences about them.
As for the "Vaelune" lore in Verra and it needing to be balanced—the Verran lore is likely more centered around four societies that we descended from: Aela (who became the Vaelune and Kaelar), Pyrians (who became the Py'rai and Empyreans), Kai'vek (who became the Vek and Ren'kai), and Dünzenkell (who became the Dünir and the Niküa). We all split up after we ran to Sanctus. The main exception to this are the Tulnar, who fled underground and mixed a bunch of major and minor races together. So in that respect they're more having to keep 4-5 cultures in mind.
We also do know we'll be getting detailed race write-ups on each of the 9 races pre-launch though, and that'll include things like naming conventions! So I'm pretty excited about those as well. They've said that they've spent a lot of time on the lore and story element to the game—and that it's a huge priority for them.
I just want to clarify that by no means am I saying I don't like your ideas, in fact, I absolutely love them because I am an RPer like you therefore I know where you're coming from. All these elements add to the interactive atmosphere of the game. But IMHO I don't think the devs will cater specifically to these bits of the game we're dishing out, because they're swamped to their foreheads with other things. But what I can recommend is taking the matters into our own hands, emulating what Stephen did with MMORPGs, and if we want to see something done, we will have to take measures in doing it ourselves.
But either way yeah, if they can't include it they can't include it and honestly I definitely wouldn't expect them to. Just more of a "fun idea, probably won't happen" sort of thing.
I appreciate the message, though! Totally true.
In tOR I'd go around and collect all the info I could. I loved collecting info and datacrons.