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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.
How Roads And Paths Are Built
birchtree
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
A few months ago I made a post about path and road generation in Ashes of Creation. The recent Dev Diaries about the Node Tool and Building tool really got me pumped about the idea I had again.
This is the old archived post:
I'd like to update that I actually found the Minecraft Plugin I mentioned. It's called Trails. They even have a GIF example:
Honestly, the few ideas I spitballed in my initial post are just the tip of the iceberg. Someone in the old thread mentioned having a path develop to someone's Freehold with an epic tavern or a group's guild hall and being able to use your funds to upgrade the road in your designated area.
This is the old archived post:
I think one of the best ways to make each server feel like a different place would be to have the majority of roads & paths generate based on where players are walking. The more players walk a path, the more it develops. (Trail > Path > Road)
On launch day, there are no roads. People venture out into the wilderness.
After a few weeks or so, some small trails and paths are cut into the wilderness where players have been walking to do quests, dungeons, and between trading freeholds.
As time goes on the roads are upgraded. They get wider and more developed as more people use them. Once the path reaches "Road" status, maybe the city ruling the node can vote on options for the roads(but not paths or trails). They'd spend tax money to upgrade the surrounding areas roads. Better roads could provide light in the nighttime or movement speed increase. They could have guards posted once every few KM if you are a military node. Economic nodes could upgrade their paths to have benches and fancy flowers or marble paths.
Roads could also fade away into paths, trails, and then wilderness again if no one is using it. Lets say there's a path behind a freehold that goes back to a copper mine, but the copper runs out and the path goes unused. The wilderness claims it back over time.
Exceptions to this would be the roads and paths associated with certain already existing elements in the world. If there's a quest that leads to a witches hut in the backwoods, you could set it so the area around the witches hut doesn't develop paths as players go to find the witch.
The system would have to be balanced in a way where the major roads would take a long time to fade to paths, and trails would fade within a few days. Buildings would probably need a ruleset where they could be built over trails and paths, but not roads(unless it's a certain type of building like a gate where it requires a road).
I'm fairly certain this was available as a plugin in Minecraft, and I absolutely loved the heck out of it. Seeing my path to my little farm and mineshaft develop over time really immersed me and I've never forgotten it.
I'd like to update that I actually found the Minecraft Plugin I mentioned. It's called Trails. They even have a GIF example:
Honestly, the few ideas I spitballed in my initial post are just the tip of the iceberg. Someone in the old thread mentioned having a path develop to someone's Freehold with an epic tavern or a group's guild hall and being able to use your funds to upgrade the road in your designated area.
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Comments
I'd presume that node trails are going to group up onto the map onto main thoroughfares, as trails and paths do in real life. Regardless of which of the nodes connecting becomes the metro, it's still somewhere on the network path. Grouping the paths into highways always promotes caravan attacking/defending.
Virtue is the only good.
This would also be my biggest worry. I think that roads could be predetermined, but maybe paths or trails could auto-generate from repetitive player pathing to a certain location. Maybe caravans will only travel on main roads and can't traverse on trails. Overall, this is a great idea, but I think the upgrading of the trails, etc. Will cause major issues.
Um no, there are self driven caravans too to move goods.
Sounds like a fun idea that might supplement a static street system. Especially for freeholds that have some functionallity. Wether it's just popular or is somewhere near a good hunting ground and provides buffs (aka taverns) or maybe some amazing blacksmith that settled near a node.
It would be okay if those people had to rely on spreading their location by word alone, but I think they will have some ingame options to make themselves...visible? The way Ashes presents itself and the focus it has, it would be weird in my opinion that this would be a topic that's not adressed with ingame mechanics.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Is that you and me in song form?
and didnt they answer this question last stream as : there wont be a road at first but when node A develops and node B develops a road is built between them.
Virtue is the only good.
That's a good question. I suppose they could put in a protection of some sort like "If path exists within X amount of meters, don't make another path" so at least there is some variation.
Perhaps AOC could have herbalists be able to use some sort of special fertilizer to help encourage path generation to how they want it to look. I'm just spitballing here, there may be a more eloquent/fun solution. I just know in WoW professions are useless so my first instinct is to try and make professions useful.
I'm really happy to see so much discussion on the post!
Formerly T-Elf
Oh the fun you could have ^^
MY.COM CAN SUC
Darn, mountains are in the way.
Ah yes, this is something that *sort of* happened during the launch event of Warlords of Draenor.
That was an "instant" path making thing though. I guess with this system you'd have to have a VERY dedicated group of pathwalkers.
Heh, gold farmers could have “writing bots” constantly spelling out the link to their gold-selling sites in the dirt.
Honestly, I wouldn't even be mad. I respect the hustle.