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Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Lost opportunity
neuroguy
Member, Alpha Two
I'm sure I am not alone in thinking that the undiscovered and dynamic nature of Verra is one of AoC's strongest appeals. I cannot wait to discover what the world has to offer and all of the dynamic events that may occur. This excitment was further amplified by early developer posts where we were told about the "imperfect information" that would drive exploration and intrigue.
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/the-mighty-beard
"...uses imperfect information to cause intrigue..."
"Since our maps don’t illuminate when a point of interest becomes active, Taverns act as a large source or regional information. A haunted tomb has been uncovered, a cave with kobolds (sound familiar, Tavern starters?) or a sprite-filled forest are all points of interest that will be passed by word of mouth in Taverns. Perhaps a more nefarious band of adventurers are spreading false rumors to trap others, but, you need to go out and adventure to solve or confront these rumors."
I was therefore super duper disappointed to see some of the benefits of node specific buildings being the exact opposite: detailed and irrefutable information about the world. Scientific nodes provide "Locations and inhabitants of new Dungeons or POIs (Points of Interest) that have spawned" and "Unique and Rare drop information for surrounding areas" while economic nodes provide "Map of active trade missions and requests from World Node Map" and "Map with information on current exchange rates for resource-based trade routes".
I think this is a tragic lost opportunity for AoC to create a truly mysterious world where information is a powerful commodity. Player and community driven sharing of information allows for brilliant gameplay moments otherwise not possible. Distant guilds may share information as acts of friendship or deception. Players are encouraged to explore based on rumors without the knowledge or promise of guaranteed reward and may stumble onto unexpected adventures and riches organically.
The lack of perfect or confirmed information also encourages a sense of community at a meta-level where server-specific websites will be made to compile information on points of interest, local market price rates etc. Based on the "know your nodes" series, it seems like this word-of-mouth sense of intrigue won't be fully eliminated because the information that node-specific buildings may provide will be (from my understanding) only available in said buildings. So these websites and community-driven meta-resources will still likely pop up, but instead of people contributing information (correctly or deceptively), it will be an amalgamation of screenshots. This will thus do massive damage to the extent and potency of player and community-driven sharing of information that would have otherwise existed without such "perfect" information.
Given how the world of Verra is undiscovered, unique per server and dynamically changing, imperfect information provides extremely exciting opportunities for unprecedented narratives to organically form. Information will be a commodity that influences guild and node politics. I strongly hope that Intrepid reconsiders the "perfect" information that nodes offer and thinks back to their initial ideas of "imperfect information" and all of the unique opportunities it provides, and how well it synergizes with the uniquely dynamic world that they are creating.
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/the-mighty-beard
"...uses imperfect information to cause intrigue..."
"Since our maps don’t illuminate when a point of interest becomes active, Taverns act as a large source or regional information. A haunted tomb has been uncovered, a cave with kobolds (sound familiar, Tavern starters?) or a sprite-filled forest are all points of interest that will be passed by word of mouth in Taverns. Perhaps a more nefarious band of adventurers are spreading false rumors to trap others, but, you need to go out and adventure to solve or confront these rumors."
I was therefore super duper disappointed to see some of the benefits of node specific buildings being the exact opposite: detailed and irrefutable information about the world. Scientific nodes provide "Locations and inhabitants of new Dungeons or POIs (Points of Interest) that have spawned" and "Unique and Rare drop information for surrounding areas" while economic nodes provide "Map of active trade missions and requests from World Node Map" and "Map with information on current exchange rates for resource-based trade routes".
I think this is a tragic lost opportunity for AoC to create a truly mysterious world where information is a powerful commodity. Player and community driven sharing of information allows for brilliant gameplay moments otherwise not possible. Distant guilds may share information as acts of friendship or deception. Players are encouraged to explore based on rumors without the knowledge or promise of guaranteed reward and may stumble onto unexpected adventures and riches organically.
The lack of perfect or confirmed information also encourages a sense of community at a meta-level where server-specific websites will be made to compile information on points of interest, local market price rates etc. Based on the "know your nodes" series, it seems like this word-of-mouth sense of intrigue won't be fully eliminated because the information that node-specific buildings may provide will be (from my understanding) only available in said buildings. So these websites and community-driven meta-resources will still likely pop up, but instead of people contributing information (correctly or deceptively), it will be an amalgamation of screenshots. This will thus do massive damage to the extent and potency of player and community-driven sharing of information that would have otherwise existed without such "perfect" information.
Given how the world of Verra is undiscovered, unique per server and dynamically changing, imperfect information provides extremely exciting opportunities for unprecedented narratives to organically form. Information will be a commodity that influences guild and node politics. I strongly hope that Intrepid reconsiders the "perfect" information that nodes offer and thinks back to their initial ideas of "imperfect information" and all of the unique opportunities it provides, and how well it synergizes with the uniquely dynamic world that they are creating.
2
Comments
I could be wrong, but I think that the nodes will remove one layer of the aspect of discovery per the OP but not all of them together. Hopefully one player wouldn't have access to all this information at the same time (not that it would really matter to other players) since citizenship is account locked (I believe).
My understanding is ~the same as yours but it still provides ways of verifying information that can be amalgamated. As I mentioned, websites are sure to pop up for servers to keep track of things for convenience such as the level of nodes, what dungeons/areas of interest exist currently, location of resource nodes etc. I think that's cool and unavoidable. I just would prefer if it wasn't filled with "perfect" information from node buildings. Also keep in mind that the higher the level of the node, the larger its ZOI will be (and also the larger its population to post/update websites with "perfect" information) which will have vassal nodes of different types that will fill in even more pieces of the puzzle with "perfect" information.
Because the world in AoC is constantly changing, information can't really accumulate as it can in most other MMOs, and things need to be updated which provides opportunity for word of mouth to have continued importance for the game beyond the few months after launch. If you hear from 1 person that there is a new resource node somewhere, you could take the risk to head over there and not find anything, or sit on it until more people confirm and potentially be too late to the party to harvest any. This will be the same 2 years into the game as 2 weeks, which should be taken advantage of, and again would be diminished by the existence of "perfect" information form node buildings.
Yeah I totally agree, there is still a lot we don't know but I just wanted to flag this because I think it is a much bigger deal for the longevity and intrigue of the game than it might initially seem. Also, it's not even my freaking idea, it is what Intrepid had mentioned a long time ago which I just hope they still try to stick with. It's more of a pre-emptive post for something that I think is important and would be cool
Maybe the title and text is a bit dramatic for effect haha :P.
Yes, you may want to travel to the Metropolis if you have a lot of bits and pieces of business there. You also might want to just clip over the border to the closest town and pop into the Tavern to see what rumors are circulating.
Right, but why pop in a tavern if you can go on myserver .com and just look at a bunch of screenshots with confirmed information about the points of interest that currently exist in the metropolis' ZOI. I'm just saying it removes the otherwise need for social interaction which would be uniquely rich in the dynamically changing Verra. It just circumvents a level of social interaction with the community that I think is a missed opportunity.
In that regard, blame the players who share that information.
How is that the game or dev team's fault? As @jahlon stated it is the players' fault for gathering and posting all that info.
I completely disagree. It's not about blaming players for doing what they reasonably should do. Communities on servers SHOULD share information, they should encourage each other to travel far with tales of loot, resources and areas/events of interest. If you blame people for sharing information on a website, why is that different from sharing it in a tavern? The difference between having access to mass "perfect" information vs not is more subtle than that.
If you are in a tavern or website, any single individual can only contribute to rumors and information what they have experienced, the places they have explored. There is also a bit of decay on the value of the information as more time passes, the less likely the information is going to be correct. Also, players can send others on wild goose chases telling them they got a particular item from farming X monsters in Y node or otherwise deceive each other. However, with nodes providing "perfect" information on the entire ZOI, each individual player may be able to contribute, refute and confirm way more with "perfect"/confirmed information than previously whether it is in a tavern or on a website. This will then result in websites being able to accumulate way more information than they otherwise would with the same number of contributing individuals. But if each player can only really accumulate their own personal + friends experience to share, taverns and websites will contain less information overall and contain different or even conflicting information (with no way to confirm without checking it out yourself!).
Not knowing if information is correct, needing to confirm it, or taking a risk on it should be player and community driven decisions. People should build reputations, guilds and nodes should exchange information as they see fit to benefit themselves whether it is to build trust or to deceive. Having perfect information removes these aspects of social interactions and no, you can't blame players for compiling or using said information. To be clear, you can't/shouldn't blame anyone, it will simply be a design decision that you may agree or disagree with. I'm just saying here I don't agree with it because the alternative is much cooler imo.
@whitedude31
It's not about "fault", it's a design decision with downstream effects/consequences, players are provided with a tool, they will use it. And people gathering and sharing information is a good thing, it will happen, we shouldn't try to prevent it or bash players in the head for doing it. I guess maybe I should have been more clear in presenting it as a positive in OP. People should share information, but they should earn that information and have to make meaningful decisions on how to use that information (e.g. whether to trust it, keep it secret, or ignore it). This can only happen with "imperfect" information however, and "perfect" information, whether you hear it in a tavern or read it on some website just simply doesn't allow for such choices or interactions to take place.
And again, to re-state what I have explicitly stated before: I understand that the described systems so far do not eliminate this word-of-mouth sharing of information, but they certainly reduce its impact dramatically.
That isn't true, you as a player sell that information to the library, so it is still a word of mouth thing or a 3rd party website with community input as it's source, just ingame integrated if the server chooses to have a scientific node.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Not at all my friend, I get that:
"And again, to re-state what I have explicitly stated before: I understand that the described systems so far do not eliminate this word-of-mouth sharing of information, but they certainly reduce its impact dramatically."
Can you point me to the source where you sell information to the library? Can you lie? If you're referring to the possible "scribe" profession, that would be cool but we have heard nothing about it other than a passing thought in Nov 2017.
Maybe to try to be more clear, there are 2 main concerns still:
1-how information is obtained: without access to "perfect" information, you need to chase down rumors and explore yourself to acquire information which you can then choose to share. With node specific buildings, you are granted information about a large area (ZOI). When people are given something without effort, it loses value, you can't exchange information as a commodity, can't try to keep secrets or deceive (in the domain of the information that is provided).
2-information is "perfect": the nature of "perfect" information means there is no confirmation needed, no exploration or intrigue required (in the domain of the information that is provided). If you are provided the location of all new dungeons in the ZOI, there is no reason to explore the ZOI looking for new dungeons now is there? If it were not for the node specific buildings, people can accumulate information but they can't guarantee it is perfect so it still allows and forces decisions to be made about how reliable it is.
To maybe give another example that may make this more clear: if you have a guide online on animal husbandry released by Intrepid and know exactly what is possible and what combinations will make the mount/pet you want, you don't really need to "explore" or "experiment". You follow the shopping list until you get what you want. But if it is a player-created guide, it is going to be limited in scope to what that/those players experienced and compiled. It is likely missing stuff so you may still want to experiment or explore, but you also have the option to trust the guide and create the mount/pet that the guide outlines you how to get.
I hope that made sense. Being able to accumulate information without the exploration, and KNOWING it to be correct without a shadow of a doubt changes how you interact with information. Again, especially since Verra is a world that changes, information will not lose its value... in WoW wikis got more and more complete over time, but in AoC, they will only be as complete as the community's effort to keep it up to date. Allowing for deception, contribution and exchange of information that is valuable.
The saving grace is that those nodes will only cover a minority of the world. So most places will still operate on imperfect information. Individual players can choose which kind of game they prefer to play based on where they go. The adventurous will go to uncharted lands, following rumors, tavern-talk, and their own tracking/surveying capabilities. Those who prefer more certainty and direction can stick to scientific nodes or rely more on websites/guilds that share a lot of information.
I've never heard of what @grisu is saying, about selling info to scientific nodes. Anybody got a source on that?
The old saying goes "Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead".
You can restate it as often a s you want, I don't share your view. It 's literally the same, word of mouth with extra steps in between. You need a science node, that science node needs to be in a location that is of interest to you, it needs to be level 3 or higher, people need to gete access to it AND people need to CHOOSE to share the information.
That's a lot more steps then a random guy putting into the city channel "guys I found this new dungeon/ore location"
If noone updates the information the library can be as acurate as word of mouth. The library can say a month later "this ressourcelocation has 2million ore left" when it's actually long depleted
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Cheers, thanks for the link, had not seen it. That clarifies a bunch actually (for anyone interested, the relevant bit starts at 51:00).
I do think it's a bit strange and seems antagonistic to their whole tavern, rumor-sharing experience but I guess it is more restricted in nature than rumors are. It also doesn't seem to be possible to "deceive" through the library system which I think is a shame.
I also hope the ZOI does not extend over the vassal nodes for this purpose since in the video it was said that 5 metropolises will cover the entire surface area of the world but it sounds like it will.
Nagash is always up to his dirty tricks believe me. He shares his secrets only with his skelleton best friends, Steve and Carl.
As for the merchant routes, I think that's kind of odd too. Members of the Economic node will most likely have the easiest access to the information, and be the ones least likely to use if for raiding caravans (why raid caravans of the node you are a citizen of?). If the information is available to everyone that stops by the node, then the merchant node is telling bandits the best times/locations to do the most damage to the node.
I can see why there is worry about spoilers or information being leaked that will take away the fun of exploration and getting lost and finding new things and other such activities. Those who don't use that information (like me, I don't google wikis about games or watch youtube channels with games etc.) will not have that issue.
In my mind there are 2 positive and 1 negative aspects to this (well, main aspects anyway, I'm sure there are lots of minor ones).
Pros:
* there is player agency in doing the return and sharing information with the library. There are altruistic & economic benefits to doing this, and also business acumen reasons why people might sometimes not do it.
* there is player agency in choosing to "get your library card" and then consume the library information. This means players who wish to partake of it for story, convenience, and/or competitive advantage reasons might do so, and others who for immersion & independence reasons might not.
Cons:
* it provides a consolidated repository of information that guaranteed someone will get their library card, dump/export/copy down all that information and post it to a website. Probably on Day 1.
I'm leaning towards saying the pros outweigh the cons for the current proposed implementation. But that's just my opinion. What's yours ?
The presence and existence of "perfect" information is not something you can just choose not to engage with. It doesn't matter if you seek it out on a website or happen upon it in a tavern. If I try to deceive you by telling you there is a point of interest somewhere, it doesn't matter if I choose not to engage with the node info that refutes it or not, as long as you do, you will know. If someone tells me a "rumor" that a dungeon has spawned at some coordinate, I can't pretend like there is uncertainty, I will just know if people are willing to party up for it or not.
I'm also not sure how else to say that I have no problem with the meta-gaming in this context. I think wikis and collection of information by the community is wonderful, but to have it be certain and easy to amalgamate complete information on a ZOI (at least in 1 aspect) takes away a potential charm that AoC could have which it will then lose. I'm not sure where the miscommunication has occurred here... but in any case, as the video describes, the community is still choosing to provide information to the node buildings so it won't be complete even if it the information is "perfect". It is still much less uncertainty based than initially suggested by Intrepid but also not the worst case scenerio.
@theonegargoyle
Yeah, I think you have a pretty fair understanding of the pros and cons. My perspective is: what is the alternative? The alternative is what was originally suggested: no in-game source of "confirmed" or "perfect" information. If the library or node building info sharing systems didn't exist, the ability of most players to share information would be through word of mouth instead of uploading to a library. It requires social interaction that the library upload takes away. The upload also robs you of the ability to deceive, as people will just rely on the "confirmed" and "perfect" library info or the online repositories that will consolidate it all.
Again, I DO NOT have a problem with people collecting and sharing information online but to have information, and to know that it is factually 100% correct is very different. Information is still just rumor until you confirm it, whether it is on a website or overheard in a tavern. But a screenshot of an in-game system/mechanic that collects correct information only is irrefutable. Again, it is like having Intrepid put out a profession guide vs players compiling one. It may seem like the same thing, but one stifles exploration within the profession and the other doesn't.
I guess my ultimate point is that nobody asked for this system. The game would not be broken or missing something without it. If anything, all this system of "perfect" information does is take away some of the intrigue and mystery of the world. People will still compile information without the node specific buildings, and they'll do it for all aspects of the game and I think that's wonderful. But to have Intrepid's stamp of confirmation on the information only reduces player interaction (in and out of the game) and takes away from the open world sandbox feel of Verra. There is a reason they initially proposed "imperfect" information and don't have points of interest pop up on your map. This is ~the same as AoC adding icons for points of interests to your mini-map, it doesn't seem to align with the goals and potential of the game.
The world is dynamic - the points of interest aren't static. People still have to travel to those buildings and areas to learn the info. And we will need to return to places we've previously visited to learn what has changed during our absence.
I don't think we have details about how we acquire the info about the points of interest from the buildings in the scientific nodes. Could be they are only revealed through questing.
It's likely the info we've shared about a point of interest is obsolete after a few hours, few days or a few weeks.
Screenshots of such info will not reduce player interaction.
We are still going to be asking other players for details of what they experienced while we were offline - and how their specific nodes and freeholds have changed over the past, several days, weeks and seasons. We are still going to want to learn from other players we know and meet what's new in the various villages, towns, cities and metros - and how they are being affected by government, castles, caravans, taxes, NPCs and mobs.
None of the info we gather from node specific buildings will be perfect because it's not static info.
E.g. resource nodes do not have fixed spawn locations. Information regarding caravan routes would be very time sensitive. And while I assume the location of a dungeon does not change, whether or not it is open and available will.
My point being; the information in the libraries have a bigger chance of being stale. Also, as others have pointed out, the ZOI is limited.
As such, rumors from a tavern might still be the best way of retrieving "fresh" information.
At least, this is how I hope it will work
I'd make the distinction here between up-to-date information and "perfect" information. In this whole thread, "perfect" information that is irrefutably correct. It is in contrast with "imperfect" information that is not validated by the game's system and is conveyed through players typing/sharing and thus are prone to errors & deception and may lead to misinformation (whether intentional or not).
I think the dynamic nature of the game is exactly why it would be great to have as little "perfect" information in the game as possible, to encourage people to seek and validate information on their own. I don't see how you can make the argument that the world will not become less mysterious with "perfect" information. If no information you receive can be incorrect or deceptive (as an extreme example), there is no mystery in figuring out if a statement is true or not.
I think this is based on an assumption that the information in libraries does not get updated frequently. I would hope you are right.
The rate of change in the world does not matter if the rate of the updating of information is as fast/faster, which I think is extremely likely.
Haha so then why add it in the game?
I guess I'm waiting for someone to tell me why the game needs the existence of "perfect" information. What does it add to the game?
There are many features in Ashes that some believe are "needed" and others believe are damaging. So there has to be compromises made or Ashes sticks to their vision and risks pleasing the minority sometimes and the majority others.
For those that want a bigger payoff for putting in the effort to level a node, a reward "needs" to exists. For some it's the RP experience as to why the Science node or Economic node grant specific information. For some it's the unique opportunities/benefits associated with that reward.
I think from a developers POV (and players too) that there should be something that is granted when players come together and level nodes (since cities won't be created/maintained by NPCs). There are only so many possibilities available to Ashes that fits their vision, development, time-frame, etc.
Perhaps you could ask the question, what type of different rewards could be available to prevent the addition of perfect information.
I am not denying the possibility of it, but it is only an assumption which I doubt will happen. There have been bits and pieces of information that would suggest those information will be approximate. Locations detailed by landmark for example. There has been talk about how maps work. Your whole premise of perfect information is built on guesses.
Why we need it? Why not? I think its a great community tool INGAME that everyone can use and access. It eliminates/dimishes the >>need<< of using 3rd party websites and provides an immersive way to collect and share information with your community.
If i have the choice between tabing out/switching to 2nd screen and just walking into the library. I choose the library. Knowing what is public knowledge and what your inner circle knows is a myriad of doors leading to opportunities.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
It's just a matter of how long it takes for that info to change.
Any info that never changes is official lore.
Steven loves Jolly Ranchers is lore
I already made my argument about how I don't think you can fully circumvent being impacted by "perfect" information so we simply disagree on that. I think your reframing is great though, I just think they have all of these already cool ideas presented in the "know your nodes" series and this single one just seems in conflict with design philosophies they've talked about in the past.
@grisu
I really hope you are right, I just thought it was a fair conclusion from the wording in the "know your nodes" series. I think if you read "Locations and inhabitants of new Dungeons or POIs (Points of Interest) that have spawned" it is fair to assume that the information will be 100% accurate. But the interview video makes it clear that even if the information is 100% accurate (which is how I've been using "perfect" information), it won't be complete information because players need to first discover and choose to upload any information.
Also, I think you're probably right that it won't be giving grid coordinates and may give some general vicinity but I don't expect it to be a meaningfully large/vague direction either.
Lastly, yeah, that's a totally fair argument. If Intrepid is doing this as a way to reduce meta-gaming site reliance by providing in-game support for it themselves I still disagree with the implementation but I get the rationale. I still think (given my understanding of the planned system) it accelerates sharing of information if you know the information is correct and having official means to amalgamate information accelerates its ease of distribution and leads to a faster loss of mystery and intrigue by the general community.
I resent that