Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Cartographer and Scribe
Xyphien
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
@CROW3 made a post that really spiked this suggestion.
Not having a world map in the beginning of the game would force people to explore the map and give the lost feeling Crow3 was wanting. However, adding two new skills to the game; Cartographer, and Scribe. Scribes could create paper, and copy anything on paper to redistribute, whilst Cartographers would get the paper and then the section they activate the map ability in would turn the paper into a blank map. When they explore the area it fills it in. This will be able to have the resource types in the area be marked down when discovered, dungeon listings, raids, node types (when they're of level to tell) and others. This can then be either activated and consumed to give you that square on your world map, or given to a scribe to make copies for to redistribute.
This will add a whole new level of immersion as well as reward those who love to do adventures in the game. As well as you'd have to re-do the map every time a node gets to stage 3, sieges, or other world events happen to ensure there's no new raids, dungeons, they didn't despawn after the siege, or the world event didn't destroy anything. Creating an ever needed job(s).
On top of all of this, it will create even more global trade, as you'd have to get maps from the other parts of the worlds as well as those who live on an island, etc. In order to fill up your full map you'd have to either explore the entire land yourself, or pay people who have and mix and match your maps, constantly paying for upgrades to ensure you know where all the resources are, Where the active dungeons are, etc.
This will create a ton of unique game play, as someone could invite you all on a few day adventure to go to a dungeon that you find out is no longer available because you have an outdated map. Or you have the inside scoop on a new dungeon that only a hand full of people have. Resources also spawn in areas that makes since, so you'll be able to figure out what sections of the map has specific types of resources.
Not having a world map in the beginning of the game would force people to explore the map and give the lost feeling Crow3 was wanting. However, adding two new skills to the game; Cartographer, and Scribe. Scribes could create paper, and copy anything on paper to redistribute, whilst Cartographers would get the paper and then the section they activate the map ability in would turn the paper into a blank map. When they explore the area it fills it in. This will be able to have the resource types in the area be marked down when discovered, dungeon listings, raids, node types (when they're of level to tell) and others. This can then be either activated and consumed to give you that square on your world map, or given to a scribe to make copies for to redistribute.
This will add a whole new level of immersion as well as reward those who love to do adventures in the game. As well as you'd have to re-do the map every time a node gets to stage 3, sieges, or other world events happen to ensure there's no new raids, dungeons, they didn't despawn after the siege, or the world event didn't destroy anything. Creating an ever needed job(s).
On top of all of this, it will create even more global trade, as you'd have to get maps from the other parts of the worlds as well as those who live on an island, etc. In order to fill up your full map you'd have to either explore the entire land yourself, or pay people who have and mix and match your maps, constantly paying for upgrades to ensure you know where all the resources are, Where the active dungeons are, etc.
This will create a ton of unique game play, as someone could invite you all on a few day adventure to go to a dungeon that you find out is no longer available because you have an outdated map. Or you have the inside scoop on a new dungeon that only a hand full of people have. Resources also spawn in areas that makes since, so you'll be able to figure out what sections of the map has specific types of resources.
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Comments
Many of us here on the forums hope that the scribe would actually make maps and map upgrades for resource spawns etc that other people could use.
I also found this yesterday while reading through the wiki: Treasure hunting Haven't seen much else on the topic, so it will be cool when the team revisits this down the road.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/46522/idea-cartography
Edit. I know. Not well worded. But, I have faith you all can dissect it.
Source:
-https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-04-10-know-your-nodes-scientific-node-type
-https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-05-32-know-your-nodes-economic-node-type
I think it isn't really the sense of being lost that we all look for, and that's incredibly difficult to provide anyways, but rather a sense of uncertainty and mystery. I made some posts in the old forums about the use of imperfect information to drive this sense of exploration but I'm too lazy to dig them up. I do have something of the sort in this iteration of the forums (https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/42537/lost-opportunity/p1).
Just a brief TL/DR of my thoughts in those old threads and this one: since initially Intrepid said the game would use imperfect information to drive intrigue I envisioned a rumor system that would be perfect and only possible with the evolving world of AoC. Since when nodes level up the world changes and new points of interest may be available, it would be cool if when you talked to NPCs you could learn about rumors that they may have heard about the world. Now these rumors may 1) be false 2) be true or 3) be currently false but could be true if the state of the world changed e.g. the node level up revealing the rumored location. This sense of uncertainty about the information provided by rumors + a changing world would have you going back to zones and taking off to explore to try to find out if the rumors are true or not and have some cool adventures on the way. But alas it feels like with the node-specific perks this is not really going to be possible or supported
Edit: oops this was meant to be posted in the other thread about getting lost but it's I guess relevant here too so I'll leave it up.
As far as I can see, all the information we have on them comes from a player question that was along the lines of "will we be able to have player made books, perhaps made by a scribe or something, that players can write in and trade with others".
The response to this was along the lines of Jeff and Steven saying "yeah, cool, I like the sounds of that", and this was then added to the wiki as scribe being one of the professions (though to give credit where due, it is listed as a possible profession).
I've not seen or heard any further info on scribes, but I have also not had time to sit and watch all of the interviews and livestreams that have happened in the last 6 months or so.
What is the difference in the map between your suggestion and fog of war included in the game(which means that the map becomes visible as you explore it) aside from you want a map on a piece of paper in your inventory?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/World_map