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Dominance of one race on the server!

Good afternoon. I apologize in advance if such a question has already been asked. But I suddenly had a question in my head! I would like to know your opinion - how many cities in total can be built in the game? And what if suddenly some one race dominates on some server and all the cities are built in their style! It doesn't matter what race, but for example there will be the most people and all the cities on the server will be human. Will it be possible to avoid this somehow, so that there is a variety.
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Comments

  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    All depends on the server player community.
    If every City on a server is Human, that's the story of that server.

    Fair game.
  • tul1petul1pe Member
    I agree that this is a fair game. But this can often alienate players and they will start leaving for other servers and such a server may start to empty. Maybe you need to make a system so that at least 1-2 cities of each faction are necessarily on the server? For example, people dominate the entire server, and other factions are weak and cannot fight back against them, because of the small number or lack of organization, then it would be possible to make sure that there would be at least 1 city of another race in some place necessarily!
  • JustVineJustVine Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    In the order you asked: 5 metros, nothing, and not really beyond tearing it down in a siege and rebuilding it with another dominant race. Diversity of architecture in metros isn't really a design goal in Ashes, and if it is I don't have a quote stating as such (in which case their system needs improvements.) The main design goal of architecture in Ashes is to create conflict. So technically if all 5 metros had the same racial architecture and your response is 'well that is boring let's organize all the Ren'kai orcs to raze the Kaelar stronghold to the ground to make it look more civilized' the goal has been achieved.

    https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Architecture go read the wiki if you want to learn more.
    Node coffers: Single Payer Capitalism in action
  • tul1petul1pe Member
    edited July 2022
    JustVine wrote: »
    So technically if all 5 metros had the same racial architecture .

    So you want to say that only the metropolis will have the architectural appearance of the dominant race? And the cities and settlements that are lower in rank, will this not apply to them?
    or will they change under the culture of the metropolis and also have an architectural appearance that the metropolis has?
  • tautautautau Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    While I don't think that there is much chance at all that we will have a lack of racial variation, what would it matter? If we had a server with 85% female characters, would that matter either? Would it matter if we had a server with 85% of the characters as mages? What if most players joined the same religion, or most chose to be animal tamers?

    Yeah, all of those would result in a unique, unusual server. But I would expect that would make other players want to make a character on that server just to see how it all shook out.

    Reminds me a bit of L2 where someone made a dwarf-only guild. They were pretty constrained in what they could accomplish but it sure was a laugh to see them all hunting together!
  • BaSkA_9x2BaSkA_9x2 Member, Alpha Two
    AFAIK even if 90% of a node population is dwarf for example, the 10% of the other races will have an effect on the architecture, so it's gonna look mostly dwarf but there could be some orc details here and there.

    Also, I am not sure, but I hope that vassal nodes' architecture aren't affected as much by the parent node: for instance, if a mostly human and a mostly orc neighboring nodes are competing to see who's going to become the parent node, whoever loses still keeps a great part of their architecture on their city.

    Race in this game will not mean as much as it means in WoW, for example. It's not as if orcs and humans are always enemies, this doesn't exist in Ashes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but each of the 5 (I don't think 9 is the correct number in this context) races you can pick from are neutral with each other. You can also first spawn at any of the portals, maybe except for the Tulnar, so there's no way of telling where each race is going to be more predominant.

    Last but not least, there's an easy way to fix this: make racial skills relevant so that it's likely that no race will represent less than 10% of a server population. I don't want the meta to mean every mage must be a human, every tank an orc, every ranger an elf and so on, but definitely make racial skills relevant PvP, PvE and Artisan wise.

    tl;dr: this is really a non-issue. In the list of things to worry about, how homogenous cities might look like across the server because of the most predominant race(s) is one of the least important ones.
    🎶Galo é Galo o resto é bosta🎶
  • CROW3CROW3 Member, Alpha Two
    If dwarves have the dominant architecture, I’m looking forward to the Renkai looking like parents visiting a kindergarten class room.

    *scrunch!
    AoC+Dwarf+750v3.png
  • ShabobShabob Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    These conversations are really interesting because we've had like nearly 30 years of MMORPGs to draw experience from. The utopia / idealism responses are really quite out of touch. We absolutely know what's going to happen. Players WILL get rid of fun in exchange for efficiency. If having to be a human in order to get the best gear is the most efficient way to do that, then the whole damn server will be human. Players that don't want to be human will leave for another server with their race as the dominant one. Now, some players are going to want a laizze-faire approach. Some players are going to want something as heavy handed as a race hard cap.

    Since as of now the highest % race that contributes to the node advancement will choose the race architecture, then that's most important factor to consider. The best way for the dev's and artists to influence the system is make sure that all the races are an enticing option through great design, lore, and architecture.

    Guilds themselves will be highly influential for race and architecture. The best guilds that are gunning for highest advanced nodes ought to discuss among themselves what race architecture they'd like to have. If they don't care, then just go with w/e. If you want a "dwarf" capital, then you better have all your members play a dwarf.

    wWk7s7B.png
  • tul1petul1pe Member
    Shabob wrote: »
    These conversations are really interesting because we've had like nearly 30 years of MMORPGs to draw experience from. The utopia / idealism responses are really quite out of touch. We absolutely know what's going to happen. Players WILL get rid of fun in exchange for efficiency. If having to be a human in order to get the best gear is the most efficient way to do that, then the whole damn server will be human. Players that don't want to be human will leave for another server with their race as the dominant one. Now, some players are going to want a laizze-faire approach. Some players are going to want something as heavy handed as a race hard cap.

    Since as of now the highest % race that contributes to the node advancement will choose the race architecture, then that's most important factor to consider. The best way for the dev's and artists to influence the system is make sure that all the races are an enticing option through great design, lore, and architecture.

    Guilds themselves will be highly influential for race and architecture. The best guilds that are gunning for highest advanced nodes ought to discuss among themselves what race architecture they'd like to have. If they don't care, then just go with w/e. If you want a "dwarf" capital, then you better have all your members play a dwarf.

    I've been playing games for over 30 years too, so that's what I thought about when I immersed myself in the gaming world. And he began to come to an understanding of how much the character's race affects the world around him. But you can fix it partially. For example, enter the starting (ancient) the capitals of the race that cannot be changed or captured by military means. And it will be possible, for example, to be elected mayor of the city there and perform the actions that the game will give, but without changing the architecture of this starting (ancient) capital of a particular race. And already the cities that the players themselves build can already be subjected to any changes and mechanics that the mechanics of the game allow
  • JustVineJustVine Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    tul1pe wrote: »
    JustVine wrote: »
    So technically if all 5 metros had the same racial architecture .

    So you want to say that only the metropolis will have the architectural appearance of the dominant race? And the cities and settlements that are lower in rank, will this not apply to them?
    or will they change under the culture of the metropolis and also have an architectural appearance that the metropolis has?

    I highly recommend reading the wiki link I gave as it would have answered this question. But no, each node settlement has it's own racial architecture that is dependent on what race has the highest percentage of contribution to any given node. Changes to what racial style a nodes architecture exhibits are made upon advancement from one stage to the next. Parent node has no direct effect on a child nodes architecture.

    Some parts are determined by the area it's in. Some parts are determined by the type it is. Some parts are determined by the race it is; and then the rest of it is determined by the mayor. – Jeffrey Bard

    Parent races do not combine their cultural influences. For example, Py'Rai and Empyrean count as different cultures. Their parent race, the Pyrian, no longer exists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP-lOFzYkCM&t=1416s

    The layout and architecture within a Node’s development area are determined by influential race. For example, a stage 3 Node with the majority of player contribution being Py'rai would have a Py'rai village with Py'rai architecture. Most NPCs would be Py'rai elves, and offer questlines within the Py'rai narrative. – Margaret Krohn

    Each player’s contributed experience is flagged with their character race and other identifiers. When a Node advances, the race with the highest experience contribution determines the Node’s style and culture. This style and culture change can happen at every Node Stage. For example, if a Node advances to Level 2 - Encampment Stage and 51% of all experience was earned by Ren’Kai players, the Node will be a Level 2 Ren’Kai Node. If that same Node advances to a Level 3 - Village Stage Node, but the Py'Rai contributed 62% of all the experience earned, then the Node will be a Level 3 Py'Rai Node. – Margaret Krohn

    I'd love to see the quote about racial architecture mixing @BaSkA13 . Everything I've seen up to this point indicates otherwise, so it'd be good to have it. Don't feel put on by the request though, I certainly don't care enough to spend that much of your effort.
    Node coffers: Single Payer Capitalism in action
  • BaSkA_9x2BaSkA_9x2 Member, Alpha Two
    JustVine wrote: »
    I'd love to see the quote about racial architecture mixing @BaSkA13. Everything I've seen up to this point indicates otherwise, so it'd be good to have it.

    Unfortunately I have no idea where this quote can be found, if it was even said. All I can say is that from the best of my memory and "knowledge" about the game after following it for a few years, watching streams, reading discussions, fan videos, etc is that not only the predominant race will affect the architecture, i.e. you might have elvish street light poles in a orcish city.

    I could be wrong though which I apologize for, honest mistake! If I'm indeed wrong, it would be a cool addition to the game, in my opinion. I don't have the time to look for this quote, but if I had, I would probably watch Steven's Q&As with the big streamers and the early videos about node development.

    Cheers and sorry again.
    🎶Galo é Galo o resto é bosta🎶
  • JustVineJustVine Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    BaSkA13 wrote: »
    JustVine wrote: »
    I'd love to see the quote about racial architecture mixing @BaSkA13. Everything I've seen up to this point indicates otherwise, so it'd be good to have it.

    Unfortunately I have no idea where this quote can be found, if it was even said. All I can say is that from the best of my memory and "knowledge" about the game after following it for a few years, watching streams, reading discussions, fan videos, etc is that not only the predominant race will affect the architecture, i.e. you might have elvish street light poles in a orcish city.

    I could be wrong though which I apologize for, honest mistake! If I'm indeed wrong, it would be a cool addition to the game, in my opinion. I don't have the time to look for this quote, but if I had, I would probably watch Steven's Q&As with the big streamers and the early videos about node development.

    Cheers and sorry again.

    Yeah no worries. I also think it'd be a great addition, I just 'have been lead to the conclusion it's not in the game.' But hey if I'm wrong I'm technically happier.

    Cheers mate.
    Node coffers: Single Payer Capitalism in action
  • tautautautau Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Here is a plethora of information about nodes, including architecture: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Reactive_world
  • PatrullPatrull Member, Alpha Two
    There can only be 5 metropolis. The nodes around it can only be up to 1 stage lower than the main one. Each node will take on the appearance of the race that contributes the most.

    Maybe in the mountains Dünir have a special contributing bonus so things can seem more esthetic.
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Patrull wrote: »
    Maybe in the mountains Dünir have a special contributing bonus so things can seem more esthetic.

    I wouldnt want this. Fairness is unfair. Id rather all races have equal influence everywhere, so the world truly relects where the players or certain races like to be. As well as the initial spawn zones being the racial gates, itll be interesting to see the game go from dwarvern cities around the dwarf gate, to more mixed or more random over time
  • tautautautau Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I don't believe there will be a "Dwarf Gate" @PenguinPaladin Any race can go through any gate, though only Tulnar can start underground. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Divine_gateways
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    "Any race can go through any gate"


    They are the 4 racial gates.... you can choose to pick a gate with your friends, that isnt of your characters race. But your racial quests originate at your races gate. So doing so will potentially "slow down" your character and your racial lore progression.

    So most.... not all... but most? A good amount. Of players will probably stick to their races gate....


    As of last i heard about it... its been a while, i could be mistaken. Dont quote me.
  • RoxiRoxi Member, Alpha Two
    " Dont quote me.

    Ок
    5ls3nob7lngp.gif
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Roxi wrote: »
    " Dont quote me.

    Ок

    You've been added to a list...........
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    tautau wrote: »
    I don't believe there will be a "Dwarf Gate" @PenguinPaladin Any race can go through any gate, though only Tulnar can start underground. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Divine_gateways
    Whats in your link.
    3vfj1cl3s4b5.jpg
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    BaSkA13 wrote: »
    JustVine wrote: »
    I'd love to see the quote about racial architecture mixing @BaSkA13. Everything I've seen up to this point indicates otherwise, so it'd be good to have it.

    Unfortunately I have no idea where this quote can be found, if it was even said. All I can say is that from the best of my memory and "knowledge" about the game after following it for a few years, watching streams, reading discussions, fan videos, etc is that not only the predominant race will affect the architecture, i.e. you might have elvish street light poles in a orcish city.

    I could be wrong though which I apologize for, honest mistake! If I'm indeed wrong, it would be a cool addition to the game, in my opinion. I don't have the time to look for this quote, but if I had, I would probably watch Steven's Q&As with the big streamers and the early videos about node development.

    Cheers and sorry again.
    No. As far as I know, we will not have Elvish street poles in an Orcish City.
    We won't even have Vek street poles in a Ren'Kai City.
    The architecture will all change to reflect the dominant culture/race.
  • Theplague4uTheplague4u Member, Alpha Two
    So if I make multiple toons I should make them all the same race so anything I do the contribution is that type? That sucks if I like the building design of race X but don't want to play the race.
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    DrPlague wrote: »
    So if I make multiple toons I should make them all the same race so anything I do the contribution is that type? That sucks if I like the building design of race X but don't want to play the race.

    Is just another thing to tune race choice. I would say its less impactful that racial augments in general, but yeah, its a factor

    Also if you like the building design of race x, it would probably be easier to move to a town with alot of them around than to expect your single contribution to sway the entire node you live in. No need to race lock yourself, there is a whole population of players.
  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    I do wanna see a server where tulnar see the other races as invaders and actively try destroying there cities of the other races returning to Veera, or even a tulnar religion where they past stories of these races abandoning them here with the exodist and they might have some hatred towards them there. Honostly wouldn't mind seeing a racial bonus of reduced corruption gain on kills or no corruption gained in a node that has tulnar architecture. Could also be a region bonus for tulnars I guess too :p I doubt we will see this though but would be cool I reckon
  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    Patrull wrote: »
    Maybe in the mountains Dünir have a special contributing bonus so things can seem more esthetic.

    I wouldnt want this. Fairness is unfair. Id rather all races have equal influence everywhere, so the world truly relects where the players or certain races like to be. As well as the initial spawn zones being the racial gates, itll be interesting to see the game go from dwarvern cities around the dwarf gate, to more mixed or more random over time

    It could be minor bonuses so Dearden influenced zones each dwarf player founds as 1.1 dwarfs in the Tally so 10percent bonus.
  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    BaSkA13 wrote: »
    JustVine wrote: »
    I'd love to see the quote about racial architecture mixing @BaSkA13. Everything I've seen up to this point indicates otherwise, so it'd be good to have it.

    Unfortunately I have no idea where this quote can be found, if it was even said. All I can say is that from the best of my memory and "knowledge" about the game after following it for a few years, watching streams, reading discussions, fan videos, etc is that not only the predominant race will affect the architecture, i.e. you might have elvish street light poles in a orcish city.

    I could be wrong though which I apologize for, honest mistake! If I'm indeed wrong, it would be a cool addition to the game, in my opinion. I don't have the time to look for this quote, but if I had, I would probably watch Steven's Q&As with the big streamers and the early videos about node development.

    Cheers and sorry again.
    No. As far as I know, we will not have Elvish street poles in an Orcish City.
    We won't even have Vek street poles in a Ren'Kai City.
    The architecture will all change to reflect the dominant culture/race.

    My goal now is to have a land plot in an orchidh city and place a elvish light pole on my plot of land closest to the city road :p
  • BaSkA_9x2BaSkA_9x2 Member, Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    Dygz wrote: »
    No. As far as I know, we will not have Elvish street poles in an Orcish City.
    We won't even have Vek street poles in a Ren'Kai City.
    The architecture will all change to reflect the dominant culture/race.

    If that is true, I would say that this is a missed opportunity and I would love to give a suggestion to Intrepid that is (hopefully) not difficult to add, since most of the work of the current design will (hopefully) be re-used:

    Imagine Node X is about to level up and has the following contribution points distribution:
    • 11% Kaelar
    • 11% Vaelune
    • 11% Dünir
    • 11% Niküa
    • 11% Ren'Kai
    • 11% Vek
    • 11% Empyrean
    • 11% Py'Rai
    • 12% Tulnar

    I hope that we can all agree that this Node is influenced by many different races, so it would be a shame if this became a city with only Tulnar architecture and culture (or any other race, it's just an example).

    I imagine that the current pseudo logic behind the current design looks something like this, very simplified:
    1- Get total contribution points grouped by race
    2- Find the highest value and the corresponding race
    3- All buildings/NPCs/etc .setRace(raceId obtained in step 2)
    

    Starting from the premise that Nodes are completely modular, i.e. it is be possible to mix and match different races' architecture into the same Node:

    What if, instead of only one race determining how the entire Node looks like, the design also takes into account other races that contributed to it and adds bits of those races' architecture as well? That would probably help with the topic raised by the OP, because even if all Nodes are dominated by one race, it's likely that they would look at least a little different from each other.

    Now the difficult part is to decide which parts of a Node would be influenced by each of the contributing races. First we need to know which elements can be influenced by race: NPCs, road design, building design, light poles, stalls design, gates design, walls design, furniture design, campfires, etc. With that list of elements set, all that is left to do is to define how it will be done, in other words, the logic behind it. Something very simple would suffice and would be an improvement to the current design, in my view.

    A low effort pseudo logic would look something like this, again simplified:
    1- Get total contribution points grouped by race
    2- Sort the top three highest values and the corresponding races
    3- 3rd highest ranking race influences the light poles design
    4- 2nd highest ranking race influences the roads design
    5- Highest ranking race influences everything else
    

    This logic can obviously be improved. You could add minimal contribution thresholds, add more races, add more elements to each of the highest ranking races, etc.

    Lastly, I expect that changing the current design is something trivial to do. If that's not the case, for some reason I am not aware of, and this design change would take two weeks of development, testing and QA, then it might not be worth doing, even though it would be an interesting addition.
    🎶Galo é Galo o resto é bosta🎶
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    BaSkA13 wrote: »
    Dygz wrote: »
    No. As far as I know, we will not have Elvish street poles in an Orcish City.
    We won't even have Vek street poles in a Ren'Kai City.
    The architecture will all change to reflect the dominant culture/race.

    If that is true, I would say that this is a missed opportunity and I would love to give a suggestion to Intrepid that is (hopefully) not difficult to add, since most of the work of the current design will (hopefully) be re-used:

    Imagine Node X is about to level up and has the following contribution points distribution:
    • 11% Kaelar
    • 11% Vaelune
    • 11% Dünir
    • 11% Niküa
    • 11% Ren'Kai
    • 11% Vek
    • 11% Empyrean
    • 11% Py'Rai
    • 12% Tulnar

    I hope that we can all agree that this Node is influenced by many different races, so it would be a shame if this became a city with only Tulnar architecture and culture (or any other race, it's just an example).

    I imagine that the current pseudo logic behind the current design looks something like this, very simplified:
    1- Get total contribution points grouped by race
    2- Find the highest value and the corresponding race
    3- All buildings/NPCs/etc .setRace(raceId obtained in step 2)
    

    Starting from the premise that Nodes are completely modular, i.e. it is be possible to mix and match different races' architecture into the same Node:

    What if, instead of only one race determining how the entire Node looks like, the design also takes into account other races that contributed to it and add bits of that race's architecture as well? That would probably help with the topic raised by the OP, because even if all Nodes are dominated by one race, it's likely that they would look at least a little different from each other.

    Now the difficult part is to decide which parts of a Node would be influenced by each of the contributing races. First we need to know which elements can be influenced by race: NPCs, road design, building design, light poles, stalls design, gates design, walls design, furniture design, campfires, etc. With that list of elements set, all that is left to do is to define how it will be done, in other words, the logic behind it. Something very simple would suffice and would be an improvement to the current design, in my view.

    A low effort pseudo logic would look something like this, again simplified:
    1- Get total contribution points grouped by race
    2- Sort the top three highest values and the corresponding races
    3- 3rd highest ranking race influences the light poles design
    4- 2nd highest ranking race influences the road design
    5- Highest ranking influences all the rest
    

    This logic can obviously be improved. You could add minimal contribution thresholds, add more races, add more elements to each of the highest ranking races, etc.

    Lastly, I expect that changing the current design is something trivial to do. If that's not the case, for some reason I am not aware of, and this design change would take two weeks of development, testing and QA, then it might not be worth doing, even though it would be an interesting addition.

    I would rather a whole city consist of one ascetic. So that it looks good. Making every aspect of a city have a cultural feel. And making those cultures have very different looks and feels.

    Mashing all the peices at random just because it shows more of the cultures does not sound better to me, it sounds gaudy.

    Also it fuels a since of community with your race to try and maintain city culture and such. Becoming somewhat a competition. And that is good for over all game play.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    It’s possible to design but not desirable.
    Striving for a Metro with the amenities of the dominant race you prefer promotes Node Sieges.
  • BaSkA_9x2BaSkA_9x2 Member, Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    I would rather a whole city consist of one ascetic. So that it looks good. Making every aspect of a city have a cultural feel. And making those cultures have very different looks and feels.

    Mashing all the peices at random just because it shows more of the cultures does not sound better to me, it sounds gaudy.

    Also it fuels a since of community with your race to try and maintain city culture and such. Becoming somewhat a competition. And that is good for over all game play.
    Dygz wrote: »
    It’s possible to design but not desirable.
    Striving for a Metro with the amenities of the dominant race you prefer promotes Node Sieges.


    I agree my idea has its cons, definitely could look weird!

    Now regarding this animosity and competition between races, I had no idea people actually cared about races that much. From my understanding, races have their lore and wars but that was going to be it. It's not like in WoW where you'd start hating other races because players kept camping your corpse. In Ashes, you might end up hating your own race more than other ones because of enemy guilds and whatnot.

    I really don't think I'm going to care about that "race lore" at all :D:'(
    🎶Galo é Galo o resto é bosta🎶
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