Do you like the theme/lore of the world?

I gotta say, I like a hell of a lot about the direction and game design of Ashes of Creation, but the one thing I just can't get into is the theme of the world. It just feels painfully generic high fantasy. Obviously, as someone who's been playing RPGs in one form or another since the early 90s, I certainly enjoy high fantasy, but in the case of Ashes, it just feels like something is missing, and I'm not quite sure why.

It might be that I don't really see what the core "story" or backbone that everything revolves around is? There's obviously lore, but it's feels like a loosely connected set of necessary lore items, like "well we have to have gods and we have to have a creation story," but those things all feel sort of ancillary to nothing. Is there actually some central issue or fact about the world that's unique, specific, and always at least somewhat present? For some games, this might be a factional conflict or a natural disaster that's impacted the whole world or everyone being marooned on a mysterious island that defies scientific laws or whatever.

I'm thinking that the more generic the game world is, the more important it is to have some central focus, some twist, whatever it is, just something to give the world its own unique character. The only successful MMOs I can think of that don't have that something instead have very non-generic worlds, like GW2.

What do y'all think?

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Caww

seems just fine to me...

Cat Quiver

joshisanonymous wrote: »

What do y'all think?

That you're doing an incredible amount of overthinking for a game that's still in alpha

CroakerRPG

I think there isn't a lot of lore to be had at the moment, and what little we do have is fairly interesting and unique.

Ludullu

Judging by the variety of npcs (the sold cosmetics that is), I'd say there's quite a big choice of potential stories and lore for different regions and locations.

But outside of that base lvl of theming, the main "lore" of the game will be the stuff the players do in it. I'm sure a lot of people have heard stories from EVE that sounded incredible. All the scheming, betrayal, years-long planning, absolutely massive defeats and toppling down of huge corporations, etc. Imo that's the "lore" of EVE. And AoC has a huge potential to have the same things happen here, just on a smaller scale and with more variety because each server will have their own story.

Sapiverenus

My first impression was that it was pretty generic as well, but it's just a 'medium of expression'. Essence, Corruption. Seems to be a tentative and tenuous development phase or it's simply half-baked who knows. Sharif has played a lot of D&D so there's plenty to rip lol
There are 9 races or whatever so that will help build the world though.
Hopefully the non-player races/ monsters will be fleshed out quite a bit.

I hope cohesion and depth is not an issue but it should be OK. Last 20% of work and effort always pushes things from bottom 1% to top .1% though so hopefully no one gets lazy.

Nuub

I think i remember hearing that Vera was Steven's Custom setting when he plays D&D, and has been for something like a decade. There is no doubt in my mind that the lore one builds in that time is deep. I also think that making any determinations about the quality of the lore at this point in development is premature. They wont be releasing major plot points and background before the game comes out, there will be monumental reveals about lore discovered in game. I would hold your final judgement at least until they reveal it to us.

CROW3

Steven’s keeping the vast majority of the lore and the game’s plot lines as secret as possible until launch.

joshisanonymous

Cat Quiver wrote: »

That you're doing an incredible amount of overthinking for a game that's still in alpha

Nuub wrote: »

I also think that making any determinations about the quality of the lore at this point in development is premature. They wont be releasing major plot points and background before the game comes out, there will be monumental reveals about lore discovered in game. I would hold your final judgement at least until they reveal it to us.

Yeah, it's early in development, but the major thematic focus of the lore of an MMO usually isn't the last thing developers figure out as far as I can tell. I mean, they have to choose a setting for their game from the very beginning, and I would think that's when they ask themselves, "Why this time? Why this place? What's the point of this setting?" The answer could be "because", sure, or "I guess we'll figure that out later", but this is sort of an essential question to answer as soon as possible for creative works of pretty much any type, otherwise the result tends to end up being messy and uninspired.

WHIT3ROS3

I am optimistic regarding the "world" in which Ashes is set. I love world-building and fantasy narratives. There is so much potential in Verra. The themes of duality (2 factions for legacy Fantasy races (Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Orcs) plus the additional esoteric madness brought by the Tulnar, spread over 2 continents.

The idea that each of these younger factions has a parent race (Aela Humans, Dunzenkell Dwarves, Kaivek Orcs and Pyrian Elves) Is fertile grounds for dynamic relationships between different world actors.

Steven is articulate, passionate and (self-described as a little long-winded at times) which are great qualities for any Fantasy writer (If you know the genre).

I do think it would be fun for Intrepid to have a small lore dump at the end of each week with a Dev Update on the final Friday of the Month. Nothing too crazy... just a small article, infographic, or image with a bit of info regarding the different cultures.

A good example of a company that does this well is Games Workshop. They have multiple articles up on their Warhammer Community website every day (usually shilling products obviously) but they have fun little articles talking about aspects of the many, many different factions across their IPs.

Strevi

joshisanonymous wrote: »

I gotta say, I like a hell of a lot about the direction and game design of Ashes of Creation, but the one thing I just can't get into is the theme of the world. It just feels painfully generic high fantasy.

I don't like that the 10 gods split into good and evil instead of 3 factions.
But maybe there is a 3rd faction too, who protected the Tulnars.

Liniker

I absolutely love it! I'm sick of playing korean or chinese mmos, really nice to see some solid D&D/Tolkien high fantasy theme on such a high quality game, intrepid is nailing it and I have nothing to complain about the world, theme or art in the game

No more anime underaged girls, overly sexualized armor, bunny years or flying swords as mounts! I couldn't be happier

CROW3

Strevi wrote: »

I don't like that the 10 gods split into good and evil instead of 3 factions.
But maybe there is a 3rd faction too, who protected the Tulnars.

I’m interested to understand more what ‘good’ and ‘evil’ means in Steven’s universe. Both concepts are usually relative to a religion. I’m wondering if the regions will be squabbling about their own petty differences while corruption gobbles up Verra.

Does the make corruption objectively evil (as it results in destruction and death), objectively good (as maybe it’s a necessary precursor to the dawning of a new age), or is it objectively neutral (like black holes in our universe, just cleaning up the random star matter)?

Balrog21

I'm loving it and I think there is a ton more yet to discover and experience in game. I'm 110% happy with it.

bloodprophet

joshisanonymous wrote: »

Cat Quiver wrote: »

That you're doing an incredible amount of overthinking for a game that's still in alpha

Nuub wrote: »

I also think that making any determinations about the quality of the lore at this point in development is premature. They wont be releasing major plot points and background before the game comes out, there will be monumental reveals about lore discovered in game. I would hold your final judgement at least until they reveal it to us.

Yeah, it's early in development, but the major thematic focus of the lore of an MMO usually isn't the last thing developers figure out as far as I can tell. I mean, they have to choose a setting for their game from the very beginning, and I would think that's when they ask themselves, "Why this time? Why this place? What's the point of this setting?" The answer could be "because", sure, or "I guess we'll figure that out later", but this is sort of an essential question to answer as soon as possible for creative works of pretty much any type, otherwise the result tends to end up being messy and uninspired.

As Crow said above they are keeping most things f the lore super secret. Everyone and then Steven gets excited and leaks things and Margaret gets nervous.
What we know is listed well on the wiki.
Something/someone caused a cataclysm. Most fled through the Divine gates to Sanctus. Thousands of year later the gates open and people start exploring the world.
That is where we come in as explorers going through the gates to reclaim Verra and figure out what happened.

Is based on Steven's home game of Pathfinder.

clone63

Liniker wrote: »

I absolutely love it! I'm sick of playing korean or chinese mmos, really nice to see some solid D&D/Tolkien high fantasy theme on such a high quality game, intrepid is nailing it and I have nothing to complain about the world, theme or art in the game

No more anime underaged girls, overly sexualized armor, bunny years or flying swords as mounts! I couldn't be happier

Yes, I'm really hopeful it maintains its grounded and focused direction and doesn't try to incorporate all manner of silly ideas and designs (looking at you, fantasy automotive shit) just to try to hook some additional percent of the market. Build a game around a world, not the other way around.

Dygz

joshisanonymous wrote: »

There's obviously lore, but it's feels like a loosely connected set of necessary lore items, like "well we have to have gods and we have to have a creation story," but those things all feel sort of ancillary to nothing. Is there actually some central issue or fact about the world that's unique, specific, and always at least somewhat present? For some games, this might be a factional conflict or a natural disaster that's impacted the whole world or everyone being marooned on a mysterious island that defies scientific laws or whatever.

What do y'all think?

I don't even understand what you're trying to say.
Ashes is based on a Pathfinder campaign, so... you should expect gods to exist in the game world.
We'll have to see how generic the gods actually feel in game, but from what we know so far, they seem intriguing. Goddess of Creation as the leader of the pantheon is not as generic as some sky daddy - like Zeus.

Ashes had a supernatural disaster - the Apocalypse. And there is also the supernatural disaster of Corruption.
The threat of Corruption has been diminished enough that the gods have allowed the player races to return to Verra after millennia on Sanctus. When players first arrive, they will have to kick the Ancients out of the 5 Castles.
Ashes doesn't necessarily have generic factions, like the Horde or Alliance in WoW - but players will form Castle factions and Node factions and Guild factions. Players will probably have Religious factions and Social Org factions... possibly Naval factions.

The things you've mentioned aren't missing...

Dygz

CROW3 wrote: »

I’m interested to understand more what ‘good’ and ‘evil’ means in Steven’s universe. Both concepts are usually relative to a religion. I’m wondering if the regions will be squabbling about their own petty differences while corruption gobbles up Verra.

Does the make corruption objectively evil (as it results in destruction and death), objectively good (as maybe it’s a necessary precursor to the dawning of a new age), or is it objectively neutral (like black holes in our universe, just cleaning up the random star matter)?

I'd prefer no Good v Evil.
Rather Non-Corrupted v Corrupted.
But, seems like Ashes does have Good v Evil. Specifically, pursuit of immortality being objectively Evil in the lore.

joshisanonymous

Dygz wrote: »

The things you've mentioned aren't missing...

I don't watch and read everything that comes out. In fact, I don't watch or read the vast majority of what comes out. For someone like me, most of what you said is not apparent from looking through the web site or Wiki.

Percimes

bloodprophet wrote: »

joshisanonymous wrote: »

Cat Quiver wrote: »

That you're doing an incredible amount of overthinking for a game that's still in alpha

Nuub wrote: »

I also think that making any determinations about the quality of the lore at this point in development is premature. They wont be releasing major plot points and background before the game comes out, there will be monumental reveals about lore discovered in game. I would hold your final judgement at least until they reveal it to us.

Yeah, it's early in development, but the major thematic focus of the lore of an MMO usually isn't the last thing developers figure out as far as I can tell. I mean, they have to choose a setting for their game from the very beginning, and I would think that's when they ask themselves, "Why this time? Why this place? What's the point of this setting?" The answer could be "because", sure, or "I guess we'll figure that out later", but this is sort of an essential question to answer as soon as possible for creative works of pretty much any type, otherwise the result tends to end up being messy and uninspired.

As Crow said above they are keeping most things f the lore super secret. Everyone and then Steven gets excited and leaks things and Margaret gets nervous.
What we know is listed well on the wiki.
Something/someone caused a cataclysm. Most fled through the Divine gates to Sanctus. Thousands of year later the gates open and people start exploring the world.
That is where we come in as explorers going through the gates to reclaim Verra and figure out what happened.

Is based on Steven's home game of Pathfinder.

It will be very interesting to discover how the lore for the Vera vs. Sanctus is portrayed. Thousand of years of exile on Sanctus can't be shrugged off, the time there should have shaped the cultures of the different races compared to their origins on Verra. Will the return be presented as a return to normal (albeit a corrupted normal) or as a continuation of the life in Sanctus? How has Sanctus changed the people? How did people interact on the other side of those gate? Peaceful coexistence or did the gods let them fight all the time?

And then there are the Tulnar.

It will be interesting, not sure how much it will be part of the gameplay vs. how the world is presented, but I'm sure it will be a fun journey.

bloodprophet

Percimes wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

joshisanonymous wrote: »

Cat Quiver wrote: »

That you're doing an incredible amount of overthinking for a game that's still in alpha

Nuub wrote: »

I also think that making any determinations about the quality of the lore at this point in development is premature. They wont be releasing major plot points and background before the game comes out, there will be monumental reveals about lore discovered in game. I would hold your final judgement at least until they reveal it to us.

Yeah, it's early in development, but the major thematic focus of the lore of an MMO usually isn't the last thing developers figure out as far as I can tell. I mean, they have to choose a setting for their game from the very beginning, and I would think that's when they ask themselves, "Why this time? Why this place? What's the point of this setting?" The answer could be "because", sure, or "I guess we'll figure that out later", but this is sort of an essential question to answer as soon as possible for creative works of pretty much any type, otherwise the result tends to end up being messy and uninspired.

As Crow said above they are keeping most things f the lore super secret. Everyone and then Steven gets excited and leaks things and Margaret gets nervous.
What we know is listed well on the wiki.
Something/someone caused a cataclysm. Most fled through the Divine gates to Sanctus. Thousands of year later the gates open and people start exploring the world.
That is where we come in as explorers going through the gates to reclaim Verra and figure out what happened.

Is based on Steven's home game of Pathfinder.

It will be very interesting to discover how the lore for the Vera vs. Sanctus is portrayed. Thousand of years of exile on Sanctus can't be shrugged off, the time there should have shaped the cultures of the different races compared to their origins on Verra. Will the return be presented as a return to normal (albeit a corrupted normal) or as a continuation of the life in Sanctus? How has Sanctus changed the people? How did people interact on the other side of those gate? Peaceful coexistence or did the gods let them fight all the time?

And then there are the Tulnar.

It will be interesting, not sure how much it will be part of the gameplay vs. how the world is presented, but I'm sure it will be a fun journey.

Agreed.
Tulnar are the ones that didn't get through the gates and lived underground and mutated.
Rest are all good questions and we probably won't know till after launch.

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