Will freehold selection be node type dependant?

akabear

My understanding is that there will be different node style aethetics, wondering if there will be some restraint on the freehold skin types usable in any given node in an attempt to maintain some coherance in the overall node aethetic.

Ludullu

Great question. Sure would love to get an answer to it within the next few years

Noaani

I strongly doubt there will be.

It is unlikely that Intrepid are going to sell freehold skins and then not allow players to use them.

I mean, they don't do it with armor type that has an actual gameplay issue associated with it - why would they do it just to maintain a coherent aesthetic?

Taleof2Cities

As Noaani said, it would be a shame to sell players pre-order freehold skins ... and then not be able to use them due to a node racial aesthetic restriction.

Sengarden

(somewhat) unfortunately, I agree with Noaani. I don't like thinking about the visual impact of giving any player willing to dole out the money access to a wide range of highly biome-specific cosmetic skins, but here we are. I'm pretty sure I already saw a cosmetic pack for sale that included a freehold building that looked like a giant tree-dwelling. I'd like to assume whoever bought that doesn't want to live in the desert, but the fact that placing it there will likely be possible is a bit silly.

This, along with the matter of species-specific mount abilities being mashed together with random animal skins are just a couple of the wrinkles that come with cosmetic monetization in a game that has such rich and complex systems as Ashes. Most games don't allow the player so much agency. Mounts don't have any unique combat abilities, you can't throw a home just anywhere in a wide variety of biomes, so the developers can sell whatever cosmetics they want. In Ashes, I think there may need to be some restrictions placed on cosmetic usage for the sake of logical consistency. The longer they wait to talk about it though, the more people they'll upset when those restrictions finally drop (if they do). We'll see what happens.

Nerror

I think I remember Steven or Jeff saying players will be free to use any racial architecture they want on their freehold, regardless of character race. I assume that goes for cosmetics as well. By extension, I don't think node type or culture has an effect on that.