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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
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Splinter Topic: Narrative Design Hell Is Other People
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Just shifting out some responses to a specific, great post by Ace1234 in a specific thread:
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/67715/ashes-terrain-topography-and-cohesion
Full text of post below:
Yes, the title is a reference to the literary work/play, heavyhandedness is unfortunately subjective. Very meta. It was either that or something about a "Three Body Problem".
MMORPG Devs are limited by the idea that they should make most of their players at least feel good. But unlike single player games or even competitive team games, MMORPGs are big and very few players care about all their aspects. The concepts laid out for the above area and related interactions are incredibly cool and perhaps even realizable in some modern games, but from what I know of MMORPG players, a nightmare for feedback from a certain subset.
Imagine a player who goes online, reads the guide-history created by the first player to achieve the "Revealer" status, and follows it, then realizes that this guide/experience wasn't about 'making them also be a Revealer' or changing the world somehow, but just so that they could experience the story/concept.
They're able to have the experience, but not the reward of either the title or the recognition.
Or, you can imagine being in the pitch room for such a content type, having to argue against the manager who says how useless it is to make this content which effectively serves one person (in their eyes) and 'doesn't even have anything to do with combat or competition'.
Or the Community Team subjected to the dozens if not hundreds of complaints or even 'bug reports' about how X player didn't care about all this stuff, just wanted a gearpiece they saw in a Guide (because at least one person per Server might have it, and given Ashes' design, there may be another chance to get it, it wouldn't be ridiculous to have the Revealer or similar actually lose any reward item if they are killed while Corrupted, the world could even revert somewhat).
"What's the point of making this content that I personally can't achieve?"
Anyways, my heart goes out to all the Narrative/Lore designers and Devs trying their best to juggle the different player types, but this thread is mostly so my group can contain their 'ranting' to a more relevant thread...
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/67715/ashes-terrain-topography-and-cohesion
Full text of post below:
Vaknar
Sometimes I worry my posts are a bit too theory heavy and lack specific comprehensive examples, so I ran my post through chat gpt to come up with an area concept that reflects some of the things I mentioned, and thought it sounded pretty cool, enjoy.
🌑 Zone Concept: The Weeping Hollow
📍 Setting Summary:
A gloomy, sunken forest nestled in a crescent-shaped valley, constantly shrouded in mist. Once home to a reclusive sect of moon-worshippers, it was sealed off centuries ago following a catastrophic event known as the Lament. Now it’s overrun by strange flora, ghostlights, and corrupted wildlife.
This area evolves over time, reacts to player choices, and contains deep lore hidden in its terrain, making it a narrative sandbox for exploration, discovery, and role-play.
🧱 Core Concepts from the Post on Display
1. Worldbuilding / Narrative Integration
🔹 Visual Lore & Structure:
The forest layout itself follows lunar geometry — winding paths mirror crescent shapes, and ruins are arranged around a ritual basin in the shape of a full moon crater.
Statues of a three-faced moon goddess appear, each face turned toward a different cardinal direction — hinting at philosophical divisions among the ancient sect (Truth, Memory, and Mystery).
🔹 Layered Narrative Access:
Early on: Players find tablets and murals hinting at a ritual to “drown memory in moonlight.”
Later in story (or via exploration): They learn the “Lament” was a failed ritual to erase a collective trauma — the goddess divided into aspects as punishment.
The more players uncover, the more their understanding of the forest shifts — it’s not a cursed place, but a spiritual scar.
🔹 World-state storytelling:
If a player sides with certain factions, statues begin to "weep" starlight or blood.
Interacting with a certain hidden shrine unlocks a hidden history, changing dialogue in future quests across the world. NPCs may now recognize the player as a "Lament-Touched."
2. Mystery and Discovery
🔍 Non-linear Exploration:
The mist changes dynamically — obscuring and revealing new routes based on time of day, season, or player attunement.
Day: Wildlife aggressive, few landmarks visible.
Night: Ghostlights appear, statues rotate, secret glyphs glow.
Full Moon Event (monthly): A door in the hollowed tree opens to a hidden sanctum.
🧠 Knowledge-based Gameplay:
Puzzle shrines scattered in the zone require interpretation of moon phases, statue orientation, and lore clues.
An abandoned observatory on a hill lets players align its telescope to the glowing craters to reveal glyphs on nearby trees. These glyphs unlock an optional class-specific skill if deciphered.
🧩 Environmental Interactions:
Certain rare herbs only bloom under specific moonlight cycles — they can be used to brew elixirs or unlock alternate dialogue options in key storylines.
A rare creature, the Velumbra Stag, can only be summoned if players lure it with moon lilies planted during a prior seasonal event — encouraging long-term mystery-solving.
3. Atmosphere
🎧 Audio-Visual Integration:
Ambient audio includes whispering wind that changes pitch with proximity to hidden lore markers.
Leitmotifs evolve with player progress: a soft harp theme becomes more dissonant or hopeful depending on story paths chosen (e.g., embracing the memory vs. erasing it).
Lighting is volumetric, diffused through fog. As players solve more mysteries, the fog starts to part more frequently, letting in beams of moonlight — giving the sense that the forest is “responding” to the player.
🎨 Theming:
Visuals support the theme of half-remembered history — half-built bridges, statues with missing faces, trees growing upside-down.
Optional role-play tents exist for players — e.g., they can meditate at shrines to receive visions that influence story arcs, even if they’re not on the “main path.”
🧭 How It All Comes Together in Different Player Journeys
🧙♂️ Player A: The Scholar Path (Truth)
Focused on learning the forest's history.
Solves puzzles, finds the sealed library under the lake using moon glyphs.
Discovers the true nature of the Lament and shares it globally — this causes the mist to thin permanently for their server, changing visibility for all.
World perceives them as a “Revealer.” NPCs treat them with reverence, and certain items cost less or become unlocked.
⚔️ Player B: The Purger Path (Control)
Wants to purge the corruption and harness power from the Weeping Hollow.
Sides with a fire-worshipping order that believes in cleansing the land.
Burns down one of the spirit groves. Mist recedes temporarily but angers the Velumbra Stag, who now appears hostile in future encounters.
This creates dynamic conflict: future players must choose to appease or destroy the beast — affecting future seasonal events.
🌙 Player C: The Role-Player (Mystery/Memory)
Focuses on immersing in the mood, meditating at moon shrines during full moons.
Unlocks secret dialogue options for key NPCs in far-off cities (thanks to hidden memories gained in visions).
Over time, becomes a member of a secret roleplay-only cult of the Three-Faced Moon.
Special cloak reward only available through this long-form spiritual RP path.
🧩 Final Layer: Systemic Interdependence
The map is designed to reflect all of this: layered topography with fog/mist effects, persistent weather conditions, landmark visibility lines, and timed events.
The zone’s design encourages return visits under different world-states, with multiple optional storylines and character build effects tied into the area's mysteries.
✅ TL;DR
The Weeping Hollow showcases:
Worldbuilding via lore-rich landmarks and layered history.
Mystery & Discovery through exploration, hidden systems, and player choices that change perception and access.
Atmosphere via coordinated audio-visuals, emotional theming, and symbolic layout.
And most importantly, all these elements interlock dynamically, reacting to player agency, faction alignment, roleplay, time, and story progression — just as the original forum post envisions.
Yes, the title is a reference to the literary work/play, heavyhandedness is unfortunately subjective. Very meta. It was either that or something about a "Three Body Problem".
MMORPG Devs are limited by the idea that they should make most of their players at least feel good. But unlike single player games or even competitive team games, MMORPGs are big and very few players care about all their aspects. The concepts laid out for the above area and related interactions are incredibly cool and perhaps even realizable in some modern games, but from what I know of MMORPG players, a nightmare for feedback from a certain subset.
Imagine a player who goes online, reads the guide-history created by the first player to achieve the "Revealer" status, and follows it, then realizes that this guide/experience wasn't about 'making them also be a Revealer' or changing the world somehow, but just so that they could experience the story/concept.
They're able to have the experience, but not the reward of either the title or the recognition.
Or, you can imagine being in the pitch room for such a content type, having to argue against the manager who says how useless it is to make this content which effectively serves one person (in their eyes) and 'doesn't even have anything to do with combat or competition'.
Or the Community Team subjected to the dozens if not hundreds of complaints or even 'bug reports' about how X player didn't care about all this stuff, just wanted a gearpiece they saw in a Guide (because at least one person per Server might have it, and given Ashes' design, there may be another chance to get it, it wouldn't be ridiculous to have the Revealer or similar actually lose any reward item if they are killed while Corrupted, the world could even revert somewhat).
"What's the point of making this content that I personally can't achieve?"
Anyways, my heart goes out to all the Narrative/Lore designers and Devs trying their best to juggle the different player types, but this thread is mostly so my group can contain their 'ranting' to a more relevant thread...
Stellar Devotion.
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And people ask for that stuff mostly because they believe that THEY will be the one to have that ability. THEY will be cool and strong enough to stand out. And then when reality comes in and they realize that there's always a cheater/kid/3rd world country grinder for money player that is always better than them - they start complaining and try to make these special ablilities available to their own skill/time lvl.
It always makes me laugh when older players, who played a shitton in their youth, start asking to be pampered and catered too, even though when they were young - they woulda hated if the old people of that time were the ones pampered.
In other words, as cool as these kinds of designs might seem in our minds or in different media - they do not work in real world practice, due to human psychology. And if you try to create something special for literally every player in the game - you'd need SAO-lvl AI that can rebuild the world at will and create all of that content. But alas, for now we only have a text generator that people rely on WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH.
@Azherae
I think that might be "missing the forest for the trees" a bit. The idea of special recognitions is such a small aspect of the reasons behind that type of design, and worst case scenario that particular aspect could be left out altogether. But im personally not one for participation trophies, so I wouldn't be one of those who would complain. Obviously some would, but that doesn't seem like it goes against Ashes philosophy in general (Ashes is not for everyone, blah, blah) and there are already similar planned systems as the one who highlight as being a problem (such as the limited legendary weapons on a server). So, if Ashes sticks to its philosophy and target audience, I think this kind of things adds value rather than detracting from it.
The real problem is the one Azherae mentioned, where you have to constantly balance and consider the perferred content types of various player types. But there are solutions for this imo which Ashes has already taken for other systems as well (like seperating content relating to macro vs micro competitions for example). I don't think there always has to be the problem of having "competing ideas", so I think you could definitely can have content for different types of players without necessarily having to sacrifice the quality given smart design. Worst case scenario is they don't have the resources to do it all and have to choose who to cater to, in which case great, but that might be something worth getting feedback or testing data on to see what would be worth investing into (unless Azherae you are saying your data implies it would not be worth it), I personally don't have enough info/experience on this particular perspective to have an opinion either way so I would just take your word for it.
And also, creating a 3d model, a stat stick and a bit of description for it is not that much dev work. Creating an event/quest/storyarc (M O D U L E) where several different people can make several different choices, with several different outcomes and several different rewards (even if just titles, though the npcs calling you that would also have to be a separate code-based hook) - THAT is a lot of work.
There's a reason why the instanced dungeons in the game will be the story ones. Steven wants to tell his story and wants as many people as possible to experience it, while also keeping the dev costs as optimal as possible. Making a branching story is difficult even in single player games (ME3 3-color lightbeams were a massive indicator of that). In an mmo that's even harder, because you gotta account for all the future interactions with those players, cause if you don't then the immersion and the effect of the story strongly diminishes.
I'd probably be all for this kind of thing post-release, but that would highly depend on whether Ashes is successful enough to support that level of development.
We should probably all be 'afraid' of a future in which junior Narrative Designers with less oversight are implementing ChatGPT questlines outright, but on the other hand, it gets right back to the core of it all. For a lot of people, more content is better than 'waiting for good content', and not just because 'they don't really care about the content that much'.
(as for 'what my experience tells me', it's only that people complain, but because they complain asymmetrically, I wouldn't want to draw conclusions, for that, you have to look at games that have strong modding scenes or private servers)
My interpretation of the Story Arc system is that the open world would have a degree of story reactivity. Yes, it is a lot of work but the emergence, reactivity, and storytelling envisioned is also a core aspect of what Ashes is trying to be. Regarding the potential outcomes/possibilities, that is basically what the story arc system would already be accounting for, and there is already loads of complexity planned for the world predicates, events, and branching stories of the server. So I personally don't see much of a difference in what has been shown/explained to already be planned, vs. the potential ideas I presented.
Regarding interest from non-competitive types, I am unsure of this. Seems like a good question for @Dygz. Does something like this seem interesting to you as a player?
The closest we have to a "you'll have a unique personal story" is this
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Story_arcs
It is possible for some storylines to relate to a darker/evil path, if a character should choose.[18]
But that was stated back in 2017, and I'm sure you know just how many things have changed in the design since then - most of them towards the side of making development easier and design more straightforward.
As much as I'd love a massive sprawling M O D U L E, with several impacting endings and full player choice on what kind of interaction they'll get out of that ending - I expect all of this to just be statistical. 100 players chose to speak to npc A and did its quest. 95 players did npc B's quest. M O D U L E progresses down path A. Rinse repeat.
We'll also, supposedly, have one-off M O D U L E S that don't even repeat once they're done, so I'd at least hoooope that we might get the interactions your post mentioned, where npc can address you based on the decisions you made during that quest chain, but we'll have to see if Intrepid will go that deep.
Yeah, we are the locusts, we do consoom. Ashes definitely has quite a few systems where "waiting for good content" is almost the intrinsic nature of the content, so we'll see how the majority of players react to that.
Players ask for things, and then proceed to completely skip them. Which causes a pain for devs who truly love their work (Tico from TL talks about this a bit in an interview) and is a detriment to the very same players. There's no point in asking for content to consume if you're bad at consuming. That's the core of my problem with players.
I will provide a few examples, see if you can find yourselves reflected in any of them. Because if you do, it means you have, hopefully unintentionally, contributed to the design hell.
1) While some players hide their problems by just having maxed gear, late night Dimensional Circle runs in TL (instanced dungeon run with boss at the end) often involve less geared players, which will result in the following: players skip literally all non-mandatory mob fights on the route to the boss like usual, then someone messes up some execution element and the angry swarm of mobs catches up and kills someone. Then people get mad at each other and someone leaves, and we have to search for new members. I've had this process take literally 3 times the time it would've taken to just clear the dungeon once, the normal way
2) I once had a Dimensional Circle run in the orc region and in order to unlock the boss area, we had to defeat a few orcs on a narrow bridge. One of the orcs got pushed by a player ability on the rocks under the bridge, making it impossible to advance. In order to resolve this, I climbed down to beat it. For various level design reasons, climbing back up takes a bit even if trying to kill oneself and respawn. As thanks, my party started without me, and I got locked out of getting any rewards. Please take a moment to process what this means on the design side. Are we expecting devs to design every single square meter of their content with the base assumption their playerbase is made of scummy weasels? Do we even pay them enough for that?
3) In a separate run, I've had a player complain the entire time that the party was being weird or weak (we were about 10-15% slower than usual peak hour tryhard comp) and focused on dropping really unpleasant comments instead of working on the teamwork. When I finally had enough and asked them to stop so I wouldn't block them, their reaction was along the lines of "lol I don't know you, what are you going to do about it?". This might be hard to see at first, but in order to minimize these kinds of reaction, devs need to work really hard on making sure those gaps are not large or frequent for most of the playerbase. Can you do that? I'd quit before I started.
4) I recently had a new member join our guild. They were a returning TL player who had the same standard experience of their party members skipping everything and taking the most direct routes to the boss. When our guild proceeded to full clear the dungeon run, they discovered new and interesting parts about dungeons they'd already done many times before. How's that for asking for content you won't consume?
So here's my tl;dr: from all of my gaming experience, the kind of people that devs need to design around the most is like that toxic rival party in isekai animes. When we watch those shows we root for their downfall, when we play MMOs we become them. How do you design for that?
In many ways for me, design hell isn't other people, it is 'other genre's/niche's that feel entitled for THIS game to be THEIR game'. In an mmo, if you have fishing fishers will ask you to make it a fishing game. If you have pvp gankers will ask you to make it a gank box. If you have team vs team fights herofighters will ask you to make a moba. If you need funding from angel/demon investors, the investors will ask for you to have loot boxes and a heavily monetized shop front. The magic of mmo design in particular (or any crossgenre game for that matter) is learning how to make a game for a niche that fills multiple audiences rather than a single audience. But what a lot of those various audience members don't seem to understand is that if you, the dev, listen to every member in the audience the reasonable conclusion will be to not build an entire game but many smaller ones. I would argue there is a path in game design where you can make a skeleton that holds a bunch of different games but it won't feel like a game with 'identity'.
This isn't to say the 'experts' of that 'genre' shouldn't be listened to when making the game, it means that they should be listened to with a removal of self centered requests from their feedback. It must always be measure by what is the most essential for the core experience first. Additions are at the behest of what would lead to the world feeling most alive that doesn't become exploitable or obstructive to other audiences. You can't make crafting the only way to progress through an mmo that isn't trying to be solely about crafting. It bogs down the gameplay for many and takes them away from 'the fun part'. That is why econ design and marketplaces are essential! They help you solve problems for other audiences so that everyone can 'get along'. The worst kind of feed back, the hell, comes from other people telling other audiences that not only they are wrong, but that their most selfish wishes should be prioritized 'if the game really wants to succeed'.
I think this is my biggest gripe with people who come into mmo forums with WoW as their foundational background. They played 'the most succesful one' for so long that they don't realize that people NEED not just want or 'expect' the game to NOT be WoW. Yet because of the success of it, it is easy to think this is 'the only path'. Many suggestions by this cohort end up eroding the identity of so many games. I'm not saying you need to play a wide variety of games or that all WoW player advice is bad. There are definitely good WoW players who know what design hell looks like and are benevolent and good contributors. But it is COMMON. And I am sorry to say, but if you don't have a wide enough mmo experience it is hard to know when you are being someones 'design hell' or when you are requesting something 'selfish' in the design space.
I think that is why I love Ashes audience based approach, at least in the past, they tended to really talk to people who had very different mmo backgrounds. This let them get to the real heart of what Ashes could be and developed a distinct brand for a time despite Steven's relatively limited mmo experience. I think Steven genuinely enjoyed that period of Ashes development as well. He seems most at home talking to other mmo players about the topic they love most. But at the end of the day, I think if you suffer design hell long enough it's hard not to come to your own devilish impulses. It's hard to make a game, but even harder to fight for an audience that isn't your own even if that same audience is responsible for creating the unique identity and feel of your game.
Lawless zones definitely 'changed the entire genre of the game' for me so I don't think I really disagree with you.
Complaints are asymmetrical, both due to 'culture/behaviour type' and expectations.
I'll use a Throne and Liberty example here because it's so simple and so incredibly ... 'not nuanced'?
Soon after the release of the expansion (perhaps with it, I should check but I'm in a flow) they halved the respawn rate of basically every mob in the world.
Blanket change. Everything just respawns twice as fast. Who asked for this? If we assume it needed to be done because of increased player count, sure. It makes the world feel silly in a lot of places, but whatever, it's not that big a deal...
If it's temporary.
It's still there. The world still feels silly. Some events don't work quite 'right' anymore. Some PvP for spots is just ... entirely weirdly unbalanced now. One off-to-the-side area has mobs respawn almost faster than certain classes can kill them.
This definitely feels bad, and basically since the population distribution is back to 'normal', it's no longer serving any real purpose. But I bet that the number of people who 'complained that the mobs didn't respawn fast enough' (assuming there were any) was higher than the number of people who bothered to give feedback to complain that they respawn too fast now.
This also illustrates the cultural difference. @Ludullu pointed it out in a different post to someone else recently, that a certain subtype of player just 'goes along with changes they don't like as much' because they understand certain needs (I can't say they're actually more patient, but all the ones I personally know are). Whereas impatient people who prefer/seek quicker gratification don't see the validity in 'soft' needs of others.
Basically, you'll get more PvP players complaining that the Devs spent any time on Fishing, than Fishers complaining that the Devs spent time balancing PvP. Both are important, but by 'volume'...
This is a place where data gathering doesn't help as much. You can gather a lot of data about PvP because PvP is competitive and people won't 'give up' their PvP territories just because Balance is currently swingy (looking at you still, Ravagers and ubertanks). But I'm still here fishing up Nature's Jade and unable to make them into anything that makes me enjoy Fishing more, because even if I did yell about how X item needs to have a crafting recipe to make this game more fun, it's not as visceral as 'your balance is shit, NCSoft, fix your game!' from 40 random people.
And I'm not going to respond to those 40 people by going 'shut up, the balance is fine, I need them to focus on Fishing!' because that's stupid.
But I'm sure you know that there are definitely people who respond to Fishing improvements with 'who the fuck even fishes in this game? Why are they wasting time on this?' (verbatim from World Chat).
The people who would enjoy the Weeping Hollow get to do it a few times or 'occasionally', and it's part of their love and experience of the genre, but they're not going to kick up as huge a fuss when someone else yells about how 'this quest isn't rewarding enough, it's such BS', nor possibly even when some Dev changes the Quest/world to be more 'accessible to more players'.
Honestly one of the greatest validations I've received from my time with Ashes of Creation is to get to see all those people passionate about things like immersion and economy before they give up on the game, to remember that they're still at least equal measure if not a majority. When someone next asks "Why did this MMO fail, what was wrong with the playerbase?" I can actually say 'nah, crafting was bad/nonexistent/ignored so game was cooked' and not worry so much that I'm just projecting my biases.
Well, either Intrepid/First Spark will save us, or we wait a few years and some AI will.
Oh absolutely, I don't know if you remember or not but this was actually my initial point I made that sparked a huge discussion in that "My pvx != your pvx" Chibibree thread. To quote my first 2 comments from that thread:
But I think this is just the egocentric nature of a lot of people in general, and an inherent problem of pretty much any game in general because there will always be people who have different preferences no matter how slight or nuanced, they will find something to disagree with and complain about even if the rationale for the design decision was actually good for certain subsets of players and better for the game as a whole. This is just much more magnified for something as diverse as an mmo audience.
I think addressing this problem isnt as much of a concern, because some players will just not play a game at all regardless unless every decision/dev action is EXACTLY what they want, and you can't really do much about that unless you want to make the game for that 1 specific person. But I feel like most people won't outright leave a game just because "im a pvper and the devs spent some time developing fishing". So in this example I think its more about just making sure the pvpers have enough dev resources spent on them to where they are happy enough, even if that means kinda annoying them by dedicating some time to other things. Thats my perspective at least.
I'm gonna read this after our live stream.