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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.
What If Caravans Were Real Trade, Not Just an NPC Delivery Quest?
Vargos
Member, Alpha Two
Caravans and Economy: How to Make the System Truly Alive
At the moment, caravans in Ashes of Creation seem like an isolated mechanic that lacks deep economic impact. They currently serve more as a PvP event rather than a meaningful system for building real trade between nodes. The transportation mechanic does not encourage players to think strategically or to participate in the world's economic processes.
I believe caravans could become a key part of Vera's living economy if they are properly integrated into a system of regional supply and demand. This would create a real need for trade, where players are motivated to move resources from one node to another where they are scarce.
Suggestions to Improve the Caravan System
1. Real Economy and Trade Routes
Creating a system where resources are regionally locked (as I suggested in this earlier topic) would encourage players to participate in real economic activities. For example, if a certain resource is only available in one region, players would need to transport it to other regions where it is lacking. This would create real trade routes, give players the opportunity to influence the economy, and, with enough risk, strategic planning, and skill, make a profit.
2. Motivation to Participate in Caravans
Participation in caravans should be rewarding for solo players, small parties, and large guilds alike. Different types of caravans could be introduced:
3. Resource Sink and Price Stabilization
When a caravan is destroyed, a portion of the resources will be permanently removed from the game.
This would act as a powerful balancing mechanism, increasing resource flow and stimulating demand.
Without this system, resource losses would be negligible, but with proper implementation, a significant portion of goods moving between nodes would risk destruction, creating a dynamic market with natural price stabilization.
4. Competition for Strategic Nodes
Nodes located near valuable resources or ports would become strategic points of interest for guilds and alliances. This would encourage conflict and competition for control over such nodes, adding depth to the gameplay and creating additional points of tension across Vera.
5. Risk vs Reward System
Players would be able to choose their own level of risk and potential reward. The farther the delivery destination, the higher the selling price of the resource—but the greater the risk. The larger the cargo, the more a player stands to lose. This aligns perfectly with the core risk vs reward design philosophy of Ashes.
Conclusion
Integrating caravans into a deeper economic system involving regional resources, risks and reward would make Ashes of Creation a truly living, dynamic world with a real economy, where resources are blood and caravans are veins.
It would create real economic pathways, allow players to influence the market, stimulate player interaction, and add meaningful depth to gameplay.
Additionally, it would serve as a powerful natural removal of resources from the game, helping to stabilize the game’s economy due to significant losses during transportation.
I hope the developers consider these suggestions and make caravans a meaningful part of Vera's economy, rather than leaving them as just another NPC-driven mechanic with some PvP elements.
I would be happy to hear your comments and thoughts on this.
What other advantages do you see, and what are possible disadvantages?
At the moment, caravans in Ashes of Creation seem like an isolated mechanic that lacks deep economic impact. They currently serve more as a PvP event rather than a meaningful system for building real trade between nodes. The transportation mechanic does not encourage players to think strategically or to participate in the world's economic processes.
I believe caravans could become a key part of Vera's living economy if they are properly integrated into a system of regional supply and demand. This would create a real need for trade, where players are motivated to move resources from one node to another where they are scarce.
Suggestions to Improve the Caravan System
1. Real Economy and Trade Routes
Creating a system where resources are regionally locked (as I suggested in this earlier topic) would encourage players to participate in real economic activities. For example, if a certain resource is only available in one region, players would need to transport it to other regions where it is lacking. This would create real trade routes, give players the opportunity to influence the economy, and, with enough risk, strategic planning, and skill, make a profit.
2. Motivation to Participate in Caravans
Participation in caravans should be rewarding for solo players, small parties, and large guilds alike. Different types of caravans could be introduced:
- Small caravans for solo players with limited cargo space, less defense, but much faster.
- Medium caravans of various sizes, different speeds, and defense characteristics for groups of players.
- Large slow and high defensive caravans for guilds or alliances with coordinated defense mechanics.
3. Resource Sink and Price Stabilization
When a caravan is destroyed, a portion of the resources will be permanently removed from the game.
This would act as a powerful balancing mechanism, increasing resource flow and stimulating demand.
Without this system, resource losses would be negligible, but with proper implementation, a significant portion of goods moving between nodes would risk destruction, creating a dynamic market with natural price stabilization.
4. Competition for Strategic Nodes
Nodes located near valuable resources or ports would become strategic points of interest for guilds and alliances. This would encourage conflict and competition for control over such nodes, adding depth to the gameplay and creating additional points of tension across Vera.
5. Risk vs Reward System
Players would be able to choose their own level of risk and potential reward. The farther the delivery destination, the higher the selling price of the resource—but the greater the risk. The larger the cargo, the more a player stands to lose. This aligns perfectly with the core risk vs reward design philosophy of Ashes.
Conclusion
Integrating caravans into a deeper economic system involving regional resources, risks and reward would make Ashes of Creation a truly living, dynamic world with a real economy, where resources are blood and caravans are veins.
It would create real economic pathways, allow players to influence the market, stimulate player interaction, and add meaningful depth to gameplay.
Additionally, it would serve as a powerful natural removal of resources from the game, helping to stabilize the game’s economy due to significant losses during transportation.
I hope the developers consider these suggestions and make caravans a meaningful part of Vera's economy, rather than leaving them as just another NPC-driven mechanic with some PvP elements.
I would be happy to hear your comments and thoughts on this.
What other advantages do you see, and what are possible disadvantages?
0
Comments
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans
Thanks for the reply!
I absolutely agree that many of these ideas are mentioned in the design plans, and I understand that the system isn’t fully implemented yet.
However, I think its valuable to discuss these ideas in more detail with the community to help developers fine-tune the implementation. As we’ve seen in many MMOs, features often change a lot between concept and reality.
I believe community feedback on how these systems should feel and function in practice - like balancing solo, small group, and guild participation, or how supply and demand could really impact the market - can make a big difference before these mechanics are finalized.
Would you agree that its better to shape the discussion now, rather than wait and react only after the system is already fully built?
Since Feedback is always important, it is indeed better to also talk about it instead of solely waiting for the development to get finished.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
I am in the guildless Guild so to say, lol. But i won't give up. I will find my fitting Guild "one Day".
No.
It is better to wait for the implementation of these caravans and crafting and gathering as a whole to be more fleshed out before bothering with in depth community discussion.
This is because not everyone has the same understanding of what changes to expect - this thread existing is evidence of that.
Caravans will be able to transfer 100 player inventories worth of raw materials - gathering that amount with harvesting as it is now is unreasonable. We currently have no idea what quantities of resources will be used for things like node building, sieges or ships.
Without knowing these things, we don't know the time investment needed to fill a caravan, or the value of those resources when at the destination. Without these basic facts, there is no discussion to be had.
People can and will state what they would like to see, but due to people not understanding what is still to come - and thus not basing their comments on the design goals of the game - such discussion is of no real value.
When these Caravans hit test, then it's worth discussing them.
That isn't to say you shouldn't or can't talk about them now - just that any discussion on it now is basically just banter between posters.
LIKE FOR EXAMPLE THE FUCKING CHANGE TO FULL DEATH PENALTIES IN PVP EVENTS. CHANGE IT THE FUCK BACK, STEVEEEEEEEN!
Oh no, not this "structured and logical post" again.
Next time I’ll try just spam random one-liners so it feels more authentic.
I think early community discussions are still valuable, not as final solutions, but as inspiration for design directions or potential pitfalls. Moreover, the administration noted in various topics that such conversations are very useful, not only feedbacks.
Its true that not everyone has the same understanding right now - and thats exactly why these conversations can help surface different perspectives before systems are locked in.
Of course, once the system hits testing, the discussion will be much more concrete.
I think its actually better if the developers already have a range of community-driven ideas and expectations on their radar before that happens.
And what's more, we were discussing all that stuff back when Ashes had waaay more hype behind it, so we had dozens of people going back and forward on different ideas. Noticing holes in each other's arguments and designs.
Now we have maaybe a few dozen really active posters on the entire forum (with a few A2 tourists). So when a well-discussed topic resurfaces - the oldtimers are tired of going around in the same conversational topics, while the newcomers propose literally the same stuff we did back in the day (or ever worse, cause they're not as familiar with the game's direction yet).
And considering that we've been discussing this shit for years, Intrepid have either already gone through all of that feedback internally or have moved past it, because they have some other plan that's not yet implemented. And so our usual response at this point simply becomes "yeah, we just gotta wait till we can give feedback to something more concrete".
I'd suggest reading all the previous threads on the topic you wanna bring up, but I realize that for some of those topics it's a damn novel-worth of words, some of which are barely coherent. If some AI out there has already sniffed through the years of these forums, you might wanna try asking it smth like "what have people discussed about this exact proposition". Though I got no clue what AI has done that, so can't help you there.
The amount of people that mistake uninformed player discussion for things that are actually possible (or even things that Intrepid have said) is astonishing. We had someone on these forums in the last few hours say they thought Intrepid said 2 years ago that the game would release in a year - Intrepid have never said that, but some uninformed, optimistic posters did.
The result of that is this poster now has a lesser opinion of Intrepid, because uninformed players had an uninformed discussion and an even more uninformed person didn't understand the level of information lack that was on display.
Discussions of "I think it would be cool if *a game* did this thing are always great. Discussions on how Intrepid should do things are not so good.
As to Intrepid saying they have found some threads useful - a few things to keep in mind. What is being said is that the community team have found the threads useful as a single source on a given topic (thinking the biome thread here). This makes it easier for the community team to take this to the developers. The comments in regards to a thread being helpful were not meant in terms of "this helps development of the game", but rather "this helps me write a memo faster".
The other super important thing to keep in mind - Intrepid are experienced MMORPG developers. They don't need our help.
Steven may, as he isn't experienced - but the rest of the team are.
Our value to Intrepid is in commenting if things feel right, or work correctly. It isn't in trying to come up with how things should be - that is what the experts are for. If something doesn't feel right, we tell them, and they work out a way to remedy the situation - we don't do that.