Creation July Development Update
Environment Tech, Updated Art, Tulnar Reveal
July 29, 2022
TL;DR
- Environment/Art Tech revealed
- Caravan information updated
- New race (Tulnar) revealed
This month’s update focused a lot on desert biome, its art, and encounters we may face there.
Caravan Creation Through Caravansary
This was sort of a side-note of the stream that came out of the question posed by one member of the community. The question that started this “information dump” was among the lines “Do I have to own a caravan to transport materials, or can someone else provide that service to me?” The short answer is YES, you can rely on others.
Steven Sharif explained that caravans will be created at something called Caravansary, and it will be possible to assign other players to the caravans you create. Steven expanded by saying that caravans can also be insured, so in case it gets attacked and destroyed, you don’t lose all the items being transported.
This brings about an interesting gameplay, and further cements Ashes of Creation’s theme of interconnectivity between players. This mechanic could free you from thinking about caravans completely (except for when needing to transport the goods), and just focus on material gathering, crafting, or other artisan activities. On the other hand, could we see players that are 100% focused on creating and maintaining efficient caravan routes? Promoting themselves as the best caravan in the area? I guess we will see how this Ashes of Creation Uber system pans out.
In-house Landformation Tool "Landform" Explained
As prefixed at the beginning of the livestream, bigger portion was dedicated to the presenation of internal-created tool that helps with art creation, and “removes barriers that usually exist in virtual world creation.”
As one of the developers said, asset creation process can be quite tedious with the usage of a lot of different programs. This causes workflow interruption, which can slow down the process entirely. Landform tool, as it was named, removes these interruptions by allowing the artist to stay in the engine while working on assets.
One other benefit that comes from the tool is Performance benefit. Landform tool allows high-fidelity geometry to be used, without alienating big part of the playerbase due to hardware constraints. Meaning, assets developed should not have a huge negative impact on lower-end graphics cards.
Why does this information matter to players? Ultimately, the goal of these types of tools is to make the game accessible to as much people as possible so that it can reach those high population numbers, which is one of the building blocks of a Massively Multiplayer Online…
One note to add, is that the statue being showcased during Landform tool reveal seems to play siginificant role, perhaps story-wise, as Steven refused to reveal any details about it saying “That is something you will need to discover in the world.” However, one detail did get out, and that is that iconography on the circlet should give us a hint.
Empyrian And Ren'Kai Race Redesign
This segment was prefixed with the explanation that all race redesigns are made to follow the new design standards, and to make all the races more unique. So, as it’s customary, we got some new character art updates, new mount concepts, and new armor set concepts.
Tulnar Race Introduced For The First Time
Tulnar is a race that has been hinted at throught the development of Ashes of Creation, but never revealed. Until now. Before concept art reveal, we were introduced to the race as the proud noble underworld-dwelling race that were left behind, and suffered during the exsodus from Verra.
With this background, the race will have some intricacies when it comes to the customization. The players will be able to dial up/down certain influences (humanoid, reptilian, etc.), which will impact the look of the character. If the influence exceeds certain threshold, the base body of the character will assume the form and stance one of three primary types of influences that exist on this race. The image (left) shows how those three influences look like on Tulnar race. This race is portraied as quite important for the lore of the game, and how everything came about in the world of Verra.
If you want to watch the development update you can check it out on Ashes of Creation Youtube channel.