Ashes of Creation: Lockdowns Can’t Stop Pre-Alpha Footage We Have Been Waiting For!

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s long due that we cover the Ashes of Creation! Some of you might have been on board ever since the very successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2017, but some of you might have heard about it very recently, and mostly so due to the amazing reputation the game and its developer — Intrepid Studios — are getting.

Deservingly so: at the center of the game is the feature many of us MMORPG players wish to see in our games, and that’s the ability to cause visible change in the massive open world via in-game player actions.

When a player makes a choice in the quest, it can’t be undone. An erupted volcano will permanently change the state of your server’s world (yes, that means that there will be servers where the catastrophe has been prevented). A tyrant can be de-throned if players help lead an uprising against them.

If you haven’t already, you should absolutely check out the recent Alpha One Early Preview livestream (below), because you will get to see some of these elements in action.

Despite the recent stay-at-home orders, Intrepid Studio developers have quickly adapted to working from home and have gotten us two hours worth of live discussion and gameplay footage, and we got a confirmation that build is really starting to come together! Can you believe that it has been 3 years since the Kickstarter campaign already?

So, for those of you who are just tuning in and discovering the game — what will this whole awesome affect-the-world idea look like?

Ever since Ashes of Creation Kickstarter we have been told about the so-called “Node System.” That is, multiple Nodes placed within each zone on the server which respond to players completing daily tasks and adventures. As players progress and level up, so do the Nodes, and a camp in the wilderness can because a village, a city, or eventually even a metropolis.

As the population grows, players will be allowed to own housing at the location, either through in-Node housing (as a reward for participating in the early stages of development), instanced housing (inside an apartment), or a Freehold system (claiming land within the Node’s influence). The centers will be ruled by players via more democratic approach or more forceful measures, and players will be the ones to decide what infrastructure gets built and where — making choices to build some types of buildings over others due to the limited space available.

Some of these regions might have surplus of some resources while others will be lacking in others, so trade routes must be established and resources should be exchanged either via diplomacy or conflict.

Intrigued? Excited? Can’t wait? Well, you should be since Intrepid Studios has developers who had experience with Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest, EverQuest II, EverQuest Next, PlanetSide, PlanetSide 2, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and XCOM: Enemy Within.

These developers are MMO gamers first, and it shows. Where some other MMOs ruin the player economy by offering pay2win or pay2convenience, Intrepid Studios has been true to only allow players to pay for cosmetics and will continue to stay true to this promise. Where some other MMOs rush their games because they reveal the project too late in the development cycle, Intrepid Studios is showing you all of the pre-Alpha build and they want your feedback.

So, check out the game’s website! Look through the news and check out the impressive footage. Hop onto forums and take a part in the conversations and open development of Ashes of Creation. Be among the players to recognize early Easter Eggs when you see them in the game once it releases, like the Alpha 0 island where all of the footage we have been seeing recently is coming from.

After all, MMOs have always been a very social way to play games together, and with projects like Ashes of Creation you can be a part of this community before the game even releases.