Thank you all for your continued voice in our development. Reading your feedback and thoughts means a lot and helps us create a better product. See you all at our livestream this month! ❤️❤️❤️

This is what MMO players want! A studio that cares about the game experience and listens to the community thoughts and concerns. I’ve got faith in Ashes just based off of Stevens level of care alone.

The fact that he just gave the artisan classes live just shows what kind of a person he is and what type of company they are running. Awesome stuff.

Seriously, this AMA gave us more than we deserved. Thank you.

The information that was delivered in this AMA actually blew my mind, there is so much detail going into this game

WOW! Skill-based crafting sounds amazing!!

Every upload from this team feels genuine. The future is in good hands.

This is the first MMORPG i am really interested in since Everquest 2 decades ago. It feels good.

Steven, it is so refreshing to have an actual MMORPG PHD gameplayer developing a MMORPG where you are the final say in all development. Taking the best game mechanics and ideas of GW2, BDO, ESO, EQ, WoW, Arch Age and others and blending that into the perfect MMORPG with cutting age graphics and a expansive world size is a dream come true. After looking at Ranger combat and warrior combat, I would say that you are well on your way to nailing down the #1 core pillar that defines a MMORPG. Just keep your head down and make sure the other critical core game foundations are solid so you can build content on that solid foundation for years and years and years. I truly look forward to playing the game you and your staff have worked so hard to create for all of us. Like you said, I am not expecting a miracle mind blosing new spin to MMORPG gaming but a dam good game that I can get lost in with rich unique and rewarding content for hours and hours of fun with friends and family.

Just wanna say thank you Steven, for bringing hope to all of us long time MMO players. I think Ashes of Creation is going to be the game most of us have always wanted and that no one else has been able to deliver. I can assure you, I'll be there on day 1 when the game goes live and maybe sooner if I'm lucky enough to get in on the beta whenever that phase of development happens. Can't wait.

I believe you will have more than 1 million concurrent on launch. New world had that, I followed new mmos for a while, and I only really bought into new world last minute and that's only cause I had nothing else to play. Be prepared for more than 1 million concurrent, from a server planning perspective.

Was a very nice mid-month info dump! Keep em coming and much love to the team! Keep up the glorious work!

Seeing the heart you have for video games and MMORPG's specifically just makes me so hopeful and just HAPPY, Steven. That simple joy I used to have for gaming was lost in time but I managed to regain that simple pure happiness with studying philosophy and the love for my girlfriend so I can say I'm happy again. I had given up on the idea of being happy while gaming like I was used to, just the nostalgia kept me playing from time to time. But seeing you and everything Intrepid has done has reminded me that the simple joy I once had is still out there held by others and missed by others. And all that just gives me hope that even if it's for a few months or for a few weeks whenever a new patch comes, I can still feel it again whenever Ashes comes out. At the end of the day, it's just a game so play it like one but for some like me, there is this feeling that we want to experience once again even for a little bit, the feeling we felt when we started. The feeling of simplistic discovery and the freedom of JUST playing a video game, not a chore, just a simple VIDEO GAME. And you give me hope that it is still possible. Just thank you and keep doing what you are doing and you will succeed. - One Gamer

Love the transparency! Keep it up 💪💪

One word sums up this video for me.... Hope. This video gives me hope that we are not too far away from being able to play a version of this game (i.e. A2) in the not so distinct future. Steven covered a lot of great material that provided a lot more insight into the timeline, systems and mechanics of AoC. Great job to Steven, Margert and the whole Intrepid team!

Love the overall corporate culture, and their vision. Strong leader with healthy work conditions and goals. Can’t wait to see alpha 2!

I truly hope your game succeeds Steven 🙏

Additional Gameplay Layer towards crafting, I am all for that! It really helps to make crafters feel like they accomplished something special and work towards getting better at it as well. Can't wait to see footage of that process!

This AMA was easily the best question answering session they've done so far! This stream, this company and this game are just amazing. I believe their transparancy, amount of good ideas and attentivness to feedback will help to build a strong bond between the developer and the player, much like the blizzard once had. In my opinion, this is a recipe for success! MMO's are exactly the kind of games that need to have this bond the most, this trust will keep the playerbase for long years to come. When the world of Ashes is in your heart even before the game came out, you know you gonna love it when it finally launches! *_Love you, Ashes developers, you're creating something truly great, keep it up and thank you!_*

So excited for Alpha 2. It can't get here fast enough.

I REALLY love the fact that Steven hit on utility skills being effective and building on class fantasy. Having sneaky skills as a rogue/ranger type character, having food/drink creation as a magic user, leadership abilities as a warrior/scholar type character, traps, farsight, etc.. Often those are the coolest abilities and really make you feel like you are in the game world, more so that strictly combat abilities.

I never get tired of being excited for this game.

I'm glad he mentioned he usually plays a cleric when playing MMO's, I also usually play support, good chance it will get the attention it deserves.

This was such a great AMA! Real answers to some real questions. Can't wait for the next few months... it's going to be an awesome ride to 2023!

Thanks for all the new info, excited to see the Summoner class hopefully in the near future!

21:50 what I like about healing is the ability to enable a teammate to play a specific way. For example giving a teammate a damage reduction or making him stronger. (Nano boost from ana in overwatch for example)

For healing I would love to see a REQUEST HEAL icon displayed to the other party members to signal the healer(s). Just like in war: MEDICS This is due to the fact that you can have more HP than others but your next action will be riskier to your HP pool and to give more interaction to the healer without VC

I love the progress so far! CRAFTING: as far as the game layer for creating I think it would be a huge help in immersing a player into the world.

Thank you Steven and Intrepid team for this AMA. It is always wonderful to get a little bit more information on the game we are looking forward to!

God Bless all of you and your families❤️🙏 never know what people have been through ❤️🙏

Just a fantastic job here by Stephen answering important questions. Thoughtfully and honestly. Thanks Stephen.

This was awesome to listen to! Really really liked the idea of after a raid on a city node that the city would become a ruin for open pvp. Reminds me so much of the Dark Zone from ubisofts the division. Literally the best part of that game!

These AMA's get me so excited for this game

45:30 Call me old school, but i loved Original EQ's travelling. Where druids and wizards had spells to teleport you to different areas of the world. And they would have a fee or people would donate to get teleports. I thought this was a great community building tool.

I really love the decisions being made. Cannot wait to watch people play Alpha 2 to see how the game is shaping up.

I really love the idea of crafting gameplay. It doesn't need to be the most revolutionary thing in the world, we don't want to bore people with huge systems that get old quickly, but when I was playing Kingdom Come Deliverance for example it was so simple, yet so impactful to sharp your weapons yourself. One of the greatest crafting minigames ever. Its super difficult to come up with such great systems for all the professions, but if someone can do it, its you with your feedback philosophy!

Very nice format, happy to see this transparency, keep it guys, it's just a brighter future for the game! Can't wait for it to shine so much, it will blind and stun everyone in MMO community!

I hate to ask this and distract from the epic AMA, but I've been following the game for quite a while and have noticed that Steven has had a cough for at least the last 6 months. I'm starting to get concerned for him and really hope he's okay. There aren't many things that give you a cough for that long...but again I don't want to make assumptions or put any negativity into the world. Hopefully he's alright, but if anyone has more context on his health state I'd love to hear some good news ❤

When you guys started development on this game, I was pretty much friendless in the mmo-community. Very few of my irl friends have any interest at all in the genre anymore. Following the early podcasts and development of ashes made me realize I needed a guild. It's been 6 years, and I've been actively partaking in guild activity, and found my click. Every single time I meet someone new, we eventually talk about Ashes of Creation. It seems to me that this is the mmo most are waiting for, and whatever they're playing is merely a waiting game.

Take all the time you need..just deliver us a winner and we will support for years to come

I actually first came across Ashes of creation this summer and I have to say every news or video that I watch hypes me more and more for this game. It really has been a long time since the classic mmo rpgs derailed from their fanbases and started creating low quality paywall content. Thanks Steven for the rekindling of my love for this genre.

Can’t wait for Alpha 2‼️🤙😎

Great video Steven, thank you. IDEA for players on 'weak servers': How about the server you start with is the 'Unique title' you get when creating a character. When a server mergers, you get to keep your original server title to reflect your roleplay history. Example: Character Name, Realm of [server name]. > I could imagine having to move servers and see another player while out adventuring that I don't know with my 'Server Realm Title' - what great to create a common bond.

Great AMA, thanks Steven!!! I can feel the Mana is calling us at the end of this month. Take care :)

Thank you for answering my 2 questions on the artisan profession list & ability count per archtype.

Thank you very much Steven and the team! The crafting update was not expected but very much welcomed. I think my favorite question was the node leveling up. You can tell ashes is thinking about the players experience to game mechanics.

This is why I love watching Steve explain how this game is going to be awesome. I know that other morpg games I've played never listen to the community and make it frustrating to play.

"I do not personally enjoy when the entirety of a level can be achieved through simply questing." 10000%. It needs to fall somewhere between EQ and WoW.

keep it up guys, we're all counting on you ♥

I have to say, down to earth cool cat this Director, wish AoC the best of luck, can't wait to play.

Please prepare for way more than a million people at launch... way way more

Just that a developer is willing to do AMAs shows a lot.

This was great, thank you. Please do another one.

I feel like watching this game grow is gonna be the best part about it for me

I love hearing about this game and seeing the progress its making is really fun! Would be great if you guys could cover your take on the fashion endgame: how its functionally going to work and what we can expect in terms of clothing options.

Steven please reconsider adding in the prone and crouching character positioning . These two functions have become intricate parts of the MMO world that most players automatically expect to be implemented. The different benefits this has for all MMO players is massive. It doesn't make sense to have such game immersion possibilities, but characters can't take a knee around a campfire.

Thank you everyone at Intrepid and Steven for this AMA, what an awesome load of info! I hope your cough is nothing too serious sir 🙏🏼

In my opinion, crouching and proning is a very important component for games today. It gives you more control of your character allowing you to be more immersed in the gameplay. It also allows for players to interact with the world more like having to crouch down to duck into a hole to escape a chasing enemy, or prone under a ruined building to steal some loot on the other side, or to hide and ambush a caravan on the road. Player control over the character adds so much depth

I'm looking forward to this game. Hopefully it's wildly successful.

Question 7 in guildwars 1 the monk-healer/protection class used forward thinking and preventative magic such as ‘guardian’ which would provide target ally 50% block chance for around 7 seconds. This skill could be deliberately interrupted by an enemy caster (mesmer) or ranger, because it had a 1 second cast time. Guardian is a 4 second recharge spell, but if interrupted by one particular spell ‘complicate’, allies in that healer’s party (even other healers) would loose access to Guardian for around 18 seconds. To counteract this a monk may have chosen to cancel their cast, thereby luring out one or two of the opponent’s interruption spells, before casting it once again. Players weren’t staring at health bars the entire game. They were watching the field and mini map. They were checking which foes were in casting range, and they were making movement and spell choices based upon this information.

Ngl, this AMA left me a little hungry. Kinda expected Steven to answer more than only the top 20 questions. Still was really nice to hear him talk about the game, would love for you guys to maybe answer some more of those questions at your next live stream

I am so excited to hear that crafting has an additional gameplay layer! This is a feature that I've been sorely missing out on in other MMOs that I've played, and I'm excited to see how it's implemented. I think it would be interesting to see a mechanic where higher-tier items have an appropriately higher difficulty, mechanics-wise, to the crafting gameplay layer. For example, crafting a stronger or more complex sword would require greater precision in the smithing gameplay, etc. I also think that it would be important to have a "fast craft" option available for situations where it could be beneficial. For example, allowing fast crafting for some of the recipes for the processing classes, with the output being influenced by the level of the player's profession. A crafting gameplay loop would be cool, but I also feel like it could get repetitive at times, especially if you are doing a mass crafting session. Regardless, I'm super pumped for this to be implemented. It's really cool to think that a player's actual skill can have an effect on the items that they craft. Thanks for sharing all this with us, I'm excited to try the game out once Alpha-2 releases!

Fantastic AMA. Really appreciate the open development and thorough responses. Stephen, despite having never developed a game, it's very clear you're an excellent creative director for this game. I really appreciate how in tune you are with the game, where it's at, and where it's going.

Whenever I have trouble falling asleep or want a quick nap I watch one of these videos

Keep up the good work, can't wait to see what's in store for Alpha 2

Thanks for making this game Steven, I can't wait to play it and spend a lot of days living in that world.

Can't wait for this game to release, tried to play shadowlands... just can't, wow doesn't feel right anymore :(

We are lucky to have Steven. Sure, critics may claim there is no proof the game will be good. Regardless, Stevens approach to the "problem" and challenges in designing his teams product is lightyears ahead of the mainstream approach in my opinion. At a certain point other leaders believe their opinion or opinions of their inner circle matters more. I don't think that's right, sure it does matter, but not more than the people who purchase and are paying for your services. Thanks Steven, I hope more leaders and investors approach problem solving like you do. To put it simply, You dah man. -Stan

Allow characters to have first and surnames, so that it is easier for players to choose a name they like and reduce stress during merges through having more unique player identifiers.

This was perfect! Steven seems kind in general and passionate about Ashes. Everything exceeds my expectations. Anyone else REALLY like the music? Just some raw piano. Please give my praise to Hans zimmer or who ever made the music.

Steven is very good at elucidating complex topics into laymen terms. Great speaker.

You gotta do more of these, its great hearing the info and insights

Can't wait for the gameplay layer for crafting!! So awesome to add this layer of depth to the crafting professions! This would give the feeling of having my actions, in this regard crafting, having more meaning and impact or consequences. It would make this activity in game more rewarding and engaging, also bringing another path of possible mastery which incentivizes putting more time in this.

so excited for this game. I just hope I don't die of old age before it releases

Steven you been Coughing a lot, hope it's not bad and you get better. #Protect this one!

As someone who normally hates and avoids crafting in MMOs (mainly because they're boring drudge work that turns what should be fun escapism into tedium) the idea of having a more interactive crafting system actually sounds like something I'd enjoy. My only concern is that if there is a lot of repetition (skill grinds, rare farming e.t.c.) or stages to the process then it would be even worse than a system in which you could zone out and watch something else on a second monitor but then I guess that's what feedback and testing is for. Either way it's great to see that the designers are looking at how they can make all parts of the gameplay experience compelling rather than just going for a low effort solution or mistaking complexity for detail.

This comment section is just overwhelmingly positive. You just don't really see that nowadays for games, especially MMOS. it's very telling. The fact that you are doing these streams and being so informative will not only generate hype, trust, enthusiasm, and hope; but it also prevents the issue of overhype games can have. People know what they are gonna get for the most part, its exciting, and its hype. But people won't be expecting you to be giving them some over the top surreal experience that will let them down. Even though the stuff you are doing is pretty much surreal in its own right xD Can't wait to see more, and get my hands on this game. I just hope I"m not too old by the time it comes out to be any good.

Most important thing to me is you release a finished product. If I have to wait 5 years that's fine.

love you guys and what you are doing for the community I tell everyone about you guys

I hope all classes/archetypes are just as important and viable in everything tbh.

I think this game should incorporate a ton of secret long hard dungeons and most importantly hard awesome puzzles that are fun and some that require a team of 2 to complete. I’m thinking puzzles similar to games like final fantasy and zelda ocarina of time. I never see any puzzles and mazes in open world RPG games.

Skill shot healing...omg steven pls I need this right now.

We really love u Steven and we love all the crew that helping to make this amazing MMO game to be the GOAT 🥹❤️❤️

I like a gameplay layer on crafting! Even better would be a 'process' layer, where you take each step in turn such as alloying, tempering, quenching etc. There are a lot of possibilities there, and it could be tailored (heh) to be as intricate as desired; possibly even determined by the difficulty of each piece where more elaborate items would go through more steps.

What i love of this project is how is being conducted... Early in the video "we are not reinventing the wheel" and later on the video he mention about BDO character customization... this only show how they are and i love it. This could be a little confusing but i've been watching and following since Asmon interview, it's easy to ppl say what they want but its hard to follow it

I'm so glad he mentioned questing not being only primary way for leveling. I hate bouncing from quest to quest to level. I feel hands on experience like fighting mobs should bring advancement to a level. I know some games might be too hardcore for some, like BDO, but I enjoy it. A good balance is great. I like how they are looking at all audiences for this. Too many games, especially now with auto mobile games that are just mind numbing fake advancement to where you feel like you are achieving nothing real.

PvP in this game is gunna be so fun. I can't wait until launch week. Gunna be so chaotic lol

If there is a single point login... is it possible to have a "naming database" call which functions globally, such that server merges will not have any character naming collisions?

These guys must be old-school Ultima online fans. As time goes by this game reminds me more and more of Ultima online

Good that you are considering different archetypes viability in different game modes. The open world is one area that I am concerned for healers and tanks. Their roles are well defined in boss encounters, but lose purpose in encounters with weaker open world enemies. Often the best choice in those scenarios is to kill things quickly, and that makes supports and tanks operate like worse dps classes.

Thanks for the AMA. Please take your time with Ashes. I have small children, and no free time 😆

providing some context for question 13: I'm personally not interested, or care about player count at any capacity (I literally play the most niche games lol), however I've seen many MMO players (mostly WoW players) with completely warped/distorted expectations when it comes to player counts, and I just wanted to hear Steven's take when it comes to the topic. I've posted a similar comment with a Josh interview (where he talks to POE Dev Chris Wilson) under my reddit post. in my opinion it's undeniable, how the past peak count of WoW has been damaging all MMO games that came out after. It was refreshing how clear, honest, realistic Steven's response was. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. You guys rock! PS: Can't wait to hop on A2 PPS: I was really excited to hear that we might get to see some updated Cleric stuff

Wow! Great Q & A! Thanks so much for all of the information!

did someone say spot tests?

I liked how BDO handled going prone, where it removed your name/guild tag. :)

Now I will wait for both bald men to react to this

Crafting animation too is so important to feel that you are creating something🔨

For real, I don't mind if they take years to finish the game to be playable. I just hope that this world full of care for the players, amazing concepts about immersion, playability and conserving elements that amazed me in previous games, to exist someday.

Crafting details are very important to crafters... Example: Hattori Hanzō, was an incredible sword maker, everyone knows his swords by their details, every crafter wants their goods to be special and respected like this.

this man is my hero