2:06 would be crazy if you could tweak buffs due to different ingredients (spices) and experiment to have a secret recipie.

I want to be part of a thriving node/castle & continue on in PVP. Ashes technically, will never end because it's always changing. Fire video, brother.

PvP is the ultimate endgame. Whether it’s economy, node competition, freeholds competing, mayoral elections, or just flat out player vs. player combat.

Fantastic interviews. The thing that struck me was that these Content Creators think of themselves as playing as individuals. I've been playing that way for years, but in the first MMORPG my wife and I played we didn't think of ourselves as separate from our small tight knit guild of players around the world. Every night for a couple of hours we were grouped up on voice chat and did everything together. I'm looking for that incredible experience again. My best hope is for AoC (and maybe Pax Dei).

HAHAHAH your face when Sunny said pacifist character, that looked like it physically hurt you! My end game is, as the 40k universe Orks say, WWAAAAAAAGGGG (war)

Awesome video. Was cool hearing everyone’s different goals and approach for their end game loops

Many people seem to speculate that a lot of the games endgame will come from player interaction, mostly PvP and node sieges and stuff. I wonder if there will be servers, or at least regions on servers, where the node progression stagnates and there aren’t any node wars for months or years at a time. In this hypothetical scenario, I’m curious what most of those players’ endgames would look like.

Just here for my weekly.. Nyce!

End game for me is building up resources for node wars and participating in node wars. “Building resources” will be capitalizing on whatever professions I’ve decided to focus on.

The node system. Taking over new nodes and leveling them up to discover more content. Then devs adding and changing the content in said nodes over time. It's the perfect loop. Constantly changing world is the key. No permanent dungeon and raid locations we are stuck doing for 10 years. Every node should be completely different 5 years from launch state.

Here's what I imagine endgame looking like for many people. You're essentially spending time building up, in various ways. Building up money, building reputation, acquiring friends and contacts, better equipment, and building trust within guilds and nodes. At some point, we will expend our savings. Maybe buy a house or freehold, citizenship in a node, create a spy network among your friends, build up groups of interested parties to take on the same PVE content that maybe your own guild isn't interested in, form a new guild amongst all your friends, or maybe you expend all of these, and eventually overthrow a node and take it over for yourselves. Or, attempt to, anyway. Then you'll be in a maintenance phase, to keep what you've gained. Eventually, you'll lose it, and you'll be back into a building phase. Maybe you'll do the same thing again, or build towards some other goal this time.

End Game looks vastly different for everyone, and it will be interesting to see how End Game feels in Ashes when we get there.

I really hope this is going to be like Eve Online but with third person tab targetting high fantasy setting. I loved the idea of Eve Online economy and danger zones, it felt so cool and interesting.. like a real breathing world where the player interaction was critical to making exciting stories. Pirates were not just limited to NPCs, you have actually players to look out for; Such a cool idea.. Hoping Ashes stays relevant with a hardcore community for a very long time.

Excellent video as always, thanks Doc. I think AoC will bring entirely new dimension and depth to the very idea of "End Game". Methinks that even with all the open development and showcasing/sharing Intrepid is doing, we're still only seeing the tip of a massive iceberg. I think Vl'Hadus sees that the best.

I'm right there with @nyce-Gaming and Doctor Burns, PvP is my end game and the open seas, with working on my life skills and growing my bank on he downtime! Great video bud

My favorite endgame is where there are no instances and guilds fight over open world spawns on server resets. The game needs to be designed to have plenty of bosses in various locations. P99 is the best at it right now but looking forward to Monsters & Memories.

Imagine how cool it would be if you could build your town on a remote island and organize your raids and plunders from there , endless possibilities

Man, this one varied in the responses for sure. I feel like you saw some personalities come out in this one.

I doubt I would have one style of endgame, I will probably have a different set of things for each character. One where I do just pvp, one helping as paladin in a religious node, another where I do Caravan runs dressed as a farmer with mediocre gear. So many possibilities.

End game for me? Go around running fades, finding people to square up.

For me ashes end game will probably revolve around freehold stuff through the app, so i hope they still plan on keeping that function at launch. I plan on focusing all my effort into husbandry with my guild so being able to pump out animals 24/7 without having to log in while im at work would be fantastic

For me the end game will be responding to hostile incursions in our territory, and raiding. Next to that i'll be trying out different classes, specs, and get crafting going.

My end game is PvP, mostly arena. By that I mean farming for PvP sets and titles.

The best ashes series on KZfaq!

Py'Rai will have an unarmed head butt attack that staggers their opponents and does physical piercing damage. I might just think that cause I'm a Py'Rai and I want something to compensate me for having to wear horns... Cause if there's no benefit to looking like a Deer, I'm going to grind them off like Hell Boy !

I keep saying WoW did a lot for the mmo space AND a lot of bad...wish there was a way to DE-Wow people....ughh. The person who introduced me to Everquest way back in the day...her end game was sitting in her stall, talkimg to people in the market and selling stuff...no lie. That was it..it was crazy to watch. But everyone knew her and she made big Bank!

We have a saying in Albion Online that Gatherer's, or "lifeskillers" are just as important to a game as the PVPers. If you don't have gatherer's then you don't have gear for PVPers to use. Gatherer's set themselves up in such a way to be able to flee if a PVPer approaches them, but they always know at one point they'll get caught. But that only fuels the market, and they are ok with that, at that point it's sort of a transaction. It makes the world go round and I really hope to see Ashes become that Gatherer/PVP, transactional environment of gameplay. I love seeing the two work together to fuel an economy instead of hating on each other.

Great video as always Doc, thanks for the content

Loved doing these!

Its indeed a good question. Endgame will most likely be running dungeons/killing bosses over and over and over and over and did i say over yet? again to get materials to upgrade your gear like +10 +15 +20 or wherever they go with it. I ll take a wild guess that this will take a good while. Aside of that pvp wise it will be node wars. Since AoC has such an evolving map which never stops evolving depending on players actions i think that will be a huge element of endgame also. For some players economy will be endgame too like competing or becoming the richest player of the server.

Hopefully my end game is treasure hunting, and finding rare collectables to show off on my freehold.

great video. still love this series

My day-to-day would probably be crafting and ideally node mayor related stuff, while the overarching endgame would be participating in the political pvp of my node vassal system, be that just caravans and anti-PKing protection or sieges/wars/etc,

Great one! Endless game loops....

It is very difficult to define exactly what "end-game" would be, because the etymological use of the word and its applications and uses have totally different meanings, in etymological usage, end-game would be the "wall", that moment in which , if the player wants to go through it, they will be challenged to do so, in contrast to the early game/mid game, where their function is to introduce you to the game and make you progress during the early/mid game to face the wall . The end-game is the reason you went through everything in the early/mid game, it's where you are tested, your learning, your "grind", your intelligence, coordination, and everything else, there's no way to talk about end-game. game without talking about the early game, as it is a linear race of learning, journey and final "villain". Of course, this is referring to the PVE aspect of an MMO, but (again), this is limited to the etymology of the word's original meaning; therefore, common usage refers to the end-game as a Loop, repetitions of the same actions, for a common object, ''progression", and, come to think of it, the early/mid game is also a progression, but, it is of a progression of phases, and states, generally (in common usage), end-game progression is about doing the same thing, with the goal of becoming stronger at it and in turn doing it more efficiently. ; Of course, this is the common term, but, in the end, the essence is the same, however, in the common term, the preparation takes place through the repetition of the content, and not through the journey. in cutting beef, when he first cut pork, before that chicken, before that vegetables, and so on, in the other example, he gains experience in cutting beef meat, by cutting (right away), the same meat over and over again, we see that the first one can also have the experience of repetition, but the previous experience has more impact, because you don't prepare yourself to Defeat X raid boss and become better, but rather, you prepare and become a better player in the game in general, not just in a content aspect. All of this refers to PVE, of course, in relation to PVP, I don't think there is an end-game if not the Ranks, PVP leveling is more about something of the mindset than an XP bar, therefore, the journey of PVP is totally mental, a PVP player can go straight to the end-game if he is already good and understands what a keyboard, fingers, brain and your class can do in game; Of course, that's in my personal terms, but, in common sense terms, the "end-game" PVP would be about rankings, ranks, classifications, you being better because of an rbg pixel on the screen, the pvp progression is more about Finger and mindset, as said, and the rank manifests itself in this (although not every rank implies skill, lol) Regarding the professions of an MMO, I think that their end-game is not related to them per se, but, for their purpose, the professions must match the player's level, what he can craft based on his profession level, recipes (if the raid boss or dg drop), and preparations in general, the profession must reflect the time the player dedicates (level), and the power the player has (market, and recipes or things in general unlocked by defeating such boss or do such an achievement/quest whatever). In this sense, the perfect "end-game", in an "empirical" matter, would be very subjective, but the entire end-game would have to be a "proof" of the players' learning, there would be no way to escape this (in logical terms, as presented), whether Ashes will be able to innovate this, bring a feeling of satisfaction for learning the game, only time will tell.

End game is amazing pvp!

My end game will be traveling the whole world, with my guild and finding world bosses and dungeons, help with transporting caravans to make extra money, and being a guild for hire.

best healer in all of verra

Regarding AI and PvP-like PvE. The technology has been in games since the 1950s when Samuel's checkers playing program improved by playing against itself. A more recent example is Libratus which taught itself how to exploit the play of world class online poker players (my poker coach among them) and defeat them. PvE players expect to win all the time and like to have different difficulty levels to challenge them. PvP is fundamentally different - PvP players want to defeat other humans - and PvE players don't like it. So before we see that, we will see LLMs (think ChatGPT) as the brains of NPCs, which will revolutionize xRPG games. We are gambling that AoC (and Pax Dei and other games with no NPCs) will reach maturity before LLMs become the norm.

Same as in RL - defeat whatever is the current corrupt establishment

Freeholds are a joke. Everyone wants a Freehold, very few accounts will ever see a Freehold. Large guilds and their satellite guilds will control every level 3 node and higher. Large guilds MUST control every Freehold on their node and every level 3 and higher node in their zone of influence. If your guild is not controlling the Freeholds, then the best processed goods are going to your enemy. Only level 3 (village stage) and higher can have Freeholds. Only about 2/3 of all nodes on a mature server will be level 3 and above. Very few guild member accounts on any server will ever see a Freehold. Steven designed this game for large guilds from day one. This game is not for everyone.

Until 8:40, it's the only good answer. Yeah just like every day pvp and social stuff are obvious. But you can feel so much the World of warcraft players, it's so boring and predictable. They are hard theme park players, they will leave fast as those players left New World after the leveling. We know well NW isn't the best game, but ppl needing a guideline and not seeing the endgame is the social game, will leave the game very soon. This time of everything happening right, it's not an solo game. It's about networking, guilds/nodes, and conflicts. Obviously also toxic ones because you should love them. If not for real, play something else

I hope max level is not obtainable. The best time in an MMORPG is when everyone is leveling and fighting over leveling spots.