Caravan types

Tier 5 personal caravan on route from Winstead to Miraleth in Alpha-2. 3D model by Hal Anderson.

There are different types of لفاوقلا in Ashes of Creation.

• Personal caravans.
• Mayoral caravans.
• System driven caravans.

لفاوقلا

Alpha-2 caravan being escorted to the Miraleth node.

The Caravan System is a major aspect of the economy in Ashes of Creation. While the rewards can be great for moving massive amounts of Commodities and other materials across the world of Verra, players can choose to be Caravan attackers or defenders, making these hotspots for PvP battles.

Caravan PvP in Alpha-2.

لفاوقلا are vehicles that facilitate the transfer of cargo across Verra.

Caravans are the induction of emergent gameplay, which means you cannot predict the situation you're going to be in when you use a caravan. That's part of the risk: The risk is the unknown. If you could predict it then your ability to mitigate that risk would unfortunately remove that dynamic- that ratio of risk versus reward. – Steven Sharif

• Personal caravans are used to transport cargo for one or more players.

• Mayoral caravans are used by Mayors to transfer cargo between nodes with established trade agreements or alliances.

• Caravans are initiated from and arrive at caravansary node buildings within Village ( ﺡﺮﺴﻤﻟﺍ 3) nodes and above.

• لفاوقلا create an objective-based PvP event in the open-world that players can choose to attack, defend, or opt-out of.

• PvE caravan events can cause roadways to be blocked off or hostile mobs to spawn to attack the caravan.

• It is possible to launch decoy caravans and merchant ships, but there are visual hints of what is contained in a caravan. Decoy crates may be available via social organization progression.

Mayoral caravans

Quest to launch a mayoral caravan.

Mayoral caravans (also referred to as Trade caravans) are launched by Mayors to obtain needed resources from other nodes.

• Nodes answering these resource requests must have a trade agreement or alliance with the requesting node.

• Once the requesting mayor accepts a fill order from another node, a system driven caravan is spawned to transit the goods.

• Players can participate in helping to defend the caravan if they wish.

• Trade caravans can initiate world events.

Mayors who need certain resources that either they don't have enough of, or that they're prospectively investing in: they will initiate a mayor request, and any node that sees that request on the mayoral caravan drop-down menu will have an opportunity to attempt to fulfill the trade request. In order to fulfill a trade request, a node must have a certain level of relationship with that requesting node. At a minimum it has to be a trade agreement relationship; and then there's a limited number of those trade relationships that you can have; and that scales up to eventually alliance perspective. And then, once the node requesting mayor accepts a potential fill order, then a system spawned caravan is generated and the transit is completed. Players can participate in helping to defend that or not. – Steven Sharif

Quest driven caravans

System driven caravans (also referred to as Quest driven caravans) are system spawned caravans that are used for trade routes between nodes.

.ﺔﻴﻟﺎﺤﻟﺍ ﺮﻳﻮﻄﺘﻟﺍ ﻖﻳﺮﻃ ﺔﻃﺭﺎﺧ ﻲﻓ ﺓﺩﻮﺟﻮﻣ ﻥﻮﻜﺗ ﻻ ﺪﻗﻭ ﻦﻳﺭﻮﻄﻤﻟﺍ ﻞﺒﻗ ﻦﻣ ﺍﺮًﺧﺆﻣ ﺔﻴﻟﺎﺘﻟﺍ ﺕﺎﻣﻮﻠﻌﻤﻟﺍ ﺾﻌﺑ ﺪﻴﻛﺄﺗ ﻢﺘﻳ ﻢﻟ

• These are initiated by players with a diverse choice of routes and launch windows, making them difficult to zerg.
• Initiating a caravan from one node to another will create a PvP objective that players will need to defend while it moves along its chosen route to the selected destination.
• Roads will upgrade as nodes advance. Different roads will dictate the speed and type of caravan required (off road vs on road).

The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location. As far as mass guilds securing trade routes, there is always a bigger fish in the pond. Also caravans will have limitations on carrying capacity and launch windows that will segment mulitiple caravans by several minutes, which would space out the caravans, making it difficult to "zerg" a defense. – Steven Sharif

Personal caravans

Caravan speed is affected by caravan components and the type of roading.

There'll be different variants of each of the components, with the wheels for example, would have variants that will excel perhaps at off-road over on-road and vice versa. So right now we have caravans that are set up more for the on-road portion, but you will travel faster over roads, but that obviously comes with the increased risk of running into other players or monsters that are blocking the road. – Chris Justo

Personal caravans of different tiers deployed outside the Winstead node in Alpha-2. 3D models by Hal Anderson.

Personal caravans (also referred to as Self-directed/player-driven caravans) are utilized by players to transport cargo across Verra. These are land-based and water-based (raft caravans) that a single player drives and directs.

• Personal caravans are prepared and launched from caravansary buildings at Village ( ﺡﺮﺴﻤﻟﺍ 3) or higher nodes.

• Personal caravans can also be summoned in the open-world from caravansaries in nearby nodes.

• Personal caravans are capable of transitioning to/from raft caravans.

• Caravan components modify caravan stats and grant passive and active abilities to the caravan. Components can be upgraded to increase a caravan's power.

• By default, personal caravans have a racial appearance that influences the types of animals that are moving the caravan.
  • Players will be able to apply caravan skins to change the default appearance.

• Caravan drivers receive a significant defensive buff while they are driving a caravan. This reduces CC effects and increases damage mitigation significantly.

• The caravan owner is able to grant permissions to allow other players to drive their caravans. If these permissions are not activated by the owner then anyone can drive their caravans. If the caravan driver is killed or otherwise removed from the caravan then any player will be able to drive the caravan for a period of 15 to 20 minutes before the caravan despawns and becomes a wreckage.
  • A caravan will persist in the world for a period of 5 to 10 minutes from the time its owner logs out or is disconnected from the server.

• Caravans have collision, so other players could jump on the caravan while it is being driven.
  • Players or mounts trying to block caravans will be pushed out of the way.

Storage

Storage chest in an Alpha-2 freehold.

Storage points exist at warehouses within nodes and in chests (storage containers) that can be placed in freeholds and static in-node housing.

• Sheds are present on empty freehold plots to provide basic storage for materials needed to construct freehold buildings.

Caravan inventory

Alpha-2 materials inventory user interface.

Inventory for A2 will exist in two categories, spatial and non-spatial. The spatial inventory system will only exist for materials and gatherables. The non-spatial system will be the normal single slot inventory that is used for all completed items IE gear, consumables etc.. The spatial system is intended to provide limitation and progression when everything in the open world is gatherable, requiring players to strategize which things they choose to gather or not. These spatial inventories will be shaped in various ways that make the bag types more conducive for certain types of gatherables allowing players to specialize their capacity. Auto sort is a feature – Steven Sharif

نوزخملا capacity has quantity (stacking) limits based on the type of item. Backpacks offer varying stack sizes and/or spatial inventory shapes that are optimized for carrying different items.

• A player's inventory has sections for different types of items. Quest items for example will not fill a player's regular inventory capacity.
  • Materials and resource bags have spatial ("Tetris" style) slots for items with different shapes and sizes.
  • The spatial inventory system is intended to mitigate the potential for players to diminish land management scores by stripping resources from particular zones as well as provide a challenging gameplay layer for players.

Inventory is split into two separate management systems. The first is your non-material, non-gatherable slots. Those are your standard single slot, not-space-constrained system that's a standard inventory: you just have a single slot, and you can pull completed items and/or consumables and quest items or whatever into that slot. And then, when you're talking about materials, specifically processed goods and gatherables: those exist within the Tetris type uh inventory system. – Steven Sharif

• رصانعلا are placed into the most suitable inventory slots by default.

All those materials actually sorted nicely in the appropriate bags based on your stack sizes. – Alex Khudoliy

• There will be a healthy number of slots for gear in a player's inventory.
  • Completed item inventory slots are not space constrained (by the tetris system).
  • Completed items, such as gear are also not subject to weight limits.
  • Gear loadouts can be swapped using a hotkey when out of combat.

• Inventory capacity will be relatively limited for new characters. Additional capacity may be increased by obtaining higher quality backpacks from crafters.

We want to have very unique progression when it comes to the construction of resource bags; and those resource bags will have certain benefits, like increasing stack size count of particular types of resources; or of having a additional delay time necessary to interface with with your corpse, should a player try to take the resources you might have dropped in PvP; or having passive benefits and unique structures of spacing that makes it more a better bag for wood gathering because woods are three-by-one; or a better bag for mining because mining is always two-by-two. The idea is to make your intent as a gatherer when you go out into the wild specific right not just that you're going out into the wild and gathering everything you can because it's there; and that's what we don't have like a labor system that limits it. We have a space constraint system so when you leave your node and you go out into the wild you need to be conscientious of what you're choosing to interact with and take resources for, because you have a limited space constraint to that degree. – Steven Sharif

• Inventory capacity is subject to quantity rather than weight limits.

In my opinion, and this is of course subjective, but weight management is not a compelling mechanic for players to have to deal with in an MMO setting. – Steven Sharif

• Players will have the ability to search for items they have stored in various locations (such as personal storage and node warehouses).

We want you to know where the things are; and then the meaningful aspect of that thing is traveling to those locations to access some of those things, particularly as it relates to materials and raw gatherables. – Steven Sharif

• Inventories will be able to be sorted.

Q: Why did you go for a spatial inventory system for resources?

A: There's a number of different methods that we can use in an effort to mitigate, or again throttle, the amount of success that players can have in any one trip out in the world. Now, we're using a combination of three things: We are using progression gating through your profession level; so you need to have a certain level to access certain resources. We are utilizing the spatial inventory space as a limitation on how much things you can gather before you need to go back to town. And then lastly we have a tool predicate where you need to have a tool that is relevant for the resource you're gathering; and those tools have a decay value after each use. Weight is obviously an approach that we could take if we wanted to limit. However, the spatial system works in concert with a number of other types of systems. For example, we want to have itemization drop on death specifically as it relates to material items; and we want there to be an additional layer above just weight that introduces complexity; and where there is complexity there is choice and there is strategy and there is planning required on behalf of the player in order to set themselves up for the best possible success in certain situations. – Steven Sharif

.ﺔﻴﻟﺎﺤﻟﺍ ﺮﻳﻮﻄﺘﻟﺍ ﻖﻳﺮﻃ ﺔﻃﺭﺎﺧ ﻲﻓ ﺓﺩﻮﺟﻮﻣ ﻥﻮﻜﺗ ﻻ ﺪﻗﻭ ﻦﻳﺭﻮﻄﻤﻟﺍ ﻞﺒﻗ ﻦﻣ ﺍﺮًﺧﺆﻣ ﺔﻴﻟﺎﺘﻟﺍ ﺕﺎﻣﻮﻠﻌﻤﻟﺍ ﺾﻌﺑ ﺪﻴﻛﺄﺗ ﻢﺘﻳ ﻢﻟ

• لاغبلا can carry roughly 10 times more than backpacks. Caravans can carry roughly 10 times more than mules.

• نوزخملا expansion and weight management training certificates are available in the Galleria at City stage economic nodes.

See also

• لفاوقلا
• لاغبلا
• داصتقالا
• pvP
• نوزخملا