Intrepid Studios has announced that it will be taking Ashes of Creation to KickStarter beginning on May 1st. In addition, The Metropolis system has been detailed on the official site. The Metropolis is, as the blog says, "the culmination of the Node system. In essence, Metropolis takes a huge amount of resources to both develop and maintain.
Nodes develop along a path in one of four ways: Scientific, Economic, Militaristic or Divine. Each one has a specific "job" that relates to its stated name. Leaders of these Nodes need to choose what buildings should be built and understand what the ultimate goal is in order to provide the most beneficial zone-wide bonus to the citizens of the area. They can choose to expand protective measures to avoid sieges or to increase merchant abilities.
Metropolises also have housing (of course!):
It’s here that players can begin buying static housing. These buildings belong to the Node, and as a Node levels up, this housing levels up with it. A player will be able purchase a small one room house, at the village stage. When the Node advances up to a town, so does that house. The owner enjoys the benefits of a suddenly larger home – his property size increases, his house is located more toward the center of town, and the square footage of his home has gone up considerably. There’s new property available at the Town Stage, but this new property is more akin to what was available at the previous stage, small and modest. Now when the Node advances up further, this time to a Metropolis, this all happens again. The player’s house, already sizable, grows into a mansion, The number of mansions in a metropolis will be the same number of small homes that were available in this metropolis’ village stage. Only those houses that existed at the Village level will ever become these main street mansions. So effectively at each stage the node advances, you will see the existing homes advance as well. This makes getting in early for a node, pretty important. And introduces a real estate aspect to owning in-node property. I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is yes, you CAN sell these properties.
To show off The Metropolis, the Ashes of Creation team has a pair of brand new videos. You can also find out more about the system by visiting the Ashes of Creation site.
