Chronicles of Elyria

[Hellravager]

Definitely sounds interesting but gotta wonder if it'll flop

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cf...re/9915/page/1

Soulbound Studios is a new startup game company from Technical and Creative Director Jeromy Walsh (Liquid Entertainment, Pandemic Studios, and Microsoft) and Art Director Eddie Smith (FASA Studios, Bungie, Microsoft, and Sony Online Entertainment). The two of them have teamed up, along with a growing list of veteran game developers, designers, artists, and animators in order to develop the kind of MMORPG many only dream about. They reached out to us at MMORPG.com to make their first foray into main-stream media and we have the privilege to be the first news outlet to talk about this compelling new game – and boy is it compelling. In addition to this article, from now until PAX East, Jeromy himself will be communicating with you via developer journals and forum posts to go in-depth about what makes Chronicles of Elyria unique and to talk more about the features they’ve shared with us.

As to where they came from - back in the early 2000s Jeromy was busy playing MUDs, reading a lot of Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery books like Wheel of Time and Dragon Prince, and playing MMOs like UO, DAoC, and EQ like so many of us. The whole time wondering what kind of MMORPG he’d make given the chance. He began journaling in hard-back sketchbooks, illustrating design ideas, mechanics, and the features he believed necessary to make a truly dynamic, immersive world. But like James Cameron and Avatar, the state of the industry wasn’t ready for his ideas, technology hadn’t yet caught up with his vision, and frankly, publishers were hard pressed to take the risks necessary to see his vision become a reality.

Fifteen years later, the industry has slowly started embracing some of his early design ideas, and crowdfunding has made it possible for people with good ideas and a willingness to take the necessary risks to create something truly amazing. With an initial seed of around half a million dollars of his own money, Jeromy believes Soulbound Studios’ new Chronicles of Elyria will re-define what it means to be an MMORPG.

With Chronicles of Elyria, Jeromy asks what if a skill-based system like Ultima Online had been the most popular game of the early 2000s. What if player skill, rather than itemization determined the success of combat? What if players had to take risks and be truly heroic for their characters to be heroes? Most importantly, what if characters aged and died rather than hitting a level cap?

So what is Chronicles of Elyria, and why should you care?

To begin with, what makes Chronicles of Elyria tick is a new game engine called The Soulborn Engine. The Soulborn engine is something Jeromy designed himself and is built on five basic game design principles. These are:

* The world must be dynamic. If something in the world can change, either over time or through player interaction, it probably should.
* Hero status must be earned. Players must take risks, be heroic, and put their wealth, prestige, and even life on the line to be a hero.
* Skill is not just a character attribute, it’s a player attribute. Every action a character takes that requires a skill, must require some degree of player skill.
* There must be something drawing a player into the world. Each time the player logs in there are local, regional, and national conflicts unfolding that guarantees there is always something for players to participate in.
* Realism. The world should behave more like a simulation than a game, adding elements of risk and uncertainty, which evolve into dramatic situations and conflicts.

To get started, you, your friends, and all the people of the game playing with you will grow old, you’ll die, and you’ll live on reincarnated in families of your own design and choosing. You’ll have kids, they’ll grow old, and they’ll die, and so on and so forth. Yep, you read that right. There’s permadeath in CoE, but Soulbound Studios has found, what we believe is, an effective way to solve the problem lots of people have with permadeath.

No one wants to lose their progress. We know life is finite in reality, so why would we want our escapist entertainment to remind us of that nagging fact? Well when your character dies in combat, you’re not permanently dead right then and there. Instead, you knock years off your life, and eventually when those years run out, your character will be permanently dead. If you spend your entire time as a baker in a peaceful village, you could live a long healthy life. If you’re always out looking for trouble, you will likely die a lot more, and wind up permanently dead sooner.

Everything you do will factor in, and taking the bigger risks will result in bigger rewards. But don’t fret, when you finally do kick the bucket permanently, your soul carries on from life to life, taking with it a large part of what you learned from past lives. If you were an epic swordsman in a past life, you’ll be way more efficient at learning those swordsman skills in your new life. Since Chronicles of Elyria is skill-based like UO, and not based on levels like EQ or WoW, you can spend your time doing whatever you like to do in the game, and each new life will have a bonus from the previous life’s activities.

While it is slightly random, and largely based on player choices, characters will live approximately one hundred in-game years. That amounts to about one real-world year. And yes, you’ll age even when offline. You could log in one day after months away to find your character has passed away. It’s something Soulbound intends as a way to keep the world fresh and growing. In CoE, your legacy, your role in the overall story, and the wealth and prestige of your dynasty defines success - not just the life of one character.

Another cool feature of the soul mechanic is that each soul, unbeknownst to the player, will have a destiny. Some will play a pivotal role in the overall story, some will be catalysts for major world-altering events five years from now, and some will be more acutely attuned to magic than others. While every soul will have a destiny, players may not learn what that is for years down the road. You might think you’re just making a humble blacksmith, but in reality, you could wind up triggering the end of the world as you know it.

What’s this about Families?

From the moment your character enters the world they are part of an NPC or player-ran family. Families fill many of the same roles as guilds in other MMORPGs (there are guilds in CoE as well, but they play a slightly different role which Jeromy will talk more about in journals to come). In CoE, Families are your primary support and social network. Your family members also have a vested interested in making sure you’re successful and can answer any questions you may have. They also provide an initial source of wealth and income until you’ve found a lucrative occupation of your own.

The similarities between guilds and families don’t end there. Families are one of the key ways of measuring success in CoE. As your family grows, the wealth of your children, grandchildren, and the rest of your lineage can be funneled back into the family’s collective pool of wealth. As you grow your dynasty, you can expand your holdings and increase the size of your land and noble house.

It is on these lands that players will create villages, massive fortresses or burgeoning hamlets. By leasing your land, or renting out your buildings, you’ll work together with others to build a kingdom, gaining wealth and status.

But what would all that land and all those cities be without some form of Government?

Chronicles of Elyria pushes the boundaries of what is possible in sandbox MMOs with the introduction of a new contract system. Implicit contracts such as laws, and explicit contracts such as those in trade agreements unlock unlimited possibility for creating unique occupations and un-planned metas. With contracts, it’s possible to have player-made quests where players provide their own rewards for contract completion. You could ask for escorts across dangerous lands, request certain animal skins for the armor you’re making, or any number of other tasks. The system allows for more creative fundraising as well, such as setting up human-run mail delivery, as the game won’t have generic mailboxes doing all the work for you. If you want to get something to someone, it’s going to take the work of a player to get it there. It can be you, or you can enlist the help of an adventurer, effectively making you the NPC that assigns the FedEx quests and the story behind them.

The same system extends to running governments, as nobles can use an RTS-like interface to create laws and to issue region-wide requests for resources. They can ask for blacksmiths to make more weapons, and even call to arms against neighboring towns that get on your bad side. Like real-world contracts, there are mechanics in place to help enforce the contracts (or the laws), but like the real-world, there is always the ability to ignore the contract if you’re willing to pay the consequences.

With all that said, you don’t have to be the micro-managing type to take part in governing in CoE. You can live your whole life on the road, visiting towns and taking up the tasks of the local government. You can live the life of a mercenary or bounty hunter. Or, you can live the life of a baron, making sure your little outpost one day becomes a massive fortress, feared by all who stand in its shadow.

And lastly, what good would all the aging, dying, and family and governance stuff be without a real struggle to survive?

In CoE, not only do you have to contend with monsters and wildlife in your adventures, but you’ll have to survive the environment as well. You’ll get cold in wintery regions and need to layer your clothing to ward off elements. You’ll get hot and dehydrated in the desert climes. You’ll need to rest and eat to keep your energy up and remain effective in battle. Setting off on an adventure won’t be something you do Willy-Nilly. You’ll need supplies, and since you won’t be looting epic “Swords of Badassery” off of random wolves (crafting matters and plays an important part in CoE), you’ll need to be properly equipped to go into battle. If you die? Well, you’d better make it back to your body to retrieve your items. And if you don’t make it back to your body? Well, then you’ve got bigger problems.

[Tackhisis]

What a load of crap! Seriously, I doubt there will be more than 5k players total and servers will be dominated by jerks in few month. They are basically trying to recreate an experience of some shitty private server in a brand new game...

[Hellravager]

What a load of crap! Seriously, I doubt there will be more than 5k players total and servers will be dominated by jerks in few month. They are basically trying to recreate an experience of some shitty private server in a brand new game...

What the fuck are you talking about? Seriously i didnt mention anything about private servers or anything like that also what do you mean 5k players? Jerks? Did you even read it?

[RoninaThorstone]

What the fuck are you talking about? Seriously i didnt mention anything about private servers or anything like that also what do you mean 5k players? Jerks? Did you even read it?

Just... don't pay any attention to Tackhisis.
Ever.

Just don't.

[Hellravager]

Just... don't pay any attention to Tackhisis.
Ever.

Just don't.

Yea usually have him on ignore >.>