A Land Far Away

It's not DMed, and it's not community servers, but this game has so many features i love.

• Ageing and dying to ensure turnover and reduced megapowerful people who never die
  character arcs from 12 years old born to a PC or NPC family (looks based on genetics not choose your own)
  Food and armor effects on speed
  Realistic graphics
  Skills and abilities developed based on use
  procedural development
  offline characters (eg your character never disappears even when you log but does scripted activities and can develop skills)

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/

PS - if you sign up, can you use this code? '7BCC21' it may mean I get early access of something (never really done recruitment before...).

Of course it's very early days and hella ambitious, but i hope they get there!!!

If it does, maybe we can make an ALFA family/guild?

Thanks for sharing that Dorn! It certain sounds like a highly ambitious project, and now I'll be peeking in every now and then to see what progress they are making.

I don't have time/resources to seriously look into this but still, some interesting concepts, very atypical for a mmorpg; they're actually shooting for a more low fantasy story based feel. While not nearly comparable to ALFA's consequences for dying, for example, they do take it up a few notches compared to just about any other mmorpg out there

'Chronicles of Elyria is unquestionably a story-based game. We want the world to feel like you're living in a low-fantasy adventure book. But what kind of a story would it be if the main characters died over and over again, with no apparent consequences? Not very believable. It would also make those main characters feel like they didn't have an impact on the world. If someone is special, their presence should be missed and their absence should be noticed.

Because of this, CoE uses a multiplier system in order to increase the death toll for more famous or impactful characters. Intuitively, this makes sense. If some unknown farmer dies, it probably won't have an impact on the overall story or plot. However, if a king (or queen) dies, it should ripple across the whole continent.

... Someone who's Legendary, for example, could die no more than 6 times before they'll have to re-roll a new character (more on this in the next design journal).'

That's pretty cool, that they're at least making effort and aware that repeat mashing respawn buttons doesn't make for a very good story. In balance, they are realistic about the fact that most people play games like this don't do so to sit safely inside taverns, so they came up with a rather unique in character approach to coming back from death ('spirit loss/spirit walking') plus the main playable race are not human ('Elyrians are for the most part a healthy breed and while Children of Mann are not human their anatomy and physiology is similar to our own') which means possibilities to handle death as a different ballgame.

I still fully expect there will be a significant number of people who die a lot, respawn a lot, etc. and game the system to make the consequences hurt/impact less, but overall it sounds like they're aiming for something different, possibly more palatable for ALFAns, than most systems out there.

I think this game is coming along very well even if it's a year away

Some eye candy:
What happens to your char over ~16months https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqpcUzOMhE
Snow accumulation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cawwR8n875s
Very first unrefined look and feel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb1JcO645BA
Very first unrefined pre-alpha fencing- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HtEnsVPuqw


I've put out the feelers for an RP based build https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/Gu ... em-Kinship

If you like the idea, join up on the forums! Even if you'll ultimately reserve your opinion on the game it helps build momentum for your buddy Dorn.

And if/when you do, if you could plug the 7BCC21 code when you register it would give influence Points which may mean i can donate some buildings/infra for the village.

Kickstarters begun for anyone interested.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/so ... with-aging

Interesting as this sounds, I am always wary of MMO projects that put such a low figure on their funding targets. $900,000 does not go very far in MMO development and I have to wonder just how they plan to pay for the extra staff they want to bring on while getting the game out in 18 months time when they will have so little funding to play with.

Do they have external funding lined up based on the presumed success of the Kickstarter?

I don't think I will risk my money backing it, but will keep an eye on it should it come close to a release.

As I understand it the Director has been writing the Soulborn engine (server side - how the game/PC interaction and everything actually works) for about 10 years, they are using the UE4 (client side) and lots of procedural/automated approaches rather than people heavy custom approaches. Plus they had $500k from themselves and some investors on top for unspecified amounts.

We don't know much more than that. I figure that what kick starter is a bit isn't it. A patronage rather than investment.

But it's a good reason many have given for not taking part.

I see this game, and the little half-Australian half-NA town-build guild i've put together, as the single greatest opportunity for meaningful and fun fantasy RP after ALFA (in my opinion the greatest gaming experience i will ever have in my life) has slowly slipped away from my timezone so felt like giving them a bit of a shove.

Looks cool.