Gather round as we look back over the last week and collect together some of the highlights you might want to look back on. The Muster, gather up all those interesting Q&A answers, forum posts across the net, and chatter in the IRC and give you a pointer in the right direction. This will normally go out on a Sunday night, but it is always best to be late on the first one…

This week we are looking at the plans the Soulbound Studios team have for PAX East in April, how the team see PvP working in Chronicles of Elyria, time, religion, brain food and also why the developers have not released DJ #17 as planned. And just for fun a quick bit about why you should not mess with Jeremey ‘Caspian’ Walsh!

PvP

This one is a big deal for me which is why it is at the top. Player versus player is something that has a really big role in the game but in a very different way to many of the games out there. I think it is important that people know what they are signing up for as there is a lot of confusion out there:

Important is not the same as frequent… and that’s precisely our goal. PvP, that is, player vs. player physical combat will happen less frequently in CoE (by design), but will have bigger impact on the players, and an impact on the story – something that doesn’t exist in other MMOs. [Source – MMORPG]

You should certainly go and read that whole post because I think it does clarify a lot. Yes, there is player versus player combat. Yes, a lot of it comes with risk. It does have a place in the game and an important one. However, do not expect it to be kill after kill after kill like you might expect from a game with PvP.

PAX East

One of the topics that came up a few times in the last Q&A was PAX East, the gaming convention held on the US East Coast in April. Firstly what were the plans for Chronicles of Elyria at the show:

We do plan to be at PAX East. We do plan on doing something big at PAX East…. It requires we ask the people at PAX if there is a limitation on the amount of size on the structure we can have in our space and height it can be. [Source – YouTube Q&A]

What exactly they have planned, if allowed, we have no idea. It sounds like it might cause a bit of a stir on the convention floor, anything they can do to get more faces on the game is good in my book. Though let’s be honest there is one thing we are all interested in when it comes to PAX, and that is a playable demo. But what about those of us who cannot go?

Ultimately everyone will get a chance to play it. [Source – YouTube Q&A]

If it will be before, at the same time, or after PAX it isn’t clear yet, but we will get our hands on it. Active members or those with high influence might get their hands on it even sooner as they need some beta testers before it hits the floor.

Time

How does time in our world related to time in game? If a tree would take 50 years to grow on Earth, are we going to be waiting 50 Elyrian years or almost 7 months?

Taking things in the real world in terms of years, things that are on a large scale like that and that is true of our criminal system, and relating that to days inside Chronicles of Elyria. [Source – YouTube Q&A]

Thank goodness we are not going to be spending over half a year waiting for a single tree. It still it is not going to grow instantly. Even based on that algorithm you are going to be waiting over five days for that tree.

Religion

I do not know if I have mentioned but my favourite thing the have announced in the game so far is that there will be multiple religions in the game. Not only do they add personal story for a character, the conflict between them makes world story. How do you keep the conflict though:

If we tell you here are what the religions mean, what the benefits are, people do not have anything to fight over any more. We are going to find ways to make your belief in a system makes it true for you. So then it is about trying to convince other people to join your religion to get the benefits. But maybe it is not consistent or it is unique for them in a certain way. [Source – YouTube Q&A]

There might be a religion that is best for you. It might be no religions are good for you. They could have all sorts of beliefs that require great sacrifice in order to get that benefit, or risks to your future. I am intrigued!

Food

You got to eat right in the game if you want to make the most of your characters skills:

Different types of food will help you train up different types of attributes. … So eating a lot of fish, for example, will let your character advance their mental skills faster, while eating more protein will allow them to advance their physical more. [Source – YouTube Q&A]

Remember that too much of the bad stuff can give you quite the paunch too, so make sure you count those calories.

Design Journal #17

You may have noticed at the bottom of the last developers journal they hinted at another one following on quickly after, but it hasn’t hit yet. Are you wondering why? Well it is all about discussions the developers are having behind the scenes. Caspian shared a hint at what is causing the delays over at the IRC:

I was working on DJ #17… and in doing so started asking some fundamental questions about my design. CORE design goals. And in doing so, pretty much put some of the main systems of CoE on its head. So then I met with the team… and ask them to prove me wrong. So far, they haven’t been able to prove me wrong. That to me means I’ve stumbled upon an observation so important and “ground breaking” that I need to think it fully through and see how it impacts the game before moving forward.

That sounds big. We should all panic now…

I continue to make CoE the best game it can be. Like a lot of CoE, some of the features/ideas come to me over time. It’s taken me 15 years to get CoE where it is today. This one just came more recently than the rest. And it needs to be addressed.

Oh okay, we can be calm. It will be riveting to see what the issue was and how they have chosen to address it. Make good choices Soulbound.

Be Afraid of Caspian…

I actually hold multiple black belts and high level belts in multiple martial arts myself; Taekwondo, Capoeira, Aikido, Jeet Kune Do. [Source – YouTube Q&A]

So don’t mess with the boss! Though do check out the rest of that answer, as it is all about how they are making all their combat animations with motion capture.

Muster Point

Player vesus player comabt is an important and impactful part of the game but it will not be as frequent as you might be used to.