Discussion and Speculation

Chat Log – Concerns, Part 2

~ victoriarachel ~ Leave a comment

We all have concerns about the game. We are all human after all. At the beginning of last week the developers took the opportunity to take the time to address as many of the concerns that were being posted on the forums as they could. This lead to two and a half hours worth of Live Chat between Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh and community member BicycleWalrus on his channel DM21 Gaming.

Carrying on from Part 1 posted yesterday this chat log is all about bringing you my Top 3 Topics from the second part of the live chat as before the video can be found here, and the transcript made by community members Xilana and Maygus can be found here. Lets get started! Continue reading →

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Chat Log – Concerns, Part 1

~ victoriarachel ~ Leave a comment

Do you know what I like when a game is in development? It is is developers that actively address the concerns of the prospective player base. No, I do not mean bow to their demands. Just listen, given feedback, talk about the possible problems. Even if that talking is just, “Actually we think it is better this way, and we hope you agree when you get to play.” That is great, it means they heard. At the beginning of this week we had two live stream conversations addressing posts players had made on the forums in a thread of their biggest worries about the game. It was glorious!

The live chats comprised a total of two and a half hours of conversation between the  Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh and our lovely community member BicycleWalrus on his youtube channel DM21 Gaming (he also does a lot of other CoE videos so well worth hitting subscribe). Part 1 of the Live Chat can be found here and Part 2 can be found here. There is also transcripts made by community members Xilana and Maygus, with help from Rhaegys and Howl, so if you prefer to read rather than watch check those out here.

There is so much information to cover in those two videos that it has taken me most of the week to realise I can’t do it! If you want it all head to the links above. What I can do is bring you my Top 3 Topics covered in each part to bring some attention to the parts I think everyone should know! So lets get on with my Top 3 from Part 1. Continue reading →

Chat Log – Grand Vision

~ victoriarachel ~ 3 Comments

As well as communicating through Developer Journals, the official forums, the forums over at MMORPG.com, Twitter and Facebook, the developers also use live chat. Yes they really like to talk to us all that much! Now the ‘official’ live chat hours are every Monday, after a Developer Journal, from 10am to 11am PDT. However, you will find the developers are willing to share information far more often! This series brings things from the live chat out into the world.

This post is about connecting the dots. Taking the features we have heard about and putting it together to give you an example of how everything is intertwined, everything works together. Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh explained how those mechanics add up to great things. How great? Well I will let you decide:

Congratulations. Welcome to player-generated content. You’ve just build your first dungeon/raid.

Continue reading →

Chronicler Conjecture – Realism

~ victoriarachel ~ Leave a comment

While not really an under wraps part of the game, how ‘Realism’ affects Chronicles of Elyria are something I have been pondering about. It is a word that developers have used quite a few times, to the point where part of the game’s introduction is about the ‘dramatic realism’ we are going to be able to experience. However, what actually is realism when it comes to a game set in a fantasy world? How real is ‘realistic’?

The reason I started musing on this topic is because of mjwalstead, a member of the community over on the official forums. There was a discussion after the last developers journal about griefers murdering others and how we would try to prevent this. Before we go any further I just want to say that murder is a serious topic, and the discussion of it in relation to game mechanics is not in any way intended to diminish or overlook the seriousness of such a heinous act. However, as it is going to be a part of the game and I do want to talk about how that impacts Chronicles of Elyria. Continue reading →

Forum Finds – Intended Audience

~ victoriarachel ~ 3 Comments

Most of the things I bring to your attention with Forum Finds are details about game mechanics. This post is about something different. It is simply something. I read and thought, “That matters.” It is a post about the intended audience of the game. Who they are actually aiming this product at. It is about us:

Chronicles of Elyria is most definitely for a certain type of individual. It’s for people like me and my team. People who want to feel like they have an impact on the world.

This is a part of a post was made by Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh in a thread about Character Creation of all things started by community member Illuminatos. So I think it certainly qualifies as a Forum Find as I would never have thought to look there for this sort of post! Jeromy continued: Continue reading →

Forum Finds – World Building

~ victoriarachel ~ 1 Comment

It is amazing how frequently large amounts of information are being shared by the developers in the forums. Chronicles of Elyria is so large and detailed, with so many interlocking systems there always seems to be something new to tell us about. This Forum Find focuses on the world itself. How it is built, how it is populated and how it feels to be playing in it.

Community member Zultra started a thread asking how the world would be created. Was this the world going to contain procedurally generated features? Our ever friendly forum Dev Caspian soon picked up the scent and gave a long and detailed answer that began:

Great question, Zultra. Much/most of the world will be procedurally generated. Remember, each of our servers will have completely different continents in order to guarantee that stuff discovered on one server doesn’t ruin it for another server.

Well, that solves that, on to the next forum find…Oh okay, there is more. Continue reading →

Chronicler Conjecture – Magic

~ victoriarachel ~ 1 Comment

Welcome to a new series of posts looking at some of the parts of the game that are still mostly under wraps. These articles are speculation or sp-ECHO-lation… haha.. no? Fine. They are my, the chronicler’s, thoughts on a topic based on the tiniest scraps of information that have been extrapolated upon far beyond what is reasonable. They are thoughts and possibilities to be debated, not be taken as fact.

Magic, it is a fascinating thing and one that comes up regularly on the forums. Unfortunately for those of us who are impatient and what to know everything now it is one of the topics that is a closely guarded secret. One the Soulbound employees are determined not to spill. However, because they just can’t resist, we have been given a few clues which I shall now run wild with. Continue reading →