Game Mechanics

Forum Finds – Time Cycles

Chronicles of Elyria Universe
~ victoriarachel ~ 6 Comments

The Chronicles of Elyria forums have just had their first makeover showing that the developers are at least listening to their community when it comes to making the important changes, the forums are a serious business after all. The developers are still using the forums to engage and are responding to questions about all sorts. Some of the most interesting news pops up in unexpected places, which means it is easy to miss like this week’s forum find.

In a thread about the price of the game started by community member kingfighsher, things took some interesting turns. From the price, to price per life, to how long a life was, to how quickly time passes for your character, ending up at the time cycles of the world. Yep, the community moves quickly! It was that point that the ever watching Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh stepped in with this post which starts a little something like this:

There is a day/night cycle, and changing season. However, Elyria’s day/night cycle is longer than Earths, and there are fewer days per season. The end result is the game will shift between night and day at a comfortable rate (a few times per RL day), with seasonal effects changing ever so slightly over a 24 hour period of time. After four RL days you’ll be back where you started.

This builds a picture of the world we are all going to be living in, and I mean living. It is features like this that make worlds feel alive. Aesthetic changes during play time keep the world interesting. They encourage you to stay longer and can help build long term attachments. Continue reading →

Journal Discussed – #2 Soul Selection, Destiny, Achievements and Soul Mates

~ victoriarachel ~ 1 Comment

If you have not read this week the Chronicles of Elyria developer journal yet you can catch up with the abridged version here, though of course nothing beats the real thing over at MMORPG.com. It is a rather packed journal, and still some ended up on the Soulbound Studios cutting room floor so we better make a start discussing it all.

There was less straight controversy in this one, yes I am looking at you last week’s talent system, but it was full of fascinating detail on some pretty crucial features. Including some of the first things we are going to see when we get hold of the game, the beginning of character customisation. Firstly let’s ignore the idea of choosing a soul and lets focus on the nitty-gritty, the UI. Now we know this is not a finished product, but if we are at a point where we can judge the ideas we are certainly at a point where we can look at their implementation too. Continue reading →

Journal Abridged – #2 Soul Selection, Destiny, Achievements and Soul Mates

Chronicles of Elyria Soul Selection Screen
~ victoriarachel ~ 2 Comments

This series takes the Developers Journals and gives you a run down of the key information covered. While there is not much discussion here, you can head to the accompanying Journal Discussed article which will be posted later in the week.

This week is part two of looking into one of Chronicles of Elyria’s fundamental mechanics, souls. If you missed part one you can catch up here, but to dive into the part two you can head over to MMORPG.com for the full topic covering Soul Selection, Destiny, Achievements and Soul Mates or read the abridged version here.

Buckle up because with four packed topics just in the title this is going to be a wild ride. Continue reading →

Forum Finds – Aging

~ victoriarachel ~ 5 Comments

Edit: I have seen things, beautiful things. Things that make you run up and down your house it the middle of the night silently squealing because they are everything you hoped for. So as well as a the normal Forum Find you can also read my response to an animation of the in-game aging I have been lucky enough to see, to jump straight to that click here. Or read on for the full experience:

The thread that keeps on giving is the topic for today’s post. Chronicles of Elyria community member Tom started a thread about aging and over the last week a number of interesting responses by the ever present Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh have dropped some serious information. Continue reading →

Forum Finds – Animal Skills

Chronicles of Elyria Town
~ victoriarachel ~ 1 Comment

We know there will a wide range of skills in Chronicles of Elyria, including some really interesting skills not often seen in other MMOs like cartography. What we do not know yet is what other skills are out there or how we get them.

A few more skills have slipped out, and along with them the words “skill tree”, here is the post by Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh in response to community members kingfighsher (great big apologies for spelling it wrong to begin with) and Lordnym discussing skills in the now somewhat derailed, or perhaps just diverted, Will behaviors affect survival? thread on the forums.

Animal Taming is currently part of the Bardic Skill Tree. Animal Husbandry is one of the Lore skills.

Animal related skills have been confirmed though their impact on the world and all the details of how they work are still unknown. Continue reading →

Journal Discussed – #1 Introduction to Souls

~ victoriarachel ~ 2 Comments

Introduction to Souls was the first Developer Journal since the public announcement of Chronicles of Elyria if you haven’t read it yet catch up with the Journal Abridged. In this post, we shall be looking at the communities reaction, additional developer responses and all round discussion on the topic.

With so much new information coming out it was interesting to see which parts the community really picked up on. However, with one of the announcements being an asymmetrical talents system, there are no prizes for guessing which part got the most tongues wagging. Concerns ranged from everyone unlocking the best talents, to players re-rolling over and over to get the talent they want, to simply quitting out of disappointment if they didn’t get one. The community was initially pretty flustered (myself amongst them), but as always Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh came to the rescue clearing up a lot of the confusion that was fueling those negative thoughts. Continue reading →

Journal Abridged – #1 Introduction to Souls

Chronicles of Elyria Akashic Records
~ victoriarachel ~ 2 Comments

This series takes the Developers Journals and gives you a run down of the key information covered. While there is not much discussion here, you can head to the accompanying Journal Discussed article which will be posted later in the week.

With Soulbound Studios using the Soulborn engine, it is very clear that souls are a big deal.  Information about this fundamental  parts of the Chronicles of Elyria world is starting to spill out with Introduction to Souls the first of a three-part series. There is so much information, even when broken it takes up a lot of grey matter to think about all the implications. Continue reading →

Forum Finds – Music

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If you have ever thrown a party you will know the importance of great music. Music also turns sitting around the campfire from being out in the cold and dark into an enjoyable evening. It is true for an MMO gathering too and while it might seem a small addition this forum find made me dance.

Community member Amarok was posting in the Entertainer? thread and made this comment:

It would be great if the music system would be similar to that of LOTRO

If you are not familiar with it then there are numerous YouTube videos of some fabulous performances. Continue reading →

Forum Finds – Theft

~ victoriarachel ~ 3 Comments

With community interaction being such an integral part of Chronicles of Elyria I found this suggestion on how to deal with more unsavoury players really fits in with the character of the game. It also shows the developers sense of humour.

I don’t know about you, but if I discovered certain characters were gold farmers, I’d probably become a highwayman and repeatedly steal from them… just sayin’. 😉

Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh  was sharing some of the details on the in-game exchange market in response to community member Shadow’s thread. Shadow brought up a topic that is close to many people’s hearts, would this game become Pay to Win? With the game allowing people to exchange real world money for in-game currency would that cause an imbalance? Continue reading →

Forum Finds – Cartography

~ victoriarachel ~ 1 Comment

This series of posts brings to light some of the most interesting forum activity over at the Chronicles of Elyria community forums.

The forums might be a little tricky to navigate at the moment but don’t worry that is due change in the coming months (you can give the developers your suggestions for features you want to see added here). If you do venture in, and I strongly suggest you do, you will find developers spilling their juicy secrets in almost every single thread! Who can blame them? They finally get to share their excitement with us.

The thread I want to bring to your attention today is World Exploration, Maps & Equipment, started by community member Silv, which contains this exciting revelation from Jeromy ‘Caspian’ Walsh:

The map system is one we’ve been working on for a long time. We wanted to do something different here than has ever been seen before – something that really speaks to our sandbox-style world, and the ability for players to create original content.

Cartography will be one of the earliest skills available to players. The skill allows you, using in-game tools, to draw/sketch/stencil maps of your area. The higher your cartographic skill, the more precise and high fidelity the tools available to you will become. Then, you can distribute your maps to others for free or for purchase. Likewise, others will be able to take your maps and add additional information to them. (X marks the spot!)

I’m withholding another really cool feature of cartography. I hope you’ll forgive me, but when I reveal it, I think it’s going to be huge. Stand by for a future dev journal.

This excites me for numerous reasons. Continue reading →