Chronicles of Elyria MMO

[Uncreative]

Has anyone else been following it?
I've been trying to stay objective while information was still coming out but I'm kinda starting to get into it.

If you have no idea what it is here's a blatant copy/paste from the greenlight page,

Spoiler: Wall of text

What is Chronicles of Elyria?

Chronicles of Elyria is the first MMORPG where your character ages and dies, encouraging you to think beyond your character to their role in a larger story.

Fearless in its design, it embraces a character's ability to impact other characters. A closed economy, finite resources, non-repeatable quests, and a fully destructible environment means the world is experienced differently for every character.

Each time you log in there is a dynamic world waiting for you. Local, regional, and national conflicts are continuously unfolding, giving birth to repeated opportunities for you to change the course of history.

What makes this game different from other MMOs?

Aging, Dying, & Souls | An epic 10-year story line invites you to experience your character over multiple lifetimes. With each life you will develop your character and make your mark in the Chronicles. When your character eventually dies, their soul will be reincarnated stronger than before and their spirit and destiny will live on in another character of your making.

Characters age in-game over the course of 10-14 real-world months. During that time your character will grow old and eventually die, leaving their mark on history. But while alive you must choose your actions carefully, as each in-game death reduces your overall lifespan (by approximately 2 days) and brings your character that much closer to permadeath. However, if you're an influential player (the king perhaps), each in-game death is more impactful, leading to permadeath in just 4 or 5 times.

Player Skill Matters | It's no longer about getting to level cap and pursuing the best gear. In CoE a player's skill - their timing, speed, and strategy - makes a difference. The combat system requires you to dodge, parry, and manage your stamina - not just spam buttons. Crafting also requires player skill, with mini-games designed to make crafting more than just clicking a button.

Offline Player Characters | To maintain realism, your character remains in-game from the moment of creation until permadeath because you wouldn't want to be interacting with a merchant only to have them sign out and disappear from the world. We've solved this with AI scripts to support your character while offline. This allows you to train skills, run your shop, and defend yourself while you're AFK.

Non-Repeatable Quests | Tired of killing 20 bunnies destroying a farmer's crops, only to see 50 other characters complete the same quest? We're doing away with NPC quest hubs by enabling other players to give out tasks. That same OPC merchant may run out of reagents, leading them to ask you to bring 10 elixirs back from a far off city, utilizing the contract system to ensure delivery.

No World or Mini-Map | Map makers and cartographers have a place in CoE, helping players navigate their world. But watch out, because treasure maps can be faked and locations may be renamed, leading NPCs to refer to a town by the most used name.

Game-Enforced Player Contracts | Implicit and explicit contracts enable you to develop unique, never-before-seen meta content. Signing in-game contracts between players creates a binding agreement so you can safely operate your business. Sign trade contracts to create a shipping business. Employ other players to procure hard-to-find resources. Sell your services as an expert assassin and be confident you?ll receive payment. The possibilities are endless and only limited by your creativity!

MMORPG Meets Survival Game | With limited inventory, hunger and thirst, drowning and fatigue, and dangerous landscapes containing both sweltering heat and frigid cold, a character must be truly heroic to become a hero. The riches are real and adventurers can become the wealthiest and most powerful in the world - if they can survive the harsh environments.

Sparks of Life | Chronicles of Elyria utilizes a new business model never before seen in MMOs. CoE hearkens back to the coin-op arcade model where, for $30, players buy a Spark of Life that grants a soul the opportunity to live for between 10 and 14 months, before establishing your Soul in a new character of your choosing. (Note: 1 Spark of Life comes with purchase of the game.)

In CoE, bodies age and die, but Souls live forever. In your new body, whether that be your heir or someone else entirely, your Skill Ramp will get you back up to power quickly & allow you to advance further than in your previous life.


That and so, so much more more. Game is scheduled for full release December 2017, with Alpha and Beta stages in the interim. (Source)

So.
I don't like to get optimistic...uh, ever, but I've been digging around and so far every concern has either been directly addressed by a team member, promised to be addressed soon, or something they're upfront about needing to test more. They're even seeming sensible talking about stretch goals, saying they're looking at adding back a few things they'd just barely cut but wanting to focus on backer rewards instead of features to avoid mucking things up.
Against my will and better judgement optimism is starting to happen.

What do you guys think? Cause I really either need someone to talk me down or plan a farm with me.

 

[Angelblaze]

I remember how Archeage and Everquest:Next was supposed to have like half these features.

 

[Morsomk_v1legacy]

Last time I noticed it was with the video of that really cool weather effect video, where the snow texture slowly takes over the landscape. One of the coolest things I've seen in a videogame of a late and I hope sincerely that it was genuine and in no way a bullshot(or in this case a bullvideo).

But I have been burned out on promises. *sniff*

[HEADING=3]NOW LEAVE ME TO MY SORROWS, FOR I CANNOT HOLD MY TEARS IN REMEMBRANCE OF EVERQUEST NEXT! [/HEADING]

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

These sound like gimmicks, I'm sorry to say. MMOs have as a whole become refined to the point where players know what they like.

Aging, Dying, & Souls. Does that mean the player will be level 1 again? It might be interesting, but OTOH it might piss players off to be constantly forced *out* of different levels of content. What carries over between a player's characters? Is there no persistence?

Player Skill Matters - This rarely works out well. The most successful MMOs are the rotation based ones, followed by the strategic ones. Twitch based rarely works out successfully. As for making crafting a mini-game, that is a huge negative, not a positive. Crafting is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Adding *any* complexity to crafting is a fool's errand. It needs to be as simple and least time-wastey as possible so we can get on with the game.

Adding hunger, thirst, fatigue and player characters remaining logged in...I dislike it utterly. It might appeal to some but if *my* character is not under my control then I'm not interested. I have no issue with a world or economy changing while logged off, in fact an MMO *should* do that, but mess with my character and I'm not going to be playing it.

No world map...this sounds like hassle and difficulty, not a good thing. A map is an important quality of life feature. There are games that don't need one but I doubt an MMO is one of them. Removing quality of life features is *not* a positive.

The NPC quests sounds interesting. The NPC runs out of a thing and dynamically hands out a one off quest to replenish it...that is very clever and something I can get behind. It definitely makes side quests less repetitive and I hate being one-of-many in an open-world area searching for 10 mobs just like them. I hate it. This is a good idea.

The contracts thing sounds interesting. I don't know what it involves but anything which promotes and encourages player interaction/cooperation in an MMO is a good thing.

 

[Seishisha]

"Sparks of Life | Chronicles of Elyria utilizes a new business model never before seen in MMOs. CoE hearkens back to the coin-op arcade model where, for $30, players buy a Spark of Life that grants a soul the opportunity to live for between 10 and 14 months, before establishing your Soul in a new character of your choosing. (Note: 1 Spark of Life comes with purchase of the game.)"

That single line of text has me both conserned and puzzled, the way i read this makes me think, each 'life' needs a spark to work and each spark has a cost/value associated with it. This is a bad thing, don't pretend killing the player's character and having them pay to get a new one is a good idea.

The rest of the blurb sounds very heavy on the promise side and i suppose only time will tell if they can pull it off.

 

[Uncreative]

My condolences on everquest next you guys, these are sad times.

These sound like gimmicks, I'm sorry to say. MMOs have as a whole become refined to the point where players know what they like.

Aging, Dying, & Souls. Does that mean the player will be level 1 again? It might be interesting, but OTOH it might piss players off to be constantly forced *out* of different levels of content. What carries over between a player's characters? Is there no persistence?

Player Skill Matters - This rarely works out well. The most successful MMOs are the rotation based ones, followed by the strategic ones. Twitch based rarely works out successfully. As for making crafting a mini-game, that is a huge negative, not a positive. Crafting is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Adding *any* complexity to crafting is a fool's errand. It needs to be as simple and least time-wastey as possible so we can get on with the game.

Adding hunger, thirst, fatigue and player characters remaining logged in...I dislike it utterly. It might appeal to some but if *my* character is not under my control then I'm not interested. I have no issue with a world or economy changing while logged off, in fact an MMO *should* do that, but mess with my character and I'm not going to be playing it.

No world map...this sounds like hassle and difficulty, not a good thing. A map is an important quality of life feature. There are games that don't need one but I doubt an MMO is one of them. Removing quality of life features is *not* a positive.

The NPC quests sounds interesting. The NPC runs out of a thing and dynamically hands out a one off quest to replenish it...that is very clever and something I can get behind. It definitely makes side quests less repetitive and I hate being one-of-many in an open-world area searching for 10 mobs just like them. I hate it. This is a good idea.

The contracts thing sounds interesting. I don't know what it involves but anything which promotes and encourages player interaction/cooperation in an MMO is a good thing.

Yeah see my first reaction was gimmick too, that's part of why I went digging. All that's out there at this stage is how the developers say they want it to work, but they seem to have put more than gimmick levels of energy into weaving it all together. From what I've found,

With aging and dying they're planning to do less with overall character levels and more have what you can manage based on what specific skills you've been training, and there's supposed to be a "skill ramp" where you learn things your character's past lives knew at an increased rate. They've said they want it to play so that it takes multiple lives of pursuing something to be able to reach the highest of the high tiers before your character dies, and the delay as a newly reincarnated character retrains a skill is supposed give room for players to shift around the social hierarchy without one person or group claiming the top dog spot indefinitely. And also make people actually notice when characters die. Item wise you can leave a will to give your land and equipment to an heir (your next character) or a friend.

They really really want crafting to be an actual primary pursuit for some people. So like, instead of everyone aiming to hit max you get where you need to be for what you want to do and for most players that'll be sort of mid to low range, then the people who are really into it will be who to go to for top grade stuff. There are already a few people on the forums talking about dedicating characters to being The Best at different professions, it's crazy.
The idea of Blacksmithing: The Social Experience keeping people playing is definitely a different angle, I think I've been rolling with it on the grounds that I'm frequently confused and frightened by the people at the top of any category in mmos, and this seemed to fit along those lines.

The specifics of the offline character scripts are supposed to be set up by the player before they log out, but no idea how that's gonna work.

Relying on player made maps is a recipe for trust issues, which honestly looks intentional.
Combat is as you said. This one is worrisome.

Holy shit though, I can confirm that they are very into encouraging player interaction, yes. Pretty sure that is their driving mission. There's actually a developer journal specifically for their plans for contracts if you wanna see what's up with that, Contracts and Player-Created Professions.

Course ideas and planning aren't the same thing as a visibly working system, but I've gotten to the point where I really am convinced that they think it's more than gimmicks, and are very invested in making it a strange but cohesive new thing.

Not gonna lie, the scale tipping chunk of that probably comes from having jumped into the community's irc yesterday and watching as the studio's ceo/owner calmly and kindly addressed every one of some random guy's ten point list of issues with the game, specifically making sure other people in the chat weren't trying to interrupt the guy while he was laying them out. Even though it was like four am, and most people were in there to be excited while the kickstarter ticked over to funded.

I dunno you guys, a few days ago I thought I could be talked down but now I think it may be too late for me. I think I'm believing in the american dream of passionate batshit innovation. Mourn me when this titanic sinks, I've got a bored rich girl to flirt with.

"Sparks of Life | Chronicles of Elyria utilizes a new business model never before seen in MMOs. CoE hearkens back to the coin-op arcade model where, for $30, players buy a Spark of Life that grants a soul the opportunity to live for between 10 and 14 months, before establishing your Soul in a new character of your choosing. (Note: 1 Spark of Life comes with purchase of the game.)"

That single line of text has me both conserned and puzzled, the way i read this makes me think, each 'life' needs a spark to work and each spark has a cost/value associated with it. This is a bad thing, don't pretend killing the player's character and having them pay to get a new one is a good idea.

The rest of the blurb sounds very heavy on the promise side and i suppose only time will tell if they can pull it off.

The spark of life is actually their alternative to a subscription fee. So you pay for one character, and then after 12ish months it dies and you pay to reincarnate it, but you don't pay monthly to access the game.

You're uh, not supposed to get super invested in keeping an individual character, I think. Kind of like hamsters.
Really stabby hamsters.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

The inserting thing about sparks of life is they impact the more dedicated player more then the more casual one. You can die a number of times before you are really dead, but that number is based on how high a level you are or how much influenced you have, Like if your a king, then you die for reals after one kill, but if your no one, then you can die a lot before you really die.

though the system is rather scary because your going to have the same old same old spawn killing and trolling. Only now that trolling will cost you money. They have some safe guards on repeated deaths, but I don't know if they are enough.

 

[infohippie]

The combat system requires you to dodge, parry, and manage your stamina - not just spam buttons.

This is my biggest concern with it, especially the "timing" part. Are they going to have robust lag mitigation? Are we going to get client-side processing with server-side verification? Is it going to be friendly to a 250ms ping or even higher? Or, like every other MMO that tries to go this route, is it going to only be really playable in the US, close to the servers? Will I, playing from Australia, be at a tremendous disadvantage in just playing the basic game, let alone PvP?
In my experience, MMO companies will just place a server in the US, maybe if people are very lucky another in Europe, and fail to care at all about the rest of the world.


Also, if this game does not have an adorable loli kemonomimi playable race then it has no chance at all of dragging me away from Blade & Soul with its Lyn, or Tera with its Elins.

 

[Uncreative]

Sounds cool, but that Life Spark idea... No, I wont get a game where you have to pay per life (even if it does last up to 14 months). IMO MMO's have gone past monthly subscriptions. I won't play any these days that still have them in any form. And I think that if they keep this system in place, they'll quickly regret it.

 

[Raddra]

Honestly the game other than these 'features' looks generic as anything I have ever seen. Nothing there looks any more interesting than the 100+ other generic fantasy MMO's/games out there.

What does it do different, other than 'consequence'?

 

[Uncreative]

Honestly the game other than these 'features' looks generic as anything I have ever seen. Nothing there looks any more interesting than the 100+ other generic fantasy MMO's/games out there.

What does it do different, other than 'consequence'?

Well the combat system sound different. I'm currently playing Black Desert Online and after having beaten Dark Souls 3 I was thinking how interesting it would be to play an MMO with DS combat rather than the classic MMO 'spam a million attacks as much as possible, as fast as possible'. Ok, I get that in many MMO's, if you want to be as effect as possible you cant just spam every attack, you have to think what you're doing, but that really applies to PvP and harder fight only, against the standard mob, you'll just be hitting keys as fast as possible. In DS, pretty much every fight feels like you have to be on your guard and think about what you're going to do, you're also limited in the number of attacks you have, you don't have like 10 -20 skills ready to use like in most MMO's. i want an MMO where you have to do that, slow the fighting down but making it more interesting and feel more visceral.

I have no idea if that's the case with Chronicles of Elyria, it sort of sounds like it going off what the devs say but I'm just assuming.

 

[infohippie]

Honestly the game other than these 'features' looks generic as anything I have ever seen. Nothing there looks any more interesting than the 100+ other generic fantasy MMO's/games out there.

What does it do different, other than 'consequence'?

Well the combat system sound different. I'm currently playing Black Desert Online and after having beaten Dark Souls 3 I was thinking how interesting it would be to play an MMO with DS combat rather than the classic MMO 'spam a million attacks as much as possible, as fast as possible'. Ok, I get that in many MMO's, if you want to be as effect as possible you cant just spam every attack, you have to think what you're doing, but that really applies to PvP and harder fight only, against the standard mob, you'll just be hitting keys as fast as possible. In DS, pretty much every fight feels like you have to be on your guard and think about what you're going to do, you're also limited in the number of attacks you have, you don't have like 10 -20 skills ready to use like in most MMO's. i want an MMO where you have to do that, slow the fighting down but making it more interesting and feel more visceral.

I have no idea if that's the case with Chronicles of Elyria, it sort of sounds like it going off what the devs say but I'm just assuming.

The problem with that is you simply cannot require split-second timing in an MMO. To allow for lag, especially if you're not going to put servers in a dozen different locations around the world, you have to allow players at least half a second of leeway on any timing requirements.

 

[Seishisha]

The spark of life is actually their alternative to a subscription fee. So you pay for one character, and then after 12ish months it dies and you pay to reincarnate it, but you don't pay monthly to access the game.

You're uh, not supposed to get super invested in keeping an individual character, I think. Kind of like hamsters.
Really stabby hamsters.

Just to clear up my own confusion on this matter, does the spark last 10-14 months across multiple characters or is it as i suspect just for a single character, meaning if you die two days after purchase you will need to make another 30$ or whatever purchase just to continue playing.

If the former then good, rather generous infact. If the latter, my original position still stands. Making players pay for each life, with the mechanics designed around perma-death and even an eventual unavoidable death (bad sentence strucure don't say that ten times fast), then that the system is bad, atleast bad in my eye's anyway.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Ah, another crowd-funded entry into a genre where you need a 100M budget just to get your foot in the door, let alone meaningfully compete. I'll keep my expectations down around ankle level.