By design, this will be a low-fantasy setting. The problem with a world full of wizards is, there is nothing unique about them. There will be a small part of the population with some sort of magical or other talent. This doesn't mean they will be full on wizards who can cast any spell from a spell book. This means they may have some sort of ability or power over an element - and only for that lifetime. Talents die with the character.

The people who have pledged money to this game are aware of this fact, yet we've still managed to pledge nearly $2M in support of this play style. If someone can't imagine an MMORPG without high-fantasy magic, perhaps another game is for them. There are hundreds to choose from.

Edit: Changed wording for better clarification.

You refer to "these games" like CoE will be some fantasy mmo you've played before.

Don't presume to speak for all people.

People want a lot of things. People don't always get what they want.

There could be a lot of reasons for magic not to be commonplace. It just depends on the lore, and the backstory, which we really don't know yet.

This is supposed to be a story based game, with conflict driving that story. If conflicts are minor, the story will be below average. Magic and other Talents will (and should) have major impact on the story, one way or another. (For the benefit of the players, or the detriment of players - both make a good story).

As far as killing yourself over and over... sure, it's possible. We don't know what the triggers are... But what if your trigger was to reach 100 years old, and you killed yourself? You'd never know, and might have just lost your one chance at getting that talent.

I wish math worked that way, but it doesn't. Dying doesn't increase your chances of getting a talent. Every time you reroll a toon, you have the same percentage chance of having a talent attached to you. To make the odds even less, someone may have a talent and not know they have one because they never performed whatever action would trigger it. Perhaps they never drowned in the pond on their farm and will never know that, as a result, the god Oceanus granted them the ability to walk on water due to the person's unwavering devotion to the Qindred.

There are a lot of threads on the forums related to people hoping for talents. In those threads you'll also find comments from people who just want to live a simple life and write stories into books, raise bees for honey and candle wax, run a wildlife sanctuary, travel the globe and make maps, etc. That's the beauty of a system that doesn't have set classes and professions - people can be whatever they want with only the limitations written into the code.

Wanting magic isn't a bad thing, but a server full of mages doesn't fit the storyline the creators have imagined. I, for one, want to join them in the world they envision, not force my worldview on them.

I like the fact magic will be limited.

Posted By Nkrumah at 01:48 AM - Sun Jan 01 2017

I like the fact magic will be limited.

Same here. There will be enough to do in the game that magic will be icing on the vast and wonderful cake when and if it shows up.

To respond to your comment about driving a wedge - that's kind of the point. It's a low fantasy setting where magic is a rare but powerful force that many would fear.

Look at what fear of magic did in our world, where it isn't real. Hundreds were killed in witch hunts across various countries for fear of what they might do if they turned on the local people - this is exactly the same. It's the sort of thing that drives a player to make a choice - they might trust their friends to respond well and keep it secret from those who might harm you, they might simply pretend it doesn't exist and get on with their normal lives, they might try to master their magical powers and join the kingdom's army, triggering a war for more territory using their power to lead the charge, or they might not even have the magic their friend wanted in the first place.

After all, the chances are minimal of getting magic in the first place, adding to that that there are a few different types of magic you might get a magic that lets you heal, or one that lets you charm others or one that lets you grow plants quickly or one that lets you summon elemental forces. We don't have any idea of exactly what the magic will be - only that it will exist and be incredibly rare, if you plan to have it, more the fool you.

Personally I'm planning on living quite a normal life independent of all this talent shenanigans since so few people will have them in the first place and you won't necessarily know even if you do.

If you want everyone to have magic go buy another game. There are plenty of games which will make you feel like the special little wizard/witch you want to feel like.

I like what they are planning for talents too, having just a few active at a time will make them truly epic and will make it more exciting.

Also Caspian mentioned several times, that nobody should be in a hurry to get a talent, they will be just as much a curse as a gift.

If they made magic accessible to everyone I would be very disappointed. The fact that so few people will have it will really drive the story. Bored of MMOs trying to make everyone equal and hold the player's hand thesedays.

Another poor representative of "the people" here, but yeah - I don't want magic either. As people here have pointed out, if you want to be a fireball shooting wizard you will surely find a more classical Sword & Sorcery MMO that suits you better. In Chronicles of Elyria magic is supposed to be the stuff of fantasy, and I know for a fact a lot of people love that aspect of it. It brings a fair ammount of wonder into this world that Soulbound is creating here.

I would also like to touch on that scenario you've given us - where a magical talent would somehow drive a wedge through people playing together? First of all, the Soulbourn Engine will be distributing these "special talents" to a certain soul, yet the soul still has to activate that talent. From my understanding of it, Sally can continue leading a happy life hunting with Bob and Laura and never even know she has the ability to perform magic. The Soulborn Engine, recognizing that the talent has never been utilized, will simply grant it to another soul.

I pledged to this game as I wanted a low fantasy game, something that wouldn't have people throwing magic about, where there are thousands upon thousands of legendary and mythical creatures. There are so many games out there that already do that, why become one of many?

I also love the idea of someday stumbling upon some random person who is able to grow trees instantly, rumours of a wandering healer who can heal all ailments on touch, words of a dragon being seen in distant lands. Then perhaps, one day seeing somebody raining fire from the skies, calling in blizzards, etc. it will make for real shock and awe moments and points in which stories can be built.

As said above, killing yourself over and over again won't give you the talents. Over the period of your life you may develop a talent, you'll have no clue if you've been born with a talent until you actually unlock it. This could be when you're 20, 50, or on the day of your death ( that would suck ;) ).

Posted By Jonglow at 3:24 PM - Sun Jan 01 2017

First of all, there seems to be a lot of magic in this game. We're talking Dungeons & Dragons high level magic. Check the login page and stare at the picture, you should see a wizard with a glowing staff casting meteor storm and nuking a city, that's BIG TIME magic, not "I had a dream of stuff happening" magic.

Thus, and only the developers can answer this, I'm going to take a wild guess and say magic is going to be crucial. Like I can see an entire story line based around the birth and life of one magic user. That one lucky fella or gal can literally single-handedly take down an entire kingdom (or several) by him or herself.

Personally, I don't mind this. But... BUT, a huge swatch of the MMO population WILL CARE. In fact, if you limit the things you can do in the game (which is what you're effectively doing by making magic users a lottery win), then there will be issues with the main stay MMO population.

This isn't that kind of game, there's WoW, Rift, ESO for people who want to go around casting fireballs at everything. In this game if you ever are (un)fortunate enough to meet a wizard it'll be something to tell your friends about. The devs are all about player driven story.