Hi! Welcome to the community, and I really hope you do find your MMO "home" here :)

To address some of your specific questions - yes, it is open world. How big: "very" is all we know. It has been stated that the starting continent, were it flat with no geographical features, would take 48 hours to walk from north to south without stopping. So, very large, hahah. Player homes are in the world, not instanced.

The systems of death, inheritance, souls and being reborn are very complex, and are what make Chronicles of Elyria unique. I'd recommend reading the developers journals - located under "community" at the top of the page - to get a better idea of these systems rather than relying on the userbase for answers on those.

There is no skill cap, but because of an individual character's lifespan, nobody will be able to max out all of their skills. Skills and skill ramps are part of the soul / rebirth system, so, again, have a look at the dev journals!

I would highly recommend reading all the Developer Journals.

But to hit a few highlights from your post. The entire world is open. As in see a mountain you can run up to and climb it. If you see a building you can break in, or enter naturally if you are invited. Housing, store fronts all building are in the world there is zero instancing. No instances dungeons, or anything.

As for death. Your toon ages and eventually dies permantantly leading your Soul to take over another character. If you choose an heir and choose to take them over you then inherit your property/titles/items and such. Easy peasy.

Each unnatural death hastens that final death by an amount based on your fame.

In this game, in order to become a master at something it takes SEVERAL lifetimes. You don't master anything in one life. Each new life you begin you re-climb the skill ramp relatively quickly and then learn more in that lifetime and so on and so forth until you reach one particular lifetime where you hit the master level.

The whole point of the game is, when you start a new life you should view it as a new life, meaning you don't have to live it the same way you lived the last one. If you want to, the skill ramp is there, if not you can try something else. But the whole point is that there will be very few masters of a profession. Not everyone will become good at everything, we're going to have to focus our desires on one or two professions for example and spend several lives working on them to hit a high level. If you are a master of something then it really does mean you mastered it, it's not something that comes quickly. This is not like other MMO's where you master everything from alchemy to blacksmithing and 20 other skills, you will have to focus and make a choice. For example building a house will require assistance from several different professions and you cannot learn them all.

As for inheritance. You can leave the things you own such as your house or land to your offspring. Then when you reincarnate into that offspring you basically have what you left for yourself.

Grindy. I don't think so because this game seems to be more about telling a story than being the best at something. I am hoping it's about immersion of living the life of a real person. On line of course. So, I don't see myself sitting in front of a bench crafting away for hours to get better. I see myself sitting on a bench and crafting in order to sell something to survive. Of course I will want to get better at the skill. But so I can make more money at it.

Also, and don't hold me to this but the crafting system isn't suppose to work by just making the same thing over and over to get better. If I remember correctly, you have to do different type things to get better at it. Merely making the same thing over and over again will not give you much improvement.Take some chances and studying from masters.

Sorry, I don't remember what was said much about this but I am sure there is a dev journal around or someone can answer it better than me.

When it comes to crafting and increasing your skill there is a slider, if you move it to the left you don't learn much from crafting the item but you can more easily make it and will succeed at making it, move the slider to the right however and it becomes more to do with research, you are less likely to succeed and crafting the item is more dangerous but the more likely you are to learn something new and increase your skills. It's something like that anyway, I don't recall what was said word for word lol.

Posted By Viriathu at 08:40 AM - Fri May 19 2017

Please dont get me wrong, this can open very interesting paths to the game, but a lot of fighting will be something we wont see here, i see Elyria more a medieval social sim game where politics, housing, crafting, ruling and plots to be more relevant than the standard "fighting" MMOs.

This is probably the best way to view the concept of the game - not a sim in the full sense but certainly sim aspects involved, particularly around distance & travel, and in-game communication.

People seem to struggle a bit getting their head around the PvP aspect. While traditionally considered player v's player combat, this game is trying to define it as player v's player interaction, hence the focus on politics and economy.

It will cater for a niche market. Not everyone will find it appeals to their gaming style. Best bet is to stick on your watch list and research as much as you can to make an informed decision.

i wrote up a easy to read explain on COE please take a look i feel it will help you alot.

here

i too have played life is feudal and i must say it will have alot of comparsons to this game.

but some things to note that will be major differences.

there will be no terain modding... forget all those hours of moving dirt.... this will only happen when actually digging a mine from what i can tell. but yes LIF the land modding to build a building is insanly bad

Building a building in life is LIF is rather fast process once you have the matts for it. but coe even with matts the building process will take time. building a house as has been said will require alot of professions but even with them it could take a couple RL days to complete it.

there is no telport home. there is no showing ur lotcaion on the map so getting lost is truly a scary thing.. you could be killed by a animal (think of faceing a bear in LIF on foot with no armor... and that will be the smaller creatures...) then there is dieing of hunger both will spawn u back about 30m away from where u died... yes u can get ur gear back but ur still lost... this gonna be a bad day.

in LIF u can log out and be safe... in COE you are always ingame simliar to Ark but unlike ark it has a AI that takes over your chr and you set up what that chr is meant to do why ur off line with a scipt. BEWARE logging out outside of a town at your own risk... AI scipt wont know how to go home.

in LIF if there is no players around its a very dull and boring game. this game there will be fully interactive NPC's hell u may even become friends with a NPC and not even know it if SBS gets there work done correctly.

overall i feel LIF is a reasonable steping stone or shall we say training tool for those wishing to play COE as any one who played Wow only will have a harder time adjusting to this game then those who play LIF

but yes so much u can do in this game but its up to your choices..

unlike in LIF where a war consist of 20 vs 25 or such in COE a war (which will be more common then ur expecting) will be involving up to 1000 warriors in some of the medium size conflicts...

if that dose not get ur PVP blood pumping i have no clue what else will.

but yes expect that more people will be willing to take the risk to lose RL game sub time then you give credit too hehehe.

its $30 thats like 2 months wow sub... so ya PVP will be a thing but it will be a thing of sides... are your a outlaw or are you fighting for the law of the lands.?

expect the job of Bounty hunter or town Watch to get alot of PVP happening.

plus you can PVP without killing some one... its when u actually Deliberately kill them that ur breaching the murder laws or losing spirt

Posted By Viriathu at 06:00 AM - Fri May 19 2017

I'm impressed by the replies, and impressed how polite and patiente this community is and i cant say thank you enough for all the info.

Yeah they're pretty good at politeness and patience folks in this community. Gotta love 'em. 'specially that Mandrake fellow. Such a charmer XD

Posted By Viriathu at 03:00 AM - Fri May 19 2017

Would love to be a hunter and make a hunting cabin in the middle of the woodds, but i still dont know how practical this is with the land owning and housing system.

Welcome, you'll find that this community is a pretty even keeled one. We have our share of trolls, but somehow we managed to keep it to a minimum!

As to being a hunter, off in the woods somewhere, totally feasible.

Any lands you get through EP purchase are yours, tax free! If you buy an EP blueprint for a building, that's aaaalll yours, buddy.

The land system will allow you to pick any location and make it your own. You may have to go to the local count and register on the land table to claim it, if close to town. If you are far enough away, you could probably just build and be done with it, since after 28 days (4 IG years), it's yours by default. (This may change down the road, but for now, it's 4 IG years for adverse possession.)

Hello Viriathu!

May I suggest searching for DM21 Gaming on YouTube, and watching his reviews on the progress of this game. Primarily his deep dives on this game's story, and the argument of whether or not this game is a cash grab. Those videos will answer your questions highly in depth, and will shed magnificent light on just how unique and promising this game and it's development will be.

Welcome to the community, hope you find your answers!

~Warkan

Posted By LorenzW at 05:28 AM - Fri May 19 2017

Posted By Viriathu at 03:00 AM - Fri May 19 2017

Any lands you get through EP purchase are yours, tax free! .

Not any more. As of the last QA all EP land will be taxed at a flat % to start with. It's up to the owner to go to their count and negotiate a better deal. .