31 May

Community Journal: Just Keep Swimming!

By Serpentius

Greetings everyone,

May was an exciting time for us, we hope you all enjoyed the events and all the excitement that was had!

Here’s what happened during the last month.

A Look Back:

  • The Tribemoji contest concluded, with Elsy winning the grand prize. Her winning entries were added to our official Discord server. Type her name with the ":" to find them!
  • Our Adventure A Sense of Identity was successful and completed.
  • We launched our 2nd Kickstarterversary with fabulous new water-based transports and a whole lot more! As of this writing, the community achieved over 250k in milestones. This means you earned all the way up to the Expanded Housing, congratulations and thank you! With less than a day to go before the end of the event, you might just make it to the Soul Pack!
  • To go along with the Kickstarterversary promotion, we added a milestone and stretch goal tracker giving the community a chance to earn even more awards and exciting benefits!
  • The team set off on our latest Adventure to Ready the World. See what is being polished and prepared for our first players to participate in testing! Read the blog update from Caspian here.
  • We hosted a live Twitch Q&A on World Generation with Caspian, Vye, and Souzou. Watch it again on YouTube!
  • The Kingdom of Bordweall treated the entire studio to a delicious lunch from a nearby specialty sandwich shop. See pics and read about this awesome gift!
  • Our newest community program, the Subject Matter Experts, launched and became available for community members to start applying!
  • We announced that Alpha 1 a la carte went away via an Official update from Caspian in Discord.
  • Our favorite Lead Designer and Revival emigrant Snipehunter held a very interesting and informative Q&A interview on a new streaming show, TheoryForge. If you missed it or want to watch again, find it here.
  • Our Tribal Clothing concepts finished with the reveal of The Waerd clothing. Vye also shared some fun facts about The Waerd, read the article here.

As I said, busy month!

Surname reservations:

We consistently review surname reservations on a daily basis. Each month we like to share a few from the past period that caught our eye.

Favorite declines:

  • Gasm
  • Ballbags
  • Le Strange
  • Brewed
  • She Nan'igan
  • Ondakronakh
  • Dragangsta

Most attempted: Villains from Batman series

Standouts:

  • Candore DeSavante
  • Fa'Érn
  • Jearshald
  • Sansafaia
  • Epithamos

Popular Memes

As a new feature to our Community Journal, each month we'll spotlight one or two of our favorite memes that were shared via the forums or Discord.

This month, we share 2 favorites. One is an example of a fan-made fan starter pack, the other shows the creativity our community members have.


"This is why we cannot have nice things:"


Forever Alone.

Wanted: 9 raiders who are trustworthy, dedicated, and fearless!


Meet a Mod

This month Caelestius interviewed veteran moderator Artsykidd, who some of you may know as Lucifer on Discord.

Here's what they talked about:

Q: You’re known as Lucifer on Discord and ArtsyKidd on the official Forums – why two names, and where did they come from?
A: "The name Artsykidd is one that I’ve been using for nearly ten years now. I’d always used really stupid names like, ShadowIceFlame or…SonicxFlame… Being a creative individual; a musician, writer and former artist, I thought it fitting to use the word Artsy. The ‘Kidd’ came from the basketball player, Jason Kidd, cause…you know, I had to be cool and all that jazz. Now, though the name Artsykidd is more characteristic, it’s not really fitting for the name of a character. I always felt the name Lucifer had too much of a bad rep despite it having a good meaning, which I find sort of unfortunate. I also enjoy explaining that the meaning of the name is the complete opposite of how they associate it. I was mostly inspired to use it by the anime ‘The Devil is a Part-Timer’ cause Lucifer (Hanzō Urushihara) is one of my all-time favorite characters."

Q: Cats or dogs?
A: "I can’t really say. I’ve only ever had a cat, and the few experiences I’ve had with dogs haven’t exactly been…pleasurable, but they both have their qualities. I’d say cats for their solitude and independence and dogs for their loyalty and friendliness."

Q: Favorite thing about being a mod?
A: "I like how involved we get to be in the community. We may not be members of the studio, but we get to be instrumental in a lot of the changes that take place and the It’s what I like best about working with Serp; he doesn’t just tell us what to do, he seriously considers our input and it really makes a difference, both for the team and the community."

Q: Least favorite?
A: "There are some people who make me want to go bang my head on a wall for a few hours, but that’s just the way it goes."

Q: Kanye or Childish Gambino?
A: "Assuming that question actually needs to be answered, totally Kanye. (That was sarcasm.) Yeah….no, Childish Gambino of course–I don’t even understand how that needs to be said."

Q: iOS or Android?
A: "While I use Android, I really can’t stand it. If I had the money, I’d go back to iOS in a heartbeat, I love Apple and I’ve never had a problem with it."

Q: Favorite color?
A: "Purple – always has been, always will be."

Q: What’s your ideal vacation?
A: "I’ve always wanted to visit Italy, it’s a country so awash with culture and simply beautiful. However, I’m not sure it’d necessarily be my ideal vacation. I’m more keen on travelling throughout East/Southeast Asia—something I intend to do in the near future; countries so deeply rooted in tradition, awe-inspiring landscapes, and beautiful languages. I can’t wait for the opportunity, although I’m not certain you’d call that a vacation… If not, then still Italy, I guess."

Q: What are you most looking forward to in Chronicles of Elyria?
A: "Everything, really. On paper, CoE is the game that I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I’ve never really like MMORPGs because they were always so linear. I’ve always felt that I might as well be playing a single player game if my experience was just going to be the same as everybody else. The beauty of CoE is in how each player’s story will be unique and rather than fitting into a pre-determined mold like most MMORPGs do, I get to decide who my character is, for real."

Q: Where’s the furthest you’ve been from home?
A: "I think Florida. My high school band would tour throughout North America during spring break, so we visited a lot of cities, but I think Florida was the furthest we’d gone."

Q: Favorite video game of all time?
A: "Legend of Zelda, hands down. I love the whole series, but Twilight Princess if I have to choose. The first time I played it on Game cube, I spent days finishing it and it was probably one of the most fulfilling game experiences I’ve ever had. After finishing it, I spent hours on end listening to the soundtrack and ultimately, the Legend of Zelda series was what inspired me to become a film/video game composer."

Thank you Artsykdd for letting us get to know you a little better!


Meet an Organization

Each month we spotlight an organization from our community. Previously we alternated each month between a kingdom and a guild or association. With only so many of these Journals remaining, we decided to double down and now we’ll be covering both a Kingdom and an Organization each month.

We have many creative members who are building amazing groups in Elyria, and this is one way we can make sure you know about them.

We spoke with Sigurd Ragnarok, leader and creator of the group. Here's what he had to say:

Official Organization Name: The Crows

Server Location: EU - Selene

Kingdom Affiliation: Kingdom of Tryggr

When and how was it founded: "The founding of The Crows lies deep in the shadows of Selene’s history. All we know is that it was many, many moons ago because my father and his father’s father throughout the ages have always been Crows."

"The crest of The Crows can be found in many history books, chiseled or carved into historic buildings in shadowy places. The Crows true legacy tho is the legends that have spread about the organisation. The impressions imprinted on the minds of its victims."

"What we do know is that you can’t learn the way of The Crows. It comes from within, it’s in your soul and when the time is right it will show itself."

Who leads the Organization?: "Myself and Baroness Skuld Ironside are incharge of all units within Nova, but each unit does have a head, The Crows head is PlagueCrafter. Even though every major decision has to go through me or Skuld, I trust PlagueCrafter to be incharge and make the right decisions when myself or Skuld is not around. He already has played a major role already with things such as recruiting and the day to day runnings of The Crows. I made the right call in promoting PlagueCrafter to the Head Crow position and we will only grow stronger with him at the helm."

What are the goals or purpose of the group?: "Our goal is to keep on learning the ways our forefathers wanted us to, advance our knowledge in the ways of skillful assassinations, collecting economic and military intelligence and then using that intelligence to create create cells that can carry out missions to disrupt our targets economic and military plans. Ideally, one of our most important goals would be to set up a counter espionage service that will help detect and thwart out enemy agents that not just wishes Nova harm, but the whole Kingdom of Tryggr."

Is there a group mantra/motto/value/proposition?

The Crows

A jeweled eye pierces the night
A murder rustles, and takes flight.

And softer than a feathers fall,
With barely any sound at all.

The inky night parts at her feet,
A poison, subtle,bittersweet.

Seeps in to every single vein,
They slumber, not to wake again.

Faces veiled, behind black wings,
Bring the end of living things.

Harbingers of the longest sleep,
Will take all you aim to keep,

Rending secrets from the heart,
With swift blade or subtle art.

Crimson tears falling on snow,
What you reap, is what you'll sow.

Fun fact about the Organization: "The Crows was supposed to come from Odins Huginn and Muninn, but it turns out I was silly and didn't do my research properly as Huginn and Muninn are Ravens and not Crows, surprisingly the name stuck and here we are!"

(I would like to give credit to Eltanin Vanagandr for creating the poem and Recurve for drawing The Crows logo.)

Discord server link: here

Forum Thread: here

Thanks for sharing Sigurd!


Meet A Kingdom

Thank you Dleatherus for providing us this insight!

Official name of Kingdom: Bordweall
Server: NA-E, Luna
Leader: Dleatherus
Kingdom Colors: Red and Green
Kingdom Crest:

Goals of Kingdom: "CoE is a game centered around military, economic and political conflict. As the underdog on the NA-E server one of our goals is to create a culture where our members realize that it is far more advantageous to have fun practicing these aspects of the game outside of our borders rather than within them."

"Join our Discord to find out what some of our other goals are!"

Fun Fact: "On a daily average in our discord, 7 cookies are thrown, 3 people are bitten by dragons and 36 cups of coffee are consumed - stop by to find out why!"

Link to recruitment thread: here
Link to Discord: here

To learn more about Bordweall, reach out to this community via the links above.

Special thanks to Noslim for collecting this info for us!


Community Spotlight

If you'd like a chance to get your community content featured, send your submissions here.

We'll need lots more of your creations throughout the remainder of 2018, so whatever you come up with that is CoE-related, we want to see it!

Remember, If your submission wasn't featured this month, we may still use it in the future.

Here's a sampling of community made projects that were submitted to us for your consideration:


Fenrer's sketch of a tree castle and some servant housing.

To see more, Fenrer shared their "half-assed art" which includes the above image via this forum thread.


Count Blackshoes of Mirrorvale shares: "If all the world is a stage then a Mannequin Mann of Elyria is always at the center of it. For a modest fee based on time and risk, A Mannequin Mann will (with your consent and a valid contract) take your place for the agreed on event or length of time."

"Services can be negotiated in a wide range of applications which include:"

  • Playing a decoy - To prevent your untimely demise
  • Giving an epic speech - Remember we are professional orators
  • Fighting a duel - Better us than you
  • A Tragic (and misleading) Death Scene - When a rumor just won't do
  • Or just being in two places at once - All of the convenience, with none of the apologies

"With plans for playhouses on NA-West and East we aim to be available to fulfill any reasonable contract."

For more details, visit their site here.


Speaking of Mann-art, or in this case, Womann-art, Eyes of Cimeies shared this:

Chimaera Corbeau (Eyes of Cimeies on Discord) was commissioned to design this beautiful in-game portrait of Matriarch Morrigan.


The Simplified Elyria Medica

Duke Hajime of Oceanus shared his "The Complete Guide For All Your Medieval Apothecary and Herbalism Needs."

Compiled from a variety of sources including his professional knowledge and expertise, it contains a plethora of contemporary pharmacopoeia and pharmaceutical formularies. To learn more, check out the post.


Thanks for all the great submissions!

Reddit community

Hellmoon and Mickdude opened up recruitment on the official CoE SubReddit in May. There are two threads that cycle throughout the month:

  • On the first Friday of the month they have domain recruitment for kingdoms, duchies, counties, etc.
  • On the third Friday of every month they do organization recruitment; guilds, schools, associations, and the like.

Normal subreddit rules apply otherwise.

Domain recruitment has been quite busy since this started, but we'd love to see more organizations take part. If you're keen on free promotion and witty banter, head over to the CoE SubReddit and participate, you never know what interesting discussions you'll find yourself in!

Lastly, we need a third MOD on our SubReddit, so if you are active on Reddit and think you've got what it takes, contact Mickdude or Hellmoon today!

Community Shows

New this week is TheoryForge. This veteran team of streamers began a new show on Friday, May 10th, focusing on Chronicles of Elyria. The current hosts have all purchased packs with Alpha I access, and are excited to become more active members of the community. "We are drawn to CoE because of its unique mechanics, and the migration of the Revival community."

Follow them here so you can stay up to date on their upcoming shows and schedule! https://www.twitch.tv/theoryforge


The BBC (Bordweall Broadcasting Company) livestream deep dives into the latest developments from Soulbound Studios. Watch and discover what has them so excited about CoE, then join them and their guests in the CoE Discord voice afterparty and find out why they believe CoE is going to define a whole new genre in online gaming! They stream live every other Thursday at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. Watch the CoE forums for their announcements! Link to livestream channel: https://www.twitch.tv/bordweall


The Town Crier is a live informational show/podcast featuring Morbis (Duke of Vornair), Adam (King of Vornair) and Mickdude (Count from Alésia). The topic is typically the latest goings on with the game or in the CoE community, theorycrafting about things Caspian says, or watching them blunder around with recurring technical difficulties with all the grace of a three legged giraffe. Super entertainment!

You can catch them live every Wednesday at 3PM (PT)/6 PM (ET)/10 PM (UTC) on https://youtube.com/c/MorbisMIA

Community Contests and Events

We love running contests and promotions for our players, but it turns out our players love running them as well!

To aid you in keeping track of all of the different contests or events at any given time, we've summarized them into one directory and stickied it in our General Discussion forum.

Ambassadors

Keep submitting your recommendations on who you feel would make a great Community Ambassador. Find the details on what it entails and how to nominate someone today!

Note: If you were nominated but didn't move forward into the voting process, do not be dismayed. This simply means you have some improvements to make before you are considered. Some of our existing Ambassadors didn't make it in on their first try, so never give up, keep learning & growing and you'll be nominated again! If you have any questions about any of the Ambassador program details, you can ask a mod, or contact Serp!

Subject Matter Experts

This program launched earlier this month, with 5 types of experts requested during the 1st round of this new program. Of the areas we seek involvement, 13 applications were submitted to us and are currently under review.

Additionally, 15 more applications were submitted that do not currently meet the criteria we are looking to engage with at this time. We kept them nonetheless and will utilize them at a future date when those areas of interest are in need.

Thank you to everyone who has agreed to participate thus far, I expect to start reaching out to those 13 whose apps are under review in the 1st two weeks of June, we appreciate your patience!

To learn more or to apply with your knowledge, click here.

What’s Next?

There are always a ton of things happening here at Soulbound Studios. To keep you informed, here are a few updates:

  • We may decide to host a public Q&A on our Twitch channel in the future. Stay in touch so you don't miss it!
  • The Mydarri story that was promised for achieving the 250k milestone in the Kickstarterversary is coming soonTM.
  • We are planning a special live Q&A and ChamberBot session with a surprise developer, stay tuned to learn more!

Keep yourself in the know via the forums or Discord so you don't miss out on any of the exciting events planned for the next few months.

Until next time,

More to come...