Greetings, Elyrians!
As we mentioned in the State of Elyria, we're taking a different approach to how we document and share our progress with you. Based off of what we teased in the State of Elyria, some astute community members made assumptions on what we'd be working on next and what we'd be showing off at PAX West 2017. And those players were absolutely right! As we inch closer to PAX West, we wanted to use this opportunity to test out the format of our new quest journals, and reveal a small bit of the progress we've made on our in-development jousting mechanics for Chronicles of Elyria.
Normally we'd do a single quest introduction at a time, however as we're focused almost entirely as a team on our PAX West 2017 Experience, we're introducing three parties all working together to complete this grand adventure. As we move forward with our new party introductions, we wanted to attempt a system where we liberally extend our party analog to what you'd normally see on a quest write-up in most MMORPG's. So expect to see the following information in our party introductions:
While we'd normally do one of these write-ups at the very beginning of a quest, we've already started our parties and production is in full swing. This means we've already got some early concept work (and prototyping) in place - some of which we can share with you today, and some of which you'll have to wait for our mid-production update.
Speaking of which, Vye will provide a production update along the way as our parties make progress on their journeys. You can expect to see more production media then. With no further delay, meet the current Soulbound Studios adventuring parties, learn a bit about the new jousting mechanics, and see what we'll be showing off at PAX West this year!
We start off with the Knights of Hastilude, which consists of adventurers from the design, engineering, and animation guilds. On the design side of things, Creative Director Caspian, UI/UX Designer Death, and World Builder Souzou are focusing on building a fun and engaging experience. To ensure the game-play features we build do the things we need from an engineering perspective, Engineer Sekmu, Engineer TripNull, and Lead Programmer Cynax join the party. Wrapping things up in this party: Lead Animator Mudokon and Technical Animator Strider will contribute their rigging and animation know-how to help the party achieve their goals.
The designers of the Knights are responsible for defining the rules around our jousting system, including targeting and mounted movement mechanics (hyah!). Additionally, the Knights need to build the user interface, along with the collision detection of jousting hit boxes, state changes for scoring and the act of jousting itself, the core animations of the feature, and the jousting and hit-reaction animations.
How will jousting work in Chronicles of Elyria you ask? Well, there are three implied phases to jousting: approach, aiming, and impact. During the approach phase, players will have the option to enter combat mode or urge their mount on to increase its speed. During the aiming phase, a player can make minor adjustments to the mount's direction and enter the aiming mode to aim where their lance will strike. Players can also clutch their lance to increase its potential to unseat their opponent. Once clutched, players lose the ability to control the majority of their character's movement before impact happens (roughly 1-2 seconds), giving them a brief moment to let the tension build before the lances shatter.
Note that the three phases are logical, and not actual phases. It'll feel like one, seamless experience as players begin their run down the tilt-yard, lower their lance, aim, and strike. Also note that these mechanics are the same in a structured jousting experience as they are on the battlefield, and careful attention has been paid to make sure the mechanics work equally well in both cases.
Below is the flowchart Death created to not only illustrate the intended design of the jousting experience, but to help guide the production process as well:
We're still fine tuning this experience, so some things are subject to change. But we can't wait for you to jump into the action and joust alongside other PAX-goers!
Next up, we have The Tournament Armory - the group of adventurers in charge of creating the equipment for the knights and steeds - including armor and lance. Technical Art Lead Wiz, Character Artist Irreverent, Art Director Heat, Animator Racronos, and Character Artist Vanimus Prime have assembled to take on these tasks.
The Armory has three main quests we're tracking: they need to create the character and horse armors, the equipment (such as poles and lances), and how the lance breaks and splinters.
We're still defining which armor sets we'll throw on the digital caravan we're bringing to PAX. Until then, here's a look at some of the armor concepts crafted by Heat.
Lastly, we have an adventuring party that consists of Environment and FX guild members. With Technical Art Lead Wiz, Art Director Heat, Animator Racronos, Environment Artist Raevantiel, Sound Engineer Vandermast, and Programmer Michael in this content creation stable, they are tasked with no easy quests.
Namely, they are responsible for creating a jousting map with practice and competitive tiltyards, the lighting of the map, particles for mounted movement and sparks for hit reactions, sound effects for movement and combat, and a background track for the demo experience.
While the Vanguards have already made great progress on the arena, here's a concept to hold you over until Vye's production update.
Because of the studio's focus on this specific feature for PAX, we've included each party's quest goals here. Generally, these future quest blogs will look at what an individual party is working on. But it's all hands on deck, as the quests need to be completed in time to thoroughly test and polish the experience before it's on the show floor at PAX West 2017.
We know that you probably have a few questions about the jousting experience, so we'll be holding a brief, live Twitch Q&A on Thursday, August 10 at 1PM PDT / 4PM EDT / 8PM GMT / 8PM UTC. Use this post to ask your questions!
But what about community involvement? If you're going to be at PAX West in Seattle this year, stop by our booth and give us feedback. This is the first opportunity you'll have to get your hands on it, test it out, get a feel for it, and let us know how we're doing. And if you're good enough, you may even qualify for an hourly prize or the ability to compete in our daily tournament!
And that does it for now! Stay tuned to our Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for more updates. Until next time...
Quick question here, will CoE feature both piercing and swiping lances? While medieval lances were designed to be couched (made possible by high backed saddles and stirrups), older lances from the Greek/Roman era were often used to swipe and slash rather than just stab. I'm just curious whether CoE will feature only medieval lance combat styles or whether you will feature older lance combat styles as well.
Question for the Q&A... Will all tribes be able to joust on horses, or will horse jousting be limited to certain tribes? eg: will smaller/larger tribes have to joust on other animals?
Awesome cannot wait to see this Q&A.
How much will the Jousting Arena cost in the EP store?
Can you buy these as a kit or each piece separately?
What Quality will the Jousting Arena have? (Standard, Artisan, Peerless , Legendary , Etc)
How will the structures change over all the tribes?
This is great, but wasn't it planned not to implement mounted combat until after launch?
The armor has a lot of squishy bits... and the armor you're using looks like the stuff that'd be for the general field combat rather than strictly mounted. Too many gaps and not solid enough.
The biggest distinction between combat armor and jousting/tournament armor would be the added layers of protection for different activities at the tournament. In this case, the helmet you have is generally right but the rest of the armor is begging to be punctured.
Example of jousting armor.
Example of combat armor via a manuscript.
Example of jousting armor from the same author.
Notice the lack of a shield on the shoulder and less overall "bulkiness". That's cuz folks who did the tournaments were competing using a very specific suit per activity that optimized protection and let them do ONLY what they needed to do. They weren't expected to hop out of their horse after they lanced a dude and shank him on the ground. Also those that did tournaments were mad rich and could afford a separate suit of armor per event.
In terms of jousting in general, in the tournaments you never hold the lance out the whole time and forcefully aim with it. Instead you gradually lower it until you get it where you need it to be right before impact because this will lessen fatigue in the arm and actually grants greater accuracy. So possibly adjust the jousting to a distance/leveling mechanic. Not only that but most armor also has a slot that's used to actually hold the lance as shown in the following images.
The first armor looks as though it could be used outside of just jousting like actual combat whereas the second armor looks exclusively for jousting. Maybe have suits of armor that buff characters ability to use a lance better?
Or, maybe, set it so that when jousting, those with inferior armor have a harder time of setting the point where it needs to be, as though they need to do the lowering technique as I mentioned as the only way to lance someone, whereas somebody with the right equipment have the ability to hold the spear and place and have a better chance of putting the point where they want it. Allow certain mechanics to be bypassed by technology?
As usual, I've updated the Q&A Live Questions List and it should begin pulling in questions from this thread shortly. The link will be the same for all future public Q&As, so feel free to bookmark it! ^.^
(EDIT: Running into a small bug that's preventing it from pulling from the new thread, but I've isolated the issue and plan to fix it ASAP. Thanks for your patience. 😀)
Is there the possibility that you can kill someone while jousting? Like factors of the speed of both horses, faulty armor that has sweet spots, lances that do not break like they should or extremely well made or durablelances that can puncture the armor and critically wound someone?
Also can you intentionally kill the other knight's horse?
Is there any possibility of childrens mutton jousting? Elephant jousting?
Other then that sounds solid guys keep it up.
If you have items or assets you no longer have use for feel free to send them my way.
Can a character die during Jousting?
Will the mechanics and arena for jousting be the same in every Biome or will things change?
Could you resolve a dispute through jousting? (Like a duel)
Will other tribes have there version of jousting or martial competition?
Dang, so much to do just for jousting!
Y'all are very busy and it looks AMAZING.
~ Goody Odsbodikins, Count of the Highest State. ~
Friend Code: F41EFF
Considering that mounts will have weight restrictions I would bet if you are too heavy for a horse than you will have to ride something a bit bigger, no?
Join Freeport County, we like boats. And dogs.
Hmm, I wonder if the Kypiq's lance can even reach the other rider.
"Count Eldric Blackmoore of The Haven, offering direct support for the Hunters, Explorers and Gathers of Elyria"
Posted By Jouten at 8/7/2017 10:33:35 PM
The armor has a lot of squishy bits... and the armor you're using looks like the stuff that'd be for the general field combat rather than strictly mounted. Too many gaps and not solid enough.
The biggest distinction between combat armor and jousting/tournament armor would be the added layers of protection for different activities at the tournament. In this case, the helmet you have is generally right but the rest of the armor is begging to be punctured.
Example of jousting armor.
Example of combat armor via a manuscript.
Example of jousting armor from the same author.
Notice the lack of a shield on the shoulder and less overall "bulkiness". That's cuz folks who did the tournaments were competing using a very specific suit per activity that optimized protection and let them do ONLY what they needed to do. They weren't expected to hop out of their horse after they lanced a dude and shank him on the ground. Also those that did tournaments were mad rich and could afford a separate suit of armor per event.
In terms of jousting in general, in the tournaments you never hold the lance out the whole time and forcefully aim with it. Instead you gradually lower it until you get it where you need it to be right before impact because this will lessen fatigue in the arm and actually grants greater accuracy. So possibly adjust the jousting to a distance/leveling mechanic. Not only that but most armor also has a slot that's used to actually hold the lance as shown in the following images.
The first armor looks as though it could be used outside of just jousting like actual combat whereas the second armor looks exclusively for jousting. Maybe have suits of armor that buff characters ability to use a lance better?
Or, maybe, set it so that when jousting, those with inferior armor have a harder time of setting the point where it needs to be, as though they need to do the lowering technique as I mentioned as the only way to lance someone, whereas somebody with the right equipment have the ability to hold the spear and place and have a better chance of putting the point where they want it. Allow certain mechanics to be bypassed by technology?
I don't even think special buffs like that are necessary for the last picture: it's clearly an extremely sturdy armor with extremely limited movement. So just give it defensive stats through the roof, but incredible debuffs to everything that isn't jousting.
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