Welcome to the forums!

I am curious which part of death seems rough to you?

At first glance Permadeath seems like a steep punishment, but there are many mechanics surrounding it that balance it, and you can live on through reincarnation and by willing your properties to heirs if you desire (and have properties to will)

Here's some old but relevant information summarized from Caspian's reply in this post on mmorpg.com - I think it helps explain why the permadeath design is present in Chronicles of Elyria. I hope it answers some concerns you have about it!

Design Reasons for Character Death

1. Reduced barrier to entry for new players. While working to reach a previous skill level after reincarnation is significantly easier than the first time, it can still be a few weeks or months in length. During this time, there are, again, "low-skilled" characters in the world. The process of being reset for a couple weeks reduces the barrier to entry for other players. This helps to counter "EVE Syndrome", where players have difficulty breaking into the game due to a time-based XP system. While old characters are working to regain their previous skill as a Blacksmith, someone else may have become the primary smith in the region.

2. Players get the chance to experience something new each time they reincarnate. When players reincarnate they have the chance to enter a new family, focus on different skills, be born in a different location, on a different continent, etc... This allows them to dramatically alter their playing experience each time they reincarnate.

3. Reincarnation creates an ever-changing world to make every life a unique experience. In contrast to #2, when your character resets to their younger age, they're able to play in the same areas they played in before. Because the world is dynamic, NPCs are aging & dying, buildings, towns, forests, etc., are destructible, and each play-through is a unique experience. This prevents the developers from having to spend time and resources developing more and more "zones" for higher level content. Soulbound Studios will introduce new cool, epic, and monsters, but they can be introduced where the players are, rather than forcing the players to travel to them.

4. The reset to a younger age and then the growth into later years adds a level of immersion to the world. Not everyone running around is a character in their 20's–30's. There will be a constant influx of young, middle-aged, and older characters, each dealing with their own challenges.

5. Increased risk with increased reward. While it may not seem like a big deal to lose your place in the story, to have to restart your skill ramps again, etc... When compared to losing 100% of your progress, it's still enough to add risk to everyday play. It's enough to make people think twice before being Heroic, if they know doing so could cause them to forfeit the non-skill progress they've made thus far. In a way, it allows an ever-increasing risk factor, along with an additional increase reward, and without causing players to risk a full progress wipe.

6. Reincarnation can lead to new struggles for players to overcome. Chronicles of Elyria uses dynamic stories/quests rather than relying on the same set of quests for every character. Each time your character is reincarnated they pick a new birthdate which generates, based on your choices, a completely new set of struggles for your character to encounter.

7. Character death creates the opportunity for a unique business model. CoE uses sophisticated AI, and programmable OPC (Offline Player Character) scripts. This means that while your character is "alive", they're in the world consuming CPU cycles. It makes sense that since your character never logs out, you pay for your CPU usage. The easiest way to do that is to pay per character. When your character dies, if you don't seed a new character with your soul, you don't pay any more. It also costs SbS nothing more.

Posted By o4getit at 8:31 PM - Wed Nov 28 2018

So why is there no real gameplay videos? The idea of it sounds amazing but it seems its actualy playable now, yet no real videos of it anywhere.

There are no Real gameplay videos because the game is still in development.

If you dig around, especially for info on the Prelyria client they have been working hard on lately you will see that the developers are making good headway into having their Pre-Alpha test phase ready for us to jump into.

There is no word yet on when we are going to actually get into the world of Elyria, but we just finished Map Voting and next up on the list of things to do should be Domain and Settlement Selection, where all the title holders get to stake out their lands on their respective starting continents.

So while there is no game yet, I feel like you joined at the perfect time to start getting some info and hopefully we will see something playable sometime soon.

Probably not even the developers. Elyria cannot exist until the game mechanics are complete. As far as most of us know, they are not complete.

Of course, there have been some early demonstrations of concept using Unreal Engine 4, but that is only a small part of the game.

Where's the scam? The game's still being made. There's nothing from SbS to implicate it's already out, just a fair number of very excited people who talk about it as if it's playable/testable.

Last I heard the game is in the design stage. Right now it is the Devs and friends and family.

To elaborate on what Wolfguarde and Focii mentioned, the game is very much still in development.

We are participating in the forums because there are chances for us to shape the history of the game as it is being made, like my link above for the Map Voting that just finished and Domain and Settlement Selection still to come.

As the game is in development, we only get to see small tidbits of footage as "gameplay" video isn't the devs running around in a complete version of the game, but them running around an isolated section to show off the latest mechanics being developed.

With how we seem to be rolling from one thing straight into another, I don't think it will be long until we touch foot down on Elyrian soil, although the full games launch will still be a ways off.

If you want to participate with the early stages of testing, getting to know the community, or even developing your plans for the game to come, I suggest sticking around and checking things out.

If you have any questions I would be happy to private chat with you, if you send me a direct mail.

Again, welcome to the forums!

The activity you're seeing now is called the dance of dynasties, we're forming the communities and alliances that will be established in the world by the time it launches. And there are many interesting political developments going on already.

There are video's and pictures of the game if you check out the media tab, but I guess you meant let's play videos, reviews, streams, and similar, which is a no so far as its still being developed as others have pointed out.

As for any concerns about a scam then I would say that is pretty unlikely considering the massive amount of work they are putting into both the community (from events to Q&A sessions) and regular updates on the game (currently doing weekly shinies showing various tribe armors). If this is a scam then this is the hardest working scammers I've seen. They also appear more financially responsible than the average developer having a three-stage economic plan, which as an economist I highly approve.

Posted By o4getit at 12:06 AM - Thu Nov 29 2018

Strange my comment vanished...

I can tell you nothing from this thread has been deleted. Every post that has been posted to this thread is still posted.

Now, now people, let's play nicely!