Greetings, Elyrians!
Enough about what's happening. You want to know what to do, where to go, what you'll see, and probably a billion other questions! Well, here you go!
About Time
It's worth noting that during weeks 1-4, each person has a unique timer but it is not an exclusive timer. If you take a long time to choose, the next person may be able to claim their lands before you finish. It is possible, though unlikely, for this to cause a property you have selected to become unavailable, and you will need to choose a different property. All claim requests are first-clicked, first-reserved. Soulbound Studios will not respond to support tickets related to missing out on a place because another player reserved it first.
Once you have claimed your titles, you can name your properties. A temporary name is provided, for both inspirational and organizational purposes, but you are under no obligation to keep that name. The temporary name may help your vassals locate your domain while you wait for approval on your custom name, and we will be displaying both the temporary and custom names for the duration of Domain & Settlement Selection so as to avoid confusion like this:
"You said your duchy was called Skyhope? I've looked everywhere and don't see a Skyhope duchy anywhere. Was it on a different server?"
"Oh, it looks like my name was approved. It should be Dimfaeln now."
Names are subject to Soulbound Studio's approval and must follow the naming criteria provided in the section below. If a name you submit does not meet the requirements, you'll have to try a different one.
What You'll See
The map you see in Domain & Settlement Selection is done up in a style popular among Elyrian Cartographers that we bought off a Trader who says it was created by a Master of the trade. Its focus is on geographic and political elements, suitable for understanding the lay of the land and where domains and settlements are located. It is clear of information that doesn't serve that purpose, such as the names of mountain ranges or lakes. There are other elements that can go onto maps in-game, and those will be up to players to create. There are plenty of discoveries which the author of this map has not recorded, which players will be able to explore, record, and possibly even name.
Kingdoms
At a kingdom level, you'll see the following information to help you decide if it's the kingdom for you:
- The name of that kingdom (or its placeholder before it is claimed)
- The biomes it contains
- The number of available duchies yet unclaimed
- The number of available counties yet unclaimed
- The resources found in the region and their relative abundance
- Information from the kingdom's last census, including estimated population, tribe distribution, and most plentiful professions
Duchies
At a duchy level, you'll see the following information to help you decide if it's the duchy for you, whether you can claim it or are looking for a place to settle:
- The name of that duchy, with its temporary and custom names both visible in case you need to coordinate your community before your name reservation is approved
- The biome of that duchy
- The number of available counties yet unclaimed
- The estimated number of settlements (may change during the event due to multi-settlements)
- The resources found in the region and their relative abundance
- Information from the duchy's last census, including estimated population, tribe distribution, most plentiful professions, and wealth classification
Counties
At a county level, you'll see the following information to help you decide if it's the county for you, whether you can claim it or are looking for a place to settle:
- The name of that county, with its temporary and custom names both visible in case you need to coordinate your community before your name reservation is approved
- The biome that county is in
- The estimated number of settlements (may change during the event due to multi-settlements)
- The resources found in the region and their relative abundance
- Information from the county's last census, including estimated population, tribe distribution, most plentiful professions, and wealth classification
Settlements
Counties, duchies, and kingdoms are an aggregate of all the settlements within their borders. When viewing settlements, there will be more variation between settlements within the same region. Information that can help you decide if it's the settlement you'd like to run include:
- The name of that settlement, with its temporary and custom names both visible in case you need to coordinate with your community before your name reservation is approved
- The biome that settlement is in
- How many parcels are a part of it
- The size class of the settlement (Hamlet, Village, Town, City, Capital)
- Which structures required for increasing size class already exist (Well, Tavern, Town Hall, Courthouse, Monument)
- The primary industry of the settlement
- The resources found in and around the settlement and their relative abundance
- Information from the settlement's last census, including estimated population, tribe distribution, most plentiful professions, and wealth classification
- (For multi-title holders) Whether the settlement can sustain the size your additional titles afford you - shown as up/down trend icons, like the stock market
You're probably wondering what kinds of resources will be listed. These are the commodities that settlements are founded on:
- Freshwater
- Coastal Access
- Fish
- Game
- Farmland
- Wood
- Stone
- Clay
- Sand
- Mineral Deposits
- Trade Routes
- High Ground
Different biomes and different cultures may put those basic commodities to use in different ways, causing various industries to emerge. The focus of each settlement might therefore be on one of the following:
- Fishing - Most common where the fishing is good
- Hunting - Most common where wild game is bountiful
- Agriculture - Most commonly found where there's good soil and enough water and sunlight
- Textiles - Most common where there's plenty of farmable land and fresh water
- Paper - Most common near sources of wood and farmable land with fresh water access
- Pottery - Most common where there's good clay for brickmaking and pottery
- Logging - Most common near good sources of wood
- Stone Quarry - Most commonly found near a stone quarry
- Mining - Most commonly found near mineral extraction points and a ready source of lumber
- Trade - Most commonly found along trade routes
- Port - Most commonly located where access to coastal waters is found
- Education - Most commonly found on more remote high ground, but near to major roads
- Bureaucracy - Most commonly found along borders, particularly along major routes
- Defense - Most commonly found along borders, perched on high ground
Rules & Guidelines
Title Limits & Placement Restrictions
As discussed in the post on Title Limits a few months back, there are some limits and restrictions to just what can be claimed, particularly when it comes to those with multiple titles of the same domain tier. As a reminder:
During D&SS, all of your domains of the same level must be adjacent and clustered. This means they can't snake around or create lines, but must create the tightest possible grouping of available domains.
If you have a multi-domain and cannot fit it into the domain you want (either because it can't be adjacent, or because the domain has reached the maximum number of multis), you'll either need to place your sub-domain in a different domain, or utilize the updated policy below.
Update, April 22nd: After internal discussions, we've decided to change the policy from what was originally announced here.
Going forward, players will be able to exchange any titles they do not want, or cannot use for EP past the start of Domain & Settlement Selection. This means that if you get into D&SS and are unable to, or uninterested in claiming one or more of your titles, you can either trade them to someone else, or exchange them for EP.
On the continental servers:
- No Kingdom can be greater than 2x
- No Duchy can be greater than 3x
- No County can be greater than 6x
- Multi kingdoms can account for no more than 4 of 6 kingdoms
- Multi duchies can account for no more than 8 of 12 duchies
- Multi counties can account for no more than 16 of 24 counties
On OCE:
- No Kingdom can be greater than 1x
- No Duchy can be greater than 2x
- No County can be greater than 4x
- Multi kingdoms cannot exist
- Multi duchies can account for no more than 6 of 8 duchies
- Multi counties can account for no more than 12 of 16 counties
There are some settlement-based restrictions as well:
- Settlements cannot grow through title transfers or merges to larger than 25% of the county's parcel count
- (9/5/2019: EDIT: Villager tokens no longer affect your settlement during D&SS, but still retain their promised benefits and more. For details, see this post. Only titles affect growth of your settlement during D&SS.)
Additional Restrictions
Further, there are some additional restrictions some folks may face. Namely, those who won their title in the Free Kingdom of Elyria contest will have their choices restricted to the Kingdom of Alésia on the Luna (NA-E) server. Winners of the Lost Vault grand prize or runner up prizes (where applicable) are limited to the server on which they were won. These winners will still have an time of admittance, but will be unable to claim out of bounds.
Additionally, each kingdom and duchy has a certain allotment of reserved spots for vassals they have recruited. We have already reached out to the nobility to provide us with the names of their chosen vassals, which will be locked in at the start of the event. If you are a vassal with a reservation, you will be able to pick a domain inside your liege lord's domain at any point after your admittance time during Domain & Settlement Selection. You're guaranteed a space, but you're not guaranteed any specific space. You may wish to coordinate with your liege's community but, fair warning, those without reservations can still select domains in that region, up to half of the total domains in the region. If you delay too long, you may only have one valid location left for you to choose. If you hold multiple duchy or county titles, this could mean you cannot claim contiguous domains and would forfeit the additional domain titles!
However, vassals are not restricted from picking elsewhere, if they so choose. They are merely allowed to pick them where they have been listed as a vassal. Ultimately, you are the only one who can decide if you want to claim a specific location or not. If you decide to settle elsewhere, you must select from non-reserved slots for the new region, and your reservation slot in the old region will be forfeited and become an un-reserved slot. There is no way to alter vassal reservations after Domain & Settlement Selection begins. If you have a question about your reservations, you can contact support.
All Claims Are Final
Because of the hierarchical nature of Domain & Settlement Selection, there is no Undo after you have claimed your stake. If you move to a new country, have a falling out with your liege, or just have buyer's remorse, Soulbound Studios will not be able to cancel or alter your selection. However, there are in-game methods of bestowing titles and lands on others, and we plan to provide a way to will your titles to another after the Persona System is released. There are options, so just hold on to your titles and lands until the best solution for your situation presents itself. As a reminder, it is against our Terms of Use to share your password or sell your account.
Naming Rules
Temporary names will be generated for each domain and settlement on the map. Domains that are predominantly Neran will have English names. Domains with any other tribe as the majority population will have a temporary name translated into that tribe's language (details in the Communication Design Journal, which we hope will be inspiring for those who want to choose a thematically tribal name. You may choose to accept the temporary name as the final name. If you are going to submit your own custom name, it will not be translated into a tribal language, and you are free to request a non-tribal name. When choosing a custom name, there are some guidelines you must follow:
- Cannot contain numerals (1, 2, etc)
- Cannot begin or end with a space
- May not exceed 32 characters including spaces and symbols, with no word larger than 16 characters
- There can be at most 2 spaces (ex: New York City)
- May contain at most 2 capital letters per word, one of which must be the first letter of the word (ex: McMinneville is okay but mcMinneVille is not)
- Cannot contain any symbols other than the apostrophe and hyphen
- Can have at most 2 hyphens per word (ex: Trás-os-Montes)
- Apostrophes and hyphens cannot be next to one another (ex: O'-Danny is not allowed)
- Can have at most 2 apostrophes per word (ex: O'Donnell's Vineyard)
- May only contain Extended Latin character set (a-z plus: À, Á, Â, Ã, Ä, Å, Æ, Ç, È, É, Ê, Ë,Í, Î, Ï, Ð, Ñ, Ò, Ó, Ô, Õ, Ö, Ø, Ù, Ú, Û, Ü, Ý, Þ, ß, à, á, â, ã, ä, å, æ, ç, è, é, ê, ë, ì, í, î, ï, ð, ñ, ò, ó, ô, õ, ö, ø, ù, ú, û, ü, ý, þ, ÿ, þ, µ)
- Kingdom and duchy names must be unique on the server
- County and settlement names must be unique to the kingdom
- May not include any of the names or words in Soulbound Studios' surname exclusion list (profanity, copyrighted names, Caspian, etc.)
Additionally, you should expect that well-known names from Earth or other fictional universes will not be allowed, even if they follow the above rules. There will be no Winterfell, China, or Coruscant in Elyria. Nor will VVinterfæll, Chynå, or Khoar-u S'ant grace our shores. Elyria is an original world and we think it would be a poor player experience if immersion-breaking names made it onto the starting map, or names that are vulgar or offensive. Additional flexibility may be afforded to the in-game cartography system, as the playerbase will be further naming all the geographic features they think are important, as a part of making maps and giving directions.
Finally, if you have not submitted a name by the time Exposition begins, the temporary name will become the final name. Unnamed domains cannot remain unnamed in Exposition.
Pick Order
As mentioned in the announcement post, pick order is determined by having a server selected, the highest claimed title you own, and your influence amount. Whatever your timer, it should be considered a Time of Admission. It is when you are allowed to actually claim something, but we are not stopping the line. People admitted earlier may not have picked yet, and the next person may be admitted before you finish picking. We've done the math and don't expect this to create a lot of collisions, so this is just a recommendation to review the map early and jot down your top few picks. Then, when you are admitted, you can make your pick without too much deliberation. Ultimately though, there's no rush. After the 4th week, all title holders will be able to make picks from the remaining domains until we close the map for claiming. We don't expect to close the map any time soon, and will announce that time when we get closer to it.
In Conclusion
Domain & Settlement Selection is a truly exciting time for Elyrian Citizens. Soon, you will have a solid idea of where you will be and what tribes and industries you will have access to. We expect that the discussions and the Dance of Dynasties will prosper in its wake. So don't forget to head over to the Forums, and especially the server-specific forums, to get in on the conversation!
I can smell the edits to posts in the Domain Forums already!
And, of course, come chat with the community on our official Discord server! There will be a specific channel for the event where you can discuss everything freely with others who are watching the story unfold. Since Domain & Settlement Selection is a huge milestone for the citizenry of Elyria, we expect most of the discussions during the event to feature heavily around the map, but don't forget to welcome new or reawakened community members into the fold and get them up to speed on this world-impacting event!
Pledged to Your Continued Adventures in Life, Both Actual and Fantasy,
Vye
Vice mayor of Lux Verloren
