Layoffs Confirmed, Sustainable Development Now Stable - Chronicles of Elyria - MMORPG.com

SBFord

Layoffs Confirmed, Sustainable Development Now Stable - Chronicles of Elyria - MMORPG.com

Chronicles of Elyria News - The Chronicles of Elyria team is a bit smaller today after a now-confirmed round of layoffs hit Soulbound Studios. The layoffs were confirmed via Jeromy "Caspian" Walsh on the official site. According to his post, the "team size was never intended to be sustainable without the long-term aid of a publisher or investor". After employees were let go, however, it appears that development costs are stable going forward without a publisher or investor.

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pantaro

please tell me he isnt serious with that statement lol this guy........

Jinxys

I feel kinda worried for this project

Tiamat64

Not going to be sustainably stable for long after funding takes a huge hit from this news.

Scot

You do the lay offs after the game launches, not before. Clearly the game is in trouble.

pantaro

Scot said:

You do the lay offs after the game launches, not before. Clearly the game is in trouble.

there is also the fact that majority of the time you hear news from the studio it's bad news after bad news after bad news

Jinxys

pantaro said:

Scot said:

You do the lay offs after the game launches, not before. Clearly the game is in trouble.

there is also the fact that majority of the time you hear news from the studio it's bad news after bad news after bad news

I have to admit anytime I see a news post from Chronicles of Elyria, I get a little nervous thinking it's going to be a cancellation.

I really hope they succeed. I'm not a backer or anything, but I certainly would hate to see them go bust .

And as Scot said, usually the layoffs happen after the games launch



- Jinxys

Kyleran

Tiamat64 said:

Not going to be sustainably stable for long after funding takes a huge hit from this news.

Great point, I'm sure the prediction of sustainability is based on some unrealistic amount of crowd funded revenue continually coming in.

News like this can easily cause even the most faithful to close their wallets.

Galadourn

I can imagine the hell that will break loose when this thing bursts like a bubble.... SBS have been upping the stakes for some time now, offering even more cash options in order to draw funding, presumably in anticipation of securing a publisher. Now that this is not on the table, the whole thing begins to unravel. So it's not a matter of "if" it will burst, but "when" it will burst.

Albatroes

I'll be honest, I thought the game was doomed when they admitted that their kickstarter was to pull funds for a prototype build to showcase to publishers in order to pull real funding. Call me naive but I always thought KS was for something was in development, not working something up to a developmental stage.

Kyleran

Albatroes said:

I'll be honest, I thought the game was doomed when they admitted that their kickstarter was to pull funds for a prototype build to showcase to publishers in order to pull real funding. Call me naive but I always thought KS was for something was in development, not working something up to a developmental stage.

Well considering after a year and a half of role-playing developers they have virtually nothing they can show anyone in terms of a prototype, especially compared to Ashes who has shown far more in much less time.

Elminzter

Kyleran said:

Albatroes said:

I'll be honest, I thought the game was doomed when they admitted that their kickstarter was to pull funds for a prototype build to showcase to publishers in order to pull real funding. Call me naive but I always thought KS was for something was in development, not working something up to a developmental stage.

Well considering after a year and a half of role-playing developers they have virtually nothing they can show anyone in terms of a prototype, especially compared to Ashes who has shown far more in much less time.

Ashesssss really, hmm imo it'll be much of the same time will tell...

SBFord

For those of you who have closely followed this, why do you think publishers aren't interested in CoE? I mean, it's got some interesting features and so forth. Simply too expensive? Not enough "experience" on the dev team? Theories? I'm genuinely interested.

Lachdadan

i dont think its that dramatic - its bad that they had to let some ppl go, but on the other hand it means they believe they can do it on their own - they didnt get seduced with greed and fast money and refused to change their game as the investors wanted. This means they still have enough funding+they really mean to deliver what they planned to (still think its lot but even if 50% of it will be in by release i would be glad). If they wanted they could have accepted some of the investors, change it to another generic clone of dozens of same MMOs out there that investors gladly support.

Galadourn

SBFord said:

For those of you who have closely followed this, why do you think publishers aren't interested in CoE? I mean, it's got some interesting features and so forth. Simply too expensive? Not enough "experience" on the dev team? Theories? I'm genuinely interested.

Just the idea of permanent character death on a progression-based RPG MMO rings many "NO" bells.

These designs sound good on paper (along with FFA PvP and full-loot) and might play out well on a tabletop pen'n'paper RPG campaign, but I have yet to see ONE MMO successfully implementing those features into a fun and viable gameplay option for players.

Not one.

Erinak1

Galadourn said:

SBFord said:

For those of you who have closely followed this, why do you think publishers aren't interested in CoE? I mean, it's got some interesting features and so forth. Simply too expensive? Not enough "experience" on the dev team? Theories? I'm genuinely interested.

Just the idea of permanent character death on a progression-based RPG MMO rings many "NO" bells.

These designs sound good on paper (along with FFA PvP and full-loot) and might play out well on a tabletop pen'n'paper RPG campaign, but I have yet to see ONE MMO successfully implementing those features into a fun and viable gameplay option for players.

Not one.

The problem I find with things like FFA PvP and full-loot is that as the months pass after the game launches, the bar keeps rising in terms of barrier of entry for new players. In a consensual/pve game, you can work your way up to that bar over time, without the fear of people pushing you back down. Most FFA pvp/full-loot games end up having the same issue, the game is very unfun for new players. On the one hand people go around killing all the new players "for fun" but on the other hand they complain that nobody wants to play the game. I don't think there will ever be a mainstream ffa pvp and full-loot/permadeath game, I just don't think enough people truely want it.

Kyleran

SBFord said:

For those of you who have closely followed this, why do you think publishers aren't interested in CoE? I mean, it's got some interesting features and so forth. Simply too expensive? Not enough "experience" on the dev team? Theories? I'm genuinely interested.

Several reasons:

1) Planned financial model is unproven. They aren't having a sub, only selling "sparks" which is part of their plan to have player's characters age and "die" in anywhere from 6 months to a year. (Another unproven concept in MMOs, perma death of avatars)

2) Note how several times Caspian said publishers wanted to see a cash shop or loot boxes, proven methods to make money post launch.   This team for some reason has a cash shop only for pre launch and plans to close it post launch, seriously, who does this?

3) 1.5 years after the KSer despite receiving $3.5M in crowdfunding they've yet to build the initial prototype to show publishers, which the original $1M in KSer funds was supposed to cover.

4) Originally promised timeline to launch was Dec, 2017, so yeah, they've proven to be really bad at estimating.  (Apparently accounting isn't a long suit either)

5) The unproven and somewhat miraculous Spatial IOS tech which was supposed to be the backbone of the design was recently dropped as being too expensive and not fit for purpose. Now all of the "magic" will be handled in house using open source tools.

There's some right off of the top of my head which I think make publisher's nervous, along with fact Caspian is somewhat egotistical,  and unapologetic when clearly proven wrong.

Edit: oh yes, and there is a dedicated team of "harbingers" around "somewhere" with apparently the power to bring down this game.

Hachlath

Another one on the ground. i'm not surprised, because all the indie mmo payed are total mess. I'm sorry for people working on it, but i'm sadly not surprised. MMo's world is in big trouble, few of them still alive, most of projects are dead unfinished or not even on beta. MMO's economy represents the worst of capitalism can create, law of jungle.

Scot

SBFord said:

For those of you who have closely followed this, why do you think publishers aren't interested in CoE? I mean, it's got some interesting features and so forth. Simply too expensive? Not enough "experience" on the dev team? Theories? I'm genuinely interested.

For publishers something like flying and being able to swim undersea would be an interesting feature. Aging and death causing your subscription to have days knocked off is not seen as an interesting feature, it is seen as dangerously new.

Publishers go by assumptions about players and what can work that mean that anything that is too new is avoided. Would WoW have been developed had Blizzard not believed in it so much? It was dangerously new, but once launched became the template for making MMOs. I am not saying that would be the case for CoE, I rather doubt it. Business confidence follows success, anything too new has no past record of success.

The combat is not tried and tested trinity or the modern zergfest, that is not going to make a publishers day. It is going to make them wonder will a dodge and parry system be what the sort of players that play MMOs want? It is sandbox, publishers might give the green light to a Zombie one now, but a fantasy one?

The talk of everything revolving around a yearly sub, I can't see that getting their MT and lootbox juices going.

We have long moved from a gaming industry driven by good design ideas to one driven by business principles. So a business template has to have the baulk of its boxes ticked before they even look at a game.

Tiamat64

Scot said:

For publishers something like flying and being able to swim undersea would be an interesting feature. Aging and death causing your subscription to have days knocked off is not seen as an interesting feature, it is seen as dangerously new.

Death causing your money to get knocked off isn't new.  In fact, the ENTIRETY OF THE VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY used that model for a while in the beginning.  Go look up what an arcade is.  It's a rather old antiquated term.  Arcades have been extinct in most parts of the world for a long time now.

And that business model went extinct for a wide variety of reasons.  For one thing, it encouraged games to try to kill the player as much as possible to make them pay more.  Also, quite a few players eventually got so good at the games that they were basically paying one quarter for hours upon hours of gameplay.  And the games just didn't bring in much money as time went by compared to people just buying the games outright.  Not even as much as a subscription.  And nothing compared to those games that go hog wild with P2W.

You might think bringing up arcades is an exaggeration.  However, considering that Chronicles of Elyria planned to balance the average cost per player to be around $30 PER YEAR, it really isn't.  At least in terms of making absolutely microscopic amounts of money just like arcades do, while also making the player get pissed off at dying because dying costs real money, just like arcades do.

......but seriously, we live in a day and age where even WoW has a cash shop.  And SBS thinks CoE can survive off of a $30 per player average per year? With no cash shop, according to Caspien.  Compared to a $15 per month subscription, that's ONE SIXTH the amount of money per player.  No wonder why publishers kept on bringing up alternative ways to increase the revenue.  That business model is INSANE.

jimmywolf

things keep in mind if your trying sell to a investor  ( my outlook )

A ) they want money ( duh ) they don't care what your selling an to who. they want to know how much they will get for their money, the bigger the risk with no guarantee of return ? less likely to back. 

B ) they want see proof of success, you can sell me all you want how great shit in a box is but till you showed me graph or proof that millions of people are buying it, am not investing in said box not mater how great you say it is.  


C )  they want money now not 6 years later, money makes money, it's why you risk investing in high risk high reward or low risk long term with smaller returns. if you can't show them their making a quick buck or that their low risk an their getting money long term why would they bother ? 


D ) everyone want to be part of something new that be the next big thing that sells. if all else fails you need to show them that you got the next big thing going come out that everyone going want to buy but little internet search shows a lot pessimism about your product starts cast lot doubt if it worth investing. then why risk 20 grand, 50 grand,100 grand + for a chance at nothing when their safer profit for no risk or much wiser high risk with better returns.



slap all that together an you see why very few  are willing to believe the dream and anyone with real cash such as a investor are not willing to risk it all for little to no gain an hope for a product at all.

Slapshot1188

Kyleran said:

SBFord said:

For those of you who have closely followed this, why do you think publishers aren't interested in CoE? I mean, it's got some interesting features and so forth. Simply too expensive? Not enough "experience" on the dev team? Theories? I'm genuinely interested.



Several reasons:

1) Planned financial model is unproven. They aren't having a sub, only selling "sparks" which is part of their plan to have player's characters age and "die" in anywhere from 6 months to a year.

2) Note how several times Caspian said publishers wanted to see a cash shop or loot boxes, proven methods to make money post launch.   This team for some reason has a cash shop only for pre launch and plans to close it post launch, seriously, who does this?

3) 1.5 years after the KSer despite receiving $3.5M in crowdfunding they've yet to build the original prototype to show publishers, which the original $1M in KSer funds was supposed to cover.

4) Originally promised timeline to launch was Dec, 2017, so yeah, they've proven to be really bad at estimating.  (Apparently accounting isn't a long suit either)

5) The unproven and somewhat miraculous Spatial IOS tech which was supposed to be the backbone of the design was recently dropped as being too expensive and not fit for purpose. Now all of the "magic" will be handled in house using open source tools.

There's some right off of the top of my head which I think make publisher's nervous, along with fact Caspian is somewhat egotistical,  and unapologetic when clearly proven wrong.

Edit: oh yes, and there is a dedicated team of "harbingers" around "somewhere" with apparently the power to bring down this game.

/Wonders If Suzie has never read any of my posts...

Yup those are the key points but I’ll expand on them a bit more:

• They have pre-sold a massive number of “sparks” to fund the game.  These sparks are what you use to reincarnate when your character dies of old age.  Thus even after launch the revenue would have to come from new players.  Caspien in a recent interview said he expected hundreds of thousands of player on each server when they lost.  The interviewer just nodded and said something along the line of “of course that makes total sense”.  Publishers likely went “What the fuck are you smoking”?
• Game 
• It’s an open world PvP game with looting and territory control (with permanent death). By its nature that’s a small niche.
• See above plus add an over the top cash shop where you can literally buy yourself a Kingdom with real life cash, plus start the game with a 3 month no wipe head start.
• Game is overly ambitious from a developer that never lead an mmorpg project. It’s one thing to propose a revolutionary system... it’s crazy to propose a whole game of revolutionary systems.
• Game was based on SpatialOS as it’s “fabric” which was unproven tech. Now they are selling the idea that they can match SpatialOS with a jury rigged home made cluster of systems that they made in a few months using open source apps...
• The lead dev is a PR nightmare.  The Ivory Tower that surrounds him only makes it worse.
• Running a company and creating an MMORPG is not a RolePlaying Adventure.

I’m sure there are more... but I just woke up.

jahlon

This guy has been a liar since the word go.

Wellspring

"We knew with the additional funding a publisher could provide, we would be able to get to market quicker than we had previously announced."

What?! The previously announced date was Dec 2017. You're saying a publisher would have helped you get there even faster?

Slapshot1188

Wellspring said:

"We knew with the additional funding a publisher could provide, we would be able to get to market quicker than we had previously announced."

What?! The previously announced date was Dec 2017. You're saying a publisher would have helped you get there even faster?

This little piggy went to market...
This little piggy stayed home...


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dss5lKuV1eU

ConstantineMerus

This is what happens when you reach for the stars with a butterfly net while walking off a plank in sharks territory.