OK, few more things from me, cause I can see many concerns:
1. Yes we will have to pay for new characters life. Cost will be more or less like a new expansion in other MMO's
A lifespan of a character is between 80 and 120 years.
Players start at age 12 or 15 (depending on background)
4 days real time equals to 1 year of character's life (real time not played time), so if you never die you can between for 260 to 432 real time days (8.5 - 14.5 months)
Dying in game reduces your lifespan by some amount (to be named, but will vary depending on your actions taken before death)
This is not a F2P game, this is a P2P game it just does not have monthly subscription system.
Said that, let's take into consideration monthly subscription systems. You are paying an average of 14-15 USD per month for a sub on P2P games on the market.
So a LIFE, that allows you to play several months is in my opinion worth let's say.. 3 month's sub fee.
Of course there will be some extremists that will die several times a day and spend their lifespan in one month. But I do believe that for majority of players paying the above mentioned amount for a life is pure win.
And for the game / expansion prices? I am ok with paying between $35 and $50 for the game as those are the regular game prices on the market. Expansions tend to be just a little bit cheaper so anything between $30 and $45 is reasonable in my opinion.
Bear that in mind, that CoE with all its involving mechanics will probably encourage a focus on 1 max 2 characters per account, for a player to be able to experience the best immersion in game, and to live the life of your character to its best.
I do believe that if you intend to play CoE like other MMO's where it is common to create and then play 5+ characters in one month time, you should think about all of the character’s life that will pass by if you focus your available game time on playing other characters.
And should you play one character most of the time, just put those $10+ bucks every month in the piggy bank and you will have more than enough to satisfy the cost of purchasing a new LIFE in few months when your character is finally free of the burdens of this physical world.
2. On Talents
Talent is more like uniqueness in this game, you can have it and live your life without ever discovering it. For example you might have a rare talent in forging iron, but not knowing it you decide to become an alchemist and there is a fair chance that you will never even go into blacksmith shop once in your life.
CoE has UNBALANCED world in its basic concept. To stimulate conflicts and actions taken to equalize those differences.
After all even talented in swordsmanship player can be overwhelmed by a group.
The CoE aims for somewhat realistic approach towards fantasy realm, as there is not much fairness in our world on Earth, they like to see it somehow reflected in their game.
Like it or not. That's what this game is all about.
3. Characters selling
No idea if they will try to prevent this, hopefully this will be clarified later. bear in mind that there are several games in which characters or items were sold on eBay for mountains of $$.
You can't really prevent that, people will always find some solution.
And claims that it will be Pay 2 Win game - do you really care it 0.1 - 0.5% of population have some uniqueness? Are you guys in game just to be the best of all?
What happened to pure joy of playing? Are you all for munchkinism in games? Does nothing else make you happy?
What happened to pure joy of playing? Are you all for munchkinism in games? Does nothing else make you happy?
There will be people pissed off that they don't have the talent to breathe underwater, or impervious to fire or shapeshifting. The min/maxers will be extremely pissed off because they will be limited from the get go.
I can also guarantee someone will pop up on a forum and whine how they dropped hundreds if not thousands of dollars on lives because they tried dying every which way to unlock a talent only to have a dev tell them dying is only the first step for many talents.
Many don't care about gameplay but rather what kind of advantage they can have over everyone else
Yup.. Haters gonna hate. Well.. to 7th hell with them :-)
This game is not meant to be equal in every aspect for everyone, people need to start thinking that CoE has some elements of a simulation of real life set in fantasy setting, rather than equality of rights for everyone.
My oh my!!! I guess we only had this one left to be done....
Oh wow!!!! This has pay to win all over it.
Have to pay $$$ equal to a game expansion every time your character ages and dies to open a new character.
You can pay real world $$ to get in game gold.
Ugh......and they talk about everything other than the business model to get people hyped to play it. I was hooked a bit until this link. Thanks for slowing the hype train before it goes off the rails for me
Actually, the max character life is 100 levels which they said equates to about a year of playing. So, if you don't die and take care of yourself, you're basically paying $40 for a year of gameplay. I don't see that as pay to win, but rather, pay to play.
Like quarters at the arcade.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
My oh my!!! I guess we only had this one left to be done....
Oh wow!!!! This has pay to win all over it.
Have to pay $$$ equal to a game expansion every time your character ages and dies to open a new character.
You can pay real world $$ to get in game gold.
Ugh......and they talk about everything other than the business model to get people hyped to play it. I was hooked a bit until this link. Thanks for slowing the hype train before it goes off the rails for me
Actually, the max character life is 100 levels which they said equates to about a year of playing. So, if you don't die and take care of yourself, you're basically paying $40 for a year of gameplay. I don't see that as pay to win, but rather, pay to play.
With Guild warring and PVP in general I don't see how they equate 1 year of play on one toon as a normal thing... Not dying essentially means not playing...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If im unlucky and get a standard-soul. I will have to play with it forever.
If im lucky and get a superduper talent. Every following sould will get it?
This will be massive rage.
People probably will realise at some point they got the shit-pack and that will be a motivation killer. In EvE people could at least be in some parts as good as every one else but not in every part of the game. Here you will eventualy suck forever.
Just think about it:
You bought the game. You found a list of 29234 ways to unlock fucking cool talents.
Your done checking your soul after half year playing. => Nothing.
This player will probably quit ;-)
Or like this:
You discover after 5 minutes of gaming that your gift is to be the best dancer in the game
What if you only can have that one single talent )))))
I hope i understood it wrong.
I really liked the idea of making different souls but not if you stick with it forever.
I'd highly recommend checking our community forums. A lot of those questions have been asked and answered. For example, killing is illegal. Even in a world with player combat, most encounters don't end in player death, just in players being wounded. Players have to go the extra mile to kill one another, and the penalty is stiff for doing so (jail time costing life)
While there is RvR combat during wartime, Guild v Guild isn't something likely to happen often. It would be like Google and Microsoft meeting in a field and hitting one another. It could happen, but there's generally better ways for guilds to strike out each other.
Finally, we control the amount of life lost when your soul separates from your body. We actually have a pretty fancy heuristic to handle that. It factors in how you died, where you died, who you are and your impact on the story etc...
The heuristic aside, if we want players to be able to play 9 -15 months without having to buy another Spark of Life, we just make each minor death cost less of your overall lifespan. In the end, we'll be balancing the system for the best overall player experience.
I'd highly recommend checking our community forums. A lot of those questions have been asked and answered. For example, killing is illegal. Even in a world with player combat, most encounters don't end in player death, just in players being wounded. Players have to go the extra mile to kill one another, and the penalty is stiff for doing so (jail time costing life)
While there is RvR combat during wartime, Guild v Guild isn't something likely to happen often. It would be like Google and Microsoft meeting in a field and hitting one another. It could happen, but there's generally better ways for guilds to strike out each other.
Finally, we control the amount of life lost when your soul separates from your body. We actually have a pretty fancy heuristic to handle that. It factors in how you died, where you died, who you are and your impact on the story etc...
The heuristic aside, if we want players to be able to play 9 -15 months without having to buy another Spark of Life, we just make each minor death cost less of your overall lifespan. In the end, we'll be balancing the system for the best overall player experience.
Cheers!
-Caspian
So the amount of "mini-deaths" is actually dynamically determined by the game developer ?
Very interesting concept. I sounds like you essentially let someone "live" for as long as you think is needed before they will be prepared to pay for another life spark ? Can't see that being manipulated in any way, lol
That also allows someone to "die" 100 times per day, but they may "live" for 9 months of real time. Just set their individual "death cost" to 0.0001 per death.
Can the player see their own "death counter" value ? Because if they can't, then all sorts of shenanigans are possible when determining a character's ingame lifespan.
When I say we control the amount of life lost, I wasn't implying developers would be sitting at their desks deciding who lives and who dies (though that sounds like a blast).
What I meant is, as a company, we have the opportunity between now and game launch (and for a little bit after) to find the right balance. It's just a reminder to the community that the Soulborn Engine and CoE is written by developers who are gamers themselves and who care about the player experience.
Once the algorithm is locked, we'll only be making minor tweaks to it and will otherwise leave it alone.
With that said, we will be going into more depth in a Design Journal in a couple weeks. It'll talk about the things that influence the amount of "spirit" lost - I like that term better. Life is too overloaded in this context. Spirit is the amount "life" you have left before permadeath, when the soul can no longer find its way back to the body.
As for seeing the "death counter" - yeah, in a way. Characters grow old with the passing of time. Repeatedly dying, etc... causes you to age quicker. There are visual indicators identifying when the connection between the soul and the body is weakening. Stay tuned for two more weeks to get a glimpse.
After reading the article and most of this thread. I would have to say this, if everyone does not start out equal that the developer is asking for major problems.
Personally I would not play a game with my characters lifetime is 1 year. Good luck with such a game though.
If I'm reading this right, the developers wish to keep low and mid tier content alive by preventing player build up at "the cap," whatever kind of cap that may be. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this mechanic because it will heavily depend on the kind of content the game is built around. My own personal experience with permadeath from other games is that, while it does add a challenge, there is a point where I end up going back to normal mode because I just want to see the game from start to finish.
Originally posted by lobotaru If I'm reading this right, the developers wish to keep low and mid tier content alive by preventing player build up at "the cap," whatever kind of cap that may be. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this mechanic because it will heavily depend on the kind of content the game is built around. My own personal experience with permadeath from other games is that, while it does add a challenge, there is a point where I end up going back to normal mode because I just want to see the game from start to finish.
You see, the whole misunderstanding is about the end-game content.
There isn't any. No, seriously. This game is about being a part of an epic, ongoing story-line. Fill your characters' days adventuring, sieging, farming, running a town, county, or kingdom. Spend time increasing your family's holdings and building your Noble House. And then, in your characters' final days, let them sleep the final sleep, while your soul grows young again and re-born into another character to make their own mark.
So by having a mechanism that ages you character, they are not locking you from end game content. It is more like reference that one lifespan is not enough to experience everything in the world.
To everyone reading those comments:
Chronicles of Elyria is not a typical MMORPG as we know them from current market, therefore you can't put standard measures to gauge its features.
Soulbound Studio is taking new approach to the MMO gaming:
they are introducing some degree of realism to the game.
game will be more difficult than games currently on the market,
the world is intentionally unbalanced
some minimal % of population will be created with some additional features
even if you start without Talents, you may end with your initial soul having "boosted" stats because you were lucky enough to draw an older soul
Seriously, read design journal here, read developer's journals on game website, read forums.
No one except Soulbound Studio knows how Elyria will work.
I can only say that - We are not prepared.
But there is still hope that we can be. There is still time.
Everything sounds great on paper but past experience has taught many of us that something is always lost in translation into the game.
I will admit the game does sound interesting and if they pull it off exactly as they describe then I will be playing it and not have a problem with paying 40 bucks (or whatever the soul cost is) every 9 months or so.
I tend to not get excited until I can actually experience whatever is being hyped so I will need to play the game and see how the various systems work and interact with each other before I start to wax poetic about the game. No offense to the devs of course but that's just me lol I drive my wife up the wall because she can't get me pumped up about a trip or surprise until we are on the trip or the surprise has been sprung :P
When I say we control the amount of life lost, I wasn't implying developers would be sitting at their desks deciding who lives and who dies (though that sounds like a blast).
What I meant is, as a company, we have the opportunity between now and game launch (and for a little bit after) to find the right balance. It's just a reminder to the community that the Soulborn Engine and CoE is written by developers who are gamers themselves and who care about the player experience.
Once the algorithm is locked, we'll only be making minor tweaks to it and will otherwise leave it alone.
With that said, we will be going into more depth in a Design Journal in a couple weeks. It'll talk about the things that influence the amount of "spirit" lost - I like that term better. Life is too overloaded in this context. Spirit is the amount "life" you have left before permadeath, when the soul can no longer find its way back to the body.
As for seeing the "death counter" - yeah, in a way. Characters grow old with the passing of time. Repeatedly dying, etc... causes you to age quicker. There are visual indicators identifying when the connection between the soul and the body is weakening. Stay tuned for two more weeks to get a glimpse.
Cheers!
-Caspian
OK, so there will be a representative from a trusted third-party (like Deloitte) present on launch day to ensure that the "magic algorithm" is sealed and tamper-proof for all eternity ?
Ah, but then there's the "minor tweaks" escape clause...
As for my question regarding whether we will be able to see the exact value of our "death counter", I believe the answer you're looking for is: "No".
All the same, I'm still very intrigued to see how this design will be implemented. I genuinely wish you great success !
Comments
OK, few more things from me, cause I can see many concerns:
1. Yes we will have to pay for new characters life. Cost will be more or less like a new expansion in other MMO's
This is not a F2P game, this is a P2P game it just does not have monthly subscription system.
Said that, let's take into consideration monthly subscription systems.
You are paying an average of 14-15 USD per month for a sub on P2P games on the market.
So a LIFE, that allows you to play several months is in my opinion worth let's say.. 3 month's sub fee.
Of course there will be some extremists that will die several times a day and spend their lifespan in one month. But I do believe that for majority of players paying the above mentioned amount for a life is pure win.
And for the game / expansion prices?
I am ok with paying between $35 and $50 for the game as those are the regular game prices on the market.
Expansions tend to be just a little bit cheaper so anything between $30 and $45 is reasonable in my opinion.
Bear that in mind, that CoE with all its involving mechanics will probably encourage a focus on 1 max 2 characters per account, for a player to be able to experience the best immersion in game, and to live the life of your character to its best.
I do believe that if you intend to play CoE like other MMO's where it is common to create and then play 5+ characters in one month time, you should think about all of the character’s life that will pass by if you focus your available game time on playing other characters.
And should you play one character most of the time, just put those $10+ bucks every month in the piggy bank and you will have more than enough to satisfy the cost of purchasing a new LIFE in few months when your character is finally free of the burdens of this physical world.
2. On Talents
Talent is more like uniqueness in this game, you can have it and live your life without ever discovering it. For example you might have a rare talent in forging iron, but not knowing it you decide to become an alchemist and there is a fair chance that you will never even go into blacksmith shop once in your life.
CoE has UNBALANCED world in its basic concept. To stimulate conflicts and actions taken to equalize those differences.
After all even talented in swordsmanship player can be overwhelmed by a group.
The CoE aims for somewhat realistic approach towards fantasy realm, as there is not much fairness in our world on Earth, they like to see it somehow reflected in their game.
Like it or not. That's what this game is all about.
3. Characters selling
No idea if they will try to prevent this, hopefully this will be clarified later. bear in mind that there are several games in which characters or items were sold on eBay for mountains of $$.
You can't really prevent that, people will always find some solution.
And claims that it will be Pay 2 Win game - do you really care it 0.1 - 0.5% of population have some uniqueness? Are you guys in game just to be the best of all?
What happened to pure joy of playing? Are you all for munchkinism in games? Does nothing else make you happy?
There will be people pissed off that they don't have the talent to breathe underwater, or impervious to fire or shapeshifting. The min/maxers will be extremely pissed off because they will be limited from the get go.
I can also guarantee someone will pop up on a forum and whine how they dropped hundreds if not thousands of dollars on lives because they tried dying every which way to unlock a talent only to have a dev tell them dying is only the first step for many talents.
Many don't care about gameplay but rather what kind of advantage they can have over everyone else
Yup.. Haters gonna hate. Well.. to 7th hell with them :-)
This game is not meant to be equal in every aspect for everyone, people need to start thinking that CoE has some elements of a simulation of real life set in fantasy setting, rather than equality of rights for everyone.
Like quarters at the arcade.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
With Guild warring and PVP in general I don't see how they equate 1 year of play on one toon as a normal thing... Not dying essentially means not playing...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So do i understand that correct?
If im unlucky and get a standard-soul. I will have to play with it forever.
If im lucky and get a superduper talent. Every following sould will get it?
This will be massive rage.
People probably will realise at some point they got the shit-pack and that will be a motivation killer. In EvE people could at least be in some parts as good as every one else but not in every part of the game. Here you will eventualy suck forever.
Just think about it:
You bought the game. You found a list of 29234 ways to unlock fucking cool talents.
Your done checking your soul after half year playing. => Nothing.
This player will probably quit ;-)
Or like this:
You discover after 5 minutes of gaming that your gift is to be the best dancer in the game
What if you only can have that one single talent
)))))
I hope i understood it wrong.
I really liked the idea of making different souls but not if you stick with it forever.
I'd highly recommend checking our community forums. A lot of those questions have been asked and answered. For example, killing is illegal. Even in a world with player combat, most encounters don't end in player death, just in players being wounded. Players have to go the extra mile to kill one another, and the penalty is stiff for doing so (jail time costing life)
While there is RvR combat during wartime, Guild v Guild isn't something likely to happen often. It would be like Google and Microsoft meeting in a field and hitting one another. It could happen, but there's generally better ways for guilds to strike out each other.
Finally, we control the amount of life lost when your soul separates from your body. We actually have a pretty fancy heuristic to handle that. It factors in how you died, where you died, who you are and your impact on the story etc...
The heuristic aside, if we want players to be able to play 9 -15 months without having to buy another Spark of Life, we just make each minor death cost less of your overall lifespan. In the end, we'll be balancing the system for the best overall player experience.
Cheers!
-Caspian
Owner/CEO of Soulbound Studios
ChroniclesOfElyria.com
So the amount of "mini-deaths" is actually dynamically determined by the game developer ?
Very interesting concept. I sounds like you essentially let someone "live" for as long as you think is needed before they will be prepared to pay for another life spark ? Can't see that being manipulated in any way, lol
That also allows someone to "die" 100 times per day, but they may "live" for 9 months of real time. Just set their individual "death cost" to 0.0001 per death.
Can the player see their own "death counter" value ? Because if they can't, then all sorts of shenanigans are possible when determining a character's ingame lifespan.
Great Question, Spotty!
When I say we control the amount of life lost, I wasn't implying developers would be sitting at their desks deciding who lives and who dies (though that sounds like a blast).
What I meant is, as a company, we have the opportunity between now and game launch (and for a little bit after) to find the right balance. It's just a reminder to the community that the Soulborn Engine and CoE is written by developers who are gamers themselves and who care about the player experience.
Once the algorithm is locked, we'll only be making minor tweaks to it and will otherwise leave it alone.
With that said, we will be going into more depth in a Design Journal in a couple weeks. It'll talk about the things that influence the amount of "spirit" lost - I like that term better. Life is too overloaded in this context. Spirit is the amount "life" you have left before permadeath, when the soul can no longer find its way back to the body.
As for seeing the "death counter" - yeah, in a way. Characters grow old with the passing of time. Repeatedly dying, etc... causes you to age quicker. There are visual indicators identifying when the connection between the soul and the body is weakening. Stay tuned for two more weeks to get a glimpse.
Cheers!
-Caspian
Owner/CEO of Soulbound Studios
ChroniclesOfElyria.com
After reading the article and most of this thread. I would have to say this, if everyone does not start out equal that the developer is asking for major problems.
Personally I would not play a game with my characters lifetime is 1 year. Good luck with such a game though.
You see, the whole misunderstanding is about the end-game content.
Let me paste a part of Game's FAQ - https://chroniclesofelyria.com/guide/faq
Everything sounds great on paper but past experience has taught many of us that something is always lost in translation into the game.
I will admit the game does sound interesting and if they pull it off exactly as they describe then I will be playing it and not have a problem with paying 40 bucks (or whatever the soul cost is) every 9 months or so.
I tend to not get excited until I can actually experience whatever is being hyped so I will need to play the game and see how the various systems work and interact with each other before I start to wax poetic about the game. No offense to the devs of course but that's just me lol I drive my wife up the wall because she can't get me pumped up about a trip or surprise until we are on the trip or the surprise has been sprung :P
OK, so there will be a representative from a trusted third-party (like Deloitte) present on launch day to ensure that the "magic algorithm" is sealed and tamper-proof for all eternity ?
Ah, but then there's the "minor tweaks" escape clause...
As for my question regarding whether we will be able to see the exact value of our "death counter", I believe the answer you're looking for is: "No".
All the same, I'm still very intrigued to see how this design will be implemented. I genuinely wish you great success !