Ideas to Reality By Vye

Hail Elyrians!

Caspian is busy working on testing and validation of our online store with our merchant partners right now, so he asked me to write this week’s CoE Update! Be afraid!

The team has been working diligently to turn ideas into reality. As we transition into Production, we will begin to have a lot more in-engine things to show you. That's not to say we won't have awesome concept art, but it's time to focus on building now. It won't always be a totally new category —for example, each different armor piece we make— since that is more an attribute of the prototyping and pre-production phases.

But without further ado, here are a few things I'm excited to share with you!

Armor and Clothing

Armor and clothing are intended to be layers on your avatar, just like how you would wear clothing and armor in real-life! Walking around or fighting with metal-on-skin is an experience in chaffing I wouldn't recommend. Here is an example of not only the layering of clothing and armor, but some of the textures and insanely fashionable hose you could craft in-game.



Figure 1 - Different clothing configurations

What I want to bring your attention to more than anything else is again the fact that equipment is layered, allowing you to create a very put-together outfit. Additionally, while the pants look a little silly, they do go to show you how much customization is possible with the crafting system.

...And Now Time for The Weather Report

In Elyria, creatures and people aren't your only adversary. The weather will be something that you will want to be mindful of as well. This video shows some weather effects that we are testing out. What begins as a nice day romping in a field turns worrisome for the unprepared traveler. A wise adventurer would seek shelter from such a storm, lest they become ill or, much worse, get struck by lightning!



Figure 2 - Environment effects

And before you ask, yes, you can determine the distance between you and a lightning strike by counting, though the system isn’t implemented just yet. And with Elyria’s scale being different than ours, it’ll likely be around one second per 100 meters, rather than one second per 340 m/s.

Even still, if the sound of thunder and the sight of lightning doesn’t make you want to run for cover, we’re not doing it right. Keep in mind, this video is just a work-in-progress. As it gets further along we’ll show you periodic updates.

It's So Fluffy!

Say hello again to this little guy... the Flower-Cup Porcupine. We're making progress with our hair and fur shaders and what better way to celebrate than to give him the fuzz he deserves. Caution is recommended when attempting to cuddle one since those quills aren't just for decoration!



Figure 3 - The in-game Flower-cup Porcupine

Make note, that first image is the in-game screenshot of the porcupine. And, in case you’re curious how close we are to our original concept, here it is again for reference. Nailed it.



Figure 4 - The Flower-cup Porcupine concept Art

November Store Update

As mentioned previously, the product tiers and add-on packages will be changing in November. For one, the prices will be increasing, and second, the packages are changing. Let me talk more about that second part.

The experience you have in Chronicles of Elyria will be relatively different depending on the role you are playing and the store is going to reflect that. Whether you are an Adventurer, Gentry, Aristocrat, or Noble, we are stream-lining the store experience to better guide you through the product tiers and add-ons that will benefit your chosen role.

Your first step when entering the new store in November is choose the role you wish to play: Adventurer, Gentry, Aristocracy, or Nobility. Each Role will be further broken down into three categories with different price points: a basic tier, advanced tier, and ultimate package. The basic tier gets you into the role and provides the basic equipment and resources befitting the average whatever-you-chose. The advanced tier would provide additional resources, and the ultimate tier would have even more (it's the ultimate tier, after all). Additional resources for an Adventurer might be a mount, for Gentry it could include a parcel of land or uncommon crafting materials, etc.

After selecting your role, you may also select add-on packages that further specializes exactly what you want to be when you start out. This is where you can get the tools to be a Blacksmith, the accouterments of a Knight, the traps of a Hunter, or the finery of a Viscount. Further a la carte items may be added in addition or instead, but we are preparing packages that will make it easy to play the role you wish.

Update on Layaway, etc.

Hey Folks, Caspian here. Vye did a great job with the update, didn’t she?! Not as verbose as me, but that’s not really a bad thing.

Really quickly, I wanted to provide an update on what’s happening with the layaway and store patch. ZRO and I worked on Saturday to get the layaway system completed, which we did, but when we went to do validation and testing discovered that once again, payment processing was disabled on the test servers of our merchant partners.



Figure 5 - The layaway indicator

As a result, we’re unable to complete end-to-end validation. This blocks us from doing any deployments as we don’t want to push something out without being able to go through a full transaction with the layaway system in place. To be clear, this has no impact on the production store. Just on the test store running in sandbox mode.

The good news is I’ve not been idle. I’ve been using the time to add further unit tests to ensure the integrity of the store, and also to begin work on re-introducing Influence Points to the store. With just a week left of the store being open with the current tier prices, I wanted to provide a way for those of you with IP earned from recruiting your friends, etc. to have access to those credits. Whether or not we get unblocked tomorrow or not, later this week we’ll post another update with store credit awarded for your earned IP. Remember, 50 IP = $5 USD. So each friend you’ve invited who purchases a pledge package will award you $5 in store credit in the online store. Use that to put toward Sparks of Life, upgrades, or even the 10% required to initiate a layaway tier!

That all being said, while the store opening a few days late at the beginning of October was no big deal, and doesn’t warrant extending the time the store is open with the current tier prices, this delay might. If we’re blocked from deploying tomorrow, we’ll extend the store prices another couple of days to make sure everyone has time to claim their layaway packages.

Design Experiences Q&A

One last thing, everyone. If you didn’t catch our Live Twitch Stream on Friday you can watch it record on Twitch at the Chronicles Of Elyria Twitch Channel or right here!

Watch live video from on www.twitch.tv

The stream begins just after 15:00. In addition, our film crew is working on post-production of a recording of the stream with multiple angles, etc. When that drops on YouTube we’ll let you know.

That’s all for now folks, we’ll see you next week!

Cheers!

Caspian & Vye