Chronicles of Elyria: A Breath of Fresh Air

We’ve all been there before.  You’re playing an MMO, and you’re loving it.  You’re the hero! Without you, the entire world would surely fall to ruin.  Thank god you’re here, right? But hold on – what’s this!? Someone else is talking to the temple priest?  And he’s received the sword of Salanr as well? Hold on just a second… There’s three more players who’ve arrived, all of whom had received the same mystical and rare sword as you?  Now seeing this, you might think, something’s not quite right… And you’d be correct, but not because some game mechanic is buggy, or because someone found an exploit, no – rather you’d be correct under no fault of your own, or any other players.  Rather, the fault would lie in the hands of the devs.  Those men and women who saw fit to railroad you into the mess of a “massively multiplayer” game that they have created for you.

Chronicles of Elyria throws all of those things right out the window. A game powered entirely by player decision, the entire world is based not around some arbitrary story’s designed by devs for players to take part in, but rather – by a union of information, some of it generated behind the scenes as to form an outline of events for the world; but the meat of the story, what really matters in the day to day to the players, will be influenced entirely by actual players in the game world.

CoE Character Creation screen (Chronicles of Elyria Website: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/media)

Chronicles of Elyria is a unique adventure for every player.

Not only is each story unique to each player, but so too is each set of player abilities and gear. Gone will be the days of moseying up to the mass of players congregated around some central hub, decked out in your brand new “super rare” gear, only to see four more priests in the crowd wearing the same exact thing. Demoralizing, isn’t it?

Rather than quest or raid reward gear that might be “Best in Slot”, in Chronicles of Elyria every item you acquire will have to have been crafted specifically by a craftsmen of one kind of another. Now, this craftsmen could be a player or an npc, (or something sort of in between, but we’ll get to that) but either way – that piece of gear your wearing, rest assured, was crafted by someone real out there in the world. You get a really sweet looking sword, don’t even worry, chances are no one else will be rocking the same exact style anytime soon.

Character persistence in Chronicles of Elyria is of the utmost importance!

One of the most fascinating features of CoE is the idea of character persistence. By this I️ mean, that while you the player are logged out, your character actually remains “alive” and in the game world. Now, this isn’t some kind of macro feature where your studying skills overnight or something of the sort – but rather this feature gives a sense of weight to the world. Never will you go to that blacksmith shop and find that he simply isn’t online – just as a stranger won’t find your own home or shop empty when they pop by for a visit. There is a set of instructions, so to speak, you can leave your ai representation, but for the most part, they’ll simply exist for you, granting along with them a much needed sense of life to the Chronicles of Elyria game world.

(Chronicles of Elyria Website: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/media)

Alongside this character persistence, must comes death. How in a world that is always responding to player decisions can there possibly be a sense of weight if everyone is just dying and respawning all the time? Well, good question. And the easiest answer is, that there can’t be. So Chronicles of Elyria has figured out a solution. Souls. That’s right, souls. In lieu of a game subscription, Chronicles of Elyria will instead feature a system of paid souls. How this works is, that each time you suffer a death horrible enough to warrant it, a piece of your soul is chipped away. Generally speaking, this isn’t the end of the world. You die, you become a ghost, you find your body and you return to life. over time, and through enough deaths however, it is possible to reach a point in your souls lifespan where it becomes too weak to continue, and that last death that you suffer, becomes a permanent one.

Perma death is an ever constant fear in Chronicles of Elyria.

Yes, yes… I️ can hear you now… Permanent death in an mmo!? How can that possibly work? I️ would never want to lose all of that progress… Well fear not! For Chronicles of Elyria has a system in place to prevent a full loss of ability, and one that actually offers some very interesting game play to boot!

Offspring.  When your player dies, granted he has lived to an age able to produce offspring, he or she will be given the option to reincarnate within the body of their child, bringing along with them not only a portion of their skills and abilities, but also a genetic predisposition to those skills, thus making this new character potentially even stronger than the one before it! What this system allows for, is the continual progression of a player character over actual generations in game. As each generation emerges over time, the power and the ability of the family line will only grow in strength, thus allowing for you as the player to not only continue on after a permanent death, but to in fact excel in the wake of the inevitable tragedy that is your character dying.  For some more information of this fascinating death mechanic, you can check out a great write up by the Dev team, here at their website https://chroniclesofelyria.gamepedia.com/Death.

Player interaction in Chronicles of Elyria matters above all else.

Chronicles of Elyria is a game predicated on player interaction. Gone are the days of theme park MMO’s, where every player looks the same, or boring grindfest “sandboxes” where the real content is at the zenith pyramid, locked away to all by the strictest slave masters. Rather, Chronicles of Elyria will be a world for every player. From a great king, down to lowly blacksmith, every role will have their place, and each of them will be not only just as important, but in fact, just as essential in the process of breathing life into this fantastic game world.   

From birth, to death, and everything in between, Chronicles of Elyria is shaping up to be one of the greatest achievements in modern gaming history.  To bring the power of invention, creativity, and ingenuity back into the players hands, and out of the developers, is something that the world of MMO gaming has sorely been aching for for years.  If Chronicles of Elyria manages to become the game that it appears to want to be, it will surely be a miraculous experience for us all.  For more reviews like this one, and for great content in general, check out the rest of the games covered by PivotalGamers at https://www.pivotalgamers.com/hubs/hub-games/