Chronicles of Elyria | Interview w/ the developer | PAX East 2016

Mikeha

Rasiem

My god this game is going to be awesome.

ceratop001

Looks really good..

RexKushman

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the development of this game goes. There are so many good ideas going into it, i hope they can pull it off.

Kilrane

Rhoklaw said:

I may not be living in a region that will allow me to play it when it's released. So it's going to be a sad day once it does release if I'm not longer in NA.

That's what VPN's are for  

H0urg1ass

I'm really looking forward to buying the finished product.  This looks fun.

Dullahan

Sounds amazing, however unrealistic. I have to say I have my doubts on anyone's capability to tailor a unique personal storyline for potentially hundreds of thousands of people, let alone an indie developer. Can't help but appreciate the guys motivation though. That is the passion this industry needs. I just hope it doesn't crush his soul if his "story engine" doesn't yield the necessary depth to make the underlying concept viable.

Asm0deus

Minimum viable version end of next year.

7:20 - 7:30 mark in the video.

SpottyGekko

Rasiem said:

My god this game is going to be awesome.

Immortal words.

I think that's been said about every MMO ever during the concept/design phase. Unfortunately there's usually a significant difference between what is planned and what is actually delivered...

Shaigh

Asm0deus said:

Minimum viable version end of next year.

7:20 - 7:30 mark in the video.

So steam early access release with a stable alpha, that sounds doable.

Yanocchi

CoE is awesome on paper but I'll state the obvious.

It's great that Jeromy Walsh and his team are very passionate about it because there will be a whole lot of hurdles and obstacles on the way to the envisioned final version. It is realistic to expect that the game becomes "broken" at some point because some introduced features cause new bugs or interfere with some other systems or features. It's also probable that some systems will be bug-free but not optimised properly. Some content may have to be reworked. Other content may not work in practice like it was planned on paper. With tons of programming (and potentially networking if UE4 replication features are not used) there is no certainty that features and systems do not "mutate" and continue to behave the same way when scaled to meet the demands of persistent massively multiplayer environment. For example, will the cool combat system shown at Pax East, or ranged combat, work without netcode issues in connection with hit-detection system in persistent massively multiplayer environment? Tiny errors or bugs may creep in at any moment and potentially go critical. Some concepts may have to be redesigned. Even if the game is "ready" in the end of 2017, it will take many years beyond that date to straighten everything out. Have they even started sailing against the wind with UE4 and networking yet? It's scary to think what engineering/programming/networking storm the developers will be heading into to create the game according to the planned vision. It also doesn't help that there is a very fierce competition for the most educated, experienced and resourceful software engineers, the ones who are usually capable of resolving tricky issues, procuding ingineous solutions and pushing technology and progress forward.


To end on a positive note, it is great that they are trying! 

whilan

Yanocchi said:

CoE is awesome on paper but I'll state the obvious.

It's great that Jeromy Walsh and his team are very passionate about it because there will be a whole lot of hurdles and obstacles on the way to the envisioned final version. It is realistic to expect that the game becomes "broken" at some point because some introduced features cause new bugs or interfere with some other systems or features. It's also probable that some systems will be bug-free but not optimised properly. Some content may have to be reworked. Other content may not work in practice like it was planned on paper. With tons of programming (and potentially networking if UE4 replication features are not used) there is no certainty that features and systems do not "mutate" and continue to behave the same way when scaled to meet the demands of persistent massively multiplayer environment. For example, will the cool combat system shown at Pax East, or ranged combat, work without netcode issues in connection with hit-detection system in persistent massively multiplayer environment? Tiny errors or bugs may creep in at any moment and potentially go critical. Some concepts may have to be redesigned. Even if the game is "ready" in the end of 2017, it will take many years beyond that date to straighten everything out. Have they even started sailing against the wind with UE4 and networking yet? It's scary to think what engineering/programming/networking storm the developers will be heading into to create the game according to the planned vision. It also doesn't help that there is a very fierce competition for the most educated, experienced and resourceful software engineers, the ones who are usually capable of resolving tricky issues, procuding ingineous solutions and pushing technology and progress forward.


To end on a positive note, it is great that they are trying! 

It would be completely naive to think that there will never be any problems or bugs or anything not working quite as intended when you introduce features.  This goes for every single game. Bethesda introduced an expansion into Fallout 3 which made a large portion of another area lose hit detection. Removing the expansion fixed the issue.  You can never know what will happen precisely until you actually put it together.

Like you said in the last sentance at least they are trying. Sure it may be a bumpy road but at least they are trying something new. Just don't expect everything to go perfectly right at the start. Good lesson to learn of every...single...game..released.

Yanocchi

whilan said:

Bethesda introduced an expansion into Fallout 3 which made a large portion of another area lose hit detection. Removing the expansion fixed the issue.  You can never know what will happen precisely until you actually put it together.

That's a very good example how things go wrong even with single player games based on relatively familiar game concepts and in the hands of veteran game companies. A high-quality MMO based on innovative concepts should be even trickier.

It will be interesting to see what type of production balance Soulbound Studios will have with indie resources.

On the one end of the balance scale is a game with a bigger wealth and higher quality of expected traditional content but lacking in promised envisioned innovation. The company focuses its resources more on models, graphic assets, animations, stories, quests, lore, music, voiceovers, cutscenes, game level design, scripting, optimisation of game engine renderer and lightning and so on. With limited indie resources this can easily come at the expense of proper development, testing, fixing and balancing of the innovative game systems, mechanics and engineering solutions which set the game apart from existing games.

On the other end of the scale is a game with succesful and functioning innovation but limited or lower quality in traditional content. The company focuses more on innovative features and systems, testing them and reworking them properly until they are bug-free, optimised, balanced and functional. With limited indie resources this will inevitably come at the expense of enriching the game with more traditional content expected by players coming from games made by big companies, that is, rich in such content.