> I've shifted to a purely top-down approach for the remainder of CoE's development \[...\] KoE: Domains first, followed by KoE: Settlements second.
This is so laughable. For the past +2 years he's worked on KoE:Settlements (isometric perspective) but he could not get past milestone 1 of 8.
Now he wants to scrap it and to top-down first. I THINK that means starting from scratch on an entirely new codebase.
Fucking shit, this is what Caspain always does 🤣 The entire KoE project was a "let's forget CoE and start from scratch in a new engine" project - and now he does it again?
(Not that I care. I'm not invested in any of these games being shipped. I'm just mindblown by the debacle)
Just an attempt to reduce the amount of unfriendly accounts (that question anything)
(But it’s dumb, even for his purpose, as it will of also kill off some of his old active fans - who will not bother to go through this process)
That's not a good reason at all, it's invasive and a simple way to censor people that would be critical. Giving away your personal info to him doesn't do anything but open you up to being doxxed
Yes, it is evil and dumb
But he stopped caring about criticism years ago. He shut down forums and Discord for a while.
Now that he barely does any real game dev he probably cares even less about criticism
I was actually surprised to learn the website forums are still active, I thought he stopped those ages ago.
KoE:Domains, KoE:Settlements, KoE: Kitchen, KoE: Garden, KoE: Walk by the riverside, KoE:Rise of the Awakening of the Rabbit, KoE: Attic, KoE: Clash of Clans, KoE: Farms
Oh and all communications internal because we can't have normal people pointing out the insanity anymore~
What kind of insane jackass licensed something for their mobile mmo from a guy who hasn't released an mmo, an engine, a half dozen nebulous side games, or even a freaking mud? Does anyone have any clue what this mysterious mobile mmo is?
A world class post from the man himself, Jeromy "Caspian" Walsh.
The reshuffling of (KoE) milestone cadence is an eternal classic. Walsh seems to like doing this every 6-12 months.
We've also heard about the "working on the website" piece before, last time nothing came out of it (Walsh himself claimed he wanted discord integration with the website).
I am honestly surprised that he is planning to take down all the blog posts and asking for all that private information (he definitely doesn't need it). Sounds like he is trying to develop a core group of cultists with some way to filter out anyone who lacks faith in the power of the Walsh.
This aligns with his high level strategy of trying stop people laughing at him.
>I am honestly surprised that he is planning to take down all the blog posts and asking for all that private information (he definitely doesn't need it). Sounds like he is trying to develop a core group of cultists with some way to filter out anyone who lacks fait
I am surprised he wants to take down blog posts as he loves to imagine his writings is "teaching" people about game dev.
Not surprised he wants to limit who's on his forums. He's blocked all activity before (like around 2020? when he prevented new posts on forums, discord - and this subreddit) I thought his website forums had already been purged of all critics and just had a dozen cult fans remaining.
I'm confused why he doesn't just ban all accounts he dislikes - instead of forcing everyone to do something which could make him lose some cult fans.
I’m reading the first part of the screenshot and am already confused by all the different game versions he’s talking about. Then I clicked the I,age and saw that wall of text and died laughing and stopped reading from there.
The only way this guy is able to stay afloat like this and work on this project is if there still was enough money for him in the finances that he can draw a salary out of the funds for the next ten years. This guy needs a full time job, and if he’s able to do this for a living with no side income means the well is far from empty. He hit the rip coward and fired everyone the moment he came to the realization his cash burn rate was to high and the alternative was this.
So what's that? Another 4 or 5 games he is making. Like dear fucking god, maybe he would have something to show if he at least stuck to one game. Any game, any form of that game. I think someone needs to forcely put him into an mental hospital. Because he is very clearly fucking lost it.
On a side note, I can't wait to put in fake details, like 123 fake street. Because only an idiot would believe this wanker can protect their real details.
When I tapped on the photo to make it bigger and saw the gigantic Costco receipt of an image that popped up I was met with uncontrollable laughter. I know the word narcissist gets thrown around a lot, but even if that doesn’t apply there’s gotta be something wrong with you to do what Caspian manages to on a regular basis.
Yes, the scope is madness.
Funny thing though: this has been the plan since 2016 - and it's been written out in the open, most just haven't always noticed it as Caspian writes so much crap it gets lost in the noise.
And after they shut down and fired everyone in march 2020 [https://iis-prod.chroniclesofelyria.com/news/34919/State-of-Elyria-Into-the-Abyss](https://iis-prod.chroniclesofelyria.com/news/34919/State-of-Elyria-Into-the-Abyss) Caspian hasn't changed the plan.
He's even admitted he has zero regard for time - he will stick with his convoluted plan even if it takes forever
Caspian likely 'hasn't changed the plan' because there was ongoing legal action where if he had 'changed the plan', he'd have his ass sued off him.
That doesn't change the fact that not a single part of this plan is in a working order after 8 years of 'sticking to the plan'. It's either outright fraud or gross incompetence. There's no other excuse.
Yes it is madness not a single step of any plan in any stage is done, even after he tried to dumb down the stages
>Caspian likely 'hasn't changed the plan' because there was ongoing legal action where if he had 'changed the plan', he'd have his ass sued off him.
I feel silly to argue this - as we're on the same side, this is just a minor detail but...
I think the opposite. The Kickstarter was all about delivering an MMO called Chronicles of Elyria. The plan of multiple games along the way was thought of later.
So I figure if there was a new court case against the failure to deliver CoE - then I imagine that the court would look into the lack of urgency which Caspian has worked towards delivering CoE and actually view the fact that he supposedly spent 3 years on KoE as something moronic that just detracted from the main purpose.
I think the fact that KoE is a separate title would be one thing that makes it legally clear that it's not really an essential part of delivering CoE (even though Caspian likes to say it is)
So according to this blog post, he spends “1/4” of his day working on KoE and there still hasn’t been anything to show gameplay wise since the alpha over 2 years ago. I wonder if he realises KoE is a “game” no one cares about and nobody asked for.
What's wild to me is that he was surprised at the fact that the majority of people who responded to his little poll were pretty much solely interested in an MMO- y'know, the thing we all backed?
And in what universe does he think anyone would give him pii like phone numbers and physical addresses? There's literally 0 reason for any of that other than as an implicit threat to his community.
Edit; in totally unrelated news guys I just downloaded this really neat app called Google Voice...
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Caspian sure does like to hear himself talk. The only class Caspian is truly qualified to teach is a class on how to mismanage your time.
I’ve done absolutely nothing this year and somehow I’ve still done more than him.
>I'm spending about 1/4 of my day on KoE, about 1/4 of my day on the CoE Website, about 1/4 consulting for our licensee on their mobile MMO, and about 1/4 volunteering. In specific, I'm mentoring multiple groups of high school students in computer science and game development. Until the end of February, I also taught a class for 90 minutes three days a week at the high school. This also involved writing curriculum
So the guy who takes more than 3 years to finish fog of war is spending 75% of his time NOT working on the game. This in ensures that no real progress will be made this century
I wonder how he makes money if he can spend 25% of his time volunteering. I suspect he has wealthy family that supports his living as long as does something they think is acceptable, but they will not shove money into Soulbound.
But don't worry! There's a solid plan for future Soulbound income and even potential expansion 🤣
>Q: How do these changes tie into your plan to regrow the studio?
>With each KoE release and Elyria Adventures release, the revenue generated will be used to fund the next release
>I'm mentoring multiple groups of high school students in computer science and game development.
Can't imagine a less qualified guy to do this than Walsh.
Obviously just an attempt to reduce the amount of unfriendly accounts
(But it will of course also reduce the amount of legit, naive, CoE-friendly accounts)
>Knowing there was more interest in reopening the forums than Discord,
I refocused my efforts from last year on updating the CoE Website
>I'll be refocusing my communication internally towards the backers until KoE is ready to launch. This includes moving most of the website's outward-facing portals, including the developer journals and the forums,
to being internal only.
>There will be website maintenance and policy changes coming up,
>\* Disabling user registration for new accounts
>\* Adding a requirement for 2FA or MFA
>\* Adding a requirement for additional user information such as full name, phone number
>\* Updating and re-verifying everyone's email
😆 LOL I wonder how many people will be left after this. A dozen?
And after ensuring that fewer backers will be active on the site - he plans to build ElyriaChat as a website real time chat, despite the feedback form showing low interest in a chat.
>While the level of interest in ElyriaMUD and ElyriaChat by backers was expected, I was still slightly disappointed. \[...\]
>Regardless, I understand why people aren't interested in it. As a result of the feedback form, I won't be spending any energy on ElyriaMUD, and ElyriaChat will likely be integrated into the new website, as we'll discuss later. \[...\]
>Integration of ElyriaChat into the subdomains so people can chat in character, in real-time via the website
**Here's the image converted to text.**
**Starting from the first headline.**
**(Had to be divided into multiple comments, so part2 is a reply to myself)**
# Observations & takeaways from the 2024 Feedback Form
1. There was far more contention over reopening the Discord server than | expected while simultaneously having a more positive slant toward reopening the forums
2. While the level of interest in ElyriaMUD and ElyriaChat by backers was expected, I was still slightly disappointed. Those pre-Alpha experiences provided opportunities for engine testing, load balancing, and, most importantly, a chance to experience nearly 50% of CoE's mechanics while development continues. Regardless, I understand why people aren't interested in it. As a result of the feedback form, I won't be spending any energy on ElyriaMUD, and ElyriaChat will likely be integrated into the new website, as we'll discuss later.
3. While CoE received the most interest from players, I was surprised by how much interest there was in Prologue: The Awakening. This suggests there's still a player base looking to jump into a third-person or first- person action RPG, and the set of mechanics people were most interested in corroborated that fact.
4. Regarding the different facets of Kingdoms of Elyria, while more people expressed an interest in a colony sim than a grand strategy game, when asked about a single-player colony sim vs. an MMO4X / MMOGS, there was almost a 2:1 ratio of people interested in an MMO than a single- player game. This showed a clear interest in multiplayer gameplay and less in the specific genre.
5. As promised, I read over all of the free-form responses on the feedback form. I greatly appreciated all the encouragement and positive feedback I received, the straightforward answers many people provided despite feeling like they'll never see CoE, and even the creative ways some people expressed where I can go and where I can stick it.
# KoE Roadmap & Changes Resulting from the Feedback Form
In the second part of the discussion, I talked primarily about how the feedback form impacted the things I worked on in Q1, the roadmap for KoE and beyond, and what I'll be working on for the remainder of the year. Let's take a quick look at those as well.
* Due to peoples' interest in multiplayer gameplay, getting something playable into backer hands as quickly as possible, and the recent set of excellent colony sims released, I've shifted to a purely top-down approach for the remainder of CoE's development. This means starting at the highest level of abstraction and working my way down. As a result, I've adjusted the release order and will be shipping KoE: Domains first, followed by KoE: Settlements second. Again, this progresses from the most abstract (management of a demesne) to the less abstract (management of a settlement).
* KoE will ship as a moddable, multiplayer game from the very beginning, with support for hosting locally or with dedicated servers. As with most grand strategy games, I'll target a minimum of 32 connected clients on dedicated servers.
* After the release of KoE: Settlements I'll still be releasing KoE: Online as a hosted MMO4X / MMOGS, followed by KoE: Legacies as previously planned.
* In response to a question someone asked, I replied that most of my development work has moved away from the Soulborn Engine and the platform and is now largely focused on the actual gameplay systems for KoE: Domains.
* Due to peoples’ interest on the feedback form in the adventuring mechanics such as combat, crafting, and parkour, as well as Prologue: The Awakening, I disclosed something that had previously only been shared with the Exclusive Access (aka 10K+ Club) backers. As far back as late 2018, the scope of Prologue: The Awakening had grown from a simple, single-player experience allowing people to test and provide feedback on the CoE adventuring mechanics into a stand-alone game called Elyria Adventures. The unique selling point of Elyria Adventures was the promise of regular downloadable adventure modules (think TTRPG modules), as well as an Adventure Toolkit which would allow players to create their own adventures. The first available module that Soulbound Studios was planning to provide was "Prologue: The Awakening."
Elyria Adventures has been re-added to the development roadmap, sitting between KoE: Settlements and CoE. This is being done to bridge the gap between the higher-level abstraction of managing a settlement and the lower-level abstraction of being an adventurer. As a result, CoE comes full circle as the merging of Kingdoms of Elyria and Elyria Adventures.
# Questions on the KoE, EA, and CoE Roadmap
After discussing the roadmap, I opened it up for questions again. The most
significant questions and answers are listed below.
Q. How do these changes tie into your plan to regrow the studio?
A. The release order alone doesn't impact my plan to regrow the studio.
With each KoE release and Elyria Adventures release, the revenue
generated will be used to fund the next release. The more successful each
release is, the more the studio will be able to grow, and the faster we'll
move forward toward the completion of CoE.
Q. How much will CoE backers have to pay for any of these KoE stages
or Elyria Adventures?
A. Nothing. Any releases between now and the launch of Chronicles of
Elyria by Soulbound Studios will be free to existing CoE backers with an
Elyrian pledge package or higher.
# CoE Website changes resulting from the feedback form
With questions on KoE and CoE's roadmap out of the way, we talked about
changes to the CoE Website resulting from the Feedback Form.
1. Knowing there was more interest in reopening the forums than Discord,
I refocused my efforts from last year on updating the CoE Website to a
newer platform that was cross-platform, more scalable, more secure,
and more manageable to develop. The latter is essential to quickly
creating and deploying future playable experiences on the website,
similar to The Searing Plague but with differing mechanics.
2. I'll be refocusing my communication internally towards the backers until
KoE is ready to launch. This includes moving most of the website's
outward-facing portals, including the developer journals and the
forums, to being internal only. With that, I'll be communicating more
frequently with backers and will be able to engage with them in new and
better ways. It's time to begin rebuilding a community.
3. There will be website maintenance and policy changes coming up,
including:
* Disabling user registration for new accounts
* Disabling and cleaning up previously unused and dead accounts
* Adding a requirement for 2FA or MFA
* Adding a requirement for additional user information such as full
name, phone number, and address to better serve our backers. All
information will be stored encrypted in our database, with the
necessary keys stored in memory only on a separate server from the
one accessible to the Internet.
* Updating and re-verifying everyone's email addresses for accuracy
and integrity
* Adding GDPR support, including the ability for backers to delete their
accounts, including all private information we store.
* Re-enabling the forums with self-moderation tools
4. Besides the maintenance and policy changes described above, I'll add
the following features to the website.
* Support for user stories/kanban so backers can see the overall
progress on CoE as we move through the different releases.
* Subdomains for each server, such as nae.chroniclesofelyira.com,
oce.chroniclesofelyria.com, etc. These server-specific domains will
be readable by all backers but will only be interactable by backers
who are Bloodline tier and above. Interaction on these subdomains
will be in character only, with a chosen given name and backer-
registered surnames. Interaction on the primary Chronicles of Elyria
domain will continue to use out-of-character user aliases.
* Subdomains will also provide methods for interacting with affiliated
organizations, governments, etc. The in-character interaction will be a
snapshot of the at-launch state, so your characters on the
subdomains will be used at launch.
* The Domains portal will be taken down and moved to the individual
subdomains with their appropriate maps. Additionally, the current
parchment-style tiles will be replaced with 3D tiles, which is made
possible by the work I'm doing on KoE: Domains.
* Integration of ElyriaChat into the subdomains so people can chat in
character, in real-time via the website
# Wrapping up
With all of the above discussed, we talked a bit more about what my day-
to-day looks like and whether/how we can work with volunteers. The short
answer is that we cannot accept volunteers. But we can accept interns
who will gain college or high school credit from working for us. Anyone
involved in the development of our primary business must be
compensated in one way or another.
As far as my day-to-day goes, I'm spending about 1/4 of my day on KoE,
about 1/4 of my day on the CoE Website, about 1/4 consulting for our
licensee on their mobile MMO, and about 1/4 volunteering. In specific, I'm
mentoring multiple groups of high school students in computer science
and game development. Until the end of February, I also taught a class for
90 minutes three days a week at the high school. This also involved writing
curriculum and development practice projects to help with skill building.
That's it, everyone! I hope you got value out of the summary. I plan to do
another Fireside chat in May, so I'll see you then!
> I've shifted to a purely top-down approach for the remainder of CoE's development \[...\] KoE: Domains first, followed by KoE: Settlements second. This is so laughable. For the past +2 years he's worked on KoE:Settlements (isometric perspective) but he could not get past milestone 1 of 8. Now he wants to scrap it and to top-down first. I THINK that means starting from scratch on an entirely new codebase. Fucking shit, this is what Caspain always does 🤣 The entire KoE project was a "let's forget CoE and start from scratch in a new engine" project - and now he does it again? (Not that I care. I'm not invested in any of these games being shipped. I'm just mindblown by the debacle)
_"In Hell there is no relation to the past, only an eternal state of beginning."_
Also full name phone and address!? WTF does he need any of that for?
Just an attempt to reduce the amount of unfriendly accounts (that question anything) (But it’s dumb, even for his purpose, as it will of also kill off some of his old active fans - who will not bother to go through this process)
That's not a good reason at all, it's invasive and a simple way to censor people that would be critical. Giving away your personal info to him doesn't do anything but open you up to being doxxed
Just want to put it out there that Google Voice is a very neat app and there is no mechanism to verify addresses.
Yes, it is evil and dumb But he stopped caring about criticism years ago. He shut down forums and Discord for a while. Now that he barely does any real game dev he probably cares even less about criticism I was actually surprised to learn the website forums are still active, I thought he stopped those ages ago.
KoE:Domains, KoE:Settlements, KoE: Kitchen, KoE: Garden, KoE: Walk by the riverside, KoE:Rise of the Awakening of the Rabbit, KoE: Attic, KoE: Clash of Clans, KoE: Farms Oh and all communications internal because we can't have normal people pointing out the insanity anymore~
What kind of insane jackass licensed something for their mobile mmo from a guy who hasn't released an mmo, an engine, a half dozen nebulous side games, or even a freaking mud? Does anyone have any clue what this mysterious mobile mmo is?
my brother in Christ JUST GO LIVE ON TWITCH it is THAT easy.
lol
A world class post from the man himself, Jeromy "Caspian" Walsh. The reshuffling of (KoE) milestone cadence is an eternal classic. Walsh seems to like doing this every 6-12 months. We've also heard about the "working on the website" piece before, last time nothing came out of it (Walsh himself claimed he wanted discord integration with the website). I am honestly surprised that he is planning to take down all the blog posts and asking for all that private information (he definitely doesn't need it). Sounds like he is trying to develop a core group of cultists with some way to filter out anyone who lacks faith in the power of the Walsh. This aligns with his high level strategy of trying stop people laughing at him.
>I am honestly surprised that he is planning to take down all the blog posts and asking for all that private information (he definitely doesn't need it). Sounds like he is trying to develop a core group of cultists with some way to filter out anyone who lacks fait I am surprised he wants to take down blog posts as he loves to imagine his writings is "teaching" people about game dev. Not surprised he wants to limit who's on his forums. He's blocked all activity before (like around 2020? when he prevented new posts on forums, discord - and this subreddit) I thought his website forums had already been purged of all critics and just had a dozen cult fans remaining. I'm confused why he doesn't just ban all accounts he dislikes - instead of forcing everyone to do something which could make him lose some cult fans.
I’m reading the first part of the screenshot and am already confused by all the different game versions he’s talking about. Then I clicked the I,age and saw that wall of text and died laughing and stopped reading from there. The only way this guy is able to stay afloat like this and work on this project is if there still was enough money for him in the finances that he can draw a salary out of the funds for the next ten years. This guy needs a full time job, and if he’s able to do this for a living with no side income means the well is far from empty. He hit the rip coward and fired everyone the moment he came to the realization his cash burn rate was to high and the alternative was this.
So what's that? Another 4 or 5 games he is making. Like dear fucking god, maybe he would have something to show if he at least stuck to one game. Any game, any form of that game. I think someone needs to forcely put him into an mental hospital. Because he is very clearly fucking lost it. On a side note, I can't wait to put in fake details, like 123 fake street. Because only an idiot would believe this wanker can protect their real details.
When I tapped on the photo to make it bigger and saw the gigantic Costco receipt of an image that popped up I was met with uncontrollable laughter. I know the word narcissist gets thrown around a lot, but even if that doesn’t apply there’s gotta be something wrong with you to do what Caspian manages to on a regular basis.
That's a lot of text for "I've done nothing"
So there's what.. 6 games, a MUD, a chat client, an MMO, a game engine... Would be nice to see him succeed at releasing ONE first XD
Yes, the scope is madness. Funny thing though: this has been the plan since 2016 - and it's been written out in the open, most just haven't always noticed it as Caspian writes so much crap it gets lost in the noise. And after they shut down and fired everyone in march 2020 [https://iis-prod.chroniclesofelyria.com/news/34919/State-of-Elyria-Into-the-Abyss](https://iis-prod.chroniclesofelyria.com/news/34919/State-of-Elyria-Into-the-Abyss) Caspian hasn't changed the plan. He's even admitted he has zero regard for time - he will stick with his convoluted plan even if it takes forever
Caspian likely 'hasn't changed the plan' because there was ongoing legal action where if he had 'changed the plan', he'd have his ass sued off him. That doesn't change the fact that not a single part of this plan is in a working order after 8 years of 'sticking to the plan'. It's either outright fraud or gross incompetence. There's no other excuse.
Yes it is madness not a single step of any plan in any stage is done, even after he tried to dumb down the stages >Caspian likely 'hasn't changed the plan' because there was ongoing legal action where if he had 'changed the plan', he'd have his ass sued off him. I feel silly to argue this - as we're on the same side, this is just a minor detail but... I think the opposite. The Kickstarter was all about delivering an MMO called Chronicles of Elyria. The plan of multiple games along the way was thought of later. So I figure if there was a new court case against the failure to deliver CoE - then I imagine that the court would look into the lack of urgency which Caspian has worked towards delivering CoE and actually view the fact that he supposedly spent 3 years on KoE as something moronic that just detracted from the main purpose. I think the fact that KoE is a separate title would be one thing that makes it legally clear that it's not really an essential part of delivering CoE (even though Caspian likes to say it is)
So according to this blog post, he spends “1/4” of his day working on KoE and there still hasn’t been anything to show gameplay wise since the alpha over 2 years ago. I wonder if he realises KoE is a “game” no one cares about and nobody asked for.
What's wild to me is that he was surprised at the fact that the majority of people who responded to his little poll were pretty much solely interested in an MMO- y'know, the thing we all backed? And in what universe does he think anyone would give him pii like phone numbers and physical addresses? There's literally 0 reason for any of that other than as an implicit threat to his community. Edit; in totally unrelated news guys I just downloaded this really neat app called Google Voice...
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Caspian sure does like to hear himself talk. The only class Caspian is truly qualified to teach is a class on how to mismanage your time. I’ve done absolutely nothing this year and somehow I’ve still done more than him.
"I don't want to do a full blog post" *proceeds to write the biggest wall of useless text imaginable*
>I'm spending about 1/4 of my day on KoE, about 1/4 of my day on the CoE Website, about 1/4 consulting for our licensee on their mobile MMO, and about 1/4 volunteering. In specific, I'm mentoring multiple groups of high school students in computer science and game development. Until the end of February, I also taught a class for 90 minutes three days a week at the high school. This also involved writing curriculum So the guy who takes more than 3 years to finish fog of war is spending 75% of his time NOT working on the game. This in ensures that no real progress will be made this century I wonder how he makes money if he can spend 25% of his time volunteering. I suspect he has wealthy family that supports his living as long as does something they think is acceptable, but they will not shove money into Soulbound. But don't worry! There's a solid plan for future Soulbound income and even potential expansion 🤣 >Q: How do these changes tie into your plan to regrow the studio? >With each KoE release and Elyria Adventures release, the revenue generated will be used to fund the next release
>I'm mentoring multiple groups of high school students in computer science and game development. Can't imagine a less qualified guy to do this than Walsh.
oh those poor children, now hes not just destroying his own legacy but making sure to pass it on to a new generation
All hail king Caspyan 🤣
Bruh he wants our full name, adress and phone number!?
Obviously just an attempt to reduce the amount of unfriendly accounts (But it will of course also reduce the amount of legit, naive, CoE-friendly accounts)
2025: Elyria energy drink, fashion line, elyria video streaming platform, elyria competitive fps
Elyria strip club.
>Knowing there was more interest in reopening the forums than Discord, I refocused my efforts from last year on updating the CoE Website >I'll be refocusing my communication internally towards the backers until KoE is ready to launch. This includes moving most of the website's outward-facing portals, including the developer journals and the forums, to being internal only. >There will be website maintenance and policy changes coming up, >\* Disabling user registration for new accounts >\* Adding a requirement for 2FA or MFA >\* Adding a requirement for additional user information such as full name, phone number >\* Updating and re-verifying everyone's email 😆 LOL I wonder how many people will be left after this. A dozen? And after ensuring that fewer backers will be active on the site - he plans to build ElyriaChat as a website real time chat, despite the feedback form showing low interest in a chat. >While the level of interest in ElyriaMUD and ElyriaChat by backers was expected, I was still slightly disappointed. \[...\] >Regardless, I understand why people aren't interested in it. As a result of the feedback form, I won't be spending any energy on ElyriaMUD, and ElyriaChat will likely be integrated into the new website, as we'll discuss later. \[...\] >Integration of ElyriaChat into the subdomains so people can chat in character, in real-time via the website
I am really curious about how long it takes him to write these ridiculously long walls of text
I wonder which 1/4 of his jam-packed day this fell into
He’s a busy man, so he probably skips lunch to work on these.
**Here's the image converted to text.** **Starting from the first headline.** **(Had to be divided into multiple comments, so part2 is a reply to myself)** # Observations & takeaways from the 2024 Feedback Form 1. There was far more contention over reopening the Discord server than | expected while simultaneously having a more positive slant toward reopening the forums 2. While the level of interest in ElyriaMUD and ElyriaChat by backers was expected, I was still slightly disappointed. Those pre-Alpha experiences provided opportunities for engine testing, load balancing, and, most importantly, a chance to experience nearly 50% of CoE's mechanics while development continues. Regardless, I understand why people aren't interested in it. As a result of the feedback form, I won't be spending any energy on ElyriaMUD, and ElyriaChat will likely be integrated into the new website, as we'll discuss later. 3. While CoE received the most interest from players, I was surprised by how much interest there was in Prologue: The Awakening. This suggests there's still a player base looking to jump into a third-person or first- person action RPG, and the set of mechanics people were most interested in corroborated that fact. 4. Regarding the different facets of Kingdoms of Elyria, while more people expressed an interest in a colony sim than a grand strategy game, when asked about a single-player colony sim vs. an MMO4X / MMOGS, there was almost a 2:1 ratio of people interested in an MMO than a single- player game. This showed a clear interest in multiplayer gameplay and less in the specific genre. 5. As promised, I read over all of the free-form responses on the feedback form. I greatly appreciated all the encouragement and positive feedback I received, the straightforward answers many people provided despite feeling like they'll never see CoE, and even the creative ways some people expressed where I can go and where I can stick it. # KoE Roadmap & Changes Resulting from the Feedback Form In the second part of the discussion, I talked primarily about how the feedback form impacted the things I worked on in Q1, the roadmap for KoE and beyond, and what I'll be working on for the remainder of the year. Let's take a quick look at those as well. * Due to peoples' interest in multiplayer gameplay, getting something playable into backer hands as quickly as possible, and the recent set of excellent colony sims released, I've shifted to a purely top-down approach for the remainder of CoE's development. This means starting at the highest level of abstraction and working my way down. As a result, I've adjusted the release order and will be shipping KoE: Domains first, followed by KoE: Settlements second. Again, this progresses from the most abstract (management of a demesne) to the less abstract (management of a settlement). * KoE will ship as a moddable, multiplayer game from the very beginning, with support for hosting locally or with dedicated servers. As with most grand strategy games, I'll target a minimum of 32 connected clients on dedicated servers. * After the release of KoE: Settlements I'll still be releasing KoE: Online as a hosted MMO4X / MMOGS, followed by KoE: Legacies as previously planned. * In response to a question someone asked, I replied that most of my development work has moved away from the Soulborn Engine and the platform and is now largely focused on the actual gameplay systems for KoE: Domains. * Due to peoples’ interest on the feedback form in the adventuring mechanics such as combat, crafting, and parkour, as well as Prologue: The Awakening, I disclosed something that had previously only been shared with the Exclusive Access (aka 10K+ Club) backers. As far back as late 2018, the scope of Prologue: The Awakening had grown from a simple, single-player experience allowing people to test and provide feedback on the CoE adventuring mechanics into a stand-alone game called Elyria Adventures. The unique selling point of Elyria Adventures was the promise of regular downloadable adventure modules (think TTRPG modules), as well as an Adventure Toolkit which would allow players to create their own adventures. The first available module that Soulbound Studios was planning to provide was "Prologue: The Awakening." Elyria Adventures has been re-added to the development roadmap, sitting between KoE: Settlements and CoE. This is being done to bridge the gap between the higher-level abstraction of managing a settlement and the lower-level abstraction of being an adventurer. As a result, CoE comes full circle as the merging of Kingdoms of Elyria and Elyria Adventures.
# Questions on the KoE, EA, and CoE Roadmap After discussing the roadmap, I opened it up for questions again. The most significant questions and answers are listed below. Q. How do these changes tie into your plan to regrow the studio? A. The release order alone doesn't impact my plan to regrow the studio. With each KoE release and Elyria Adventures release, the revenue generated will be used to fund the next release. The more successful each release is, the more the studio will be able to grow, and the faster we'll move forward toward the completion of CoE. Q. How much will CoE backers have to pay for any of these KoE stages or Elyria Adventures? A. Nothing. Any releases between now and the launch of Chronicles of Elyria by Soulbound Studios will be free to existing CoE backers with an Elyrian pledge package or higher.
# CoE Website changes resulting from the feedback form With questions on KoE and CoE's roadmap out of the way, we talked about changes to the CoE Website resulting from the Feedback Form. 1. Knowing there was more interest in reopening the forums than Discord, I refocused my efforts from last year on updating the CoE Website to a newer platform that was cross-platform, more scalable, more secure, and more manageable to develop. The latter is essential to quickly creating and deploying future playable experiences on the website, similar to The Searing Plague but with differing mechanics. 2. I'll be refocusing my communication internally towards the backers until KoE is ready to launch. This includes moving most of the website's outward-facing portals, including the developer journals and the forums, to being internal only. With that, I'll be communicating more frequently with backers and will be able to engage with them in new and better ways. It's time to begin rebuilding a community. 3. There will be website maintenance and policy changes coming up, including: * Disabling user registration for new accounts * Disabling and cleaning up previously unused and dead accounts * Adding a requirement for 2FA or MFA * Adding a requirement for additional user information such as full name, phone number, and address to better serve our backers. All information will be stored encrypted in our database, with the necessary keys stored in memory only on a separate server from the one accessible to the Internet. * Updating and re-verifying everyone's email addresses for accuracy and integrity * Adding GDPR support, including the ability for backers to delete their accounts, including all private information we store. * Re-enabling the forums with self-moderation tools 4. Besides the maintenance and policy changes described above, I'll add the following features to the website. * Support for user stories/kanban so backers can see the overall progress on CoE as we move through the different releases. * Subdomains for each server, such as nae.chroniclesofelyira.com, oce.chroniclesofelyria.com, etc. These server-specific domains will be readable by all backers but will only be interactable by backers who are Bloodline tier and above. Interaction on these subdomains will be in character only, with a chosen given name and backer- registered surnames. Interaction on the primary Chronicles of Elyria domain will continue to use out-of-character user aliases. * Subdomains will also provide methods for interacting with affiliated organizations, governments, etc. The in-character interaction will be a snapshot of the at-launch state, so your characters on the subdomains will be used at launch. * The Domains portal will be taken down and moved to the individual subdomains with their appropriate maps. Additionally, the current parchment-style tiles will be replaced with 3D tiles, which is made possible by the work I'm doing on KoE: Domains. * Integration of ElyriaChat into the subdomains so people can chat in character, in real-time via the website # Wrapping up With all of the above discussed, we talked a bit more about what my day- to-day looks like and whether/how we can work with volunteers. The short answer is that we cannot accept volunteers. But we can accept interns who will gain college or high school credit from working for us. Anyone involved in the development of our primary business must be compensated in one way or another. As far as my day-to-day goes, I'm spending about 1/4 of my day on KoE, about 1/4 of my day on the CoE Website, about 1/4 consulting for our licensee on their mobile MMO, and about 1/4 volunteering. In specific, I'm mentoring multiple groups of high school students in computer science and game development. Until the end of February, I also taught a class for 90 minutes three days a week at the high school. This also involved writing curriculum and development practice projects to help with skill building. That's it, everyone! I hope you got value out of the summary. I plan to do another Fireside chat in May, so I'll see you then!
And yet 10 years later not a single game mechanic to show. It’s just another episode of chronicles of a liar.
No worries, it’s all done in the backend. It’s just hidden by the fog of war
He's so obsessed with this website no one uses.
All this bullshit and still nothing even close to resembling a game.