1 December

Community Journal: Giving Thanks!

By Kaizen

As the studio is starting to ramp up after the Thanksgiving break, we wanted to take a moment to say thank you for being a part of this community. Soulbound Studios is grateful for the opportunity to make a game people want, and we're humbled by the chance to work on it every day.

While we've been working towards the friends and family release of VoxElyria, the community has been stirring about (as always!). In this month's community journal, let's meet a moderator, introduce a few new ambassadors, look at some community art, and more! Before we get into all that, let's recap some events revolving around the Free Kingdom of Elyria event!

The Free Kingdom of Elyria

An exciting promotion currently taking place in the Community is the Free Kingdom of Elyria. During this two-month event, players can earn and purchase Kingdom tokens and compete for a chance to be the 6th monarch on the NA-East server, Luna. To learn more about this event, click here to read the article.

Many community veterans as well as newcomers to Chronicles of Elyria are currently battling it out for the top spot. See a list of the current candidates and their campaign threads here.

Morbis, the charismatic host of the weekly YouTube show "The Town Crier" has interviewed many of the top candidates. Click here to check out his videos.

Lastly, Bordweall has been hosting (with Dleatherus, their enigmatic monarch moderating) a series of debates between most of the top candidates. Check out those debate videos here.

Meet a Mod

Hellmoon's dog, Whiskey!

Soulbound volunteer Moderators help keep the peace, assist players whenever possible, and are bastions of knowledge about the Chronicles of Elyria community.

To get to know them better, we decided to give you a little more insight into who some of our wonderful and mysterious moderators are. This month, get to know a little more about Hellmoon.

Soulbound: First, a little about you. How about where you grew up, anything interesting you’d like to share?

Hellmoon: I grew up in rural NY State, my first experiences of telling internet people where I live ("I live in NY") the response would generally be "Oh that's cool, NYC, how's the traffic?" -- my usual response would be frustration and explaining that no, New York State, I live near farms (specifically hay fields and sheep) and barely see much traffic if any at all.

Having seen your artistic abilities, you definitely have talent! What is the history/training behind your love of art?

I was fascinated with art, specifically drawing, a lot throughout my public education and took virtually every art class I could. Once I entered college, I never took a single course in art and really never considered art again until I found COE and was, seemingly, immediately inspired to learn again. So I designed some weapons and had a little COE-themed comic series going for a while, but I've been self teaching myself ever since I discovered COE, which has been since around October 2016 or a little later.

What programs/apps/services, if any, help you show off your skills online?

Deviantart, https://ashenmoons.deviantart.com/, & Twitter, @HellmoonHV, are my main outlets to show off my work. However, I also have a large post on Fan Media where I showcase my work pertaining to COE and commissions done for friends and fellow community members.

Cats or dogs?

Oh definitely dogs, I've grown up with dogs for most of my life, though there's been a few cats - overall cats aren't bad either :-)

Current pet(s)?

Just one handsome pitbull-retriever (pitriever?) mix named Whiskey, the animal shelter named him after the color of his fur and we didn't want to confuse him by renaming him so we really grew to love the name.

A little birdie told me you’ve recently gotten engaged, congratulations! Anything you’d like to share with the community?

Thank you! Much to my parent's dismay, I'll be enjoying the engaged life for a little while. The wedding is quite a while away, I would imagine COE will release before I tie the knot.

You’ve been in this community for quite a while, tell us about how you started in the CoE community?

I found COE through a reddit post on the MMORPG subreddit, the post had the crafting Design Journal on how crafting is intended to be skill-based and I was absolutely in love with the ideas. Reading more and more about COE, I just knew that this was something amazing and I wanted to get involved in any way I could.

I know you are a super-engaged community member and moderator, tell us about some of the things you do beyond moderating?

Besides official moderation, I'm also a community moderator on the COE subreddit, I started the COE Wiki discord to bring our editors, authors, and community members together in order to promote collaboration and teamwork along with being a wiki contributor myself, I co-founded (with Gammea) a COE Fanart Group on Deviantart, plus I try to share the occasional COE-based fanart with the community on various outlets like forums and discord, and most recently I've helped start a monthly community contests group, the current series being called The Trials of Karcion.

What is it you like best about moderating?

My favorite thing as a moderator is listening to people. Whether it's someone who has a question about COE or would like to talk to someone with concerns, I'm happy to listen, help, or help provide resources to facilitate an answer.

Least?

When it comes to moderating, I disliking using the metaphorical "stick". I would much rather stick to the carrot, but sometimes it's unavoidable

Is there anything you’d like to share with the community while you have the mic?

Only if shameless plugs are acceptable! If you are looking for a small agricultural based town to call home in the Grand Duchy of Erzhalden in the Kingdom of Vornair, I'm always looking for more people! If you already have an organization, domain, or anything in between, I also offer commission services if you are looking for a personalized design, logo, coat of arms, or anything in between.

Oh, and stay tuned tomorrow at 5PM PST (8PM EST) for the next Trials of Karcion Community Contest announcement, this one will certainly draw in a crowd!" Look for the announcement in the general section of the forums, or my Twitter account. Also, if you want to provide more info on the ToK... here's the most recent winner's thread.

Meet an Association

Each month we spotlight an organization from our community. Sometimes it will be a kingdom, other times a guild or association. We have many creative members who are building amazing groups in Elyria, and this is one way we can make sure you know about them.

Today we wanted to provide some details about the The Wyrmberg, hailing from the Oceania server in the APAC region.

Soulbound: Official name of association?

Wyrmberg: The Wyrmberg

Location of association?

Oceania (APAC)

Kingdom affiliation, if any?

We are a multi-kingdom group with members in Lor Voskara, Aequitas, and actively looking to extend into other realms

When was it founded?

21st of August 2016.

Who leads it?

Count Valegor and Davheid

What are the goals/purpose of the group?

Our goal is to be an influential group of players focused on the crafting and gathering professions.

We aim to acheive this goal by facilitating contact and trade deals between Wyrmberg customers and guild members, being the grease of the economies of our Kingdoms with a strong focus on research so that we are at the forefront of technological advances to offer the very best quality.

While we originated as a Blacksmithing guild, we have grown to include all other crafting and gathering professions, due to the natural progression of related crafts having to work and trade closely together.

We acknowledge that game play is likely to result in Wyrmberg members being on both sides of the same battle, and encourage all (especially the Nobility!) to read our Charter/Forum post to see how we address this. Seriously go read our charter, otherwise our motto will make no sense.

Does the group have a mantra/motto/value proposition?

"Discretion is blind... and for sale."

What is your Discord link?

https://discord.gg/RadzFbB

Forum thread?

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/11994/the-wyrmberg-apac

Association fun fact:

One of our members recently submitted a job application using a Danish Meatloaf recipe instead of a resume. Seriously.

We're also happy to share the recipe with anyone who wants it, just come and ask us in our discord.

Community Spotlight

If you'd like a chance to get your community content featured, submit your original creations here.

Let’s take a look at a few community submissions.

A Drasean Bard by Chimaera Corbeau (also known as Cimeies).

The latest issue of the Bordwaell Chronicles:

New Ambassadors

Welcome two new ambassadors, Katlynna (NoBull) and Violet Winterborne! You'll see them hanging out in our forums and our Discord.

What's next?

As we march towards the end of the year, we're working on finishing up our VoxElyria release for friends and family. In December, look forward to new videos chronicling our progress on the game, an open topic Q&A broadcast (follow our Twitch channel for updates!), and more. 

Until next time. . .