COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Design Journal Master List

Note to reader: CoE has been in development for a number of years now. Although earlier official posts contain good information for learning what CoE is all about, more recent posts are more likely to be up to date.

Development Progress Updates have been moved to their own thread.

Early Dev Journals

Dev Journal 1: Humble Beginnings - A brief introduction of CoE

Dev Journal 2: Introducing the Proteus Engine - A description of the Proteus Engine (now Soulborn Engine) and how SBS plan to utilise it to create an expansive and dynamic game world.

Dev Journal 3: Out of the Frying Pan... - The announcement of the formation of Soulbound Studios, the website and Facebook page, and the renaming of the Proteus Engine to the Soulbound Engine.

Dev Journal 4: The Chat System - Describes the unique elements SBS hope to implement in the in-game chat, their reasons for these elements and what they hope to achieve with them.

Dev Journal 5: It Takes a Village - Explanation of Influence Points, including how they are earned and what to do with them.

Design Journals

Design Journal 1: Introduction to Souls - An intro to how souls work in character creation, and a brief intro to other elements connected to souls, such as soul mates and talented souls.

Design Journal 2: Soul Selection, Destiny, Achievements and Soul Mates - A more in depth look at these specific soul aspects.

Design Journal 3: Time, Aging, and Offline Player Characters - Explains how the age of a character affects stats and characteristics, also briefly touching on visual representation of character aging/effects, game world seasons and how Offline Player Characters will function.

Design Journal 4: Incapacitation, Spirit Walking, and Permadeath - Explains the different forms of death, what can cause them, how to deal with them, and also discusses looting of players.

Design Journal 5: Families & Family Selection - Explains how your family selection will affect your gameplay experience and character, as well as the various options available to you when choosing a family. Also gives details on various benefits family members receive from each other.

Design Journal 6: Character Customisation and Bloodlines - Explains how various things including family, birth place and where you live affect your character physically and characteristically. Also touches on the typical character customisation, and choosing to be a ward (orphan) rather than part of an existing family.

Design Journal 7: Contracts and Player-Created Professions - Describes how different types of contracts can be used to make laws and broker deals and trades between players, and how they can be enforced if broken.

Design Journal 8: Character Roles and Skill Advancement - Lays out the currently planned 4 roles characters will typically fall into and the 6 different types of skill trees they can focus on. Also describes how these 2 systems will work in the world of CoE.

Design Journal 9: Crafting & Professions - Describes CoE's unique crafting mini-games, as well as how professions can be specialised and specific goals can be researched.

Design Journal 10: Maps, Cartography, and Navigation - Explains how maps can be created and used, the different scales of maps, and some special ways they will function.

Design Journal 11: Equipment & Inventory - Lists the various slots a character can equip things in, and explains how different equipment will affect survival elements such as weight and heat. Also describes how character inventory and containers will function.

Design Journal 12: Identity, Disguises, and Reputation - Explains nameplates, player introductions, forging documents and wearing disguises to hide identity, investigation to find someone's true identity and how fame and reputation will be earned.

Design Journal 13: Technology & Research - Explains how research can be conducted, as well as how the technological advancements of individual servers will be affected by player research habits.

Design Journal 14: Player Housing – Architecture & Construction - How buildings can be constructed and customised in CoE, as well as what they offer in terms of functionality. Also explains how architecture is affected by environmental factors.

Design Journal 15: Player Created Dungeons - Explains building zones and laws, ways of obtaining land and ways that buildings can be protected or destroyed.

Design Journal 16: The Weight and Measure of a Lifetime - Lists the latest numbers for real-time to game-time ratios, as well as average character lifespans. Also explains how fame will be earned differently by nobles and how this will affect spirit loss through death.

Design Journal 17: Bolstering & Earn-to-Play - Explains bolstering, a system which adjusts character stats when playing with more experienced friends, and Story Points, a system that rewards players for contributing to the game world with their presence by giving them currency they can spend on game time.

Design Journal 18: Kingdom & Land Management - Explains the different levels of land owners in CoE - the Gentry, Aristocracy and Nobility. Describes in detail the different ways to obtain land, challenge for land and titles, and move up the social ladder. Also explains the process of upgrading from smaller settlements up to massive cites.

Design Journal 19: Pre-Alpha Experiences - Explains all the different interactions we as players will have with the world of Elyria in the lead up to launch - including a Prologue, ElyriaMUD and Kingdoms of Elyria. Also explains the reasoning behind each of these experiences, how they will interact with each other and what we can expect.

Design Journal 20: A Tale of Twelve Tribes - A very detailed post on tribes, explaining how they will be implemented into the game and why, as well as how tribes interact with other game systems like biomes and breeding.

Design Journal: Crafting Redux - An updated look at the plans for in depth crafting mechanics.

Design Journal: Communication - A break down of forms of 'communication', from chat channels to disguises and identities.


If you are new to the community, the Design Journals will answer a lot of your questions.

3/23/2017 9:06:49 AM #1

Q&A Streams

Design Experiences - Full - In Brief

Biomes - Full - In Brief

Settlements - Full - In Brief

Pre-Alpha Experiences - Full - In Brief

Survival - Full - In Brief

April Open Topic Full - In Brief

Tribes Part 1 Full - In Brief

Tribes Part 2 Full - In Brief

Tribes Part 3 Full - In Brief

Tribes Part 4 Full

Jousting in Chronicles of Elyria Full

Friends and Family Release Full

Open Topic Full

World Generation Full

Player Destiny System Full

Release 0.4.0 Full

Flora and Fauna Full

Tech Videos

Snow Accumulation Tech Preview

Aging & Body Dynamics Tech Preview

Princess Bride Combat Video

World Interaction Technical Preview

Parkour Roof Flip

ElyriaMUD, Unreal Engine Walkthrough | Chronicles of Elyria Pre-Alpha Footage

Chronicles of Elyria | Character Creation | Pre-Alpha Live Walkthrough

Cinematic/Promo Videos

CoE First Look

Chronicles of Elyria - Akashic Records Lore

Tour of Titan's Steppe

A Living World

Animal Animation Update | Chronicles of Elyria Pre-Alpha Footage

Chronicles of Elyria PAX West 2017 Recap

Chronicles of Elyria Jousting Gameplay Trailer

Meet the Chronicles of Elyria Community: Blackheart and Vornair

What is Chronicles of Elyria? | Pre-Alpha Progress Update

Chronicles of Elyria: The Free Kingdom of Elyria Lore

Chronicles of Elyria: The Enemy You Don't See Cinematic

Commentary Videos

Chronicles of Elyria - Meet the Team

PAX East 2017 Demo

Designing Chronicles of Elyria (PAX East 2017 Presentation by Caspian)

Silver Run Mine Design Walkthrough

Jousting Design ViDoc

Chronicles of Elyria - A Retrospective on Jousting

Lore Development

Queen's Gaze is upon us! - October 2017

Celebrate Longest Night - December 2017

The Cardinal Miracle of the Second Age - March 2018

The Stowaway - A Tale of Elyria - June 2018

The Origin of the Sedecim - June 2018

The Searing Plague - August 2018

Mark the Festival of Passage with the Faedin faiths - September 2018

A Tale of Queen's Gaze - Ilnajeren and The Lantern Man - October 2018

A Tale of Longest Night - Diary of a Vault Raider - December 2018


If you are new to the community, the Design Journals will answer a lot of your questions.

3/23/2017 9:55:45 AM #2

This is a handy list however, I would include a couple of the updates too which contain design changes:

Plenty of eye candy - Subheading:Design - Changes to day/night and seasons cycles and discussion of impact on various game mechanics.

Down the rabbit hole... - Subheading:Design - Changes to the length of an in game year, character life spans, heirs, non-traditional characters and marriage.


Author of the Elyria Echo the first, and least up-to-date, CoE fan site.

3/23/2017 10:44:00 AM #3

Yeah, that is my plan for the reserved post, I just had to get back to work :) thank you for the thought.


If you are new to the community, the Design Journals will answer a lot of your questions.

3/23/2017 11:14:42 AM #4

Good job!!!!! THX


3/30/2017 2:08:45 AM #5

Great job creating this list. Save me plenty of time! Thanks very much.


3/30/2017 2:37:04 AM #6

Moonchaser's post from the Ikcen thread is also a great resource:

/forum/topic/12378/is-that-the-next-generation-mmorpg?page=11#post129144


3/30/2017 8:19:42 PM #7

Thanks, Very nicely laid out. and very informative information.


Alt text - can be left blank

3/30/2017 9:32:55 PM #8

Thank you! This is so useful!

(Though it would be nice if some of the information in the older journals didn't conflict with new ones, but now I'm just complaining)


Tartarus

3/30/2017 9:41:17 PM #9

Agreed, great work. I echo the sentiment around annotating the DJs that have had updates. (I'd recommend a note in the original post next to a DJ pointing folks to the update in the reserved post.)

A difficult mapping task, given that there's rarely a 1-1 relationship between an update and an old DJ. But it would be extremely helpful for getting new folks up to speed.


Avid wiki editor, with a special interest in categories, navboxes, and infoboxes.

3/31/2017 2:28:30 AM #10

Thanks for the notes guys, I will do that when I am in the mood to do a bit of reading. Haven't really been keen to sit down and read over them again this week, hopefully soon


If you are new to the community, the Design Journals will answer a lot of your questions.

3/31/2017 6:22:34 AM #11

Good work.

I know one of the reasons I sometimes neglect to link is because it's been so long I forget which Post had the pertinent info and it's a pain to go through and skim through each one til I find the right one. Having that synopsis there to more easily locate it will be a real life saver. Thank you.


Imgur Imgur

4/9/2017 4:52:10 PM #12

Just found this every nicely done

4/9/2017 8:59:52 PM #13

Thanks this should make catching up on what I missed much simpler.


Don't mind me just digging your grave.

4/22/2017 10:43:50 PM #14

thought i would refresh it.

4/27/2017 4:18:14 AM #15

Updated with non DJ update posts and various video content. Also removing intro from initial post to clear unnecessary text.


If you are new to the community, the Design Journals will answer a lot of your questions.