Chronicles of Elyria, a new MMO on the horizon looks to handle a major MMO component in a different way. Despite the great variety in MMO’s all of them, at least to my knowledge has one thing in common. Death is a temporary inconvenience. You take too much damage and you die, only to be resurrected by a benevolent spirit or a player with spell or magic item that conveniently brings you to life. This death doesn’t affect your character in any way, it doesn’t make any difference to how you play the game other than slightly irritating the player a bit.
Well, in Chronicles of Elyria death does mean something, in fact it means a great many things, not only character growth and change but also, in a sense directly related to how much you pay for the game. Nothing like incentive eh?
“Fearless in its design, it embraces a character’s ability to impact other characters. A closed economy, finite resources, non-repeatable quests, and a fully destructible environment means the world is experienced differently for every character. Each time you log in there is something for you to participate in. Local, regional, and national conflicts are continuously unfolding, giving birth to repeated opportunities for you to change the course of history.
Enter the world as a member of a player-run family, then work your way up from a humble adventurer to a landed vassal, develop your dynasty, and work your way to King. Not interested in running a kingdom? The fully skill-based system and lack of classes means you’re rewarded with the ability to create the exact character you want to.”
From my fevered digestion of their website, Chronicles of Elyria brings a lot of new elements to the game that I haven’t seen many times before if at all. I would certainly suggest heading over to their site and absorbing as many details as you can, but these were the elements that stuck out for me.
You Pay with Your Life
Every life should last for anywhere between 10-14 months. When you die you can buy another Spark of Life for the press of an expansion ($20-40). This works out somewhere between 70c – $4 per month. Considering other MMO’s are charging around $10 per month, despite the initial cost it works out cheaper.
Death Weakens You
Every time you die in-game, you’re soul gets a little weaker and you lose two days off your life. So if you run around attacking everything in sight despite how big and angry it looks, you better expect to be renewing your Spark of Life sooner than someone who really thinks about every decision.
No Classes
They’ve done away with the traditional roles of warrior, rogue, mage, paladin etc. Instead you could be a king, a hunter, a blacksmith, a farm hand, a bandit.
PvP Anywhere
However unless you’re at war you’re not going to be able to just walk up to somebody in the street and kill them. Not without spending at least some time in prison, which could have adverse effects on your skills.
No End-Game
They’ve also done away with the traditional concept of end-game. There’s no mad clamor to get to the highest level, followed by the inevitable gearing up for end-game raiding. Static dungeons will not be implemented. Instead, regular challenges will roam the countryside and attack your town or village.
Like I said, if you’re really interested in Chronicles of Elyria and why the hell wouldn’t you be. You should really head over to their site and check out all the info, screen shots and especially the FAQ. We’ll bring you more news and information when we have it.
Foreboding and goooood lookin’!An enchanting magical forestIn-depth character creation
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Jim Franklin
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
