Prelyria

**Prelyria** (formerly known as VoxElyria or ElyriaMUD) is a role-playing game with a subset of the features relating to Chronicles of Elyria, developed in a low-poly, low-fidelity client (the "Pre-Alpha UE4 Client"). In part, Prelyria will allow Soulbound Studios to test and design the massively multiplayer features of Chronicles of Elyria and the Soulborn Engine, without having to wait for the content team to create detailed 3D models, animations, textures, materials, etc.

Before Prelyria, the original "Pre-Alpha" design was VoxElyria (See Trivia)

## Features

As it will be used to model player interaction, Prelyria will deploy with the important multi-player mechanics of the game. These include:

* Communication
* Contracts (Explicit)
* Crime & Punishment
* Economy
* Families
* Identities
* Organizations
* Parties / Grouping
* Reputation / Fame

The "alpha" is intended to span anywhere from 30 to 50 in-game years, to allow the incorporation of other mechanics such as:

* Achievements
* Artificial Intelligence (NPCs)
* Ecology
* Dynamic Environments
* Character Life-cycle
* Souls
* Story-Engine

Prelyria will have cameo features as well, such as survival mechanics, combat, crafting, and others. As necessary elements to test the other intended features of the game, they will be present in Prelyria, but not to validate those specific mechanics. In many cases, such as combat, they exist in Prelyria as a shadow or completely disassociated version of the final system. Combat in Prelyria will not work like it does in Prologue, Exposition, or the released game. In the same way. Crafting in Prelyria will be a feature used to validate the overall system of gathering resources, converting them into crafting materials, crafting components, and then constructing them into objects. It will not reflect the experience of crafting in the regular game.

Upon launch of Prelyria, players will be able to create characters and walk around in the world, role-playing and interacting with their fellow players while helping test the game mechanics. In the later phases, Prelyria will leverage the Soulborn Engine to expose characters to a dynamic, evolving story-line in which they have control of the narrative.

## Relationship with Kingdoms of Elyria

Kingdoms of Elyria is a separate, top-down, 2D graphical civilizations-like game built to test the separate features of land management and politics. It is scheduled to release trimester two of 2018, several months after the release of Prelyria.

Once released, events that happen in Kingdoms of Elyria will be mirrored in Prelyria and vice-versa. Political actions of government-level backers in KoE, like declaring war against another nation, will affect the behavior of NPCs in Prelyria. When nobles are killed in Prelyria, it will be reflected in the dance of dynasties in Kingdoms of Elyria.

## Release Schedule

Ref.:

Backers will be released for Prelyria based on their slots in Alpha or Beta. Players with pledges that grant them Alpha 1 access will be allowed to play Prelyria first, followed by those with Alpha 2 access, then Beta 1 players, then Beta 2 players.

At the point where Prelyria/CoE is approaching Alpha 1 quality, it will open up to all backers that have a paid-up account on the website to jump in and start testing. This was originally planned to be around trimester one of 2018.

Those players wanting to begin building their guilds, forming in-game relationships, and staying connected to the world throughout the development process need look no further than Kingdoms of Elyria and Prelyria.

## Media

Important notice:

***This section presents a range of images and gifs of preliminary in-game visuals. Please be aware of the preliminary nature of any of these!***

Below you'll find a selection of concept art images for Prelyria.

And here's a number of prototype in-game images.

And four more recent environment images.

Here's a number of gif images showing various in-game action sequences.

And six more recent action sequence gif images. These respectively cover archery target practise, door interaction, a piggy walking, two sequences showing a friendly and unfriendly greeting by an NPC, and the motion of a player in melee combat.

And a sneak peak on a more detailed level:

Shared in a shiny thread on the underhome:

## Trivia

Before the renaming to Prelyria, the game was referred to as VoxElyria until October 2nd, 2018. The name change was decided on as the developers decided to produce this game with high-poly (but low-fidelity) meshes instead of Voxel models. This was because they decided to change the pre-Alpha Client for three important reasons: 1) the ability to fully test the game mechanics as intended, without modifications, 2) the effective visualization of advanced mechanics and 3) the testing requiring tighter client integration.

Below you can find a gallery of images produced for VoxElyria.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Caspian, Adventure Completion: From Pre to Alpha, 3 October 2018
2. ↑ Soulbound Studios, Kingdoms, Chronicles, and Mud, 27 June 2016
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Caspian, CoE Discord tag ## 2017-08-13 #ElyriaMUD#, 13 August 2017
4. ↑ Kaizen, Community Journal: Thinking Outside the Vox, 29 Septrember 2017
5. ↑ Caspian, Adventure Intro: Some Assembly Required, 5 October 2018
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Caspian, DJ #19: Pre-Alpha Experiences, 23 February 2017
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Caspian, State of Elyria - July 2017, 27 July 2017
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Caspian, State of Elyria: The Calm Before the Storm, 9 March 2019
9. ↑ Snipehunter, Meanwhile, back in the lab - Combat Technique Design, 4 April 2019
10. ↑ Snipehunter, In the darkness, light SHINES through, 13 June 2019