Chronicles of Elyria understands that not everyone can game around the clock, and through a couple of systems the team is striving to make sure “people with different amounts of free time are still able to play together in an equitable and rewarding way.”
The first way that the upcoming MMO will do this is through a stat bolstering system. When grouped up with a “family member” who is more advanced, the game will boost the lesser character’s stats to a similar level. Skill selection for the bolstered character will remain the same.
The second method is paying players in “story points” for participating in the game. Story points can be used to purchase sparks of life and other in-game advantages. These sparks of life are essentially tokens for a new character that will live a mortal and finite life in the game. Thus, sparks can be both earned through gameplay and purchased with real-world cash.
“In Chronicles of Elyria, the story points you earn while playing can be traded in between lifetimes in order to buy sparks of life,” the devs explained. “This is what we call the ‘earn-to-play’ model of funding. Now, we’re not the first to do this. There’s been a couple other games that have done something similar. But, as far as we know we’re the first to use a currency that rewards people for participating in the story, and as far as we know we’re the first do this that doesn’t use a subscription model.”
The game is launching a Kickstarter campaign on May 3rd.
