Stretch Goals Announced

A few days ago, Jeromy "Caspian" Walsh released the results of the stretch goal priority polls. Yesterday, he officially released the Chronicles of Elyria stretch goals. Judging by the comments on both the Kickstarter and the CoE Discord Server, there were many fans and supporters who were not pleased with the stretch goal list.

After reading his explanation of why the list and milestone markers are the way they are, despite the results of the poll, I can understand why Soulbound Studios decided on this order.  The top results of the poll were as follows:  Tunneling, Mounted Combat, and Natural Disasters, all of them features.  In fact, the top eight stretch goals that were affirmatively voted on by the fans were ALL features.

It is only natural for the fans to want additional features in this game and of course, the features that sound most epic are the ones that are going to cost a lot more money to produce. Given that fact, I respect how they laid out the stretch goals.

I am happy that only one of the three features that I voted for (and explained in this post), was not able to make it onto the list.  As of right now, Integrated VoIP will not be a stretch goal, and most likely, will not be in the game at launch.

Take a look at the first four stretch goals:

Seeds of Angelica's Tear are going to be Reward for backers of the Patron level ($60) and higher. Apparently, the seeds will grow into a tree with glowing pine cones. To be honest, I am not excited about this reward. I suppose some people might be super excited and the glowing pine cones might be a huge commodity when the game launches, but I am not impressed by this one.

The Wards of the State feature will allow players to not be born into a family and be born as an orphan or abandoned child. Wards will start the game at age 12 (rather than 15) and have a lot more customization options (plus twelve days of additional adolescence).  In exchange for this, Wards will not have the social or financial support of their family.  You can read all about wards in the Design Journal.

I am glad that this feature is closer to the top, as it will add more flexibility for players in character creation.  Not to mention it will allow the most daring of players attempt a true rags-to-riches story. At the heft cost of $1.3 Million (over $350,000 from goal at the time of writing), it may be a challenge to reach this.

This is a reward for Baron Level backers ($250) or higher. Not as exciting as a reward as I was hoping for but, hey!  Now, we can all pray to Odin for blessings in battle, that our souls might be taken to Valhalla.

Finally!  One of the features that I advocated for!  As an innkeeper, gambling and gaming will be HUGE for my business. I want to be able to entertain the travelers that stay in the Dagger and Crone to have an awesome time.  More than just drinking, eating, and listening to the lovely ballads of the house Bard, I want my patrons to play together; to compete with each other.

To pass the night away playing cards, tossing dice, or betting on who which end will face up on a coin flip. The story-telling possibilities are limited only by the imagination: Perhaps a poor farmer bet his cow on a hand of High Card... or a traveling merchant is hoping that his bluff in Liar's Dice will not be called.

Needless to say, I genuinely hope that we can reach $1.5 million so that we can at least have this feature.  With over 50,000 registered members on CoE's website and only 8,000 backers, there are a lot of people that can contribute to the cause.

Get on out there and let's get some more features!

​If you're interested in talking about this live, join us on the Dagger and Crone Inn & Tavern Discord Server.

~              Paddy Bardic
           Owner / Proprietor
Dagger and Crone Tavern and Inn