Hello Eldritch Community!
When development for Eldritch started in 2017, our plan was to tell a specific story with a clear ending, and that that story would take roughly 12 events to tell. We’ve stuck with that plan for seven years. But what wasn’t part of the original plan was a pandemic and starting our story over again post-pandemic. Eldritch would be over by now if it weren’t for that; we planned to run three events per year for four years, putting the finale somewhere in 2023.
That said, we’re really feeling the physical, mental, and emotional burden of running this business. If we continue on our trajectory, now only two events per year for 12 events, we won’t be done until spring 2028, five years after we originally planned on being done and moving on to other projects.
Running more events per year is just not an option for us anymore. So, we’ve made the hard decision to shorten Eldritch’s story from 12 events, to 9 full events plus a one-day event in the summer between events 8 and 9. This will put the finale in the fall of 2026.
We know this isn’t great news for our players, or for the folks who are interested in playing Eldritch but haven’t managed to get in because of sold out tickets. But we want to run the best game that we can, with the energy and passion we have left, instead of burning ourselves out trying to reach an arbitrary event count.
What does this affect?
This obviously has cascading effects on multiple things, which we will do our best to outline here.
What happens to the story?
It will be shortened into the time frame we have left, but rest assured, the story and content will remain the same.
Will characters get more CP?
No. It’s worth noting that our game was never designed to have characters reach a certain CP level; we balance our games based on where character levels are at, not where they should be or will be at. CP accruement per event will remain as is.
Will skills be changing to give more coin/espionage/influence/resources?
No. We’d rather inject more resources into the game through story than put more work on ourselves to try and re-balance our systems.
There are rules regarding when certain skills/ranks can be purchased. Will those be updated?
Yes. The rules regarding skill and rank purchases will be updated to reflect the shortened play time. A separate announcement will be made when we update those rules.
On that note, level 3 items - when will those be introduced?
We plan on introducing them at Event 7. This means crafters will be able to purchase their level 3 crafting skills between events 6 and 7. It is worth noting that level 3 items were never designed to ensure that everybody gets them; they are chase items. You might get one, but you’re unlikely to have a full set of level 3 items and that has always been the case as far as our original intentions go.
What happens if my character dies permanently towards the end of the story, and I don’t feel like creating a whole new one just for one or two events?
With character death being largely consensual, you essentially get to choose when your character’s story ends. But if you decide to end their story at say, Event 7 or 8, and you don’t want to put in a bunch of effort for a new character who will only be around for a short while, we want to offer the possibility of playing a pre-built, named character from our setting. This character would have goals to achieve for the remaining events and a skillset on par with the rest of the characters in the game. You would still pay for tickets to attend the events with this character.
Are you going to allow more players to attend the remaining events?
We really want to, and are actively working towards that. We’ve got a growing number of incredible people helping us behind the scenes. For logistics work specifically, if we can ensure that we have consistent, reliable help from event to event, then we will feel comfortable increasing the number of player tickets we sell. It’s important to us that we have a larger number of people doing fewer, smaller tasks, rather than one or two people taking on a bunch of work for us and getting burnt out. If you are interested in helping us with some tasks for Eldritch, please add your name to the Volunteer Availability spreadsheet.
Even if we get the consistent help we need between events to raise the player cap, we don’t imagine ourselves raising the cap above 95-100 people. This is to ensure the quality of our game remains the same with the amount of permanent staff we have who handle emergencies, conduct issues, the business itself, and the meta plot, which is still, and will likely remain, just the 3 of us (Spencer, John, and Jess).
We love that you all love this game, and that’s what keeps us going. Thank you for coming along on this ride with us; we’re going to work hard to make the rest of our events as great as possible for you all!
All the very best,
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