"An Absolute Dumpster Fire" — Players Are Over Ethyrial: Echoes Of Yore

Things are getting worse for Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore.

The indie MMORPG developed by Gellyberry Studios has experienced a troubled launch, with various issues still persisting. Since its release on May 1, the game has faced “Mostly Negative” reviews on Steam, with most reviews citing bugs, exploits, balance problems, server instability, and lack of content. And this sentiment did not get much better following the relaunch of Ethyrial on May 12.

For starters, the game’s server has been targeted by DDoS attacks resulting in frequent disconnects and lag for players. Additionally, some players were charged double for their required subscriptions. There’s also been crafting exploits that have allowed players to level up their professions faster than intended. Moreover, players have reported disappearing items from their bank and/or inventory, movement restriction, and simply getting stuck in certain areas of the world.

The developers have responded, releasing several patches to address some of the issues and removing problematic items and NPCs. Gellyberry Studios also mentioned potential fixes for disappearing items and improvements to caravan information. Some players who took advantage of exploits were banned and further investigation is underway to catch others.

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused, particularly the unfortunate inventory wipes that some players experienced during this period,” the patch notes read via Steam. “Our team is diligently working to identify those responsible for causing and exploiting this situation.” They added: “Furthermore, we have also discovered and addressed a gold duplication exploit that was utilized by some players,” concluding, “We want to thank the community from the bottom of our hearts for helping us solve this matter.”

While unhappy players appear on just about any game's Discord from time to time, it's important to remember that a few unhappy players, no matter how vocal, may not represent the majority of a game's players and their sentiments. That said, in the case of Ethyrial, there seems to be a general unhappiness among the playerbase judging by the recent review bombing and a quick trip through the Discord.

We reached out to players who contacted us to see exactly how ACTUAL players of the MMORPG were feeling.

One player, Logan Nolte, expressed extreme dissatisfaction to MMOBomb. He bought the $25 founder’s pack and clocked in almost 30 hours during the initial playtest. But when the official launch of the game came around, Nolte was only able to play around 10 hours due to queue times.

“The first launch was an absolute dumpster fire,” he said. “People weren't able to log in.” Nolte only bothered trying the game for 15 minutes when it relaunched two weeks later. “People would load in with nothing rendering,” he said. “For me, my items have still not come back.” Nolte said similar problems have happened to the majority of the playerbase.

Over on Ethyrial's official Discord, other players share his disappointment. Some even feel the game is now treading on "scam" territory. He mentioned that the moderators on the server have also either jumped ship or went overboard with banning people. “I have been put on many timeouts for absolute bullshit reasons … For stuff that's not even in the Discord TOS,” Nolte said. “It's been kind of a mess.”

Even the lead developer of the game, Amadurr on Discord, has stated via the Discord that he will be reducing his involvement in managing the MMORPG to three to four hours a day, focusing on other opportunities while other developers take charge. He claims this was part of the plan before Ethyrial even launched. “Any modicum level of discord searching will show you that I have been transparent in this being our goal,” Amadurr said.

But Nolte doesn’t buy it. He and his three friends left the server, and unsubscribed from the game. “I kind of just got sick and tired of it,” Nolte said, adding Ethyrial needs to be taken offline and actually finished. “I don't really want any part of that no more.”

He even asked the developers for a refund on the grounds they promised a finished game and did not deliver. “They told me it was not refundable,” Nolte said. Instead, he disputed the charge with his bank and got his money back that way. “The one thing I really would like people to move forward with is just, like, don't pre-order shit,” he concluded, laughing.

EDITOR'S NOTE: As we spent the last few days reaching out to players and chatting with them, we also emailed the PR team for Ethyrial this past Saturday letting them know we'd like a comment regarding the perception of players that the team has gone silent and nothing is improving. We told them about the article we were writing.

This PR team has been VERY prompt to reply to us when dealing with normal news and setting up access for our First Look video above.

With no reply by Tuesday, we followed up on that email. With no reply by close of business Wednesday, we followed up again.

As of publication, they still have yet to reply. This could be an issue with the PR team and not necessarily the game's team, but we couldn't help but appreciate the irony given our question did have to do with a perceived lack of communication.

Should the team provide a comment, we will update this piece.