 Hello everyone and welcome to enter the ether a new podcast done by jelly knees and I I'm your host man goose He is jelly knees jelly. How you doing? I'm doing great man. Happy to be here. Same here This is the first episode of this we've been thinking about doing this for a while and we've kind of been delaying it because there hasn't been a lot of news coming out about ethereal, but We're tired of not talking about ethereal so we're just going to get into or we'll talk about some of the history some of the changes that they've made and How far they've come since their their inception back in 2017? I believe it was am I do you have the numbers on that by any chance jelly because that sounds about right Because it was right before paragon Died that they kind of sprouted. So and that was april 2018. So it's got to be 2017 And I mean that's a very important distinction to make too because a lot of people confuse Ethereal with a paragon resurrection project and it is not It was not inspired at all by paragon the the original creators never played paragon. It was uh kind of based more on Trying to improve smite than anything Yeah, 100 and from what I've heard from them. That's kind of their goal is to be the next better version of smite They're not trying to capture that paragon market Which I think that was kind of paragon's goal as well. Um, I mentioned it on my on my youtube channel that um Like steve superville like his original What he wanted to do with paragon was create a game that matched the actual cinematic trailers for like law and dota and stuff Because you know, you look at those trailers and it's all 3d and awesome looking and then when you get into the game, it's like the top-down isometric shit And it looks nothing like the trailers But that's uh, that that was uh ethereal thought too that was owens thought Owen and kai when they were uh started up ethereal was to try and make a game to actually match the cinematic trailers for the games That they played which is law and dota And I think verticality is the biggest thing to that end right is in those top downs You don't have any kind of standing above somebody else And that's what I loved about paragon and what i'm hoping to love about ethereal when we're able to play it Is that verticality? It adds a whole new skill set and dimension to the game whenever you have to actually aim your shots And you get it somewhat in smite, but you're still only really aiming across a horizontal plane But you're not aiming vertically. Yeah But yeah, they um The game has come a long ways when it the original inception Uh way back in the day And this is another thing that confused people made people think that this was like a paragon project Was they were using placeholder assets from the paragon assets Uh on their map and such I remember one of the first ethereal videos ever seen britic was running around on their map on shinby and the map was extremely flat It was very smite like they did they they still had the the vertical tiers Like you had different levels on top of each other But the levels themselves were very flat and just you know how smite is flat But you got rocks and stuff in your way And that's kind of what their map was at first But then they uh they ended up changing that a lot of people that saw that saw that video It was it was a lot of paragon refugees really were coming and they kind of found ethereal and started kind of tagging along Seeing that it was a third person motor that moba that intended to take advantage of verticality and everybody was like, hey, wait a second Why is the map so flat there needs to be hills and And cliffs and stuff to jump off of so that was that was probably their first major change was they started changing the map to be Um to take more advantage of the verticality Absolutely, and I think another thing that really caught players eyes coming from paragon, especially Was the way that they described how they're making their characters how they're making their myths Is that there if you have it you're going to use it so wings shield guns whatever that may be Your kit will involve that thing And just saying that they're going to have people they're going to have different class abilities for every myth And that they're all going to fit into one specific class that has a unique ability just in that class that no other classes have Which is a very cool idea That I haven't seen really done in a moba space before That's something I'd forgotten about their dedication to to saying, you know If your character has it then you're going to use it I think a good example of that was gravestone the very first iteration of gravestone He had that shield Everybody assumed he was a tank. He was actually meant to be a melee carry. They always Said that sarith was the first melee carry It was actually gravestone was first introduced as a carry But people played him as a tank because he had that shield. However, the shield played no part in his kit whatsoever I mean it ended up, you know, he had the the flexibility, but when he was first introduced that shield didn't do jack shit Yep, and that's the case in so many mobas is that your character looks really cool and has all these cool things that they then don't use For whatever reason So it's a very strange design aspect that I love that they're Combating that idea by making sure that everyone they do they do design follows that principles With the biggest thing of course being the wings for sky slayers No other moba has ever had a hero that can just straight up fly. I mean you have like Muriel can kind of you know fly across the map, but she can't control her flight She targets an area and then flies to it Sort of the same way with sarith She can fly up in the air and then just come right back down But no other moba really has a hero that could just straight up Fly at will create their own verticality just by nature of being a character Yeah, yeah I mean that's a really interesting concept That's partly why I'm most excited to play a sky slayer is because of that concept just seeing how it works and how it's functions against a moba Structure being able to fly over your enemies is going to be a weird thing that you have to think about More so than just like I know that there's a vertical spot to the left Now it's I have to think about someone could just be flying above me And I may not know Yeah, I think it's going to be very difficult to balance the sky slayers. I think they uh They've got a challenge on their hands right there When we've talked about it before and for the minions that balancing the class abilities is going to be probably their hardest challenge throughout all of this In making sure that one class doesn't feel Useless or too weak in comparison to the others But people like the sky slayers or the reapers being able to climb things Isn't going to create its own issue by being too strong that you have to take one of those two things right And I mean they have some great game designers though that uh That i'm sure that they'll put their heads together and come up with a solution and be able to balance this out I don't think there's no way there's no way in hell that they're they're alpha Their opening alpha is going to be balanced. No, like it's going to take some time Absolutely that opening alpha is got to be more of a tech test or a tech demo Then really a playable 6v6 game Which is the other thing that they're doing is that it's instead of 5v5 it's 6v6 Which will create its own kind of meta in instances that people have to figure out How to play against because there's an extra body on each team than you're used to And that was actually my first concern about the game my first major concern was that Having two extra people in the queue was going to make queue times last too long And that's something that that's another that's another big hurdle that they're going to have to tackle it doesn't seem like a big thing but Just q and five people against five people can be difficult enough as it is when you're doing six versus six That just adds to it just a little bit more Absolutely, if you consider in comparison to something like fault queue times if you're on at the wrong time of day queue times on fault can take you upwards of 30 minutes So you have to account for your player base and all of that and hopefully Uh, ethereal is able to overcome that and have a significant player base at all times of day that they don't have to worry about queue times or anything like that I certainly hope so One thing we're not going to have is x ethereal players Gang it up on people I mean, you'll of course have people of varying skill levels, but you're not going to have people that are just You know played paragon date or played ethereal day and night come in Hopefully when you and I get into the pre alpha, we'll just be those people when it full releases I played the pre alpha. I'm sorry. Uh, you don't know what you're doing Then we'll we'll get you and I will get four other testers and we'll team up Stacking everybody out of people that I've never played before Oh, exactly. I like this plan man goose sold Go so much fun. Oh and Kai make it happen the game before it starts We'll be the reason players leave you'll get leave your game Leave it to us Oh god, I don't think I could ever be good enough at a game to be considered overpowered You just nerf yourself. There you go Oh, well another thing that another big thing that they changed that they took the the community's um Advice on which I still don't know how I feel about it. The the original character design was very anime like um Like you can see malaya's old character model and it looked it looked like a lead a battle angel a little bit like Big dough eyes and I actually enjoyed that I liked it A lot of people did not so that's why they changed it up to this more sort of realistic look. It's um I think they said it's it's it's kind of a modeled after final fantasy Yeah, but that is one of the changes that they made and um I really like the the look of the new characters, too But I you know what I didn't mind the old ones not at all See and I'm the complete opposite from you. I was one of those people that were like no No, we need something better than this, please Ha ha ha Well, I will say that the old anime styled models I think to do anime right in a video game. You have to use the cel shaded Look, yeah And they weren't doing doing that. So it kind of it just made malaya look more like a chibi Like an anime you're not wrong Oh god, maybe that could be in april fools later on down the look On down the line, they could make chibi versions of everything whenever you're playing But still even with the that old malaya model, we still got a little bit of a peek at her abilities. We don't know Any of the abilities for any of the heroes except for we know that um malaya will be able to create a Sort of shield bubble around her and we know that from the that old The concept. Oh, that's you're right this I forgot about that clip, too um I don't think we know anybody else's we know the class abilities generally. We don't have any kind of stats or anything like that right Yeah, all we have all we can do is infer from the lore for each character and try and figure out what their abilities will be Right and and they're redoing a lot of the lore So they're actually the new lore they're working in more of the abilities into the lore So I actually know a lot of the abilities But I'm not able to divulge them But you can infer a lot from the lore once that comes out. Oh, nda's aren't they just the greatest I'm just I'm just glad that they have their shit together enough to actually make me sign an nda. That's true That's true Project stamina and ethereal are the only two that have ever actually made me sign an nda I think I've signed like three with ethereal so far I think you said something similar is you've signed three different nda's for them. Yeah, I've signed three four of them Every couple like it seems like a year or so in they're like, oh, we need we need you to sign another one. Okay Does that mean it's happening soon Might be a good time to to drop this one, but your girlfriend works for undying games now. Yeah, she does She's one of their level designers Her and wane is his name But she's not like she tells me much anyway. No, she doesn't tell me anything She has a spray bottle on her desk that if I tried to comb over and peek she would legit straight spray me in the face Due to owens orders. This is something he told her to do They put that in a contract if anybody comes by you must spray them in a face with a water bottle Oh, that's pretty funny Yeah, no, I don't know anything They have meetings and she'll take her laptop into the other room and be very quiet about it and Right, it's like I want to stand by the door and try and listen But she's got headphones in because she knows I'll stand by the door and try and listen I can't do anything That's amazing That I mean I should reassure people too. A lot of people think that It's just kind of a hoax and that the game will never come out You know I have My own ties to the game that I know that they're that it's a thing that it will eventually be even though it's taking Way longer than it was originally Supposed to but jelly also has his own ties to the game and and can can reassure you that it is a thing and it is It will come out eventually absolutely, um, and that's I'll take a little bit of pride here and I was kept like pushing her I was like, hey, you should apply for this like come on hoping for myself that I'll get information about it But at the same time when she gets the job It's one of those things of like, okay. Well, they are bringing people on still. They are actually moving forward So it's reassuring to see that end And they're constantly bringing people on seems like every couple days I can go into the discord and see that there's a new team member in there And they haven't asked for any money Not at all Any whatsoever. Um, they did hopefully eventually they'll be able to make enough money to pay all these people They did say that They're going to launch a Kickstarter Um, but there's no time frame for that yet Okay I wonder if the Kickstarter will be like fault where it guarantees you early access I hope so I mean, hopefully they'll just reach out to us and be like, hey, you guys want to try it But if worse comes to worse, I mean, I'll probably still throw in money to them Absolutely, especially if they get like, uh t-shirts or something made 100% I will buy one of those I've been following this game for two and a half three years now may as well At least I'll get something for my body pillow Body pillow We'll get the original malaya on a body pillow There you go do instant sell All right, we're taking a 15% cut of any malaya body pillows that gets sold Hell yeah Gotta get that licensing deal done now I think that covers about all the changes that they've made since the beginning they have I will I know that the the map that we got a preview of that was a lot more vertical I know they're completely they threw that out and they're completely redoing an entirely new map And we don't have any looks at that. I don't think No, no, we don't I'm sure somebody could comb through the discord and find the like the little tidbits of details They drop every couple days like little teeny things that you may overlook But there's nothing official that's been said one way or another Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait till this game comes out same There's a I know that like when it comes out you and I are just going to go so hard into this game that it won't even Like other games won't exist Yeah, exactly at least it'll be worse than bpm 100% at least my girlfriend works on the project So when I know life it then like she can feel a little bit proud that I'm no life in the game that she's worked on Instead of just disappearing for weeks on end I'll just have to make sure that I'm not with anyone Or you just you you tell them that as a caveat by the way when this happens. I don't know when I'll just disappear for a while. Sorry. Like it's just a thing I did tell her that before she got on the project Yeah, I straight up told her that I was like when ethereal comes out I will likely not leave my house or anything but work and food I'm sorry. Like if you want to come over and sit next to me, that's fine But just I wanted to be perfectly upfront and she's like no that that's fine. I understand You've been waiting for it and then she got on the project. It's like, okay. Well now you better understand And she's a level designer like if she would just tell me things I could have the edge over everybody I would know where the level maps are where the camps are But no unfortunately, I don't get that kind of information Now Owen used to be their level designer, but uh he has since relinquished that position to uh Wayne and Can I say her name page page of imagination? Yep too late now We always edit it out later. No, yeah, it's just the two of them as far as I know And Wayne is kind of like the lead level designer and then page Is working underneath him helping him out with anything that he needs Right on and they talked so they're gonna have before they talk I don't know if it's still a thing that they're gonna have the 6v6 map And then like an arena style map like smite has And then they also said they're gonna have kind of an uh A ram type map where it's one lane and everybody Is in one lane fighting But I don't remember if that was a full 6v6 or if that was like 1v1s or 2v2s or something I think that is definitely needed because that's I mean they're trying to pull people from smite and that's by far the most popular game mode and smite is The uh the 3v3 uh arena. Yep Is that 3v3? I haven't played smite in so long. I think it's 3v3. I I've honestly never played arena I've only played the MOBA side But I'm pretty sure the arena is 3v3 And yeah, that's what all this big smite players play it for The MOBA side is dead So if they can pull what few MOBA players are there then the arena players over Uh, I'm sure that would get paragon fault predecessor players I think that's the biggest thing ethereal has going for it is that because it's not suckling on that paragon teat They can draw players from all sorts of other games They're of course going to draw from the paragon fan base, but they're also going to draw from smite They're going to draw from dota. They're going to draw from law. They're going to draw from all these other And because they're being so ambitious With their vertically tiered map structure. They're flying heroes. They're 6v6 All this stuff that they're doing is going to attract people to at least want to try it And if they can do a good enough job, that's yet to be seen I don't want to you know Blow smoke up your ass and talk about how great the game is because I haven't seen gameplay But if they can pull it off, it's going to be amazing 100 it could redefine the third person MOBA genre If they do it well with everything they're doing the classes the abilities the design It could really really shake up that entire space Oh, yeah, the MOBA genre just in general Which I think is the most exciting thing for me is right is that we've been following this for so long Just see a project that has that kind of potential And it may not do it at first but they may it may take them a bit to figure out where they stand But if they do it even remotely well, I feel like you can they can pull players from all sides of the MOBA genre And keep them interested I'm hoping that when I finally encounter the game, it'll be like when I Encounter Paragon it was so new It's so interesting that it blew my mind And I hope that's what I get with it. They're real same here All right. Oh, I think that's probably gonna wrap it up. We've been going for what 30 minutes or so about 30 minutes I think that's what we should probably try and keep these at is about 30 minutes 30 minutes to An hour, of course, we don't we'll probably get into more hour long ones whenever we actually have some some new news to talk about Yeah, um I'm gonna start trying to I'll go talk talk to Owen and start trying to pull in some some some people to interview Maybe we can get some of the voice actors on here and everything because their voice acting is amazing for this game But uh jelly you got anything you want to plug you got any videos out or anything Uh, no videos out right now that I think haven't been out for a bit But uh twitch stream monday through sunday That was a weird way to put it. But yeah monday through sunday twitch.tv slash jelly knees Right on and uh, if you guys have never seen my my alternate channel the manly goose. I do a lot of cooking and uh I'm gonna start a new series on there called the state of fear where I'm going to go through state by state And talk about ghost stories from each state and uh, I think uh, yeah If you guys aren't checking out the manly goose take a look at that. That's all I got But I think that's going to wrap it up. So, uh From jelly knees and I we bid you a do good. Um, yeah, fuck it. I just Really looking forward to this I hope you guys are looking forward to this game as well But for now, this is the man goose and jelly knees signing off you guys have a good one We'll have to work on that outro man