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f13.net General Forums => MMOG Discussion => Topic started by: Zzulo on November 14, 2008, 03:58:13 PM



Title: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Zzulo on November 14, 2008, 03:58:13 PM
So, uh, the MMO "Chronicles of Spellborn" has set a launchdate for November 27th, which is not far away at all. Yet I haven't heard a bloody thing about the game? I personally think the combat and skillsystem seems great, and I'm interested in learning about the game, but there seems to be very few sources for it.

Is the game fun? Is it worth a monthly fee and my time? Will it be able to survive in the harsh world of MMO gaming?

Anyone out there who can shed some light on this game at all?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: schild on November 14, 2008, 04:02:18 PM
I've gotten some press releases. They're pretty....not great. >_>

Hence why I haven't posted anything about it.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Bzalthek on November 14, 2008, 10:11:24 PM
Is that Tim Roth?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: schild on November 14, 2008, 11:07:35 PM
Yes. It was one of my first avatars.

Pennywise -> Redhead smoking -> Red Meat/Earl -> Silent Hill Girl -> Tim Roth smoking


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Zzulo on November 15, 2008, 04:19:14 AM
I just heard from a guy who came disenchanted from beta

he said it was pretty bad.

I bet they'll either delay the game or it'll just fade into obscurity right after launch


Sigh :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: mutantmagnet on November 15, 2008, 09:26:03 AM
The combat system definitely looks good but there should be more to a game than just combat. If they can't offer more than that it won't do any better than Planetside. I personally love their art and sound direction.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Signe on November 15, 2008, 10:41:44 AM
I have this in my bag of things to watch along with Darkfall, Aion and Duke Nukem Forever.  I think I left the bag on a plane going nowhere, though.  Oh bugger.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: LC on November 15, 2008, 12:12:37 PM
Is the NDA still there? I hate not being able to talk about how awful games are because of  :nda:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: NiX on November 15, 2008, 01:21:08 PM
Does it really matter? At this point most people, after you're done talking, would ask you what the hell you're talking about.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Pennilenko on November 15, 2008, 01:46:55 PM
I have this in my bag of things to watch along with Darkfall, Aion and Duke Nukem Forever.  I think I left the bag on a plane going nowhere, though.  Oh bugger.

I see what you did there. :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Lantyssa on November 15, 2008, 02:25:21 PM
Does it really matter? At this point most people, after you're done talking, would ask you what the hell you're talking about.
We should stick with the spirit of the NDA, even if it's indecipherable.  We don't want to upset the Overlords.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Brogarn on November 17, 2008, 06:44:24 AM
Figures. I was looking forward to seeing this. They have some interesting lore and like has been said, the combat system looks interesting. Ah well. I'm spending all my free time in WAR anyways.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Signe on November 17, 2008, 06:55:34 AM
Oh, you never know, Brogarn.  It might be wonderful.  We're just mean to games here.  It's our way.  We loves our pussies though!

(http://msp187.photobucket.com/albums/x188/XiXheartXanimeX/kittens-4.jpg)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: AcidCat on November 17, 2008, 08:08:41 AM
I've been following the game on and off for some time now, so I'd at least like to try it, even though Lich King is taking up most of my time.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Brogarn on November 17, 2008, 08:37:33 AM
Oh, you never know, Brogarn.  It might be wonderful.  We're just mean to games here.  It's our way.  We loves our pussies though!

So, really, you just wanted to post that pic. Cute, though. Definitely cute.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Signe on November 17, 2008, 09:10:31 AM
I just wanted to reassure you that, regardless of how I might mock the game you want to like and you for wanting to like it, I think it would be lovely if some of these games turned out to be nice, too.  Even though they all seem to eventually end up going pear shaped. 

And kittehs.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Zzulo on November 19, 2008, 05:15:16 PM
7 days to release

still not a word of this game on the internets


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Signe on November 19, 2008, 07:10:58 PM
No, today they announced that the closed beta would start on the original launch date, November 27, and that the new release date would be sometime in January.  Or something like that.

Oh, and they dropped the NDA, too. 

Excitement. 


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Sophismata on November 19, 2008, 07:27:39 PM
Only for the US, though, as far as I know.

The Europe launch seems to be going ahead as planned.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Lantyssa on November 19, 2008, 07:53:57 PM
Europe is beta testing for the US for once?  Awesome!  :awesome_for_real:

I'm curious now that the NDA is dropped.  Someone spill.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Signe on November 19, 2008, 07:56:33 PM
Good old Europe, taking the fall.  We'll be there soon, though.  Just in time to take the credit for winning!   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: UnSub on November 19, 2008, 08:12:30 PM
Here's the press release that says Europe is officially the US testing centre. (http://tcos.com/en/news,id91,new_north_american_release_date_spellborn.html)

One positive thing is that Spellborn is launching with a free trial up to Fame Level 7.9. It's positive in that you won't have to buy the box to find out how it plays... I'm sure that's a good thing...


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Lantyssa on November 19, 2008, 10:46:00 PM
I like the free pricing model at first.  Saves the cost of a box, and if I'm unsure, I won't feel bad about paying for only a month since it's still cheaper than the initial cost of most games.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: mutantmagnet on November 20, 2008, 04:23:45 AM
Europe is beta testing for the US for once?  Awesome!  :awesome_for_real:

I'm curious now that the NDA is dropped.  Someone spill.

I had issues when I changed internet services so I didn't get to use the latest beta build.

The combat system is really good even if they annoyingly took out collision detection and height quantifiers. If it was a stand alone action rpg game or an MMO where you only pay for the expansions this game could sell really well just on the game mechanics alone.

But this is a subscription based model and it's difficult to say how it will do. All signs prior to the last beta build points to a sluggish start.

I participated in Korean mmo betas with more forum activity and in world activity.


No one could beta test for over a year due to the devs taking the servers down to fix rubberbanding issues that came up in beta 3. During this period through specific channels they had announced Frogster was tapping Korean devs from other mmos to help them with netowrking so you can guess networking wasn't the original devs strong suit.


Expect to do a lot of fedex quests. That is the bulk of missions in the first two zones.


Their tagline is "What lies Hidden Must be Found" but they actually scaled back on any of the quests that required you to think in the first zone and my attempts to see if storylines changes a lot because you can make different choices at certain points hasn't gotten any results for the first 15 levels.

The artistic touches they put in sound and visuals have been impressive.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Sophismata on November 20, 2008, 05:18:50 AM
The collision detection and rubber-banding issues could well be related. Personally, I'm of the opinion that collision detection is not all it's cracked up to be. As an attempt to imitate reality it often falls flat on its face.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: LC on November 20, 2008, 06:22:50 AM
The combat system is really good even if they annoyingly took out collision detection and height quantifiers. If it was a stand alone action rpg game or an MMO where you only pay for the expansions this game could sell really well just on the game mechanics alone.

I found it to be really poor. You are supposed to manually dodge npc attacks by strafing around them. It doesn't work very well due to poor animations, and the fact that npcs can hit you anywhere in their front 180 degrees. So every fight devolves into trying to run circles around the enemy so you don't take maximum damage. Also you do slightly more damage by hitting from behind, but it still takes forever to kill even the weakest npc. Don't expect to ever level on npcs in this game.

Quote
No one could beta test for over a year due to the devs taking the servers down to fix rubberbanding issues that came up in beta 3. During this period through specific channels they had announced Frogster was tapping Korean devs from other mmos to help them with netowrking so you can guess networking wasn't the original devs strong suit.

Frogster? I think you have your mmos mixed up.

Quote
Expect to do a lot of fedex quests. That is the bulk of missions in the first two zones.

Their tagline is "What lies Hidden Must be Found" but they actually scaled back on any of the quests that required you to think in the first zone and my attempts to see if storylines changes a lot because you can make different choices at certain points hasn't gotten any results for the first 15 levels.

The artistic touches they put in sound and visuals have been impressive.

Lets be honest. Fedex and kill quests make up the bulk of the game.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Zzulo on November 20, 2008, 06:26:34 AM
Quote from: Aldo;7919644
"Also, from today, NDA is officially dropped." Indeed.

Time to convey what I have already told some of you through PM.

This game is beautiful, it absolutely is. I've never played an MMO before with so much detail in the artwork. Combat is interesting, it kind of plays like a shooter without guns, long reloading time and stiff graphics.

This is where the fun stops. Quests, progression, community aspects and crafting/economy is all useless shit. Quests are more than 50% FedEx, progression only means you get some extra skills, it takes eons to get to a level where you can even start tweaking your gear. In fact, due to constant restarts and everyone starting at lev1 all the time I haven't even gotten anything that would improve my character beyond his level. I assure you I have played the game for at least 20 hours. Community will be weird, for some quests you need some help, because you're facing a lot of mobs at once, but there is no incentive to remain in a party much longer than needed for that one quest and guilds only offer a chat room and no other functionality. The game has some sort of crafting in that you can make fashion items when you dump your complete fortune in it. It is utterly useless. There is no auction house too. Most damning thing: there is no end game at all. No one in beta even managed to get to the highest level. The only fun thing they noticed is the arena where you can have pvp fights.

The beta has been an absolute disaster on a magnitude that is hard to describe. I think I can try by describing my beta adventures.

I got in beta after I pointed out a very stupid article in a national newspaper about Spellborn, the whole article was full of factual mistakes, they used a screenshot of Spellborn with the subtext "a picture of World of Warcraft" and it was just horrible.

The PC I had at the time (what I can remember GeForce4200Ti and everything else from that era) couldn't run it, so I was mostly lurking the beta forums. At that time there must have been roughly 100 testers of whom maybe 20 or 30 were active on the forums.

About a year ago - after the game had been postponed numerous times - I got a new PC and downloaded the game again. At that time the game was no where near finished, even the starting zone was nearly completely empty and the first serious mobs you fought were so strong that people had to fight in groups of 2 or more to even stand a chance. The community manager agreed with the complaints but it took about 3 months to tweak this mob, because they refused to roll out "small patches".
During that time there were large periods we hadn't heard a single thing from the company and many people had uninstalled the game because their character was stuck, they were told to wait for the next patch or they were out of content because there was no way to get off the second rock. After a lot of screaming and yelling we got another patch that fixed some problems but added a few dozen more. Since my previous character had been whiped I had to start over again, so I couldn't even see the changes they made to the second zone.

The last time I played was around 21/10/2008, it was around that time that the community manager had acted like such a wanker that I had given up all hope for this game.

I made a thread explaining thoroughly to them why their game would not have anyone playing it for more than a few hours and what they could do to stop this from happening, to summarize:

* The starting area is one big grind consisting of dozens of FedEx quests and a few combat quests tossed in for good measure. You will be delivering dinner invitations half the time in this game.
* The hype had been created years in advance, they had Within Temptation sing a song about the game and they had invited a few magazines over for a hands-on. Now that the game is almost coming out they have stopped with any and all marketing attempts.

The community manager replied to my topic, first he changed my title because I had the quote "fun, fuckers, FUN" in it and he changed it to "fun...FUN" which was just ironic but shows how serious they take their beta testers...

He did not reply to my feedback on this shitty quests, but instead went for the marketing abortion, it can be summarized as "There are plenty of games out there that did not have a huge pre-release hype and still, they are profitable games". I told him they were lying to themselves, no game has ever gotten popular without some sort of effort to get the news out that there is this fun game people can play.

His reply: "As always, you are more than welcome to apply for our marketing job openings, since we are still looking for the people with good marketing credentials."

I just refused to reply past this point. This much passive-agressiveness from a fucking community manager I could not stand. The alternative is that they are really desperate for employees and are willing to take anyone. :| I'm not sure what should be more worrying.

Anyway, if anyone will be able to have fun in this game I will be highly surprised. I guess this is the correct time to show screenshots.

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/3044916911_c654850064_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/helloiamaldo/3044916911/)(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/3045751782_c9aa325516_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/helloiamaldo/3045751782/)(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3048/3045751868_be6bc933bc_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/helloiamaldo/3045751868/)(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3181/3044917479_c19e4cd7a1_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/helloiamaldo/3044917479/)


review by a beta tester


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: mutantmagnet on November 20, 2008, 08:38:33 AM

I found it to be really poor. You are supposed to manually dodge npc attacks by strafing around them. It doesn't work very well due to poor animations, and the fact that npcs can hit you anywhere in their front 180 degrees. So every fight devolves into trying to run circles around the enemy so you don't take maximum damage. Also you do slightly more damage by hitting from behind, but it still takes forever to kill even the weakest npc. Don't expect to ever level on npcs in this game.

This wasn't always the case. Before beta 3 I could anticipate NPC movements even boar animations and dodge. Somehow things got messed up on that front. It's sad how I had an easier time backstabbing mobs with collision detection on in beta 2 than I did in beta 3 once rubberbanding was fixed and CD removed.

Regardless of the removal of combat depth there, the skills you get as you level up are a lot of fun. Though things get absurd once you get body slots. Before I got them I thought grouping was necessary if you want to take on packs of mobs. Then I got body slots and the multi target affects just racked up massive kills.


I don't get how you could call backstabbing insignificant. It's not worthwhile because of how much harder it has gotten to hit mobs from behind without a teammate, but going from 79 damage to 119 isn't insignificant.

Quote
No one could beta test for over a year due to the devs taking the servers down to fix rubberbanding issues that came up in beta 3. During this period through specific channels they had announced Frogster was tapping Korean devs from other mmos to help them with netowrking so you can guess networking wasn't the original devs strong suit.

Quote
Frogster? I think you have your mmos mixed up
. THey are the publishers (http://news.mmosite.com/content/2007-10-28/20071028225057740,1.shtml) distributing to most of Europe and Asia.

Quote

Lets be honest. Fedex and kill quests make up the bulk of the game.


True but early on it was so lopsided in favor of fedexing the devs decided at the suggestion of other testers to make combat more prominent. Instead of making new quests they just increased Fame (aka XP) gain from mobs.

I'm no where near as angry but the above review is another good reflection of the game.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Zzulo on November 27, 2008, 09:02:12 AM
This game releases in Germany/Austria/Switzerland today

It'll release on the 5th of December in France and Scandinavia, and the other countries can buy and download the client, I guess. It's not really very clear. In any case, it seems like a bad way to launch an MMO.


Quote
Germany/Austria/Switzerland: Tomorrow 27th of November.
France: Friday 5th of December.
Benelux/Scandinavia: Friday 5th of December. (Read more about this change in this forum thread)

The Free2Play Client Download will be opened on Friday 5th of December.

Free2Play players and Box owners will play on the same servers of their choice.



Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Ghambit on November 27, 2008, 10:51:53 AM
This game releases in Germany/Austria/Switzerland today

It'll release on the 5th of December in France and Scandinavia, and the other countries can buy and download the client, I guess. It's not really very clear. In any case, it seems like a bad way to launch an MMO.


Quote
Germany/Austria/Switzerland: Tomorrow 27th of November.
France: Friday 5th of December.
Benelux/Scandinavia: Friday 5th of December. (Read more about this change in this forum thread)

The Free2Play Client Download will be opened on Friday 5th of December.

Free2Play players and Box owners will play on the same servers of their choice.



Is there a frakkin free trial?
Free2play simply denotes no monthly fee correct?  We must still purchase a box?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: mutantmagnet on November 27, 2008, 12:36:35 PM
I recall a CM saying a box has to be purchased.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: Draegan on November 27, 2008, 01:34:01 PM
I thought there was a free few levels you could play just to check it out.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - Zero Hype
Post by: UnSub on November 27, 2008, 04:20:27 PM
Here's the press release that says Europe is officially the US testing centre. (http://tcos.com/en/news,id91,new_north_american_release_date_spellborn.html)

One positive thing is that Spellborn is launching with a free trial up to Fame Level 7.9. It's positive in that you won't have to buy the box to find out how it plays... I'm sure that's a good thing...


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Ghambit on November 27, 2008, 06:57:17 PM
Cool, so I guess come December 5th we'll all be foolin around with this thing. 


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Ghambit on December 05, 2008, 10:50:48 AM
Free2Play client available today.  Client is about 3GB, DL speeds are variable - it's a bittorrent DLer unless you use something like filefront, etc.  The DLer is averaged about 150k for me (shytty).  If you register on the site, pay no attention if your browser locks up.  It gave me no confirmation I was in the system, but when I checked my Acclaim account I was listed as "active."  Supposedly there's a "closed beta" for Acclaim customers, whilst the rest of the world plays the live version.  I could care less either way... both are free.  I just want to take a look-see.

edit:
I suggest using filefront/shack, etc. instead of the torrent.  Seems no one is really DLing this thing so there's bandwidth aplenty... while the torrent seems to be struggling (likely for the same reason)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Mrbloodworth on December 05, 2008, 10:56:31 AM
There is no north America client yet, is there?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: ashrik on December 05, 2008, 11:19:04 AM
Dang I can't register, the I'm-not-a-robot thing is broken


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Nija on December 05, 2008, 11:20:20 AM
Chronicles of a Stillborn.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Draegan on December 05, 2008, 11:25:52 AM
Something to try later tonight.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: kildorn on December 05, 2008, 11:35:14 AM
Dang I can't register, the I'm-not-a-robot thing is broken

Maybe you're a robot.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Ard on December 05, 2008, 11:37:58 AM
Dang I can't register, the I'm-not-a-robot thing is broken

Maybe you're a robot.

Apparently he's got the wrong cowboy as his avatar:
(http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa68/random256/westworld.jpg)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Ghambit on December 05, 2008, 12:00:04 PM
Dang I can't register, the I'm-not-a-robot thing is broken

I just told you to ignore that when it locks up.  Check your Acclaim account and see if you're "active."  Chances are it went through it just didnt show you the fancy "you are accepted" screen (hell, they probably dont even have one yet).

note:  you might have to register an acclaim account prior to trying to access the "beta."  I was already registered, so it just added the game to my list.  Y'know, all this still might not even work after I DL this damned client - that'd be humorous, but expected.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: ashrik on December 05, 2008, 12:58:33 PM
I'm trying as hard as I can
(http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k15/mprose/acclaim.jpg)
Maybe I should have added the dash


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: kildorn on December 05, 2008, 01:03:18 PM
Use Bold tags, duh.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Ghambit on December 05, 2008, 01:03:39 PM
Intriguing... maybe try a different browser, right-clicking "view image," or fiddling with your browser settings (perhaps your security is too high)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Draegan on December 05, 2008, 01:08:39 PM
I refreshed the page and I got it to work, hit submit, the page hung.  Then I got an email saying I made an account.

Friend of mine tried the software and couldn't log in.  Though he probably made a mistake.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: ashrik on December 05, 2008, 01:09:08 PM
I've not nothing in IE, Firefox, or Chrome. Same when security levels are dropped. You crazy kids go and have fun with your new toy. Sometimes it's fun to sit things out.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Ghambit on December 05, 2008, 03:49:23 PM
update

Quote
-Acclaim Closed Beta has been delayed to an unspecified date.

-Both Nov 27 and Dec 5 were the announced days that the game was to go into CLOSED BETA.

-If your Acclaim account says "Active" it is a bug (as of Dec 5). As of Dec 5 no beta invites have been sent out and nobody has been accepted to the beta

-Do not download the client from the tcos.com website. This is the client for the EU Version of the game and you will not be able to use it.

-If you are accepted into the Acclaim Closed Beta you will receive an email with a link to download the client. It is for this reason (in my opinion) that no invites have been sent out yet.

-Expected release is January 2009

I finished DLing my client and of course when I went to logon it wouldnt let me.  Seems even though it says "active" it's really not and I've gotten my hands on an EU version that wont work anyways.  (sigh)  are we surprised?  How in the hell do you have a beta for some people and a release for others?  Both with totally different clients,  whilst simultaneously releasing a free2play client for some while another region waits.  You cant even view the current TCOS website because it senses your location and routes you to shithole Acclaim... which is buggy and slow (just like the tcos site).  If you're already an acclaim registrant it still asks you to "register" and promptly hangs when you do-so.

... sometimes I wonder why, just "why?"  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Zzulo on December 05, 2008, 05:58:23 PM
this is an enormous clusterfuck of a release

what the hell are they even doing


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: schild on December 05, 2008, 06:07:23 PM
what the hell are they even doing

Wondering why your grammar and punctuation is non-existent, most likely.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: peryn on December 05, 2008, 08:11:39 PM
The link for the European version redirects to the NA publisher if your IP isn't located in Europe. Just use a proxy located in Europe to bypass it. I used this one: 88.191.68.84: 3128.

(http://i34.tinypic.com/2z68c4y.jpg)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: waffel on December 05, 2008, 10:15:57 PM
Is it even worth all the hassle?

Can you sign up on the europe site, download the client, and play with an american IP?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Iniquity on December 06, 2008, 02:18:15 AM
what the hell are they even doing

Wondering why your grammar and punctuation is non-existent, most likely.

I felt his total lack of punctuation and grammar added to making the point.  Like the famous (100% NSFW) "WHY IS THERE A CHILD" photo (http://media.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/199138/817405.jpeg), where it took a guy typing in all caps under the handle 'Assface' to be the voice of reason and decency.  Like how the only guy who refused to participate in the My Lai massacre was the one uneducated simpleton.  From the mouths of babes...


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Zzulo on December 06, 2008, 04:36:38 AM
I am a lazy man and due to me forumiting at other forums, I've got used to a lesser form of grammar


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: peryn on December 06, 2008, 06:29:40 AM
Is it even worth all the hassle?

Can you sign up on the europe site, download the client, and play with an american IP?

Give me about 12 hours and I'll tell you. The downloader is cruising along at 20 kB/s.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Falconeer on December 06, 2008, 06:47:23 AM
I'm closer.

I could come up with an unfair BIIF in 4 hours from now.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Falconeer on December 06, 2008, 12:20:31 PM
No no no... just no NO!

My gawd NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: peryn on December 06, 2008, 12:30:45 PM
Sounds like a hit.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: schild on December 06, 2008, 12:56:27 PM
It's that bad? Say moar.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Falconeer on December 06, 2008, 01:13:08 PM
I am not doing my homeworks which would suppose I endure the punishment game well over the first 30 minutes, I try to understand how's advancement like, I give a fairer shot to combat maybe trying to figure it out in a PvP context, and cut it copious amounts of slack when it comes to the UI or the visuals.

But I can't. It's like I'm allergic to this game. Had to quit in a rush and now I am fighting the urge to uninstall and wipe it from my hard disk for good.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: ashrik on December 06, 2008, 02:50:33 PM
It's alright. You're safe and it can't hurt you now.

Just try and remember what happened, it's important that you remember.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: peryn on December 06, 2008, 06:15:25 PM
Just finished the download and install so I'll give my first impressions of my 45 minutes or so of playing.

As many have noted, the artistic design in this game is amazing. It's even more out-there than World of Warcraft which might turn off some. I've honestly never seen a game world quite like this one. Surely one of the high points of this game.

Technically, the game doesn't run amazingly. I'm getting 10-15fps, although my system is somewhat outdated -- Geforce 6800, 2.8GHz P4, 2.5GB DDR3200. It does look great, and turning the detail down makes the game run fine.

The gameplay seems unique so far, but altogether somewhat clunky. Think of the 10(?) hotkey bars in WoW, now imagine you could only use one of those hotkey bars at a time, and they rotate every time you use an ability. Essentially, you're picking one ability out of 3+, and then the hotkey bar rotates to the next one, and then back again. As you gain levels you unlock more abilities to place in each hotkey bar, or tiers as they are called, and unlock more tiers to rotate through.

If it sounds confusing, it is. But confusing in a good way maybe? There is obviously a tactical element here, not only in which abilities you use in combat, but which ones you select going in. This will definitely be interesting to see how this dynamic affects PvP.

Questing has been annoying so far. The directions are about as poor as you could imagine, as one quest told me to go west when the rabid dog I was supposed to kill was north. A lot of the quests seem to suffer from this.

The widlife and AI seems very nice. Some animals are somewhat timid and will slowly approach, and then back off if you approach them, slowly testing the waters. It's not quite as good as The Saga of Ryzom's creature AI, but it has the same feel.

Overall, first impressions are good. This is by no means a terrible, or bad game. I'm only level 2 however, but nothing screams "omgwtfdikufail" quit yet.

(http://i34.tinypic.com/1407yg.jpg)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Signe on December 06, 2008, 06:52:47 PM
Dude.  You're naked.   :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: peryn on December 06, 2008, 07:20:26 PM
Dude.  You're naked.   :ye_gods:

Just guess what's below the picture cutoff.  :awesome_for_real:

Another picture. This game is purdy.

(http://i33.tinypic.com/2ds2lg.jpg)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Signe on December 06, 2008, 07:41:09 PM
Is that your hair?  Or are you wearing a bonnet?  Also - your hands are SO BIG!  WOWSERS.  And someone glued a tiny cricket bat to your back.

Just sayin'.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: peryn on December 06, 2008, 09:34:24 PM
Is that your hair?  Or are you wearing a bonnet?  Also - your hands are SO BIG!  WOWSERS.  And someone glued a tiny cricket bat to your back.

Just sayin'.

Sorry, I'll remake my character for you ASAP.

Here's my updated impressions after playing for a few hours:

Combat: This is the only selling point I see for this game. If I could describe it in a quick sentence, it would be Guild Wars, meets a trading card game, meets Rune (this Rune -- http://runegame.com/). Combat has a huge amount of tactical depth, and is at the same time takes a lot of twitch oriented reflexes.

You have to be aiming the reticle at whatever your attacking for the hit to land, and the target must also be in range. This gives the combat system its twitch feel, and you'll often find yourself falling back, or strafing around the enemy to dodge attacks. Fighting other humanoid NPCs is where this gets very interesting, and resembles somewhat of a dance. Unfortunately, it seems that strafing in circles might be a better tactic than moving in and out of combat, and strafing all the time gets to be very dizzy and tiring (for me at least).

The abilities you gain affect combat in more ways than just numbers. My Rogue Trickster, for example, has an ability that teleports me behind an enemy and disables their ranged capabilities. I can see how this will disorient players in PvP and really highlights the theme of the class a mischief-maker.

The hotkey rotation I talked about earlier makes combat even more unique. While you have to be focused on positioning your character and weaving in and out of combat range, you also need to be considering which abilities to use and when. There are many of the usual state affecting abilities, and my Trickster seems to specialize in reducing the concentration of my enemy which opens them up for a sort of fatality move. Sequencing the abilities in an efficient manner depends on timing, and the fact that your opponent is constantly moving makes this require a great amount of skill. I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed in some combat situations because of the frantic pace of combat, and keeping up with which abilities to let off and at which times will undoubtedly frustrate many. All in all this is one of the best combat system I've ever experienced in a MMO, if only because it requires complete concentration and tactics to beat some harder foes. Simply pressing 1 over and over will beat weaker foes but it wont hold up against tougher enemies, and especially not in PvP.

Character Creation: Nothing too out of the ordinary. There's (I think) 3-4 body size presets, 2 races, and a dozen or so facial features. Where the customization comes into play heavily is with the items and clothes you give your character, which are purely cosmetic. The ability to choose from hundreds of colors for each individual item, and the dozen or so different clothing/gear sets available (which you can mix and match) I was able to make my character look pretty fucking terrible apparently. I haven't seen many people who look alike yet.

Questing: Fuck. FUCK. I don't know what they were smoking when they wrote the directions for the quests in this game but they are completely worthless. Go kill a Rabid Dog to the West, only by West we meant North. Go find this person whose near this building over here in this city, only we meant that other building on the other side of town that is completely different than the one we told you to go to. FUCK!

Honestly, the writing is fine, and the quests are fun when you figure out where to go. But someone just forgot to proofread the fucking directions.

Interface: Pretty standard. I can't find anything to complain about other than the chat window being impossibly hard to read most of the time.

Controls: Takes some getting used to, and I think they could improve them quite a bit more. Rotating your character without using the mouse is unusually slow, but when using the mouse it's fine.

Sound: Great, although sparse music. The ambient sounds are what you hear most of the time, and they're great. The other sound effects don't stand out too much, but they aren't bad by any means.'

Other stuff: Combat mechanics really need to be explained more in depth. I didn't even realize until about 30 minutes of playing that the reticule needed to be centered on the target for a hit to land. Also, strafing feels unintuitive. Why am running in perfectly uniform circles around bears again?

Stability isn't bad for release. There weren't many players around, but I didn't experience any lag and had only on crash when I was modifying some UI elements.

I can't wait to try PvP, and I have a strong feeling that with NPC combat being good that PvP will be great.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Iniquity on December 07, 2008, 01:08:07 AM
Anyone care to get me up to date on the PvP ruleset(s)?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: lac on December 07, 2008, 01:56:02 AM
If anybody was interested in this but was put off by the slow download speeds, it's fixed. Their torrent client does a steady 1700 KB/s for me now where it was terribly slow before.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Signe on December 07, 2008, 05:40:05 AM
I didn't say you looked TERRIBLE.  I was just wondering if it's hard to swing your cricket bat with your GIANT HANDS

I haven't tried this yet.  I'm too distracted by other stuff right now to a new MMO.  I want to, though.  Hopefully before they completely bugger everything up.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Falconeer on December 07, 2008, 06:20:14 AM
it's giant hands AND giants feet. Characters are possibly the worst looking part of Spellborn and what definitely made me nauseous yesterday.

I'll try to force me to play again, after a fair dose of antiemethic, and I'll check out the points Peryn made. But there's something toxic about this game.
The clunkyness for starters. The bad performances especially when coupled with imaginative but overall poor visuals, and the general feedback of combat and UI.
Can you spell "not satisfying"? Ryzom flows strong in Spellborn blood. Just without the originality of that one.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: peryn on December 07, 2008, 08:11:29 AM
If anybody was interested in this but was put off by the slow download speeds, it's fixed. Their torrent client does a steady 1700 KB/s for me now where it was terribly slow before.

Yea. And if your download speeds start dropping and don't go back up try restarting the downloader. It will resume where it left off, and for me also maxed my connection out after it fell to 20 kB/s

Quote
Anyone care to get me up to date on the PvP ruleset(s)?

I'm not quite there yet. There are PvP and Normal servers, and on the PvP servers I've been told it is FFA PvP once you leave the starting area. One can join the 2-3 different "houses" which are different factions within the game, and I believe this provides some protection? I could be completely wrong as I'm just going off what other players have told me.

Quote
I didn't say you looked TERRIBLE.  I was just wondering if it's hard to swing your cricket bat with your GIANT HANDS.
Quote
it's giant hands AND giants feet. Characters are possibly the worst looking part of Spellborn and what definitely made me nauseous yesterday.

LOL. It's true, the game has hideous character models. They were going for a comical look; if you pick a burly character he will look something like Brock Samson, and if you opt for the skinniest choice you'll look like a twig. It's an unusual decision and makes it hard to take your character seriously.

Quote
I'll try to force me to play again, after a fair dose of antiemethic, and I'll check out the points Peryn made. But there's something toxic about this game.
The clunkyness for starters. The bad performances especially when coupled with imaginative but overall poor visuals, and the general feedback of combat and UI.
Can you spell "not satisfying"? Ryzom flows strong in Spellborn blood. Just without the originality of that one.

This is exactly what most people are going to feel when they first pick up the game. It will definitely take some willpower to try and get past some of the clunkyness which you and I both mentioned. This game needs polish more than anything.

The comparison to Ryzom in terms of overall theme is a strong, and unfortunate one. I agree that it doesn't quite have the originality of Ryzom, but that game was just way too out-there for me.

Edit: Updated Impressions

There are two important game play mechanics that I missed. There are two levels of advancement in the game: traditional xp gained through combat and questing, and then another system called PeP (personal experience points). You gain PeP the same way you do as the normal XP, but PeP levels improve your overall combat state, which is composed of Physique, which improves movement speed, Morale which improves damage output, and Concentration which improves how fast you hit in combat, which probably means it rotates the skill bar quicker.

These three combat states can be debuffed by an enemy, or improved mid combat with the use of abilities. Now every time you gain a PeP level, each of these three states are improved by 10%, 10%, and 5% respectively, although I don't know if that modifier is linear or exponential. The reason for separating PeP levels from regular character levels (called Fame Ranks) is that you lose PeP points when you die, and can lose PeP levels as well. So if you die a lot, you will not be as effective. Conversely, if you don't die very often you will be somewhat more effective, although the difference might be negligible.

Edit: PeP levels cap at 5. I've gained 1 pep level after gaining 6 Fame Levels. You lose 1 PeP level every time you die. The total bonus at PeP level 5 is +30% movement speed, +30% damage output, and +15% combat speed.

The way items and gear works is my favorite part of the game after I understood how it works. Essentially, all gear provides no bonuses whatsoever, including weapons, and is purely cosmetic. Where itemization comes into effect is through the process of acquiring sigils, which are stat bonuses that you apply to your gear. This method seems to make the game less gear-centric than many other games, and allows you to fine-tune the look of your character. You could essentially have one set of gear throughout the game, and add sigils to improve them as you go, unless sigils cannot be removed. But after 6 levels gained, I haven't found a single one yet.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: mutantmagnet on December 07, 2008, 11:20:45 AM
You'll start getting Sigils and body slot items around level 10.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Lantyssa on December 08, 2008, 09:43:00 AM
The equipment customization is the main point I've liked about Spellborn, at least from the sidelines.  Letting me make the character look like I want it is a huge plus.  Finding a cool looking item with useless stats is always frustrating.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: FatuousTwat on December 30, 2008, 06:24:39 PM
Still waiting to get into beta or whatever it is. Bleh.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Stormwaltz on February 10, 2009, 12:15:28 PM
CoS developers realize MMORPG players have no idea how to play their game, decide to add tutorial. (http://www.tcos.com/en/news,id199,dev_blog_introduction_new_tutorial.html)

Words fail me.  :uhrr:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: schild on February 10, 2009, 12:22:04 PM
CoS developers realize MMORPG players have no idea how to play their game, decide to add tutorial. (http://www.tcos.com/en/news,id199,dev_blog_introduction_new_tutorial.html)

Words fail me.  :uhrr:
Most MMORPG devs probably have that moment.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Nebu on February 10, 2009, 12:30:08 PM
If I can't macro combat in your game it's not an MMO. 


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Mrbloodworth on February 10, 2009, 12:33:43 PM
If I can't macro combat in your game it's not an MMO. 

I prefer games without macros.

Is this like some throw back to MUDS where watching text scroll on your screen was "fun"?

Other than that, that article talks about things i have brought up before, in fact i think it contributed to the dislike of AOC or other games that do combat (or any system really) different.

Quote
People assume they will play {insert New game name here that's not a Wow Clone in some regard} in a way similar to how they played through their previous romp.

Its a hell of a thing to overcome.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Nebu on February 10, 2009, 12:36:27 PM
I was going to use green text, but Schild would hurt me.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Mrbloodworth on February 10, 2009, 12:37:48 PM
Oh, see, as you can tell, i need the green.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: raydeen on February 10, 2009, 08:21:02 PM
http://www.tcos.com/uploads/news/tutorial/w_to_walk.jpg (http://www.tcos.com/uploads/news/tutorial/w_to_walk.jpg)

I think I just found my new sig line.

Man, these tutorials are HARD!


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Sunbury on February 11, 2009, 05:07:41 AM
I still remember early days of DAOC outside of Albion main city in the newbie zone.

There were many zone wide announcements of 'player XXX killed by YYY'.

I always wondered as mob YYY was typically non-aggro and low level,  was the player AFK / Disconnected or being played by a 4 year old?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Xurtan on February 11, 2009, 11:54:11 AM
*shrug* I can't say that's too unusual. It reminds me of the literal hundreds of people that died to the Priest of Discord, or trying to talk to their guildmasters in EverQuest.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: raydeen on February 11, 2009, 12:00:52 PM
*shrug* I can't say that's too unusual. It reminds me of the literal hundreds of people that died to the Priest of Discord, or trying to talk to their guildmasters in EverQuest.

I can sort of relate to the EQ stuff. Every once in a while I'd forget to hit ENTER and then inadvertantly hit A when talking to an NPC. The one real bonehead maneuver I pulled multiple times in one day was practicing my new spells (to get the magic skills up) and constantly getting smacked down by one of the trainers in the magician room. I, uh, didn't immediately grasp the concept of AoE. I kept thinking 'Why the hell does he keep killing me??!!' Figured it out on like the 5th time. It was 1999. I was a n00b.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: patience on February 11, 2009, 04:19:00 PM
CoS developers realize MMORPG players have no idea how to play their game, decide to add tutorial. (http://www.tcos.com/en/news,id199,dev_blog_introduction_new_tutorial.html)

Words fail me.  :uhrr:

This is a weird post to resurrect this this thread. The devs have always known certain types of MMO players (meaning those who never touched an FPS) for a full year. They had a tutorial explaining the basics and redesigned the beginning quests so players could ease themselves into combat.


Words fail you because you never followed the game.

THose bears they were talking about were hard, until someone in beta made a video showing you just hold down your mouse button without dodging can win you the fight. This required you ensuring all skills in the vertical column would never be on their cooldown and you used an attack with lifetap to heal with every attack but he made all the complaints about bears too hard laughable.

For the devs to make things even easier than this just shows how badly conditioned certain MMO players are that they need even more hand holding.

If words have to fail you it should be in awe of the player base and not the devs who had to recode their tutorial for the third time now. (that picture raydeen posted just emphasizes how bad the playerbase is)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Zzulo on February 11, 2009, 06:08:41 PM
Are you saying that it is the players fault for not understanding how to work the game properly? Are you saying that the players are to blame and not the designers?  Help me understand how you think.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Rake on February 11, 2009, 07:02:23 PM
This Bicycle is a piece of shit I'm taking it right back to the shop.

If I stop pedaling it falls over, bah the instructions never told me that would happen. I blame the designers.





Is there no fun to be had in figuring shit out for yourselves these days?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Xerapis on February 11, 2009, 07:36:47 PM
That has to be the stupidest analogy ever.

My bike came with training wheels. And then we took the training wheels off when I was comfortable, and my dad taught me how to ride it. You know, the usual hold on to the back of the seat running behind me to keep it level way.

The game should do the same fucking thing in the beginning.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Rake on February 11, 2009, 07:50:01 PM
My big brother loosened the nuts off on my training wheels so they weren't actually doing anything at all.

I was riding the bike around for ages until he told me, then I promptly fell off.


Now I can eat my dinner on a bicycle without anything jammed under the frame or pedals, just down to practice and figuring how to do stuff. (Oh and not sitting in front of a computer all my life  :drill:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: patience on February 12, 2009, 04:35:57 AM
Are you saying that it is the players fault for not understanding how to work the game properly? Are you saying that the players are to blame and not the designers?  Help me understand how you think.

In this case it certainly in this case the players' fault. The initial tutorial was blocks of text that gave you hints as you went along. It was detailed but understandably not ideal.

They looked over the initial quest lines and redesigned the initial quests entirely by adding a new area for players to train in and integrated the instructions right into the quest texts and cut it up so you did things in piecemeal order.

I see it as condescending that their third rewrite now has to include big bold messages like "use W to walk forward" but if by some chance some of these players appreciate that level of hand holding then whatever *throws up hands*.

Someone could say past MMOs have a hand to play in conditioning people to have certain expectations for an MMO. I get that to a point. What makes a genre what it is are the core mechanics. But MMO0's core mechanics are not based on the control schemes but the persistent state of the world/character and the level of interaction with multiple people.

No one should criticize the Spellborn devs without having seen how instructional the original tutorials were to begin with. They were careful in pacing things so, as you gained levels, you would learn about various aspects of the game throughout your characters' leveling career.

Criticism should be directed at them for other things they definitly screwed up like the European launch.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: March on February 12, 2009, 10:36:29 AM
Quote from: CoS Dev Blog
Yet the bears’ difficulty also scared people off as the game quickly became a death-by-bear simulation.

Just might make me try the game...

A little self-reflection and self-deprecation when gameplay reality collides with the VISION (tm) might just siphon a little bit of suck from the game to make it fun.

Not that I don't think there's a niche to be carved from the massive WoW market for a death-by-bear Sim.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Nebu on February 12, 2009, 10:38:00 AM
I like games that have parts not everyone can do.  They are funnels that differentiate between good players and average players.  It would be wonderful if there were more games out there that rewarded ability rather than time. 


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Tairnyn on February 12, 2009, 02:35:19 PM
I like games that have parts not everyone can do.  They are funnels that differentiate between good players and average players.  It would be wonderful if there were more games out there that rewarded ability rather than time. 

I think the real challenge is rewarding a wide range of skills while being forgiving of shortcomings in some of them. The example that comes to mind is a girl in my WoW guild who can not, for the life of her, make the jump on the Thaddius fight in Naxxramas. For those unfamiliar with the fight everyone basically has to time a small jump from one platform to another otherwise you fall into the slime below and have to run around to the front of the room and try again. She literally missed the entire fight last night because she fell into the slime about 8 times. She's a great person who knows how to play her class and is fun to have around, but just happens to suck at one thing that precludes her from helping.

Given the level of easy mode that WoW represents I imagine that some would be turned off by skill-based achievement path, especially when key tasks are much easier for others. Besides, I find most of my "skills" in a game are a function of my time spent attuning myself to the repetition of the AI or game mechanics as opposed to some aptitude. So once again it boils down to a matter of time invested.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Stormwaltz on February 13, 2009, 12:00:15 PM
Patience: My opinion, worth what you paid for it, is that MMORPGs are played by MMORPG players. Sounds obvious, but think a moment - those most likely to play an MMORPG are those who've played previous MMORPGs. Few games (read: none but WoW) have significantly grown the market by drawing in people who weren't already inclined to try MMORPGs. Those who haven't played MMGs in the past probably won't start with a relatively low-profile title like Spellborn.

Starting with the logical assumption that the lion's share of the audience will expect MMORPGs to play a certain way, you should make damned sure that even the mostbuffoonish player understands that your MMG doesn't play anything like the others they've played.

As a lousy example, let's say you build a Matrix-style gun-fu FPS in which the attacks and evades require you to tap keys in time with a techno music score. In other words, Battlefield 1942 with Rock Band's controls. Could you reasonably expect a long-time FPS fan (who may not be a rhythm game fan) to jump in and "get it" immediately?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Mrbloodworth on February 13, 2009, 01:12:20 PM
Starting with the logical assumption that the lion's share of the audience will expect MMORPGs to play a certain way, you should make damned sure that even the mostbuffoonish player understands that your MMG doesn't play anything like the others they've played.

Honestly, i think this is part of the problem with MMOs. This assumption right here. Some games will simply not play the same way. AOC does not play like WoW, and i think it was part of the games problem with acceptance (From the combat, to how many mobs you can slaughter at a time, to item stats). To many people expect it to, but it didn't, and it invalidated most of your foreknowledge.

Creating a tutorial that not only shows you the mechanical requirements (push button) to shedding light on WHY some things are they way they are (Item stats, or lack there of) is a hard thing to make, you have to have them unlearn assumptions, or preconceived notions.

Its like trying to explain to a Photoshop user how to use The Gimp. They do the same things, but differently, for different reasons. Most will simply say "This sucks" and boot up Photoshop.

It one of the things that have stagnated the genre, i think, And why games that stray to far have a hard time. (beyond bugs and incompleteness  :oh_i_see: )


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Stormwaltz on June 30, 2009, 04:36:29 PM
NECRO'D

The Spellborn devs have gone bankrupt. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=12493)

Dave Perry rubs hands, gleefully plans massive bastardization monetization of TCOS. (http://kotaku.com/5304852/acclaim-re+develops-the-chronicles-of-spellborn)


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Ard on June 30, 2009, 05:45:53 PM
Is it really all that surprising that no one is willing to actually pay money to play this game, even though it was already on a fake subscription model?  This is really one of those "haven't thought their cunning plan all the way through" type moments.  I'm not entirely certain why they think that this game will even manage to survive on a full f2p model.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Zzulo on June 30, 2009, 06:02:10 PM
Not really suprising though, right?

Who thought this game would do really well?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: patience on June 30, 2009, 10:45:22 PM
I used to have high hopes for it until the beta process where they took it down for year to redo internal developing.

They had good ideas and even implemented some of them well so this could live on as f2p. I'm curious to see how Frogster is going to handle things because I doubt I will touch the Acclaim version.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Triforcer on June 30, 2009, 11:29:34 PM
Already?  Wow.  I guess whether you have subs or microtrans, a shitty game is a shitty game. 


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: schild on July 01, 2009, 03:05:13 AM
I used to have high hopes for it until the beta process where they took it down for year to redo internal developing.

I used to have high hopes for it until


patience

patience


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: PalmTrees on July 01, 2009, 12:04:18 PM
The free newbie experience wasn't good enough to me to warrant a sub (just too many boring errand boy quests), but I did like it well enough that as a f2p I'll probably give it another try when I run into a gaming dry patch.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]his
Post by: DLRiley on July 01, 2009, 06:32:15 PM
I said this game should be free2play back in page 1. If not in this thread but too a fanboy on vent around that time. Boy good to be right as usual.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Zzulo on October 20, 2009, 04:11:33 AM
So, whatever happened to this game? Is it still going? Is it fading? I can't tell. I haven't heard a thing about it anywhere on the internet post launch.

Anyone?


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Shatter on October 20, 2009, 05:24:29 AM
I thought I got an email a couple months ago saying this game was free to play or something


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Draegan on October 20, 2009, 06:15:29 AM
I also heard they're redoing the whole newbie experience as well.

Leveling takes forever in this game as well.  It's shitty.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: UnSub on August 09, 2010, 11:30:40 PM
Playdom (who acquired CoS) are shutting it down (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87685).


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Threash on August 10, 2010, 04:10:27 AM
Dropping like flies lately.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Shatter on August 10, 2010, 05:52:12 AM
Knew this would happen when I beta'd this thing, surprised it took this long actually


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: NiX on August 10, 2010, 07:14:32 PM
Dropping like flies lately.

Sucks people are losing their jobs (I assume), but I think it's for the better.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: UnSub on August 27, 2010, 10:27:53 PM
Bye bye Acclaim. (http://www.massively.com/2010/08/27/acclaim-shuts-down-all-games-and-main-site/)

All shut down now.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Zzulo on August 28, 2010, 05:10:26 AM
Can't say I'm surprised  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Malakili on August 28, 2010, 05:16:41 AM
This is why people keep making WoW clones.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: UnSub on August 28, 2010, 07:54:59 AM
Reading through some stuff reminded me that Acclaim had started Project: Top Secret - trying to fund / develop a MMO based on fan contributions. Guess that ended as well as expected.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: statisticalfool on August 30, 2010, 08:32:44 AM
This is why people keep making WoW clones.

This has nothing to do with that.

They released something untuned, buggy, with large chunks of the game missing and with a confused/changing business model.

To think this had anything to do with somehow being too ambitious, or not relying enough on the WoW template seems kind of off.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Mrbloodworth on August 30, 2010, 08:38:47 AM
So, something new, untried, and unique did not benefit from using the tried true and tested template and business model, say it isn't so!


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: NiX on August 30, 2010, 09:08:07 AM
So, something new, untried, and unique did not benefit from using the tried true and tested template and business model, say it isn't so!

I don't think you can pin any one thing for this. It didn't benefit from any of the post launch decisions or pre for that matter.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Mrbloodworth on August 30, 2010, 09:15:24 AM
Wasn't trying to. However I think Malakili point was going off the beaten patch is rough. From design, to development, to testing, to balance, to launch and beyond. The whole package needs to be considered, but you also have to consider that things like "bugs" can also come from that uniqueness.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: statisticalfool on August 30, 2010, 10:48:37 AM
The only things that are even reasonably "off the beaten path" here are:
1) The skill deck
2) Active targeting using a crosshair

But none of the comments here are based on: "Oh, at the high levels, the skill deck breaks down." The part of their game that was unique actually seemed to work pretty okay.

They tried to release a box + sub fantasy game without meaningful PvP, with little to nonexistent content, little help, that was a quest-a-thon with poor writing and no tracker. Add in a botched release for kicks.

This isn't a story about not being rewarded for experimentation. It's about somebody going: "Let's make a WoW game, but with rocks on the ceiling, and with this cool idea to make skill selection more dynamic." and then forgetting that no matter how cool your skill selection system is the age of people paying box + sub for a game which is mostly crap is over.



Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Mrbloodworth on August 30, 2010, 11:49:22 AM
Your 1 and 2 are rather large diversions that open a whole host of issues for development.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Dark_MadMax on August 31, 2010, 01:14:30 AM
I remember only one thing  - it was god awful grind. I was thinking are they insane introducing  korean like grind for no good reason? . Lineage2 and Aion still are doing allright though.  CoS was not much worse game than either of them as far as I could tell  :/


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Draegan on August 31, 2010, 07:29:45 AM
I really liked playing the game.  I liked the mechanics and the control, even the graphics were kinda fun.  There was just zero content and the stuff that was there took way too long to get through.  Too grindy.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: patience on September 01, 2010, 08:27:59 AM
I remember only one thing  - it was god awful grind. I was thinking are they insane introducing  korean like grind for no good reason? . Lineage2 and Aion still are doing allright though.  CoS was not much worse game than either of them as far as I could tell  :/

*raises eyebrow* Korean grind? You obviously never played a Korean game where XP gains are made for killing mobs. For a long time the dev team were resistant to player insistence that mobs not offering XP was a bad idea. They eventually relented during beta by offering a little XP.

They did this primarily because the mobs were far above the intelligence of mobs of other MMOs that they knew if too much XP came from mobs people would be turned off by how challenging the PvE combat was.

The grind with Spellborn came from too many Fed Ex style quests. It became a running joke in the community we were less heros and more postal delivery men.


Title: Re: Chronicles of Spellborn - [RELEASED...kinda]
Post by: Dark_MadMax on September 01, 2010, 05:30:37 PM
*raises eyebrow* Korean grind? You obviously never played a Korean game where XP gains are made for killing mobs. For a long time the dev team were resistant to player insistence that mobs not offering XP was a bad idea. They eventually relented during beta by offering a little XP.
[/quote ]

I meant the slow pace , not the method of leveling

[quote ]
They did this primarily because the mobs were far above the intelligence of mobs of other MMOs that they knew if too much XP came from mobs people would be turned off by how challenging the PvE combat was.
[/quote ]

Hmm didnt notice anything good about AI. It was more EQish (high aggro and  swarm radius, high damage/hp ratio -generally tougher mobs by stats , but not any AI to speak of)

[quote ]
The grind with Spellborn came from too many Fed Ex style quests. It became a running joke in the community we were less heros and more postal delivery men.

Yeah thats what I  mean by grind .Repetitive dumb quest for very slow leveling. I mean when pure quest leveling was a novelty (WoW ) it was much more fun than camp grind. Plus content in wow was higher quality than CoS