f13.net

Link (http://spellborn.acclaim.com/)

From my (very) brief research scanning their forums and such, it looks like the newbie areas are free, and then you need to pay a standard monthly subscription fee to continue playing past level 7. Which is probably like, an hour. Fair enough, fine. What's interesting is how you pay for that subscription.

1 month = 1500 "acclaim coins"
3 months = 4200 "acclaim coins"
6 months = 7800 "acclaim coins"

Annoying, right? Just like microsoft points, etc. But the real kicker is that you can only purchase coins online in US$10 increments. Ten bucks buys 1005 coins. So you need to spend $20 to get 2110 coins (I believe you get some kind of graduating "bonus" to coins when you buy in bulk) to pay for a one month subscription, leaving you with 610 coins in your account just begging to be spent on micropayments. Or you can call a 1-900 pay telephone number to get 500 coins for $5, and miss out on the small "bonus" you get for purchasing online. Also you need an "acclaim membership", which costs ten bucks, to get 30% off coins. And it's unclear if the prices above include that discount or not. It's a real anti-consumer mindfuck.

So, like, is the game any good?

I don't know yet, it always sounded interesting.

I thought so too. I'll probably try this.

The mechanics look interesting, with the guildwars-like hand of cards limited abilities and such, but the sheer audacity of that payment scheme turns me off. I'll wait for someone else to take one for the team.

Guess not.

And that'll probably end my time with.... The Chronicles Of Spelllllbornnnnnnnnnnn.

Epic.

That payment structure just makes me laugh.  :rofl:

I won a bunch of their thingies in a contest once.  They don't seem to be there anymore.  Fair enough.  I've said some awful things about their games!

Well, I did want to try this out.  Someone let me know if they get rid of the stupid pricing scheme.

Looking at the math of it, paying by month means you'll be paying nearly $20.  If you know you're playing for a long period of time, spend the $10 for a membership.  That way you get 30% off a big purchase of coins.  I think that can get you down around $12-15 a month. 

Or just pay $30 at a time for 2 months.

This game felt very mediocre to me when I played it some month ago

Too much questing for my liking, and I didn't like the artstyle of the characters or the world.

Game was total shit when i played the European version.

This. 

The game just felt mediocre all the way around.  Add to that the asinine pricing scheme, and Acclaim can fuck right off.

It's in open beta now.  Isn't everyone just allowed in?  You don't have to deal with the wonky pricing scheme yet or anything.  There is also an "invite friends" option on the main web page.  Is that of any use anymore?  I don't know if it's total shit anymore.  I played the Euro version briefly a while ago but I barely remember anything.  It was in my thumbless days or something, maybe.  I've evolved since then.  Maybe the game has too.  I'm doubtful but then, I'm always a little doubtful with MMOs. 

It's not a $15/month title.  But it has a decent visual appeal and I really like the skill loadout wheel.  That's a really cool concept that other games need. 

Wait.  I thought this was an open beta.  It seems that even now you have to pay to progress beyond level 7.  How is that a beta? 

Darkfall's in beta and you have to pay to play any part of it :P

Well, there IS that.  At least the Darkfall people call it a release even though it's obviously still in seriously early beta state.  Also, I was wrong.  This isn't the game I played the EU version of - I don't know what I was thinking.  I must have confused it with something else! 

I'm also a bit confused about the EU and Acclaim versions.  Evidently, they used to have an IP ban on NA, UK, and AUS but lifted it.  Does this mean there's a way to circumvent Acclaim all together?  That would probably be helpful for people who hate Acclaim - which might be almost everyone. 

PS  I made a really nice fat warrior named Bertie on the PvE server.  That's something else I don't understand.  The PvE servers aren't really PvE at all, are they?  I looked at the official website but no one seems very sure about anything there, either.  Most of the FAQ stuff reads like nonsense.

Edit:  It is the same game I played before.  I don't know what's wrong with me.  I don't remember it looking like this.  Anyway, you can use the Euro version now with does circumvent Acclaim at the moment, though I'm not sure you can subscribe through it.  Everything surrounding this game seems out of whack.  I read a post on the EU site that said there won't be a need for "coins" soon.  I don't think the EU servers are well populated from what I've read.  I still don't know if PvE is really just PvP with some safe zones or not.  I read that areas where you gather resources are all PvP.  If that's true, I don't get it really.  Anyway, I'm not remembering that I liked this game so I assume I didn't, though maybe it changed since then.  I don't think I'll bother with it any more until someone I like says it's nice.   :oh_i_see:

Played a few hours this afternoon and was not impressed. Low spawn rates, kill x quests, and the newbie rush do not mix well. "Where are the young bears?" Get used to hearing it.

The combat requires some twitch as the mobs seem to go: move to you-pause-attack. In that pause phase you can back up out their range, then go in for a hit once they whiff.

I played for a couple hours as well over the weekend and also wasnt impressed.  Overall I found everything to be bland, nothing exciting about it.  Combat was annoying even after I got used to it, I didnt like how any race looked even with the customization and the graphics were standard.  Quests were the tpyical pick up x and deliver to Y or kill X amount of something.  Maybe it gets better at higher levels but if nothing jumps at me after a few hours I have little hope for it and I wont be playing it. 

At first this game was  :drill: 5 levels in and I'm feeling  :ye_gods: with a good helping of  :uhrr: for the kicks. All the while my friend is talking about how great this game is and I'm going  :awesome_for_real: and than  :oh_i_see: when i finally figure how this game is enjoyable. Like Age of Conan, first and for most these guys are selling you a combat system take it or leave it and just like Age of Conan don't you dare play a spell caster. The first few levels of the game feel like a horrid grind simple because monsters spawn ever 1 minute. 1 minute is 60 seconds, your fights last on average maybe 10-20 seconds, so imagine how much time you spend killing 10 monsters. There remarkably low amount of actually monsters, with the only group of monsters not obeying the 1 minute rule is what i take is the bandits and the wolves (more or less). Maybe i'm to used to shiny arrows pointing toward the quest destination on my map, or maybe, just maybe I'm way too old to be pve'ing like the pro 13 year old I once were every so long ago, but I'm sure that long travel times + no map clues = log off. Nothing like a fedex quest that takes 20 minutes to solve because it takes 10 minutes to get from one portion of the map and back again.

I was excited about this game till i heard it botched its European launch. It feels like a half a game, half way between being something better than a mmo even next gen if you look at what its trying to do on paper, but still very much like a mmo in the most annoying ways possible. For example giving you attributes that are all important to your character. Step forward. Not telling you in what way each attribute effects your skills and not allowing you to reset your attributes at will? Two steps back. Deck like skill system, with swappable skills for each slot. Step forward. Not letting you get more than one skill per level? Two steps back. Pvp area in the newb land. Step forward. No exp for pvp'ing in that area at all even in the pvp server? Three steps back even worthy of an uninstall.

moar liek Spellbore amirite?  I was kind of interested in this game, but it doesn't fill me with confidence when developers try to tack on minigames to accepting payment.  It sure as hell doesn't seem to be working for Aventurine and GOA.

Payment issues with the coins didn't sit well with me. 

What actually made me uninstall was the spawn rates on the very first quests in the game.  With another person or two in the same area, it would take an hour or more to complete one quest.  In reality, there were 20 people in the same area, so all I really did was run around and look at how pretty the first zone is.  Played for an hour, killed three mobs the whole time.  Uninstalled. 

Gotta up those spawn times in the newb zones. 

I made my way out of the newb zone into the semi-newb zone. Got a quest to deliver a letter, gave it to the guy then he asks me to go kill boars to fill up his larder while I wait for a reply, oh and the boars don't always drop meat. That's when I said "Oh go fuck yourself" out loud to the screen. No way is this worth a 15/mo sub. If I want a quest grind I can go play Rune of Magic for free.

I've already took one for the team, so in about a week or two I'll see if this game gets better.

Bad game is bad.

I tried it out. It is a bland and uninteresting game, that nobody should waste their time on. I am confident in being this blatant.

How far you get?

Its alright.  I wouldn't pay money for it, but then again, there are less and less MMOs that I WOULD pay money for.

I got to whatever level you get to after leaving the tutorial. I would have gotten more levels, but there were no low level spawns to actually level on. Yeah, that's something that can be fixed, but my first impressions of just the overall ebb and flow of the game are sour. It's just not interesting.

I'm with Non here. To elaborate, I'll copy paste here my review of the game, in case someone was looking for some kind of BIIF:



There's a longer version too:


Pretty much the same feeling I had with Dark 'n Light and Darkfall.

Got that?

Looks like it's up to me to stick up for this poor little Danish thing.

I'm paid and in on the advice of a crew of gamers I've been hanging around for about 12 years now. The newbie zone and experience doesn't do the game much justice at all. The devs realize this and are going to expand the cap to level 11, when you get, among other things, a larger skill deck and your first third tier skills.

The second adventure zone (Aldenvault) is somewhat better than the first, and a little less crowded. I haven't made it past there yet, but the reports I'm getting from my peeps further in is that it just gets better from there. The levelling curve stays steady at about the 5-10 rate.

Definitely don't give up on this game until you try to fight some humanoid mobs. The AI in this game is... well, it's different. You'll see. Just fight some.

I'll keep you guys posted as I sally further in. I'm due to hit the first non-freemium zone tonight.

Hmm,doubt it's something to laugh at. It's an attempt to scam in my opinion. Just trying to grab that extra dollar or two from customers who quit early and did not subscribe beyond the first month. Feels disgusted by it.

Too bad that in the two newbie zones you have access to all the humanoid mobs are in camps and agro together, making them group content.

Heh, reminded me of the orc and dervish camps in EQ. Solo players hanging around the edge trying to pick off a loner until a group of newbies eventually forms up just to get routed once they agro the whole camp.

They also need to lower the agro ranges. Ugh, I couldn't go anywhere, even sticking to the roads, without having 2-3 mobs chasing after me and nipping at my heels. I was never in any danger of being killed, it  just annoyed the hell out of me.

Oh well, enough griping, it's uninstalled now. When they go fully f2p (there's just too much f2p competition offering just as good a level and quest grind for this to survive as a p2p) I might give it another go when I have another gaming lull.

I don't know how much you messed with the groups, but each group of 3-4 are considered equivalent to a single monster of the same level, maybe a little higher. Almost all of them are "minion" types.

There seem to be too many aggro mobs in general in the newbie area ... which after a night of playing is really my only complaint. I like it overall so far, I really dig the aesthetic and character of the game, and I'm enjoying the change of pace the skillbar and manual targeting bring to the experience. After a couple hours with TCOS I uninstalled Runes of Magic, which I had lost all desire to play after about a week. After finally quitting WoW about three months ago I need something that feels at least a little different, and TCOS does.

Its been two weeks since I subbed for spellborn. I was level 7 when I subbed, I'm level 29 and that level was attained through several hours worth of follow the quest chain pve with some 1 minute burst of pvp every 6 hours pve. No I did not play casually, this game is grindy as fuck.

This game takes two steps forward. Then it digs a hole and puts all its achievements in it and places a whole bunch of standard mmo bullshit on top that you can find for the same level of polish in a free to play game. Ultimately this game will either have to go free to play or close all its servers, because ultimately this game makes the guys who made Tabla Rasa and ran it to the ground look like fucking geniuses.

It digs a whole what?

Well why don't you say in plain English exactly what you mean?

Ok basically.

1. Deck Based Combat System  = Good + 10
2. No gear dependency = Good + 7

Theres the good.

Now let me list the bad.

1. Grindy piece of shit = Bad  - 9
2. Travel time = Bad - 5
3. The entire mob system =  Bad - 3
4.  No real Quest pointer or guidance system besides red dot on the mini map when really close to npc's..... = Bad - 5
5.  No exp for PVP kills or a pvp system to speak of = - 10
6.  Uncustomizable point allocation system and 1 skill point per level, after level 20 its a skill point every 2 levels.... = Bad - 7


So lets do the math.
Bad shit = - 39
Good shit = + 17

Your math is wrong. Bad should = -39.

What's sort of sad is that that was a better written review than I see on most websites.

I'm still trying to decipher you. By "grindy" do you mean it eventually takes too long to level - or do you run out of quests and have to grind on mobs to advance?

Travel time - bad because there's too much or bad because there's not enough? I like travel time, I like the sense of scale it gives.

How is the "entire mob system" bad? Though I'm only level 7 I have no idea what you could mean here.

And again - only level 7 - but so far I've had no quest that didn't describe where to go and what to do accurately. The dots on the map have been all the help I've needed.

Don't care too much about pvp.

It does seem the only points you allocate are into the three main schools of damage, or whatever they are. I really haven't played enough to comment on whether advancement is satisfying or not.

opps forgot the -10 for pvp.

Grindy because casually (3-4 hours...) you level once a day. Even AION which is suppose to be LINEAGE 2 CLONED, has a better hour/advancement ratio. And that my friend is fucking sad.

The travel time is pretty arcane it takes way too long to get from one place to another, combined that with fedex quest that lead you from one part of the shard to another, I feel ready to log off due to shear boredom of watching a running animation for 20 minutes and still consider that in some pseudo way playing.

The point allocation system for skills and attributes are  permanent. This leaves literally no room for experimentation, which in real skill based system is counter productive. You can permanently fuck up your character in ways you can't change or until you get more skill points, which means...god fucking damn am I back in 2003? I mean god damn is that a bait and switch with a kick in the balls for the lol's.

Your going to get annoyed at the mob system, which in a sad way is a step backward with only a little step forward (you can't aggro mobs that aren't facing you unless you get too close) once you get above level 7. Or wait till you leave the first shard. 

Just here to say you're wrong.  But please continue.

Also the game was released today in NA apparently.

I was surprised at how little you can do with the free trial.

There are definitely things I like about the game but it's nowhere near worth a $ 14.99/mo subscription.

Oh please draegon, we all know Korean = Grindy Piece of Shit, and the guys who made Lineage 2, queen mother of grindy pieces of shit, also made Aion. What else am I'm going to expect of Aion till it launches? A fun game? Its like expecting Funcom not to screw over a mildly decent idea. Your just asking for it.

Carry on, but you're still wrong.

So you really thought Aion will turn out to be a great game  :awesome_for_real:

Yes.  I've played up to level 20 of 50.  I have a friend that played up to 24ish.  I know someone who played the Korean release until max level.  It's very similar to the level curve of WOW when it first released, or so I'm told.

I dunno you could maybe have played the fucking game like most of the other people in this thread who are commenting on it? Or you could continue to spew endless streams of unsupported nonsense.

Oh yeah I should be in a rush to play the Chinese version of a game made by the lineage 2 guys  :oh_i_see:

 :uhrr:

I can't decide who is more worthless, you or chargerrich.

DLRiley, you make me hate myself thinking I spent words in another thread to reply you. Yes, you and chargerrich are good at stealing people's time.

This is an interesting game.


Your Good.
1.  Interesting concept.  The control needs some getting used to.  It's like Guildwars with a twist.
2.  Gear dependent?  No.  Sigils?  Yea.  Just like gear, not sure how much they add, but I'm assuming they adds something.  Never saw one in the early levels.

Your Bad.
1.  Grind is normal I guess. You're not "killing stuff over and over" but you're doing quests and getting experience.  It's slow. 
2.  Travel time isn't bad, it's standard.  If you actually read your quests and piece together where you need to be you can get an efficient route together.  There isn't a large area you're traveling around.
3.  No idea what you mean by mob system?  Mobs act like normal MMOG mobs and they con normally I suppose.
4.  There is no guidance system like... WAR?  AOC?  Shrug.  I never had an issue.  They quest text gives you a pretty good explanation on where to go.
5.  Didn't get into PVP.
6.  There are three "stats".  You get a few points per level to allocate.  ?  I don't get the customizable part.  I don't know if they are permanent choices though.  Also you get a skill selection each level.  So you can "customize" your skill progression.  Skills are in groups called sets.  First 4 levels you pick from set 1, then at 5 you open up set 2 goes on from there I suppose.

Character customization is a poor man's CoX.  It's somewhat interesting at first but options are limited.

You pick between 3 classes.  At level 5 you can choose between 3 subclasses. 

The whole aiming thing is interesting.  It's almost fps, but not quite.  Lag and reaction is pretty good.  Animations are nice, UI is minimalistic.   Not much is UI customization though.  Can't resize the chat window, can't move around some of the frames.

It's worth checking out since you can for free.

the  :uhrr: :

(http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2009/20090424.jpg)

I'd play the game casual-like if it was a traditional pricing structure.  It's a shame, really. 

1. When I was 13 and thought maple story was fun since an online side scroller with a class system sounded like a good idea, getting a quarter of a level before I logged off was exciting. 2 years of college later, while a side-scroller with a class system still sounds like a good idea, 4 hours of gameplay for 1 level will never be considered normal for a game that I'm actually paying for. I could have gotten 200 kills in tf2 in those same 4 hours, would have had 4000x more fun doing it AND kept my fucking money.
2. Don't know how you don't notice moving at the pace of a snail but ok.
3. The mobs are unremarkable, even common sense like giving more exp for mobs in groups vs solo creatures seems to be lacking. i give it a minus cause it does nothing to ease the grind and really adds nothing to the game.
4. I'm starting to wonder how far in level are you. But no I haven't met a high level player who hasn't openly admitted to using the online spellborn data base to do quest 90%. The old days of playing with your client and browser up at the same time is not refreshing.
6. The three stats are permanent stats as far as i know don't reset and if they do you have to be level 50 first to do so. Which is another homage to the old days of hunting on the forums for the proper build order because other wise a few points in the wrong places mean you do 400 less damage then everyone else your class. The skill system is the same. Since you can't test your skills and if you try to unlock skills as soon as you get skill points your going to either delete that character or uninstall spellborn due to utter frustration of having to wait a few levels before you correct your character. You can always save your skill points and only use them carefully to avoid picking the wrong skills, and if you do do that you will have plenty of points come 50, but honestly the only possible way I can see anyone being impressed by this system is if they didn't play Guild Wars. And if you did and your still impressed, this game deserves your $15 a month.

All in all the grind makes the only shiny feature this game have repetitive and unremarkable. And having no real way to break away from the fedex quest, like for example exp giving pvp, further drives a nail into a game that I even considered worth the attention. My level 29 character in limbo and my desire to resub is zero. Honestly if I wanted to spend 20 hours on a game for marginal progress at best, I would play maple story again or try out runes of magic.

I don't understand how people get hung up on levels.  It's as if the ding is more important than the game. 

Someone make a game with 10,000 levels for people so they ding every two kills, just space out the actual upgrades every 150 levels or so. 

It's called maple story and its free.

If most of the game content is locked solely based on level, it's normal for people to be frustrated when they are faced with repeated quest killings that usually proceed with you hitting the DoT attack, followed with 1 high dmg attack, 1 medium attack and then a self heal after the fight ends. No matter what different mob types you throw at them if all you had are the same four attacks for 3 hours, you're bound to get bored. Granting players new toys or moves to play with every 1-2 hours of first 12 hours played is key to keeping them motivated in 'staying on'.

Why every 150 levels or so? Why not every single level, and just keep scaling the "difficulty" (hp and damage of mobs) up? Or does it just become harder and harder to balance?

It's the same as lab rats being fed pellets of food through a test mechanism. If you make it too fast and easy, then the rats won't feel rewarded. They'll just eat their fill, and piss off. If it's something that takes awhile, making the rats feel rewarded, they'll eat until they explode.

I didn't play as high level as you.  I played around with three different classes all day so I didn't spend as much time as you.  I also said it was slow.  The experience you get from quests seems random.  One quest will give me 1000 experience(fame) and another will give me 300 and both are marked the same level.  It's slow, but you're not sitting in the same spot killing mobs constantly.  At least you're always moving and going somewhere different.  Mob kill quests in the newbie area never exceeded 5 or 6.

3.  I guess you're talking about less experience if your grouped up vs. killing solo?  Or are you talking about mobs in bunches?  I never noticed in any other game other than maybe EQ2 that gave more experience for mobs in groups rather than solo ones.

4.  I didn't spend a long time with the game.  The newbie quests up to level 6 or 7 were all standard MMOG fare.  I was able to do them easily.  I guess the quality gets worse on the top end.

5.  I guess you don't like the number 5.

6.  I agree with you here if this is the case.  Permanent skill/stat allocation makes people reroll and/or quit in rage.  I found myself saving stat points because I had no idea what I was doing with them other than seeing X skill is based on Y stat.

--

It was a fun little game.  I can see where the leveling speed is Slooooooooow.  If it was a typical DIKU I'd uninstalled it right away.  But the aiming/fps element and the spelldeck thing kept me interested enough not to uninstall it right away.

Well you haven't PvP'ed so number 5 doesn't matter. It gives no exp, and there is no real way to always get a match within the first 3 minutes of logging on. It is equally nothing special lots of circle strafing and bunny hopping. In a sad in a way despite all the special abilities on each and every skill, it lacks depth simply due to the "can't touch this" nature of the combat system that allows you to win 9/10 matches without even having to know what your opponent is doing 90% of the time. Well unless your fighting a warrior which is by far the strongest class in the game. 

Wait.  That's a fair debate tactic?  When forgetting something, such as number 5, simply tell the other person they wouldn't have liked it anyway?  Maybe I'll start reading politics.

Just for reference:

I played a Warrior which I subclassed into a Bloodwarrior (Terrible soloer, he appears to be a MT).  I played a rogue which I turned into a Trickster, yay Gadgets!  And I played a Mage which I turned into a Void Seer which seems to be a healer.  My Void Seer seemed to kick some ass too.

Edit to add:
You can now pay like any other normal MMOG via CC.  No more coins.

$14.99 for 30 days
$41.97 for 90 days
$77.94 for 180 days

He didn't address it and so I didn't know he wanted me to address it originally.

No, no, it's alright.  You've inspired me.

Good to hear they came to their senses. Pity the game sucks.

I actually enjoy the game.  Not sure what's wrong with me.

You haven't grinded 20 levels  :oh_i_see: but in all seriousness people will like that game simply because all its really selling is a combat system and they don't mind going through the standard mmo fair in order to enjoy it. Same with AoC. Your either deeply impressed by the action or your not. I'm starting to wonder what games like Spellborn and Age of Conan will do to the general opinion about twitch based mmorpg's. I don't think having to aim a sword swing will be the staple of new mmo's for a long time.

Has anyone here managed to get TCOS to work on Vista?

I hit the Start Game button, the launcher disappears, and... nothing happens. No new programs running in Task Manger. No error popups. It just dies.

It works on vista. You have to run the sb_patch, otherwise it freaks out on you also helps to put the game on fullscreen.

worked fine for me with vista and in windowed mode

I have memory issues in Vista :(