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The Chronicles of Spellborn a free game that should be played
Vanguard008
Member Posts: 22
Hey,
After playing MMO's for about 3 years now, I"m wondering why the population is low in a free MMO that is way better than any F2P game out there right now, and better than some P2P games. More people need to give it a try for min of 20 lvls, not gonna cost you anything. A great game that everyone needs to make apart of their gaming experience. This game's story, graphics and game play is like no other that I have played. Just sad to see a great game wasted.
Please post your experience with "The Chronicles of Spellborn", the good and the bad. Oh if you try the game and have trouble with the stupid game guard, just download a new game guard game and replace Spellborn's game guard with the the game you downloaded. It's a pain, but worth the time. www.spellborndb.net also well help you out if you play the game. Good luck and have fun with it.
Comments
I tested it, it took me two days to figure out what was wrong it the game.
Over enphasys on balance limiting character progression reward.
You didnt get better gear constantly, 99% of the loot didnt affected character power, the 1% was the sigils that werent random, neither easily obtained from a drop after some kills.
In the end, everyone of the same class would reach the same level, all the skills and have the same static sigils. The process doing so was tedious and unrewarding.
If gears had stats and we could easily drop or make them from all the monsters we purposelessly we mass murder on the way, 99% of the time and effort spent wouldnt be pointlessly following a linear script: everyone at the same point, with the same power, everything tightly balanced at all times, happy happy...
No wonder people got bored and quit.
There is only so much twitch based combats can do, an in a MMORPG, you have to deliver an individual sense of progression. Chronicles of Spellborn severelly failed at that. And they even expected people would pay a monthly subscription for that.
And now I will keep a close eye on TCoS, just to see how they will unbuilt stone after stone of balance in their free to play cash shop model! Epic failure. Made a game without sense of power and now how the hell will they attempt to sell power on the cash shop? People who play it, obviously dont care about that. People who dont play it, dont play not because it wasnt properly advertised, but mainly because its a shallow attempt at offering a sense of character progression and being a massive failure at hiding their panoptic paranoic balance... Selling cosmethic items at cash shop? This never worked, and TCoS "progression" is all about cosmethical, so they will have to take that away from players if they wanted to sell it back. They cant get out of the hole they digged themselfs in, it will be fun to watch their foolish attempts when they "re-release".
Tell you about clueless developer.
I know a fair bit about TCoS having followed it's development, I even won a competition in 2007 to have a quest written into the game although I have no idea if it was ever implemented!
The original TCoS is dead, all that remains is a fairly stable engine and some good artwork. What Acclaim can salvage to monetize from that is anybodies guess. The game as it is now should be considered as a "technical demo" because it's obvious that Acclaim feel that they cannot profit from the game as it currently stands.
There is an obvious reason there aren't more twitch based MMO's about though, a little thing called latency and sure enough that's what I remember most about the game. Firing off ground based abilities that would land behind my target, dodging blows that would hit me even if I was 10 feet away, it became obvious that if you want a twitch based MMO than you had to have insanely tight network code. As far as I can remember the network code in TCoS was all but scrapped and outsourced to another development team, and when it came back there were indeed improvements, but it still wasn't good enough.
TCoS will never have the sufficient "local" servers to cut down on latency, running costs would be too high. Not quite sure what Acclaim can do with the game but I'll keep an eye on it regardless.
You have to admit through that the graphisms and sound effects are quite nice.
Hey - I loved this game. Gave it a month or two (which for me is a long time for a game that does not float my boat .. Aion got 2 weeks lol) and still have a screenshot from it as my desktop. Beautiful looking world.
But I blogged here about why I left: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Astrialla/112009/5154_Chronicles-of-Spellborn-or-Avoiding-the-Ex
For me, the game mechanics were a bit twitchy (hah!) yes, but it was the lack of people that wound up making me drop ship. For those looking for an MMO that really does have a different feel to the environment, it's worth checking the game out.
I will say though... Game Guard is horrible. For a while my entire computer was compromised by that insidious thing and then thankfully Spellborn removed it as a requirement for playing the game. I'm very sad to see it's apparently back in the mix again and required which is my guess from reading the OP.
There's no way I'm going back into Spellborn if Gameguard is required to play the game. If you're not sure what I'm talking about re: gameguard just google Gameguard problems and get some snacks for your reading fest lol.
Spellborn - beautiful look, no people, suckky Gameguard.
It would cost my time.
Is it free now? Last time i played it was monthly subscription :S it was over 6 months ago.
It is a very nice game but it is lacking in content and grouping areas, if you played it a lot you hit level cap very fast. Furthermore people complained about that the replay value was low as there was a limited number of quests to level up on.
I personally thought the beginning experience was boring, the newbie area introduced in the last update was a huge improvement. The itemization was also wrong even if you do not have equipment with stats on they could have upped the drop rate on sigils, sigils with different stats and effects and also have more clothes and armor as drops and as quest rewards. You started to get some sigil as rare loot close to level 10 and also recipies for items to make (I can not remember if you had an opportunity to see how a new item would look or not) armor, I never really understood the crafting so I can not comment on that.
It is beautiful, combat is fun, the skill system is great, the basic ideas are sound, several quests later in game where fun and well written, BUT the lack of rewards and a lack of progression killed a lot of the interest in the game.
I would assume that Akklaim will sell clothes and stuff for appearance and maybe even sigils, more quests and dungeons, grouping instances are also needed.
But if you are 2-3 friends that like FPS type games you can play TCoS and have a grand time. I just reinstalled it as it has many good features.
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
Very high production value
Very polished game
The Twitch combat gameplay was awesome: shooting arrow at enemies from above houses/trees where they couldnt touch you, dodging manually was great.
The graphics and animations were good
At first you see that and you think: wow, how come this game never picked up?
Then you play a bit and start to understand the marionetti mechanics of balance in place. I cant do anything, I cant unwrap myself from the invisible hand of developer, nothing I do (kill stuff, or do quests) rewards me with anything that gives me a sense of progression. Everything is cosmethical, sigils add ludicrous bonuses such as 1% to one ability and thats it, I got a potion that increased my damage by 0.3%, thats it, 0.3%. WTF!
Its like playing an adventure game with hypocrital progression: "just to say that its an MMORPG", you have levels, wich dont affect much, then you have skills, and the skills are mainly strategical, rather than... more powerfull. Then you notice this game is pointless and I would rather play some deathmatch against real players in a low latency server, than kill stuff artificial inteligence stuff in a laggy server for no rewards whatsoever anyway...
I agree with the OP. The combat, IMO, was/is the best of any MMO I've tried. I LIKE "twitch based" and had no problems in the least with lag.
I also have to wonder about the person claiming "the quests were all the same."..did you join the same High House? There are more quests in TCoS than I could do.
Well it has the foundation of a good game, why the low population?
Well it had marketing issues to start, i dont think it ever had a decent launch.
Its not better than any living p2p game, simply for the fact that it died as a p2p game, now if that was acclaims intention, to force the game to go f2p to fit their usual game modle is up for discussion.
I payed for a month of play, it had a fun combat system, but lacked any reason to pvp, lacked any reason to group, and lacked a focused endgame plan.
I had planned to return to tcos after their first major patch, but will now avoid it, i cant stand f2p games, it just cheapens the fun imo.
That's a truer statement than I think you had in mind.
MUNDO!!
TcoS was a surprisingly fun game with superb art and sound ...i played it through the whole closed beta.
If only the dev team had some more hands and money so that they could have implemented all features and content they had planned, it might have been a different story. Though i admit, as being stated before here, i also crave for good loot and rewards which severly lacked in TcoS. The "get your own statue" reward was a great idea, but i would have prefered epix
Ofcourse, the way the game was published, ip seperated and marketed also didn't really help
Hi,
Thanks for you input, both the good and the bad. I agree that the marketing wasn't done well, but it's nice to have a change from grinding for gear which most MMO's are all about right now. Attempts to break the WoW mold is very good IMO but I find once you use a system so long it takes a lot for people to accept a change in there playing style. Have fun with what you play with and hope that SWKoToR lives up to the hype when it's released, well see you there.
There are some fair personal opinions here on Spellborn.
Loot
The game is based on player skill, the way you play you character dictates how booty you are. Its not WoW where what gear your character has dictates and rules your progression. Its playing skill that makes the difference.
Loot as a reward is interesting, but no stats on weapons is a good thing as the current system of sigils is unique. The extension of these with variety and complete resources ( where is my Common Hyena Soul!!!). Not many people have noticed but the PvP Arena has rewards, go check the Arena District in Quarterstone! This should also be available to world PvP as well.
Shop
What I hope for with the shop is mounts, extra resource storage and ... well thats all I can think of.
Anyway I love the game, I like the fact that it is solo-able. I just want to see more people playing, as all those that I play with are really good gamers, and seem to be having so much fun.
EivilSar, Deathhand of International
Spellborn PvP
Game reminds me of playing an RPG like Oblivion but with other people around and a more interesting combat system. I wouldn't play it if it wasn't free but it is fun for what it is and what you are paying for.
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
Spellborn does have an amazing story (like the Elder Scrolls games.) If it had been a book I would have bought the first copy. (My preference of course.) I was playing during its P2P days. The launch seemed to be good; there was a lot of activity on the starting shard, everyone in the chat channels was generally enjoying themselves. There was a sense of starting something that would only get better with age.
Like another poster observed here, if only they had been able to implement some of their ideas. This would have been something truly different for a P2P. The basic game mechanics, UI, presentation, artwork, etc. was already stable and (mostly) polished. (For an example of how good Spellborn really is, try playing Alganon, and then look up Alpha Phase which is defined as "Alganon.")
But business is business, and that was the end of Spellborn as we knew it. Maybe the relaunch will have something of what originally made Spellborn what it was, but right now it's hard to see how.
im still playing this unbelievabel beautiful game...
and i hope many other people will enjoy this masterpiece!
I started playing TCoS again and went back to my first toon, Knytta the Void Seer, he still had the first Sigil he found. I played from launch and found it at level 9 so this was early, it was a Sigil that increased healing by 0.5%. WHEE so if i get a 200 hp heal in, I will gain a whopping 1 hp extra. That is not a reward that is just silly.
BUT I still play the game and enjoys it for what it is, it is a great value for free.
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
TCoS is high quiality game. All it's parts are highly polished and well made. The combat system is just georgeous. No gear dependancy, awesome.
The problem is when you put all those nice parts together, nothing happens. The game is sort of lacking the point - why playing?
It is very unfortunate
I very much enjoyed TCoS but I knew it was doomed when the publishing info was release, odd region splits UK playing on US servers etc. Seemed like the publishers knew nothing about MMO's and the devs just wanted the first publishing deal that came along.
This game is definitely original, but its sad that just cause of that (and the region locks) the launch failed miserably. The combat is a fresh breath of air, though i couldnt get quite in it. The whole experience wasnt rewarding enough to my taste.
I played in beta and at "launch". It was a much-needed breath of fresh air in the MMORPG world. Unfortunately horrible publishing choices (on both sides of the pond) and almost no advertising killed the game before it got a chance. It's a shame too.
I'll have to play more before I give a fair assessment of this game, but so far it's pretty upsetting.
It's a beautiful game with an open world, decent quests, and so far I have had zero problem with lag. The good graphics, nice interface, totally awesome combat system should be a very strong basis for a good MMO in my opinion. I think this game has a ton of potential, and I'm surprised that this game is so underpopulated.
I don't even care if the game had gear at all, but if it has decent PvP and PvE sounds like a good time to me. Well anyway I'll be back later once I play this game some more.
--------------------------
Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
I played this game for the first four months of the US/UK release and really enjoyed it up to a certain point. I had 3 characters ranging from the mid twenties to the mid thirties, an Ancestral Mage, a Void Seer and an Adept.
Initially, in general I loved the game. The combat system was new and innovative. The graphics were pretty nice - the quirky artstyle made the visuals a lot better than they were technically. The quests were very well written once out of the newbie zone - I actually found myself reading all the quest dialogue for the first time in ages in an MMO. I loved the fact that it wasn't gear dependant (I hate the overused EQ/WoW model of gear/raid/gear/raid) and actually relied on player skill. In fact I had just left AoC to play TCoS due to the then upcomming AoC patch 1.05 which was to make the game more gear dependant.
Where the game failed for me was in its performance. Like I said above, the twitch combat system and lack of gear dependancy attracted me to the game in the first place, but the constant lagspikes, especially during mass PvP killed it for me. This may have been to do with me being in the UK and playing on the 'International' servers which wrere located in the US. A game that relies on quick player reactions and twitch combat is completely killed by lag and poor performance.
God only knows what they were thinking with their split-release and crazy publishing setup. However, I struggled on with the bad performance for a while, but when the population began to take a serious nosedive I knew it was time to go. My guild went from very active to only a couple of us being logged on at any one time in a very short space of time. It was really quite sad.
It is such a shame that the whole project was handled in such a horrendous manner as the game itself is definately a diamond in the rough.
MMORPG History:
Playing - EVE Online.
Played (Retired) - AO, SWG, MxO, WoW, RFO, SoR, CoX, EQ2, GW, L2, Vanguard, LotRO, AoC, TCoS, Aion.
Favourite MMO - Pre-CU SWG, 3 Years, 4 Accounts, 2 Pre-CU Jedi (1 Pre-9).
Awaiting - Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Earthrise.
I lasted all of 3 days in Beta,i did not like it much at all,seemed generic just like all F2P games.There was a couple nice ideas in the game but was not worth me playing even for free.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.