It bugs me to see games die-off, especially early. What a waste of money and talent... and all that work to get a game to release.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Did I really hear you guys complaining about Spellborn's quests?
I can't believe you guys!
Have you ever actually read and understand the quests instead of skipping all the dialogues? Compared to many other MMORPGs Spellborn has a great language and a perfectly readable font, so I don't see why would anyone skip the dialogues!
There is no such quests like "Kill me 20 monsters for no reason" or "I want an ice cream, so will you kill 10 ice golems for me please?" in Spellborn. Almost all quests except for some minor side quests have an awesome story behind it, and none of it asks you to kill or collect things for stupid reasons.
Compared to other MMORPGs, this game has the best set of quests that I ever played. This is like MMORPG's Skyrim!
Have you ever escorted a dying little girl back to her loving brother, and when you almost reached her brother she couldn't take it anymore and died? Have you ever be the messenger of 4 tribes that are currently in war with each other, and you have to make them believe that their war is pointless? Have you ever talk to an NPC, and in the middle of the dialogue he got shot by an assassin? Have you ever helped a village counterreacting a plague, while villagers by villagers start to turn into berzerking zombies? Have you ever rescued prisoners in a prison filled with atleast a hundred guards, having to sabotage the alarm towers and destroy the sentry tower with a ballista, while being shot by flaming-exploding ballista arrows? Have you ever seen a whole district of a city turned into mutants because of a massive accident in a lab, and you have to enter the lab full of mutants to find out why did the accident happen?
That's just a few of tons of quests Spellborn has to offer, and none of them asks you to kill tons of monsters for no reason.
I really can't see why would anyone think the quests in Spellborn sucks.
The thing that made Spellborn fell, in my opinion, is the bugs (including the very annoying ladder bug that I bet you know if you played the game) and glitches. Some boss monsters constantly glitches and disappears or fall right through the ground while patrolling, which makes it almost impossible to kill them. Beside that, the game pushed the launch far too early without much advertisement and without having a solid player base, which makes the society almost dead.
Nevertheless, The Chronicles of Spellborn was an awesome game (with awesome quests, mind you.) and I would gladly play and start over again if it gets relaunched. Just if..*sighs*
For those wondering, I'm Shyde in game, the leader of the Blood Hawk guild in the PvE server (which seem to be the only guild alive with 10+ active players back then lol, the society was soo dead). I played a Skinshifter, ranged build, until level 41 out of 50 before the game got shut down.
I was browsing my music collection and came across some of Jesper Kyd's work which I had saved and it saddens me that his work and all of the art assets were wasted.
Then I started thinking about the pvp watched some videos and remembered just how much better the combat is than any existing MMO.
It wasn't as enjoyable as compared to non-MMOs like Mount and Blade or Quake but it had a lot of parts that is still unique to any videogame and was worthwhile enough to build on.
What killed the game was the publishers and the lack of cohesive direction on how to put together all of the awesome parts they built to make a great game.
It would be great if there was an actual spiritual successor to that game.
This game was awesome. The combat was unique, incredibly fun if you actually understood it, and ahead of its time. Between the PEP system, skill effectiveness being determined by your stats VS enemy stats, and the revolving skill deck there was a great complexity to combat that you could really take advantage of to great effect if you bothered to open your mind a bit.
With so many games now going with the Freemium model it's a shame they shut down this game when they did.
I think today's average gamers would finally be able to understand the complexity of the combat system and the lack of a weapon/armor grind (replaced by sigils to augment your equipment instead). I know those were deal breakers for some less experienced gamers and gamers stuck in a rut from older game philosophies.
This game was awesome. The combat was unique, incredibly fun if you actually understood it, and ahead of its time. Between the PEP system, skill effectiveness being determined by your stats VS enemy stats, and the revolving skill deck there was a great complexity to combat that you could really take advantage of to great effect if you bothered to open your mind a bit.
With so many games now going with the Freemium model it's a shame they shut down this game when they did.
I think today's average gamers would finally be able to understand the complexity of the combat system and the lack of a weapon/armor grind (replaced by sigils to augment your equipment instead). I know those were deal breakers for some less experienced gamers and gamers stuck in a rut from older game philosophies.
The potential was awesome, but you could see that they ran out of money. And they did some misses as well.
For one thing that skill wheel were a great idea but if they changed it so the skill you can choose from would depend on what skill you used before (and maybe even the situation) it would have been a lot more fun. Alll skills would be kind of chains then with several options.
The biggest issue was however the lack of content.
It is too bad, they really had something there, the game had a very certain and pretty good feeling to it. A little better budget and releasing it B2P like GW, I think that would have worked really well.
Yeah I'd agree that it wasn't a totally finished product and it had various technical difficulties it would have to fix. It kind of sucks that games cost so much to develop, produce, maintain, etc. So many games that have failed pre and post release have had some great ideas and simply needed more time and money to come to their full potential.
The pvp servers were awesome. I just started playing the TERA trial and it made me think of Spellborn. Sad a game like TERA who claims to be the first true action combat mmo...but is really a button mashing korean grinder.
Poor Spellborn, sometimes I just wish I could shapeshift into a bush y'know...
Originally posted by Arskaaa "when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".
TCOS was a game with an interesting concept and enjoyable combat... especially for an MMORPG. Rotating through the combat wheel setting up powerful attacks for maximum effect while balancing it with restorative and defensive powers allowed a skilled player to take on challenges above his level or with a group smaller than the content was intended for. It created a very satisfying play experience. The questing system was needlessly obscure though, and it created artificial walls during the leveling process that ultimately helped to force players back into the comfort range provided by WoW.
Wasn't there like a year between Acclaim having the game and frogster aquiring it that the game was basically in limbo? There were no updates and frogster had stated that when they did aquire the game they would be wiping the servers? I could be wrong it's been years now since I even thought about the game.
A cool game with some very promising features that died because of poor managment decisions and the popularity of WoW. Funny how things work. That game would probably be touted as the second coming of Christ if it was releasing today.
Frogster had Asian rights and rights in some EU countries; they said they'd be redevelopping it into a free 2 play game with a cashshop. Acclaim would release the game in the US. The game was in limbo; there were no updates and the servers were having a lot of issues (gameguard blocked almost everyone from playing the game, servers were sometimes down for days without a word from Acclaim to fix them). Later it was announced that the F2P didn't make it through, development was cancelled. And after that Acclaim got sold to Playdom, Playdom got sold to Disney a few months after and the US license was lost.
This I did play for a short time, they took the IP blocking route though & I think that was a huge mistake, had a novel combat ui/system/mechanic that could have been awesome but the server architecture was so cripllingly bad the latency would cause you more frustration than anything else, leading to combat being a form of torture by UI screw-ups.
It got me raging more than I could bear so I quit, had they gotten decent servers & addressed the combat latency issues this could have been truly special.
Glad I got to experience it all the same, had some unique visuals & gameplay.
Ahh, the idea that was, briefly, The Chronicles of Spellborn...
Great aesthetics, great combat, great lore...
Pushed out a year too early and really shit choice of publisher.
It was too young to die tbh. It still would look good today if someone got hold of it and stuck it back in the oven for another year to fix the PvP and liven up the quests somewhat.
I was just thinking about this game the other day, totally forgot about it. I remember being there on launch day, where you had to pick a character that was either super huge like a bodybuilder, skinny like a twig, or somewhat normal. Then you instantly were sent to kill many boars, lol. The combat was interesting, but man did that game flop hard. The idea of no gear stats really didn't seem to go over well in the mmo community either.
Who else remember Spellborn?
Hey, Sabre-TCoS (community manager EU English) here, had to actually delete that account....
I'd love this game to come back; it had so much work ready fly out to the players. Some awesome community events and some brilliant ideas to get the community involved..... and the sound scene of the game was awesome. Anyone remember looking up?
What made this game special to me was the fact it was a true hit and miss game. You know games like WoW, where they send the fireball, it travels through the wall and hits you as you try to run away from it? Wouldn’t happen! If you missed you missed, there is no homing missile! The skill deck was very innovative, and who what other game comes with this!
It was my most anticipated MMORPG back then - new ideas and unique combat grabbed my interest Tried it in beta, and though it had some issues, it was a good game. I was sad when Ive heard they close it
As others have said the questing was really bad but the combat, animations and skill UI was really radical. I would love to see a hotbar/UI that took advantage of that style again.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Played it, had a void seer, the combat wheel was a little wonky to get used to. The Unreal engine graphics were not that great. The sound was meh and the choice of dist/publishers were horrendous. I beta'd it, uninstalled and reinstalled after I found out it was FTP. I never got close to joining one of the houses because the game failed to keep my attention.
Uninstalled and forgotten about until I saw this thread.
was In beta for almost 2 years - man that was painful - just logging in during most of that time was a game in itself
and the reason it was "pushed" out too early was because the devs did a complete focus redo too far down the line - total waste of money and of course ran out
i still enjoyed the game despite the devs best efforts to ruin it for me but the last straw was the IP block thing - didn't play it at all after release
Comments
It bugs me to see games die-off, especially early. What a waste of money and talent... and all that work to get a game to release.
Did I really hear you guys complaining about Spellborn's quests?
I can't believe you guys!
Have you ever actually read and understand the quests instead of skipping all the dialogues? Compared to many other MMORPGs Spellborn has a great language and a perfectly readable font, so I don't see why would anyone skip the dialogues!
There is no such quests like "Kill me 20 monsters for no reason" or "I want an ice cream, so will you kill 10 ice golems for me please?" in Spellborn. Almost all quests except for some minor side quests have an awesome story behind it, and none of it asks you to kill or collect things for stupid reasons.
Compared to other MMORPGs, this game has the best set of quests that I ever played. This is like MMORPG's Skyrim!
Have you ever escorted a dying little girl back to her loving brother, and when you almost reached her brother she couldn't take it anymore and died? Have you ever be the messenger of 4 tribes that are currently in war with each other, and you have to make them believe that their war is pointless? Have you ever talk to an NPC, and in the middle of the dialogue he got shot by an assassin? Have you ever helped a village counterreacting a plague, while villagers by villagers start to turn into berzerking zombies? Have you ever rescued prisoners in a prison filled with atleast a hundred guards, having to sabotage the alarm towers and destroy the sentry tower with a ballista, while being shot by flaming-exploding ballista arrows? Have you ever seen a whole district of a city turned into mutants because of a massive accident in a lab, and you have to enter the lab full of mutants to find out why did the accident happen?
That's just a few of tons of quests Spellborn has to offer, and none of them asks you to kill tons of monsters for no reason.
I really can't see why would anyone think the quests in Spellborn sucks.
The thing that made Spellborn fell, in my opinion, is the bugs (including the very annoying ladder bug that I bet you know if you played the game) and glitches. Some boss monsters constantly glitches and disappears or fall right through the ground while patrolling, which makes it almost impossible to kill them. Beside that, the game pushed the launch far too early without much advertisement and without having a solid player base, which makes the society almost dead.
Nevertheless, The Chronicles of Spellborn was an awesome game (with awesome quests, mind you.) and I would gladly play and start over again if it gets relaunched. Just if..*sighs*
For those wondering, I'm Shyde in game, the leader of the Blood Hawk guild in the PvE server (which seem to be the only guild alive with 10+ active players back then lol, the society was soo dead). I played a Skinshifter, ranged build, until level 41 out of 50 before the game got shut down.
Hail Spellborn!
Yeah I still remember my Void Seer - had a great fun with that class.
I was running around naked all the time.
Really liked the combat system, the wheel, the pvp.
Also the lack of gear treadmill was a big +
SexuaLobster's Grease Portal
I was browsing my music collection and came across some of Jesper Kyd's work which I had saved and it saddens me that his work and all of the art assets were wasted.
Then I started thinking about the pvp watched some videos and remembered just how much better the combat is than any existing MMO.
It wasn't as enjoyable as compared to non-MMOs like Mount and Blade or Quake but it had a lot of parts that is still unique to any videogame and was worthwhile enough to build on.
What killed the game was the publishers and the lack of cohesive direction on how to put together all of the awesome parts they built to make a great game.
It would be great if there was an actual spiritual successor to that game.
This game was awesome. The combat was unique, incredibly fun if you actually understood it, and ahead of its time. Between the PEP system, skill effectiveness being determined by your stats VS enemy stats, and the revolving skill deck there was a great complexity to combat that you could really take advantage of to great effect if you bothered to open your mind a bit.
With so many games now going with the Freemium model it's a shame they shut down this game when they did.
I think today's average gamers would finally be able to understand the complexity of the combat system and the lack of a weapon/armor grind (replaced by sigils to augment your equipment instead). I know those were deal breakers for some less experienced gamers and gamers stuck in a rut from older game philosophies.
The potential was awesome, but you could see that they ran out of money. And they did some misses as well.
For one thing that skill wheel were a great idea but if they changed it so the skill you can choose from would depend on what skill you used before (and maybe even the situation) it would have been a lot more fun. Alll skills would be kind of chains then with several options.
The biggest issue was however the lack of content.
It is too bad, they really had something there, the game had a very certain and pretty good feeling to it. A little better budget and releasing it B2P like GW, I think that would have worked really well.
Great music in it BTW.
Yeah I'd agree that it wasn't a totally finished product and it had various technical difficulties it would have to fix. It kind of sucks that games cost so much to develop, produce, maintain, etc. So many games that have failed pre and post release have had some great ideas and simply needed more time and money to come to their full potential.
Stumbled across this awesome ambiance video today (watch it in 1080p):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91IbAeSF61E
God, I miss Spellborn, such a beautiful world.
Well part of the publishing was done by Frogster. Take from that what you want.
I didn't really feel the game pulled me in and that the Open Beta was limited to level 7 or 9 didn't help.
I miss the game
The pvp servers were awesome. I just started playing the TERA trial and it made me think of Spellborn. Sad a game like TERA who claims to be the first true action combat mmo...but is really a button mashing korean grinder.
Poor Spellborn, sometimes I just wish I could shapeshift into a bush y'know...
Originally posted by Arskaaa
"when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".
TCOS was a game with an interesting concept and enjoyable combat... especially for an MMORPG. Rotating through the combat wheel setting up powerful attacks for maximum effect while balancing it with restorative and defensive powers allowed a skilled player to take on challenges above his level or with a group smaller than the content was intended for. It created a very satisfying play experience. The questing system was needlessly obscure though, and it created artificial walls during the leveling process that ultimately helped to force players back into the comfort range provided by WoW.
Wasn't there like a year between Acclaim having the game and frogster aquiring it that the game was basically in limbo? There were no updates and frogster had stated that when they did aquire the game they would be wiping the servers? I could be wrong it's been years now since I even thought about the game.
A cool game with some very promising features that died because of poor managment decisions and the popularity of WoW. Funny how things work. That game would probably be touted as the second coming of Christ if it was releasing today.
Frogster had Asian rights and rights in some EU countries; they said they'd be redevelopping it into a free 2 play game with a cashshop. Acclaim would release the game in the US. The game was in limbo; there were no updates and the servers were having a lot of issues (gameguard blocked almost everyone from playing the game, servers were sometimes down for days without a word from Acclaim to fix them). Later it was announced that the F2P didn't make it through, development was cancelled. And after that Acclaim got sold to Playdom, Playdom got sold to Disney a few months after and the US license was lost.
This I did play for a short time, they took the IP blocking route though & I think that was a huge mistake, had a novel combat ui/system/mechanic that could have been awesome but the server architecture was so cripllingly bad the latency would cause you more frustration than anything else, leading to combat being a form of torture by UI screw-ups.
It got me raging more than I could bear so I quit, had they gotten decent servers & addressed the combat latency issues this could have been truly special.
Glad I got to experience it all the same, had some unique visuals & gameplay.
Ahh, the idea that was, briefly, The Chronicles of Spellborn...
Great aesthetics, great combat, great lore...
Pushed out a year too early and really shit choice of publisher.
It was too young to die tbh. It still would look good today if someone got hold of it and stuck it back in the oven for another year to fix the PvP and liven up the quests somewhat.
Hey, Sabre-TCoS (community manager EU English) here, had to actually delete that account....
I'd love this game to come back; it had so much work ready fly out to the players. Some awesome community events and some brilliant ideas to get the community involved..... and the sound scene of the game was awesome. Anyone remember looking up?
What made this game special to me was the fact it was a true hit and miss game. You know games like WoW, where they send the fireball, it travels through the wall and hits you as you try to run away from it? Wouldn’t happen! If you missed you missed, there is no homing missile! The skill deck was very innovative, and who what other game comes with this!
http://youtu.be/ftseyuky0co?hd=1
Wow, they sacked me and I still promote it.......
I doubt anyone will see this but if we started a petition adn got like 10k signatures you think we could get the game back?
No
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Played it, had a void seer, the combat wheel was a little wonky to get used to. The Unreal engine graphics were not that great. The sound was meh and the choice of dist/publishers were horrendous. I beta'd it, uninstalled and reinstalled after I found out it was FTP. I never got close to joining one of the houses because the game failed to keep my attention.
Uninstalled and forgotten about until I saw this thread.
Tormented echoes of a fallen Eden
I longed for her beauty
Yet from dust, she returned
The dream, an enigma.... silent
was In beta for almost 2 years - man that was painful - just logging in during most of that time was a game in itself
and the reason it was "pushed" out too early was because the devs did a complete focus redo too far down the line - total waste of money and of course ran out
i still enjoyed the game despite the devs best efforts to ruin it for me but the last straw was the IP block thing - didn't play it at all after release