The Chronicles of Spellborn

[Laerazi]

Awesome art style; amazing what talented texture artists can do, as opposed to those that just apply a shitty fill texture to a poorly optimized/hi-polygon mesh.

[Cuppycake]

Bumping this thread because the latest preview of this game is looking damn awesome at IGN. Screenshots are gorgeous and there are a lot of interesting features in this game.

IGN: The Chronicles of Spellborn Preview

According to the developers at Spellborn NV, their main goal with Spellborn, a fantasy based MMO, is to minimize grinding. The experience gleaned from felling random mobs pales in comparison to what's gained from completing quests. More substantial and involving chains of quests will also be implemented to keep players moving through environments and pursuing dynamic objectives.

Spellborn tries to further distance itself from the standard MMORPG mold by stripping armor and weaponry of statistics. Modifications, called sigils, can eventually be affixed for bonuses as you level up to the cap of 50, but otherwise aesthetics are the only reason to discriminate between armor pieces.

Combat in the game veers from conformity in that you don't auto-target a foe. Instead, you enter into "battle" mode, which enters your avatar into a readied state with weapon drawn and movement speed decreased. A reticule pops up on screen showing where your weapon is currently targeted, and you'll have to hover that over the enemy to hit them, infusing combat with more of an action element than systems reliant solely on hotkey tapping until your knuckles shatter.

Another goal is to rid the MMORPG formula of large scale raids. Spellborn NV swore to us they'd never introduce content or dynamics in this game that require large numbers of players to band together.

This sounds particularly intriguing:

As levels are gained, skills are automatically opened up for you. A limited number can then be chosen to unlock and assigned to a "skill reel," which serves as Spellborn's action bar. The bar is a hexagonal cylinder, its faces reflecting the six tiers of skills available to each class. On each surface can be placed a limited number of skills, and after one skill is used, the reel rotates to the next available skill level. So when you activate a tier one sword smash, the reel rotates to two, where you can activate a whirlwind or something, then will either return to tier one or move on to tier three, then four, and, if unlocked, up to six. This means you need to plot your skill combo strategies vertically across successive skill levels, as opposed to horizontally.

Eventually, Spellborn NV plans on letting players alter the game world by performing quests in the past. By speaking with the oracle, players can travel to before the time of the great explosion and follow plot threads that, we're assuming, eventually lead to some explanations of why the explosion happened.

[Broham]

Wow, this game looks like it could be good for the summer...wonder why I never heard of it before?

Thanks for those tidbits, Cuppy =D

[FuckYou]

The Chronicles of Spellborn (TCoS) is an upcoming MMORPG. It is being developed by Spellborn International Ltd. Essentially TCoS is a game in which players choose to assume the role of a hero in a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy world.

does the world really need another fantasy MMO?

i read their FAQ and i dunno, it might be 11.3% unqiue. hard to say.

[Cuppycake]

Originally Posted by FuckYou

does the world really need another fantasy MMO?

At least its dark fantasy. After looking through the screenshots there didn't appear to be a lot of "happy" looking places.

This game won't appeal to a lot of people here because its geared toward casual players. Maybe the PvP/Arena system might be intriguing to hardcore players...but the elimination of grinding, raiding, etc. might make for a more casual crowd.

The part I thought was interesting is how you can design your character and what sort of clothes it wears however you want. You can even make the tattoos that your character has. The article talks about how characters will be recognizable just from the way they look. That is something that's lacking in every single major MMO right now....you always just feel like any other player who is the same race or class as you.

Anyway, the game might/probably will fade into oblivion quickly. But its coming out here in the US late-Q2 and I thought some things sounded neat.

[Ssinurn]

I have been following this game since I first heard about it from Within Temptation's website. The band has done a video for them etc.

The lore style they are looking for is dark fantasy similar to Black Cauldron or Labryinth. That has some appeal to me. I keep watching out for it, and some of the mechanics mentioned on the forums as they develop like the artifact system. If anything it might be a good pass time game.

I'm not too happy about the char models or only two races either, but what I have seen of the environments I like.

[Tual]

dutch people for the fucking win
i'll pass though

[kohl]

The lack of stats on items sounds really intriguing. One pet peeve I'd had from past and even current games is that ultimately, people look the same at higher levels and you can pretty much tell what someone has just by looking at them. Not that this system is awful, but the ability to chose a unique look and style of armor/weapon for your character is nice.

I remember in WoW, there were some pretty cool looking "green" armor sets, but you generally wouldn't see someone in the full suit unless they specifically collected and carried it around for fashion purposes.

[Kiroy]

A limited number of skills can be chosen upon leveling??

go go min max

[Draegan]

I always thought any serious MMO should have the character creation from CoH/V. I remember spending a few hours making characters. That was pretty cool.

[machineman]

I've been keeping my eye on this game... it looks like it's gonna be cool, and could be a real dark horse in the MMO wars.

I like the unique skill deck system, and the fact that the stats are not based on gear, and vice versa.

Will be interesting to see what they do...

[Kodylan]

I really like the graphical style they have going. It's not too high-tech(e.g. more resources spent on graphics than content), but it's also not bad either.

I've been following the game for quite a while as well, and will more than likely be checking it out, just to try it out, if anything.

[Hachima]

Open beta is coming in April. It has some good ideas on paper, but so do a lot of MMOs. It will be fun to try out at least.

[Kreugen]

... no loot? So you play until you run out of quests and then you win the game? Awesome.

[DMyst]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

... no loot? So you play until you run out of quests and then you win the game? Awesome.

From what i heard, players find a vast array of different armor with different graphic and the "loot" are items that are added to this armor to customize your own stats. Better stat gems (don't know what they are preceisely called) are harder to get and involve more epic quests.

I might be wrong.