The Chronicles of Spellborn - open beta coming soon
Chronicles of Spellborn, TheThe Chronicles of Spellborn, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game for the PC. The Chronicles of Spellborn boasts an original setting and storyline and offers a distinctive art style. The game is being built using the renowned Unreal Engine. Set within a unique universe, a realm that has been torn apart by the catastrophic events of the last great war, The Chronicles of Spellborn will offer you the chance to go questing with a group of heroes one day, conquer new shards and engage in the politics of the High Houses.
must have been on a low res mode then cos on high they are awesome. It does start you off on 16 bit but if you alter the options ( which actually work ) you get all the bells and whistles. Can't say for sure tho.
Gameplay seems much less realistic on spellborn looking at the vid's tho as they just seem to be near the mobs as oppsed to sinking into them. I'm not saying moons is much better but it does appear to have a bit more realism to it than what i saw above. But I may just be getting picky there as I haven't experienced spellborn yet.
Here's a music vid made by a dutch rock band to promote the game,
i have the full res version here, i gotta say the game looks visually stunning,
there really neat lighting effects, banks of fog over forests,
the thing that really does it for me is the imagery of the shard ship, especially
the shard ship fleet nearer the end,
i've a feeling this game could win out over AOC, they look like they
could release very close to each other, i'll probably try both
to see which one i'm happiest at playing.
Last edited by Mars; 27-11-2007 at 18:30..
Reason: i'm a *$!8 up!
Here's a music vid made by a dutch rock band to promote the game,
i have the full res version here, i gotta say the game looks visually stunning,
there really neat lighting effects, banks of fog over forests,
the thing that really does it for me is the imagery of the shard ship, especially
the shard ship fleet nearer the end,
i've a feeling this game could win out over AOC, they look like they
could release very close to each other, i'll probably try both
to see which one i'm happiest at playing.
It was yes, by me. The band is within temptation, and I love the song, Im not keen on the video they released with the song though, it was a bit too dark and morbid, but the clips to the game looks cool.
MMORPG.com:
Dyng-Johan asks: Will good healing skills affect damage output? if so, in what way?
Spellborn:
Most of our skills have multiple effects and some even have a turn-side when executed incorrectly. This also counts for the healing skills. There are just a few skills, which simply heal your target without improving or decreasing something else.
MMORPG.com:
scaphism asks: how is healing handled. Is it a targeted heal or an area of effect?
Spellborn:
There are multiple types of healing effects. Some well-known basics are direct healing, healing over time and taking life on hit. However, there are also AoE’s like poison gas clouds, which have a healing effect the first 5 seconds they’re inhaled, but turn into a deadly poison afterwards
MMORPG.com:
Shizu asks: What have you done to prevent bunny hopping ?
Spellborn:
We have implemented several features to prevent bunny hopping from actually being useful. Mainly, the jump height is dependant of the movement speed. Hence, players will jump less high when they have their weapon drawn, due to the slightly lowered movement speed. Having your weapon sheathed will make you jump higher, but you will also receive a double damage.
We have several more systems ready to prevent bunny hopping, currently not enabled - we want to see how this turns out in closed beta first. We do not want to limit player movement too much. The bunny hopping itself is also of questionable, so we’re really curious how it will actually be used.
MMORPG.com:
bornspeller asks: Is it possible to swim in TCoS? Will there be an underwater Level or a underwater quest? Or will there maybe be a place which is only reachable by diving through water?
Spellborn:
Not on release
MMORPG.com:
Wolfsheim asks: Is there underwater combat?
Spellborn:
Not on release. In Spellborn we want to work out everything in detail. We wouldn’t want underwater combat to be exactly the same as normal combat, but with players floating.
MMORPG.com:
Dyng-Johan asks: TCoS will use FPS style in combat, will a sword swing hit all enemies within the "swing"-radius or only the one in your "aim"?
Spellborn:
Depends on the skill: most hit your main target specifically, others hit multiple.
MMORPG.com:
Wolfsheim asks: Are there status effects like being blinded, confused, charmed, feared, poison, etc?
Spellborn:
Yes, but none take/remove control of your character. Unlike traditional root, stun, fear and polymorph effects, you will always have some control and be fighting back, until you or your target is dead. You might loose combat effectiveness, but it will never be ‘zero’.
MMORPG.com:
scaphism asks: "Is there a way to increase the speed that it takes for your skilldeck to go onto the next level after selecting a skill".
Spellborn:
No, we experimented with it, but eventually it turned out that the entire combat revolved around making your skilldeck rotate faster, which wasn’t what we wanted.
MMORPG.com:
scaphism asks: "will there be non pvp zones for combat or will all areas be open for it."
Spellborn:
There will be separate pvp enabled areas within normal pve areas.
MMORPG.com:
Valdios asks: Is there a opportunity to heal myself during combat (potions, scrolls etc)?
Spellborn:
The pics look great, but the wait now is getting a bit daft. I think the developers are giving the game too much to live upto, we'v seen screen shots of races, class's, moves and pics of the world but we just want to try it ourselves!!
Gamedesign Journal: Combat For Beginners
by El Drijver
Aiming, clicking: check. But the rest?
This document should give quick insight in all things related to spellborn combat.
Please note that this is just an example on how to set-up one’s skilldeck. Players are advised to adapt it at their own discretion.
Organizing Skilldeck
There’s nearly an unlimited amount of possibilities to arrange your skilldeck. There is no ‘best’ arrangement, however, there is a ‘worst’ arrangement. This will be discussed later in the combo section.
The arrangement of your skilldeck is not something you’ll have sorted in 1 minute, especially at high level. It’s a process of finding what works best for your own style. I’ll try to explain some basic strategies in building your deck. For these strategies I’ll assume that all tiers and slots are available. (6 tiers, 5 slots/tier)
Type-arrangement
I think this will be the most used arrangement to start with, since it’s fairly basic to pickup and doesn’t require specific knowledge of every skill. The skilldeck is only viewed in columns, so on any tier, the same can be expected from each slot. In the example below, the player will at all time know that he can go from using slot 1 and 2 to slot 4 when ranged attacks are needed.
A setup could be:
Column 1: Melee
Column 2: Melee, with specialized buffs/debuffs
Column 3: Magic attacks
Column 4: Ranged attacks
Column 5: Healing / Panic
Sequence-arrangement
This arrangement assumes more knowledge of individual skill and also requires more thought. A player can set up to use 1 column for a certain string of attacks, not necessarily combos, for a complete or partial sequence. For example, the first column could contain a melee buff followed by a couple of melee attacks and melee related heals so a player would only have to stick to column 1 for a ‘complete’ package of melee combat.
Of course there are numerous variations, ordering by damage type or maybe even damage amount. It’s up to the player.
Working with combos
Adding combo’s to the skilldeck is also completely up to the player. However, combo openers are the only thing that can really destroy your skilldeck setup. This is because it’s not possible to use a combo opener when you’re already in a combo string. If a single tier consists entirely of combo openers, this will complete block you from doing any skills while the combo is active, since all skills of that tier can’t be executed.
A tip is to put a combo finisher on a diagonal in your skilldeck, that way you always have an optional finisher at your disposal, this is called the “Hesselian diagonal’.
Numbers and factors
States
States are 3 factors, which allow players to add another dimension to their tactics. Correctly manipulating your own as well as your targets’ states will result in a more favorable outcome. The three states are Physique, Morale and Concentration, affecting movement speed, damage output and resistance respectively.
The states start at a default 0 and can be raised as well as lowered, resulting in bonus or penalty for the associated effect.
Affinities
Your magic affinity determines your damage reduction for specific magic types. It’s split up three ways in Rune, Soul and Spirit. Affinity is increased by the attribute associated with it, these are Body, Focus and Mind respectively.
Resistances
Resistance makes up the second part damage reduction players can achieve. It reduces all damage from a certain attack type. These attack types are distinguished as Melee, Ranged and Magic. Resistance is 0 by default, players receive about 2% resistance for every type for drawing their weapon and thus being ‘combat ready’. Resistance can be influenced by skills, sigils, consumables and by the Concentration State, like mentioned above.
Basic Skill Characteristics
Above is part of a screenshot from the skillbook. It displays information about the skill ‘Dance of Blades’. (see attached pic no 1)
Associated Attribute (1 in pic no 1):
In the above case it’s Focus (text is shown on mouse over), this means that the skill benefits from having a high amount of Focus attribute points. The higher the amount, the more damage the skill will do. This is the only effect of the associated attribute on a skill.
Attack Types (2 in pic no 1):
The attack type basically defines what kind of weapon is needed for the attack, Melee, Ranged, or Magic. In case of Magic, no weapon is required. When Disarmed, Melee attacks won’t work, Blind disables Ranged and Silenced disables Magic attacks.
The above attack is a Melee attack, this also means it is reduced by the Melee Resistance of the target.
Magic Type (3 in pic no 1):
This is the Damage type of the skill. It can be Rune, Spirit, Soul or None. In the above screenshot, the magic type is Rune. This means the damage inflicted with this attack is counted as Rune damage. This means it’s reduced by the Rune Affinity of the target (as well as the Melee Resistance.)
Cooldown (4 in pic no 1):
This is the cooldown time (in seconds) of the skill before it can be re-used.
Choosing attribute points
Choosing which attribute points to increase when leveling up is fairly free as well. Much can be said for different strategies. The most basic one is to choose the attribute which most of your attacks are related to. Simply open your skillbook and check what the majority of your skills are associated with.
If you check the screenshot below, you can clearly see that ‘Focus’ is the main attribute for this class to pick at this moment, with Body coming in as secondary.
That’s it for this “Combat for Beginners” Article !
See you next time !
P.S. Please do not mind the quality of the screenshots, it got messed up somewhere down the line of editing.
TCoS Project Update!
THURSDAY, 10TH OF APRIL 2008 :: POSTED BY *MIRAGE* :
Hello Community members !
Today, we would like to share an important update with you about The Chronicles of Spellborn.
After we attended the GDC in San Francisco, TCoS and Frogster have been in contact with different parties regarding the distribution of Spellborn in the USA.
Recently, one major MMOG publisher has signed a letter of intent as a potential partner for the release of The Chronicles of Spellborn in the USA, assuming a time of six months so that Spellborn can be successfully introduced to the US public.
Frogster and we, TCoS Devs, decided to use this extra time to improve our server architecture as well as apply further polish and balancing.
Thanks to this additional development time, we will make sure that the flow of the gameplay and the performance correspond to the high quality expectations for the game even with high numbers of players.
The launch of Spellborn is now estimated to take place in Autumn 2008, simultaneously in Europe and in the USA.
Our current Beta planning remains the same, and our tester pool has been increased by one hundred community members recently, ramping up towards bigger numbers as more testing needs arise.
To conclude, we will make sure to reveal the USA partner as soon as a final deal is signed, but in the meantime, keep on being active and helpful to the community, for it’s your best chance to participate in the Beta test and make Spellborn an even better game!
lol another 6 months, i don't think this game will ever reach release tbh,
it's been in dev for like 4 years :S
shame, it looked quite good, i cba waiting no more.
and 2moons looks better graphically to that at the moment.
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