Today, we kick off a multi-week series of features from the folks over at The Chronicles of Spellborn. This first developer journal is from Chris Nengerman who is the Lead Game Designer for The Chronicles of Spellborn.

Hi, my name is Chris Nengerman and I am Lead Game Designer for The Chronicles of Spellborn. Over the coming weeks I would like to tell you about the process of game design. To give you a broad insight on how the Spellborn team is working, we will take a step by step tour through the design process of the Green District zone and the connected instanced dungeon called the Citadel of Ail. During this tour you will discover all about creation of lore and how it translates to actual locations. We will also take a look at the design of monster encounters and the implementation of quests. In this first episode we take a look at what the original goals were for these areas and how these were translated into actual lore, quest lines and setting descriptions.

You can read the whole journal here.

Originally posted by Hexxeity
I hope these guys hire an editor.  Someone who can string together a grammatical, properly punctuated sentence really needs to look over this guy's material before it makes it into the game.

Originally posted by grndzro
I'm sorry but no matter how hard I try I cannot see TCoS being even close to a release version in time to compete with Conan, WAR, Tabula rasa, or Aion.

The company is way too tight lipped in the way videos, and actual concrete details about gameplay.
Besides...it's being made by a very small company, with a similar budget.

I can't help my opinion that small companies either make unfinished games with unfulfilled promises, or finished games that do not meet expectations.

I agree with you on the fact that they are small and perhaps have a budget to match, but we all gotta start somewhere. There are going to be killir hits this year and but small independant companies are usually the ones to break the mold (though admitedly in very bad ways). I am hoping this game will deliver what its supposed to and im sure if it does it will have a following. Games will always look for something new, and fun and even if most of the people go for AoC and WAR im sure some will look into this just out of interest. |And if its a good game u can expect word of mouth becoming an asset.

Originally posted by grndzro
I'm sorry but no matter how hard I try I cannot see TCoS being even close to a release version in time to compete with Conan, WAR, Tabula rasa, or Aion.

The company is way too tight lipped in the way videos, and actual concrete details about gameplay.
Besides...it's being made by a very small company, with a similar budget.

I can't help my opinion that small companies either make unfinished games with unfulfilled promises, or finished games that do not meet expectations.

Actally TCoS is closer to release then people may think, Open beta starts in the EU this month and planned to go live very soon with the 'big hitters' of Conan and WAR (surpecting an EU first release with that as well) comming out in Q4 it's plenty of time to get a foothold in the EU market, most of the marketing so far as been aimed over here (in EU) as thats their main target (being based over here it's a given), plus it's less likly to flop as it's possibly the only title this year that hasn't been hyped to hell..

Originally posted by rogee14

Originally posted by Hexxeity
I hope these guys hire an editor.  Someone who can string together a grammatical, properly punctuated sentence really needs to look over this guy's material before it makes it into the game.

That's what Beta testers do.

I'm grateful he spent time to even sit down and write this up for our viewing pleasure.

I don't think you understand how time-consuming and inefficient it is to correct errors after they've gone live.

The purpose of beta testers is to find obscure problems missed by the QA team.  Issues that can easily be caught and corrected by a team of ONE should never make it into the game in the first place.

They need to hire an editor.

Originally posted by Hexxeity

Originally posted by rogee14

Originally posted by Hexxeity
I hope these guys hire an editor.  Someone who can string together a grammatical, properly punctuated sentence really needs to look over this guy's material before it makes it into the game.

That's what Beta testers do.

I'm grateful he spent time to even sit down and write this up for our viewing pleasure.

I don't think you understand how time-consuming and inefficient it is to correct errors after they've gone live.

The purpose of beta testers is to find obscure problems missed by the QA team.  Issues that can easily be caught and corrected by a team of ONE should never make it into the game in the first place.

They need to hire an editor.

Originally posted by Hexxeity
And I think I've seen enough terrible writing in games to justify my point of view.

Considering how other companies started, this one is not much different. They write a game that they want to play, because there is none like it. However it does not matter if their team is just a few people, or that they don't have a few million bucks as budget, writing computer games just takes imagination and patience. Besides: No hype, no flop...

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Hexxeity
And I think I've seen enough terrible writing in games to justify my point of view.

But again...

Where does it say that *he* is going to be doing the writing? You're pointing your criticism at the person who wrote the dev. article and expanding it into a litany about poor editing in games...

I'm trying to figure out where you picked up this bread-crumb trail from...

OK, first off, two sentences is hardly a litany.  If you want a litany, I am quite capable of producing one.

And do you really, truly believe that the lead designer will not write one scrap of text that makes it to the player's screen?  I assure you, he will.  Considering the size of the company, I'm betting he's writing a lot of it.

But that's not the only problem I have with this.  Any company that wants to look professional should have every single one of its press releases and articles vetted by someone who knows how to write.  This article was released unedited, and to me that says "unprofessional."

Does this automatically mean the game will be awful?  Of course not.  But it is something I will remember when I'm trying to decide which game to buy next.