The folks at The Chronicles of Spellborn have announced details of several changes to their game, including the addition of PvP servers.

During the Games Convention in Leipzig, the Dutch developer already informed media representatives about some changes in specific gameplay features of The Chronicles of Spellborn. The ambitious fantasy online-roleplaying game will be released with two different ruleset types of servers. Besides previously announced PvE Servers, Spellborn NV has now decided to also provide special PvP servers to make Player-versus-Player combat an integral part of the game. Moreover the developer will significantly increase the amount of fame rewarded by killing hostile humanoid or animal NPCs and renamed the sub-class “Furyhammer” as “Adept” .

On the PvP servers, all regions will be enabled for PvP at the exception of Hawksmouth, Aldenvault (being the starting areas) and the major cities. An extension of that PvP immunity to villages will be subject to feedback from the current closed beta tests. Spellborn NV has already implemented a PvP cave in Aldenvault for all types of servers, purely designed for PvP, where players can engage in fights at low level. Other caves and mines where players can gather resources will remain PvP and free-for-all areas for both PvP and PvE flagged servers as well. Generally, the final PvP rules are currently tested on the beta servers and will be adjusted depending on the feedback from the beta community.

Another change has been concluded concerning “fame”, also known as “experience” in other MMOs. Most of the fame is rewarded by questing in Spellborn, but killing mobs can also grant players some points. The developers decided to increase the amount of fame rewarded by killing mobs significantly. In the previous state, fame given by mobs was very low. It is still considerably lower than the amount given by quests, but now, it’s possible to gain the missing points to level up in a shorter amount of time. Moreover, if players help a friend with quests, they will now have an additional reward besides loot. It is possible to level up from 1 to 50 by killing mobs, but quests still reward the player with lot more fame and thus, remains the best and fastest way to develop the character in The Chronicles of Spellborn.

Another change relates to the warrior sub-class named “Furyhammer”. Throughout the development process, this discipline underwent several changes in its Lore and related game mechanics, which in the end did not match the general feel and lore of the class anymore. To rectify it, Furyhammer’s name was replaced by the able, agile warrior sub-class called “Adept”. Players will find many more information about these changes online after the relaunch of the official website in the course of September.

Read more here.

Sounds good overall. Interested to see how it all turns out.

I thought the game was finished and they were just polishing now??

1. Nailing down which areas will be contested

2. Tuning the rate that fame "experience" is earned

3. Renaming a Class so it fit better with Lore and the implemented mechanics.

Sounds a lot like polishing to me.

Originally posted by hades302

1. Nailing down which areas will be contested

2. Tuning the rate that fame "experience" is earned

3. Renaming a Class so it fit better with Lore and the implemented mechanics.

Sounds a lot like polishing to me.

"Spellborn NV has now decided to also provide special PvP servers to make Player-versus-Player combat an integral part of the game."

Adding a new ruleset and server type, in order to make an afterthought an "integral part of the game" is not polishing, no matter how you phrase it.
 

Never thought I'd say this; but WoW really ruined the chance of us getting a game where the main focus was PvE.

Spellborn looked interesting long time ago but when it turned out to be totally carebear I gave up following it. If it's really FFA PvP I may actually give it a try, thumbs up for the new devs, whoever they are now (seemed like the ownership changed twice or thrice already...)

Did they remove all the instancing?

Originally it was supposed to have just a little bit of instancing but then they flipflopped and went instancing crazy. They then announced it would have lots of instancing.

I gave up on this game once that was announced, but if they decide to remove all the crappy instancing, I would reconsider.

Originally posted by wumptrooper

Spellborn looked interesting long time ago but when it turned out to be totally carebear I gave up following it. If it's really FFA PvP I may actually give it a try, thumbs up for the new devs, whoever they are now (seemed like the ownership changed twice or thrice already...)

what the hell are you talking about? The owners are still the same, called Spellborn International Ltd.

But they did split off from Khaeon Games but in the end they are the same people, it's more a legal issue i think in case the game goes wrong they can still go on under Khaeon Games and make other stuff.

It's the same with the people behind the Hitman games, They brought out those games under the company IO Interactive, but in face that is a daughter company of another company.

Originally posted by RedwoodSap

Did they remove all the instancing?

Originally it was supposed to have just a little bit of instancing but then they flipflopped and went instancing crazy. They then announced it would have lots of instancing.

I gave up on this game once that was announced, but if they decide to remove all the crappy instancing, I would reconsider.

the game will be less instanced normally because they made some adjustments to their hardware. You will still not have free roaming like World of Warcraft, but it won't be instanced like Guild Wars or so. You can run with several hundred players in the same zone. The game will only make a new instance of the zone if the population gets too high to prevent overcrowding :)

I kind of shudder when they add pvp into a game at a late stage of development.   Pvp usually does not work well when it is an afterthought at the start of design.

Just have to wait and see how it unfolds.

Originally posted by Ciredric

I kind of shudder when they add pvp into a game at a late stage of development.   Pvp usually does not work well when it is an afterthought at the start of design.

Just have to wait and see how it unfolds.

Yup. Anything that requires it's own mechanics should not be considered an afterthought.

Originally posted by L0k1-

the game will be less instanced normally because they made some adjustments to their hardware. You will still not have free roaming like World of Warcraft, but it won't be instanced like Guild Wars or so. You can run with several hundred players in the same zone. The game will only make a new instance of the zone if the population gets too high to prevent overcrowding :)

I can only hope this is a joke? It will be AoC all over again *sigh*

Originally posted by Ciredric

I kind of shudder when they add pvp into a game at a late stage of development.   Pvp usually does not work well when it is an afterthought at the start of design.

Just have to wait and see how it unfolds.

I agree. Adding this at the last moment might start the dreaded endless 'class balancing'. Nerf after Nerf after Nerf, because of pvp crying.

The game has always benn designed with pvp in mind . If you read the artical you would see its just nailing down the server rulesets which i believe Warhammer only done that a week ago.

Who says that they aren't testing FFA PvP a long time in beta?

Assumptions, assumptions...

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