Hi Guys over at MMORPG.com

I'm *Mirage* from Spellborn.  

Just wanted to post the announcement I just made on our official boards at www.tcos.com on MMORPG.com TCoS forums to make sure you guys are also aware of it. It's about the Release Date of TCoS in NA, and the fact that Spellborn is NOT a free2play game.

Hi Spellborn Community,

Today, I'd like to address concerns you guys voiced after the press release from Acclaim.

So first, TCoS is NOT a Free2Play game.

There is indeed a Free2Play ZONE, ie the starting area. We, Devs, are still looking into the extent of said area. That means, that you, players, can test the game for free, and then have to go for a regular subscription to continue playing the game and level up your character. No subscription equals to being stuck in free2play zone.

Second, there are NO item malls, there is NO item selling.

To sum up:

You can play the beginning of the game for free. This allows you to see whether you like Spellborn or not. If you do like it (we hope so :)), then you go for a subscription and that's it! Nothing more, nothing less, just go ahead and continue playing.

Rather than offering the usual "14 days trial" or similar, we decided to go for this free2play starting zone. This will allow you more time to get a good feel on the combat system and on the questing, and in general to give a good impression on what Spellborn is all about.

At the end of the day, if you want to have a character and level it, access all the gameplay and zones of the game, you go for the regular subscription.

I repeat, TCoS is NOT FREE2PLAY. There is ONLY a ZONE with Free access. Of course, there will be limitations as in it is not possible to travel and explore ALL the zones of Spellborn with this free account. To explore, level up and continue beyond the starting area, a subscription is needed.

The Free2Play zone is nothing more than a trial period, which you already know from many other MMOs out there. We simply assume that Spellborn would gain more attention by offering such model, in comparison to the 14 days trial, and would give you more time to become familiar with the combat system and gameplay, without the concern of loosing days of play because of RL events/work/etc, preventing you from playing. I think it's even more fair for you guys.

Same system will apply to European version, but we'll come back to you with all details on that later.

Hope this alleviates all your concerns.

 Sorry for all the panic the Press release might have caused to you guys. I hope you have now a clearer picture on where we stand and want to go with Spellborn and this subscription model

-*Mirage* vanishes in a puff of smoke-

I'm glad an official post was made to address people's concerns. We wouldn't want to lose players because of false assumptions. Hopefully the disbelievers (infidels!!!) will have a little more faith from now on!!

Just noticed I forgot to also add the link to the official announcement thread on TCoS forums

www.tcos.com/sbforum/viewtopic.php

Nonono, are you sure you have watched enough ninja-movies Mirage? You can't reappear so shortly after vanishing in a puff of smoke. It ruins the drama.

Ahh good good!
 

got alil nervous there for abit tbh..the one game ive wanted to play more than any other , i would have cried if it went f2p..this really made my day lol

Hmmmm, this goes against Acclaims business model which is F2P for ALL their games.  Makes me wonder if Mirage works for the Devs of Spellborn or if this person is just trying to screw with us.

"About Acclaim Games Inc.
Acclaim is a revolutionary company with a familiar name. Three years and 7 million registered users ago, former Activision CEO Howard Marks purchased the Acclaim name looking to revive one of the video game industry’s former giants. With the help of renowned game director David Perry, Marks succeeded. Today, Acclaim offers some of the finest in multiplayer online gaming while using a new, free to play business model. Acclaim strives to offer its users a fun, community-oriented experience with a selection of titles ranging from casual browser games to hardcore MMOs. To learn more, visit www.acclaim.com."
 

SO if the game only has a F2P area but its P2P to exit the free area then it goes against Acclaims business model.

What if their business model has been changed to meet Spellborn gameplay ?

That's exactly what Acclaim does for Spellborn.

And no, I'm not screwing with you, I am _really_ working for Spellborn...

Originally posted by Guintu

Hmmmm, this goes against Acclaims business model which is F2P for ALL their games.  Makes me wonder if Mirage works for the Devs of Spellborn or if this person is just trying to screw with us.

"About Acclaim Games Inc.
Acclaim is a revolutionary company with a familiar name. Three years and 7 million registered users ago, former Activision CEO Howard Marks purchased the Acclaim name looking to revive one of the video game industry’s former giants. With the help of renowned game director David Perry, Marks succeeded. Today, Acclaim offers some of the finest in multiplayer online gaming while using a new, free to play business model. Acclaim strives to offer its users a fun, community-oriented experience with a selection of titles ranging from casual browser games to hardcore MMOs. To learn more, visit www.acclaim.com."
 

SO if the game only has a F2P area but its P2P to exit the free area then it goes against Acclaims business model.

Ya know...sometimes businesses do change their policy to accomidate new forms of business.  Not like their business model changing is against all laws of nature or something. If you have a problem with them having a sub based game perhaps you should take them to court for breaking their own policy? Perhaps they just wanted to be able to accomidate ppl who want F2P n P2P games?

WHy was the term _free to play" used at all, then? Would it not have saved a lot of confusion to just say "trial" like every other game out there?

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

WHy was the term _free to play" used at all, then? Would it not have saved a lot of confusion to just say "trial" like every other game out there?

 

Ah trial usually means a couple of days playtime. Here you can stay as long as you want in the starter zone, try all the possible races/classes.. have a vacaction of 3 months, come back and they still are there.

A good way to make spellborn accomodate P2P would be to allow people to pay for gametime with acclaim points. Let's say a few thousand acclaim points can be converted into a month of playtime for spellborn.

I mean, there are ways to get free acclaim points/coins/whatever by doing surveys. It would just take you forever to make a few thousands points through the surveys.

But it'd be a good idea. A few days, weeks, whatever could amount to free playtime. And most likely people will just go buy acclaim points instead of doing the free surveys..

Originally posted by junglebeast

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

WHy was the term _free to play" used at all, then? Would it not have saved a lot of confusion to just say "trial" like every other game out there?

 

 

Ah trial usually means a couple of days playtime. Here you can stay as long as you want in the starter zone, try all the possible races/classes.. have a vacaction of 3 months, come back and they still are there.

No, considering Ryzom has had the same unlimited trial for a long time. Trial means try, free-to-play means free-to-play. It's not a hard distinction, and they should have chosen their marketing language to suit what they meant from the beginning.

Originally posted by junglebeast

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

WHy was the term _free to play" used at all, then? Would it not have saved a lot of confusion to just say "trial" like every other game out there?

 

 

Ah trial usually means a couple of days playtime. Here you can stay as long as you want in the starter zone, try all the possible races/classes.. have a vacaction of 3 months, come back and they still are there.

Eh, that depends on the MMO and how long they set the trial for. Depending on the time available, I can get pretty far in just a month, so at 14 days I could get to a decent point in the game.

To me, this kind of thing reminds me of AoC and its Tutorial Island. It was to help you get used to the game and such, and was the most polished area of the game. Seeing them having a "Starting area" for players to access for free... well, reminds of that. A very polished area to lure people into paying for the game, only to get screwed later on because this first area painted rainbows and gold over a pile of crap.

I'll take a timed trial over some prettied up "Trial" Island any day :P

At least then I can see how the game is later on.

Besides, Acclaim's MMOs havent really impressed me, I've tried their free-2-play ones and they didnt offer anything different from any other F2P MMO made in Asia

Yeah I know lots of games have these 'islands' now, trying the Vanguard one out atm. Also to see if my system can handle the unreal 2 engine.

But I don't think it will work in TCOS like that. It kinda depends if the 2 races have their own separate starter area or not. If you choose 1 race you might go to that city and enter the newbie area's till level 10 or so. If you want to lets say travel to the 11-15 zone you gotta subscribe. I hope I won't be wrong about this one. WoW also uses a system like this, however in WoW you can' travel to anywhere you like, but can't level past 20 and can't use the auctionhouse and trade/mail or something like that. It's been a while since I was in trial. But we all know you still able to whisper people and the goldspammers made good use of that.

But yeah lets not hope for a shiny all buffed up island.. we want to mingle between the paying customers too..

I knew this game should not be Free 2 play Hehe ;)

Originally posted by *Mirage*

Just noticed I forgot to also add the link to the official announcement thread on TCoS forums

www.tcos.com/sbforum/viewtopic.php

 

 

Or indeed a link where they can hear it from your own lips Mirage. /wave

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/207/view/videos/play/1275

Originally posted by Guintu

Hmmmm, this goes against Acclaims business model which is F2P for ALL their games.  Makes me wonder if Mirage works for the Devs of Spellborn or if this person is just trying to screw with us.

"About Acclaim Games Inc.
Acclaim is a revolutionary company with a familiar name. Three years and 7 million registered users ago, former Activision CEO Howard Marks purchased the Acclaim name looking to revive one of the video game industry’s former giants. With the help of renowned game director David Perry, Marks succeeded. Today, Acclaim offers some of the finest in multiplayer online gaming while using a new, free to play business model. Acclaim strives to offer its users a fun, community-oriented experience with a selection of titles ranging from casual browser games to hardcore MMOs. To learn more, visit www.acclaim.com."
 

SO if the game only has a F2P area but its P2P to exit the free area then it goes against Acclaims business model.

Just an FYI, he is the RP manager of The Chronicles of Spellborn, as his signature states . Just glance at their website and you find your proof if you do not believe me. I post on their forums and part of the community.

I think the unlimited trail Island is great.

I am a casual player and most of the time when I run those 14 day trails I can only play like 10-15 hours In that time.

With the unlimited trial I can take as long as I like to play test every race/class in the game before I decide to pay for a subscription.

Edit: I recently tried the 10+ day DDO trial and due to RL restriction only played about three hours ( not nearly long enough to give the game a solid try). So I welcome the trial Island.

What are these other "Free 2 Play" games made by Acclaim? I wasn't aware they made any MMOs or online games...

Honestly, I'm suprised Acclaim is even still around. Where have they been the last few years? The last time I played anything made by acclaim was probably 10 years ago before I stopped playing SNES games.

Acclaim doesn't make any mmorpg's. They have a the rights to a couple of asian F2P games for the NA market.

So its got a free2play area , great idea btw  but do i have to buy the game to get access to this F2P area ?

Originally posted by Lukain

So its got a free2play area , great idea btw  but do i have to buy the game to get access to this F2P area ? 

This is a good question. I would suspect the anwser is no, but if we can get access without buying does that mean we can download the game for free? And if so do we then have to buy it after we subscribe?

As for Acclaim and their faulty press release, I'm not suprised they boned it up. Chances are that nobody at Acclaim even knows what the hell "Free 2 Play" means or how an MMO works. Like most giant publishers they probably employ 50 press release writers and no gamers. Ubisoft has the same problem...

You should not have to pay for a trial , they could easy make a version of the game which just has the trial island in it availible for free DL , then if you like it you pay to get the complete game , I know i will not be paying $50 to play a trial

If you think about it you would have to asume the trial island will be a free DL , because if you have to buy the game why do you need a trial  when you get a free month for buying the game in the first place..

Yeah, that would be the RIGHT way for them to do it if they wanted to treat their customers with some trust and respect.

But when have you ever known an MMO developer to treat anybody with anything that even remotely resembles trust or respect?