Originally posted by hidden1

Originally posted by toord

Originally posted by Zeblade

 Though I didnt know there was no bank or AH ..

 

O.o ... neither did I. I guess they didn't want to worry about designing the game around the "economy". Though sometimes the economy of a game adds another dimension that players can delve in. For instance, if you get a super rare loot drop (sigil) but your character can't use it (or has no use for it), what do yo do? there's no AH where to sell it I guess you could sell it to NPCs or spam zone chat with "WTS such-and-such sigil. PST"?

Peace.

 

i usually just give it away to party members or people that have been cool w/ me in a game... if they can use it, why not help out rather than just selling it to npc

I gues you posted this right after posted my response to lydon's about giving away stuff. :D

Originally posted by Arawon

Stealth seems to be the primary feature of the game(sarcasm off).

Lame.

I also registered by proxy. I have played every subclass except Bloodwarrior to 7+.  I have my favorites for sure and do think the game is very fun and quite polished for a new release. Hopefully it survives long enough to flesh out. My biggest concern is that I remember reading that US release was slated for Jan. 9, 2009. I have yet to hear a peep from Acclaim/Spellborn NV. My concern is on the 8th hearing about a push back to release. At this point some information would be better than total silence. One might think there would be some inkling of a voice about the expectation of release from Acclaim or Spellborn NV?

Also, I have been on recently and I do usually see some people on the Int'l server depending upon the time I get on. I have not seen much population lately and hope it is mostly my time zone and/or a combination of that and people that out grew the starter areas. West coast USA is eight hours behind.

I hope I can buy/play on the 9th. I am more than ready. I hope that some people will give it a try even though you may not be able to play with your friends due to IP block issues. You can at least get a good taste to see if you like it for FREE. It never hurts to make more friends!

Things I would like to hear:  

Someone to confirm that there is a decent current population.

Something about NA release.

Will NA box purchases get 90 days free?

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by Arawon

Stealth seems to be the primary feature of the game(sarcasm off).

Lame.

I actually thought it was pretty good.  The lack of marketing and no US announced release date (especially for one that's supposed to be this month???) makes it appear as though they are trying to keep SpellBorn under the radar.

The funny thing is that after playing in the beta...  I'm not supposed to play the real game...   That's a big can of WTF.

The TCOS community was this big thing that didn't take into account your reigion and was impossible to think of someone as a frenchie/swede/whatever when you were on the forums.   The distribution deal is utter bullcrock.

The real shame with this game, is that its not going to work as a P2P game. There are simply better, mor polished games out there that offer better things. Add that to the poor economy and the recession/depression that the US is currently in and you have a game that will end up dead before it even hits the US.  No jobs for people, means no money for games, especially a P2P game that has no advertising, no WoM, and no future under Acclaim.

Acclaim is the publisher of F2P games with item malls. To take this thing under their wing is just plain out of left field. It looks, nice, and the features sound good. But with the other Big 3 P2P games fighting for supremacy in the US (WoW, WAR, AoC), this game does not stand a chance.

Best bet is to make it F2P with an item mall. It might survive, then again, maybe not.

Each new bit of information I read about TCoS makes me less and less hopeful it has any chance of succeeding at all.

ARRRRG N.A. here i reallly reallly want to try this game, it looks like a questers/adventures delight.

Originally posted by boognish75

ARRRRG N.A. here i reallly reallly want to try this game, it looks like a questers/adventures delight.

You can try just use a proxy to verify your email address.

Originally posted by toord

Originally posted by Zeblade

 Though I didnt know there was no bank or AH ..

 

O.o ... neither did I. I guess they didn't want to worry about designing the game around the "economy". Though sometimes the economy of a game adds another dimension that players can delve in. For instance, if you get a super rare loot drop (sigil) but your character can't use it (or has no use for it), what do yo do? there's no AH where to sell it I guess you could sell it to NPCs or spam zone chat with "WTS such-and-such sigil. PST"?

Peace.

Having been in the beta, the backpack itself is rather large. It was 150 or 200 slots perhaps. Unless you hold onto every possible crafting drop, you'll have plenty of room for regular items and sigils. You could also mail items to an alt/mule if space gets tight.

I would hope they add an AH and bank sometime soon though. Those are pretty standard in MMOs now.

Originally posted by ninjajucer

The real shame with this game, is that its not going to work as a P2P game. There are simply better, mor polished games out there that offer better things. 

There are very few games that were so polished at release. Maybe games that have been out for a few years already, but for a game that is brand new it is much better than the majority of what has been churned out lately. 

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by toord 

Great link, Delanor. Obviously not from a basher, but not from a Fanboi either.

This is the issue with lydon's POV above, the test launch probably hurt them more than help. If you do things 1/2-ass'd you are setting yourself up for trouble. Not a merit or dismerit of the game itself, but definitely it tarnishes Spellborn NV image as an effective developer. They CHOSE, I repeat, CHOSE the way the distribution was gonna work and anyone choosing distribution in such way simply lacks the vision and knowledge to carry on a successful MMO. Additionally, I'd say, by far the vast majority of players don't have a proxy server they can readily use for testing a game nor they want to fork more money to do so. As a counter example I say we look at WAR (I don't play that game, btw) but their launch was flawless (with a few hiccups here and there) considering the gigantic number of people with beta and preview access and with millions of copies pre-sold. Again, the game itself is pretty boring, IMO, but as far as the launch is concerned I don't you can do any better.

Peace.

I completely agree with the fact that the launch hurt them...but I don't think that's merit enough to write off the game. They've delivered what's they promised and had a hiccup at launch, which is far more than most MMO companies can say these days.

P.S. The only IP-blocked part in the process is the account creation stage, therefore signing up for an account and confirming one's email address via a website such as www.gingerproxy.com is all that's needed. The actual client itself incorporates no blocking. They also accept credit cards from anywhere in the world.

We (2 from the UK, 1 from Greece and Dutch me) wont play this game, even though we were looking forward to it. We simply dont want to support this kind of community dividing with our wallets.

Where we are only with the 4 of us and a proxy wouldnt prove a problem with us technically, a friend of us has a larger international guild and they wont buy it either. His argument was, that a proxy might work, but is not intended by the distributors, so you dont know what they can change in the future to prevent this. Apart from this, some guildies are not that smart with computers and dont like trying this kind of workaround.

We will skip this game now and went sci-fi :p Back to AO and waiting for Earthrise

its really strange

the games i visited prior to TCoS were either overloaded with bugs/ problems at launch a la aoc or bored me rather fast like war.

here is this really loveable game (i play it on a german since release) it was rather polished at launch and the devs spoil us with weekly patches and content updates yet it seems they hurt themselves so much with that publishing deal.

i so hope it doesnt go the tabula rasa road (into oblivion)  but rather the direction of eve (slow developement)

I must admit to have never taken much interest in this release.  I normally follow news of all mmo's on mmorpg.com.

This weird splitting up from countries is indeed odd, normally because an MMO in the spot light is usually released America side first.

But what is the game like?  Is there something that makes it stand out from the rest.  If its a typical MMO then I agree, I cant see it going very far.  A lot of people say that the game deserves more players, but there must be more reasons other than "the devs have done a good job"

Just because a game is "as intended" doesnt mean the intention is correct.

Originally posted by sadeyx

I must admit to have never taken much interest in this release.  I normally follow news of all mmo's on mmorpg.com.

This weird splitting up from countries is indeed odd, normally because an MMO in the spot light is usually released America side first.

 

But what is the game like?  Is there something that makes it stand out from the rest.  If its a typical MMO then I agree, I cant see it going very far.  A lot of people say that the game deserves more players, but there must be more reasons other than "the devs have done a good job"

Just because a game is "as intended" doesnt mean the intention is correct.

The game itself is very polished and fun to play. The quests are pretty fun too. Not holding your hand, you are forced to read the text and most of the time trying to figure and puzzle out clues.

Ofcourse you got it mixed with standard fedex and kill quests. But still it's refreshing with a mix of deeper and more intelligent quests that actually challenge your brain.

Combat and skill deck system needs some adaptation time to get used to. It can be a bit annoying in the beginning, because it's so different. So it takes some time to adapt.

Being able to wear what you want and improve your gear with Sigils instead is also a nice feature and different from the standard mold.

The whole problem is the lack of players. It kills the immersion and MMORPG feel at the moment.

Not to mention that this game has PVP areas (or PVP as whole on the PVP tagged server), but doesn't real come to fruitation, because you have no one to fight with.

This publishing deal has hurt them a lot and with some real bad luck it might be their downfal. Especially Acclaim now not doing them any favors either, instead hurting them even more!

The whole TCOS community, wich was pretty great and took years to build up, has litterly being shattered to pieces with this dramatic publishing deal with IP blocks! The big riot on the old forums after the announcements proving that! Nothing is left from the community!

So at this moment I don't know. I just stopped playing for a while, not bothering to subscribe, as I hardly encountered anyone... it just became boring. And with a great deal of group quests it became frustrated as well.

A real shame, but Spellborn NV killed their own game with these stupid deals and seeing their last reaction on their forums (wich are pretty much dead as well) they have no plans to lift the IP bans nor change anything.

Wich sounds pretty much a company suicide to me really. 

Cheers

A real shame, but Spellborn NV killed their own game with these stupid deals and seeing their last reaction on their forums (wich are pretty much dead as well) they have no plans to lift the IP bans nor change anything.

Wich sounds pretty much a company suicide to me really. 

Cheers

Hubris and greed from Spellborn NV. And I agree, the forums are pretty much dead now (which is a symptom of  an unhappy community, which never bodes well with an MMO).

My main reason for liking MMO's is they are supposed to be MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER. When I play an MMO the people on it before I go to work  are from different places compared to who is on after I get home from work.

I like socializing with people from all over the world. That, combined with a good game, is what I look for in an MMO.  So in this game I can only talk to other Americans and the UK? No thanks, I won't even bother trying it.

Trouble is though, MMO's in europe are never as popular as they are in america.   some MMO's dont even release an EU version, and if they do there are usually half as many servers.

so Maybe when an american version is released it will have the players to make it worth while.

But even then, the graphics from what ive seen look very drab, dusty and old.  Not so much the technical aspect of the graphics but more the style, the colours.  

I know that a 'realisitic & atmospheric' style is often looked for but if im spending 5 hours a day on an mmo I dont want it to look like a rainy day.

Originally posted by sadeyx 

But even then, the graphics from what ive seen look very drab, dusty and old.  Not so much the technical aspect of the graphics but more the style, the colours.  

I completely disagree. Spellborn has one of the most "wow factor" art styles I've seen yet. It's big and it's bold. The colours perfectly fit the setting.

Originally posted by sadeyx

Trouble is though, MMO's in europe are never as popular as they are in america.   some MMO's dont even release an EU version, and if they do there are usually half as many servers.

so Maybe when an american version is released it will have the players to make it worth while.

 

That's utter bullshit man. Just have a look at WoW here in EU and how many servers there are!

UK, Germany and Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland) are huge gaming countries here in Europe and France is now catching up quite a bit as well.

Especially Germany has always been one of the biggest gaming countries, with UK being a close second.

The reason that in most MMO's there are less EU servers is:

1. Bad quality EU publishers (delays in patching, communication issues, sometimes poor customer support)

2. Poor marketing here in EU

3. Lot of EU players prefer to play on US servers (mostly because of point 1 and 2)

You US people think you are best in everything and rule in everything, but reality is quite different my friend.

In Professional gaming it's even mostly European gamers that rule the Top Rankings. 

Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel is from Holland and he is a 12-time World champion in Professional Gaming.

So go figure!

Cheers

Wow, rant much? You can't seriously be taking the largest Western MMO and be using that as an example to make your point? 

Originally posted by Lydon

Wow, rant much? You can't seriously be taking the largest Western MMO and be using that as an example to make your point? 

If you actually read my post, then I proved my point further.

Warhammer Online had more servers in EU at launch (and filled). Simply because Games Workshop is from UK and thus European and has his largest Warhammer fanbase here in Europe.

That GOA screwed up bad.... well... that's another matter. See point 1 in my previous post.

Cheers

Originally posted by Guillermo197 

If you actually read my post, then I proved my point further.

Warhammer Online had more servers in EU at launch (and filled). Simply because Games Workshop is from UK and thus European and has his largest Warhammer fanbase here in Europe.

That GOA screwed up bad.... well... that's another matter. See point 1 in my previous post.

Cheers

That's hardly reason to use WAR as an example either. How many EU servers does WoW have compared to NA servers for starters? Why are the European districts in Guild Wars nowhere near as teeming as the NA versions?

I've played many MMOs, and my country is considered part of the EU when it comes to gaming, meaning we're usually forced to play with the EU guys. I've since started buying the NA copy of MMOs in order to have more people to play with. And so far my plan has worked very well.

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by Guillermo197 

If you actually read my post, then I proved my point further.

Warhammer Online had more servers in EU at launch (and filled). Simply because Games Workshop is from UK and thus European and has his largest Warhammer fanbase here in Europe.

That GOA screwed up bad.... well... that's another matter. See point 1 in my previous post.

Cheers

That's hardly reason to use WAR as an example either. How many EU servers does WoW have compared to NA servers for starters? Why are the European districts in Guild Wars nowhere near as teeming as the NA versions?

I've played many MMOs, and my country is considered part of the EU when it comes to gaming, meaning we're usually forced to play with the EU guys. I've since started buying the NA copy of MMOs in order to have more people to play with. And so far my plan has worked very well.

It all comes down to Marketing.

All MMO's that have been marketed really well (like WoW, AoC, WAR, LOTRO) have sold really good here in Europe and have many servers with good populations (except for the publishers or studios itself screwing up, like Funcom and GOA).

Prime example of MMO's doing bad here in Europe are games from SOE. Why? Because SOE has never bothered to actually market their products here in Europe at all. You have to go through great lenghts to get a physical box from a SOE game here in Europe and usually forced to order from a US site.

NCSoft has a EU division, yet this division does a very poor job at marketing their games here in Europe as well. They mostly busy with localisation (like french and german) and that's it.

So what I was trying to say is that US isn't a bigger and larger gaming territory then Europe.

You got more MMO Gaming Studios granted... and thus a lot of games publish in US first in general.

But that doesn't mean you US people are some kind of superior and bigger then us. Like I pretty much proved in my first post.

EA for example and other big publishers for console and other genre PC games market their products really good here in Europe and they sell like crazy. Sometimes far more then in US.

So it's all a matter of perspective.

And that Cronicles of Spellborn is doing so pisspoor here in Europe at the moment, is because it's only launched in the German language countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), France, Holland and Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland).

Add to that, that the game hasn't been marketed at all! Physical game boxes being only available in Germany, because Mindscape screwed up so bad! (still haven't seen a single box of TCOS in any of the Gamestop stores here in Oslo, Norway).

Then it's no suprise really that the game is doing so bad!

And if Acclaim is going to screw up too, doesn't do a single thing about marketing ... then the game will fail in US and UK and other EU countries as well.

And if you like it or not. These stupid publisher deals with idiotic IP bans has pretty much killed off the whole TCOS community in one breath!

Cheers

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by sadeyx 

But even then, the graphics from what ive seen look very drab, dusty and old.  Not so much the technical aspect of the graphics but more the style, the colours.  

I completely disagree. Spellborn has one of the most "wow factor" art styles I've seen yet. It's big and it's bold. The colours perfectly fit the setting.

oh okay,  well screenshots never do a game justice so I'll put aside my predudice for now.