Great review! I might give this game a try. Although, I'll wait a few months for them to work out the bugs.

Originally posted by Elikal

A well written review, tho judging from my ealier beta experiences I feel the verdict is a bit overrated. I would not give Spellborn more than 6/10 myself.

For once, I totally and fundamentally HATE kiting, and games having kiting as possibility, and Spellborn goes far beyond that, it encourages kiting. Actually kiting is the only real combat strategy. Forget your skills, just kite around. Usually that will get you along much more than anything else.

The other thing is, you'll love or hate the graphics. They were totally not my thing, which is of course subjective. As bored as I am, I am certainly going to skip that game.

I didn't mind the graphics so much, technically, they could of been better, but artistically and the style, they were great. 

But you nailed the Kiting thing right on. Kind of makes that nifty skilldeck everyone claims is a god-send to combat a mute point. Regardless, tho, the combat system wasn't bad. Ranged attacks are far too common in terms of how much they are used in general throughout your career in killing stuff and really killed the combat system for me. 

I just wish the leveling would of been more than delivery and kill quests. And that the XP rates for quests made more sense, the rates for rewards don't match up at all with the risk involved in half of them. Some of the hardest quests in Ringfell gave virtually no experience compared to one where you just run across the bridges on the trees to the other side of the map to deliver something. I wish it would of been less theme park, more opened ended, but I guess that was just the dev's vision.

It's worth trying out, but the lack of subscriptions isn't just because of the advertising. They lost many, many people who subscribed and played from the beta already. There's no lasting appeal past max level, no replay value. But it's worth checking out, if only to play through it once.

Some minor mistakes made by the reviewer corrected:

This storyline eventually sends you to the Mount of Heroes where you participate in a set of instanced challenges called The Vault trials.

The Vault of Trials is located on a separate shard called Atheneum.

By level cap you will have five slots per deck, and five decks total.

The total number of decks at level cap is six.

Other areas, like the Mount of Heroes, simply float within the Deadspell Storm itself, which appears as beautiful vortex of light.

Atheneum, Exarchyon and Rawhead Landing just float in the Deadspell Storm like that. Mount of Heroes does not. But the author probably never got as far as Mount of Heroes. I doubt he even got beyond Quarterstone and the first two trials in the Atheneum, but then that was probably not his job.

The review was informative but in a factual, boring sort of way. I give it a 6.5.

Originally posted by Delanor

Some minor mistakes made by the reviewer corrected:

This storyline eventually sends you to the Mount of Heroes where you participate in a set of instanced challenges called The Vault trials.

The Vault of Trials is located on a separate shard called Atheneum.

By level cap you will have five slots per deck, and five decks total.

The total number of decks at level cap is six.

Other areas, like the Mount of Heroes, simply float within the Deadspell Storm itself, which appears as beautiful vortex of light.

Atheneum, Exarchyon and Rawhead Landing just float in the Deadspell Storm like that. Mount of Heroes does not. But the author probably never got as far as Mount of Heroes. I doubt he even got beyond Quarterstone and the first two trials in the Atheneum, but then that was probably not his job.

The review was informative but in a factual, boring sort of way. I give it a 6.5.

 

Whoops, sorry about that, I'll have those bits corrected. Got the names confused.

Originally posted by Delanor

But the author probably never got as far as Mount of Heroes. I doubt he even got beyond Quarterstone and the first two trials in the Atheneum, but then that was probably not his job. 

Just out of curiosity, how many reviewers make it even half way to end game content in an initial review?  From my experience they are given a deadline to have the review written (often within a few weeks).  I don't know where any of those places you list fit in the overall game world as I haven't played it.   Overall, you'll be pretty hard pressed to find an initial review out there that covers from starting spot to end game content.  Often follow-ups are added or second looks are done to include new data, if anything is done.

I've tried the game, but couldn't last for more than 1 hour. Feels unfinished and to be honest just doesn't feel like an MMORPG. It feels like my friend made it on the weekend and gave me a chance to try it out...

This is a pretty good review. stunning game both in originality and graphics, but not worth paying for

Hmm, LOTRO is stunning with DirectX 10 on max graphics, Sacred 2 is quite stunning on max, Dawn of War 2 I'd say is quite stunning on Ultra High... Spellborn has 'decent' graphics I 'd say. But when you take in account everything else that decency kinda diminishes.

Am I blind, or did the Spellborn forum get deleted? I'm pretty sure there used to be one. I was going to check it out after reading the review....

Edit: Nevermind, I'm blind. The forum is in the "T" section ("THE Chronicles of the Spellborne").

Originally posted by El_Lion

It's indeed a good game, your pro' and cons are also what I think.

It's sad the servers are so empty ... and with empty I mean empty, I met no-one ...

denial is a river in egypt

I would never suggest that popularity = quality, or Britany Spears would be Mozart.

But in this case, the numbers do indeed....... speak for the product.

Originally posted by cooldevo

Originally posted by Delanor

But the author probably never got as far as Mount of Heroes. I doubt he even got beyond Quarterstone and the first two trials in the Atheneum, but then that was probably not his job. 

 

Just out of curiosity, how many reviewers make it even half way to end game content in an initial review?  From my experience they are given a deadline to have the review written (often within a few weeks).  I don't know where any of those places you list fit in the overall game world as I haven't played it.   Overall, you'll be pretty hard pressed to find an initial review out there that covers from starting spot to end game content.  Often follow-ups are added or second looks are done to include new data, if anything is done.

There are many ways to answer this, but let me begin by saying I never expected the reviewer to get to half way the game. That is what I meant by saying that that was not his job.

Next: it is not stated that this was an initial review. Maybe this should have been stated or explained, but I don't think it was meant to be an initial review, like you say.

Now, the reviewer from what I can tell never saw Ringfell Hearth; the place where the game starts to become more challenging. I would have loved to read the reviewers experience with that rather harsh zone that was not really made to be soloed, but still plenty of people do that and can tell a story or two about it. Maybe it would have made the review come a bit more alive. You can go to Ringfell Hearth at level 14, but level 18 is recommended, which is not even close to half way the game.

Last: I do not claim it is a bad review because of it. I do not even say it is a bad review at all.

Originally posted by Delanor

Originally posted by cooldevo

Originally posted by Delanor

But the author probably never got as far as Mount of Heroes. I doubt he even got beyond Quarterstone and the first two trials in the Atheneum, but then that was probably not his job. 

 

Just out of curiosity, how many reviewers make it even half way to end game content in an initial review?  From my experience they are given a deadline to have the review written (often within a few weeks).  I don't know where any of those places you list fit in the overall game world as I haven't played it.   Overall, you'll be pretty hard pressed to find an initial review out there that covers from starting spot to end game content.  Often follow-ups are added or second looks are done to include new data, if anything is done.

 

There are many ways to answer this, but let me begin by saying I never expected the reviewer to get to half way the game. That is what I meant by saying that that was not his job.

Next: it is not stated that this was an initial review. Maybe this should have been stated or explained, but I don't think it was meant to be an initial review, like you say.

Now, the reviewer from what I can tell never saw Ringfell Hearth; the place where the game starts to become more challenging. I would have loved to read the reviewers experience with that rather harsh zone that was not really made to be soloed, but still plenty of people do that and can tell a story or two about it. Maybe it would have made the review come a bit more alive. You can go to Ringfell Hearth at level 14, but level 18 is recommended, which is not even close to half way the game.

Last: I do not claim it is a bad review because of it. I do not even say it is a bad review at all.

If Ringfell was the big foresty place, then yes, I did that as well. I got to level 20-25 if people are curious. :) The cap is 50, so I guess you can say I got pretty close to halfway through the game. I didn't end up in Ringfell (if thats the place I'm thinking of) until probably 18 or 19.

And yes, that place was pretty rough. :)

I also did not solo the game, I played through everything with a friend.

Hope that helps! :)

I am glad that some find this game enjoyable. I didn't.

I really like this game. I think the one part I really enjoy is that the combat isn't boring point-and-click and less passive than most MMOG.

Also, I found the graphics to be really stylish even if they are running on UE2. Same with the music, really nice.

So I find it a real shame that so few people are playing because this game has the potential to appeal to a slightly different type of MMO player too - as it does a few things quite differently.

I would really urge people to try it... nothing to loose :)

This is deffinately a marmite game. Started playing about a week ago, I will be subbing, loving it so far. Good review.

Ive been playing the free client and seriously considering buying this game, for everyone who loves MMO's but is looking for something different then WoW/WAR/EVE/EQII,..... should try this one. Why? 'Cuz u can try it free for as long as u want (until a certain lvl) , the combat system is innovative, well thought, and most of all fun. The somewhat negative aspects are the quite empty servers (hope they will grow soon) the little bit dated graphics altho the design is very ok and the absence of good PVP. But when the game becomes a succes, these problems will no doubt be solved when the time comes. =)

The game is fun and all.. but its frustrating how some of the bugs is not fixed yet... Like i can not play on the first town Hawkmonth cause as soon as it loads up, it dissconnects me, i tried everything i could think of to fix the problem, even downloaded the maps by themselves but still i can not play the game cause of that problem... no one seems to have a solution either.