it's still a great game and the community is very nice but the population is to low for a success.All new features added with patches were created for many people.But in this game there aren't many people (don't know really why) so the features have no sin :(

i can't agree with people who say that the quests are boring or the game is too difficult.It isn't.there are a lot of funny quests too.and with a bit skill you can play this game solo.the battlesystem is the best i've ever seen.PvP is great too.

only the marketing is bad.too many servers for a few players,No advertisement and no support.There are many bugs ingame but only one patch per month.That can't work.

It's a wonderful an innovative mmorpg with an incompetent publisher and developer....

i dont have much kindness towards any of this game's publishers, whether its acclaim or frogster or mindscape, they're all dropping the ball.   

what frustrates me is that none of the three publishers seem to be trying to capture the attention of what seems like a large number of MMO gamers out there who are dissatisfied with WoW-like mechanics in a game.  read any board here on mmorpg.com and the anti-WoW sentiment is just about everywhere.   

spellborn - on paper - has just about everything going for it:  compelling game world, fun combat, strategy based skill deck building, a lack of being forced to hunt for gears, the ability to dress your character exactly how you want at any level, wonderful music, etc... 

it boggles my mind that the three publishers responsible for monetizing this game cant figure out how to do it. 

realistically, no.  spellborn is not for everyone.  but from the forums i read, and the general sense of discontent with the same-old that we've been treated to for the last few years, i cant imagine why spellborn isn't a very strong, healthy, niche game by now.  CCP has shown that niche games can thrive and pay the bills.  niche games can make money. 

i mean, its there.  its free, ffs.  its fun.  and yet when i started talking about it to MMO-playing friends just a month ago, only 1 of 17 had ever heard of it.  (and that one loves WoW very much and hated spellborn's combat the moment he tried to hit his first boar...) 

put the game on steam.  charge $15 and throw in the first month.  there are a lot of FPS gamers on steam who would enjoy what spellborn has to offer.  start up a blunt "its not WoW." web-ad campaign on MMO-centric sites.  hell, reach out to game-bloggers.  set them up with accounts and let them give it a go.  anything to get word of mouth going... 

(sorry for the rant at the end.  one of my biggest peeves is wasting potential.)

The biggest problem is that there isn't enough to do.

PVP - what PVP? They finally opened one Arena. But it's just dueling now. The whole Arena ladder system is still not in place.

The high houses have also been poorly implemented and hardly really fleshed out enough to make good use of it to create incentive to PVP.

They were aiming at making crafting resources only available in PVP zones. Yet, the poor crafting implementation in wich hardly anyone bothers kills this last bit of incentive too.

 So basically there is still no incentive to PVP atm.

PVE -  What PVE? So far they only added one Dungeon. All the others mentioned in early development still haven't been added.

And with no gear grind.... no real crafting, no incentive for PVP, only one dungeon....

What is there to do in this game?

That is root to this problem, that they didn't manage to get this game into a finished state at release.

And that is now going to be the downfal of this game. As they still need to do so much. It's going to take far far too long to get all that is still needed into the game within time, before litterly no one is left anymore. And that is a real shame.

Cheers

Originally posted by Guillermo197

The biggest problem is that there isn't enough to do.

PVP - what PVP? They finally opened one Arena. But it's just dueling now. The whole Arena ladder system is still not in place.

The high houses have also been poorly implemented and hardly really fleshed out enough to make good use of it to create incentive to PVP.

They were aiming at making crafting resources only available in PVP zones. Yet, the poor crafting implementation in wich hardly anyone bothers kills this last bit of incentive too.

 So basically there is still no incentive to PVP atm.

 

PVE -  What PVE? So far they only added one Dungeon. All the others mentioned in early development still haven't been added.

And with no gear grind.... no real crafting, no incentive for PVP, only one dungeon....

What is there to do in this game?

That is root to this problem, that they didn't manage to get this game into a finished state at release.

And that is now going to be the downfal of this game. As they still need to do so much. It's going to take far far too long to get all that is still needed into the game within time, before litterly no one is left anymore. And that is a real shame.

Cheers

PvP is mostly in guild arena matches and the Demon Chest which has been actually rising in PvP action. Pve wise they have 3 instances you can do at this very moment which are AF, CoA, and Exarch. One instance was recently closed and is ToA located in Stonedeep.

Locations:

Demon Chest - under palace district

AF - look for a board and some ruins right to the left of CoA instance entrance

CoA - The huge temple in Green District with spiriling crap above it

Exarch - take boat from Ringfell Hearth Glasspool lake area, need to complete a questline for passage

Look for patch 1..5 coming sometime this month hopefully which introduces a whole new redesigned beginners area for hawksmouth with new quests, more skills to try out, and a redesined Adenvault area. Also tons of fixes for quests/skills and bugs in general. And the new quest tracker will be added along with other goodies. Probably some major enhancments to the arena also. You can read about the redesign and pics of the new Hawksmouth on the main TCoS page for acclaim. 

Originally posted by mackdawg19

 

PvP is mostly in guild arena matches and the Demon Chest which has been actually rising in PvP action. Pve wise they have 3 instances you can do at this very moment which are AF, CoA, and Exarch. One instance was recently closed and is ToA located in Stonedeep.

Locations:

Demon Chest - under palace district

AF - look for a board and some ruins right to the left of CoA instance entrance

CoA - The huge temple in Green District with spiriling crap above it

Exarch - take boat from Ringfell Hearth Glasspool lake area, need to complete a questline for passage

Look for patch 1..5 coming sometime this month hopefully which introduces a whole new redesigned beginners area for hawksmouth with new quests, more skills to try out, and a redesined Adenvault area. Also tons of fixes for quests/skills and bugs in general. And the new quest tracker will be added along with other goodies. Probably some major enhancments to the arena also. You can read about the redesign and pics of the new Hawksmouth on the main TCoS page for acclaim. 

I have seen the patch 1.05 with the revamped starter area.

But now so long since release (remember it released in part of EU over half a year ago) this will be just a little too late I am afraid.

So many people have been put off from the game already and moved on.

And with their total lack of Marketing, those people ain't coming back. Nor will it create a new surge of players either.

Frogster has turned their back on us and is only interested in Asia.

Mindscape are very inexperienced and complete idiots.

 And Aclaim ...well ....enough have been said about them already. Not to mention that they seem to be busy getting another new game released in NA called Darfall. ROFL.

Cheers

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by mackdawg19

 

PvP is mostly in guild arena matches and the Demon Chest which has been actually rising in PvP action. Pve wise they have 3 instances you can do at this very moment which are AF, CoA, and Exarch. One instance was recently closed and is ToA located in Stonedeep.

Locations:

Demon Chest - under palace district

AF - look for a board and some ruins right to the left of CoA instance entrance

CoA - The huge temple in Green District with spiriling crap above it

Exarch - take boat from Ringfell Hearth Glasspool lake area, need to complete a questline for passage

Look for patch 1..5 coming sometime this month hopefully which introduces a whole new redesigned beginners area for hawksmouth with new quests, more skills to try out, and a redesined Adenvault area. Also tons of fixes for quests/skills and bugs in general. And the new quest tracker will be added along with other goodies. Probably some major enhancments to the arena also. You can read about the redesign and pics of the new Hawksmouth on the main TCoS page for acclaim. 

 

I have seen the patch 1.05 with the revamped starter area.

But now so long since release (remember it released in part of EU over half a year ago) this will be just a little too late I am afraid.

So many people have been put off from the game already and moved on.

And with their total lack of Marketing, those people ain't coming back. Nor will it create a new surge of players either.

Frogster has turned their back on us and is only interested in Asia.

Mindscape are very inexperienced and complete idiots.

 And Aclaim ...well ....enough have been said about them already. Not to mention that they seem to be busy getting another new game released in NA called Darfall. ROFL.

Cheers

LOL! Now I've heard everything... Acclaim and Gankfall richly deserve each other. Why am I not surprised in the least that Acclaim would be involved in a failing game like that?

Originally posted by Wraithone

 

LOL! Now I've heard everything... Acclaim and Gankfall richly deserve each other. Why am I not surprised in the least that Acclaim would be involved in a failing game like that?

Well, I recently picked that one up from the Darkfall forums about Acclaim going to be hosting the NA server.

So yeah it made me laugh too.

Cheers

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by mackdawg19

 

PvP is mostly in guild arena matches and the Demon Chest which has been actually rising in PvP action. Pve wise they have 3 instances you can do at this very moment which are AF, CoA, and Exarch. One instance was recently closed and is ToA located in Stonedeep.

Locations:

Demon Chest - under palace district

AF - look for a board and some ruins right to the left of CoA instance entrance

CoA - The huge temple in Green District with spiriling crap above it

Exarch - take boat from Ringfell Hearth Glasspool lake area, need to complete a questline for passage

Look for patch 1..5 coming sometime this month hopefully which introduces a whole new redesigned beginners area for hawksmouth with new quests, more skills to try out, and a redesined Adenvault area. Also tons of fixes for quests/skills and bugs in general. And the new quest tracker will be added along with other goodies. Probably some major enhancments to the arena also. You can read about the redesign and pics of the new Hawksmouth on the main TCoS page for acclaim. 

 

I have seen the patch 1.05 with the revamped starter area.

But now so long since release (remember it released in part of EU over half a year ago) this will be just a little too late I am afraid.

So many people have been put off from the game already and moved on.

And with their total lack of Marketing, those people ain't coming back. Nor will it create a new surge of players either.

Frogster has turned their back on us and is only interested in Asia.

Mindscape are very inexperienced and complete idiots.

 And Aclaim ...well ....enough have been said about them already. Not to mention that they seem to be busy getting another new game released in NA called Darfall. ROFL.

Cheers

Lets just clear up somethings for you. Hopefully I don't get booted from leeching the net either, dang family emergency's in another state.

1. Mindscape does not run servers anymore, they got merged with the Frogster servers.

2. Frogster only host's the servers, Spellborn NV serves the community.

3. Hopefully you meant you read about Hawksmouth new addition, as patch 1.0.5 is not out yet.

4. I know when it released in EU, I'm a ex EU closed beta tester and a mod.

5. Acclaim is not hosting Darkfall, it's some other company that deals with online server hosting.

6. Frogster is an EU company based out of Germany, and puts all its work into Runes of Magic, a mostly EU/NA based game. Asia?

Can i ask you a question, do you play and if not when did you quit? Would help me know why your info is so off.

Originally posted by mackdawg19

 

Lets just clear up somethings for you. Hopefully I don't get booted from leeching the net either, dang family emergency's in another state.

1. Mindscape does not run servers anymore, they got merged with the Frogster servers.

2. Frogster only host's the servers, Spellborn NV serves the community.

3. Hopefully you meant you read about Hawksmouth new addition, as patch 1.0.5 is not out yet.

4. I know when it released in EU, I'm a ex EU closed beta tester and a mod.

5. Acclaim is not hosting Darkfall, it's some other company that deals with online server hosting.

6. Frogster is an EU company based out of Germany, and puts all its work into Runes of Magic, a mostly EU/NA based game. Asia?

Can i ask you a question, do you play and if not when did you quit? Would help me know why your info is so off.

I play the game on and off. The last time I seriously played it was till April. But I still log in now and then in a hope to see some population improvement.

To my knowledge, Mindscape never has hosted the servers in the first place. It was always Frogster.

Mindscape was responsible for the distribution and marketing of the game in Benelux and Scandinavia. Wich in fact they only bothered with Benelux and never did any effort in promoting or getting the game in Scandinavia. They dropped the ball big time here. Wich was basically one of the major reasons the EU english servers were such ghosttowns before the merge.

Altho after the merge not much has changed when it comes to population, as the majority of EU is still redirected to the Acclaim site.

Frogster has access to the Asian market. That's why Frogster was an interesting publisher for Spellborn NV in the first place. As Frogster would help Spellborn NV with access to the Asian market.

And yes, I know patch 1.05 isn't out yet... so I indeed read the article about it on spellborn.com.

From what I have heard and read on Darkfall forums, is that Aventurine made a publishing deal with Acclaim to host the NA server(s). 

That's what I have heard and read about. Nothing more. If it's 100% true or fact or not I don't know. I just read it.

So you see.... I have been around along TCOS development for quite some time too and witnessed all it's debacles since the publisher deals with their retarded EU splitup plans wich basically destroyed the whole community they had so carefully build up along the years.

They pretty much shot themselves in the foot big time, before the game was even released. Or have you already forgotten the major uproar on the old Spellborn forums with all the excessive moderating that followed?

Cheers

I have been throroughly enjoying this game even without running into many players. The world just has me captured and the combat is so fun that I never get into that half-zombified state from endless grinding in other MMOs because the combat is extremely fun in this game. I WANT to grind in this game.

I can't believe a fantasy MMO came out where I fell in love with the world. I thought that couldn't happen anymore.

I think the OP hit some of the reasons why the game isn't very popular as well as others. The complete lack of advertising is one reason why. I  never even heard of this game until a guild mate in LOTRO  told me about the free play coming up with the launch of the game. I would have never even heard of this game otherwise. I also imagine I'm not the only person with freezes. There is no game in the world on the Unreal 2 engine that should give my computer slowdown from particle effects and such. I freeze for a second from just pulling my bow out. Aside from that, many people can't even start the game. We tried to get a few guildies from LOTRO  to play with us and they couldn't even get the game to install for them without errors.

Originally posted by Melana

it's still a great game and the community is very nice but the population is to low for a success.All new features added with patches were created for many people.But in this game there aren't many people (don't know really why) so the features have no sin :(

i can't agree with people who say that the quests are boring or the game is too difficult.It isn't.there are a lot of funny quests too.and with a bit skill you can play this game solo.the battlesystem is the best i've ever seen.PvP is great too.

only the marketing is bad.too many servers for a few players,No advertisement and no support.There are many bugs ingame but only one patch per month.That can't work.

 

It's a wonderful an innovative mmorpg with an incompetent publisher and developer....

      I logged in tonight after a month away from the game.......The community seems to be much smaller than it was even a month ago........The noob area is still terrible and the first few quests are about as bad as any I have seen in any game........ Some people really like the combat and some of us dont like it at all........It just feels like every part of the game alienates me from wanting to play......To each their own I guess........

---

Originally posted by Theocritus

      I logged in tonight after a month away from the game.......The community seems to be much smaller than it was even a month ago........The noob area is still terrible and the first few quests are about as bad as any I have seen in any game........ Some people really like the combat and some of us dont like it at all........It just feels like every part of the game alienates me from wanting to play......To each their own I guess........

---

IMO, the worst thing about the quests is that you don't get a lot of help, no markers on your mini-map or anything like that... Other than that, they are standard MMO type quests. The combat and skill deck seriously makes this game shine, I just don't understand why it's not more popular... I consider it much better than AION which everyone is drooling all over...

Originally posted by brostyn

I played for a bit, but it became fairly obvious there is nothing to this game aside from slaying mob after mob. There is no reason to even need gold.

               Its hard to put my finger on it but it jsut felt like alot of things added up for me not to play.......As much as some people hate the idea, I like to get nice loot.......Getting a nice upgrade once in awhile makes killing alot of monsters worthwhile...... When I play a MMO I need to have reasons to play and goals......In TCoS I never felt like I had a goal of any kind nor any incentive to continue......I also did not like the combat system......While it was different, too often it felt very clunky and unresponsive...... Personally I'd like ot see more of a Mount & Blade type of combat system in a MMO........My initial thought on TCoS was that its a mediocre game and certainly not one I would ever consider paying for......After playing a few days I saw nothing that changed my mind.

Originally posted by Deathreat

One of the biggest reasons it died so fast is because they offered all the premium for free for two weeks stuff and everyone leveled for two weeks and once it went away, bam. Everyone forgot that the game was free to play untill level 7 and all those people for the first two weeks who were 8+ couldnt log in anymore without a sub. Pretty big reason to be pissed and rage quit.

How can any company call their game F2P if they only let you play the first few levels.  That's a free trial, not F2P.  Wizard 101 does the same thing.  Call it what it is developers.  F2P games are suppose to be free from beginning to end, only with added cash shops for items and you're locked out of special content unless you subscribe, but you can play most if not all of the classes to max level.

Even SOE, the king of money grubbing, lets you play half of their classes all the way to max in Free Realms.  For only 5 bucks a month, you can ulock the rest of the classes and it also unlocks special quests.  If Sony can play fair, then these other companies can too.

Originally posted by Vrazule

Originally posted by Deathreat

One of the biggest reasons it died so fast is because they offered all the premium for free for two weeks stuff and everyone leveled for two weeks and once it went away, bam. Everyone forgot that the game was free to play untill level 7 and all those people for the first two weeks who were 8+ couldnt log in anymore without a sub. Pretty big reason to be pissed and rage quit.

 

How can any company call their game F2P if they only let you play the first few levels.  That's a free trial, not F2P.  Wizard 101 does the same thing.  Call it what it is developers.  F2P games are suppose to be free from beginning to end, only with added cash shops for items and you're locked out of special content unless you subscribe, but you can play most if not all of the classes to max level.

Even SOE, the king of money grubbing, lets you play half of their classes all the way to max in Free Realms.  For only 5 bucks a month, you can ulock the rest of the classes and it also unlocks special quests.  If Sony can play fair, then these other companies can too.

You might want to check your facts. It is Free to _download_. Also, it is called Freemium (combination between f2p and p2p) but nowhere are they stating they have a f2p game.

Originally posted by Vrazule

How can any company call their game F2P if they only let you play the first few levels. 

Nobody is calling Spellborn f2p, well except TenTonHammer for some strange reason (maybe someone should tell them), but certainly not the publishers of the game.

Originally posted by fldash

 

---

Originally posted by Theocritus

      I logged in tonight after a month away from the game.......The community seems to be much smaller than it was even a month ago........The noob area is still terrible and the first few quests are about as bad as any I have seen in any game........ Some people really like the combat and some of us dont like it at all........It just feels like every part of the game alienates me from wanting to play......To each their own I guess........

---

 

IMO, the worst thing about the quests is that you don't get a lot of help, no markers on your mini-map or anything like that... Other than that, they are standard MMO type quests. The combat and skill deck seriously makes this game shine, I just don't understand why it's not more popular... I consider it much better than AION which everyone is drooling all over...

Well, it is much better but nobody is drooling over it, that is why. Well, almost nobody is.

Acclaim is not hosting a Darkfall server.

http://www.gni.com/node/147

Originally posted by fldash

 

---

Originally posted by Theocritus

      I logged in tonight after a month away from the game.......The community seems to be much smaller than it was even a month ago........The noob area is still terrible and the first few quests are about as bad as any I have seen in any game........ Some people really like the combat and some of us dont like it at all........It just feels like every part of the game alienates me from wanting to play......To each their own I guess........

---

 

IMO, the worst thing about the quests is that you don't get a lot of help, no markers on your mini-map or anything like that... Other than that, they are standard MMO type quests. The combat and skill deck seriously makes this game shine, I just don't understand why it's not more popular... I consider it much better than AION which everyone is drooling all over...

Played both and AION just blows it out of the water.  Not even close.  Yes the combat system is unique....but that's it for the game.  Everything else is just not ready.  I cancelled my sub today and am removing Spellborn from my computer.

Originally posted by TheHistorian

Acclaim is not hosting a Darkfall server.

http://www.gni.com/node/147

Too bad. I was really looking forward to seeing who backstabbed who first...