Earlier today, word came out that the original developer of The Chronicles of Spellborn had gone under and that Frogster would redevelop the game with a microtransaction business model. 

Acclaim, the US publisher of Spellborn, has confirmed that they will be involved and relaunch the game in the United States in 2010 as well.

ACCLAIM GAMES ANNOUNCES RE-DEVELOPMENT FOR “SPELLBORN”

The Chronicles of Spellborn to re-launch with micro-transaction model in 2010.

Los Angeles, CA (June 29, 2009) – Acclaim Games announces the re-development of their recent MMORPG The Chronicles of Spellborn which was released in February, 2009. The development is planned to carry into 2010 and will include several enhancements and changes to the current game. The enhancements and development of the new model will be carried through a joint venture between Spellborn NV and the development studio of Frogster Asia Co. Ltd. based in Seoul, the Korean studio bringing its expertise in the field of free-to-play and micro-transactions.

After the re-development, the current subscription model will be switched to a free-to-play system supported by micro-transactions. This will open the world of Spellborn to all players and give them a chance to experience the rich lore and game-play in its entirety.

Players who are currently playing the game will be able to continue playing the game in its current form via the subscription service. At the point where the new version is released, any unused subscriptions will be credited to their accounts. Any players who wish to register for a free account can sign up now at http://spellborn.acclaim.com.

Lets hope that the current contracts are subject of change as well... It kinda sucks that UK players are not allowed on Euroepan servers and are forced to play on US servers instead...

Originally posted by Reizla

Lets hope that the current contracts are subject of change as well... It kinda sucks that UK players are not allowed on Euroepan servers and are forced to play on US servers instead...

Um, you do realize the IP ban was lifted quite awhile ago? You can play on either the EU or US international servers. You just need to make sure you have the right client. At one point in time I was on both set's of servers. If your going to mention something like this, do your research first.

Honestly now,

Who didn't see this coming? I've never seen such an awful beta and launch in a long while -- if ever. I blame the Spellborn, NV, Acclaim itself and, of course, the fanbois.

Peace.

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Originally posted by Reizla

Lets hope that the current contracts are subject of change as well... It kinda sucks that UK players are not allowed on Euroepan servers and are forced to play on US servers instead...

 

Um, you do realize the IP ban was lifted quite awhile ago? You can play on either the EU or US international servers. You just need to make sure you have the right client. At one point in time I was on both set's of servers. If your going to mention something like this, do your research first.

Didn't know that, and didn't bother to search for it... I was there in CB and at launch, and at the time it was clearly stated that the IP block would remain...

Originally posted by Reizla

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Originally posted by Reizla

Lets hope that the current contracts are subject of change as well... It kinda sucks that UK players are not allowed on Euroepan servers and are forced to play on US servers instead...

 

Um, you do realize the IP ban was lifted quite awhile ago? You can play on either the EU or US international servers. You just need to make sure you have the right client. At one point in time I was on both set's of servers. If your going to mention something like this, do your research first.

 

Didn't know that, and didn't bother to search for it... I was there in CB and at launch, and at the time it was clearly stated that the IP block would remain...

 

yeah...it's been gone for quite a while, man. But it was stuff like this that contributed to the game's ultimate demise.

Originally posted by toord

Honestly now,

Who didn't see this coming? I've never seen such an awful beta and launch in a long while -- if ever. I blame the Spellborn, NV, Acclaim itself and, of course, the fanbois.

Peace.

I agree, it was a horrible launch. It was almost as if one day there was a post "ok, by the way guys, we are launching Chronicles of Spellborn, but only in Europe for now, have a nice day".

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by toord

Honestly now,

Who didn't see this coming? I've never seen such an awful beta and launch in a long while -- if ever. I blame the Spellborn, NV, Acclaim itself and, of course, the fanbois.

Peace.

 

I agree, it was a horrible launch. It was almost as if one day there was a post "ok, by the way guys, we are launching Chronicles of Spellborn, but only in Europe for now, have a nice day".

 

I think you mean "only in certain parts of Europe"....what a disaster that was, the amount of posts on various forums from people desperate to give the game a go but  were unsure if they could actually play was staggering...very badly handled.

 This game was made by an indie developer, right? Such a sad end for it...

The game model was a butchering at best. To seriously ask people to pay for it is mind-ogling. Not that its a bad game, but it does need work. The very fact that they went with a P2P model with limited availability in europe (and USA) showed a true lack of knowledge of how to do a major release of a game. Imitation is a form of flattery and nobody would have questioned them if they went the F2P model with a shop and a wide release with no IP ban or limit countries access. Now, we shall never know as the company failed as everyone expected, and based on the overall reactions so far, nobody really cares.

I knew this was gonna happen. I thought to myself during the Acclaim's beta period, that Spellborn would not last a year as a P2P game and that it would become a F2P game.  Its a good game don't get me wrong, but it could never stack up to the big AAA titles out there. Its got the same problems as D&D Online, which DDO is going F2P as well.

I think the largest difficulty The Chronicles of Spellborn faced and still faces was the way it was released with what seemed to be half a dozen different liscensed distributors in Europe alone. When you break up your customer base into small clusters it's really hard for them to share their experience and MMORPGs are based largely on the experience of them.

Originally posted by ninjajucer

The game model was a butchering at best. To seriously ask people to pay for it is mind-ogling. Not that its a bad game, but it does need work. The very fact that they went with a P2P model with limited availability in europe (and USA) showed a true lack of knowledge of how to do a major release of a game. Imitation is a form of flattery and nobody would have questioned them if they went the F2P model with a shop and a wide release with no IP ban or limit countries access. Now, we shall never know as the company failed as everyone expected, and based on the overall reactions so far, nobody really cares.

i agree but its kind of sad to see the mmo market from the pov as developer

for me tcos was a decent game with a ton of original ideas like the dress 2 impress, rotating skilldeck, manual aiming systems but in the end potential and innovation is not enough anymore.
a few years back i believe tcos could have grown slowly like we have seen it with eve but the market today is overcrowded with mmos and lives on hyped (or lets say heavily marketed) mainstream games with huge dev teams.

a rather un-innovative but polished and feature rich game like aion seems to be the way to go over smaller independent games like spellborne

 The only reason why tcos wasn't a good P2P is that is a hardcore mmorpg  and the players aren't  prepared to play a hardcore mmorpg. they are usually playing some simple mmorpg to learn like wow . and in europe is also the ploblem that you can't still play with the hole continent

Originally posted by reyul

 The only reason why tcos wasn't a good P2P is that is a hardcore mmorpg  and the players aren't  prepared to play a hardcore mmorpg. they are usually playing some simple mmorpg to learn like wow . and in europe is also the ploblem that you can't still play with the hole continent

Are the raids hardcore or the PvP? Just curious what makes Spellborn a "hardcore" MMO.
 

Originally posted by Redline65

Originally posted by reyul

 The only reason why tcos wasn't a good P2P is that is a hardcore mmorpg  and the players aren't  prepared to play a hardcore mmorpg. they are usually playing some simple mmorpg to learn like wow . and in europe is also the ploblem that you can't still play with the hole continent

Are the raids hardcore or the PvP? Just curious what makes Spellborn a "hardcore" MMO.
 

Apparently a rotating hotbar is "hardcore".

Originally posted by Zorvan

Originally posted by Redline65

Originally posted by reyul

 The only reason why tcos wasn't a good P2P is that is a hardcore mmorpg  and the players aren't  prepared to play a hardcore mmorpg. they are usually playing some simple mmorpg to learn like wow . and in europe is also the ploblem that you can't still play with the hole continent

Are the raids hardcore or the PvP? Just curious what makes Spellborn a "hardcore" MMO.
 

 

Apparently a rotating hotbar is "hardcore".

lol now THAT'S funny!