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Spellborn GDC Demo
News Manager Keith Cross recently had the opportunity to get his first look at the upcoming MMORPG, The Chronicles of Spellborn and shares hi thoughts on the new game's combat, equipment, death penalty and more.
At this year’s GDC, I finally had the chance to take a look at The Chronicles of Spellborn. Ever since last year, when Managing Editor Jon Wood went to the Netherlands to tour the Spellborn studios, he’s been telling me I need to see this game in action. One reason Jon encouraged me to see this game is because it’s one of those games that doesn’t get a lot of attention compared to other MMOs of its calibre. Spellborn is nowhere near as hyped and publicized as other triple A games that are currently in development. The other reason Jon has been bugging me to see this game is because it’s full of innovation. There isn’t really one big innovative game mechanic, or revolutionary idea in Spellborn, but more of a collection of small improvements and tweaks to the standard quest based MMORPG model that look like they add up to something special.
My tour of the game started with character creation, so that is where I’ll begin as well. Character creation reminded me of City of Heroes, but in a fantasy setting. The games are similar, both in the number of character creation options the player has and in a game mechanic sense as well. In both CoH and Spellborn, your clothing has no statistical value, and is purely for style. There are ways to enhance you equipment using sigils, which can add statistical bonuses as well as cosmetic enhancements like a colored tracer following every swing of your sword, but the point is that your base equipment has no intrinsic statistical bonus. I’m personally a big fan of games that allow the player a high degree of freedom in character personalization, and the Spellborn system is so open that that you can be as cool, or not cool, as you want right from the start. Mages can even wear armor if they like.
When we had finished character creation, my tour guide, PR Manager Pierre Deslandes, loaded up a pre-made high level character and it was off to the wilderness. Before we jumped into combat, Pierre gave me a quick rundown of the inventory system. The character’s backpack had a number of items that were of no real use to the character other than to be sold for cash. The nearest town was a long way off, as was the nearest vendor. Conveniently, in Spellborn, you can break down unwanted inventory directly into cash, saving players the hassle of running back to a vendor. Another nice touch of the inventory is a separate inventory tab for quest items, which helps to keep important quest items conveniently organized. Both of these features are minor, but the hassles they eliminate are also minor. They demonstrate the way the Spellborn team is working to tweak the genres standard features to eliminate the genre’s usual annoyances.
After a brief look at the inventory it was off to fight some of the local creatures. There are a number of things I like about the combat system. One thing is that you can manually dodge attacks. There are no hidden die rolls going on behind the scenes, if you’re not in the attack’s range, you don’t get hit. The same is true when the player attacks; you must have your crosshairs over the target or you miss. This form of attack system adds a simple layer of complexity to standard MMO combat.
Another part of the combat system that I would describe as a simple layer of complexity is the ability interface. At the bottom centre of the screen, where you normally have an array of attacks and abilities, there is instead a cylinder with several tier one attacks on it. After you fire off a tier one attack, the cylinder rotates to display your tier two abilities. You use the tier two attack and the cylinder rotates to the next tier, and so on until you get back to tier one again. If the cylinder display’s a particular tier for too long without a power being used, it automatically rotates back to tier one. This description sounds a bit complicated but it’s actually fairly intuitive. I call it a simple layer of complexity because it simultaneously adds a layer of strategy to combat while at the same time making combat intuitive and eliminating the feeling of over stimulus that can lead to wild button mashing. Really, it’s just a way of organizing your abilities in a simpler format, which opens doors to new types of game-play.
;)
That extra layer of strategy I mentioned comes in with combos. You can set up a custom made attack sequence called a combo. There are abilities you use as starting moves, and abilities that are finishers, with the remaining abilities to be used in between. Once you’ve set up your combo you activate it by firing off you abilities in the correct sequence. What I like about the combos is that they aren’t pre determined by the developers, and choosing from an open array of possibilities to find the best strategy is left up to the player.
So what happens if your combo fizzles and you missed your target because you weren’t aiming in the right direction? Well, you’ll probably end up dead. But don’t worry, there’s no XP debt or penalty. When you die in The Chronicles of Spellborn there’s no penalty at all… sort of. Instead of a penalty for death, you get a bonus for living. The bonus for living comes in the form of a buff that increases over time. The longer you go without dieing, the bigger the buff gets. If you die the buff is reset and you have to start avoiding death all over again to get the buff back. Some people will argue that it’s all just semantics and splitting hairs, but I say this is another one of those minor tweaks which takes a penalty and turns it around into positive reinforcement.
I’m not going to say anything here about the game’s graphics and style. If you want to know more about that, just look at the screenshots. I have no idea what the specs were on the machine that was running the demo, but the graphics were of the same quality as the many screenshots that are already in our TCoS screenshot gallery. One thing about the games visuals that Pierre mentioned that you won’t get out of the screenshots is how they handle body slots. The Spellborn enhancement system is similar again to City of Heroes. When equipment has no stat value, it makes sense that enhancements to the character would come in the form of enhancement slots. Body slots work in more or less the same way as the item sigils for gear, except body slots have a graphical representation on you character depending on your class. For example, the rune mage gets tattoos, the blood warrior gets scars, and the ancestral mage gets pets. Each of these scars/tattoos/whatever is an enhancement.
All in all I was impressed with what I saw. The team at Spellborn International seems to be more focused on the art of game making rather than the commercial side of game development. I find this approach refreshing as it makes The Chronicles of Spellborn look more like a piece of playable art rather than your typical MMO.
I've always been very interested in this game, any news on a U.S. release date and/or publisher?
Last I heard they didn't have immediate plans to release in the U.S. at the same time as Europe...
Any updates on that?
But from everything I have read on their website, including their absolutely fantastic behind-the-scenes developer journals, these guys really seem to know what is going on. They understand all aspects of the MMO and communicate this and their desires for innovation and creativity, instead of merely following convention.... And more importantly, not innovating for the sake of innovation, but only changing what needs to be changed...
Other games are changing basic MMO mechanics and calling it "innovation" but really it's just a marketing tool to say "Hey we are doing this different! Buy our game!"
I do hope this game is the sleeper hit many of us want it to be, and I hope it's released in the U.S. too so I can hop in and start playing!
I still think this game will beat AoC and WAR in so many aspects. Personally I think this and Aion will be the games of 2008.
I actually think the opposite thought for the exact same reasons you probably do. Both Aion and Spellborn are esoteric, high concept games. I don't think they will appeal to the average gamer or at least to a large portion of the average gamer. Part of this is the art design as well.
I do however think that both spellborn and Aion will be good games and have a loyal following.
I know for sure that this game will be the PvP game to beat for some years to come. (eventough it will be mostly PvE based) While its great deep lore and quests will sattisfy another part of the population.
But best about this game, is its fresh ideas and combat engine. For the first time people will not feel like playing another MMORPG, but they will feel like playing a fresh game, I think that many old time MMORPGérs that like action paced games will end up with this game.
While I was not that excited about COH's enhancement system I do think this one will be very intriguing .. especially the ancestral mage with multiple pets following him or her around .. pretty neat ..
"Full of innovation"? Really? *thumbs through dictionary*
Innovation: the introduction of something new
Let's see ...
Character generation similar to CoH. Check.
Clothing has no effect on stats, as in CoH. Check.
Enhancement system copied from CoH. Check.
Manually dodging attacks, as in DDO. Check.
Crosshairs for targeting, as in Tabula Rasa. Check.
Combos with starting moves and finishing moves, as in Vanguard for god's sake. Check.
Cylinder thingy ... hm, I guess that's new. This game is chock full of (one) innovation!
Don't get me wrong -- I fully support the the elements they stole from CoH. I wish more games would go that direction. But please let's not use the buzzword "innovative" where it clearly doesn't apply.
Copying good elements from successful games is smart, but it is NOT innovative.
(P.S, To the MMORPG.com staff: PLEASE learn to use spell-check. It's not that hard!)
No reason to split hairs. Either you are attracted to the game style or you aren't. There's only so much innovation that can be added and each game that adds even one that is liked, adds to further enjoyment of the MMO. I suppose I'm greatly attracted to the art style and eagerly have been waiting, hoping Spellborn didn't turn into vaporware as so many other games did last year.
Thing is ... there is not much room left for innovation.
Trick is ... combining all good aspects from the different games into one.
Catch is ... everyone has a different taste and a different perspective about what is good/fun.
Anyways .. I'm eagerly looking forward to this one ...
Correct me if I'm wrong (oh please let me be wrong) but isn't the PvP in this game almost exclusively arena-styled encounters? If so, that just doesn't appeal to me.
I need a reason to PvP (like PlanetSide's empire-based territorial control system) not just mindless killing to prove who's got the biggest....
No. It is not just arena based, however that is a big part. Certain areas of the world, like the most desired mining locations, will be open PvP.
I'm interested in this game. It seems just a bit different than your average MMO. Sure I'm looking forward to and will probably play War and AoC (barring a major upset), but this is looking promising as well.
I probably won't play this if it even releases in the U.S.
With that said, I like the direction it sounds like they are going. If it holds up after release I might give it a shot 6 months or so after it comes out.
I like the way they seem to be working skills and such, and the costume design/non gear dependent route sounds kind of cool.
We'll have to see if reality holds up to concept though, just as with any other game.
I wish them the best of luck! We need more good games out there.
D.
<blockquote><i>Originally posted by raykor</i>
<br><b><p><blockquote><em>Originally posted by Lord.Bachus</em> <br />
<strong>
<p>I know for sure that this game will be the PvP game to beat for some years to come.</p>
</strong></blockquote><br />
Correct me if I'm wrong (oh please let me be wrong) but isn't the PvP in this game almost exclusively arena-styled encounters? If so, that just doesn't appeal to me.</p>
<p>I need a reason to PvP (like PlanetSide's empire-based territorial control system) not just mindless killing to prove who's got the biggest....<img src="http://images.mmorpg.com/images/emoticons/emt2_banana.gif" alt="" /></p></b></blockquote>
<br>
There will be outdoor pvp zones as well (where fighting most likely will be for resources). Another features that has been announced (though it won't be added until some time after release) is shard conquest.
Basically, when a new shard is discovered, guilds can fight for ownership over it. What they have explained is that conquering shards will be done by getting resources from some points in the shard and moving them back to the point where you entered the shard. There will be certain key points on the shards that your guild has to control if you want to pass them.
From what I understand this feature has been moved back until past release because the devs were not happy with the reset system that they had (I think that originally each shard would reset once a month) and because the shard conquest is targetted at max level players so it would be useless until there were enough players to compete.
I have been "following" the game and I'm really keen to play it. I'ver signed up for beta but wasn't lucky, since I had a laptop at the time (weak GPU) and I can't change those details now.
If they get the gameplay right, and everything indicates they will, with skill >> gear, then this will probably be the game that captivates me. I'd love to know when it's coming out...
The things I like:
-You can look however you want, your appearence (equipment) has no factor on your characters power. Mages can wear plate, tanks can wear cloth, etc.
-Action packed combat. Manual dodging and aiming, but not button mashing or true FPS combat. The Skill wheel thing is such a good idea...
-No death penalty, but buff for staying alive. It's called "positive reinforcement" and in my humble opinion, is a much more of a motivating factor then DP.
-Focus on story and setting. What game doesn't benefit from having good lore?
-Interesting and "outside the box" classes. Everyone is able to dish damage, heal in some form, and be defensive / supportive if they so choose.
-Many annoyances thrown out. "Junk loot" from mobs can be broken down and sold straight from your inventory, no running back to town to sell the junk from your inventory.
-many more I can't think of at this moment
Things I dont like:
-No confirmed U.S. publisher or date! AHH
-Not sure how PvP will work out... could be bunny hopping / mountain dew fest craziness.. which could be good or bad, just have to wait and see
Tbh the video and world looks quite boring. The fight seems uninspired to me. Maybe its my tremendous age, but this running and dodging... no thank you. And the world seems quite lifeless to me, somehow. Something I will most certainly pass.
To each his/her own. I prefer a wait and see attitude. There is much appeal in this game for some people, not for all of course. So many comments are off the mark. People tend to think only their opinions are important.
All I have to say is wow.
This game has suddenly piqued my interest, you mention several little improvments that although small by themselves, may combine to create one entertaining game. I look forward to learning more.
Most words have multiple definitions. All relatively similiar...one classical definiton of "innovation" is "change that creates a new dimension of performance". Since there truly is "nothing new under the sun"...it is possible to take pre-existing elements , tweak them, refine them and present them in a format..that..as a whole..are innovative. I think that definition...and aspects of most of the definitions for innovation...apply to this case. ...Of course...it's just an opinion..as is the fact that so many people in Forums can hover like harpies...harpies with huge bugs up their arses...and nitpick on every thing they dislike about others "likes". ...put into context only by the narrow parameters they themselves defined.
Wow, was that well put, a very realistic intelligent answer. Plus great put down for naysayers who post just to naysay. hehe
i agree with most of aspects COS appears to present in gameplay and stuff apart 1 thing
Armours bracers gauntles chest armours rings neccklaces e.t.c. MUST give some bonuses to the character ,not many stats like WOW which it makes characters gear depended instead of their skill.. but items must give just a few stats excpet nice looking..after all LOOT adds to the addictive part of a game adventuring and treasure hunting e.t.c.
Rest aspects seems to be intresting especially the combat system and BTW we didnt heard anything about skills and character classes advancment ...is there any? are there loads of skills to learn like ultima online? or just 2-3 talent trees like wow only?? that make almost all classes same...
Simple error I found which should be corrected. /arrogantelitest :3
I'm very much looking forward to this game! Aiming spells sounds like it'll be very fun pvp combat. Something about clicking on a target and pressing 123456 doesn't appeal to me... Possibly the lack of SKILL involved.
Also... WTB release date
Just because I GIVE my opinion, it doesn't mean I think it's the only important one.
Also, I'm not even naysaying, you touchy fanboys. I'm sure there are many people who will find this game appealing.
My points were: 1) "Innovative" is an overused buzzword that does not apply to many of the elements in this game (not that that makes it a bad game), and 2) I am probably not going to be in the group of people who find this game appealing.
You know your comment is very strange. You say that it's going to be the PvP game to beat, but you also say that it's mostly PvE based?
I'm pretty sure games like AoC and WAR that are pretty much focused on PvP from start to finish will be the PvP games to beat for years to come. :p
I think what this poster said is about as close as we will get to innovation. The definition fits most innovation.
This is the game I am looking forward to. Just hope it isn't dwarfed by AoC or WAR. The fact that this doesnt rely..or doesnt seem to rely... on uber gear....appeals to me. I always hate the argument that someone who plays for a zillion hours deserves to have better gear than someone who can only play odd and unscheduled hours. Maybe in a F2p game..this makes more sense(but cash stores take care of this problem)...but in a monthly service...no matter how much you play..We still pay the same monthly price. So someone playing 6 mnths at 2-4 hours a week or another for 6 mnths at 30+ hours a week ...both spend the same $90.00(or so). I agree that there should be some kind of reward for time spent actually online and playing...but it shouldn't be one that so greatly limits certain gaming elements for those who are offline more often(through no desire of their own)...but still paying loyally every month.
I wouldn't touch this game with a ten foot pole. Not saying it's bad, but several of the so called innovations would make this game a waste of time for me:
Gear not affecting stats. Come on, somebody covered from head to toe in plate armour plays the same as somebody in a bikini. Suspension of disbelief instantly shattered for me
Aiming. Haven't bothered playing games with aiming and dodging for 5-6 years. Not starting now
Discrimantion of nonnative players. Either a game is released simultaneously all around the world, and gets equal support, or I don't play it. Wouldn't touch any of the korean imports even if I was paid for it, and even though living in Europe I'd be on the sweet side this time, I will never ever waste money or time on games or companies that do not realise that MMOs are global. Propably means I'll pass on WAR as well, don't know if AoC will discriminate this way
So, propably a good game, hope it doesn't join AA, Earth and Beyond (soon Tabula Rasa as well) in the graveyard, but I ain't going to play it.
Forgot to add: Excellent review loads and loads of usefull information that gave me the possibility to make up my mind whether this is a game for me or not :-)
Some gamers have a wait and see attitude, at least until it's released and then they can see what others say. Don't American developers release sometimes here before overseas? I know, for PvP, a universal release is best.