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The Chronicles of Spellborn: New Launch Overview
MMORPG.com Chronicles of Spellborn Correspondent Patrick S. Marshall has written this post-launch update on The Chronicles of Spellborn, giving his opinions on what the game needs in order to continue to thrive as it sets to roll out in North America and the UK.
A little bit over a month ago, The Chronicles of Spellborn had its launch in Europe. Soon, it will be North America and the UK's turn. So it is about time to have a little round up and see what has been done since the beta and what the Devs have been up to in the last few weeks while Europe was live.
Yes, there are still some bugs. With that said though, the Developers are vigorously chasing them down one by one and decimating the little annoyances. Some minor fixes and some bigger ones have been patched in since serverstart. The French and German localization has gone a long way and looks very decent now. The infamous fame-hole in the late teens of the character-levels has been worked out and the first group-instance also had a bit of a revamp. The high-house-quest chains work more or less failure free, and while the starting area is swarming with players trying the first seven levels gratis, it did feel a little bit lonely after the starting area, in the first couple of weeks. But steadily, the population of the enclave of five sacrifices grows and you get your share of PvP in the specified areas and PvP-Servers, find some companions for a couple of quests or to socialize. So life settles in on the shards that drift through the deathspell storm.
While there are still some points on the playerbase wish list that need some looking into by the Devs (ranging from better control over the UI to content and features), you never get the feeling that the Devs aren't working on something. Atmospheric, intriguing and very promising would be the best way to describe TCoS at its current state.
What the game really lacks is proper advertisement. In Europe, the box was almost impossible to find, even in bigger malls and gamestore-chains, but then again, there is no real need for the box since you can always download the free client and then upgrade your trial-account. But still, the game is in need of a little bit more recognition, and it would deserve it too.
The bottom line is that the game could use some more players, especially on the international servers, which are considerably less populated than the French or German servers, since the UK is separated from Europe publisher-wise by a territorial IP-ban (Acclaim is publishing TCoS in the US and the UK - Frogster does the rest of Europe and Asia).
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It's a shame too, as I can't stress enough that, in my opinion, The Chronicles of Spellborn deserves a larger player base. The game delivers essentially what the Devs have promised, which is not very common in the computer games industry anymore. And taking into consideration the fact that the studio TCoS was developed in is by no means one of the biggest, they did a fine job and still do. It is a credit to that team and their dedication that we have seen patches, hot-fixes and content brought out regularly over the last weeks.
So, if you are looking for something new that stands apart from the mainstream repitition based games, check out The Chronicles of Spellborn. It's free to try and worth paying for.
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Why oh why did they separate the publishing
Its making UK and USA lose interest...:(
WOULD BE alright if they actualy let you into the beta grrrrr....
That is indeed the whole problem with the game here in Europe.
The international servers are empty. Even the starter zones feel empty.
That's why I lost interest so quickly and didn't login anymore. It was feeling like a single player experience.
Real shame tho. And this stupid IP ban has done most damage in this.
A David Perry approved MMO... count me in... oh IP ban for US and UK... "Access Denied, Access Denied..."
it is a shame you have to muck around with the proxy registering process... this game could be good
Another example of how not to launch a MMO, then picking Acclaim to host in the NA market.....
This game will be gone within the year.....sad to say it looks like a pretty good game too....
From the title I was expecting to see an actual launch date from Acclaim, all I got was a quick summary of how empty it is on the European servers.
Been looking foward to this one, alwasy a rush to start a new game, make the Discoveries and such,
Checkn the Forums to see some spacific date of Luanch in the USA, this tid bit of informaton lets me down, no confirmed start date, and my fears of another Vanguard ( low pop) seem to be Justified.
Back to web to search for the NEXT mmo.
I read the article but didn't see what the actual "update" part was. Did I miss something? (not trying to be snide but it just seemed like observations more than anything else)
I'm still trying to figure out what the actual launch date is for the US!
For the Uk (and lets not forget, the other 15 european countries not included in the "European" launch) it's too late.
I've already moved on.
Well of course I am talking about me, but I have the feeling that many share my own feeling.
This was by far the worst launch of an MMORPG ever.................inclunding Vanguard, which says it all.
It is a pity since apparently this game don't share the bugs Vanguard had, and it is actually complete.
I like to play with Swedish, Polish, Italians, Germans and even French.
Of course I like to play with Yankees too, but they will be asleep while I wanna play, so what's the frikking point.
I'm honestly wondering what's going on over at Acclaim. Are they second-guessing their decision to run with TcOS? Maybe the ROI projection numbers aren't looking too good? Why isn't Spellborn NV pushing acclaim harder for faster distro? I honestly lost interest in this game for other reasons, however, the distro split really did it for me. I said this six months ago and I'll say it again, I think Spellborn shot themselves in the foot by choosing to split distro and further to allow region-based IP bans (absurd!). For the sake of those players who have invested their time helping create this game I hope i'm wrong; but as a poster above said, this game will be gone within a year.
Peace.
I registered for an account through a proxy. Apart from that little hurdle there was absolutely nothing barring me from trying the game. I decided to play the trial in order to determine whether or not it's worth getting hyped up about.
All I can say is that I'm glad I tried it, because it lives up to my expectations and more. The game is a finished, high quality product. I had an issue of getting stuck in-game, which support promptly fixed for me. Other than that, I've only noticed around one or two grammatical errors in quest text - nothing game-breaking.
I created my character on the International PvE server. The starter area, though not teeming with people, had more people than I was expecting. The community is very friendly and zone chat had a good number of people conversing in it. I would love to see more people playing it, but the fact is that this launch was more of a "test" launch in my opinion. It's been released in 5 countries...Germany and France being the two main countries out of those 5. These aren't exactly huge gaming nations, meaning that the large majority of people will sign up when the game is released in other territories.
Personally, shunning the game for the apparent terrible launch in 5 countries that have absolutely no effect on the product I will be playing would be silly. I am confident that the game will have a sizeable amount of players when it is officially launched over here. In all honesty, they deserve a healthy number of subscribers simply because they have delivered what they promised and are the new kid on the block that can, in fact, show the big boys how a few things should be done (the innovative combat system, for starters). Hopefully they've learnt from this launch and the larger launch will go much more smoothly (though the only bad thing about this launch I can see is the lack of players...clearly as a result of there not being enough people in said 5 countries to justify being a "territory" in itself).
Spellborn Dock had a launch update that was a bit more critical.
I agree with Lydon. I'm happily waiting to give this game a shot whenever we get the chance.
Part of the fun of mmo's for me is the mixture of different cultures in one game, IP blocking takes that away to a great extent so I'll pass on any game that is stupid (imho) enough to enforce something that is against the entire reason muds/mmo's are fun for me and my friends from all different countries across the globe.
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.
The real sad problem is.. whos going to brake the news to the UK that there not Europe. hehe..
I thought Spellborn dock was right on. Though I didnt know there was no bank or AH ..
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 don't know if i agree 100%, being an American I kind of like the idea that EU is our beta test... let them suffer bugged releases first, and we American's will reap the benefits of a later release less buggy version
That's another good point. The MMO I'm playing right now has Asian, North America, South America and European servers. however, there's nothing forbidding people from other locales to connect to the servers in US. In fact, i'd say 30-40% of my server's population are people from AU/NZ/UK/SouthAm and yes it's nice having people from other cultures and be share the same experience.
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.
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.
On the contrary that could encourage people to roll alts, or...believe it or not...give away items (as I've experienced in Ryzom oh so very often).
This is true. As far as giving up items, well, let's say that i've given up awesome items to people who supposedly needed them ... only to see that item posted on the AH a few minutes after. Or having the same people try to price gouge me when I wanted to buy crafting ingredients (which aren't rare at all). It's disappointing to say the least. So now I resorted to sell them to NPCs or give them to guildies who I know actually NEED the item.
Peace.
Stealth seems to be the primary feature of the game(sarcasm off).
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 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
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?
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.
You can try just use a proxy to verify your email address.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
I have a few screens in my gallery:
http://www.mmorpg.com/galleries/Lydon/1118_The-Chronicles-of-Spellborn
I have a few screens in my gallery:
http://www.mmorpg.com/galleries/Lydon/1118_The-Chronicles-of-Spellborn
Wow Lyndon ... did you take those screenies on purpose or is the game *THAT* empty. If so, that game won't last six months. Shame.
How did you gain the perception of emptiness from those screenshots? It's clear you haven't played the game as you have no idea as to the size of the areas.
And yes, generally I take my screenshots like that on purpose as I'm trying to get the environment into the picture - not the people occupying it.
How did you gain the perception of emptiness from those screenshots? It's clear you haven't played the game as you have no idea as to the size of the areas.
And yes, generally I take my screenshots like that on purpose as I'm trying to get the environment into the picture - not the people occupying it.
Lyndon,
Usually it is pretty hard find that kind of people void in any public area -- at least not in most MMOs I've play or have played. Usually in town and taverns where NPCs give quests and such are *usually* bustling thus why I asked.
Peace.
TCoS is designed in a very different way. Not all taverns give quests and the world is rather large, meaning the trip from point A to point B can be a bit of a run. Hawksmouth, the city featured in most of those screens, is designed in such a way that there are a number of roads circling a central plaza, with roads leading into the plaza through those circular roads. As a result there are backstreets and even alleyways where people have no reason to be other than for the sake of personal exploration.
But MMO's are completly different from competative FPS games (to which Wendel is famous) not only that an MMO's survival depends upon subscription numbers and has nothing to do with the skill.
I think you need to eat some chill pills or something, my point isnt about who's better than who its merly about mmo's traditional success in America over Europe.
Yes, those shots like like they are on purpose. Shots taken on purpose are usually clean of other characters.
Ive seen screenshots similar to this before, and am still not conviced. But I do know that the Graphics on Vangaurd were always the best graphics in an mmo i've seen, and yet a Vangaurd screenshot makes the graphics out to be awful!!
Even with video's that are compressed to hell, you cant properly make out what the graphics are like until you start playing. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see
A bit off-topic, but please bear with me.
How does an American go about getting a free trial account? I'd be willing to wait if I can try out the game and find that I like it. Step-by-step non-techie instructions, please. :)
Yeah I had high hopes for it when I first heard about it a year ago but at this point have little hope...... It wouldnt shock me if the whole game was f2p sometime in 2009......
Well, see. In order to give those step-by-step instructions, the person posting them is helping you break Spellborns own rules. The game that is running is not meant for the U.S to play, and the U.S. is purposely blocked.
I think it's about time we start enforcing the rules on this site as far as posting ways to access games when the publishers and game developers do not want your demographic playing.
In fact, I will be reporting any such posts from now on, as they are against this sites rules and the Spellborn devs rules. They do not want anyone from an IP blocked region playing on the currently open servers, and I'm going to do my best to ensure they get their wish. I want them to be happy, after all.
Well, see. In order to give those step-by-step instructions, the person posting them is helping you break Spellborns own rules. The game that is running is not meant for the U.S to play, and the U.S. is purposely blocked.
I think it's about time we start enforcing the rules on this site as far as posting ways to access games when the publishers and game developers do not want your demographic playing.
I'm sorry, I didn't know that. So basically if you're American you can't even try this game without taking some alternate route? That really is epic fail.
I'm sorry, I didn't know that. So basically if you're American you can't even try this game without taking some alternate route? That really is epic fail.
That is correct.
I actually called the article "Let the Chronicles begin... - a short round-up"
But you know, it gets through many hands until it is published ^^
The US launch was originally planned for the 5th January, but is seems to be laid off until "later"... (I hope it comes soon though)
I would not consider myself a fanboi - thank you ^^.
As a European, I can understand you disappointments, but for us - from a user point of view, it was not such a bad launch.
The whole thing with the IP block is a bad idea, really. And the European player-base agrees with that. My personal guess would be, that they could not get Bullfrog to carry out the release in the US and thus were looking for someone else. Of course I have no insight into the marketing decisions, but since SIL was virtually unknown, most publishers would not touch it with a "10 foot pole" - ((R) D&D).
And of course it would have must been a publisher with some experience, or at least the resources to cover a MMORPG. And who is there (who does not have its own MMO on the start)?
I just hope, that TCoS will survive. I am currently not playing as much as I would like to (too much personal stuff to do), but I always keep myself updated and log in for a level or two whenever I can. It is still one of the most promising titles out there (IMO) and I will stick to it for now...
have a nice one!
- patrick
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