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The Chronicles of Spellborn General Article: A Look at TCoS
MMORPG.com Chronicles of Spellborn Correspondent Cody Worth writes this look at some of the good and bad systems in Acclaim's new MMO.
By Cody Worth on May 13, 2009
I'll admit it; I was excited for The Chronicles of Spellborn. The graphical style, the combat, and the classes just had me intrigued from the beginning. Right from the start, Spellborn was a rich world that would attractan audience. If they were skeptical about it, they would discuss how it wouldn't be executed correctly, or it would never come out. Those faithful prospective players that followed the game have found that the final product has a lot of what they were expecting, and that's more than a lot of games can say.
I'll get my complaints about Spellborn out of the way first:
Character Creation
For starters, I'm not sure about Spellborn's character creation. On one hand, I like it a lot. There are two very different races: the Humans and the Daevi. The Humans are your basic ordinary humans, nothing special here. The Daevi are a demonic looking race born of magic. You can choose from around twelve hairstyles and five variants of faces. Also, you can choose your body type, meaning that you can be anywhere from skinny, to fat, to super buff. In my opinion, being able to choose between the different body types on humans adds a lot to the character creation while the Daevi seemed to me to just add more veins. On the other hand, the hairstyles aren't anything to call home about. Of the twelve human male hairstyles I had at my disposal, I didn't like any of them. I just chose one that looked decent. Maybe others would have more luck than me. To balance this out though, Spellborn allows you to choose from a large array of gear to customize your character with in the beginning.
Tutorial
My other complaint is that every time you make a new character, you have to go through the tutorial. For those of you that like to have alts, beware. The tutorial is almost mind numbing. Be prepared to walk into a lot of glowing orbs. Thankfully, there's been discussion about fixing this issue and allowing players to skip the tutorial. What can I say, it's a short list. Now it's time to move onto the redeeming qualities of Spellborn.
Combat
First, is the game's beautifully executed combat system. Spellborn is a combat-oriented game, no ifs, ands, or buts. At the core of Spellborn beats the heart of battle. Every battle feels like you're in control. Every swing and action you make is something you've decided on. Everything from hits and misses, to your skilldeck, to the order you learn your abilities. If you miss, it's because you actually did not connect your attack, not because the monster is higher level than you, or because you're fighting a monster who has a high evasion stat. If the monster misses, it's for the same reasons. If you're fighting a wolf, and it goes to bite you, you can jump out of harm's way. Spellborn leaves the battle in the hands of the player.
Classes
Next, come the classes. Every class seems to have a specific role, and no two classes are the same. There are three archetypes: Warrior, Rogue, and Spellcaster. Each archetype has three subdivisions.
;)
For example, Warrior has the Bloodwarrior, which uses scars for combat. Sound weird? It is. See, the scars allow the Bloodwarrior to either link to a friend or a foe. Then there is an array of abilities the Bloodwarrior can use. For instance, if they link to a friend, they can absorb some of the damage that person takes. Naturally, these are the main tank class of Spellborn. The Bloodwarrior. Each class has a gimmick that is as unique as the Bloodwarrior's. For the Warrior classes, the Adept uses stances and the Wrathguard uses spirits. The rogues have the Skinshifter, Trickster and Deathhand. The Skinshifter is interesting in that it can transform into different forms for travel purposes. In animal form, the wildlife won't agro to them. Tricksters use traps, mechanics and bombs as their main form of attack. Deathhands are deadly in that they use poisons to incapacitate and kill their foes. Spellcasters are home to the Ancestral Mage, Rune Mage and Void Seer. Ancestral Mage is a pet class. They get many different types of pets for the different situations they encounter. The Rune Mage uses tattoos to enhance their magical power. Their main focus is powerful Area of Effect damage. The Void Seer is a complete counter mage. They're made to lockdown the enemies they're fighting and keep the party alive. The classes that a game offers are an important part of my choosing an MMO, so the variety was one of the main selling points.
Quests
;)
Questing is clear, easy and a great way to level. As with a lot of the modern day MMOs, it's the fastest way to gain experience. Spellborn has two types of experience points: Fame and PeP. Fame is what allows you to progress through your levels, whereas PeP (Personal Experience Points) gives you buffs as you level it up. As you would imagine, it levels up quicker than fame levels, but if you die, you lose a level of PeP. So if you were to die multiple times, it could be a little disastrous. Full PeP isn't required, it's just nice to have. But dying and losing a PeP level is most unfortunate. And that leads me to in-game death. It's very basic, you die, you respawn at a respawning point. The only detriment to dying is the loss of your PeP, so be careful with it.
High Houses
The last thing about Spellborn I wish to discuss are the houses. They're not quite the houses one would think I would talk about. I'm talking about High Houses. Spellborn has High Houses which are political entities in the game. Each house has their own views and objectives but they currently don't have any impact on your character other than lore. It's basically just a meaningless faction you join as of now. I assume there will be a lot more High House content added in the future. The idea is too good to just leave alone.
Currently, Spellborn is a diamond in the rough. For as great as the ideas and execution are, it's still unpolished as a whole. It's going to need a lot of work before the game truly begins to shine in the eyes of MMO Gamers.
Spellborn has the potential to become one of the great classics people play and talk about for years, or it could fall into obscurity. It all depends on how it's handled by the developers. It is my sincerest hope that it garners a lot of attention and becomes a mainstream game, but the only thing that will tell is time.
Nice review! Its exactly the way i look at the game :P
just tried the trial areas out a bit, yes it does have potential.. theres not a lot of ppl running around tho (PvE international server) despite the game being pretty nice, i like the skilldeck and the targeting.. at least u have to aim now instead of having auto-aim like you have (or should i say "had" since the game is dead) in tabula rasa which was a really boring game.
I totally agree with your closing comment. This game has so much cool stuff going for it that it could turn out to be a long term classic and I really, really hope it does... but it could go the other way, I sincerely hope it doesn't.
Yes i loved this game for the first 2 days i was ABLE to play it. For some reason i kept getting the Error:103 for the rest of the 2 weeks, so until they fix the gameguard issues, i will not be going back!
I questioned it after about a month, but after trying darkfall (which isnt a bad game, but not for me) i decided that TCoS is the game for me. Its combat is just so much more involving and fun, and if the developers can stick to the idea of political relations between the high houses (especilally in the realm of PvP in conflict) this game will attract a lot of people.
I have to agree with everyone here. I am currently playing. I just subscribed because they just patched and introduced some PvP looting and a reason to be in the houses. You can now go into dungeons that are open for a short time and collect keys which unlock a chest with loot in it. The keys can be looted when you are killed.
Check it out here
http://phpbb.acclaim.com/spellborn/viewtopic.php?t=3628
If they'd only allow us to play with whoever instead of dividing us to 'regions' - if this would be different I would be here with my friends.
*sighs*
Loved the game but went back to games where my old friends are. I know - I could get new friends, but at the same time I don't want to lose the old ones who I've played 4 years with. And they are in UK and US... and I'm in the other side :(
You can play on whatever server you like mate, the IP block is off!?
Great review. I admit I am "hooked" on TCOS.
This game feels like a sleeper to me. I have high hopes for the game and I'll definitely be playing, mainly because of the combat system. Exactly what I've been looking for.
The humans remind me of the storm troopers Peace and Fritz from the animated film Wizards (1977). One of my favorite movies. Another reason to play.
OH?! I've totally missed that news!!
I need to talk to my friends about it - Thanks :D
Howdy,
This is all in all a very positive review, however there were a few mistakes that I feel need to be made known (for those who haven't played Spellborn and are going off that review).
Firstly, Stradden states that this is Acclaim's new MMORPG. This is incorrect, Acclaim is the Publisher. Spellborn NV is the developer and it is important to make that distinction :)
This is incorrect in that, in Spellborn there are No specific "Class Roles", and that is a major way in which Spellborn differs from pretty much all other MMOs (with some exception). The classes in Spellborn are all Hybrids with specialities. Almost every class can heal itself to some extent, almost every class has access to one or more debuffs/buffs/aoe/DD dmg skills and every class has the ability to either melee or range (to varying degrees). This is in fact a core aspect of Spellborn, that there are no cookie cutter classes. There is no "Holy Trinity" no Healer+Tank+DPS=Win combination. In Spellborn, 4 Tricksters or 4 Wrath Guards or 2 Skin Shifters + 1 Adept + 1 Ancestral Mage are fully capable of taking on Anything Spellborn has to offer (granted that the players skill is sufficient)
You will never encounter a situation where you fail because you lacked a certain class or it's ability. In some cases the fight may have been easier if you had a certain class that can cast a certain ability, but it is in No Way required or critical.
It is very important that people realize that they are entering a game where the standard roles of classes has been shattered, completely re-examined, and built from the ground up. These classes are like nothing you've ever played.
This is incorrect in that Scars are the Blood Warrior's body slots. They initiate an array of added bonuses such as "Increase Magical resistant + Decrease Melee Resistance" or "Lower the Mind attribute + Raise the Body Attribute" etc etc. The author here is actually speaking of the Blood Warrior's Blood Hooks (meant for enemies) and Blood Bonds (meant for Allies)
These abilities (B-Hook and B-Bond) are initiated through various skills that the Blood Warrior has at his/her disposal.
I touched upon this misconception earlier and I'd like to reiterate. This is incorrect in that there are no generic class roles in spellborn. There is no "Tank" or "Healer" or "DPSer". Being a Tank requires that you be able to grab and hold a monster's attention and/or direct all/most incoming damage away from your team mates and on to you. It also usually means that you have greater HP and greater defence than anyone else, thus allowing you to take a much greater "pounding" than anyone else.
This is simply Not the case for any class in Spellborn. The Blood Warrior, while it can initiate blood links with allies that allows a *portion* of incoming dmg to be redirected to the blood warrior as well as allowing any incoming heals on the Blood Warrior to be shared with the Blood Linked partner (and visa versa), it only serves to help out. Also, since mobs in Spellborn do Not use the standard Hate/Aggro/Threat scheme and instead use an intelligent, scripted AI that chooses its targets and tactics on a situational basis, no class has any sort of "Aggro" ability, that is to say, no class is able to press a button and have a mob(s) suddenly focus on it.
Thus it is important once again to state clearly that in Spellborn there are No Pre-Defined Classes. The Blood Warrior is not the "Tank" Class of Spellborn because there is No Tank Class, no Healer Class, no Stealth Class. Each class is unique and new, offering a nearly endless configuration (at level 50) and play style.
This is incorrect in that High Houses certainly do have an impact on your Character. Firstly, belonging to a High House allows access to unique quest lines that are accessible only to those within your house. Secondly, belonging to a High House allows access to a House specific chat channel in which you are able to communicate with all other members of your house regardless of location, guild and class. Thirdly, in many areas of Spellborn, PvP is House Specific (a good example is the newly added Demon Chest Room) thus belonging to a High House clearly defines who your allies are and who you are at odds with. For example, if I were to join High House Silver, I would be able to attack (in PvP) members of house Torque, Maul, Shroud and Rune whereas I would Not be able to attack members of House Silver (in areas flagged as FFA PvP such as Lou's Cavern in Aldenvault, you are able to attack anyone from any house - even members of your own guild.)
Also, it is important to mention that the ability to change High Houses is in the works which further proves that High House association is a major point in Spellborn and one long term outcome of such an association will (eventually) be Shard Conquest which will pit members of each High House against one another in an effort to claim "ownership" over newly discovered Shards (This is intended for future content and is not currently in-game.)
The question of which High House to join is a critical one and should not be taken lightly. It will absolutely influence your gaming experience from the moment you join.
Thanks all for reading, I hope I've clarified a few of these points. All in all it was a good review and certainly a positive one. The points of concern are valid and I can say that each of them are known to the Devs and they are looking into them.
TCoS jsut wasnt the game for me.....I found it pretty boring for the most part....The graphics were nice but that was about all I really liked......The tutorial was brutal and not being able to skip it when making an alt was a very bad decision........The first area was also very poor......The quests had no imagination whatsoever and the mob choices were extremely limited.....The combat was different but i didnt find it all that fun.......It felt like I had to work alot harder for no reason.....
I also didnt like that clothing was just for looks and I prefer getting gear upgrades over the Sigil system......I probably killed over 100 mobs and never got anything worthwhile off any of them......The community was friendly enough though I did get KSed alot which really ticks me off......I hope you guys enjoy TCoS it just wasnt a game I could get into.....I like my alts and having only 2 races with 3 class options (yeah I know it expands later) is too limiting for my tastes.....