Hi All,

First of all this is going to be a Mammoth Post.  Please dont bother replying if you first of all cant be bothered to read it.  I know it's probably going to be a total waste of time and the thread will probably either go into 'Spellborn Sux' territory or no-one will give half a shit and not even bother reading it.

My main intention here is to see if we can get some interest in the game - maybe get some people in game and start a guild up? 

I've been a massive fan of this game since the first time i heard about it.  I've played the game from its rough CB and onwards through paid release.  I thought i'd make a post to see if we could get some people to start to play the game and maybe find out why people havn't played it or maybe tried it but didnt like it (see Poll).

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History of Spellborn

Spellborn has had a very rocky past, and it's this that i think has hurt it's chances of success more than anything.  Back before Beta the official forums were buzzing with excitement at the prospect of an MMO with a unique art style and a twitch based fps style combat style.   Initial Beta's were very rough and evidently they had issues getting the combat system working smoothly.  Things gradually got better

Coming out of Beta the developers announced they had made 2 seperate publishing deals with Acclaim and Frogster for the US and EU respectively.  This announcement to split the community in 2 really left a sour taste in the mouths of many.  Guilds were split up, friends were no longer able to play together.  There wasn't even the choice of community to join as they implemented ip bans.  Many people lost interest in the game and left for good.

Eventually they listened to the remains of the community and ip bans were lifted and servers from both communities merged.  Things were looking up with some great updates - Demon Chest was introduced, a Tutorial added and a redesign of the starter zone to help people learn the systems better were all added.

Though alas these things seemed like too little too late - the community was already small and dwindling daily.  Friends were logging off never to be seen again and less and less people were seen in the game.  Such a Shame...  In the right hands this game (should) could have been massive.

The game is currently under a redevelopment by Frogster who are apparantly adding a Cash shop to the game. There has been no news on this for quite a while though as such the game is in a froze state with no updates in the near future - until Frogster take the reigns

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What is Spellborn?

Spellborn is an MMO, it has quests, it has monsters to kill, it has instances etc, all like any other MMO.  Having said that it is a very different experience to ALL the other clones out there.  I often see posts in the LFG forum from people asking for a game with :-

• Skill Based Combat System
• Unique and interesting world / Lore / Quests
• Exciting PVP
• Great Graphics
• No Endless Raiding for Gear
• Essential Group Play

Spellborn has all these features and it's completely Free to play.

While the game is in a frozen state dont let this put you off trying it - the game is fully playable and has a max level of 50.  Which will take a while to reach.  There are occasional bugs and some of the quests cannot be completed but this is rare and doesn't effect game progress at all.

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What's so Unique about the combat system?

The combat system in Spellborn is based around the Skilldeck system.  Skills in Spellborn have to be aimed as in an FPS, Range has to be taken into consideration also.  If for example your aim is off when shooting an arrow, you'll miss, its as simple as that, there's no dice rolls that determine a hit.

You assign skills to the skilldeck similar to assigning skills in Guildwars.  This can be edited at any time in Spellborn though as long as you dont have your weapon drawn.  Initially you can assign 9 skills in a 3x3 matrix but this expands as you level up eventually allowing 30 skills to be set up in a 5x6 matrix.

Consideration has to be taken when assigning the skills - you will only have access to 5 at a time, you must select one of the 5 visible skills and the deck will then rotate to the next row and so on until it rotates back to the first row.  Strategy is involved here as combos can eventually be achieved with special starter and finishing moves all the while being aware of cooldowns as the skills are used and the rows rotate.

You use the Mouse Wheel to scroll through available skills on the row and once selected the deck rotates to the next row.  All the while Aiming and moving your character to avoid attacks.

It is completely different to any other MMO combat system and is incredibly satisfying once mastered.

Here's a Video of a Developer Demoing Combat before Release - Here

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So What about PVP?

PVP in Spellborn is Based on 5 High Houses (Factions).  At lvl 9 you can begin a quest to join one of them.

Until you join a Faction you are impervious to PVP unless you go to the Mosh Pit area in the starter zone.  Once you join a faction pretty much everywhere (outside of the first 2 zones) are Faction based PVP.

There's also a unique PVP system in the game called Demon Chest.  There's a Hidden chamber which only opens up once a day and inside there's the Demon Chest. The chest requires 3 keys to open.  The keys have to be found and are rare drops from certain enemies.  The twist here is that the keys are lootable if you are killed by another player.


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Ok - Can i make Stuff?

Yes Spellborn does have a crafting system.  There are no levels in the crafting system and it works like this.

While fighting an enemy may drop a broken item.  You then take the broken item to the Forge where it can then be changed into a Recipe.  The Recipe will contain the instructions and say what materials are required.  Once you have the required materials you can make the item at the forge.  Each Recipe is single use - so even if you've made the item once you'll need to find the recipe again to make it again.

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Sounds Good - but Why aren't people playing it?

Who knows?  I have a few theories and it would be interesting to find out with the Poll.

• Is it just too Different?  Is the game just too different to what people are used to.  The setting, the lore, the combat system, the graphics etc.
• The Initial Publisher Debacle turned too many away?
• Is the combat system too complex?  There's a lot to think about while fighting, is it just too much for some people to handle?
• No Spoon Feeding?  The quest texts in Spellborn are sometimes quite long, they have to be read in order to know where you are going as directions are often mentioned.  There are no Big pointy arrows showing you where to go, not even markers on your maps.  Have people just become too lazy after playing MMO' that play themselves?
• Difficulty finding a working Client! - See Below.

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I Want to give it a try - where can i get it?

While it's real good of Acclaim to leave the servers running while the games in redevelopment it would be even nicer of them to host a working download but unfortunately this isn't the case :(

You can find a working Client Download Here

There's also a working Torrent with working Gameguard fix for Windows 7 folk (Thanks Fobar) Here

After installing it will patch up ok but may take some time so You can get the Patches and apply them manually from Here

I've found that one of the patches in the above Archive may be corrupt - though im not sure if it was a duff download on my behalf if you cant get it to run you'll need this one too from Here (Ensure to remove the _ from the .exe extension of this file to run it!)

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Some Screenshots and Movies!

Here are some of my Own Screenshots from Spellborn :-

And Finally a couple of Great Youtube Movies that capture the atmosphere of the game perfectly :-

Video 1

Video 2

I hope this has maybe piqued your interest into giving the game a go.  If anyone decdes to give the game a chance and is interested in forming a guild in the game please let me know below.  It'd be awesome to actually see some people playing the game.

To those who have actually read the whole thing - thanks for your time.  This was the 3rd draft of this after accidentally navigating away from the page half way through while typing it - that was frustrating!

Well my fingertips are bleeding from typing so much so im gonna leave it there.

Thanks

Paul

You don't have my option listed

I have the game, It works, I just have really little time to play it, and there's not too many people roaming about.

Originally posted by GamerAeon

You don't have my option listed

I have the game, It works, I just have really little time to play it, and there's not too many people roaming about.

Thats the whole point of this - to generate some interest, to get some people in the game.  The fact that you dont have enough time to play it is completely irrelevent :)

It looks different and i'm gonna give it a try. Thanks for making me aware of it.

Downloading now.

Originally posted by Label_This

It looks different and i'm gonna give it a try. Thanks for making me aware of it.

Downloading now.

No problem mate - please come back here and let us know what you thought of it.

Cheers

Paul

I'd love to give it one more try and so do 4-5 of my friends! We keep coming back and leaving cause of lack of population within the game:( This is such a great game i suggest every1 to try it out!

It's a decent game IT really is but the present lowwww population probably turns most away.

Every time I go to download this the download never works, or there is some wierd read disk error. I've tried 2 times in the past 3 months. If they can't even offer a decent working copy directly from the website, what does that say about the game?

Oh, and I did play it at launch and found it to be utterly boring. I think combat was too slow for my taste if I remember and I didn't really "care" about why I was doing the things they have you do in the game.

Lack of immersion mainly.

Originally posted by elocke

Every time I go to download this the download never works, or there is some wierd read disk error. I've tried 2 times in the past 3 months. If they can't even offer a decent working copy directly from the website, what does that say about the game?

Oh, and I did play it at launch and found it to be utterly boring. I think combat was too slow for my taste if I remember and I didn't really "care" about why I was doing the things they have you do in the game.

Lack of immersion mainly.

You found the combat slow?  Are you sure it was this game?

I've addressed the download in my post.  A Working client can be downloaded there.

to be fair Acclaim have no involvement in the game any more and don't support it.  It's actually really good of them to keep the servers on and maintain them as this generates 0 revenue for them.  But yeah it would be amazing if they could fix the download - im sure more people would play if that actually worked..

Spellborn is A-W-E-S-O-M-E. Left because of the low population, got to level 20 or something and dam I loved it!! Remember when I succesfully did some hard quests by pulling beasts and pulling bandits, then jumping to stone they couldn't reach and finally they killed each other and I got the quest done.

All the great games have low pop. (This and Vanguard)

Im waiting for it to be officially f2p with an actual development team behind it.

Right now the Devs are just letting people play until the actual f2p client is released.

I'm not interested in playing a game that isnt supported sorry.

main thing is everybody know it this company version of putting the game on the shelf.plus not many like playing an empty game!(was empty when mmohut tested it last week or so!

I'm playing Spellborn right now and really enjoying it. Of course it's frozen now, without updates but in my opinion still offers more than most of the f2p mmos (even with regular updates). For casual players like me I think it's great and I recommend it strongly.

Hi all,

Nice to see you post Paul. Just want to tell everyone about this game so let me start by saying:

I am one of the longuest playing members of The Chronicles of Spellborn who still plays regularly (almost every day of the week). I started playing Spellborn the day it went open in the Netherlands. That was end of 2008. Many reasons keep me playing this game through all the good and the bad times.People within the community are all very nice people, fun, cheerfull, and helpfull. Untill now I have only come across with respectfull players.

Spellborn is a game where (depending on wich server you are on) PvP and PvE is well balanced. There is plenty to see, to discover and to do. Enough to keep you playing for weeks or months. If you like to PvP, I have a little video for you of a PvP event I organised while I was the guild master of Origin Born Killers.

Have a look here: http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/origins-pvp-event-spellborn/314713 . The video was made by one of our previous community managers: Sabre.

When it comes to questing, there is plenty to do. I won't be giving away the story lines, you realy should give it a try, you won't be disapointed. I hope you all enjoy it as I do, and hope to see you soon online.

Sincerely,

Acid-Burn (IRL: Paulo)

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Im playing this game since the EU release in 2008 and it's still alot of fun.The whole game atmosphere is amazing and its very different compared to other mmorpg's and thats the thing which makes this game so special.

it has the imo best battlesystem ever which makes PvE and PvP alot more interesting like in other games.

the best part of this game is imo the skill based PvP and the good class balance except of some little overpowered skills.

I recommend this game to everybody who want a fresh ,skill based and real time gameplay in a mmorpg and to all who have enough of all these same grindfest games and point click sleeping games.

Sweet ive tried this game before but ive had a really bad computer and it did take away most of the experience.. but im downloading it now and it looks great im really tired of all the stereotype games with the expected asian graphics and the same stuff over and over.. and i dont have any problems against having low pop only if im not the ONLY one in the entire server then i sure does get a little boring.. ill catch anyone online i guess!

by the way just a word of warning dont rely on the pvp video shown here to get an idea of the look.the graphic are very nice.

the video here doesnt do it justice i trial it it a while back and it was one of the top looking game!

just in case some were searching how to download the game (since it isnt obvious anymore the main site of spellborn has an error that only a server restart would probably

http://games.on.net/file/26160/The_Chronicles_of_Spellborn_v1.0.3.1_Free2Play_Client

yes i changed the site again because the acclaim site dont work!

reason?i saw while checking the web that both frogster(runes of magics)and acclaim have the chronicle of spellborn tho frogster does steer you to acclaim site(yep big help it does us since its bugged!but hell they did warn that it would be their shelf version so its better there then in the real shelf lol!anyway trying to download my self from that site hopefully this will work!

Hi there,

Nice to have some news of u Atomo,

Well, im playing spellborn since july 2009, as it was on EU server and had to pay for it. Its a wonderful game where im still learning things, tips, and so on, discover some new weapons i never saw before, same for clothes.

we have a friendly community, and as im the guild master of one of the oldest guild still active (sorry atomo ;) ), and play almost everyday, i migt talk a little about it. just sorry if my english is too poor to explain well what i mean sometimes.

its a wonderful game. really. landscape are amazing, scraring when they have to, the musics in game suit me. the sounds are realistic (just listen when u walk on sand, or in water) and sometimes u jump on ur chair because uve heard something and then u know troubles will soon come. the quests are nice, and enough that, even if i got 2 lvl 50, and some others between 15 and 40, i still dont know what to do in some cases, and still have to think about do some better than last time (well, ok maybe im nott he best to look at skills effects, just enjoy play, and try not to die too much)

AND WE HAVE SPELLBORNDB.net, the famous one..how talk about chronicles without have a thanksfull thinking about THE site that help u so much for playing in. Hope i may talk about it here. please forgive me if not, just its impossible for me as i imagine the work it means to collects all those datas.

And i like combats, they have beautiful effects, the classes are almost balanced as far as i know (if some are harder to level up, theyre stronger at high level) partying is fun, instance are nice also.

Of course there are some bugs, cant imagine games or programs without any. of course would be more fun to have more players. what can i say when i hear people complaining about not enough players, and know theyre not playing in cause of that? well if they were playing, they would be more players, no? so stop complaining and enjoy with us, we will help u to level up, and have all stuffs u need

Now i would like to say some "thanks to"

thanks to atomo, would like him to come back, and ur post make people talk about spell and was a good idea

thanks to acid, was always helpful, and im very happy he join my guild

thanks, big thanks to fireclaw, du to him we have a ventrilo server and a nice website,

http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=334727

thanks also to my sweet jw and ciara, that helped me so much making guild International still alive and friendly

and thks to rhynu, ken, az, and so many players i met in game, for the fun i have in. (hey ghost, thks for bunjee jumping ;))

so, at least, have a look at our nice spellborn

Hope to see u in game,

ur lokilouve, guild master International

mm! me i tried to download and play different version and there is always something not working latest issue gameguard error 0

did like gameguard asked and sent an email with the file they asked but hell it didnt make my game work.from the look of it there are 3 publisher for this title(god whats uop with this idea?)

EA is in it trough one of their smaller outfit they baught

frogster is in it but sending you to

acclaim witch is basicly just letting there but pretty mutch everything on the chronicle of spellborn there(site)isnt working either lol.

so im sorry to say yes it was a great game when at least the acclaim site worked and you could download it but now i do not recommend you do the holaoops req to play the game you might get infected without knowing it!

I played for awhile, and payed as well, but I had awful performance. Stuttering with high fps, and no packet loss. Something to do with the unreal 2.5 engine and ati cards. My system was WAY above reccomended specs. Changing settings had no effect.

I remember watching a few FFA brawl events with 30+ players, and dropping to 0.3fps when the spell casting began. In the end I gave up. Even came back after they went f2p, but still no change.

Its a shame really, TCoS is a great game.