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The Chronicles of Spellborn - Developer Chat Summary
Community Manager Laura Genender files this report, summarizing the points that were made by Chronicles of Spellborn developers when they stopped by our IRC for a developer chat on Sunday.
Yesterday in the MMORPG.com chatroom, our community was joined by TCoS Community Managers Papillon (German), Mirage (French), and Banshee (English), as well as combat designer Selachii, to discuss the upcoming MMORPG’s combat system.
Subclasses and Bodyslots
Our first question of the night was about body slots, part of TCoS’s innovative subclass system. Starting at level 5, players are allowed to choose a subclass. This subclass has its own skills, but it also has a unique feature called body slots. Players can purchase (yes, all body slots are purchasable) body slots that are unique to their subclass, which change character appearance and add abilities. For example, the Blood Warrior body slots are scars, which actually appear on your character. Most of these scars are self buffs with a beneficial and detrimental effect; one of the first scars Blood Warriors will receive is called Magic Repulsion and it raises magic resistances, but lowers melee resistances.
Today, Selachii talked a bit about the Ancestral Mage, the pet-class subclass. This is the only subclass that works with pets, and all of the body slot options give the Ancestral Mage different summons. These pets will have a variety of roles: some of them will be pure melee while others might heal, buff, or even debuff.
Each class will have between 10 and 15 body slots, though only one can be active during combat.
Equipment and Consumables
In most MMOs, equipment is an important part of combat; players eventually find the “optimal” build and nearly every high level, hardcore cleric wears the same set of armor. In TCoS, though, “gear is purely for looks,” Selachii explained. “In combat, it has no direct effects. That said, some of your gear works as a container for Sigils, which are items that enhance your stats, however the type of gear you use doesn’t affect the Sigils you can use. As a high level player, you can run around in a cloth and a bare chest and you won’t suffer compared to players in shining armor.”
One of our users also asked about the use of potions in TCoS. “We don’t have consumables that give health,” said Selachii. “The consumables in TCoS offer buffs to improve certain situations.” This can mean your max health, or one of your resistances!
Mounts
;)
First, the bad news: there won’t be any mounts or flying mounts at release. Travel through the game will be done via shardships, which fly from dock to dock within shards or between shards.
That being said, there are future plans for post-launch mount additions, including combat. This is one of the reasons that mounts won’t be ready at launch: “When we implement mounts/flying mounts, we want to have jousting/mounted combat.”
Combat!
First off, let’s start with melee combat: in TCoS, there are no hidden dice rolls or chance/luck-based mechanics. Damage is calculated based on weapon damage, resistances, buffs and debuffs. Players can also dodge attacks, but this means actually moving your character – manually – out of the way.
For ranged combat, including spell casting, players will use a shooter-style crosshair. “If you want to heal a party member and a monster stands in between, whether or not you can accomplish your task depends on igetting your crosshair on your teammate. If the monster blocks your actual crosshair, it won’t hit. If you’re taller than the monster, or so short you can see your teammate through the monster’s legs, you can heal him.”
Aim is determined based on the target’s location at the time of firing, not when the spell/projectile would actually hit so there’s no target-leading for slower weapons/casts.
Also notable in the combat system is the difference between combat and non-combat modes. When your weapon is sheathed, players’ health will replenish; sitting down speeds this up even more. You will also be able to run and travel faster. Once you unsheathe your weapon, you move slower but take less damage. Managing your combat/non-combat modes is important for battle and fleeing alike.
;)
Monsters
Monsters in The Chronicles of Spellborn run on a fairly sophisticated AI. Monsters won’t just stand around waiting for you to come kill them; they’ll get bored if there’s nothing to do and wander off (within a set territory).
In addition to this, not all NPCs are on the same “bad guy” faction. There will be combat situations where a team of players is fighting a group of monsters, and another set of monsters joins in hostile to both sides. Even if players are not involved, certain monsters in the wilderness will attack each other. “We have a predator-prey system in place. Hoppies really need to watch where they are going.”
TCoS has another very unique system in the form of World Bosses. “We like to approach the world of Spellborn as an evolving world, not a static world which repeats itself every day,” says Selachii. There are bosses that may spawn only once in the game world, and players might receive a permanent reward such as a statue built in their honor.
For the full log, make sure to check out http://mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/gameId/207/setView/features/loadFeature/1632 and keep looking back for future articles and Dev Chats with The Chronicles of Spellborn!
Nice summary Laura!
...now give us a release date!
This game is going to be a hit or completely fail. I just recently started doing some research on this game and I will be trying it. If nothing more than the fact they are trying alot of things that seem interesting. Guess we will all find out but my feeling is this game will either top all the newer games that released in 07 and ones released in 08 or its going to fail bigtime. I hope its a sucess just because the MMO genra needs more diversity :)
I've never played Spellborn, but I've followed it on-and-off for roughly two years by virtue of an old job. I'd never seen a dev comment on the armor before, and I was a little surprised to read in the summary that armor will have zero impact on your ability to avoid injury.
I understand the desire to keep "uber gear" from becoming a part of the game, but how does armor being purely for looks and having no impact on your ability to survive a fight make any sense whatsoever? Armor was invented to avoid different kinds of damage. As weapons changed, armor changed to match. Why not simply install a system where different dmg types perform differently against different armors? That also avoids the "uber gear" issue -- at least, I think it does -- and provides a level of realism and complexity that mirrors the real world, thus improving the immersion factor.
Perhaps someone here can tell me: were there any specifics in the proper IRC transcript (which I have not read) that shed a little light on this or assuage my fears about the utter nonsense hinted at in the dev log summary?
And perhaps someone who is in beta can tell me: is this game simply a fantasy version of City of Heroes? Having aesthetics trump realism seems truer to comic books than to the other fantasy MMOs out there.
Thanks in advance to those who have information regarding those questions.
Too bad that the armor thing has been known pretty much ever since the first footage, 1+ years ago. You should've checked better :P
I would rather see it as a MMO version of the old (unreal-engine) game "Rune", with the FPS style maleecombat in third person perspective. I think the cartoonish aesthetics is just a matter of gamedesign taste... I also think cartoonish games last longer, as realistic games seems to last until the next graphic card generation is introduced.
The uber gear issue isn't the main reason why they made armor have no impact on damage or stats. More importantly is that they want to give players the ability to look how they want to. And is is that strange in a fantasy setting? For example, in literature and movies barbarians are quite common and usually wear no armor at all, but are still good at melee combat.
In EQ2 for example they have "visual" slots for appearence and normal slots for effective armor. This way you still can look mostly the way you want, but still have full stats on armor. Taking the armor mechanic out of the game just for a visual effect is dumb imo. I was excited awhile back because this game was taking a different approach to the genre, but anymore it seems it won't be able to compete with the likes of aging WOW or EQ2, let alone Warhammer.
They havent removed the armour mechanic, they have just seperated it from gear. Sigils effect stats, but are not, of course, visible to the observer. This way a wizardly looking type can be as 'armoured' as a knightly looking type, and the knightly looking people can cast spells or whatever as wizards... Or anywhere in between. It's all about how you equip your sigils and what effect you wish them to have.
In short, it's all about choice.
I do not understand the confusion here, unless I myself am confused of course
They're trying to do things differently, and people can't really say they won't like it, you can't dislike what you haven't tried.
More and more, each time I read stuff about this game I see it will totally rock or totally suck. =P
For those who haven't been following this game, the issue about armor not having stats has nothing to do with grinding or lack thereof. It is about character customization. All of the visual gear, including weapons, are purely for aesthetic effect. The "sigils" that carry the stats are not visible - think of them like enchantments or other gear buffs.
This means that you can look however you like and have whatever stats you like - the two are unconnected. It also means you can grind for armor and weapons for their aesthetic value (which people will and do) and grind for sigils to increase your power.
What TCoS *is* doing with regard to grinding is using a combat system that has no hidden dice rolls and de-emphasizes stats in an attempt to level the field and emphasize player skill more. In theory you will not have to grind up stats nearly as much to stay competitive. It is pretty far from being a skill-based FPS-type game though, so we'll have to see how it works out.
They also have a strong emphasis on quests and are devaluing kill XP. There's also no traditional crafting where you make useless things to level. So when they say that they are anti-grinding, they are definitely putting their money where their mouth is. I hope they succeed, because of all the fantasy MMO games on the near horizon, they seem to be taking the most chances to offer something different.
Plus, they seem like a great little company. Their dev journals every week or two are great - short, but personal and honest, and a far cry from the typical hype-machines of larger companies.
I was really looking forward to this game but no more. It needed to come out this week which is long before AoC and WAR hit launch or their full betas.
I think it will be too little too late for this game if it even comes out that is.