Last week, I was invited to visit the offices of The Chronicles of Spellborn in The Hague, The Netherlands. Over the next few weeks, MMORPG.com will be running a series of features on my visit, and The Chronicles of Spellborn itself. I thought, in knowing that, that it might be a good idea to start the series with a kind of "getting to know you" introduction.
I had no idea what to expect when I arrived at the game's offices and met with Marco van Haren, the Marketing and PR manager for the game. What I found, frankly, surprised me.
For many, this will be your first introduction to TCoS. Whenever I have the opportunity to learn something new about a game that I don't know much about, I try to find something special and unique about it. Generally speaking, that's a good place to start. In the case of The Chronicles of Spellborn, it seemed to me as though they were trying to take all of the conventions that we know in MMORPGs and turn them on their ears.
The offices for The Chronicles of Spellborn are located in Scheveningen, which is a rather nice "seaside resort" area of The Hague. The office itself is interestingly laid out. The entire floor of their building is dedicated to The Chronicles of Spellborn, and while this in and of itself is not particularly unusual, what was unusual was the lack of personal offices and cubicles.
Their desks are arranged in small groups, depending on what department they work in, and reminded me more of the groupings that can be found in the more social classrooms than the button-down world of office-work. Personally, I prefer this more open communication approach to game development, and from what I observed, this team communicates extraordinarily well, and that bodes well for any game development process.
Over the next few weeks, as we continue this series, you will learn that The Chronicles of Spellborn is making use of an unconventional and innovative approach that will see concepts like: setting, combat, visuals, and even equipment approached in a unique way. Below, you will find brief overviews of these concepts which will be explained in more depth further along in the series.
Setting
The Chronicles of Spellborn is not your average, run-of-the-mill, fantasy MMORPG. Rather, the game is set in what Lead Game Designer Chris Nengerman described during an interview for our podcast, Game/On, a "post-apocalyptic" fantasy world.
According to the official lore, the game world was once full and whole, and more closely resembled the kinds of worlds that MMORPG fans are used to. A tragic set of events saw the game world literally explode, shards of the former world (which serve as playing areas for the MMO) float inside of a storm, its people magically frozen until they could live again on the shards of their former world. This story line allows for a refreshing diversity in the play areas of The Chronicles of Spellborn, with each shard being different from its fellows.
Visuals
Originally, The Chronicles of Spellborn was conceptualized as a photo-realistic realm. Over time, the decision was made to move away from that look and create what the developers call the "Spellborn Style", a European influenced style that draws a player in and creates an interesting fantasy world.
Combat
The combat system in Chronicles of Spellborn differs from your average MMORPG. Not only is the combat focused on the skill of the player, but it also provides a unique approach to the combat AI and to the way that abilities and attacks are handled.
The Chronicles of Spellborn will require that, for combat, players are both quick on the draw, and able to plan out their actions ahead of time. While the number of abilities your character has access to is high, the number of abilities that you can equip at any given time is smaller, so you have to apply some strategy to choose the fighting style that works best for you.
Equipment
Imagine an MMO world where you can choose the way that your character looks without worrying that your newest, strength-buffing chain shirt just doesn't look cool with that pair of Frost Pants you stole from an Orc two levels ago.
The Chronicles of Spellborn employs a system that sees all numbers removed from items. You can look pretty much any way that you want your character to look. Instead, TCoS makes use of items called "Sigils" which can be used to enhance equipment with the kinds of bonuses that we are used to seeing in MMORPGs.
Wrap-Up
As you can see, The Chronicles of Spellborn is taking a different approach to their game's design. Throughout my trip, the one thing that kept coming to my mind was that these people believe in the project that they are working on, and have a desire to make a game that players will enjoy.
While at the studios, I had the opportunity to sit down, not only with Public Relations and Marketing people (which is great, don't get me wrong), but with some of the people who are actually down in the trenches, the people who are placing sounds, or creating systems, or modeling and texturing the art. When PR and Marketing are on the same page, it means that those departments are very good. When the average people working on the game are on the same page, it tends to make a difference in the final product.
The more I read about, and see this game, the more it reminds me of that old movie "The Neverending Story." That used to be one of my favorite flicks as a kid, but I sort of forgot about it until recently. Spellborn seems to have intentionally/unintentionally captured the feel of that movie in this game.
I am hyped about this game. It does look pretty cool.
We'll see.
I've been disappointed before (Vanguard *cough*)
I have been following this one for a while, and can't wait for beta, as in, can't wait for beta if I get in
The devs have said on their official forums that there isn't any. It's all solo/small group PvE and PvP content. =)
Lots more info scattered around the web, at WarCry and the like.
I've been watching this game for two years now, it's exciting to see it finally close to release. I love it's new ideas and original setting.
I read something about a Frogster doing the publishing. Maybe that was for EU only though... Anyone know?
looks awesome
Samuraisword shhhh SOE might hear you!!!
This game looks really great and I think it is definetly worth trying. I know I will be :) Its nice to see people doing something original and different and have them care about their work.
Yay, yea, Vanguard will be the poster child for failure for the rest of eternity.
I can't wait to get my hands on it. I hope and pray its as good as it sounds, and that if it is, it does well here in the US and in the UK so that the TCoS team will have plenty of cash to keep the game alive and perpetually growing.
http://www.tcos.com/inside/pictures/?lng=en ... enjoy
QFE and perfectly stated!
Frogster handles Germany a couple of other EU countries and Korea.
They have different publisher for Italy and the UK IIRC.
MMORPG.com's Game/On staff is supposed to be doing weekly podcasts on TCOS for awhile.
They did one podcast last Friday.
If you want to see videos of the game, there are some on their site but you should look up youtube too. Most released videos can be found there.
Screenshots are best found from ign or right here in mmorpg.com.