Trial of The Chronicles of Spellborn
June 2nd 2009 03:54
Over the weekend I saw an add on MMORPG.COM for The Chronicles of Spellborn being free to play, and downloaded the game. I quickly created a new account and logged in to the game. I ran into a few difficulties at first.
I run the beta client of WIndows 7 on my gaming computer. I'm a sucker for flashy new things, and couldn't resist giving it a whirl. I have been very happy with it, but I cannot play Lineage 2, and any other game that uses nProtect. It is ridiculous that they don't have a work through for it, but as its in beta, so be it.
In order to play Spellborn, I needed to "patch" the nProtect or GameGuard files in the Spellborn folder. If you are interested in how to do this, see HERE (the file is not infected or virus from what i can tell)to get a guide to it; be warned though, it may cause some issues, and doesn't work for all games, like Lineage 2 which i still can't play.
That done, I was able to log in and begin my journey.
You are immediately given an interesting character creation sequence. You can pick our your clothes, your armor, and your weapons. Aside from the pre-loaded outfits, you can choose your primary color and secondary color. I felt that I have a fairly unique character and still look at it pleasingly.
After you've chosen your look and archtype, mine is a Spellcaster, you are thrust into the tutorial. It gave me a good sense of how the game is played; walking you through character controls, combat, ranged combat, and questing interfaces. Being a mmo player across multiple games, I felt it was a bit pedantic. I didn't need the whole walkthrough, and would have been happy just being tossed into the game.
Once in-game with everyone else, I was a little lost. What was I to do? I was reminded of the early days of EQ where you could go anywhere and do anything, but takes a while to get your bearings and not just waste time running in circles.
I eventually found some quests, and began running around the Hawksmouth zone killing random things. It is a truly DIFFERENT game. I'm very very drawn to it.
Combat is controlled by using the right and left mouse buttons to activate your skills which scroll through a revolving 'deck' of skills. Each level of the dial has 3 slots at the low levels to load skills into. I began with two melee attacks, a magic attack, and a ranged attack.
As I gained new skills from leveling, it was interesting tweaking the skill deck to minimize switching buttons, and delivering quick dmg.
Skill deck explained more:
You have 6 skills, 2 levels on the dial, and 3 spaces on each level for skills. In slot 1, where you can press the 1 key or mousewheel to it, I had a melee attack on level 1. In level 2 slot 1 I had another melee attack. I would use my level 1 slot 1 skill, the deck rolls up a level, and I would use my level 2 slot 1 skill at which point the dial spins back to the beginning. Once I got my 3rd level on the dial, It spins from level 1, level 2, level 3, and back to level 1. The trick is finding skills that recharge quickly all in a verticle row, so you don't have to constantly change which slot you're using. If you choose slot 2, as you increase in the dial levels, your slot choice remains. It was deciding which skills to place where for the fastest easiest combat that made me very interested in the game.
Combat
I feel a strong affinity for this game, though it is relatively dead of players. Combat is VERY different and refreshingly so. It is SOOO unlike EQ2 combat. I feel like it actually requires some skill to engage and enemy and defeat it. I'm very curious on how PvP will be.
Thoughts overall
I think that ultimately this game will hang on by a small group of dedicated players; i'll be surprised if subscription numbers even reach that of EQ's. As of now they have 2 servers, PvP and non-PvP. In the pvp server there were only a few people running around. At $14.99/ mo. I'm having difficulties spending my limited funds on it. I've played for about 4 hours and have not grouped once, or been asked to group. I'm thinking this isn't a very good sign.
However, I think this is a game all should try out. It has a very new different combat system, the visuals are quite stimulating and exciting to experience, and Group play looks like its a blast ( I saw a few groups killing stuff). Plus, it is moving in the right direction and FPS skill driven game where Gear is not the priority.
I encourage you all to give it a try! I'll post more on my experiences. I'm still playing EQ2, but The Chronicles of Spellborn are drawing me more away from Norrath.
I run the beta client of WIndows 7 on my gaming computer. I'm a sucker for flashy new things, and couldn't resist giving it a whirl. I have been very happy with it, but I cannot play Lineage 2, and any other game that uses nProtect. It is ridiculous that they don't have a work through for it, but as its in beta, so be it.
In order to play Spellborn, I needed to "patch" the nProtect or GameGuard files in the Spellborn folder. If you are interested in how to do this, see HERE (the file is not infected or virus from what i can tell)to get a guide to it; be warned though, it may cause some issues, and doesn't work for all games, like Lineage 2 which i still can't play.
That done, I was able to log in and begin my journey.
Starting Out
You are immediately given an interesting character creation sequence. You can pick our your clothes, your armor, and your weapons. Aside from the pre-loaded outfits, you can choose your primary color and secondary color. I felt that I have a fairly unique character and still look at it pleasingly.
After you've chosen your look and archtype, mine is a Spellcaster, you are thrust into the tutorial. It gave me a good sense of how the game is played; walking you through character controls, combat, ranged combat, and questing interfaces. Being a mmo player across multiple games, I felt it was a bit pedantic. I didn't need the whole walkthrough, and would have been happy just being tossed into the game.
Once in-game with everyone else, I was a little lost. What was I to do? I was reminded of the early days of EQ where you could go anywhere and do anything, but takes a while to get your bearings and not just waste time running in circles.
I eventually found some quests, and began running around the Hawksmouth zone killing random things. It is a truly DIFFERENT game. I'm very very drawn to it.
Completing a Quest
Combat is controlled by using the right and left mouse buttons to activate your skills which scroll through a revolving 'deck' of skills. Each level of the dial has 3 slots at the low levels to load skills into. I began with two melee attacks, a magic attack, and a ranged attack.
Fighting a Bear or something
Skill deck explained more:
You have 6 skills, 2 levels on the dial, and 3 spaces on each level for skills. In slot 1, where you can press the 1 key or mousewheel to it, I had a melee attack on level 1. In level 2 slot 1 I had another melee attack. I would use my level 1 slot 1 skill, the deck rolls up a level, and I would use my level 2 slot 1 skill at which point the dial spins back to the beginning. Once I got my 3rd level on the dial, It spins from level 1, level 2, level 3, and back to level 1. The trick is finding skills that recharge quickly all in a verticle row, so you don't have to constantly change which slot you're using. If you choose slot 2, as you increase in the dial levels, your slot choice remains. It was deciding which skills to place where for the fastest easiest combat that made me very interested in the game.
Combat
I feel a strong affinity for this game, though it is relatively dead of players. Combat is VERY different and refreshingly so. It is SOOO unlike EQ2 combat. I feel like it actually requires some skill to engage and enemy and defeat it. I'm very curious on how PvP will be.
Thoughts overall
I think that ultimately this game will hang on by a small group of dedicated players; i'll be surprised if subscription numbers even reach that of EQ's. As of now they have 2 servers, PvP and non-PvP. In the pvp server there were only a few people running around. At $14.99/ mo. I'm having difficulties spending my limited funds on it. I've played for about 4 hours and have not grouped once, or been asked to group. I'm thinking this isn't a very good sign.
However, I think this is a game all should try out. It has a very new different combat system, the visuals are quite stimulating and exciting to experience, and Group play looks like its a blast ( I saw a few groups killing stuff). Plus, it is moving in the right direction and FPS skill driven game where Gear is not the priority.
I encourage you all to give it a try! I'll post more on my experiences. I'm still playing EQ2, but The Chronicles of Spellborn are drawing me more away from Norrath.
My Void Seer
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