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Ten Ton Hammer: Are there physical advancement options for characters later in the game?

Mirage: No there aren’t any other physical advancement options for players later in the game. Yet, we do have physical appearance changes with certain sub-classes. Take the Blood Warrior for example who has scars on his body, the Rune Mage who draws runes…

Ten Ton Hammer: You've stated in the past that the game rewards players that are skilled at playing their character. How do put an emphasis on player skill without creating a "twitch-fest" kind of game? Will players need to rely more on strategy and tactics than what we see in other games?

A shot from Hawksmouth, an area that recently underwent Spellborn stress-testing.

Mirage: With Spellborn we want to reward players who invest time in PvP and/or PvE and possibly becoming very good, which you can’t achieve without any strategy and tactics.

That said, when I mention strategies and tactics, I’m thinking about different things.

First one would need to know how your Skill Deck is set, when and why you use skills. The Skill Deck is a 6-tiered 5-slotted action which rotates to another tier each time you execute a skill. Given the fact that following certain rules you can create combos, this also requires some thinking beforehand. This is the first step towards becoming a skilled fighter: organize the skill deck and assess what combat opportunities this setup offers.

Second thing that will make the difference between a good player and a very good player will be their ability to react and adapt to the shape of the fight. That’s why you shouldn’t think it’s a matter of “twitches” but rather you’re “focus” that you implement with your tactics.

Players need to focus because you have to aim at your opponent and you always need to stay alert of what the enemy is up to. There is no auto-lock on target in TCoS. Tactics are essential because having a strategy (especially when you’ve adapted to your opponents fight style) is always better than just slashing away without paying attention to the effects of the executed skills.

So yes, players need to rely on strategy and tactics as well as their own skills. Few important things to keep in mind while playing: stay cool, focused and think ahead.

Ten Ton Hammer:  Why restrict the player to only two race choices? It's a fantastical world, why not give the player more options to choose from?

Mirage: A fantastical world doesn’t necessarily imply there must be more than two races, let alone more than one. It’s a totally free world after all.

More seriously, the choice of having two races to choose from at start is a decision motivated by the known History and Lore of the Enclave (the known world of The Chronicles of Spellborn) and all the gameplay concepts directly inherited from this lore.

Anyways, it doesn’t mean that there will only be two races for the rest of the game’s life. The world of Spellborn is vast - immense even - and it’s very far from being completely charted. There might be some other creatures, and why wouldn’t there be races lurking in the shadows of some outcast Shard that might be discovered in the post-release future… Who knows? What lies hidden must be found after all.

Ten Ton Hammer: The High Houses seem like an intriguing part of Spellborn and really give you some interesting background lore in which to develop new features to put in the game. What are the five High Houses and what do each of them stand for?

House Rune

Mirage: Let’s start off with a little bit of history where the context of the Houses is explained. Some 600 years ago, there were eight High Houses - Pale, Onyx, Void, Maul, Torque, Rune, Silver and Shroud - that fought for power and control. As time progressed it became clear that some of the Houses had similar goals and as such started to form allegiances. Pale, Onyx, and Void became what history refers to as the Traitor Houses whilst Rune, Shroud, Maul, Torque and Silver eventually became allies and became the five High Houses we now know.

House Rune is the most driven towards the gathering of arcane knowledge, magical powers and new technologies. They are almost zealous towards this goal, often bordering on the suicidal. It takes drastic measures for them to reconsider a certain action, although they aren't oblivious to reality. They just deem their actions to be necessary and accept 'sacrifices' to be made.

House Shroud

House Shroud dislikes people knowing it exists at all. There is nothing else to dislike because they know what all the High Houses are up to anyway. Most of the members of House Shroud are secretive and stealthy, which is exactly what sets them apart. At the surface Shroud seems to be more indulged in logistics, environmental planning and external House-communications on a very honest and open basis.

House Maul

Maul is the most aggressive of the High Houses, and is very interested in the military applications of their members. They excel in combat, tactics and strategy, but all those qualities more or less vaporize into thin air when applied to theoretical prospects such as politics or when communicating with other Houses. But if one needs a sword and shield as protection, House Maul will never turn them away.

House Torque

House Torque should lead. There is no other truth. All those aligned with Torque uphold the democratic ideals of the house and the notion that they are best equipped to lead the Enclave into a glorious future. The other High Houses find this idea slightly oppressive but there's little to be done about it. Torque wants nothing more than a democratic union of all the peoples within the Enclave, their ideals and resulting arrogance often forming the base for many bureaucratic problems. Yet, Torque never means any harm. It's just that one can get caught up in debate and whatever is concluded at the end of those should be treated as law.

House Silver

For House Silver the coin has absolute power. Amongst the High Houses they are the de-facto capitalists. Merchants, brokers, bookies, it does not matter; if there is profit to be made, House Silver is close by. They accumulate as much money as possible and love to show off their acquisitions and wealth. They scheme and plot, but always with the prospect of gaining more wealth, never for control (unless that would mean more money). Their allegiance is never decided by a flip of the coin, but rather by the one who holds it in hand.

Ten Ton Hammer: What sort of future features might you implement with the Houses? Could they develop unique spells, combat abilities, etc? Can a player choose not to join a High House and merely run rogue throughout the world?

Mirage: First thing, a player will not be able to go “lonewolf” without aligning itself with a High House. The High Houses play a very active role in the life of the Enclave, and by enlisting yourself to one of them, you’ll get to know far more about the past, current, and probable future intrigues of the world, than just going rogue.

In the future, we plan to implement a very interesting and elaborate political system, where joining one House would mean you’d have to fight for it, no matter what, should the reasons of taking arms be critical enough. You might eventually see your position in the House change. This among many other cool things.

Ten Ton Hammer: You've mentioned that completing particular quests or missions will result in a statue being placed in town to honour your fame and glory. How are you preventing players from simply filling towns with hundreds of statues? Will there be a way to prevent that?

Mirage: Just to clarify before answering, this question deals with PvE. Certain quests like Ancestral Quests which take you back in time to experience events of the past, will have a Statue reward system for those who complete the quest the first. Other people won’t have a statue for the already completed Ancestral Quest. The other way to gain a statue in PvE would be to actively engage itself in eradicating a specific type of monsters. For instance, a player who kills bears over and over again might be rewarded with a statue stating that this player is known for killing “that” many bears. Of course should another player beat this amount, the statue would be modified accordingly. Some statues are permanent, for Ancestral Quests for example, some others are dynamic and are subject to change owner, and anyways, towns can’t be filled with statues, since there are specific places for them.

Ten Ton Hammer: Speaking of the quest system, how will the TCoS quest system differ from what we see in other games? Will characters need to actively look for quest starting NPCs, or will we be given the "exclamation point" indicator? Will these NPCs have a bit more life than what we've seen in previous MMOGs?

Mirage: With questing in Spellborn we went for a healthy mix of exploration to find quest-givers NPCs and direct action quest-givers NPCs. Although we don’t have the “exclamation mark” or the “interrogation mark” indicators, we do have a system allowing players to know what stage of quest the NPC is at. This system is in fact a book with variable colours and shape (closed, half-opened, and opened) floating just above the NPC’s head. They are scattered around the landmass of each zones, so a little stroll in the different areas is a very good idea to make sure you haven’t forgotten one.

This will also be a good way to observe them, for some NPCs have very “unique” ways of either talking to the players or simply behaving. There is one male NPC desperately trying to conquer again the heart of his beloved one, by stalking her in the whole city… Don’t know if that’s efficient technique… There are also kids, and funny enough, they’re always busy when you talk to them. Busy doing what you might ask? Well they’re picking their nose! So yes, you can say that we tried to inject some life in these NPCs, after all, they will accompany the players throughout all their levelling.

Ten Ton Hammer: Finally is there anything else you'd like to tell your fans or Ten Ton Hammer readers before you finish?

Mirage: I want to thank you guys over at Ten Ton Hammer for this great Q&A opportunity. Ten Ton Hammer and TTH’s readers are experienced MMO players, it just feels right to have this Q&A for you guys! Until next time!

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