Chronicles of Spellborn may be live in Europe, but the North American and UK (along with a number of other countries) under publisher Acclaim's purview have yet to see this long-awaited title go live. As a warmup to open beta (date not revealed, but open beta is "upcoming"), Acclaim Game Director David Perry brought in Spellborn Lead Designer El Drijver and Sound Designer Matthew Florianz for an hour-long chat with the fans last Friday afternoon.

A major theme was what the Spellborn devs have been working on since the European release. El stated that since release, the team has produced three big patches that were significant in terms of content (a new tutorial, marketplace, new instances and quests, and "all kinds of features"), bug fixes, and class balancing.

The focus now, according to El, is on more "sandboxy type gameplay" and continuing to transform the world a "living, breathing entity" through strengthening the high level PvP-based High House gameplay. One big feature that will contribute toward the High House scrum will be the addition of "demon chests," tied to the eight demons, which contain exclusive loot under lock and key in a PvP-flagged area. Each chest has three locks, the keys to which are rare drops in the game world. What's more - if a player carrying a key is killed in PvP combat while carrying a key, he or she loses that key and it's added to the killer's inventory.

The team is also working on more PvP objectives or incentives by means of an arena-style system, a controlled environment for duels which will allow players to fight individually or in teams earning rewards and rankings. Look for these features to begin rolling out with the next patch which has no ETA yet.One thing that players shouldn't expect, however, is more classes. El explained that since Spellborn's classes are based on a fairly comprehensive set of play styles, the live team would rather expand the existing classes than add new ones.

The sneakier High House Shroud's armor was revealed during the dev chat, complete with a custom look for Daevians (see the horns on the right). More distinctive features for Daevian armor will be added in the future. More images >>

As for what other new players might find unique about Spellborn, El pointed out that what he calls skill deck- and combo- driven "sandbox combat" is the keystone of the Spellborn experience, saying that "letting players define their class by how they play is the heart of this game." Other MMOs leave so much to the roll of the dice, says El, Spellborn allows players to dramatically improve their chances by knowing their skills, building their skill deck, manual aim (no auto-attack in Spellborn) and positioning themselves for combat properly. For example, he noted that a tank might duck behind a tree to negate a runemage's best direct damage spells while engaged with another warrior, but that runemage might resort to an area-of-effect fire ring to pour damage behind the obstacle. Additionally, El related that "root" and "polymorph" effects had been excluded from the game (but not "snare" or slowing effects) since they punish positional players disproportionately.

Regarding how quickly skill repertoires become fully formed, players don't become their class until level 5 and, according to El, the strengths of the class aren't completely fleshed out until level 20. Matthew added that the even pace at which skills are added lets players become well acquainted with even at level 30 (current level cap is 50), he was still learning about his class. And two players with the same class and skill might play very differently both through style and customization options like sigils. David Perry noted that "two boxers might have the same gloves, but the result may be very different."

Matthew added that the Spellborn has been in concept since 1995, when a group of pencil and paper gamers had a vision of creating an online game that would be completely different five years after release. Some of that vision is realized, according to Matthew, by the fact that by completing a quest in the first five levels, players can dramatically impact how an NPC will treat them later in the game.

Another unique aspect of Spellborn is the AI, which is less about aggro than the game trying to decide how best to beat you or your group. "You'll be tanking the the mob, and it might think it's more interesting to attack your healer," El noted. Matthew added that one of the most rewarding aspects of a game is to get beat by a group, then go back, figure out the "puzzle" there. He added that watching a level 15 get beat by a level 6 that knows his skills is "pure joy."

The panel fielded a number of questions about how the game transitions from free-to-play to premium access. David Perry called the concept "freemium", saying that to allow players see so much of the game for free, "you have to be brave, you have to believe in your game." El described the free-to-play side of the game as limited to three areas but completely unlimited within those three areas. Players can level as much as they want, do quests, join guilds, whatever premium players could do within those areas. One fan asked if the free-to-play option was due to pressure from Acclaim (being that Spellborn is the first in the Acclaim stable to have a subscription-only side of the game). El's response: "No, we were exploring these options... we were definitely looking into the Asian market and the Asian market is much more into F2P."

Beta players, who have access to the entire game, shouldn't expect a character wipe. Acclaim community manager Historian noted that Acclaim has never done a server wipe after beta and the chances with Spellborn are "very slim."

More High House Armor.

The panel answered a number of audience questions, including the following:

• Live events - the German server has already had several, including PvP tournaments and "dress to impress" events, complete with prizes. No plans have been made for events on the American servers, but its entirely possible.
• Class balancing - El noted that the Spellborn team is keeping a close eye on this, but that there are currently "no big menacing issues." So far slight imbalances have been due to bugs, not more structural problems with the classes, and there are fixes in ever patch.
• Will Acclaim servers always trail the European servers in patches, updates, etc.? David Perry noted that Spellborn has an incredibly aggressive update schedule, so the Acclaim servers will lag slightly behind. He added that "there's no way we'll fall a year behind, though."
• Spellborn DB, guides, etc. - The dev team is not discouraging these efforts, and are in fact glad for them.
• Improving guild tools - this is very important to the dev team for obvious reasons, look for improvements not in the next patch, but soon.

More answers to questions asked during the chat can be found at the spellborn.acclaim.com early this week. Stay tuned to Chronicles of Spellborn at Ten Ton Hammer and the official site for details on the next dev chat will be all about how to build your skill deck.