by
Garrett Fuller, Industry Relations



I know it has been a few weeks since GDC concluded, and we have
extended out our coverage. Recently we showed the video for style="font-style: italic;">The Chronicles of Spellborn
from the conference, and we also wanted to offer a brief write up on
the game and what we got to see in San Francisco. The good news is that
Spellborn continues to impress with its graphic style and artwork. The
better news is that the gameplay was moving faster than ever and
players can look forward to a lot of options when traveling across the
Shards in the Spellborn Universe.

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The graphics in The
Chronicles of Spellborn continue to look astounding.

The demonstration we got to see for style="font-style: italic;">The Chronicles of Spellborn
looked very smooth. The game continues to use its same style of
interface with the skill deck or revolving wheel of skills. As players
make attacks and use skills, the wheel turns quickly to present them
with the next option. This allows players to customize combos and
attacks that best fit their play style. The skill deck moves quickly
and players have a great chance to select options rather than simply
hit one skill bar at the bottom of the screen.



Spellborn’s two races have been given some real polish and
looked great. The Humans and Davei look fantastic and players have
plenty of custom slide bars to make their characters unique. Spellborn
is sticking to the philosophy that loot has no meaning. If you want
your character to look like a heavy tank, yet be a spell caster then
you can do that. No matter what armor or clothing a player wears it has
no impact on the skills they use in combat. That being said there are
many options to have players look great and carry some cool hardware.
Weapon enhancements will actually work in connection with skills;
however loot will be on a equal playing field and for show only.



Combat targeting was a new feature we got to see in Spellborn. This
feature is really changing in MMOGs lately. The auto-target model seems
to be going away in favor of more active game play. The target appears
above the players head and you must actively keep that target on your
opponent. Also the AI used in NPCs and monsters is smart enough to get
out of the way of attacks. This makes the combat very fast paced and
active. It is great to see new methods of combat coming into MMOGs. The
days of point, click, repeat, seem to be going away in favor of more
active fighting.

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The Chronicles of
Spellborn may end up challenging the "big name" games when it releases
in 2008.

The look of Spellborn is very impressive. Since first seeing the game
it seems like the artistic style that encompasses the world really
looks great. We got a chance to run through cities and small town as
well as out into the wilderness to fight some monsters. All of the work
going into the design is very sharp and detailed. Though it has a some
what cartoon influence the world is very crisp and sophisticated. We
did not get to ride on the ships between Shards this time, but the look
of the Shard zones themselves was shown off very well. For those who
don’t know, Shards are broken pieces of the world where
players can explore.



Overall, The Chronicles
Spellborn continues to look good and seems very player
friendly from an MMOG standpoint. Seeing the new combat targeting was
great and really worked to make combat more exciting. My only concern
on this game is when will we see release? I know many players have been
excited for some time by the game and some of its original ideas on MMO
play. Hopefully we will see the game come out soon and get a chance to
test out the combat and skill deck systems ourselves. For now keep up
the research on the game and hopefully we can look forward to an
upcoming beta soon.

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