The Chronicles of Spellborn
| The Chronicles of Spellborn | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Spellborn International Ltd. | ||
| Publisher | Acclaim Games | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
November 27, 2008 | ||
| platform | PC ( Windows ) | ||
| Game engine | Unreal Engine 2.5 (mod.) | ||
| genre | MMORPG | ||
| Game mode | Multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard , mouse | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
upon publication | ||
| medium | CDs / DVDs | ||
| language |
English , German , French (screen text: German, French) |
||
| Age rating |
|
||
The Chronicles of Spellborn was a mass multiplayer online role-playing game (English Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game , MMORPG for short ). Spellborn has been developed since 2004 by the Dutch game developer Spellborn on the basis of the Unreal Engine and was released on November 27, 2008. In July 2009, server operations in Europe were discontinued due to a lack of interest from players and a changeover to a business model without monthly contributions ( Free- to-play ). On August 26, 2010, the US servers were finally shut down.
The history
In "The Chronicles of Spellborn" the player takes on the role of a hero in a post-apocalyptic environment.
The beginning of the story up to the destruction of the world is documented by the Sekk-Sotyll rolls. They describe the rise of the eight demons and the emergence of servant races. The world has been destroyed, the entire landmass blown into splinters and few have survived the destruction.
500 years after the destruction, the survivors awoke and founded a new civilization despite the war against the Skull Princess. Graidlon Marrow sacrificed himself together with four friends to end the war and the enclave of the five victims was created.
In the years after Marrow's crusade, the enclave expanded its empire to include several fragments, and in search of new fragments, the explorers encountered the Vhuul. A new war broke out for control of the splinters, in the course of which the inhabitants of the enclave temporarily turned away from the oracle.
Game world
The world can be divided into two areas, the so-called ancestral world denotes the world before the destruction, in the present the world is known as a splinter kingdom. The player is able to discover the world of the present as well as to travel to the time of the ancestors and experience the historical events before the destruction.
The individual splinters drift in a magical vortex, the so-called deadspell. Rocks in this storm collide with the shards from time to time, and the best protected areas are those deep inside the shards themselves.
The outer surface of the splinters, the outer shell , is a rocky sheath that is the only distinguishing feature of the splinters from the outside, as the cities are deep inside the splinters and cannot be seen from outside the splinter. The inhabited islands within the Shards are called Oppidan . The inner shell is the inner wall of the splinter that belongs to the same shell as the one on the outside. It forms the outermost visual limit of the fragment dwellers, their horizon and sky.
Focal openings supply the splinter worlds with light, as there are no light sources inside the splinters. These openings or holes let very little through except light and work their way through the bowl to the levee . The levee is the space between the bowl and the oppidan and varies in size. This space usually penetrates through the surface of the splinters and is the only way to enter the splinters.
people
There are two races in the Spellborn universe: humans and Daevi. Both live together in harmony in all areas of the splinter empire.
The Daevi are descendants of the higher class from the realm of the eight demons with humans. Their ancestors were mainly members of troops sent to put down the human uprising. After the fall of the ancestral world, the Daevi were forced to cooperate with the surviving humans. In addition to their unusual appearance, the Daevi have birth signs: All Daevi are born under one of these mythical signs that determine certain aspects of their life.
In the ancient regime, people were seen as servants and used for various activities. They were servants, but also warriors who were used against rival armies. These operations brought five of these human armies into an open revolution against their rulers. People look the way you would expect them to, they have different body shapes and skin colors, almost like in the real world.
At the present time people are working with the Daevi to create a new order after the ancient conflict.
Classes
There are a total of nine classes, which are divided into three archetypes:
| fighter | wizard | Villain |
|---|---|---|
| Blood warrior | Ancestral mage | Hand of death |
| Resentment Guard | Stormseer | phantom |
| Adept | Rune mage | Tricksters |
The selection of the class can be made regardless of the breed. There are no limitations, disadvantages, or advantages to choosing the breed.
The skill and combat system
Skills
The classes will have access to a large number of different skills that they can use in combat, but there will never be more than a handful on the screen at any one time. Since players have to take care of aiming and tactical decisions during the fight, they are not inundated with tons of different spells and skills - at least not with all of them at the same time.
All skills that a class has learned so far are listed in the skill book. Characters learn new skills as they move through the world of Spellborn and learn more about the ancestral world. Skills learned in earlier levels are always adapted to the level. The damage and effects of a skill are directly related to the strength of the class using it and so remain usable throughout the game.
Skills in the skill book are not automatically available during combat; they must be placed in the skill deck to be usable in combat. The player has to choose several skills from the book and place them in their own deck. It consists of up to 6 rows ( tiers ) with a maximum of 5 places per row. Any skill can be assigned to any slot, provided that the skill has been learned and is available in the skill book.
struggle
The Spellborn combat system aims to make the effects of tactical decisions the player makes in combat more prominent. Many games use a combat system that bases the damage calculation on formulas and percentage hit chances and thus takes some of the control and thus also the fun of victory away from the player.
In Spellborn there are neither evasive nor hit chances, attributes and conditions can be upgraded or reduced, for example by increasing the attack speed or reducing the opponent's maximum hit points.
One of the main changes in TCoS is the target acquisition system. The automatic attack as it exists in other MMORPGs has been removed from the game. It allows you to just click on an opponent and press the button to attack. Instead, with TCoS you hit where you are aiming, and so you have to hold your opponent in a kind of “crosshair”. So if you win the fight, you can be sure that your own reactions and decisions made the difference between life and death, and not luck of the dice or probability.
Only one of six rows from the skill deck is active during combat. The first of these rows can always be seen at the beginning of the dispute. When a skill is completed, the next row is activated. As soon as a skill has been used in the last row, the first row is activated again. The time it takes for the next row to become active depends on which skill was previously used and how high the character's current attack speed is. To use a skill, the player selects it with the number keys and then releases it with the mouse button. Once activated, the skill will be effective in the area targeted by the player. If the use of a skill is followed by a long, inactive break, the deck jumps back to the first row.
The political system
The oracle
The oracle is the last remaining Upper Soul. In order to avoid the mistakes of the past, the oracle is now the only surviving Upper Soul mainly concerned with the training of members of the enclave.
The oracle teaches them to defend themselves by transporting them to war epochs from the history of the ancestral world. These teachings are visions in dream form and are called ancestral quests. This is how the oracle guides and trains the new members of the houses. They grow stronger and learn from the mistakes their ancestors made. The oracle also knows the position of new splinter empires that can be settled. If a House sends several thousand newcomers to perform the ancestral quests the Oracle would like, then the Oracle may show that House the way through the Deadspell, giving it new trade routes and an increase in power and status .
The high houses
The High Houses form a relatively stable, but often competitive, alliance known as the Enclave of the Five Victims. Each of these houses tries to gain as much power as possible within the alliance.
A house brings together several guilds that honor their house and spread its interests and views. The members of a house made a conscious decision for this and were solemnly welcomed through an initiation ritual. Every house has its own characteristics. Their structures may be similar, but their practices, customs, habits, and adherents differ in many ways.
| House Maul | House rune | House Silver | House Shroud | House Torque |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Guilds
Guilds are associations of heroes of the enclave. The heroes of a guild support one another in many ways and are welded together by many common endeavors. Each guild has its own guild hall, in which guild members will have easy access to craftsmen and shops.
Guilds can receive special rewards that give the whole guild a permanent bonus. In the guild hall, the guild leader or one of his officers can change the active trophy so that the whole guild can enjoy the trophy bonus, depending on what the guild needs. All trophies that have already been acquired are displayed in the guild hall so that guild members can admire them there at any time.
Members of a guild can color their armor with a color combination that the guild master determines when it is founded. In addition, a special piece of clothing or armor can be equipped with your logo. This logo can be selected from a variety of pre-made designs, your own logo cannot be created.
Web links
- The Chronicles of Spellborn ( Memento from December 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) - Official website for "The Chronicles of Spellborn" (English).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marco van Haren: The Chronicles of Spellborn: Exclusive Interview . WarCry Networks. April 23, 2007. Archived from the original on May 2, 2009. Retrieved June 4, 2010: "During development we added many things that were missing in 2.5 (the engine) ..."
- ↑ Christoph Hofmann: The Chronicles of Spellborn: US server switched off from August 27, 2010 at gamersglobal.de