So, I’ve tried about 2-4 hours of Spellborn so far, so take this with the usual amount of salt when reading this.
I want to just fast forward to the final thought that entered my mind last night as I logged off: “Man…this game certainly has a Ryzom feeling to it.” And it really does. The art style has very much that feel to it, which I think is a plus because the art style in Ryzom is unique. The art style and graphics of this game a really good.
OK…so character creation is where I find this game to be interesting, right off the bat. From what I can tell, this is not a loot game. From character creation, you are in control of how your toon looks. That’s right….you don’t need to raid until your eyes bleed in order to look good. If you don’t look good, then it usually means you have no skills in “character decoration” 
. I made a rogue and guess what I made him look like? That’s right….I made him look like a hooded bad-ass like every other rogue. Oh well…fail on my part for being unique, but here’s hoping that they make some other rogue-ish looking equipment to put on your character.
The skill-based combat takes some getting use to. I’m still not use to it, but I’m getting there. I think it’s one of those “simple to look at, difficult to master” kinds of mechanics that will take some time. I’m sorry I don’t have much more of an opinion than that…but I just don’t get it yet. Crafting, I haven’t tried or even know how to get into…so, same story there as well.
Questing. I think this needs some work. I know some of you don’t like to hear this, but I’m of the opinion that the WAR quest system is the new standard for PvE. Any game that does not have this is really lacking on the quest mechanic IMHO. The questing is ok, but Spellborn has chosen to stick to the “Go find that guy somewhere in the east” kind of questing system. You’re on the far west side of the zone and everything is to the east. It’s fine, but some may find this to be an issue considering what WAR and LOTRO now offer.
Performance is what you would expect for an open beta. Laggy and hitchy, but that is not an indication of what we’ll see come launch. Because this was open beta, too much of my time was spent trying to complete quests needing over hunted bears. Spawn rate is probably an issue, but again…may not be later.
2-4 hours is not enough time in this game. I have a feeling that I’m missing all the little (…and big?…) gems that make this game special. I’m sure I’ll find those out in time, but so far I think there is potential with this one.
…more to come later.
D out.
Entries (RSS)
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 am
“Performance is what you would expect for an open beta. Laggy and hitchy, but that is not an indication of what we’ll see come launch.”
I was in the original closed beta months ago and it was Laggy and hitchy then…I am guessing it will still be Laggy and Hitchy come the US/CA/UK/AUS/NZ release (did I forget someone ?) – I am assuming Acclaim are using the EU release code.
For a game that is meant to twitch based combat (like Conan) the network (I guess its the network layer) performance is awful.
I remember the combat….hit attach button wait 0.5 to 1 secs …animation starts.
The combat was far too hit and miss for me when I tried last.
…and yes the quest UI and descriptions are not up to much as is the map.
BTW – do they still have shops which are a 2d static image – bit like an inventory screen ?
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:24 am
What’s weird is that when I was playing in the German release (through a foreign friend signing me up to get around the IP block) I had better performance. Not really hitching or lagging much at all, just more than before.
I have a feeling it has something to do with the crowds. In the German release, it was almost literally a ghost-town.
Beau
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
The Euro version is not hitching and lagging, works generally fine in that regard.
I suspect either they run some debug version of the game or they really have issues with too many people.
As far as I could see from the Acclaim download, it is a slightly older version of the game (1.0.2.2) than what is released on the Euro servers (1.0.3). But maybe it gets patched up after download.
The peer-2-peer download is increadibly slow for me here, so it will probably take me days to download it if I want to run the Acclaim version also. Ah well, something to turn on the next time I am travelling.
The combat system is one of the big positive features of the game, but it takes some time to get used to it. You need to unlearn some traditional PvE MMO combat behaviours.
The lore part has some really nice parts also, but the very beginning is the not the most exciting part as far as quests go and they have actually changed some of the quests provided with 1.0.2 it seems. I am not convinced that was for the better.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I don’t mean to come across as snarky here, so please accept this as an honest question. Why does the world need Spellborn? I get the new skill mechanic, but is that enough to sell the game on? Is there a niche being covered here that WoW, WAR, LotRO, Darkfall, and many many others are missing? Very curious what people think. Thanks.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:10 pm
” I have a feeling that I’m missing all the little (…and big?…) gems that make this game special. I’m sure I’ll find those out in time, but so far I think there is potential with this one. ”
That faithful naivety makes you appear so innocent and cute – somehow
March 24th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
[...] fantasy MMO immediately. For a quick-hit review of the first few hours of gameplay you can visit The Common Sense Gamer and soak up a long-time MMO-player’s [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I liked the combat system of this game, but the quest system simply drove me out of the game. I understand that some people like the immersion of not having the map show you where to complete a quest, but honestly.. running around the zone aimlessly for upwards of 30 minutes trying to figure out where the hell that “place in the east” is located is NOT how I want to spend my time. The combat system is good, so it seems like it would be MUCH better if I could spend more time fighting, rather than following the terrible quest log directions that end up making me run the entire zone.