GC 2007 - Day 3: Sega Rally, Spellborn and MMO money
The Chronicles of SpellbornLet's cut to the chase with this one: it's fantasy-based MMORPG. It has PvE and PvP sections, over 1000 quests, full end game, crafting, skills, levels - you know the score by now. But hold your horses, this really does have something different to offer; not new but the developers have designed this with very clear goals in mind.
First up is that old favourite of the typical Western MMO player: avatar customisation. Initially it seems a little limited: just 2 races and 3 classes, but after that, the list is huge: body style, colour, head shape, hair, clothing, armour, weapons, patterns. Yes, that's right - you pick the look of your character and kit, right at the beginning. Ever hated the fact that in some games when you pick up some really neat +50 shield, you don't want to actually use it because it looks hideous? Not here - you can retain the same look throughout the entire game. This is possible because kit items have no stats to them whatsoever - no damage modifiers, no armour rating, no bonuses, etc. That part of the RPG system is handled by "sigils", magic tokens that can be slotted into equipment; these do have stats and this is how your look is retained. Think of it being like materia from FF7.
Items can be purchased or looted from corpses, but here's something else that's different to many RPGs: enemies only drop things that they actually have. And if the NPC had a weapon or armour, they'll be damaged when you pick them up, thanks to your hack-first, ask-questions-later manner. Gear can be repaired via the crafting system, which requires resources, money and a recipe - once you've got all that, you're good to go!
The play area consists of huge floating rocks in space, called shards, with various zones scattered around them. At launch there should be up to six zones per shard and 5 shards in total - not huge but expansive enough. A lot of effort has gone into designing a very precise look and feel to the environment and towns; fans of the comic 2000 AD will recognise various influences but the overall theme is very European, in a cartoon-fantasy way. Combat is eschews the click-to-attack method and tries to bring FPS elements into the mix - targeting is done manually with a crosshair, and you're able to block and dodge attacks. How well this will work in reality on busy server is a big unknown and similar attempts in the past have always been compromised by lag.
At the time of writing, the developers (Spellborn International) have yet to finalise their publishing contracts but I'm confident that this is now just a formality; it's unlikely to be the next WoW but there's still plenty of room in the market, especially for polished titles like this.
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