My name is Chris Nengerman and I am lead game designer for The Chronicles of Spellborn.
How long have you been working on Spellborn, how large is the staff?
I have been working on Spellborn for about 2 years. We currently employ around 50 people on the project.
Does working on the game for as long as you have ruin the fun for you in playing it?
It is very rewarding and fun to see all the hard work you and all the others on the dev team have put into the game come together. When you start on a large project like this, there is always a truckload of good ideas. Seeing these ideas take shape into something that can actually be played and that people are having fun with playing, is a very thrilling experience. Of course, playing a game that you have designed yourself does take away some of the mystery you might experience in a game you don’t know. Still, what is most important is that the basic game mechanics are, but mainly feel fun. And I must admit that every time I get my butt kicked in a few rounds of PvP, the fun is right where it should be.
I have read forum posts about Spellborn and some people are worried that because you are a small staffed development team that this will reflect in the game, how would you respond to this?
The fact that we have a smaller team has and will definitely influence our game. But in my opinion not in a negative way. Because our team is a little smaller then an average MMO dev team we can forego a great deal of bureaucracy you might see in a bigger studio. Our communication lines are really short and that makes for a very tight team. And as far as I’m concerned, the strength of your game is a directly related to the strength of your team. Additionally, because we have less people doing more, most people are responsible for a significant part of the game. And I believe that with a certain amount of responsibility comes greater quality. Now I won’t say that a developer in major studio X, who is responsible for the in game trees doesn’t take pride in his work. But I do believe that if you want to create and maintain a creative work environment you need to give people the proper tools and workload. It’s all about giving the guys on the team a certain amount of freedom to nurture their ideas.
Tell me a bit about Spellborn.
The Chronicles of Spellborn is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game. Our story is set against a post apocalyptic fantasy background in which the players are struggling to reunite the world as it once was in ancestral times. Through a series of catastrophic events the world exploded in what is now known as the great cataclysm. After the cataclysm a huge violent storm of rogue magic formed, called the deadspell storm. That what is left of the ancestral world now silently floats around in this storm waiting to be discovered by the players. The main areas of our game world are called shard realms, these are huge rock formation in which the survivors of the great cataclysm live protected from the deadspell storm by the shards carapace. When Spellborn goes live, we’ll have 4 major shards along with many smaller locations within the deadspell storm.
If you were asked to compare Spellborn to other games which could we compare it too?
You could possibly compare Spellborn to any one of the big mmorpg’s out there. And these comparisons would yield some interesting information. But to be honest I don’t like comparing Spellborn to other mmo’s. I like to think that we took the core of what a mmorpg’s is about an expanded on that in a number of different ways.
What do you think your key features are that makes Spellborn different or better than other MMOs?
When we started design on Spellborn we set ourselves an important goal. We wanted to make a game where players were not pushed into a grind mentality. This resulted in a number of smaller and larger decisions. One of the most important ones was the choice of combat system. Although we enjoyed playing other mmo’s a great deal, we thought we could take the way combat was done to a different place. We got rid of the whole auto targeting mechanics you see in other mmo’s. In Spellborn you will have to actually aim to be able to hit your opponent. The cool thing is that along with having to aim, you re also able to dodge attacks much like you can do in first person shooters. So, in Spellborn you will never see those fireballs on railroad tracks. In addition to manual targeting we have a skill system that is based on strategically choosing your skills, so you can make combo’s and increase your combat effectiveness. I’ll explain. In spellborn we don’t have action bars like you see in other mmo’s. We have, what we call, the combat bar. The combat bar is probably best described as a ‘6 in 1 action bar shaped like a cylinder’ that rotates to the next combat bar when a skill is executed on the current one. Players will need to put skills in this combat bar through use of the skill deck. The skill deck is a 2D version of the combat bar and therefore makes for easy arrangement of skills. This is important because the order in which the skills are placed into the skill deck will facilitate easy execution of skill combinations. This system makes for combat that is strategically engaging and based on player skill, and therefore negates a great deal of repetition.
Many gamers such as myself can get intimidated when starting a new MMO. How will Spellborn aid new players in terms of learning how to play?
Spellborn has an in game tutorial, guiding you along when you first enter the game. Through this tutorial system all basic mechanics are explained. This tutorial system is supported by the way the initial game experience is set up. Players will not be overloaded with hundreds of screens and options. We start everyone of slow to get used to the basics. In addition to the tutorial system we have an in game knowledge base in which player can reference any information they might need. All the information players got through the tutorial will also be available here. Of course there will also be a manual, but we know how popular those are :-).
What were some difficult moments or decisions you had to make during the production of this game? Are any of them still relevant?
Game development and game design especially is a job filled with difficult decisions. You always start out with big ideas, wanting to make the best game ever. This intention never fades during the developments process, but there are many moments in which you need to become ‘realistic’ and take a step back from your big ideas. Something you really have to come to grips with early on is that not everything you want is going to make it into the game. And deciding on what does make the cut is often a difficult and sometimes painful process. Nonetheless, once you start streamlining your feature set an actual game will start to surface. So, there is not one specific decision we made that really stands out as especially difficult. We kill good ideas every day, which is never fun. Luckily we have new ones every hour.
How has Spellborn faced the leveling system? Is it the type of game where I'm going to have to quit my job in order to progress and keep up with?
Spellborn is a role-playing game. Therefore, leveling up your character is a large part of the game experience. But in line with our ‘less grinding’ principle, the main way for a player to get experience in Spellborn is by completing quests. Players will only get a minimum amount of experience from killing monsters. I think I can’t really answer the second part of the question though. All players need to make their own choices when it comes to the way they play Spellborn. If you’re into leveling as fast you can then that’s ok. But if you like taking your time, and reading all the quests and stories in the game then that is cool too. The amount of time players wants to spend on Spellborn is completely up to them.
Would you say Story telling was a main area of focus with Spellborn? If so, why?
Because we encourage the players to focus on questing to level their character, a solid and expansive background story was very important. We have several dedicated lore writers on the team responsible for a consistent and engaging back-story. The main reason why this is important is that it gives the player a much greater sense of purpose when their actions are embedded in a greater story. When the story of a game doesn’t have enough appeal players tend to detach themselves from the game world and will eventually experience many things they do as trivial. By providing a strong story and unique setting we hope to engage our players for a long time.
How would you describe Spellborn in one sentence?
Less grind more game
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