Join Chronicles of Spellborn developer Matthew Florianz as he takes us all upon the journey of sound that we'll experience in this amazing game!

Of course not the entire area of Shorath Mesa is as specific as the previous sound example. Most of the area is simply nature, trees, wind and rain. The following “mix” takes you from a forest ambience in Shorath Mesa, to a canyon ambience back to the sounds heard in the marsh. These are short clips mixed together from longer ambiences that are specific to small areas of the zone.

They've actually included sound clips into the journal, along with screen shots to give you an idea of what you'll experience!

The Chronicles of Spellborn boasts an incredible combat system which seems incredibly difficult for many players. While it's not as hard as some would seem to make it, the team has posted a new dev log with details on combat for beginners!

Aiming, clicking: check. But the rest?
This document should give quick insight in all things related to spellborn combat.
Please note that this is just an example on how to set-up one’s skilldeck. Players are advised to adapt it at their own discretion.

Organizing Skilldeck
There’s nearly an unlimited amount of possibilities to arrange your skilldeck. There is no ‘best’ arrangement, however, there is a ‘worst’ arrangement. This will be discussed later in the combo section.
The arrangement of your skilldeck is not something you’ll have sorted in 1 minute, especially at high level. It’s a process of finding what works best for your own style. I’ll try to explain some basic strategies in building your deck. For these strategies I’ll assume that all tiers and slots are available. (6 tiers, 5 slots/tier)

The system will truly give players a wonderful chance at personalization as well as complete choice of how to attack!

The creation of Shorath Mesa is the topic behind Spellborn's new devjournal.

As work begun on Shorath Mesa some things were changed from the design document and some additions were made, this all in cooperation with the game design department. One of the first things to change was the approach. Shorath Mesa is located south of Garminholm, since Shorath Mesa was to be located on a high altitude basin we required some changes to Garminholm itself. The reason for this is that players had to cross this altitude distance. Since we don’t have high-speed elevators or jump-pads in Spellborn we had to come up with another solution.

Check out the rest, and don't miss our current coverage of TCoS on our gameslist entry!

The Chronicles of Spellborn has posted an update that gives some details on where the project currently stands!

We have recently started the final tests for The Chronicles of Spellborn.

Beginning of last week, a new phase within the internal beta phases has been initiated with a brand new version of the game. Up to now these tests have performed very satisfactory, so that they can be expanded pretty soon to larger participants groups like enlisted community members. Server stress tests have been successfully completed by our team in Autumn already.

Thus we expect a release of The Chronicles of Spellborn in the second quarter of 2008. Based on the test results of the next weeks and the upcoming series of Closed Beta tests, we will announce the beginning of the Open Beta and then specific release dates for each territory.

Make sure the email you used to sign up for beta is current, and keep an eye out for that email!

Wondering what we saw from TCoS at GDC 2008?

The game includes many different systems we’ve all come to expect from an MMO in this day in age. Housing is planned post release, there is an in game mail system, guild system, PvP rankings, and a depth of world which is incredible.

Lore of the game is deeply ingrained and quests are intended to draw players into it, utilizing the high house (faction) system that makes up the Enclave of the Five Sacrifices. Quests will uncover the intrigues and different ideals within the five separate houses, but what players are given as they learn about their different ideals may not be what’s hidden under the surface. Let’s not forget the Spellborn credo: “What lies hidden... WILL be found!”

Find out what you can expect to see when this amazing game debuts!

Instead of the regular dev journal this week, we have some in game artwork from the folks over at The Chronicles of Spellborn.

Artwork like that not only makes me drool, it makes me want the game NOW!

One of the biggest beta waits for me has been The Chronicles of Spellborn!  It's a fantastic world, and the best part is that the world and lore is original!  None of this licensing hogwash to deal with!  It's a great way to put pressure on your writers!  This week, they've posted a new Quality Assurance (QA) dev journal that has to do with combat testing!

Little introduction
Before I get into the details of combat testing, let me first explain the setup we have here for our QA department. Each of the QA testers has developed certain knowledge of the game over time, but no one is assigned to anything specific. This keeps our job fun because you get to handle different test cases but it also means that everybody has a thing they are more informed about. We all attend team meetings so we know what design changes have been made, if any new features have been implemented and basically keep up to speed on what is happening to the game. Based on that information we make sure we know what to look for in the game, what to test and what to ignore for the time being. (“A purple building in the game is a work in progress, not a bug” – Lead Level Design)

Follow their testing system, close your eyes and imagine being in beta.  Then imagine me being in beta!  (Something's gotta work, right?) Oh, and click more to read the rest!

The Chronicles of Spellborn has announced the winners for their Winter Holiday competition!

With a light of the fires, brilliance of the fireworks and a taste of champagne Spellborn team wishes Happy New Year to our dear community members!

New Year starts with happy events for Spellborn! On the New Year eve we got 100.000 members subscribed to our forum, round milestone to celebrate indeed!

Also, it is time to announce our Spellbornian Winter Holiday Competition winners! We thank everyone who submitted their entry to the competition - it was fun to see and read all of them!

Congrats to the winners!!

The Chronicles of Spellborn have updated their gallery with 20 new screenshots!

Among these point of interests, you'll discover the former verdant Maze, different views of the District, as well as some shots on the narrow alleys where the Shunned are eargerly waiting for the adventurous players.
These screenhsots will be followed next year by a brand new series of Video Development Diaries, the first ones dealing with, obviously, the Green District.

The gallery is filling up quickly!

SpellBorn has a new dev journal that looks at the art direction of Slywood, and gives some look at the design of a story!

Roles in the game design are never quite predefined. A coder might for instance take on several roles as he or she tackles the creative problems that come from trying to fit visions within the restrictions of code and hardware. I never liked the word artist in the context of creativity because everyone working on this project has proven to be an artist in their own right. We might not all understand the beauty of simplifying code, or making something load just a little better, but we sure notice it when the person working on these “trivial” tasks has not been inspired.

This is also a great look into how any one designer with a singular job description, actually wears many hats!