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Spellborn Becomes Free to Play While in Redevelopment

Paul Lilly — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:45:00 -0500

Originally released in February 2009, Acclaim's MMORPG The Chronicles of Spellborn has gone into a redevelopment stage. This is expected to carry into 2010 and will include a bevy of enhancements and changes as the game morphs from a monthly subscription model into a free-to-play title supported by micro-transactions.

In the meantime, Acclaim tells us it still has its servers running the original version and has decided to make Spellborn free to play.

"We felt like people missed out. They didn't get to see what Spellborn was really like. And we are going to fix that," David DeWald, Community Manager for Acclaim, wrote in an email.

While the original version remains 'frozen in time' and free to play, note that there will be no upgrades or patches.

Download Link

Image Credit: Acclaim

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

Tom Edwards — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:05:27 -0500

Our help was needed—again. Such is the fate of a hero. In the world of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures all manner of fishermen, pirates, merchants, guards, beer wenches, and assorted ne’er-do wells require assistance. This motley cast of characters imbues the game with a vibrant sense of life; we just wish that they showed even a bit of initiative and took care of some of their own problems. We were tasked with passing along loads of messages in order to drive the story forward, but in truth, we quickly lost interest in the game’s narrative, as it simply took away from the game’s finest achievement: its fighting system.

During your adventures, you'll kill enough wolves, bears, crocodiles, tigers, and scorpions to make Martin Perkins weep from his grave.

Eschewing a turn-based format, Conan uses a real-time combat system that allows you to take on multiple foes; icons show how strongly each part of an enemy’s body is defended, and you choose attacks and combos that focus on a foe’s weaknesses. Particularly effective attacks reward users with a splatter of blood across the computer screen.

While Conan’s melee combat system is innovative, the rest of the game follows typical MMO conventions. You choose a race and class that falls into one of three basic categories: (tank, damage dealer, or healer) and complete a variety of missions to level up and gain ever more powerful items. While castle sieges and some quests require you to be part of a guild, it’s quite possible to complete much of the game solo. This pick-up-and-play attribute adds to the game’s appeal, allowing you to jump in whenever the mood strikes without having to compare schedules with a half dozen compatriots.

Conan launched with a variety of minor bugs and irritations, but the development team has implemented fixes in a timely manner, assuring we’ll stick with the game—at least until we reach the level cap.

Mass Effect

Norman Chan — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:23:06 -0500

Fans of Star Wars and Star Trek finally have a role-playing game that’s worthy of their love. Mass Effect takes the most compelling themes and ideas of both franchises and mind-melds them into one of the best science fiction games we’ve ever played.

Character feats like Lift and Warp let you throw enemies off-guard. Just don't call them Force powers

After fleshing out our digital avatar with the robust character customization engine (we created a bad-ass female war hero), we dived into an engaging story that put the fate of the galaxy in our hands.

The primary quest charged us with investigating the reemergence of a long-lost race of machines that wiped out an entire species of advanced aliens 50,000 years ago. Through the 20-hour campaign, we explored numerous planets, resolved alien conspiracies, and forged relationships with a believable cast of NPC allies.

Mass Effect’s rich selection of side quests helps flesh out the main story, and we loved the innovative conversation system. Dialogue trees are presented in an intuitive radial selection circle that lets us steer conversations in a plethora of directions depending on the tone of our language—all the characters are amazingly voice-acted as well.

When talking couldn’t get the job done, we turned to the fast-paced combat system, which actually requires some skill. Aiming with a mouse helped us survive firefights, and the newly designed PC combat interface is much better than the Xbox 360 version’s. It’s too bad the inventory system hasn’t been improved—rifling through hundreds of weapon upgrades in the equipment menu is a drag.

But we forgot about the game’s little annoyances after being immersed in the gorgeous high-resolution graphics—Mass Effect runs smoothly at 2560x1600 resolution (though turning off the “film grain” option is recommended).
Mass Effect’s epic story is both moving and fulfilling; the game’s universe is rich with details and feels infused with life. We can’t wait for the inevitable sequel. –norman chan

1d6 of New Dungeons and Dragons Apps!

David Murphy — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:02:45 -0500

I had the distinct, geeky pleasure of reliving my dice-hucking days earlier today, only it wasn't quite as I remembered it. Back in high school (two years ago, right Will?), I used to traverse the ol' imaginary Forgotten Realms campaign setting with a few of my neighborhood friends. Yes, that's right. We played Dungeons and Dragons. And even back then, I was on the cutting edge of technology in a pencil-and-paper universe.

When I joined my group, I was given a bootleg (ie: burned) copy of the fabled Dungeons and Dragons Core Rules program. Firing it up for the first time was akin to little Drakh the Mage acquiring a Staff of Power. Inside the application were rules--glorious rules--for a proverbial crap-ton of D&D books and settings. But these were just the potatoes. The real meat of the application lay in its character generation program, a super-integrated designer that allowed you to roll up new characters in at least one-fourth of the time it would normally take you by hand. You could save your characters and pull them back up after each tabletop romp, adding in your latest loot and re-tweaking your character's new powers and skills with each level up. In short, the Core Rules became a staple of my nerd life, and I had forever longed for an updated version that used Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition rules overtop the program's awesome old-school interface.

Wizards released a demo of a Third Edition application by the time I stopped playing D&D. It only figures, then, that the company is launching more applications with the impending June release of the Fourth Edition ruleset. Only this time, you're not just getting a character builder--you're getting a suite!

D&D Insider

I chatted with the Wizards team about the background for Dungeons and Dragons Insider, the name they've assigned the to-be-released chunk of applications. They're noticing a distinct pattern in their audience. Namely, while hardcore D&D enthusiasts may sometimes dress up like Peter Pan, it's only an illusion. These stereotypically basement-dwelling folk are growing up, and a new generation is replacing them as D&D's core player base. And they aren't used to pen-and-paper games, nor do they consider "grabbing a ton of books and sitting down for hours" as "gaming." To them, hopping online and clicking the mouse for hours is what a true gamer does, and the release of D&D Insider looks to capture that fact.

Well, even though Neverwinter Nights did it first. But I digress.

The Character Generator

The Wizards team showed off three different applications today. First up is the Character Generator, a combination of tabletop roleplaying and America's Next Top Model. It's the end-all-be-all of fantasy fashion. And it bows to no ruleset. You create a character based on one of the core Dungeons and Dragons races (sorry, Planescape fans: no Githzerai for you) and play dress-up however you see fit. Assign your character different types and colors of armor, even armor from a different race if you want. You can select all sorts of weapons to equip, clothes to wear, the particular stance you want your character to have, et cetera. When you're done, you can export the character as desktop wallpaper (with a customizable background, of course), as a headshot graphic, as a printable token for a tabletop game, or even as representation in D&D Insider's Game Table--we'll get to this in a bit.

One note: this character generator is completely independent from anything you do in your adventures. D&D Insider isn't Neverwinter Nights in that regard: the loot you pick up during your campaigns is yours to keep track of. And if you feel the need to update your character's avatar with a reflection of what he or she now wields, you'll have to go in and do that manually. Likewise with whatever loot or cash your character picks up whilst slaying evil (or good).

The second half of the Character Generator but replaces all the pretty elements with cold-hard statistics. It's the very embodiment of the Core Rules application I mentioned earlier, where you let the trusty computer help you create your character sheet. Anyone who's ever played a role-playing game based on the D&D system should recognize this one. Pick your race, class, skills, feats, et cetera. The application links a great deal of detail from the 4E Player's Handbook so you can see exactly what you're doing and the ramifications thereof--perfect for newbies who have no understanding of the subtle differences between, say, a Mage and a Sorcerer. Similar to my experiences before, the application keeps perfect track of your character, including any fudging you may have done. If you decide to assign 25s to all of your stats, that's your prerogative. The program also marks your character as operating under "house rules," which will prevent you from running Dave the Asskicker in any official RPGA online tournaments.

The Dungeon Builder

Application number two is D&D Insider's Dungeon Builder. This one will be launched as a free downloadable application as well, giving you access to a tile-based 2D map creator. Operating the program is pretty easy. You simply drag and drop different art elements to create digital versions of the top-down maps that most D&D players are quite familiar with from their pen-and-paper days. If you need to take an element off-grid--say, to make a big cavern--you can just select the handy drawing tool and freehand it in yourself. Ta-da. The program is as basic as map creation gets, but the added bonus is that you can transfer your maps into a rendered, 3D environment with...

The Game Table

Game Table! It's the third and final application in the suite that brings the entire package under one roof. It's also the means by which players hop online and join or host D&D adventures. For the DM, this means using a map from Dungeon Builder (or a prebuilt campaign) and populating it with miniature monsters, lighting effects, and other wicked customization options. You also get a suite of tools to make your online adventuring easier (and cheat-free), including a dice roll utility and an initiative tracker. In essence, Game Table recreates a miniatures game in a digital format. As a player, you move your character in a fog-of-war setting, discovering traps, loot, and monsters exactly when your player normally would--as decided by the DM, of course. The rotating 3D environment isn't built with hard rules in mind, allowing for complete and total D&D-style customization for whatever situation is taking place.

Absent from the mix is any way for you to edit the parameters of the players or monsters themselves, attributes like size, thickness, or unique identifying factors. Truly, it's like a miniature campaign. If the third Orc from the left is holding a giant bloody scythe, well, you'll just have to pretend that Generic Orc #3 in the digital dungeon is indeed doing that. Which will be helped, in part, by Game Table's build-in voice chat.

The Stunning Conclusion

Well, that's it! Minus one critical detail--access to these applications will be on a limited version for free users. If you want the total experience, you're going to have to pony up some cash. Wizards hasn't set the final price of the services yet, but they're looking in the range of what one would typically pay for an awesome MMO: $10 to $15 monthly. Yes, that's right. Monthly.

It's a hard pill to swallow, so before I choked, I asked the assembled Wizards team what would prevent me from finding a similar, if not better roleplaying experience from a free Neverwinter Nights campaign. Or, for that matter, jumping ship to an MMO that offers a greater content and player base. Remember, Dungeons and Dragons is a powerful name, but even all of its glorious, geeky history can't save a product that's ill-thought-out or poorly designed. Their answer? D&D Insider presents a product that's more integrated with the 4E rule system than any "variant" experience out there, and it will allow Wizards to achieve faster updates and tighter control of Dungeons and Dragons than ever before. Throw in official tournaments and a user-created-content database (a post-launch idea), and they believe that the monthly fee is but a drop in the bucket, comparable to what one would otherwise spend each month on campaigns from the ol' comic store.

We'll all find out soon enough whether D&D Insider is a Critical Hit or Miss -- the first of the applications will premiere with the June 6 release of the new Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide. Start polishing your dice, be they real or virtual...

Neverwinter Nights 2

Cameron Lewis — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 14:57:46 -0600

Is it simple human greed that makes us want more than one life to live? Whether escaping into books, movies, or video games, we as a species spend an enormous amount of time absorbed in fictional realms. Neverwinter Nights became the stuff of user-modification legend, offering an arduous main quest, retail expansions, and innumerable top-drawer community-created adventures. By all rights, its sequel should be a controlled substance.

Like the Dungeons & Dragons v3.5 modules it emulates, this slab of latent addiction is crafted as elaborate forking fiction rather than free-roaming alternate reality. While there are plenty of optional side quests, travel is restricted to markings on the world map. There’s tremendous freedom in building and leveling your avatar, thanks to an array of races, character classes, and abilities, but the world your party is thrust into isn’t so easily manipulated. What you lose in freedom, however, you gain in meaning. The main story might begin too traditionally—a foster child raised in a small burg becomes the unwitting target of powerful unseen forces—and it takes its time gathering a head of steam, but the authorial control that guides more than 60 hours of gameplay gives your actions weight, whether you tirelessly serve justice, exploit the weak, or vacillate from one extreme to the other. Every character has its own attitude, ambitions, and approach; and keeping the gang happy is sometimes more challenging than keeping everyone alive.

FaerÃ»n’s landscape and spell effects are lovely, with trees that wave in the wind, fireballs that explode in brilliant flashes, and a menagerie of nasty beasts to cut down in intricate real-time combat that can be paused at any time. Interiors are still based on tile sets, but the variety of fixtures and detritus that litter the requisite dank tombs and inns keep locations from feeling prefabricated, as they did in the previous game. Unfortunately, for all the barrels, chests, and crates piled about, precious few are interactive, sapping some appeal from exploring every corner of the world. When a mage lets loose a fiery inferno in a troublemaker’s home, the invulnerable surroundings damage the world’s credibility.

As good as it looks, and as enjoyable as it is to craft your own armor, weapons, potions, and other goodies, the equipped items could be more visually interesting. Even powerful items often look plain and unexciting, and seeing only your shoulder pads change color when equipping new armor takes some of the thrill out of collecting loot. This might be a more realistic depiction of medieval flavor, but it’s just not as satisfying seeing a lowly Harborman grow from barely clothed newbie to gleaming engine of destruction.

At its core, Neverwinter Nights 2 is interactive theater: Nobody can act in contravention of the script’s predetermined branches, and the scenery has to survive for the following show. The single-player experience is long and satisfying, a slew of multiplayer options ensure your friends can get in on the action, and you can bet your enchanted long sword there’ll be countless first-class adventures constructed with the powerful free tools included. It’s not without flaws, but the sheer gameplay value here is enormous, and if you’re a fan of old-school RPG story-telling, Neverwinter Nights 2 will keep you adventuring for a good long time.

Month Reviewed: December 2006
+ LAWFUL GOOD: 60-plus hour campaign; excellent creation toolset; huge replay value.
- CHAOTIC EVIL: Largely sterile non-interactive environments; minor camera and cohort management issues.
Verdict: 8
URL: www.nwn2.com