Announced today, and thanks to Tierrunner for catching this, the Acclaim hosted Chronicles of Spellborn is now in open beta. Also announced is their pricing plan, which is managed via Acclaim Coins, their RMT currency, to tie it in with other Acclaim games.
The game is available for free download, and lets you go to the first two zones and reach level 7 before being asked to pay. I’d urge prospective players to use the free download and level a char or two to 7 before deciding whether or not to subscribe to the game.
The subscription rate, being based on the variable price of Acclaim coins, ends up being slightly cheaper than the normal $15/month MMO subscription, which is admittedly still more than, I believe, most people want to pay for an indie MMO. But it depends upon how you acquire your Acclaim coins; buying enough of them at once could make the end cost substantially cheaper.
I don’t know if players will be charged to level past 7 in the open beta (if they are, just what is the difference between open and the live game?). Acclaim has added a PvE server along with their already existing PvP server that was wiped at the end of Closed Beta. I am currently playing on the PvP server because lead designer El Drijver made it very clear that a lot of the Spellborn lore would be revealed through PvP objectives. We’ll see how that works out.
***UPDATE***
Here’s the official announcement from Acclaim:
The Chronicles of Spellborn Open Beta Begins March 20, 2009
To join the Open Beta for The Chronicles of Spellborn, players can activate their Acclaim accounts on the activation page located at:http://spellborn.acclaim.com/ActivateGameTracker.html
If you haven’t already, click this link and download the game client: http://spellborn.acclaim.com/downloads.html
Once you have downloaded the game client activate your account and start playing the game.
For the Spellborn Open Beta, a new PvE (Player vs Environment) server called “Dorzhan” will be opened. Meanwhile, players who want to experience PvP (Player vs Player) action can join the “Deiquonril” server. And with the transition from Closed to Open Beta, all player accounts will be wiped so everyone must start their characters again from scratch.
In addition, Premium Subscription service will be enabled allowing players to experience the full game past the Free to Play zone restrictions. Premium Subscriptions will be available for purchase from the Spellborn website, with a special limited-time introductory pricing offer on 30, 90, and 180 day subscriptions.
Have Fun!
Acclaim Games, Inc.
This is the “yikes!” part about this:
It states that for 30 days the introductory coin cost will be 1500 points. The usual price is shown to be 1800 points. This is only relevant if the pricing for the coin cost is known. That can be found on the acclaim account.
After clicking over to “Purchase Acclaim Coins” section we can see the smallest amounts you can buy are 1005 coins for 10 dollars and 2010 coins for 20 dollars.So roughly we will be spending the average 15 dollars as the introductory price and if they do boost it up to the presented 1800 points then, of course, that would be 18 dollars a month.
You have the option of getting more for your money by purchasing an Acclaim membership for an additional 10 dollars a month. What does this get you? The ability to buy points cheaper.
So if you want to play the game monthly with buy block payments you have the choice of:
$20 for 2010 points
-or-
$24 for 2010 points and a $10 Acclaim Membership
It seems like if I want to avoid coughing up a huge lump some I’m going to have to get the Acclaim membership and then us that time to buy coins that would equal out to a multiple month package………so many hoops to jump through.
The pricing is absolutely confusing, and there are so many options for Acclaim points that it’s difficult to pin down the exact cost. This could be a huge stumbling block for MMO players; trying to figure out how much it will cost them to play. I know of no other subscription-based MMO that is so evasive about the cost of their subscription.
That said, we will still be able to play on the EU servers; Frogster has a fairly normal price plan, but then the variability will be the exchange rate between dollar and Euro.
I just hope the whole coins thing doesn’t drive people away.
You’ll notice now when you try to get anywhere on the EU site it automatically redirects you to the Acclaim page. I’m willing to wait this one out but being a broke college student I’m a bit worried about this possibly more expensive model they’ve got going.
I’m ready to see what happens! I really love this game but I don’t want to feel taken advantage of because of that fact.
Well, given that Acclaim was the publisher, and they have only published microtransaction-based F2P games to this point, it wasn’t too surprising that they would essentially make the subscription another form of micro-transaction. Also, Acclaim often runs double coin promotions, which gives opportunities to buy access for half the cost, which makes it a very good deal.
I was pretty sure that coins were going to play a part from all the buzz on the forums but I’m worried that it will hurt them in the long run.
I’ve just got done chatting with a few friends on steam and the prospects for my guild just fell apart. Seven of the ten people who were excited for the game took one look at the pricing plan and refused to mess around with the system.
This isn’t me being angry…about 4 hours have passed since I heard the news. I know as soon as I can back in the game the endorphins with kick in and I’ll be ready to spend the money.
…I’m just going to say it though…this perpetuates an undependable nature.
They have to separate themselves from the reputation they gave the community with the long US delay and this won’t do it. I could be wrong though, like I said it’s only been hours and I haven’t seen any explosions on the forums.
I’ll do some number crunching tonight and see if I can get some hard dollar amounts, or at least a range. Or, you could do it and post it on your new blog 🙂
🙂 Yeah that would be a good idea. My blog is bare bones though and I’m not really even sure how to use it yet, BUT with a flash drive full of TCOS images at work I’ll just fill it up with pretty pictures! Wish me luck!
This bums me out. 🙁 Without having done any math to determine real life cost to me, my knee-jerk reaction is that this payment system is overly confusing and will keep many potential players away. It is almost as if Acclaim are intentionally relegating the game to casual drop in/drop out play from the get go. That is fine, but it seems like it might hamper a sense of community.
Oh well. I know I will be giving it a shot. Hopefully I can get some time in this weekend. Work has been killing me lately. 🙁
Hmm, this is not encouraging news.
My maths skills are crap, so correct me if I’m wrong.
1 coin = 1 penny (for all intents and purposes) at the standard rate.
1 coin = .7 penny at the Acclaim Club rate
Past the intro 1500 coins period, it would cost you $18/month to play if you don’t join the Acclaim club.
With the club discount, it would cost you $12.60/month to play, a savings of $5.40.
But you have the overhead $10/month of the Acclaim club.
If you buy enough coins for 2 months during your Acclaim membership month, then your net savings is $.40/month over just buying coins.
If you buy 3 months/coins then your net savings is $2.07 over just buying coins, and at that point you’re slightly under the ‘average’ cost of an MMO ($14.67/month).
Is that right?
That feels like a big commitment to me.
With the intro price of 1500 coins (which it seems like you can buy a bunch of times to bank time)
$15/month without membership
$10.50 w/membership
So buying 2 months with the Acclaim membership would put you at $15.50/month
3 months would put you at $13.83
Sorry, cross-posted… it took me a while to do that math *blush*
It sounds like you could play cheaply if you’re willing to invest a substantial sum up front. For me, I a) don’t have that kind of money to spend and b) am notoriously flighty when it comes to MMOs. But I suppose I could bank a bunch of coins then just spend them on a month when I’m feeling the urge for Spellborn.
Do coins ever “expire”?
Sounds about right. They have double BONUS coins weekends which will occasionally make things cheaper. I wonder if they really will raise the effective subscription fee WELL above that of any other major MMO? If I were them, I’d drop it to $10/month, free and clear, open and honest, and NOT repeat the mistakes Tabula Rasa and Hellgate: London made to charge premium prices for a MMO which is different enough from the norm that people will need an incentive to play.
I’m not a big fan of obscuring the true cost of things with RMT currency, even though this is common to the F2P world. I think this payment scheme will be immensely unpopular with people.
Everything Acclaim does with Spellborn seems driven by some narcissistic need to see it fail. I’ve seen F2P cutesy anime-style asian MMOs get more exposure (nothing against them, and in fact, if they weren’t all so point and click driven, I’d actually like to play a few). This pricing scheme doesn’t help matters at all either.
The European launch was pretty bad in that, like the impending American launch, it was probably the least advertised launch in MMO history. I still bought it and used the proxy hack to play it from America, as I’m pretty sure my obsession with the game went beyond even Tipa’s (and I missed playing with Europeans…dividing servers up by region is part of a bad trend in MMOs over the last few years in that they seem to be pushing people away from meeting anyone new).
Loved it, except it has been a pretty empty world (not surprising since other than die hard fans, virtually no one else even knows of this game’s existence). I will likely continue on with the American version in the hopes that time differences were the culprit, but my confidence in Acclaim’s handling of it is pretty much nil, and if forum activity is anything to go by…I’m not sure if it’ll be any less empty after the first few weeks. 🙁 As it is, I can’t covince any of my WoW-addicted friends to give it a try, as the pricing scheme seems to have placed it firmly in their minds into the F2P microtrans pool, which seems to be the gaming equivalent of cooties.
Finding it hard to disagree about anything you wrote. I’d have LOVED to have seen this published by SOE, but then, I’m no SOE hater. I think it would have RULED with them. A giant step forward in innovation. Then I thought it might be published by Aeria, a publisher for whom I have a lot of respect. I was ready to love Acclaim for being the one to bring it to the US, but all the delays and now — this bizarre “not a subscription” subscription model — they make it too hard to start playing and too easy to quit.
I LOVE THIS GAME! Spellborn is AMAZING! My fear is that it sinks without a trace because it was not given the proper support. Buying RMT currency to play a subscription game? And the effective subscription price varies with the changing value of the RMT currency? Man. Has this ever worked before?
LotRO is the game I give up, subscription-wise, for Spellborn. I pay $10/month for LotRO. Spellborn will be — I don’t know how much! I can absolutely NOT budget for this. Will it be $18/month? $15? $13?
And guess what — I love the game so much that I will pay. But will my friends?
BTW, since Premium Service is enabled, does that mean no more wipes? I can’t imagine them charging us to play then wiping our characters…
As far as I know, we get to keep our characters from now on. So do I keep my kick-ass Void Seer, try out the warrior like I wanted to do, or go for my rune mage?
Void Seer has a stupid name (something like “Davoid’Nseer or something) because I expected her to be wiped, so I can’t really play her…
I want an anatomically correct life-sized doll of every character I make. If I make one for this game, I hope that they will accomodate me if I buy enough RMT coins.
You, sir, should play WoW.
A microtransaction based subscription model just seems idiotic, you end up with all the downsides of both models, and the nebulous nature of Acclaim “coins” makes it even worse. If they wanted to do a microtransaction model they’d have been much better off using one that made sense, or at least more sense than what they’re doing. Currently you have to pay to continue once you reach level 7 — why not continue that model? You pay a small fee at level 7 to continue into the ‘real’ game. You have to pay again at level 20, 40, 60, whatever. No monthly costs, just one-time fees to proceed into new content (sort of like Guild Wars, but more smaller transactions).
It would be annoying no doubt (Congratulations on level 20! Please insert 1000 Acclaim coins to continue), but at least it would be predictable, comprehensible, and entirely avoidable, which is the benefit of microtransaction models.
That’s just one possibility, there are plenty of other ways they could have use a microtransaction model (that doesn’t involve an item shop). The fact that you can’t purchase the exact amount of coins you need for a monthly subscription (or can you?) just makes the premium price ($18/month, seriously?!) even worse.
I’d love to try out this game, but not with this wonky, confusing, high-cost-of-entry method that Acclaim is sponsoring.
I agree. How can I, with a straight face, try to get anyone to navigate through that confusing system just to play? The only people for whom this might not be an obstacle are those who already buy a lot of coins for other Acclaim games.
GameGuard doesn’t work with windows 7 soooo /uninstall
I bet there’s lots of stuff that doesn’t work with Windows 7 given that it’s a beta of an unreleased OS 😛
First off they are going to accept credit cards soon.
Second of all I’m playing on Windows 7.
Thank you for your time.
In the most recent Dev Webinar, they mentioned they hope to take credit cards within the next week. As far as I know, the GameGuard anti-hacking software they use doesn’t work under Windows 7, so as far as I know, Chronicles of Spellborn won’t run under Windows 7.