CM Notes
It’s been a busy time here in the development studios.  I often sit and wonder where all the time is going to.  Then of course my spare second is up and I’m back to working on something else!  The team has been moving through a very detailed planning phase.  Taking stock of where we are as we’ve reached the latest milestone, and plotting progression towards our release.  Things are looking grueling in the future and we all know there will be plenty of tough moments coming up on the road ahead.  But we’ve got our plan, and we’ve got our milestones and we’re going to be pushing as hard as we can to make TCoS the best possible game at release.

We’ve got some nice stuff for you in this newsletter.  Some sneak peaks at a few really cool things from behind the scenes, as well as updates on our regular battery of subjects.  So sit back and relax.  It’s time to take a look at the rest of the newsletter!

- Mathew “Corwynn Maelstrom” Reuther, Community Manager for The Chronicles of Spellborn. 

Beta Test Update Beta One is winding down.  The goals of the test were to check some low level code.  Some of this wasn’t even the visible code, but rather the networking.  As we take a look at the coming phase Beta Two we intend to expand the number of testers by a fair amount.  The first folks in the door in Beta Two will be those who have won accounts in various contests we’ve held in conjunction with other press outlets.  Right afterwards we’ll induct a new random round of people as well as some folks we’ve identified as being good test candidates from the community.  (Of course we’ll also be filling some quotas on system specs and other demographics!)

The next phase is scheduled to start in the near future and we’ll make sure everyone knows when we hit Beta Two.  Until then you can leave the refresh button on your email alone!  After we finish Beta Two there will be an even larger Beta Three phase and finally Beta Four which will coincide with the removal of the NDA for all participants.  It’s going to be a busy spring and summer.


The High House Emblems
Below you can see the final sketches for the High House Emblems. Our artists are hard at work at designing the flags and banners that will showcase the emblems in the game. We hope you will like them!

Unreal Engine 2.5 enhancements
Although The Chronicles of Spellborn uses the Unreal Engine 2.5, a lot of changes were made to the engine to enhance TCoS’ graphics even further. Graphic programmer Sven Van Soom sheds some lights on some of the more important changes.

One of the biggest changes we implemented is consistent lightning. A lot of work went into creating similar lighting calculations on different kinds of geometry. Terrain, environment models and characters are all lit in exactly the same way, in order to fit together perfectly. Part of this work was extending the Unreal 2.5 engine to support light maps on terrain and environment models (called static meshes in Unreal terminology). The shadows that are rendered in these maps provide the subtle ‘visual glue’ that glues models to terrain, and gives our environmental artists an extra tool for creating unique atmospheres. Using light maps rules out dynamic shadows, so it won't be supported at release. We chose for ‘more polygons’ in favor of truly dynamic lighting for now. Our graphic developers created the entire game with this technology in mind, so we will support dynamic lighting for sure at some point.

Enhanced Day-night cycle support. Light that reaches the Shards is not coming from a sun, but from the ever changing Deadspell Storm. This gives rise to something similar to a day-night cycle. Technically, this means we had to extend the engine to support changing environment lighting conditions, and our artists have to take these changing lighting conditions into account. Parameters like light color, brightness, shadow contrast, fogging, bloom, etc. are all controlled over time, and for every shard a specific day-night cycle is designed that defines the shard's atmosphere. Internal testing has defined a current day-night cycle of 4 hours. We are sure you will be surprised by the impact of the enhanced system. Enhanced grass and growth support. We worked on speeding up and extending the engine's ground detail, grass and growth support. Translated to more interesting terms this entails that the game offers lush environments filled with flora. We are currently experimenting with an even more advanced system in which the weather has impact on the grass and growth. Imagine a gust of wind working it’s way over a grass filled field or hill.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the graphical part of the development process, please visit our related forum threads here.




Fansite corner
There has been quite some activity in the fansite area in the last few weeks. Sites like Hollowshard and Spellborn @ Dotmod vanished, while other new and interesting sites like Spellbornfan.de (German), TCoS Hispano (Spanish) and TCoS @ Mondes Persistants (French) joined in. Don’t forget to contact us if you are running a fansite or plan to start one. Our email address is tcos-fansites@tcos.com. Please, don’t hesitate to contact us anytime.


Recognized Fansite News
Just a few days ago we added Spellborn-Welten.de to the ranks of our current Recognized Fansites. Members of the Recognized Fansite Program are getting special content from the development team. We are currently working to provide exclusive Q&A and developer blogs to these sites . . . so stay tuned.

Wikiborn Many of you remember the famous and comprehensive Wikiborn, right? The site vanished together with Hollowshard some time ago. We are happy to report that the project is back alive. The walking-spellborn-lexicon Snodge is taking care of it and we would like to encourage everyone to stop by and help out with knowledge about the game. German and French versions of this Wiki are being looked at. So, keep an eye on it! You can find the new Wikiborn here.

Additional fansites TheChroniclesofSpellborn.nl (Dutch)  Spellborn.MMOHunter.com (English)  The Spellborn Oracle (English)  Spellborn @ GameAmp (English)  TCoS Hispano (Spanish)  SpellbornFan.de (German)  Spellborn-Welten.de (German) * Spell-born.de (German) * Spellborn @ Jol (French) * TCoS @ Mondes Persistants (French)  TCoS @ gamesrider.it (Italian) * (* indicates RFP member site)

Community Artwork
In this section we show you how you can get that immersive feel of TCoS’ universe thanks to FanArt submissions provided by our members. If you’ve got some creative juices flowing in you make sure to submit your own work on the forums!

If you’re a forum addict, you may have noticed new nice and shiny Avatars on several community members’ profiles. SinTao and BigBadaBoom used their skills in digital design and scripting to provide us TCoS fans with some of the coolest avatars ever! All imbued with the essence of Spellborn, these avatars are a piece of art. Community members have the chance to create themselves a forum signature matching their avatar thanks to the same system. You may find the Avatar and Signature Creation Thread right here.

Also to enhance your TCoS experience, we suggest you to check out Jewals’ Wallpapers. These neat and refined wallpapers will surely find a home on any TCoS fan’s desktop as they’re available in several resolutions!

Forum Highlights
Make sure to check out the forums!  There's a ton of great info to be had, and a load of new friends to be made in the community.  This time we've even got a couple of threads from the French and German communities added in!  What're you waiting for?  Go read up and post!

• This thread by Ukko may help you out should you be newer to the game community and have questions.  She’s done a rehash of a number of questions asked on a regular basis.

• If you’ve ever wondered about the balance of factions during shard conquest it might be worth a look at this thread where a number of people have weighed in on their opinions about the concept.

• There’s an interesting discussion going on here regarding the use of internet spoiler sites while playing MMOs.  Ever used such a site, or perhaps you dislike them?  Chip in with your opinion.

Closing Comments Hopefully you enjoyed this issue as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it.  It is always a lot of fun to share what’s been going on inside the studios.  We’ll be bringing you issue 6 next month so be sure to watch out for that one in your inbox! In the meantime make sure you stop by tcos.com for all the latest news in English, German and French! What Lies Hidden . . . Must Be Found.

The Chronicles of Spellborn © copyright 2005-2006 Spellborn International Ltd. The Chronicles of Spellborn is the registered trademark of Spellborn International Ltd. All rights reserved. Patent pending. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.