The Chronicles of Spellborn

Product: The Chronicles of Spellborn | wikipedia entry |,
Publisher: Acclaim, Frogster, Mindscape, In Conjunction With: Spellborn, Khaeon
Release Date: 2008 (UK/EU)/2009 (US), Genre: Massively Multiplayer Online Games

The Chronicles of Spellborn was a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game developed in The Hague, The Netherlands by a moderately-small team of developers. It was an exciting opportunity to take on one of the most difficult development projects in Dutch videogame history. For perspective, Horizon Zero Dawn’s Guerilla Games' project Killzone 2 was also in development at the time. TCoS featured action combat, a deckbuilding aspect for a character’s powers, extreme cosmetic freedom, and an incredibly rich European art style—these traits and others marked it as far ahead of its time in many ways.

The Chronicles of Spellborn

As Community Manager I was responsible for acting as intermediary between the development team, those following the development of the game (the fans), and the investors. I also worked as a lore writer, assisting lead writer Jesse America with the development of the game’s story—in particular the Spellborn Scrolls lore series of interactive fiction.

I also handled development of Customer Support protocols (requesting implementation of in-game tools) and Bugs, Abuse, and Exploits conventions. I oversaw game tests and engaged the community across chat, forum, and web outlets. I managed the CS/CM team prior to my departure in advance of the game’s release.

The game was ultimately unsuccessful, closing shortly after launch. In my analysis this was due to business considerations more than the passion or ability of the team working on the game itself. MMORPGs are a hard (incredibly hard) business and late 2008/early 2009 was a terrible period (economically speaking) to launch a title which could have used more time in development. Certainly some of the development team have gone on to work on some very successful games, while others have been successful outside of gaming but within their respective disciplines.

The Chronicles of Spellborn

Sometimes a project’s ambitions outstrip the funding or time available to see them to fruition. That doesn’t make pursuing them unworthy. What happens after you fail is at least as important as how you react to your successes, after all.