WarCry: There have been countless indie MMOs pop up and then fail. What makes The Chronicles of Spellborn different?

Marco van Haren: I think the answer to this question can be found by reading the rest of this interview.

WarCry: Many games are heading down the pipe using Unreal 3. TCoS employs Unreal 2.5. Why did you go for the lower version? What benefits, what limitations and why are you comfortable with that decision?

Marco van Haren: When we sat down with Epic at the start of the project we looked at both the 2.5 and the 3.0 engine. We already had the basics for our distinct graphical style in place and Epic advised us to use the 2.5 Engine since the 3.0 engine didn't contain any features that could really enhance our style. Over the course of development we made many changes and additions to the engine to add effects that were missing or insufficient in the 2.5 engine. It is important to keep in mind that with our active combat system we need players to have minimum lag or graphical slowdown. With using the 2.5 engine we can can achieve these goals without forcing people to upgrade to the latest hardware.

WarCry: Your FAQ says "we've taken measures to make [PvP Arena Battles] more interesting". Can you explain specifically how you hope to achieve this?

Marco van Haren: Using a FPS style combat system offers the perfect opportunity to create some interesting PvP options. At release the Arena will contain 5 different map setups that will allow for 1 on 1 or group vs. group battles with options such as death matches, time trials and last man standing. Combine these option with a tournament and ladder system and a statue reward system and I think we can safely state that the Arena offers some interesting PvP gameplay.

Exclusive ScreenshotWarCry: The Chronicles of Spellborn Gold has a rather complex and detailed backstory. Can you talk a bit about the basic premise of your world?

Marco van Haren: Spellborn's backstory is for the most part something that needs to be discovered by playing the game. Information in recovered scrolls, date back to the times of the Empire of the Eight Demons. Eight entities ruled over a world, building their utopia with self created servitor races. The servitor races fought for the favour of the Eight resulting in war and chaos. A rebellion lead by Humans and Daevi to overthrow the ruling of the Eight let to the complete destruction of the world.