It's an exciting time to be a Chronicles of Spellborn player. Not only was the game was released this month in Germany, France and Benelux, but Acclaim plans to release it in the U.S. in January. And to top it off, the first content patch is going live this week!

The first content patch of The Chronicles of Spellborn, Patch 1.0.1, is planned to be rolled out to the live servers later this week on Thursday 18th of December, and besides bug fixes, it also contains new and improved content for players to have fun with. Each day until the patch is shipped, we will reveal some of its content, and today, let's start off with the new Hoods!

You can check out the new hoods here. Keep visiting the Chronicles of Spellborn Web site for more sneak peeks of Patch 1.0.1.

The Chronicles of Spellborn launches in Europe on Nov. 27. The closed beta ended last night with a huge PvP event pitting testers against devs, but a short open beta will begin tomorrow at noon CET and end Monday at 10 p.m. CET. If you're interested in trying it out over the weekend, you can sign up here.

The open beta will be available to players in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Full information can be found here or below.

Acclaim has updated its release schedule for The Chronicles of Spellborn. The North American version will now be released in January 2009 with closed beta starting Nov. 27. European countries will be going live Nov. 27.

Both launches will have the exact same product versions featuring identical Freemium models but with a different release date to accommodate additional testing for a smooth official release.

With the "freemium" model, players can play for free in the starting zones, but must purchase a premium subscription currently priced at $15 per month to open all game content. The full press release can be found here or below.

Also, sign-up for the closed beta has ended and the non-disclosure agreement has officially been dropped today.

Just received in our news room:

Frogster and the Dutch developer Spellborn are pleased to announce Acclaim Games as US publisher for The Chronicles of Spellborn. The renowned and tradition-steeped American company lead by industry veterans Howard Marks and David Perry has licensed the fantasy MMORPG as their focus title. Acclaim already has almost seven million registered users within their portfolio of currently five online games and is committed to start a large-scale marketing campaign until its launch in late 2008. Acclaim will give North American players a free-to-play zone while subscribers will be able to explore the entire virtual world.

David Perry is regarded as computer games developer guru, responsible for a number of blockbusters in the past 25 years. Having founded the developer studio Shiny Entertainment in 1993 he is one of the few internationally prominent masterminds of the games industry. His partner Howard Marks had been one of the co-founders of the new Activision in 1991, before he became owner of Acclaim in 2005.

The Chronicles of Spellborn will be hiring at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany which starts next week.

As announced previously this week, The Chronicles of Spellborn is attending the Games Convention in Germany. Since we're still looking for skilled people to join our team of developers, what better opportunity is there to drop your portfolio right at our booth?

There will always be a couple of developers around to accept it and take it back to the TCoS HQ so we can have a good look at it and see if you have what it takes to join our ranks.

They have a list of specialties they're looking for, and it includes everything from testers, community management, producers, and artists.  Take a look, and if you'll be in Leipzig for the convention be sure to stop by and take a look at this fantastic game - we sure will!