The Chronicles of Spellborn team has acknowledged in a post on the game's official Web site that "the way we introduce people to our world is, simply put, not good at all" as far as the starting area is concerned. Basically, the team knows the first questing adventure in Hawksmouth requires too much traveling through the entire shard, so the Hawksmouth docks area has been redesigned with new starter quests. "We also removed those quests we found distracting, or downright boring."

The Hawksmouth changes, as well as the addition of a new quest tracker, will be implemented in the upcoming Scroll 5, which will also include the usual bug fixes. You can read the entire announcement after the jump.

Combat is one of The Chronicles of Spellborn’s most defining features. Our enemies are not dumb and the rotating skilldeck is far more than just a rotating hot bar. But unless you have played a chunk of the game, you wouldn't really know this. We still face the problem of assumption where people see the skilldeck in its uncomplicated low-level form. It's hard to realise the freedom, strategy and personality it adds to combat later on. It's one of those gameplay mechanics which is truly easy to learn, but hard to master. It is entirely built around pre-planned strategy and fast action combat, the surface of which is barely scratched even at level 10. This is hard to imagine as there's currently no game that plays quite like ours does. Many reviews and positive player feedback will confirm this.

 Differently put, we know that our game is capable of delivering the most intense action-rich combat ever to have graced an MMO. Yet, we also know we are doing quite a horrible job of "selling" this idea in the game at lower levels. The way we introduce people to our world is, simply put, not good at all.

The tutorial was designed to help even the most casual gamer to get acquainted with controlling and playing their Spellborn character. The way we then set them out on their first questing adventure in Hawksmouth, where we lead them on a criss-cross journey through almost the entire shard, is a complete reversal of earlier said helping hand. We have known this was a problem for players for quite some time and as the team has been slaving away creating extra content, bug fixes and features; a small dedicated team has been working on creating a better first time experience. Something to bridge the gap between tutorial and the actual game.

This has resulted in a redesigned Hawksmouth docks area, with new starter quests. We also removed those quests we found distracting, or downright boring.

We will show the new starter-area (a redesign of the immediate area around the docks) in more detail as soon as we come closer to the release of “Scroll 5".  As you have probably also noticed, the above "beta" screenshot contains the very first presentation of the new quest tracker. This is a feature often requested by you all and it will help you keep track of your activities. Not to worry though, this is still Spellborn and we still expect you to do your own thinking while questing.

Of course, Scroll 5 also brings a whole new slew of the usual quest, bug and combat fixes. One of the more happy moments was this week’s identification of one of the causes for the "sync" issue. This seems to be directly related to jumping, it's currently in the process of being fixed and will also make the Scroll or immediate hotfix following the scroll's release, of course, granted we don't run into more problems regarding this issue. Also tackled was one of the causes for humanoid groups to debuffed your physique in one single blow, so it should happen less often. We are re-arranging enemy skilldecks to make encounters more fun and less predictable. The Pit District has received a make-over to distinguish it more from the other zones in Quarterstone and Aldenvault has received its own set of ambiences, specifically for that area.

We hope you will enjoy the new area which was indeed built on community feedback and our own critical eyes. You can expect future content to follow the lessons learned in this new area.

The new scroll will be coming soon at which time we'll be able to share more details.