Shadowbane will never get looked at...  Once stray bullet games launches there up & coming title.  Shadowbane is going to be layed to rest.

Ashen Temper was the only glue holding SB in the MMO world...  once Stray Bullet Games Sci Fi MMO hits the markets their debt to ubi and SB will be paid off and it's good bye Shadowbane.

Ashen Temper left Stray Bullet Games.  He is with BioWare now.

I miss SB.  Killing HG barbs with my bird scout was a rush.  Taking out full groups solo (ok, I had to gank and return about 5-6 times, but still).  Winning 1v3 with my Nightstalker (not every time, but often enough that I'd pick fights against those odds).  Doing what someone else posted, getting ganked then burning down a town in retaliation, was absolutely awesome.  The politics...I've seriously considered writing in my old guild leader for some elections since (Khronik, you're a big pimp GL), lol.  The game failed only due to that busted-ass Arcane Engine garbage.  Though it was killing itself, from too many people who quit when they lost their city, anyway I suppose.  Still, there's never been a game that's been as influencial for me as this one.

The Chronicles of Spellborn looks like they might have been SB players once upon a time.  No cities to siege, but at least they'll have open pvp servers with good gameplay.  Assuming they can get past the clusterfu...swedishchefborkborkbork of their failure of a release.  This game was really a pvp (real pvp, not "RvR" crap) contender in beta...and yes, I believe that Frogster/Mindscape/Acclaim/the TCoS PR dev did a voltronesque "and together we form the Swedish Chef" release.

I totally sign this thread.  When I first got into MMOs, Shadowbane ruined my experience by being one of the coolest concepts around.  Getting ganked with my gimpy build made me a better gamer and build maker, but now I don't have anything to play that I can even have a unique character build. I'm still looking for the game that picks up its legacy.

As for not releasing screenshots on the new stray bullet game...  The Old Republic team has been writing storylines for two years but they just announced that it is even officially being developed.  I'm definitely going to try the new stray bullet game when it comes.

Huh that sound like AoC, Vanguard, and so on and so on....SB will never be redone in any form close to what it is because the "next generation" of players that flooded into WoW and others can not and could not take the hard core crush or be crushed mentality required. They would be horrified to lose all they had aquired farming in a PvP death. There would be a whole new level to cry more noob...

I can remember playing through the entire weekend with my buddies over at my house, leveling my elf assassin. I remember the first time I saw her poison spell go off and not knowing it was my spell that was causing the purple skulls to fly up from the ground like that and asking "Who the f#$% did that?" I remember being just quick enough with that spell to get the Aelfborn theif with it before he could vanish and ganking his ass. And waiting around for that dude to respawn so I could get my bounty hunter rune.

MAN, I wish this game had had more to it in end game then GvG battles. Of course, GvG was kinda boring on my server because almost everything belonged to Deathshead Legion. You can only get your ass kicked so many times before it just gets old.

Originally posted by throckmorton

100% agree.

Shadowbane is the most revolutionary MMO out there, and it's 5 years old.

 

Everyone complains about modern WoW clones. I'd love to see a Shadowbane clone.

Sadly, the lack of success that Shadowbane has had scares away developers.

Darkfall anyone?

lol

I wholeheartedly agree.  Everytime i talk about mmos and such, it's always Shadowbane that has that special place in my heart.  It really had the best design in my opinion to date, but as others said, the idea wasn't performed as great as it should have been.

I'll never forget the thrill of parties running into each other randomly and a big gankfest ensuing, hehe...

Originally posted by Galgamemnon

I have to agree, newer developers should look at older successful games like shadowbane and try to use the information to create a newer more solid and satisfying mmorpg.

 

I still aply shadowbane though, can't beat the pvp in this game.

 I enjoyed Shadowbane myself, but I think its important to point out that at no time was Shadowbane considered even close to a success. It was released fairly buggy, and by the time most of the bugs were fixed players had found loopholes to exploit allowing one side to basically own the map. A possible example of PVP'ers devouring their own.

  I migth wish for a game with AC's skills/stat system and Shadowbanes races/pvp/abilites, but I don't see that happening dispite my own wishes.

shadowbane had some decent ideas, but development time and a horribly outdated graphics engine/shoddy coding destroyed it.

Originally posted by Jessonater

Originally posted by throckmorton

100% agree.

Shadowbane is the most revolutionary MMO out there, and it's 5 years old.

 

Everyone complains about modern WoW clones. I'd love to see a Shadowbane clone.

Sadly, the lack of success that Shadowbane has had scares away developers.

 

Darkfall anyone?

lol

 Sadly not even close. Untill they actually show something more then a video with a few goblins or release so players can actually discuss facts over the current wall of dev promises DF is just Hype. At the very least in comparison Shadowbane had several more races and more interesting races choices (Centuar, Minotaur, Vampyre) then DF's 4 standard fantasy races.

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by Jessonater

Darkfall anyone?

lol

 Sadly not even close. Untill they actually show something more then a video with a few goblins or release so players can actually discuss facts over the current wall of dev promises DF is just Hype. At the very least in comparison Shadowbane had several more races and more interesting races choices (Centuar, Minotaur, Vampyre) then DF's 4 standard fantasy races.

 

As far as I am concerned, all pre-release MMO's are hype. Just because Aventurine has held its cards close to its chest does not mean that the game is any less legitimate.  AC2, AoC, and Vanguard are good examples of developments with lots of PR that turned out to be junk. IMO singling out DF in this respect shows a lack of objectivity.

I will admit that the race selection in Shadowbane was the most creative that I have seen. However it was another contributor to the overly complicated and one-way character development that had some players spending more time rolling new toons than engaging in PvP.  For me the jury is still out as to whether their development system was really suitable for a PvP centric MMO.

This is a request to all who've posted. A group I am apart of, for several months, have been researching and writing a game for each genre. Our current conclusion is that a MMO would hold the most interest for all of us and yet the market is flooded with them. I have found a handful of websites similar to this one and we've been methodically working our way through all of them picking out the highlights/downfalls for every game.

Now my question to you is... what else?

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by Jessonater

Originally posted by throckmorton

100% agree.

Shadowbane is the most revolutionary MMO out there, and it's 5 years old.

 

Everyone complains about modern WoW clones. I'd love to see a Shadowbane clone.

Sadly, the lack of success that Shadowbane has had scares away developers.

 

Darkfall anyone?

lol

 

 Sadly not even close. Untill they actually show something more then a video with a few goblins or release so players can actually discuss facts over the current wall of dev promises DF is just Hype. At the very least in comparison Shadowbane had several more races and more interesting races choices (Centuar, Minotaur, Vampyre) then DF's 4 standard fantasy races.

 

Vamps were an xpac race.
 

DF - human, dwarf, elf, alfar, mahirim, orc (1 "different" race mahirim)

SB - human, dwarf, elf, half-elf, HG, Mino, irekie (1 "different" race irekie)

SB was great.  Burning cities was great.  Putting people in therapy b/c you burned their city was great.

DF could surpass SB.  We shall see.

I agree, SB had quite a few great gameplay mechanics that I really loved, and if they had resolved the stability issues and some of the city seige issues more quickly I probably would have left DAOC for good.

To this day I think their pvp loot system was the best compromise out there for risk vs reward (equipped items could not be looted, but anything in your backpack including gold was fair game)

Thieves could really steal from you, and I loved the player classes. Was one of the the first games where some characters could fly (and help their teammates fly) and I loved it.

Like someone else said, I'd love to see a well made SB2 or SB clone.

I agree. SB was the best game conceptually so far for me. I played for years even with the lag and sb.exe issues. If a quality SB clone came out, I would play for years as well.

Developers want WoW's money, so they clone it with their own twists.  You can't take down a giant with the same poisons they already drink.  You have to make something new and diffrent.  Developers need to look at Shadowbane and expand on its concepts.  There are a few key things that developers could expand on to really make SB shine and be diffrent.

Originally posted by Tvveaker

www.straybulletgames.com

 

They are working on another game, just be patient.

“We have two guiding principles: Rely upon the familiar and Be bold.”

They've already failed. Every other MMO that has gone in with that attitude as failed. You can't be half assed about innovation, you just get unfinished innovation. You either be innovative or you be slightly evolutionary like everyone else.

 “We are dedicated to using middleware technology solutions whenever possible,”

Thus ensuring that it will be difficult for them to be innovative, and also guaranteeing the game will be full of bugs and performance issues if they do try to push the leased engine too far beyond what it was intended to do.

“Our goal is to create a dynamic art style that is timeless, and that will create passion and excitement within the studio and MMOG community,”

"timeless" being a codework for "the same fantasy barf that's already been done, because people are comfortable with it".

Originally posted by Trenchgun  

 “We are dedicated to using middleware technology solutions whenever possible,”

Thus ensuring that it will be difficult for them to be innovative, and also guaranteeing the game will be full of bugs and performance issues if they do try to push the leased engine too far beyond what it was intended to do.

I hate to agree here, but I do.  I had high hopes for the Hero Engine until I started reading around about it.  We can only hope they have the source license (most expensive license) so they can tweak it themselves.

Shadowbane would be a great game if the engine and servers could of handled the players.  Its concept was great.

Copying WoW is a surefire way to faiLure, blizzard is the "best" at what they do.. No ones ganna leave WoW for a poorly made version of WoW. Allready proven with the gauntlet of failed clones, people may try them out for a few weeks but inevitably they end up back at the wow login screen.

You can forget about Aion , thats not ganna happen in the "west". Guild Wars 2 has a better chance of success than Aion.

Originally posted by muaddib101

I can remember playing through the entire weekend with my buddies over at my house, leveling my elf assassin. I remember the first time I saw her poison spell go off and not knowing it was my spell that was causing the purple skulls to fly up from the ground like that and asking "Who the f#$% did that?" I remember being just quick enough with that spell to get the Aelfborn theif with it before he could vanish and ganking his ass. And waiting around for that dude to respawn so I could get my bounty hunter rune.

MAN, I wish this game had had more to it in end game then GvG battles. Of course, GvG was kinda boring on my server because almost everything belonged to Deathshead Legion. You can only get your ass kicked so many times before it just gets old.

Best Damn Game I ever played.

My fondest memory:  my first pvp death was to some centbarb named "Leatherface Chainsaw"! (HTF did I die to a barbarian throwing axes/hurlbats at me?..Little did I know..haha)