first thread I seen singing the praises of Shadowbane. Most common complaint I heard of that game was some sb.exe error or something? I never tried it but if it had unique classes I might have liked to try, has it completely gone now?

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

You can blame the ultra casual gamers who wanted easy to understand and get into game play without the work mentality.

Or players who don't want terrible combat, preceeded by terribly grindy PVE, including bland graphics with a weak UI, followed by servers being dominated by PVP where population wins fights, followed by servers having imbalanced player-factions, followed by the inevitable decline.

Actually I made the last 4 up, as I never got past the first ones.  But it's world PVP with player factions, so it seems highly likely.

---

Originally posted by ShadowSaturn
Shadowbane did It right. So why can't anyone else?

<snip>

But like all good things, It had to die young. Like all great Heroes of their time, It died with honor and going out as one the most original and well done MMORPG's that ever made It into this genre.

---

Because game developers have no interest in failing nobly. They want to succeed and make money. I personally find it rather difficult to resent them for wanting to be able to feed their families.

 A bunch of lofty ideas set a top a cruddy engine, a lousy looking world, bad control and UI, doesn't make for a fun experience.  Oh yeah, the combat sucked.  Who cares what you can do in PvP if how you do it is so badly implemented?

Originally posted by Kyleran

I agree, Shadowbane was a fun game and had many great concepts that I've not seen elsewhere.

But the coding was shoddy, stability poor (at release anyways) and some of the game mechanics needed to be redesigned to prevent mega-empires from dominating entire servers.

Never happened, and this game ended up just being an also ran.

 

Yeah... pretty much this. It had it's fun moments, but that's when it worked, or when the devs. gave a damn to tell you why the game was down, or when you weren't bored to tears grinding in PvE for levels, or yelling at the combat mechanics...

Oh wait... the only fun moment I really remember was Unguilding in front of my guild master and killing him.

Originally posted by ShadowSaturn

Originally posted by Gamesmith

Shadowbane had what? Seems like you've got some rose coloured glasses on, or major changes were made to it after I stopped playing.

"A deep and interesting virtual world. It was a virtual world that came alive through well made game design and the players."

Not really, it was a large, flat, empty expanse of nothingness. One of the most boring MMO worlds I've ever experienced.

"It wasn't a dead virtual world."

Yes, it was, see above. The game is dead now and that attests to just how dead it became shortly after launch.

"No Human, Angel and Demon race or Elf, Orc, dwarf and Human garbage."

It had all of these, including the angel. Templars.

However, it certainly did have interesting and unique mechanics. They were executed as well as they could have been, but they were unique nonetheless.

To me, Shadowbane was that first MMO which fell prey to the hype machine. Unfortunately, the massive disappointment that it wasn't the "next UO" like it claimed to be, is all that lingers in my mind about the game. I bought a brand new computer to play it and all of it's major flaws and balance issues drove me away in a few months. Amazing concept, poor execution.

 

 

 

- That's your opinion.

- Actually It had

* Aracoix
* Centaur
* Half Giant
* Irekei
* Minotaur
* Nephilim
* Shade
* Vampire

To point out some of their more unique races.

- I don't think any MMORPG back in those times ever had a perfect or really clean launch. My first time playing It was quite a few months after launch.

I think the Centaurs were opened after 3 months of play... and the game, though fun in some aspects, still lacked any attention from devs. fixing stuff up to that point, so quite a few left before the first "speshil" class was opened.

Also Earth and Beyond had the most flawless launch I've ever seen, that was a year before SB came out. Ubisoft was in charge of SB... not some indie company. It's not like they didn't know how to make a fucking game when they came out with Shadowbane... and "was the creation of text-MUD veterans J. Todd Coleman, James Nance, Josef Hall, Patrick Blanton and Robert Marsa and a team of 45 programmers, designers and artists" (ref wikipedia) They cared too little to early on, hemorrhaged a chunk of player base early on as well as over time, and never fully recovered to regain public interest.

Now maybe I'm wrong and Shadowbane had a few million subscribers when they finally closed their doors... but I doubt it. I don't blame the "carebear/casual gamer" crowd at all... If this is what people want to play, then I blame the people who whine that it's gone for not paying ENOUGH to keep their niche game alive. I mean after all, if it was the best game in the world, then people should have been forking out more than just 14.99 a month to keep it alive if there weren't enough subs, right?

Shadowbane did not do it right cause if it did it would still be around.

---

Originally posted by Deien
Shadowbane did not do it right cause if it did it would still be around.

---

WIN.

Imhotepp:

"...town destroyed in an evening at 3 a.m. sucked" - Defenders set the time of a bane, so if your guild leader decided to set it at 3am, then blame him.

I admit that loosing a city was tough, and unfortunately SB lost many players from it. The thing was that most people found it easier to quit and blame it on the other team than to get their guild together, build a better spec group, become better players and communicators and go and take the city of those that took yours, and trust me, if you did that and were a part of it, you'll understand nothing else in any other MMORPG comes close.

ste2000:

"Darkfall Online" - I don't know where people keep getting this idea that Darkfall is SB2 or the re-make of SB, but it is absolutely not. If you've played the two you would realise there is a world of difference.

Axehilt:

"Or players who don't want terrible combat, preceeded by terribly grindy PVE, including bland graphics with a weak UI, followed by servers being dominated by PVP where population wins fights, followed by servers having imbalanced player-factions, followed by the inevitable decline.

Actually I made the last 4 up, as I never got past the first ones. But it's world PVP with player factions, so it seems highly likely."

Terrible Combat - Are you talking about the combat system itself, or the actual PvP that occured? If you are talking about the actual PvP that occured, and claim that it is terrible, then you never experience true SB PvP. Nothing that I have played has had such meaningful, consequential PvP. When someone decides to talk big to you or your guild, in most MMORPGs you have;

     Option 1: Post on the boards and cry about it

     Option 2: Whinge to a Dev about player harrasment

     Option 3: Get into a long argument in which niethre of you will get anywhere because you can't do anything about it.

Now, in Shadowbane, you have the first two options if you want a bit of entertainment, but you also have the ability to go and get your guild mates, go to their city, and take it from them. Now, the catch is that you actually have to be GOOD. You have to have skill, there is bane placement, wark setup, positioning and spec groups among other things to organise. And trust me, those guys are going to do their best to stop you from taking their city. This brings together the two most important aspects in PvP, meaning and consequences.

Bland Graphics - Sure, SB was created a long time ago and had one graphics re haul, but let me ask you, have you EVER played on high graphics? The graphic quality for a game created so long ago is incredible in my opinion. I can't find the post, but there is one on the Archived UBI Shadowbane boards which has some great Screenshots of SB on fairly high graphics.

Weak UI - The UI could have been done much better, and resulted in new players spending a decent amount of time re-arranging, positioning and re-sizing their UI. I didn't mind it and found that it's 100% customisability was great.

Numbers Wins - I've been in a number of banes where we have won 20 players against over 100. It can be done, it requires a great target caller/commander and people who actually know how to play. However, when two equally skilled guilds fight, numbers are of course going to make a difference, that's just obvious, but generally who win's and who looses is based on your spec and your target caller/core players skills, as well as what mistakes you made or they made.

Imbalanced Player Factions - It's unreasonable to think that player created guilds would be balanced. This is where player created politics come in this makes the game so great. Could go on here for ages, but won't.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the main point the opening poster is making is that the CONCEPTS of Shadowbane were right. One world with no istances, player politics, player driven PvP, meaningful PvP, consequences for your actions, city building, city sieging, INSANE character customisation, players working together as a team to win, skill winning over gear, and most importantly, a fun, exciting, thrilling adventurous world where if you did not keep your eyes open, someone could be right around the corner ready to take your gold.

Ubisoft did a poor job executing SB at launch, and maintaining SB throughout it's life, until Stray Bullet Games came along and I believe they did a great job. Many bugs were fixed, lag was not an issue for me (and I play from Australia), they listened to the community. The sad fact is that the game was laggy and buggy for a long time after release, and by the time it was fixed up people had left, bringing with them the bad memories, and they did not play later on to see what it had turned out like. Also, to really get into Shadowbane you needed a guild, this is harsh on new players and like a few people have said the commuinty was not the 'nicest', but it was the most fun when you got involved. Anyone who ran around solo could have had a lot of fun, but they would have missed the best aspects of Shadowbane in my opinion.

Sorry for the long post!

Originally posted by MrGimpz

Imhotepp:

"...town destroyed in an evening at 3 a.m. sucked" - Defenders set the time of a bane, so if your guild leader decided to set it at 3am, then blame him.

I admit that loosing a city was tough, and unfortunately SB lost many players from it. The thing was that most people found it easier to quit and blame it on the other team than to get their guild together, build a better spec group, become better players and communicators and go and take the city of those that took yours, and trust me, if you did that and were a part of it, you'll understand nothing else in any other MMORPG comes close.

ste2000:

"Darkfall Online" - I don't know where people keep getting this idea that Darkfall is SB2 or the re-make of SB, but it is absolutely not. If you've played the two you would realise there is a world of difference.

Axehilt:

"Or players who don't want terrible combat, preceeded by terribly grindy PVE, including bland graphics with a weak UI, followed by servers being dominated by PVP where population wins fights, followed by servers having imbalanced player-factions, followed by the inevitable decline.

Actually I made the last 4 up, as I never got past the first ones. But it's world PVP with player factions, so it seems highly likely."

Terrible Combat - Are you talking about the combat system itself, or the actual PvP that occured? If you are talking about the actual PvP that occured, and claim that it is terrible, then you never experience true SB PvP. Nothing that I have played has had such meaningful, consequential PvP. When someone decides to talk big to you or your guild, in most MMORPGs you have;

     Option 1: Post on the boards and cry about it

     Option 2: Whinge to a Dev about player harrasment

     Option 3: Get into a long argument in which niethre of you will get anywhere because you can't do anything about it.

Now, in Shadowbane, you have the first two options if you want a bit of entertainment, but you also have the ability to go and get your guild mates, go to their city, and take it from them. Now, the catch is that you actually have to be GOOD. You have to have skill, there is bane placement, wark setup, positioning and spec groups among other things to organise. And trust me, those guys are going to do their best to stop you from taking their city. This brings together the two most important aspects in PvP, meaning and consequences.

Bland Graphics - Sure, SB was created a long time ago and had one graphics re haul, but let me ask you, have you EVER played on high graphics? The graphic quality for a game created so long ago is incredible in my opinion. I can't find the post, but there is one on the Archived UBI Shadowbane boards which has some great Screenshots of SB on fairly high graphics.

Weak UI - The UI could have been done much better, and resulted in new players spending a decent amount of time re-arranging, positioning and re-sizing their UI. I didn't mind it and found that it's 100% customisability was great.

Numbers Wins - I've been in a number of banes where we have won 20 players against over 100. It can be done, it requires a great target caller/commander and people who actually know how to play. However, when two equally skilled guilds fight, numbers are of course going to make a difference, that's just obvious, but generally who win's and who looses is based on your spec and your target caller/core players skills, as well as what mistakes you made or they made.

Imbalanced Player Factions - It's unreasonable to think that player created guilds would be balanced. This is where player created politics come in this makes the game so great. Could go on here for ages, but won't.

 

 

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the main point the opening poster is making is that the CONCEPTS of Shadowbane were right. One world with no istances, player politics, player driven PvP, meaningful PvP, consequences for your actions, city building, city sieging, INSANE character customisation, players working together as a team to win, skill winning over gear, and most importantly, a fun, exciting, thrilling adventurous world where if you did not keep your eyes open, someone could be right around the corner ready to take your gold.

 

Ubisoft did a poor job executing SB at launch, and maintaining SB throughout it's life, until Stray Bullet Games came along and I believe they did a great job. Many bugs were fixed, lag was not an issue for me (and I play from Australia), they listened to the community. The sad fact is that the game was laggy and buggy for a long time after release, and by the time it was fixed up people had left, bringing with them the bad memories, and they did not play later on to see what it had turned out like. Also, to really get into Shadowbane you needed a guild, this is harsh on new players and like a few people have said the commuinty was not the 'nicest', but it was the most fun when you got involved. Anyone who ran around solo could have had a lot of fun, but they would have missed the best aspects of Shadowbane in my opinion.

 

Sorry for the long post!

 

 

 

If I go to a restaurant for a few months and the food consistently tastes like shit (assuming that shit tastes as bad as it smells), I'm not going to go back to that place a few months down the line just because they have a new item on the menu... because chances are... it'll still taste like shit. If the customer service would just as soon spit on you as tell you why the game is not working for days... people might get the feeling they're not really important enough to deserve a response. Again, using the restaurant analogy, if the servers look like you're annoying them because you're there to eat, and won't sit or serve you... you're likely to go somewhere else.

So after going to said restaurant for a few months, where the food is shit, and the service is shit... what the hell is supposed to be my reason for coming back?

But I guess... there are people who actually enjoy eating at Denny's.

Shadowbane was a great game concept.  True, the engine sucked, but there is still nothing like it on the market.  So may race/class/disc combinations taht 3 years into the game people were coming up with new ideas.  You just can't beat that.  It also was not the best PVP game, it was the best GROUP COMBAT game.  A solo player living out of a freehold will quit the game, period.  If that solo player who got ganked over and over and over joined a good guild, they would of played longer and may even had enjoyed the game.

Here is a quote from my guildmaster that shows how great SB was:

"I just wanted to comment on this. Shadowbane wasn't the best pvp game. It was the best GROUP/GUILD pvp game. It took coordination, dedication, tactics, thinking outside the box, and it took discipline to be great in that game. No game has even come CLOSE to the amount of analysis Shadowbane required to be cream of the crop. There was ONE reason for this. The MASSIVE amount of character builds and variation, and the speed at which you could build those characters. The game was a never ending rock/paper/scissors match. You could kill an entire week just building, testing, and analyzing different builds and spec groups. AS A GUILD. It is one of the main reasons I can't get into any other MMO. The Shadowbane system spoiled me. I just get BLEEPing bored with the garbage character/group dynamics in every other game. It's too simple. There's just nothing to it. Outside of Shadowbane, there really is no such thing as a true "spec group". All these other games really have nothing to work on as a guild either... Unless you count farming..."

Originally posted by MrGimpz

Terrible Combat - Are you talking about the combat system itself, or the actual PvP that occured? If you are talking about the actual PvP that occured, and claim that it is terrible, then you never experience true SB PvP. Nothing that I have played has had such meaningful, consequential PvP. When someone decides to talk big to you or your guild, in most MMORPGs you have...

Consequences are not combat.  Combat is combat.  Depth is derived from having interesting decisions to make during combat, which I seem to recall SB not having.

I don't think combat depth was the only factor in SB and WAR doing poorly and Guild Wars and EVE doing well, but it's certainly important to have your primary gameplay activity be deep enough that it's fun to engage in.  (though fwiw, I would probably concede that linking SB and WAR together like that is a bit harsh on WAR; it's shallow, but it's not that bad.)

Myself

.........Ubisoft did a poor job executing SB at launch, and maintaining SB throughout it's life, ........The sad fact is that the game was laggy and buggy for a long time after release, and by the time it was fixed up people had left, bringing with them the bad memories, and they did not play later on to see what it had turned out like.............

Lansid

If I go to a restaurant for a few months and the food consistently tastes like shit (assuming that shit tastes as bad as it smells), I'm not going to go back to that place a few months down the line just because they have a new item on the menu... because chances are... it'll still taste like shit. If the customer service would just as soon spit on you as tell you why the game is not working for days... people might get the feeling they're not really important enough to deserve a response. Again, using the restaurant analogy, if the servers look like you're annoying them because you're there to eat, and won't sit or serve you... you're likely to go somewhere else.

So after going to said restaurant for a few months, where the food is shit, and the service is shit... what the hell is supposed to be my reason for coming back?

But I guess... there are people who actually enjoy eating at Denny's

............................................

Just like I said, people did not go back to the game when it was fixed, which is understandable. But you have to realise that the game was fixed, and to comment that it was always unstable, lots of lag and bugs is unfair - the last 2 years before SB shut down were very stable to me.

Axehilt:
"Depth is derived from having interesting decisions to make during combat, which I seem to recall SB not having."

I'm sorry but this makes me believe you didn't ever play the game, or played it to a minimal extent (which seems concurrent with your first post).

"I would probably concede that linking SB and WAR together like that is a bit harsh on WAR; it's shallow, but it's not that bad.)"

I like your sense of humour Axhilt ;)

Zeno - great post from your guild master. EDIT: However, I wouldn't simplify group v group combat in SB to rock/paper/scissors. Sure there were some specs which did well against others, but ultimately it came down to how you and your guild played compared to your opponents, and  a bit of luck here and there ;)

I have never played Shadowbane but it sounds like to me that u ar ehyping up a game that u liked. The problem was that enough other players didnt feel the way u did. Sometimes it is what it is. I feel kinda sorta bad for you...just a little. You will be okay tho. Fat girls are only going to be able to strip at certain clubs and then only for so long before a fine one come on the scene and take most of the customers.

Shadowbane was a broken, poorly developed game.

It did a lot of things right, but there was too much wrong with it for it to ever become big. It started out as a top 10 seller, but then quickly faded into the shadows.

This is the game which ruined peoples computers due to a bug with the executable. It never stood a chance.