Originally posted by Zerocyde

Having to see in giant letters...

"PVP FAIL!!!"

on top of a Shadowbane screen shot every damned time I come to this site is an absolute disgrace to the greatest pvp ever to grace the world of MMORPGs. Shadowbane was an absolute success in every aspect other than graphics and engine quality. It was the developers who failed.

The game was VERY hard, and VERY unforgiving, that means that the vast majority of people who tried the game left immediately screaming failure. Those of us that stuck with it were rewarded with the only mmo made so far to feature real pvp.

Then, it was taken away from us by a garbage company (ubisoft) wanting to focus on the kiddy gamer market (consoles) and what do we get for our suffering? We get people from the majority that failed at Shadowbane getting the right to plaster their biased, uneducated slander about something VERY near and dear to our hearts all over the front page of our favorite MMORPG website.

Thanks MMORPG.com, thanks.

EDIT: There is probably way too much QQ in this post, but dammnit, when you live constantly in an ocean of people who call you a fool because THEY were too shortsighted to see the one and only MMO that has succeeded in what every online RPG since the fist mud has tried and failed to, and then see crap like this, it hurts.

Bugs, exploits, bugs, asian zergs, bugs, lack of budget, keycloning, and bugs are what truly killed Shadowbane. The game was around for six years, roughly half that time it was pay to play. I enjoyed the hell out of it and on average had up to four accounts running when it was pay to play. I also never had trouble finding more than enough people to nation up with and have some damn good wars with. When I consider it outlasted games like Matrix Online and Tabula Rasa,  and was more lively than other  PVP games such as AOC and Warhammer Online, I feel Shadowbane didn't fair all that badly. Especially since it was created in the early days of MMOs and the game authors didn't have much previous game experience to draw from.

 The article in reference is very pro-WoW, imo, so I'm not listening to anything he said. =P

 Shadowbane. Ahh yes, such a pinniacle of PvP gaming where you A: Grinded on mobs for weeks on end to reach a level where you could attack anyone, B: Grinded on mobs for weeks on end to get gold to solo build their flawed city system, C: Endured their terrible GUI, controls. engine, randomly generated and generally shitty game world. 

Surely how could they say such terrible things about shadowbane!

Seriously, the only thing that didn't suck about it was the fact that the races/classes were novel, and it had good lore. 

Originally posted by Kordesh

 Shadowbane. Ahh yes, such a pinniacle of PvP gaming where you A: Grinded on mobs for weeks on end to reach a level where you could attack anyone, B: Grinded on mobs for weeks on end to get gold to solo build their flawed city system, C: Endured their terrible GUI, controls. engine, randomly generated and generally shitty game world. 

Surely how could they say such terrible things about shadowbane!

Seriously, the only thing that didn't suck about it was the fact that the races/classes were novel, and it had good lore. 

Dunno when you were playing but I went from level one to seventy five in two days multiple times and most people did it in less. If you were building cities solo you missed the entire point of the game. Sb changed a lot over the years.

Originally posted by Zerocyde

 

---

Originally posted by Omali
Relaunch was back in 2008. Game's over, you didn't make it to the Superbowl this year.

---

 

Ok, my bad, I meant the re-re-launch that is months away.

Link? More info? Something?

I find this post, like the ones on Mr. Jenning's article, show that people need to go back and re-read the article. What I got from it is how he speaking about dev's/companies handling of pvp and if they get the mix wrong, pvp can train wreck a MMORPG faster than anything. Luckily, everyone thought he was going after pvpers and ignored all the good points he made (I will admit, he was not overly flattering in his description of pvpers, but then again, I'm not sure he was wrong there either for the most part.).

To see a screenie from SB and the title "PVP FAIL: how you can break your game" when you log, and it in someway offends you, means you have a increadible thin kin. When someone gets killed in your city and the newspaper run a picture of it with the title "MURDER IN RANDOMVILLE", does it provoke this reaction for you?

 Didn't shadowbane become a free to play?

To YOU it was the greatest PVP game ever to YOU consoles are "kiddie" things. Just because you think so doesn;t mean everyone else will.

Originally posted by Arndur

To YOU it was the greatest PVP game ever to YOU consoles are "kiddie" things. Just because you think so doesn;t mean everyone else will.

It sure beat the hell out of Darkfall.

Originally posted by Zerocyde

Having to see in giant letters...

"PVP FAIL!!!"

on top of a Shadowbane screen shot every damned time I come to this site is an absolute disgrace to the greatest pvp ever to grace the world of MMORPGs. Shadowbane was an absolute success in every aspect other than graphics and engine quality. It was the developers who failed.

The game was VERY hard, and VERY unforgiving, that means that the vast majority of people who tried the game left immediately screaming failure. Those of us that stuck with it were rewarded with the only mmo made so far to feature real pvp.

Actually, having played SB, Darkfall has surpassed their intention and delivered despite a clownish development team at Aventurine, and Mortal Online is trying to position themselves to deliver a better product of the same type.

So, Shadowbane is yesterdays news.  I'd get over it.

Originally posted by Cik_Asalin

 

Actually, having played SB, Darkfall has surpassed their intention and delivered despite a clownish development team at Aventurine, and Mortal Online is trying to position themselves to deliver a better product of the same type.

So, Shadowbane is yesterdays news.  I'd get over it.

If you think Darkfall character development, sieging or combat strategy is above third grade level I have to wonder if you've ever played a real MMOG.

Originally posted by -Zeno-

...and the MMORPG.COM staff has the gall to move this here.  Starting to dip down to the Eurogamer levels.

Ban hammer? I dunno. Who knows what they'll do now?

In any case, I do agree...some of these things are posted in the Pub so that not just people that give a damn about the game will see it, but everyone. Not to mention, SB's dead. I doubt ANYONE will see it except those of us that already posted here.

Originally posted by johnmatthais

Originally posted by -Zeno-

...and the MMORPG.COM staff has the gall to move this here.  Starting to dip down to the Eurogamer levels.

Ban hammer? I dunno. Who knows what they'll do now?

In any case, I do agree...some of these things are posted in the Pub so that not just people that give a damn about the game will see it, but everyone. Not to mention, SB's dead. I doubt ANYONE will see it except those of us that already posted here.

 

Actually SB was reborn recently =) only to a special few. And anyways, SB had the best class system i have seen hands down for building characters. PVP was amazing and as someone had said earlier, "Those who played it and got it enjoyed it" "those who got ass raped during there time in SB didn't" or something like that. I have played every pvpmmo that I could possibly get my hands on and SB surpasses them in every way. DF doesn't come close to what SB had.

Maybe someday SB2 will make an appearance.

I played SB between a couple of years of AO and a very annoying 4 months of WoW. SB was a mixed bag with plenty of faults, but a supreme character creation and development system, as others say, where characters were very powerful, reasonably balanced, and not nerfed all to hell. Player controlled assets on the ground have never been done better, and it was the last MMO I have played where I felt any real adrenaline during PvP.

Rushing into a castle and whacking a tree down while waiting for the opponent to regroup and come back was tense, even massing on the same spot and nuking against a clod of toons doing the same backatcha was a blast. So much depth in SB, too bad WoW was such a step backwards to the mindless Walmart mass MMOs of today.

Late night guild ganking runs were always fun, mowing down farming groups and waiting for their numbers to form for the showdown. Sneaking through hostile towns and buying the best loot off their merchants was cool, just so much fun.

The PvE experience was fast, no idea what grinding some people are talking about. Even the crappier guilds I was in in SB ran PL groups constantly, and no character past my first took more than a week or so to cap.

Players taking advantage of mechanic loopholes, dual boxers with a safety summons always cued up, dual guilders, treeless guilds with unmarked cities that were owned by proxies preventing true payback, THAT'S what killed SB for me, not any flaws in the game itself. You can't prevent players from quasi-exploiting holes in game mechanics, and that's sadly what still prevents PvP in these games from being what it could be. The world is just full of people who refuse to play a game straight up as opposed to looking for the angle or loophole, and that is the problem with MMO PvP.

 You know Shadowbane withstood the tests of time if its still going, while other MMOs are not. I didn't see it myself, but a lot of rumors went around about GMs hacking or exploiting the game, by altering the land before sieges. As an example, sinking an entire small island underwater before a siege. Regardless, there's lots of MMOs including big ones like WoW, where people have manipulated the game to their advantage.

Shadowbane did a lot of things right and very few things wrong. Probably the most notably annoying aspect of Shadowbane was the UO 3D over the shoulder perspective and the point and click movement that went along with it. Aside from that, I truely enjoyed playing my Warlock before they nerfed my Mental DMG swords, lol.

Originally posted by Zerocyde

Having to see in giant letters...

"PVP FAIL!!!"

on top of a Shadowbane screen shot every damned time I come to this site is an absolute disgrace to the greatest pvp ever to grace the world of MMORPGs. Shadowbane was an absolute success in every aspect other than graphics and engine quality. It was the developers who failed.

The game was VERY hard, and VERY unforgiving, that means that the vast majority of people who tried the game left immediately screaming failure. Those of us that stuck with it were rewarded with the only mmo made so far to feature real pvp.

Then, it was taken away from us by a garbage company (ubisoft) wanting to focus on the kiddy gamer market (consoles) and what do we get for our suffering? We get people from the majority that failed at Shadowbane getting the right to plaster their biased, uneducated slander about something VERY near and dear to our hearts all over the front page of our favorite MMORPG website.

Thanks MMORPG.com, thanks.

EDIT: There is probably way too much QQ in this post, but dammnit, when you live constantly in an ocean of people who call you a fool because THEY were too shortsighted to see the one and only MMO that has succeeded in what every online RPG since the fist mud has tried and failed to, and then see crap like this, it hurts.

@Zero;

This is where your complaint lost all credibility with me. Simply put and without any of the deserved criticism and name calling: Any game released with engine issues is a fail; especially in an "unforgiving" pvp game. Period. No complain or discussing. If your game's engine sucks and you feel the need to release it, it had better be forgiving and pve focused. This post gets my sheep:

Originally posted by Astralglide

 

@Zero;

Simply put and without any of the deserved criticism and name calling: Any game released with engine issues is a fail; especially in an "unforgiving" pvp game. Period. No complain or discussing.

For the time, the SB engine issues were par for the course, and certainly not of the magnitude to deserve all the drama in your post. SB worked just fine on my puny rig at the time, better than AO or WoW.

I don't remember many crashes in SB, some rubberbanding at massive sieges, some lagfest, all par for the course in mass pvp at the time.

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

 You know Shadowbane withstood the tests of time if its still going, while other MMOs are not. I didn't see it myself, but a lot of rumors went around about GMs hacking or exploiting the game, by altering the land before sieges. As an example, sinking an entire small island underwater before a siege. Regardless, there's lots of MMOs including big ones like WoW, where people have manipulated the game to their advantage.

Shadowbane did a lot of things right and very few things wrong. Probably the most notably annoying aspect of Shadowbane was the UO 3D over the shoulder perspective and the point and click movement that went along with it. Aside from that, I truely enjoyed playing my Warlock before they nerfed my Mental DMG swords, lol.

A bit nostalgic too about SB myself. Of all the characters dear to my heart from MMOs over the years, the SB characters stick out, the shade sin, the werewolf warrior archer shooting arrows from its mouth, the neph wizard, dual wielding hammer dwarf, hurlbat mino, bow aracoix scout. Have had 20-30 characters since then in games, and many before, and those are the ones I wish I could play again most.

Compared to some toons, AOC or CO for instance, which make me vomit a bit every time I think of them, I hope the SB toons are somewhere in MMO discarded toon land pointing and clicking across the horizon ganking and looting with abandon, and then hustling back to the bank before they get ganked.

Originally posted by Lansid

Originally posted by Kyleran

OP is proving what was mentioned in a recent article, hardcore PvP players tend, as a stereotype, to be very unique and special snowflakes.

Makes me wonder if OP played same game as i did when it launched.

 

QFT

I admit, Shadowbane had a lot of potential, and when it worked, it was a fun experience. But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a lot of them were flawed... except my Confessor build, good god did I tear some shit up with it.

Oh how I miss my Confessor. That class was a joy to play next to a PvP fight against an R5 Mage assassin and I was R3 Pole Mino warrior, that mage had a bad day. It seemed that PvP was more about skill and not gear/level.

Originally posted by Outis

Originally posted by Lansid

Originally posted by Kyleran

OP is proving what was mentioned in a recent article, hardcore PvP players tend, as a stereotype, to be very unique and special snowflakes.

Makes me wonder if OP played same game as i did when it launched.

 

QFT

I admit, Shadowbane had a lot of potential, and when it worked, it was a fun experience. But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a lot of them were flawed... except my Confessor build, good god did I tear some shit up with it.

 

Oh how I miss my Confessor. That class was a joy to play next to a PvP fight against an R5 Mage assassin and I was R3 Pole Mino warrior, that mage had a bad day. It seemed that PvP was more about skill and not gear/level.

I always wanted to make a confessor, but Torquemada was already taken by the time I started SB and just didn't feel right to play one with any other name! I remember being terrified of centaur prelates and cent hurlbat barbs. <sheds nostalgia tear>