Nice to hear SB might be resurrected, always felt it was one of the more interesting MMORPG's ever made. 

Originally posted by Cembrye

 

From a French language site comes news dated April 13, 2012:

 

NOTE - forgive the Google Translation - maybe a French speaker can correct this.

 

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After closing its doors in July 2009, Shadowbane could experience a second youth. The Chinese Changyou has acquired the rights of MMO PvP for a new version called World of Shadowbane.  Launched in 2003 before the servers are permanently closed by publisher Ubisoft in July 2009, Shadowbane (that should be in the studio Wolfpack) remained in the memories of MMO players for its gameplay based largely on mechanisms clashes between players ( PvP ) and its sieges.  We thought the game permanently closed, but today, the Chinese Changyou (who revealed the Chinese press to future massively multiplayer titles in its catalog) says it has acquired the rights and source code of the ancient Shadowbane. Target acquisition: initiate the development of a new version of MMOG, discount up to date, and renamed World of Shadowbane. It's unclear when the project gets going, or even whether it will be distributed in the West (however easily be imagined that Changyou sees the opportunity to strengthen its positions at least in the U.S.), mas Shadowbane seems anyway to then enjoy a second youth.

 

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http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/35170/changyou-ressuscite-shadowbane

 

From what I can tell, Changyou is a player in the Chinese online gaming market, a market that is the fastest growing in the world.  Does this mean they will make Shadowbane 2 for the Chinese market only or for all markets?  Or for none?  But one wonders why they would acquire these rights if they didn't plan on using them.

 

We shall see what this all means I guess.  But it seems the old girl still has a heartbeat.  :)

one can hope I suppose, not overly thrilled that an asian company picked it up, but better that than no one.

SB was an awesome game.

I really loved Shadow Bane but made the horrible mistake of joining Ebonlore in that game. A villainous hive of scum.

Although I was fanatically involved with Shadowbane, to be quite honest, I despised the way it was designed. I played it because I was absolutely in love with the setting—with the lore.

I think it's discouraging that UbiSoft couldn't sell it to anyone better than ChangYou, but I guess I've been surprised in the past.

SB had so much potential. I quit after only about 6 months of playing because of two reasons:

1) SB.exe this was pretty upsetting since huge wars were awesome

2) the gold dupe bug that not only was it still present when i quit I had known about it and reported it for over a month.

note: to refresh some memories. You stole money from yourself just before server maintenance  and when the server came up both the thief and your victim would have gold.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Nice to hear SB might be resurrected, always felt it was one of the more interesting MMORPG's ever made. 

 

SB unfortunately was plagued by bad coding and badly planned out mechanics. There is a surprisingly large market out there for a sandbox PvP mmo, but there has not been a good development team wanting to make one. Shame really. 

Eve is really the only MMO to pull it off and part of that is due to the sheer size... SB was definitely fun for what it was, but had the potential to be so much more. 

The classes seemed interesting and I loved that you could play a Centaur, but that wasn't enough for me to try the game.  i just cannot stomach FFA PvP, but the setting and lore did seem cool.  if only they had offered a consentual server.

Originally posted by Vorthanion

The classes seemed interesting and I loved that you could play a Centaur, but that wasn't enough for me to try the game.  i just cannot stomach FFA PvP, but the setting and lore did seem cool.  if only they had offered a consentual server.

The problem is that there was literally nothing to do in the game beyond PvP and spawn grind. PvE only servers would have been useless. 

While all we can do at this point is speculate, being an optimist here is what I hope we see from Changyou:

1.  Updated graphics on a solid and stable existing game engine

2.  Remain true to the classic Shadowbane ruleset with the following additions

- smarten up and add variety to wildlife and NPCs while keeping it a sandbox

- TEST TEST TEST to make sure no gold duping bugs or exploits make release 

- deepen the tools that guilds and guild leaders can use to reduce brain pain on keep upkeep, etc

- make gold earning less burdensome so people can spend more time fighting and less time farming

- if possible have a single world a la Eve Online; this should make it harder for a single huge zerg to close down a server

3.  DO NOT SURRENDER to the WOW crowd and add features that make the game less cut throat!  Play To Crush (tm)!

4.  Personally, I would also like meaningful implementation of game lore, e.g. encouragement of single race guilds/empires

The usual fears when an Asian MMO is ported to the West, e.g. grindy gameplay and cutesy anime graphics, may be mitigated here since this was originally a western game design.  I don't think grind will be a problem since fans of original Shadowbane are already OK with hard core sandbox methods.  We may not be able to avoid cutesy anime, but if they otherwise stay true to the vision I don't think people will mind that the armor for their Aelfborn looks like a Japanese school girl outfit. :)

ARAC guilds really took away from SB. Part of the fun was the contest between light and dark guilds... 

Nice!

Originally posted by atziluth

Originally posted by Kyleran

Nice to hear SB might be resurrected, always felt it was one of the more interesting MMORPG's ever made. 

 

SB unfortunately was plagued by bad coding and badly planned out mechanics. There is a surprisingly large market out there for a sandbox PvP mmo, but there has not been a good development team wanting to make one. Shame really. 

Eve is really the only MMO to pull it off and part of that is due to the sheer size... SB was definitely fun for what it was, but had the potential to be so much more. 

Don't forget the longest running pay to play MMORPG, UO... still has it ;)

Originally posted by atziluth

Originally posted by Vorthanion

The classes seemed interesting and I loved that you could play a Centaur, but that wasn't enough for me to try the game.  i just cannot stomach FFA PvP, but the setting and lore did seem cool.  if only they had offered a consentual server.

The problem is that there was literally nothing to do in the game beyond PvP and spawn grind. PvE only servers would have been useless. 

More than enough, PVE is not needed in Shadowbane

Originally posted by lucas1965

More than enough, PVE is not needed in Shadowbane

You can have both.  Honestly, most people like a change of pace from time to time.  

Remember, you need some way for people to earn gold for the keeps, weapons/armor, banes, etc.  You could try just doing it with mines, but that will likely end up freezing out soloers and small guilds and feed the tendency for single zergs to form and dominate. And you can't just have people living off robbing the corpses of enemies - someone has to earn that gold in the first place or otherwise you just have the same 100,000 gold traveling around from pocket to pocket!  :)

A no-PVE Shadowbane?  I'm all ears as to how the mechanics of that would work.  

hope so, but I could easily see this game being the ultimate P2W.

Originally posted by Cembrye

While all we can do at this point is speculate, being an optimist here is what I hope we see from Changyou:

1.  Updated graphics on a solid and stable existing game engine

2.  Remain true to the classic Shadowbane ruleset with the following additions

- smarten up and add variety to wildlife and NPCs while keeping it a sandbox

- TEST TEST TEST to make sure no gold duping bugs or exploits make release 

- deepen the tools that guilds and guild leaders can use to reduce brain pain on keep upkeep, etc

- make gold earning less burdensome so people can spend more time fighting and less time farming

- if possible have a single world a la Eve Online; this should make it harder for a single huge zerg to close down a server

3.  DO NOT SURRENDER to the WOW crowd and add features that make the game less cut throat!  Play To Crush (tm)!

4.  Personally, I would also like meaningful implementation of game lore, e.g. encouragement of single race guilds/empires

The usual fears when an Asian MMO is ported to the West, e.g. grindy gameplay and cutesy anime graphics, may be mitigated here since this was originally a western game design.  I don't think grind will be a problem since fans of original Shadowbane are already OK with hard core sandbox methods.  We may not be able to avoid cutesy anime, but if they otherwise stay true to the vision I don't think people will mind that the armor for their Aelfborn looks like a Japanese school girl outfit. :)

 1. Agree

2.  Agree, though they already did most of the in the later versions of Shadowbane, though PvE was still very bland, but who really cares.  Upkeep for cities was significantly lowered, and mines offered a source of revenue that didn't require constant farming to help maintain cities. 

A large world would be awesome, though I'm not sure how they would pull it of.  The original concept for Shadowbane allowed for people to invade other servers, sort of combining all the worlds in the game, which I wouldn't mind seeing here.

3. Absolutely, 100%.

4.  Shadowbane did implement a lore server towards the latter years.  It was pretty successful and created some very interesting guild dynamics.  I wouldn't mind seeing that ruleset adopted here, I think it made for better politics and wars personally.

And yea, screw Asian style in graphics.  There was a Chinese Shadowbane before and it was very similiar to the US version in style and everything, so hopefully this sticks to that course.