Anyone playing Shadowbane? Your thoughts?

[AgPete]

I'm a fairly big MMORPG fan. (If you check my text-based sim homepage, you'll notice. ;) ) If I had more time, and the games updated more often, I'd probably have some spectacular characters on some of the more popular MMORPGs. But, anyways, Shadowbane is out. It's suppose to be the mother of all PK MMORPGs. I've heard its graphics aren't that great but I've never had a problem with that with any game. If the game is fun, I don't care about graphics or sounds. So has anyone played Shadowbane yet? Your opinions? I love to play new MMORPGs, it's always fun to play these games when they first come out and everyone is on the same level. I actually refuse to play an MMORPG if I didn't start within the first few months of its release. Shadowbane has been out for 2-3 weeks now and I was wondering what people thought. The big fear I have about Shadowbane are the liberal PK rules. I've always hated PKing in MMORPGs and it was a major reason why I left Ultima Online. I don't have the desire nor time to play a game that will strip me of everything I've spent hours earning just because some gamer wants to be a serial killer online. :rolleyes: So anyone played SB yet? Positives and negatives? Is it worth a monthly subscription?

[Calis]

I beta'ed it for about the last 6 months before release. It's what I would call, bleh. It has a lot of issues, as does any new MMORPG does, as I'm sure you're aware. :) I just didn't like it flat out to be honest, it all sounded so great on paper, but the execution was pretty poor overall. Well up until the day of release, the lag was just horrendous, and from what I hear it's still pretty close to the same.

The levelling treadmill is a nice thing in the game, it's very quick levelling, the combat is nothing special.

Character creation is superb, I think it's probably the neatest I've seen, a lot of possible options. You get to pick "backgrounds" and such, good stuff.

Skills and such, a very large variety, most of them being damn near useless, so you end up just focusing on a very small number, so a bit of a letdown there.

If you're worried about the liberal PvP, I would say don't play this, I'm a pretty big PvP fan, and that was the ONLY reason I see to play it.

I haven't followed it since release, and I haven't really had any desire to, but that speaks more of my general disgust with MMORPG's in general than SB in particular, but I won't get into that now.

Overall, a decent game...it's definitely not a massive change from any of those already out, just less polished.

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by Calis

I haven't followed it since release, and I haven't really had any desire to, but that speaks more of my general disgust with MMORPG's in general than SB in particular, but I won't get into that now.


I would love to hear it. I've tried a number of times to get into these games with no luck. I've played hours on Everquest which is what a friend of mine has played for 3 years. He is a total addict, but I just can't stand it. I also tried DAOC, and like it ok. Still, though, something just keeps them from being what they should be. I would love to hear your observations.

[AgPete]

Grantdawg, I can't speak for Calis but one thing that has pulled me away from MMORPGs in recent years is they all feel the same. You play one, you've played them all, especially the games that have a dungeons and dragons theme. If I could make a suggestion, I don't know when you tried EQ, but like I mentioned in my initial post, the best way to play these games is when they're first launched. It's fun to play when everyone is discovering the virtual world, the cheats that haven't been fixed yet ;) and no one is "super uber." :D

Calis, thanks for the info. Your statement that the game looks great on paper but leaves a lot ot be desired in actual gameplay is something that worried me about SB. SB promised to be the utopia of MMORPGs and made some promises that I felt wouldn't work as well as they thought when released. Are the PvP rules harsh? Do you lose everything if killed? I'm glad to hear the leveling treadmill isn't that bad. It had bad lag? Yikes, that's one thing I expect any MMORPG to be free of, especially since I have a broadband connection. I expect tech problems but the one thing I ask is that these games have reliable servers.

[GrantDawg]

I played DOAC shortly after release. I really think it is a no win, because games like these when they are first released are buggy and not generally balanced very well. But by the time they balance the classes, there are plenty of "Uber" characters.

By the way, why hasn't someone done a true D&D MMORG? I know Neverwinter is something like that, but I would think someone would want to base a world on D&D.

And has anyone been on the Star Wars beta?

[AgPete]

Grantdawg, there were some mini-MMOPRGS when I first started playing NWN. Of course, there was that level 20 limit which ruined any chances of people sticking with servers. I know there were some private servers with dedicated modders and players that probably did a great job but I never found any public servers in NWN that made me want to stick around. With the community support in NWN and future expansions packs, I imagine some of those servers are pretty good now. Like I said, they're mini-MMORPGs more than anything because of the limited populations when people are running their own servers but if you found a good gamemaster, they were more enjoyable than regular MMORPGs since a human was controlling the virtual word. (I don't remember if the game itself had a limit to players on your server.)

[Calis]

AgPete- You only lose the gold you have on you, and for the most part items you don't have equipped, I think you have a small chance to drop an equipped item.

Really, the loss of items isn't a big deal, there's banks and such to put everything in, so you're relatively safe. The lag was unbelievably bad, I would imagine it's been improved some since the end of beta, or everyone would be up in arms.

GrantDawg- I definitely agree with AgPete along the lines of they all feel the same. The other problems I have, is the games are just centered around being a time sink, they WANT you to keep playing, so they make everything 100x more tedious than it should be. There's really never been one yet with any sense of immersion of either, nor has their been one with any sense of persistence imo, you can't really affect the game world. That was the biggest plus SB had, it's the first one that I think factors some of that in.

I think for the most part that MMORPG's are crappy games with a fancy chat interface, that seems to be about the extent of the depth. The social interaction is definitely the main thing going, which is great..but I think if they could add in a better gameplay element, they'd really cross that threshold.

Heh, the whole thing is strange, I've played MMORPG's for a few years, and I loved them...then finally I just got disgusted one day, during my DAOC times, and quit. The thought of starting up another one and going through all of that crap again, it's not exactly appealing to me. Not too mention the annoyance of playing a class for 200 hours or so and then having the Devs decide to "balance" and leaving it a shell of the class you originally picked, that's hard to swallow. I really felt with DA at least, the Devs would listen to whoever whined the loudest, and that bugged me as well.

Anyhow, I could go on, and maybe I will later, but it's early, and I'm barely awake. :)


Edit- Forgot, Gary Gygax, one of the founders of D&D is working on a MMORPG, Lejendary Adventures I believe it is called? Not D&D rules, but I imagine it'll be pretty damn close. I swear I heard somewhere as well that WotC signed a deal with someone for a MMORPG, I'll have to look it up again though.

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by Calis
The other problems I have, is the games are just centered around being a time sink, they WANT you to keep playing, so they make everything 100x more tedious than it should be. There's really never been one yet with any sense of immersion of either, nor has their been one with any sense of persistence imo, you can't really affect the game world. That was the biggest plus SB had, it's the first one that I think factors some of that in.


That is the two things that have kept me from enjoying these games. There have been some improvement on the time sink thing in EQ with the ability to hit transporters to take you to a central plane with links to numbers of other places. Yet, there still times when you have to hit the boat (20 minutes of freakin nothing), walking through endless zones, etc. I hate that crap.

The lack of immersive storylines though has been my number one problem. My friend says you really have to join a guild to get into the game, but most of the guilds I've seen are more like a bad soap opera than good sources for stories and friendship. (And is there anything more sad than hearing about the "weddings" of these characters? It is a game people! If your not getting nooky in real life, your not really getting it in the game either!).

[Radii]

I haven't bought ShadowBane myself, but I can tell you that about 6 people from my old EQ/DAOC guild bought it, and all but one have already cancelled their accounts, FWIW.

[damnMikeBrown]

I was in Beta for the last month. It was extremely frustrating. The server was really unsteady. It seemed like if it wasn't down, you were rubber band lagging all over the place.

I love the idea of a persistent world. A bunch of my DAoC guild mates are playing the hell out of SB, to see if it's worth renewing after the free month is up. At this point, I see most of them staying with it, at least for a while.

It IS a pvp environment. That is the whole point of the game. If you don't like that sort of thing, then don't even bother. There isn't anything very interesting to it, other than the massive guild v. guild battles that the game is based around.

On a hellatiously wonderfull note, one of my friends just got his SWG Beta invite :) Seeing as how I'm the most rabid of SW fans (not a SWG fanboy, however), the account is being um....farmed out for a little while. SWG Beta, here he, erm I, no, here he (/wink) comes!

I hate Mythic. I just had to say it, because it's a must when talking about MMORPG. Nerf Matter Cabs & Friars. Return archers to pre 1.42!

[Thomkal]

I'm currently playing Shadowbane and have mixed feelings about it.

Server Stability and System Conflicts: I would put SB in about the middle for a release of a MMORPG for these issues. Servers have crashed not frequently but enough that you notice it. There's also been rollbacks when some of these crashes occur. Some people were having problems with system errors or connecting when using a Radeon Card or a 56K modem. I have both and have not experienced a problem in either case. (and I believe the latest patch fixed the 56K modem problem). Lag has not been too bad for me most of the time. So not a good opening like DAOC, but not nearly as bad as Anarchy Online either.

Graphics: SB has been in development for four years and it shows in the Graphics area. Not nearly as "clean and defined" graphics as with Asheron's Call 2 and Earth and Beyond. I have a problem in that I'm using earlier Radeon drivers and thus everyone is bald, and there's no water...even when they are swimming in it. :) The colors are very muted and come in three basic shades for the most part-green, grey, and brown.

Group vs Solo: Shadowbane is just not a soloist delight. I like to solo, and you just don't level near the same rate as you do in a group. Many of the groups I've been in are more of convenience than organized friendly outings. But I still have "young" characters that aren't in a guild. A somewhat unique aspect of Shadowbane is that players can form their own cities at higher levels, and then have other players join them, becoming a guild of sorts. That leads into...

Player vs Player combat: Once you get off the newbie isles (which I haven't done yet), you are open to PVP at any time, and also player theft with the thief and I believe assassin class. Causes a lot of bad feelings for those coming from other games where you have some protection against PVP. The highlight of PVP is supposed to be laying siege to player-run cities. Can't comment since I haven't got that far yet.

Grave Robbing: When you die, anything you carry but is not currently worn on your body drops into your grave. Items you are wearing can deteriorate its condition, which I kind of like. Anyone can click on a player's grave and take whatever they want from it, which causes bad feelings. Haven't seen this happen much on the newbie isles though.

Character Development: SB's strong suit in my mind. You start out as one of four basic character classes (Fighter, Rogue, Healer, and Mage) until 10th level where you then must select a specific discipline to train in (things like Druids, Crusaders, Thiefs, and Channelers). Also during character creation you can select (if you have the character points after raising your basic stats) traits. You can then find other traits in the game as treasure in the form of runestones. These give you certain advantages like adding points to a stat and a wide variety of other areas. You can only have so many runestones though at your level, so you have to pick and choose. Makes you think about how you want to shape your character now and in the future and makes for a lot of different types of characters.

SB's Future: Cloudy I'd say. With the poorer graphics and the PVP rules, I think quite a few people will be turned off by the game. I plan on getting my characters to the point where I can join a player-run city to see if the game improves at all. Right now though, I don't have a huge "hankering" to play at all times of the day or night, the usual sign that an MMORPG has you hooked. There seems to be quite a few MMORPG on the horizon (including one called Horizons) that may have better appeal to the fantasy MMORPG crowd.

Any other questions I can answer about it?

[AgPete]

Thanks for some of the advice guys. Yep, I'm not picking up this one. There are too many MMORPGs coming out this year, I'm going to be picky about which ones I try, especially since they eat up so much time. Thanks again for the summaries.

[AgPete]

dola

Just got emailed a cdkey for Planetside's beta so I'm definitely not trying Shadowbane anytime soon. Interesting concept for Planetside, it'a almost like having a a ten thousand person server for Half-Life, I hope the lag isn't that bad. I'll let you guys know what I think about Planetside in a few days if you're interested. :)