AstralSB

Hi. If you are curious about Shadowbane, I hope this review will give you a good general concept of the game. Before I continue, I must warn you that I have a bit of biased opinion because I personally enjoy the game immensely.

Skip the personal comment stuff if you want just the facts.

Personal Comments:

Shadowbane is probably the "next generation" MMORPG. When I heard about it, I was almost immediately drawn in, except for one thing: its 3rd-person-Diablo-style point and click movement. It actually doesn't bother me at all.

Comparison of Shadowbane to Everquest (more personal opinions):

I'm personally inclined to PvP games (Quake/Starcraft and now Counterstrike/Warcraft 3) because of the dynamic involvement when playing against another person -- the other person(s) can learn and can change. When you play against the computer, it doesn't change. It's always going to do the same thing, and the only way to beat it is to learn its pattern, and figure out a way to win. Everquest is basically this type of game with encounters that have different patterns. I'll admit, it was a good game for a while, but playing against the computer can go so far. EQ to me basically went from "WOW! we killed this" to "How long will it take to gear/exp up and learn the next pattern"? The term timesink applies here.

What also bothered me about EQ was the whole guild "status" and competition thing. Who are the best guilds out there? Sure there was a certain amount of skill and organization to it, but it all comes down to "how much time my guild spends in this game." The "who logs on earlier," "who can kill this first," "who has the most uber" and all the flames, rants and jealously associated with EQ competition attribute to time spent in the game. What happens when multiple guilds compete for the same target at the same time? There are two results: 1. You solve the matter peacefully, which is usually not the case, or 2. At least one or more guilds end up wasting their time fighting, flaming, and/or waiting for a GM. Then there are some guilds who have an edge on competition simply because of a time zone.

In Shadowbane, if you have a problem with another guild, there are also two results: 1. Resolve the conflict peacefully or 2. Destroy their city/guild (YES you can BUILD CITIES, but I'll get into that later). However, there's a twist in Shadowbane that most other PvP MMORPGs don't seem to really have. Killing someone or attacking a guild HAS reprecussions. That person may have a level 60 main character that they can log on and give you a lot of trouble or, that guild you just attacked may have a secret alliance with an even more powerful guild that will make a counter-offensive. Politics in Shadowbane isn't about spawn-sharing in EQ. It's about guild security, survival, and increasing relative power. You'll understand this if you know the general concepts of the game.


FACTS:

Leveling:

Leveling is EXTREMELY easy in this game. I literally went from level 1 to 35 in one weekend. Most of my time was spent looking for new camps of mobs to kill. There is no EXP penalty for grouping with others, and there is also a group bonus. The group can include up to ten people maximum. So having more is usually better. There isn't much of a penalty for grouping with high levels either. My group, full of high 40s and low 50s, was grouped with a level 13. The level 13, was getting the maximum he could get at level 13 (there is an EXP cap) per kill.

Character Depth:

The character depth is amazing in this game. In EQ you can pick a class eventually you are able to get all of the spells and abilities, but in Shadowbane, you are limited to what you can get.

There are several different races in shadowbane, which have different starting stats like in EQ, but there are four BASE CLASSES: Fighter, Healer, Rogue, Mage.

The base class determines certain abilities you can get later on. For example a fighter is can get special melee attacks, a rogue gets stealth, a healer gets heals, and mages get nukes/pets.

After you reach level 10, you pick your PROFESSION, which also has certain abilities as you level. The profession is much more specific than a base class, and there are tons of different types of professions. Certain professions are limited to certain base classes. For example, the only way to become a warrior is if your base class is a fighter. However, some professions are available to multiple base classes. For example, A bard can either be rogue-based (more of a melee/stealth) or mage-based (more of a spell caster). There are just tons of combinations of base class and professions.

After level 20 you can get what's called a DISCIPLINE. Disciplines give you can extra abilities of other classes (to a lesser extent). For example, I am a level 54 healer/priest with the Animator discipline, and the Traveler discipline. The Animator discipline allows me to train a pet/pet heal/pet buffs. The traveler discipline allows me to train a spell that I can cast to open up travel-portals at certain locations. There are tons of disciplines that you can apply, but these are harder to obtain, as you have to kill a mob to get them.

Guilds/Cities:

Basically, whatever city you bind in is your guild. When you start out, there are tons of in-game cities on newbie island that you can start in. Every time you log off for a certain amount of time or die, you will re-appear in the city.

At level 20 you are basically kicked off of newbie-island, forcing you to move to the conflict islands meaning you can be killed and attack other people. However there are still relatively safe non-player cities you can bind at. At level 36 you are kicked out of all non-player cities completely, and you can either try to remain guildless (meaning you'll spawn randomly around the world every time you die or log), start your own city, or bind at another player city. Some player cities allow anyone to bind there, but most player cities are invite-only.

Economy:

Unlike EQ, the economy is VERY well laid out. EVERYTHING almost is based on gold. Training costs gold, repairing your items costs gold, building/maintaining your city costs MILLIONS of gold. Hiring merchants costs gold, starting a guild costs gold, and even upgrading buildings and merchants costs gold. Items costs gold. ATTACKING ANOTHER CITY costs gold. You need to buy special items to make siege weapons to destroy walls and buildings. There is no "hit the building with your axe and it'll catch on fire" like in Warcraft :P.

The best items don't come from mobs, they come from the highest upgraded merchants, which are ONLY obtainable in player cities (and there are tons of different types of merchants -- shieldsmith, helmsmith, medium armorer, light armorer, heavy armorer, tailor, seamstress, spearsmith, bowyer, etc. etc.). Upgrading and building also takes time. The building doesn't magically appear once you buy it.


Ending Notes:

I can go on and on about the game, but there's too much to mention. I have barely scratched the surface, and there are details that I don't even know about yet. It's one of the best thought out MMORPGs in my opinion. It may sound a bit complicated, but it really isn't that bad. I definitely recommend it for you PvP'ers out there.

Warning

For those of you that think you can be l33t d00ds and run around ganking/killing/stealing from everyone, you WILL have a hard time surviving. This isn't like most games where you easily take on multiple guys at once, and it does keep a list of people who have killed you.

There's nothing like city attachment:

The graphics aren't amazing, but it's good for low-lag in huge player vs. player situations.
(both shots in fullscreen mode)

just started building walls:
members.cox.net/sirastral1/city1.jpg

walls finished, a couple of other buildings going up:
members.cox.net/sirastral1/city2.jpg

ps. I probably won't be able to edit this since it's in NAG..and it's 4 am so ignore typos :P

Utopia Dreamsong

Looks a lot like the graphics from DAOC. Infact alot of the style seems to borrow from their as well. Along with the higher end PvP.

Zagio

I thought the graphics on SB were a bit ugly to be honest, like Zelda 64 running on an emulator, all blotchy and lacking detail, but maybe it's just me or those are just naff quality screenshots...

Naeni Bast Ra

Actually If I recall, Shadowbane was being written before DaoC. So the comparison probably should be DaoC looks alot like Shadowbane.

*shrug*

Ehchar Puffinstuf

SB is alot of fun, but the dominant guilds are whomever can assemble the biggest zerg first. Its that way on every single server. Until they cap the amount of ppl in a nation, it will simply be a zerg fest.

You can however still have fun kicking the crap out of the zerg members when they arent in dogpile mode. Stealing also provides lots of entertainment when they find out you stole something.

The nicest thing about SB in my opinion is that every class has its achilles heel among the list of other classes.

Laeyakk

I'd expect a large alliance/nation to develop, destroying anyone who doesn't back them, and the occassional griefer running around outside of that framework.

The less restricted the PvP in a MMORPG, and the more investment one can make in an empire, the more it seems to gravitate towards the above. Once the empire has been formed, and all others are crushed, where again will the fun be?

Vaxumgax

Seems to be no room for the casuall player here.

Either you are hardcore in EW,Landslide type guild or you have no fun... Most would even say being in these type of guilds are no fun anyway, since raiding becomes your life. I am not saying some would not enjoy it, but why not make a balance?

Its a shame games keep coming out with pvp is the mainstream. You might notice the population of a pvp EQ server and a non pvp server. Oh yeah, also the amount of servers dedicated to pvp.

When will companies learn the majority of people dont want pvp.

Buadyen

The SB graphics are decent enough. The forests, despite the fact that the tree trunks are only 4 or 5 sided, look "better" than the ones in EQ somehow. The desert areas look nice, too (for deserts, that is.) They added the nice touch of clouds of sand/dust blowing off hill tops.


Unfortunately, SB has several annoying issues:
* Server stability. Dread crashed 4 times last night, and has had lag issues all week.
* Client filters. SB has NO filtering. Imagine playing EQ with all the filters turned off. That's what SB is like. At least chat is put in a separate window from the combat spam. It would be nice to turn off some of the spam, though.
* General lack of feedback. There's no feedback when you invite someone to your group, until they join. There's very little feedback while powers/stances are taking effect.
* No "target nearest" key. There's a key is "target next mobile", but "next mobile" isn't "nearest mobile"... when you press it, you may get someone's pet, or a mob at the very edge of your visual range... anything other than the mob that's standing right next to you beating the crap out of your group's healer.
* No /random. This makes divvying loot a pain in the ass.
* Graphical glitches. I see lots of glitches that look like they're Z-buffering errors, although I think it's from the shadow effects in the engine.

Bamlaan

scorn crashes all the time too. buad is right on the problems, but its still playable

Ehchar Puffinstuf

Who are you on Scorn, Bamlaan?

Buad, you can do a cheezy random of sorts with a heal. The priest tells you his range on the heal, say 82-175 and everyone picks a number in that range. Then he throws a heal on someone that is standing (sitting makes bigger heals) and the closest person wins.