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 (http://members.cox.net/sirastral1/city1.jpg)

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

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.

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...

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

*shrug*

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

Hmm... that's actually a pretty damn good idea...

We've been doing the "main looter picks a number, and the person that guesses closest to that number wins" method of loot distribution. It works, as long as the people involved are in your circle of friends. However, add some strangers, and you might start running into problems..

Using the heal spell eliminates the possibility of people accusing the main looter of playing favorites. It'd be more fun to do it with a weapon or a DD spell, but you'd have peoples defensive skills and resistances skewing the results...

I'm with Vaxumgax on this one: Oh good, a PVP game, something else for me to never play.

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


Sorta answering your own question isnt it?.

(no one catering to a market makes it a untapped market..thus someone will tap it for profit..)

Just cause the "majority" dont like pvp, doesnt mean there isnt a place for it in games.
(and EQ is the absolute worst example you could draw on btw...Its no surprise pvp servers on a game whos pvp blows arnt very crowded).

Course...experience has taught me, pvp has a whole different perspective when your at the top of the food-chain.
Its no fun to be the loser...

Laeyakk...the empire thing may work, but in any empire you are going to have internal strife, and in any guild you are going to have people who disagree enough with other people to quit the guild. Add in the fact that you WILL get people who hate other types of people, you are looking at an interesting political battlefield ;) Remember, almost every empire has collapsed.


Leafy

ehchar you on scorn? igf so im mary janr :) send me a tell

I play on scorn as Anah the aelfborn ranger lvl 39 (rat catcher, archer) so far. I fucking love this game, my friend plays a thief and he splits alot of his gold with me! and we go around pking rolling 30's all day. This game is soooo much better than EQ. EQ takes to much time or raiding and not getting anything, and so boring only going after one mob every 3 hours or so. And leveling is so easy with 10 person groups, and busting thiefs trying to still from your group is the best if you wanna be a scout. I feel like a little kid again.

daoc rip. gay

I am Odin & Gungnir. Im in Shadow Consortium, we have a city on the southern tip of the far eastern ice island. Right now we arent allied with r30s or HoS, and I kinda hope it stays that way, I dont like HoS 1500 man zerg and I dont like r30s shit talkers. The HoS will be the biggest problem as the zerg will only get bigger. The r30s shit talkers will fade away when everyone else starts hitting 60.

I might join r30's, I love pking and shit talking.

skelz theres a guy on scorn named skelz i thought it was you. im in the fallen order our city is on main island east a little Dordogne is city. i hate both r30s and hos too. im lvl43 fury summoner, traveller and runecaster :)

how strange, I seen Skell or something, but yes I am on that server as Anah!!!! contact me

Speaking of names....

That's another thing that really gets on my nerves about Shadowbane: the total lack of a naming filter.

I've seen such winning names as:
Sexual Healing (a totally worthless healer, btw)
Everyone
Blockbuster Home Videos

The good news is, you can kill them later for having such stupid names.

yeah i hate that, scorn right now has crashed 6 times in a row, not only that but i accidently deleted my fucking fury. and its not the lvls im worried about its my equipment =/, and tech support is closed today

buad what lvl are you? come on scorn, im in guild with malli, also tuomas and gekob on scorn

I wonder though, does it get old?

DAoC was dumb a month after playing it ... all you do is run around and kill people lower than you, reminded me of farming greenies for charms on EQ.

It doesnt get old for me, I played daoc for 2 weeks an i got bored, this game im already 41

Thats good to hear. I plan to pick up a copy when I get back to the states ... 3 weeks :)

But be ready for hardcore pvp and thiefs trying to take your stuff, try your best to keep stuff in bank and repair your armor and jewlry when you die. Also get on scorn so I can kill you on sight.

Dread is where it's at !

It's too early to tell yet if the empire of one theory would truly pan out that way. I'm inclined to say it won't only because GvG is the entirety of the end game. There is no such thing as killing X mob to prove your superiority. As it is, a lot of guilds are moving into servers from UO and DaoC and bringing years long rivalries with them. These are people who've made their fights personal, and I don't see them content to leave one or the other in charge. Even if some servers do end up with one strong force, there's talk of enabling server vs server down the road (and from what I've been reading Mourning is the top of everyone's target list).

I'm looking forward to 2 things - the stabilization of the servers (every time I get discouraged I think back to the days I spent in early EQ watching my lagometer change pretty colors), and the culling of the whiners who either only want pvp when it's convenient to them, or don't understand that stealing is a part of pvp. It's nice to see a game where not only does a rogue have options on what kind of rogue to be, but also has skills that actually get used on a regular basis and not as an afterthought.

I've been trying to read up on this before I buy it ... but it seems to me that the entire game is like the Sims in a midevil setting?

You build city, people farm killing (sounds like clearing the same mobs over and over for ages) and sell to your city, you make money ...

Is there any point to the biggest aspect of the game, sieges, other than to just fuck someone up? Like if I come kill your city do I get all your money, or does it just make you sad?

When you siege someones city, you can take thier tree of life which gives ownership to the city to you... but if thats going to happen, most people just delete the tree and say screw you! The game has some serious issues, whoever gets started on a city first and knows what they are doing, cant be stopped. They get all the high rank vendors first, siege equipment, and can blast thru other citys before they even get to the r7 vendor/trainer stage.

That's what's happening on Dread right now. TBW just placed a bane circle on Legion VII Fenix town.

Last night Baishi went down by R30's, I hate those bastards. Anyways how bout those login servers

haha pic of us taking out Baishi, it's been a month and it has started.
http://www.darkhand.com/forum/attachment.php

right click that and properties copy paste, it's a must see of Bamlaan's poor town =)

I play on Treachery and am a 40 Warrior, my guild is known as KGB... On treachery there is a guild from beta called CoS (Covenant of Swords)

They have succesfully become the biggest Assholes on the server by attacking at all times of the day and destroying what buildings and walls they could.

But with such actions they have succesfully turned the top 3 Nations against them. ours being one of them.

This game is very goddamn fun, From easy leveling, to defending your city because if its destroyed then you basically start all over in making one.

This game has something DAOC doesnt. In Daoc you dont need to be on to take a keep, or defend yours. Because you can always take it back, but in Shadowbane your city is your bind point, it is where your trainers are, and where you bank. If it goes, then inconvinience follows.

I give this game two thumbs up, and hope they work a bit on its server stability. Other then that, it > EQ. It > Daoc and it > anything i have ever played!!! :)

Login Servers up!!!

skelz i'm not in hos, as a matter of fact when they were leaving for baishi, i was xping in there grounds. they were saying if your r2+ get to baishi, i was telling the captains that the r2s will do nothing, and they wont. anyways after a huge fight with them and refusing to go fight i got banished. my guild is small its called "the fallen order" our town is dordogne, little east. where's the pic of baishi?

It's on this thread and some other ones
www.darkhand.com/forum/sh...readid=375 (http://www.darkhand.com/forum/showthread.php?s=c4f81479ef4f4c1e5ce5bf8301bf99a9&threadid=375)

The Empire problem happened in beta, if I remember right, an empire formed in the first two attempts in beta, and then the server was wiped, the third time they decided to let it run, and just as you would hope, there was discension(sp?) among the ranks and it split, and things got real interesting.

As far as the DAoC rip-off, shadowbane was in the works and the word was out about it long before DAoC came around.

Yeah I think im going to horde all my coin instead of making a city, and wait til r30s and HoS splinter. Otherwise they will roll over what has taken me alot of time to save up. Its really a bummer that there is no limits on nation or guild numbers. It would be much more interesting to see 100 vs 100 fights intead of the 200+ vs 5-25 ppl you see now. Its pretty stupid that they increased the rate at which citys build towards the end of beta, because it makes it so joe blow doesnt have a chance to learn when the beta people come rolling in.

Just picked this up sunday, so far in 3 day's i have managed to play about 4 hour's, all on sunday night.
I sure I will be joining shadowlance since my nephew is the guild leader :p

Anyone play a Fury? Was thinking about making one instead of playing my assassin.

Ranger's kick ass

Crusaders kick ass

Bard's kick ass

i played a fury in beta and play one now.

Anyone have a gun? This Login server thing is ASS!!!!!!!!

Hehe Maelstrom is your nephew Velvet? Oh this is gonna be fun, he and I had a "nice" chat almost a week ago when he tried to tell me his guild was "neutral" and I shouldnt be pking them. There are some real loons in that guild, watch it, I had to put one on ignore because he wouldnt stfu after over a hour.

I started an elf fury today. Up to lvl 15, she rules so far.

u on scorn ellone?

nope I'm on Dread

get on scorn like the rest of us :p

ve