Shadowbane

[FrustratedPoet]

Although the fast levelling sounds good, after buying DAOC and AC2 and hating them both I don't intend to get into another MMORPG. I don't think I have enough spare time to do it justice anyway.

It's very interesting hearing what you have to say about the game, though, Osweld. Keep it up!
(some screenies might be nice too )

[General Ludd]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by dudemanjack
I also will never buy another MMORPG during the first month it is released because they NEVER start good (I got EQ when it first came out, and it was a pain getting in the game). Plus, I'm sure all the newbie areas are filled since everyone is a new player.

That is true in Shadowbane's case aswell. Thankfully I can play in the mornings when there is no lag, but during prime-time it can get very laggy and the mourning server has been known to stall for up to 2 minutes at a time! The lag tonight is making the game virtually unplayable, but some nights it isn't too bad. They're still working out all the problems they're having with the servers.

Another thing I have noticed after traveling a little bit is that alot of the country side is absolutely barren - there are trees, hills, ect... but no life. I guess they expect the player made towns and such to fill this up, but even then I think they could use some more creatures in the world outside of set camp spots.

Hey osweld:

Nice seeing another rpg'er on the boards. I was considering buying Shadowbane myself, and was wondering: to what extent do you recommend it? Also, should I wait a while before purchasing, or jump on the boat as soon as possible? I'd like to hear more about what you think.

If you are familiar with MMORPGs I'd deffinately recomend it. A few of the things that make it different then the other's are:

Very quick leveling.

Open-pvp (but at levels 1-20 you stay on a seperate island where there is no pvp, and the starter towns in the mainland do not allow pvp within city limits).

Player made cities and empires.

The game isn't really focused on camping exp and loot, but more on politics, pvp, and war. It is a very guild-oriented game and I wouldn't recomend it if you really hate being part of a guild.

(some screenies might be nice too )

I'll get some screenshots once I get ahold of my new computer (only a few more days! )

But, I did take a couple screenshots of my hulking minotaur warrior. Keep in mind the graphics settings are quite low

Front Profile

Side Profile

That human is barely taller then my knee.
Speaking of which, the size of your character is determined by it's strength, so although there aren't a whole lot of customization options at character creation (only hair, beard, skin, and clothes) people can still end up looking quite different from eachother.

[dudemanjack]

It sounds like it's going to be a good game. Maybe sometime in the summer I'll be able to get a good enough computer to run it.

[General Ludd]

Another really good thing about it is the curve in the gain you get from leveling. For instance, levels 1-19 you get 5 ability points to spend, 20-29 you get 4, ect... and it scales down untill at level 60 you are geting nothing except a small bonus to hitpoints and mana (which also decreases proportionally as you gain levels). I'm not sure if you continue to gain skill points, however.

I killed my first elf lastnight. She was a level 41 wizard and didn't stand a chance against my level 28 minotaur warrior. A few things to consider, though, is that since there are no high level trainers available (they can only be found in player made cities, and none of the guilds have gotten rich enough to build up that high) casters are a bit weaker, because they will often require a high level of training to get access to all of their spells. And she was also unprepared... but atleast she didn't run away or get a group of friends to help like all the others. And I did have the curtosey to call her a "stinkin' elf" before attacking atleast.

(and what makes it even sweeter is that she was a member of bloodaxe, a carry-over guild from my server on DAoC - a guild that I've always hated )

EDIT: I just saw Vesayen's post again - I really have no idea what he's talking about there, with not being able to kill people a higher level then you. obviously, that is not true if my warrior can kill someone 13 levels higher without even breaking a sweat. I'm begining to doubt he even played the game... or it must of been radically different in the beta phase that he took part in.

[pg]

http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=48109431&replies=6

just thought i'd share that.. damn i wish i could get this game. btw, i read scouts are the best 1 on 1 fighters but suck in group fighting. it really sounds like they have a good specialization balance going on.

[General Ludd]

I don't think the game has been running long enough for anyone to be able to say anything about balance. But it seems to me that warriors are pretty good in straight forward combat, but casters can have a few tricks to their advantage, such as levitation or snaring, rooting, ect. but their spells are not increiblly damaging... atleast, not yet. Maybe that will change when high level trainers become available.

I fought a pair of casters with my warrior. One of them used a levitation spell to fly up in the air so I couldn't hit him (wish I'd brought a throwing axe) and kept snaring me, but he wasn't doing much damage - if the other one wasn't around I probably could of waited out his levitation and slaughtered him once he fell to the ground, out of stamina and mana . The other one had a pet who wasn't much to worry about and a really nasty damage over time spell. However, it wouldn't take much for me to kill her once I get up close, and she didn't seem to have anyway of slowing me down like the other one did. (and both of them where around level 35)



As for scouts, from what I understand, their big bonus is being the only class that is able to hunt thieves and stealthers down easily - that's what they're made for, and they are really good at it. They're also good with bows, but I haven't had any experience with that in PvP.

[dudemanjack]

I want it! I want it! I want it!

Seriously, this game sounds like it is a lot of fun. I'm all about pvp combat and guild fighting. It is time to start getting some money together for a new computer.

[General Ludd]

Hopefully the lag will be gone by the time you're able to get it.

As it is, you aren't really missing out on anything now unless you are able to play in off-hours. I don't even bother trying to play past 3PM EST anymore. Ofcourse, I am on the most populated server.... I'll have to make a character on one of the emptier servers tonight and see what the lag is like on them.

[General Ludd]

I have a bit of a problem with the game taking screenshots, i can only seem to get one unique screen shot per session - every one I take after the first turns out the same for some reason. so I haven't gotten as many screenshots as I would of liked... but I did get a good number of screenshots from the siege on Xanten that began last night.

A little bit of background: Denied is a massive ARAC (all races all classes) guild on the mourning server, that everyone who is too weak or has no spine sub-guilds to for protection. Almost ever guild and nation that is not part of denied joined together today to attack their capital city, Xanten. (these are taken with minimum graphcis level because there where so many people, I think the first two might still be with high detail, or atleast some of the high res textures still in use)


Morloch's Vengeance prepares for the siege:


The troops in formation:


The remains of a city belonging to a sub-guild of denied which we passed on our way to Xanten:


The trebuchets are up, and the fight is going strong:


More:


That person in the middle with the blue shield and white swirly thing for a crest is a member of denied.


The siege began around 6:30, and when I left at 11:30 the siege was still going strong. We where rebuilding our trebuchets for the second time, Denied had built a couple mangonels inside their city as defense, and the battle outside of the walls was as fierce as ever.

Unfortunetly I didn't get any screenshots of the constant melee outside of the city, but I made a few recordings (which can only be viewed from within the game, I believe) that I'll see if I can get some shots from.

[FrustratedPoet]

Thanks Osweld. That's the kind of fun stuff from MMORPG's that I never have the time to get too in the games.

[dudemanjack]

Looks like some good fun!

[pg]

Originally posted by Osweld
I made a few recordings (which can only be viewed from within the game, I believe)

i love games which let you make replays/demos/etc. watching high skill replays from quake, wc3, or any high skill game is the equivalent of watching a sporting match for me.

[General Ludd]

Xanten was broken that night and the walls where destroyed along with every other building not under the protection of the Tree of Life. The Bane Circle was activated today, making the remains of the city vulnerable to attack - we destroyed the Tree of Life and wiped the city from the map.

Here are a few screen shots from the final hours, and aftermath:









And a few miscellaneous shots:

[dudemanjack]

I think i'm going to get it soon! I believe there is a computer in my house that is a 700 Mhz AMD...if this is true I'll be taking that one and swap in my video card (or maybe buy a new one..). Do you think a voodoo 5 64 MB will be good enough or should I just buy a new one?

I'd REALLY like to buy a new computer but I don't think it is feasible at this point, and I DON'T want to wait until August to buy the game!

[pg]

i admit i'm having a great time just reading about sb just because i'm so interested in game design. lately it seems sb servers have been coming to an interesting situation. due to the way the game rules work it seems almost assured that given time one major power bloc will dominate a server thus making the game very static.

i wonder what ubi will do to fix this. many people seem to talk about interserver travel but at best that is a stopgap measure since if single servers eventually fall to 1 power bloc it seems likely one group might eventually dominate all servers. i've read lots of littles things that might help from making cities not appear on maps right away to faking guild shields, etc...

threads(i think they are both really damn interesting) where i saw this - first link is short, 2nd is really long and indepth...

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3449

http://www.waterthread.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=553&start=0