Shadowbane

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by 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/vi...?t=553&start=0

This isn't a problem for the develoeprs to fix, it is a problem created by the players. People are not forced to join the "uber guilds" and there isn't even any incentive to doing this in the game. The whole point about shadowbane is that the players get to make their world - if they want to have a homogenous server and do nothing, well, that is what they are going to get.

This was happening on the Mourning server, with Denied slowly taking over by having all the new guilds and players joining them for protection, but the rest of the guilds saw this and united to wipe them from that map. We are the unnoficial roleplay server, afterall - we need conflict.

EDIT: But they are lowering the upkeep costs in the next patch, which will make life for the smaller guilds much easier.

[pg]

Originally posted by Osweld
This isn't a problem for the develoeprs to fix, it is a problem created by the players. People are not forced to join the "uber guilds" and there isn't even any incentive to doing this in the game. The whole point about shadowbane is that the players get to make their world - if they want to have a homogenous server and do nothing, well, that is what they are going to get.

i don't see how not belonging to a huge powerful guild isn't an incentive. are there negative in game consequences for belonging to a powerful guild? i know warfare = fun but i don't think warfare always pays well especially if you have already taken over a server with your guild. i think there should be incentives for both big/small/everyhing in between guilds(which doesn't seem to quite be the case now). i've read being a mercanary guild is impossible due to how the game works. i hope sb becomes more dynamic because i'm hoping to be able to play it in the future. i'm eagerly watching how it develops so i won't be totally clueless if i start to play.

This was happening on the Mourning server, with Denied slowly taking over by having all the new guilds and players joining them for protection, but the rest of the guilds saw this and united to wipe them from that map. We are the unnoficial roleplay server, afterall - we need conflict.

so what is happening now after the united group won? are they the dominate power on the server?

EDIT: But they are lowering the upkeep costs in the next patch, which will make life for the smaller guilds much easier.

so ubi most notice something about this...

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by pg


i don't see how not belonging to a huge powerful guild isn't an incentive. are there negative in game consequences for belonging to a powerful guild? i know warfare = fun but i don't think warfare always pays well especially if you have already taken over a server with your guild. i think there should be incentives for both big/small/everyhing in between guilds(which doesn't seem to quite be the case now). i've read being a mercanary guild is impossible due to how the game works. i hope sb becomes more dynamic because i'm hoping to be able to play it in the future. i'm eagerly watching how it develops so i won't be totally clueless if i start to play.

They'll soon find out how boring it is being on a homogenous server. The game is deseinged for player vs player conflict and guild wars, once they all power level eachother to level 60 they'll run out of things to do, and no doubt the alliance will start to break apart and crumble. I heard that Ebonlore, one of those mega-guilds, has said that once they own the entire server they will spend their time "spawn camping newbs". Either their alliance will fall apart, or the server will be vacant in a week.

so what is happening now after the united group won? are they the dominate power on the server?

It was a temporay alliance and tensions between the participants have only grown because of it. There was many natural enemies in the alliance who only hate each other more now for having to fight alongside the people they hate. I'm sure that within the next few weeks we'll see dozens more wars. That's the great thing about roleplay.

Coincedentally, the other two biggest guilds, Mountain Giant Alliance and Lex Talonis, have toned down a bit and made some of their more far-reaching sub-guilds independant.

[General Ludd]

By the way, I just discovered the Herald reports on the official sight. There is a great account of the siege on Xanten here.

[dudemanjack]

I'm buying a new PC later this month, or early June, and rest assure I will buy this game. Hopefully they fix some of the lag/crash problems I've been hearing about.

[General Ludd]

The lag has gotten much better already, but there are still alot of stabiliy issues with the client.

[pg]

Originally posted by Osweld
They'll soon find out how boring it is being on a homogenous server. The game is deseinged for player vs player conflict and guild wars, once they all power level eachother to level 60 they'll run out of things to do, and no doubt the alliance will start to break apart and crumble. I heard that Ebonlore, one of those mega-guilds, has said that once they own the entire server they will spend their time "spawn camping newbs". Either their alliance will fall apart, or the server will be vacant in a week.

yeah, but a lot of players might also just quit sb which is ubi's problem. even if it is the players fault, most people won't care. ironic as it is i think they might have to force people to play for fun. a lot of mmorpg players seem too interested in levels, power, or phat loot instead of engaging gameplay.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by pg
yeah, but a lot of players might also just quit sb which is ubi's problem. even if it is the players fault, most people won't care. ironic as it is i think they might have to force people to play for fun. a lot of mmorpg players seem too interested in levels, power, or phat loot instead of engaging gameplay.

I think its just a different attitude. For some people, fragging players over and over again in a FPS is "engaging gameplay". After about 30 minutes of getting ripped apart and occasionally getting my revenge I'm bored stiff. Some people would rather hunt for a rare trophy than try and win yet another PK battle. Personally I prefer to play games where questing is a major motivator.

[dudemanjack]

I bought Shadowbane and called up Optimum Online to reconnect my cable modem. Unfortunately, there's something wrong with my PC that I'm dealing with now (I'm on my sister's CPU with AOL...god I hate it).

I'm reinstalling Windows 98SE and should hopefully be on the game tomorrow (Monday). Osweld...are you in a guild and can I join it? I could use some game friends

Mourning is your server, correct?

[General Ludd]

Yes, I play on mourning. I'm in Morloch's Vengeance (formerly known as Morloch Horde) if you want to join you will have to go through the application process yourself. It's a roleplaying guild, and it's a requirement of all their member to roleplay. There's a few subguilds aswell - Virakt of the Icy Night, Minions of Khan, and the Cult of the Dead. But I don't know much about them. And there is also The Frost Horde who are our closest allies, they seem to be much more lax in the roleplay requirements. Other guilds I would recomend are Pride of Vashteera (an amazon guild, but they do allow man servents ) or the Tribunal ("The Inquisistion" and our arch enemies). There are alot of other great roleplaying guilds, and some formidable non-roleplay guilds. Ask around on the Mourning marshalling forum when you make an account at ubisoft if you want to find out more about the possible guilds.

[dudemanjack]

Arggg, more problems! My cable internet now works, but apparently tahe VooDoo series of video cards is not supported, and when I try to run the game, it just runs some intro movie, then goes back to the desktop.

I am getting a new computer (should be here Monday), and it has an ATI Radeon 9800 and it says in the readme.txt that it's pending support (or something like that), which leads me to believe I might have some problems running Shadowbane. I want to play the game so bad!

[General Ludd]

Yes, there are a few problems with the Radeon cards. Try playing the game before updating your drivers and only update if it is unplayable. I can play the game using the original drivers with just a few graphical glitches, but updating them makes the game crash every tiem it start. There is supposed to be a new driver coming out in a week or two that should fix this, however.

[dudemanjack]

Good...I just want to get started testing out characters so I can figure out what race/class combos are good (or at least are good for my playing style). That will probably take a good week or so of playing time probably.

[General Ludd]

Just so you know, the new catalyst drivers where released today. I only got a chance to play for about 15 minutes with them, but it seemed to be running well without any of the glitches I was geting, either. I haven't heard of anyone else having problems with it.

[dudemanjack]

That's good to hear! I'll be getting my new PC tonight...they tried delivering it twice and I was not here! I'm going to pick it up at the UPS center at 7:30 (eastern). Then I'll probably play it until I pass out at the computer.