f13.net

You can get Throne of Oblivion, with Shadowbane and Rise of Chaos included, for $1.99 from EB.

Just sayin'....

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/245818.asp

Remind me when they're paying me to play it.

What does this have to do with Islam?

Shuddup.  You'll incur the wrath of Bob.

The sad thing is:

It's still the best MMO that's ever been made.  :|

Puzzle Pirates, bitch.

Yar.

Hah. Good one.

sb.exe

Really, I can only think of two MMOs, that I've played, that I'd consider worse.   Best in this field is highly subjective, but I think Shadowbane just fails on a variety of levels.

And I still thought it was fun! I mean, I'm well aware that it ran like complete shit, but I still put up with it despite those things (at least for a time). I can't recall doing that for any other MMO (and I've played many).

I'm a little ashamed for even admitting any of this, but I've got to be honest here.

Give it to Haemish, he'll take anything with enough lube.

I played Shadowbane with Heamish, and you could almost hear his blood preasure rising over guild chat.

Speaking of SB.exe, anyone know what happened to cevik? He just up and disapeared didnt he?

Um, death by SB.exe, seven days style?

Rumor has it that there's this game, you play it and seven days later Jesus comes down from heaven and personally signs your fate to hell.

Edit: This post brought to you by Fat Tire and 11 hours of moving shit around.

I've thought about starting a "Where are the forgotten posters of the Lummie Diaspora" thread, but then I remembered that nobody wants to refight every controversy that's ever taken place over the last six years.

I thought Cevik was cool...But maybe a little on the depressing side of things. Did anyone here know him personally? Those weird rants of his about getting drunk, swallowing some pills, and "ending it all" were sort of funny at the time.....But now I wonder.

Cevik is too wonderful.  Anyway, he seemed to lose a lot of interest after his son was born.  His wife, also a gamer, lost interest before him.  I imagine they're doing the happy family thing. 

RAGE PUS-FILLED COCKBLISTERED THUNDERCUNTS

Look, Shadowbane had one of the best, if a bit arcane, interfaces. It had one of the best skill systems, some really cool, kick-ass characters and some nice concepts for PVP and strategic gameplay.

That said, FUCK A BUNCH OF BEST MMOG EVER. It had the most potential of any MMOG out there, and as a result, the most wasted potential. It ought to be a fucking crime just how badly that design team molested the concept. I mean, BTK type of molestation, the kind that is on par with having sex with little boys while dressing them up as little girls. Oh, and they were dressed like a clown while they did it, just for that Gacy vibe.

If MMOG's were crimes, Shadowbane would have to tell all its neighbors about its sorted past when it moved into the neighborhood.

Shadowbane was still the most fun I've had in MMOs.

Ebonlore couldn't kill the fun. Or Malagant.  :rock:

Cross thread humor.  I liked thundercunts, nice imagery.  I give it a 7.

"sorted"?

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=3806.35

I'll second the 'most fun in an MMO' theme.

Oh, and if it makes you hate me, I was the one that made Ebonlore grow so big.  Then I left when SB came out, because it was more fun to prey on idiots as a thief.

But "best potential MMO" is worthless if the execution doesn't match up, whether it's SB's instability and "go to sleep, wake up with your city in ruins because of a 24/7 catass guild", or SWG with its very un-Star Wars-ish SimBeru/SimCantina gameplay.

So I could say Anarchy Online is the bestest thing in the whole world IF it had a crafting system that didn't involve QL hunting, or didn't use a wide array of skills that take away IP you want to spend on combat skills, and IF mob/pet pathing was better and IF mobs didn't sink untargetable into the scenery because of the death animations and IF Shadowlands never happened and IF 90% of equipment wasn't worhless and IF NPC-given quests were easier to obtain and there were more of them thought the terminals weigh up for that a bit and...

But all of those IFs makes AO not be the bestest thing.

Potential has been the only thing that's kept me in certain MMO's, and out of others. I mean, they're going to be shitty either way, so about the only thing I CAN look forward to is the general idea they're shooting for.

So many other games have had much more polish than SB, but I still hate them more because of their overall design. SWG for not being "Star Wars"; WoW for having a cookie cutter class system, for being too uber item centric for PvP, and for being yet another bland Diku rehash (same could be said for Daoc, except for the class system); Guild Wars for being too heavily instanced, etc., etc.. I hate these games on a much more fundamental level, while with Shadowbane, if I crashed, sure, I'd get pissed -- But I'd be lying if said I wasn't rushing to log back in soon after.

EDIT: I'm not trying to make light of SB's stability issues though. All I'm trying is say is, if all of these games were equally stabile, and all we'd have to worry about is the underlying game itself, I'd pick Shadowbane over any other. What would you choose?

I couldn't ever play SB again.  Even if ran like a dream, I never want to be forced to put that much time into a game again.  It's too stressy.

None. Which is why I'm playing none at the moment (I might resub to WoW once I get a new computer).  I don't think Shadowbane works. I don't the concept or the execution is there to make it an enjoyable experience for me.

Shadowbane did have the only what I'd consider major momentous battle ("Battle of the Desert Rose", DHL + allies v. others) I've participated in, during which I sb.exe'd 3 times.   Shadowbane for me probably did have the best race/class options ever, I'll give it that.  Bland and quite frankly insultingly retarded PVE, poor class balance, 3 am raids, massive time requirement (unless you like missing out on all of the decent action), the game ran like a dog for how ugly it was, and the reliance on uber guild/massive alliances are all reasons beyond stability why I'd never touch SB again.  Also the ability to truely win and lose the game DIDN'T work at least in the early stages of the game.  Being on a server that was basically pacified early on sucked worse than words can describe.

Personally, I had a lot more fun in early UO being a bastard, later on with guild v. guild battles (blood in the street of Trinsic), and then doing some "interesting" stuff on a Japanese server.   I really had better and more engaging small scale PVP in UO and that's really what I like more rather the epic scale battles which no game has been able to pull off without slide show quality lag and disconnects.   UO was my most fun ever, but I was a lot different back then, so I think even revisiting that wouldn't bring much joy.  WoW battlegrounds could have been a great deal of fun for me if they hadn't come out when I was just completely burnt out on the game.

Ugh everytime i think im over my SB craving someone has to go and mention something that makes me want to jump straight back in.  I was at that battle, i was actually in the guild who owned desert rose, best time i've had in mmorpg ever. SB.exed 5 times, soon after that day my main char was lost for 3+ months, but god damnit that was what a fucking epic battle should be like.  Minus the crippling lag and constant crashes of course.

Anyone here from Chaos?

SB Scorn here, lasted from launch till less then 6mo in, forget the exact timing.  Definately the closest thing I've seen to a good concept + actual fun.  If only the game had ever actually worked...

But in the end even with 0 sb.exe's there was a flaw, hitting walls with siege hammers till 3am in the morning is not fun at all.

Some SB comedy - http://www.ashentemper.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5046&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

I don't see what provolone has to do with communism.

Goddamnit. It took me many minutes of looking that over to see what exactly was wrong with that statement. Comedy ruined by grammar once again.

I thought the finger check was funnier.  But I can't pass up the opportunity for fun... ;)

Exactly. I had A LOT of fun in Shadowbane, but 90% of that was the folks in HD. Once Tearin had his nutty and the time constraints started to wear on everyone, it got much less fun. As has been pointed out by others, there were some serious design flaws as well, not to mention the techical (sb.exe) issues.

Yeah, I still don't get what that nutty was all about, but meh, made life interesting for a week or so.

The whole time invested thing was pointed out by some folks before the game even went live.  I remember discussions back at Lum/SND where someone asked "What would it take to win in Shadowbane?" and I made the snarky-yet-true comment of, "Staying online 5-mins longer than your opponent."  J replied with, "Exactly" and nobody else seemed to catch on that I wasn't just being a shit.

This will be true iin ANY game with such an open-ended state of war and ability to wtfpwn your opponent back to the starting point.  All you have to do is outlast them.  Either by being more of a catass or by having a large enough player base you can mount a well-rounded and disciplined war party 24/7.

I thought I had "won Shadowbane"...That is, until Morloch stepped in, allied with the rest of the server, and stomped our city into a smoldering ruin.

That was about devoting way too much of your time and emotional investment to a game and other things while neglecting your wife yet simultaneously playing the game with her. It was also about the sheer absurdity of the guild admin tools, which forced so much of a time commitment onto the guild leader and officers that it was quite easy to neglect everything else important in favor of keeping your city afloat. Of course, there was also other stuff no one but the two of them knew about as well.


The key to having a Shadowbane style of system of open-war is that the political game has to be more than just a meta game. There needs to be gameplay aspects, like the ability to declare peace. Declaring peace would prevent any character from the guilds/nations/alliances who are at war from attacking the opposition peace has been declared with; or if one character wanted to resume hostilities, any attack would cancel the peace, but would also report the person breaking the peace treaty to both guild's leadership. It has to have some coded features like these, or  bounty from sacked cities, or some kind of voting bodies or treaty creation, etc.

Oh, and it also has to have player accountabilty, in the form of either SCS, all characters on an account sharing a last name, or something.

Really, there was the start of a good game design in SB, but it needed a lot of work at the design stage, never mind the fuckups.

Also, I once had 15 sb.exe's in one fucking night (about 6 hours gaming session), all while trying to lead a 40-50 man force to attack an opposing city. If anyone ever wanted to know what makes me explode with rage about that bug, that's the one.

I can list problems with SB until the Internet is full.

Despite that, it still is the closest view I've had of the Holy Grail of gaming.  Of course, the original Holy Grail quest didn't turn out so well, either.

Or so they want you to believe.
</danbrown>

The only way I can really think of to get around the problem of ninja raiding of cities in open PvP games is to impose time limits for PvP.  As in, PvP is turned off at 12 AM, and turns back on again at 9 AM (or something).  Ragnarok Online does something similar to this with their PvP, having guilds fight over castles for a few hours twice a week.  This sucks because first, it would force regional grouping, meaning its going to shorten hours for somebody on the west coast trying to play on an east coast timed server.  Second, it would force continental grouping, so you couldn't play with friends from Europe/Australia.  Blizzard does this already really, but it wasn't liked when it happened.  Despite this though, I think having some sort of time limit is the only real way to get around the issue.

Biggest problem is trying to figure out the best times to turn it on and off for the day.

SB already solved that problem a long time ago.  You can only lose assets during sieges, siege times are set by defenders.  It was this way since before i quit, before WoW came out, you can't even knock down a cities wall before siege time.

Darkfall's premise of making cities permanent structures capable of being conquered and captured would help reduce the feelings of unwarranted loss while avoiding a "time limit" structure of city sieges, as well as leaving the defeated something tangible to try and racapture.  Too bad the game is vaporware.

Fetuspult.

I resubbed to SB and bought the latest expac online just to check it out - i was cheap (9.99 i think?)

Anyway - started on wrath, rolled up an old school Irekei dagger scout and got to about level 18. In the short time that took i experienced at least a dozen annoying bugs (including getting stuck in the exact same geometry that i got stuck in 18 months ago or more) and saw enough exploits (you can still backstab with a bow) that i decided the game, however much potential, is not even relegated to niche. it's just horribly broken.

Which is really too bad, they had excellent ideas, great lore and race/classes, balanced (well, sort of) pvp...but it's all so fucking broken there's no point.

My idea was that they (actually, I had this idea for UO factions) should have a "primetime" for the server, based on location, that would encourage people in those locations to play those servers.  The primetime would be like TV - three to four hours in the evening, local time, and sieges could only start place in that window.  Even if all the servers were located in the same place, they could designate different ones as being for different regions.

Hey now - there's a company at steak!!1!

(http://www.f13.net/staff/haemish/grail.jpg)

It sordid.

your rite.

I had just assumed you were using teh intentional funney.  Thats why I mentioned 'Cross Thread Humor" in my review of your verbal aneurysm.  I'm going to have to deduct a point if that was an actual Faux Pas.  Of course that means you gain two for 'unintentional humor' (one for making the error and one because it was being ridiculed simultainiously in another thread).

My fondest memory of SB was about this time of year in it's year-long beta. I was in one of the various renamings of the rolling 30s guild, and we were 'marching' some trebs to flatten some town. We passed by the area a town stood about 3 or 4 weeks prior, which got demolished, and there were still some ruins.

At the time, I remember thinking how CLOSE this was to greatness, yet how far away it really was.

Hate to bump a dead thread.. especially just to be egotistical.. and for the record, I did indeed search for my name when I found this (pathetic!).. but none the less, I thought I might drop by and say I am indeed still alive (not that it's actually relevant enough to bump this, but humor me)..

I decided between the booze, the pills, and the MMOGs, my liver couldn't take much more.. so I choose the booze and the pills over the mmogs.. it was a wise choice.. (actually, my son started talking and I realized that was much more entertaining than MMOGs ever could be, so I started hanging out with him more and decided disapearing myself would be the easiest "way out")..

And for the record, Shadowbane was indeed the best AND the worst MMOG ever made.. just more proof that God hates MMOG players..

Hooray !!  Cevik !

I completely agree with this statement.  Welcome back, your the bastard whose posts got me to buy Shadowbane originally.

I loved the character/combat system, hated the useless bane warring, and it had the bloody worst PvE.  But damn the rest was nice.

Hey Cevik! Glad to see you're still alive and well, and glad to hear about your son starting to talk. Be well and enjoy life!  :-)

See?  I knew he was doing the happy family thing.

Shit.  Another dead pool ruined.

I'm happy and angry.

Good to see ya, Cevik! You still a Winterhawks fan? I am trying to remember who won the division last season; can you help me?

Boog.  Tierlap.  Now Cevik.

And where Cevik posts DV can't be far behind.

The end times, they are here.

(http://www.occhiaperti.net/pix/trav&burius/1056733257_dogma.jpeg)

DV? He was banned here most gloriously. He still posts at Corp fairly regularly.

Edit: Oh yeah, and grats on not being dead and stuff, Cevik. Now I can bet on you pulingl a G-bob and dissapear again after your return.  :-D

Cevik is the anti-DV.  Thank god.  It's why I love his little hippy soul.

I often find myself wondering what the player base that remains in SB are like nowadays I mean thats like hardcore^7 right?

Wait, DV?  DeVoca?

In the real world, we put them in asylums.

Welcome back or happy life or some such, cevik. You have been missed (and probably will be again, what with the family and all). I'd imagine the son gives you more stimulating conversation in 10 minutes than an entire year's worth of WoW general chat.

And DV is for Dark Vengeance.

Hi there Cevik! Glad IRL > f13.

As to who is playing SB? If you're a HD alumni, Jory came back from WWIII and plays, Verrul is still there, quite a few of the 2nd generation, and Manalo is still GL. At least that's how it was a few weeks ago when I was last able to find the interactive guild map.

All we need now is Geld, Bruce, and Blair, and I think we could create some sort of event horizon of flame.

Blair. Ha there's a name I haven't thought of in years.

If you're going for that kind of flame, what about including Coke?

(http://www.pfir.org/meltdown-map-1.jpg)

Sadly, I've moved from Portland Oregon to Tulsa Oklahoma, and taken a job at a major Oil and Gas Company..  Last week I had to drive to one of our customer sites in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma (to tour the site to get Use Cases for our new product I'm designing).. the customer was Halliburton.. I even restrained myself and didn't yell "YOU ARE THE DEVIL" at any of the employees, though I must admit it was difficult..

So, while I still consider myself to be a hippy, it would be difficult for me to make the argument that I have not sold out to The Man (TM)..

Wait, you work for Oil and Gas, one of your clients is Haliburton AND you live in Okie again?

Fuck, you should be stippling dotted lines on your wrists with majic markers daily.

I miss Cevik because he didn't say bye.  :heartbreak:

Edit: But then, neither did Joe, but we all know where to find him...

(http://www.nasta.ws/Iraq%20pictures%202004/burns%20the%20sniper.jpg)

That's because ignoring responsibility is a fucking lot easier than dealing with it.. sorry 'bout that! ;)

K, yo comprendo. Come back.  :roll:

Well it looks like we're finally getting a storyline server...

http://chronicle.ubi.com/loreplay.php

Word on the street is there might be a some guilds forming around the intraweb and/or going back just to give this a shot.

I'm hopping on once it goes live. Just to see at least.

Probably doesn't matter if I don't have a guild or anyone to play with, I suppose. I'm sure people will be desperate to invite what they can....

Which brings me to another thing: Just changing to lore rules isn't going to be enough, I think. The game should have come out this way, and in turn, balanced accordingly. It's been balanced with ARAC in mind though, which is going to screw things up.

Take the Cleansing Flame or Ranger Guilds, for example (Templars and Confessors/Druid and Rangers). They're probably the most exclusive of all guild types, and while Confessors and Templars rock in ARAC, it would seem that on their own, they're going to have a tough time. Druids and Rangers will be even more screwed.

High Court Elves -- Many classes, no hp

Irekei are in slightly better shape

Noble House (Human) and Dwarves will probably rock

On a related note: It's a shame that SB never had at least moderate success, because then Meridian might have had an opportunity to publish a series a books. In my opinion, it's the best lore in an MMOG to date. Not only is it a shame because of that, it's damn shame that it was barely utilized in the game itself, PVE or PVP.

I'm in too.  I resubbed and getting ready on test center.  I'm two expansions and multiple years behind now.

I'm joining a guild that is starting up just for this new lore system server.  Should be fun for a couple months anyway.

Shadowbane was proven to be un-lore-friendly in beta by the Burning Legion twats playing an all-Shade guild. I fail to see why they want to release a server that highlights that failure on a daily basis.

Fuck those fucking fuckers.  That whole bullshit damn near sends me into Ham-esque cursing fits.

Ewle posts over at Corp sometimes. He's a very large mangina.

Some people get too much attention.

I would go try it out, but I hear the PvE is the most boring grind-fest ever. If I'm gonna play a PvP game the PvE had better be either short, or interesting. Or both if the devs are feeling frisky. I refuse to join an outdated flop of a game just so I can afk macro my toon up before I can have fun.

Fin.

It's pretty short.

Oh, and I was in Ebonlore, and that guy is a huge magina.

Edit: Had more fun solo with a shade thief at L40 than almost all other games.

Yeah, it's pretty short (though I haven't played since the cap's been raised).

1-55 (55 being the practical limit at launch) would take me a week of "almost" catass power leveling. Casual play would you get you ranked within 2 to 2 1/2 weeks. I have a whole slew of ranked characters because of this.

Yeah, the PvE sucked, but it had the best lvling pace in any mmo I've played to date.

The cap now is 75 (but most classes don't really need to lvl past 70, I think), and supposedly that'll take 3 to 4 weeks (casually, that is). That's still half of what WoW is (and people call that fast). I can't say much about the new content, since I haven't played it. Gold is much easier to become by than in the old days as well.

I will say though, that without a dependable guild by 35 or 40, you won't be seeing that pace. Grouping is definitely required (for beating mobs, as well as having people along with you in cased you get ambushed).

On the plus side, PvP wise, lvl differences aren't always going to determine a win. You could be 6 or 7 lvls behind someone, and still have a chance. Sometimes even 10.

I meant short as in, maxed out in 2 days /played... solo. If it was just coming out I'd forgive a longer grind, but I see coming to an old game as kind of a favour to the developers. Therefore my expectations are much higher than otherwise.

Oh yeah, that'd be nice (besides the solo part). People have been begging for two things forever now:

Test Server paced lvling (about 2 or 3 days).....That still includes required grouping though.....Seriously man, not having a group will net you jack and shit, even if the PvE allowed it. You don't want to be solo in SB unless 1) You already maxed out and plan on being a lone ganker or theif and 2) you prefer to be bored out of your mind. "Other people" is what makes the lvling process tolerable. Soloing copy & paste zones will make you quit, no matter how fast it was.

The game seems to be geared towards socializers and killers. I don't mind that, but it'd be nice if there was room for exploration in there (achievers can still fuck off as far as I care).

[edit] I just deleted something that I don't remember typing. Did someone edit this post?  :|

Yeah, my solo point was more that I could be unguilded in the early game and not be SoL, not that I didn't have to group. It just didn't come out right. I've heard about big macro-powerleveling groups being the best way to level and was basically saying the time shouldn't be based on any bullcrap workaround.

PVE was nice and short in Druid macro groups.

How many years late is this?

Number 2 made me giggle too.

I resubbed so I could get a feel for the game before the lore server came out. I thought I'd feel only slightly newbish after not having played for so long, but there's been so many changes that it seems like a different game (not sure if sb.exe remains or not). I couldn't even count them all (most have to do with classes, guilds, and pvp, so don't expect a deep quest system or somethin'). Even the interface is a little different.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/lonestar627/Game%20Screenshots/sb_interface.jpg)
I have no idea what I'm doing here (and not just in one sense).

To their credit, the snow did not lag me out.

I'll see what happens. So far, it's....Kind of fun.

You look lonely.

There was a mino running around somewhere...He's just hiding there.

I'm barely off the newb section atm (that's the starting town in that screen), but there's actually people playing. The Wrath server shows up as "Normal Population". The others are "Land Rush" (i.e. Underpopulated).

MMOGs are like old people who have lived past their time. If they don't die soon they'd rip a hole in the space time continuum or some shit.

That's my backasswards way of saying that a company should make an MMOG based on two years of story and content and at the end of the 2 years they either pop the whole thing are reorganize in a zelda second quest sort of way. Because really - resubbing to games never works. At least not for me.

Heh...If you only knew, you'd probably get all WUA-ish on me.

In this case though, I have to give it to try because, like I said, it's almost a different game now (and will be even more once Vindication comes out........Yeah, that's the name of the lore server). Also, Shadowbane is only game that I've ever been subscribed to for at least a year straight. I owe it at least one resub.

I know you resub to games all the time. You have a terrible case of restlessness. Which is ok, I guess. I play anywhere between 10 and 30 console games at the same time and maybe one or two of them ever get beat. I will finish Radiata stories though. This fall has a lot of stuff I want to beat actually. Go go holiday season.

You know what my problem really is?

No people.

I could probably stick with almost any of these games if I had a dependable group of friends to play with. Even the best of games aren't very fun without that.

SB was the last time that really happened. Ever since, I've just been floating around, experimenting (and wasting money). I tried WoW with a couple people I knew, I guess, but that fell apart pretty quickly. And if I could have convinced one or two of them to play CoH, then I probably would have been doing that exclusively.

CoH is the only game I've resubbed to that's actually worked out... I'm still playing.  I enjoy having it around, although I can also ignore it for a time and don't feel as if I've missed anything.  I never subbed to EQ2 and while it's ok these days, I've not logged in for about a week. It doesn't motivate me much.  I'm not sure what my intentions are towards it, actually. 

I still play SB and watch this lore-server trainwreck almost on a daily basis. Everyone seems to have very high hopes for it, they expect lore server to end zerging, promote small scale conflict, roleplaying and all other sorts of good things. Biggest problem I see with lore is that restrictions will be easily circumvented by power guilds and rest of the guilds are stuck with charters that are too restrictive to deal with multi-charter multi-guild nation. I don’t see how SB developers fail to realize that you can’t code out player’s intent – if they don’t want to play by the (lore) rules they won’t.

On top of that there isn't enough population on regular servers, everyone want to take part in landrush of the new server with playable population. So lore server is effectivly is the last server, when it fails that will be the end of SB.

Wow, that screen shot made me all nostalgic. I miss HD! /sniff

As I understand it, you can only have sub-guilds that are the same charter has the main guild so I don't see how you can have multi-charter nations anymore.

The biggest problem I see with the lore server is the charters themselves being so unbalanced.

Irekei 4tehwin.

I could be wrong, but at first glance, Humans look like the new Irekei's. Noble House 4tehwin.

Regardless, I'll be playing a Centuar Barb.

Double throwing hammers ftw.

I was going to spend money on getting into 9th edition MT:O, but right now I'm leaning towards SB. I'm so fickle.

When I played Wrath, there was a pretty strong push to avoid the early Apocalypse by avoiding meta-alliances.  Most players will want to play by the Lore rules, and there have been changes that would allow, for example, an all shade guild to work.  Of course, to keep the line, you need to trust your enemies to play fair, and you need to trust the software to be reliable.  The first might be possible, the latter is likely foolish, barring a whole new codebase, IMO.

I could give you a referral that would let you purchase Throne of Oblivion for $10 off at the Ubi store (Regularly, it's $14.99 heh).

You can upgrade a 25 day trial account with that.

Gimped Prelate with a duck hat 4tehwin?

At least you know MtG isn't going to turn into a trainwreck.

9th is actually very nice so far. I just joined a league, and don't feel like I have a gimped card pool.

Why? Why even comment? You've admittedly never even played the game.

What do you want?

Between what everyone else has said, and seeing the game in action, I think it's reasonable to say that Sb has a far better chance at failing (again) than MtG.

I never understood how anyone could continue to fund something as broken as ShadowBane.

Good for you. Keep not understanding then. I have no problem with that. What I have problem with is that you feel a need to come to this thread and say that...But not say anything else.

Besides, Shadowbane is still here (i.e. it's not quite a trainwreck). Hell, even the guy who made the last criticism in this thread (Sinij), STILL PLAYS IT. As far as "broken" goes, the main issue that made many people quit back in the day (the cost of rebuilding a city after being defeated) is a thing of the past.

That's all I'll say.

Until recently, AC2 was still running.

Isn't Horizons also still live?


Though I suppose I can rank Sb above WW2O

Two expansions, an additional Euro launch, and it keeps on tickin'.

It definitely suffered from a bad launch though. There were various issues I won't get into, but needless to say, these problems chased thousands of subscribers away within the first 6 months. Although they've fixed many of these issues, THIS is what puts the game in the weak state it's in. Not that it is a trainwreck now. It's because it was a trainwreck before.

Not everyone left though, because it serves a niche. It's a fundamentally good idea. It's still good enough and niche enough to sustain itself....Which is why the problems didn't outright kill it. Now that some of those previous issues were fixed, the "good idea" can be enjoyed with less headaches.

No you can't since you never played SB. Stop it.

So the question is: Is the demo really worth it? All I hear from people is that you have to be a catass FotM macro'ing whore to accomplish anything in the game.

And this is from people who supposedly liked the game.

Dude, what? Is the demo worth it?

It's fucking free!


Accomplishing "anything" in the game? No.

It's a pvp game. Macro'ing wouldn't get you very far there.

And no, you don't need to macro to level. Not everyone does it, and not every can do it because they don't have the right people/guild to do it with anyways.

Besides that, it's faster leveling than any other mmorpg around (to my knowledge at least). Most people don't have a driving need to skip the lvling process, since it's pretty fast to begin with.

FoTM: Means shit. It's a pretty well balanced game, with tons of options. Whatever fotm's do come about from time to time, they never have huge glaring advantages over everyone. As long as your character isn't a high strength, retarded elf, or that you're not a class fighting a class specifically designed to kill yours, then you have every opportunity to kill someone just as much as they do you.

Hmm.....

Quite a few krazy Koreans on atm. I would have never guessed that they'd congregate here.

It's kind of a shame too, because after looking back over the SB site for the first time in years, the potential for a cool game is there.

But then I know that I won't have the time to invest.

Or a lot of people to play with

Which kind of defeats the purpose. I mean, how many sane people really like running around without a guild and town?

Or like losing that town because they don't play at 6 in the morning?

At least it appears people will have to start from scratch, instead of migrating in.

They, and the other asians, came when the SB Asian servers closed down.  It's good for a guild to have strong international allies.

Find a guild if you can, the game is much better with guildies.  When last I played, most people did AFK macro groups to minimize exposure to the PvE, at least in the R3-R4 range.  Ventrillo or such is also good to have.

You can have multi-charter nation without much problem - you have two tags and one voice chat to coordinate. Most guilds already use voice chat and always-same-group spec build teams for competitive reasons, having one tag was just a formality .

I'm not sure what's good about allying with people I can't even communicate with.  

Hell, it's not just that. I'm detecting very few people who I can communicate with. Period. Even the (I'm guessing?) Americans. This is so much worse than WoW it's not even funny (and I hate to say that...SB itself has improved). Even when some of the foreign people do try to speak a little English, it's just some fucked up, garbled version of leetspeak. What could be worse?

Have you ever been a regular at a bar or club, but dropped out of it's scene for a while.....Then came back months later only to find it occupied with nothing but unfamiliar faces?

Well, I'm getting that same sad feeling here, except replace "unfamilar faces" with "completely spastic kids"......"Unfamilar" spastic kids at that.

Maybe all of the familiar spastics are on Test, waiting for the new server to come out. I don't know.

[edit] This must be what the death of an mmo looks like. I've never seen one up close, so you tell me....

Strazos may be right, after all....But for a different reason.

Current population of SB tends to be composed from Asians, leet kiddies and very few remaining big named guilds running mostly with sceleton crew just not to turn lights off. Everyone is waiting for new server, old ones played out.

Shadowbane was by far the absolutely most amazing design/vision I've ever seen in an MMOG to date. Not only that, but it even had more "amazing" moments during play than any other game I've seen--and that includes 100v100 fights in Planetside, not to mention some pretty damn cool catass raids in Planes of Power in EQ1...

If it weren't for that damned sb.exe, I'd still be playing today. Even without however, it's hard to go back to even thinking about it.

I'm going to try to stick it out a little longer, I guess.

I think that'll I'll just move to Test for now. I'm just trying to relearn the game anyways...Might as well do it with faster lvling.

I've been trying to play, sort of, but I need a guild I'm not trying to re-learn how to build a top tier character in that oh so complicated (but great because it is complex) system when most everyone playing has played their fav class using every potential template option and fine tuned it to the max.

So yeah, I need a guild I have some forum friends from another site who are barely trying to get something together but so far we can't even pick a charter in 2 days so I have little hope.  Seems fairly certain that I will make whatever character, try to join a random guild who's charter my character fits in and realize I dont like being a 4th class citizen in a guild made up of randoms and quit.   Oh well, sure wish SB had turned out better, its still fun as hell despite the point and click movement.

*too many wills, way too many*

That's why I'm just going with a Barb.

I'd like to try something new, like a Nightstalker or a Sentinel, but everything, even a lot of older classes that I used to play, seem a little more complex than they were before.

For what it's worth, I played EQ on The Nameless which seemed to be at least one-third TW, maybe one-half when the planets lined up.  Anyway, sometime near the end of my tenure when I decided to quit trying to fuck around having fun and instead catass2victory, I spent some time talking to the ~la crowd.  I did find a few good people out there, and had a good conversation in between croc aggroes in NR once and learned some TW code.  Took some effort on my part, but if I had stayed on I could have seen myself joining up with some TW guild.

TW = ?

Taiwanese, I'm assuming.