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Title: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Signe on January 12, 2007, 08:11:47 PM Quote Taking Aim at the Future! Stray Bullet Games has begun an exciting new era with the development of a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. The new project is based on an original intellectual property conceived in-house, and while the concept phase is ongoing we are actively developing a proof of concept prototype. With this new project, Stray Bullet is committed to creating a fully-realized, ongoing online conflict that combines furious action with tactical and strategic game play. In the game to come characters, guilds, and global factions will engage in meaningful, exciting, and fun mass combat. To realize this vision the team is drawing upon our experience, the lessons learned developing and supporting Shadowbane, and is looking outside the MMO genre to strategy and tactical games for inspiration. “While it is still too early to release extensive details on the game,” says Frank Lucero, Vice President of Product Development and COO, “we have a firm hand on what the game will and will not be. We have taken what we’ve learned and applied it to every aspect of the design and development of the game.” Mike Madden, the Creative Director, had more to say about the design process for the new project. “We have two guiding principles: Rely upon the familiar and Be bold.” Madden explained further; “In setting, systems and game play, we want to build on a firm foundation of features that are familiar and comfortable to MMO players, making the game as inviting and accessible as possible. We see no need to innovate in areas MMOs already do well. At the same time, in areas that do require innovation to achieve our goals, Stray Bullet will never think small.” Stray Bullet has already decided not to create its own game engine. “We are dedicated to using middleware technology solutions whenever possible,” says Ala Diaz, Stray Bullet’s Technical Director. “This lets us minimize risk by focusing developer efforts on fun game play and entertaining experiences instead of new technologies and MMO infrastructure.” One of the key aspects of the new project is its look and feel. “Our goal is to create a dynamic art style that is timeless, and that will create passion and excitement within the studio and MMOG community,” says Ivan Enriquez, the Art Director at Stray Bullet Games. “We are building an unbeatable team of highly talented artists, with years of industry experience. We hope you find this small sample as exciting as we do.” “When I see the passion and excitement this new project has already generated in every member of the team, I’m thrilled,” says Mark Nausha, President and CEO. “In a few short months Stray Bullet has generated strong buzz, and I’m very pleased with the amount of interest we are seeing in our studio and this new project. This team has the experience, the tools, and the talent to make Stray Bullet a force in the MMO game space, and this new project begins the journey.” Due to the stage the project is currently in, Stray Bullet Games will not be releasing additional details on the project in the near future but we look forward to bringing you more conceptual art as it develops. While Stray Bullet Games currently only has an open position for a Junior Programmer, the company is always on the lookout for highly motivated individuals. If you are interested in pursuing a career in the burgeoning market of online entertainment, please don't hesitate to send us your resume and/or portfolio electronically to bullseye@straybulletgames.com. Look at me! (http://www.straybulletgames.com/news/20070112.shtml) Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: geldonyetich on January 12, 2007, 08:33:28 PM Finally, a company that believes in innovation that does not risk innovating.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: KallDrexx on January 12, 2007, 08:55:30 PM Hrm this seems to say that they are quite early in the development process. I know that before the SB team became Stray Bullet they were working on a secret MMORPG (Ashen said quite a few times a new one was in the works and that it was not ShadowBane 2). With this saying that they have begun development and still in the concept phase, I wonder if they weren't allowed to take the IP to the new company for some reason.
Or maybe I"m reading too much into how far along they were previously or what stage they are at now. Either way I don't see anything too interesting in this. They claim they are striving to make a game thats as inviting and accessible as possible, I wonder if they are scrapping the idea of free PvP (like how Shadowbane is). While SB was fun in the PvP aspect it is neither exciting nor accessible for a lot of people. Knowing what kind of game it is is probably the only thing I find interesting about the press release. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Venkman on January 13, 2007, 05:55:37 AM Their entire statement effectively said nothing. I don't know why they even felt compelled to say anything. Unless they've actually got something to talk about, they should spend this year staffing up and actually, like, designing.
What they have implied is basically innovation inside a defined box. Ah well. They'd be better off casting a narrow net that dives deep unless they become a huge company with a big budget to deliver polish on a diku and market it. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Soln on January 13, 2007, 04:30:39 PM So many red names, so many super sekret projects. I swear, in a few years, things are gonna be hilarious once all these services get launched.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Murgos on January 13, 2007, 04:40:24 PM Finally, a company that believes in innovation that does not risk innovating. Um, what?Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: lamaros on January 13, 2007, 04:51:49 PM Finally, a company that believes in innovation that does not risk innovating. Um, what?I think perhaps it was a joke. Sarcasm like. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: hal on January 13, 2007, 05:39:22 PM Oh, RLY??
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: geldonyetich on January 13, 2007, 06:39:14 PM Is that was green text is for?
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: waylander on January 13, 2007, 07:51:33 PM At least we know what the other guys at SBG do now. Maybe they'll end up doing someing truly innovative that's not the same old EQ/WoW clone with a different skin kinda game we're so used to by now.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 14, 2007, 09:04:21 AM Finally, a company that believes in innovation that does not risk innovating. How so? SB, with all its faults and horrible release, was still one of the more ambitious games released in years. I just don't see these people releasing Another WoW Clone, they are better than that. Well if anyone can produce The Next Big Thing for PvPers, it will be SBG. I also applaud decision not to develop engine, problems with SB engine were what held SB back and having in-house engine has NOTHING to do with releasing fun product. Talk about accessible and such is admitting problem with SB - where truly new player had very difficult time getting in. Addressing this problem does not mean game will be hold-handing PvE-centric DIKU. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: jpark on January 14, 2007, 09:08:51 AM In the end shadowbane had my respect. Ya the actual product sucked in many ways - but that was entirely understandable given that the company had taken a number of new approaches to the standard formula (imo anyway).
Of course, we have other games that have not deviated from the formula at all, and suck. Now that is inexcusable. I wanted to have one post today where I did not shit on EQ2. On the other hand... Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: waylander on January 14, 2007, 09:12:50 AM Who wants to bet this will come out before Darkfall???!!
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 14, 2007, 09:16:40 AM e given that the company had taken a number of new approaches to the standard formula I think SB introduced a lot of new ideas and as a result a lot of new interactions showed up. For example, who knew that quitting would be such predominant reaction for defeated guilds? Who knew that zerg (mega-alliances) would become such huge problem? Who knew leader burn-out will be big issue, it isn't in other games. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: tazelbain on January 14, 2007, 09:29:57 AM Is that was green text is for? I thought it was a humorous quip. I should have learn not to give you that much credit by now.Quote We see no need to innovate... There is a word for "not inovating", it is called copying. in areas MMOs already do well. Right, because if you think the current mousetrap is good, why make a new one? At the same time, in areas that do require innovation to achieve our goals... I just can't wait to see your new anti-SB.EXE technology, Stray Bullet will never think small. That worked so well before. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Signe on January 14, 2007, 09:31:11 AM My MMO will be out before Darkfall. It would have been finished by now, but I ran out of crayons. :oops:
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: stray on January 14, 2007, 09:33:15 AM To be fair, bypassing the whole "Arcane Engine" phase is a good thing. Keep the "innovation" to play2crush. Just rip off/license whatever else.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Venkman on January 14, 2007, 10:41:20 AM I think the R5 game of SB was perfect (when I played). It requires a lot from players, particularly since most often you were either farming for gold for your city, defending that city, or laying siege upon it. All of this required groups and coordinatoin. The game was very immersive, everything you did was tied to others, and you could make deep and meaningful impact on the world.
Where I feel it could have improved though was on the casual side of things. Side by side, I think Eve does a better job of this. Being a uniserver game helps a lot. The galaxy is so big players could live in one part and never see most anyone else. And the ability to both see who's coming and get outta dodge was just much better. By extension, I feel Eve is easier on the time-starved, and those who want to play a part in an economic sim without needing calendars and schedules and to be there four hours a night. There's still a lot this genre could do on this side of things. A developer just needs the right combination of concept and business model to convince players to look up and for publishers and/or VC to pay down. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: stray on January 14, 2007, 11:01:02 AM The one thing that stands out to me is that normal guild members didn't have much to do when not sieging or pvp'ing. All you could do was farm. That needs to be improved.
Not to say that being a guild leader was that much better (after all, the best part of the game for them was the pvp too), but at least they got to muck around with wall designs, run shops, etc.. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Stephen Zepp on January 14, 2007, 01:43:42 PM In the end shadowbane had my respect. Ya the actual product sucked in many ways - but that was entirely understandable given that the company had taken a number of new approaches to the standard formula (imo anyway). Of course, we have other games that have not deviated from the formula at all, and suck. Now that is inexcusable. I wanted to have one post today where I did not shit on EQ2. On the other hand... I agree completely on this. In the areas they innovated, SB went leaps beyond what we had. For background, I was a nation leader of a lore-centric nation (as best we could anyway) for more than 6 months. The main issues I had with SB, in order were: --tech issues (crashes, performance) --unfinished designs (SO much was planned for siege, and some of it was really basic--magonels having an ae player damage effect for example) --poorly thought out political tracking systems (damned hard to keep track of lots of things, from spies to current enemy list) --much too simplistic delegation system--as mentioned above, there simply wasn't a good mechanism for delegating authority for nations, guilds, and cities. This lead to about 3% of the player base doing 70% of the adminstrative work, and the rest farming (not counting actual fights). That could be spread out so much better in a second look at the designs. I honestly wish these guys had gone with Torque (honestly, I think they made their decision before even knowing about Torque)--mostly because I'd be able to be much more tightly tied to their designs through our boot camps and support :mrgreen: Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: geldonyetich on January 14, 2007, 03:19:06 PM Yeah, that "finally a company that innovates without innovating" was meant to be a humorous quip. I'm just trying to figure out how to make it clearer, because my sarcasm is oft missed. I don't think people expect me to try to be funny, because I waffle between lunacy intended to invoke humor and serious cross-examination of my detractors motivations instantly. Tell you what, I'll try to use italics when I'm being sarcastic. But this thread isn't supposed to be about me.
So yeah, this proclamation on behalf of Stray Bullet games is a little unnerving. It's like they're reassuring their investors that they're not a loose cannon that would invent a game that doesn't resemble the 2000 games that it seems to emulate, while simultaneously trying to reassure their potential clients (the gamers) that their game is going to be different. I don't like to look at making games as a business. I like to look at making games as more of an artform. So when I hear people say copying is good, I'm mentally doing this: :roll: Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Venkman on January 14, 2007, 04:24:03 PM Dude, why use 25 words when 2 will do.
For sarcasm, I think the accepted norm is text in green. And no, the text in green in that last sentence was not meant as sarcasm :) Quote from: Stray The one thing that stands out to me is that normal guild members didn't have much to do when not sieging or pvp'ing. Yea. About the only thing they could do was help farm gold, or grind alts.Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Roac on January 14, 2007, 07:10:18 PM To be fair, bypassing the whole "Arcane Engine" phase is a good thing. Keep the "innovation" to play2crush. Just rip off/license whatever else. Yes. More game companies should do this. Although sometimes not desirable or perhaps possible, the main goal of a game company sould be to make a game, not a game engine. Some companies do build games around their engine in hopes of licensing their engine (Unreal is a prime example), but unless the engine is your primary business, stay out of it. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 14, 2007, 07:37:33 PM Main ‘flaws’ in SB that need to be addressed (and I’m very curious to see how this will play out) is delegation of responsibilities, land control and off-time things to do for unwashed masses of underprivileged grunts. I believe its all symptoms of one main problem.
I’m also curious to see if they attempt to move away from ‘spawn camp’ mentality and instead try something different – NPC nations, NPCs in service of PCs or anything else. I think its time we put idea of magically appearing monster with loot out of nowhere to rest – all loot should be generated in some way from resources that should be extracted and processed by somebody. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 14, 2007, 07:39:07 PM As to engine - are there any that could support 100 vs 100 fights and not crash&burn?
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Chenghiz on January 14, 2007, 07:43:28 PM As to engine - are there any that could support 100 vs 100 fights and not crash&burn? Total War? I'm only partially kidding. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Venkman on January 14, 2007, 07:54:58 PM Planetside is the only one I can think of besides SB, which honestly, by the time I signed on seemed to play fine enough. Only the occasional SB.exe.
As to creating games versus engines, I tend to think the same way (focus on game, buy the engine if need be). But there are often times when the engine can't do things you want it to, so you either compromise your design, or build a more appropriate engine. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: KallDrexx on January 14, 2007, 09:20:07 PM Quote Talk about accessible and such is admitting problem with SB - where truly new player had very difficult time getting in. Addressing this problem does not mean game will be hold-handing PvE-centric DIKU. How would you handle making a game that is accessible as possible to new players without turning the PvP into an RvR system, keeping the FFA mechanics. The whole system denotes not trusting anyone, even guild-mates at time. RvR games can easily make PvP Accessible to new players because from the get-go you have allies, you know who your friends are and who your enemies are. From the get go in a Full-PvP game, everyone is your enemy and if you learn quickly to be very careful whom you choose to trust. That was the only inaccessible part of SB. I played SB for the first time when it went free. I didn't find anything that made the game inaccessible for new players, since I was new with no direction. The only problem in getting into the game was finding a group of players to play with, that I wouldn't have to fear backstabbing from. Through finding a group of players that I could level with, whom worked together to make sure we survived any pk attempt, is how I really got into the game and formed the basis of the guild that made SB the enjoyable experience that I found it to be. Yet it was only because I had the tough skin (and nothing else to play at the time) to be able to endure all of the pk attempts and having to constantly watch over my shoulder that I lasted long enough to find a group of players to play with. In my eyes, that was the only real inaccessible part of the game for new players (gameplay wise at least), yet it's an issue that is formulated because of the FFA gametype. Thats at least from my experience, so maybe I missed the real inaccessible parts of Shadowbane. To me, Full PvP pretty much spells inaccessible to new players. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: stray on January 14, 2007, 10:16:17 PM Yes, the PvP is what it is. But there are other things to get people feeling more comfortable in the game:
A more guided leveling process (you're pretty much left with your dick in your hand as a level 10 newb in SB. And not only does the game not tell you where to go, but it's ugly and boring as shit when you get there anyways. The copy and paste, bland treadmill is not "accessible"). A little fool proof character building would help as well (fool proof that is....not dumbed down necessarily). Solo play (though the game may be guild oriented, that shouldn't bar newcomers from hopping into the game and making progress. Let them learn over time the benefits of grouping and guilds, but don't force it). Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: lamaros on January 14, 2007, 10:39:50 PM Text in green for sarcasm? Doesn't that defeat half the point of sarcasm?
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 14, 2007, 10:53:47 PM Quote How would you handle making a game that is accessible as possible to new players without turning the PvP into an RvR system, keeping the FFA mechanics. This should really go into design section, still I will bite. Idea is to make new player, any player, to be useful to the guild and at the same time make it harder to create anonymous alt. Examples: Let’s say your game has mines that can ether be mined by expensive and killable NPC or PCs with some spare time. You can ether buy NPCs or recruit grunts/new players to mine for you. You can also put a limit on how many NPCs can mine, but not limit PCs, making PCs always desirable. Let’s say your game has NPC guards, they can ether be sent patrolling area leaving your main city with less protection or dispatched to specific areas. You can ether have enough guards to sufficiently patrol all your lands and protect your city or you can recruit grunts/new players to patrol and dispatch guards as needed. Trick is to not make these duties too boring, but rather somehow factor them in into character advancement. As long as it is hard to roll untraceable alt, for example your account has “Clan Name” that shared by all of your characters, and you have basic separation of communication channels, for example /everyone, /trusted and /inner council, you remove majority of concerns with spies and turncoats. Next step is to actually design some useful function for grunts/new players – and all the sudden you will be wanted and will have allies, for exchange for your time, in FFA PvP guild. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 14, 2007, 11:02:07 PM A more guided leveling process (you're pretty much left with your dick in your hand as a level 10 newb in SB. And not only does the game not tell you where to go, but it's ugly and boring as shit when you get there anyways. The copy and paste, bland treadmill is not "accessible"). A little fool proof character building would help as well (fool proof that is....not dumbed down necessarily). I think any game should focus on its strength, PvP in this case, and make anything else optional, PvE in this case. Training halls (while AFK) until you are done should be norm and available (but not necessary easy to obtain or readily available) to everyone, now if you want to PvE to level you should have that option as well. You should also advance from PvPing, even if its just trying to fight back and still getting PKed. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: stray on January 14, 2007, 11:28:16 PM Well yeah...
If it was up to me, there'd be no leveling at all. No PvP game should ever have PvP. Ever (did I say "ever" already?). But seeing as that's not going to happen in an mmorpg, then they should at least try to not make it suck so bad. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 14, 2007, 11:38:05 PM No PvP game should ever have PvP. Ever. Sadly your typo is mostly how things are, right now you hardly get to PvP even in PvP games. Lets hope it will change :) Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Ironwood on January 15, 2007, 01:29:47 AM Text in green for sarcasm? Doesn't that defeat half the point of sarcasm? Possibly. But it avoids a lot of fights and misunderstandings. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Venkman on January 15, 2007, 06:28:36 AM I don't mind leveling in PvP games as long as the levels are irrelevant to power in PvP. Just rip off Planetside. The more levels you have, the more points you can spread across equipping various bits of gear. But your raw power is based on what you do in combat, regardless of level.
So you can do quests in PvE to level up to be able to bring more gear to PvP combat. Or you can jump right into PvP with your newbie shooter and still do some damage. And once you hit the soft cap once, you /level alts to the soft cap. None of this grinding the worst-half of the level spread crap. And no death penalties at all, beyond respawning at bind point. Wizards from the 12th dimension can prevent souls from entering eternity by capturing departing spirits within a crucible formed around an inanimate carbon mass. Upon capture, the soul inhabits the new form, morphing it into the mind's vision of itself, and that form is sent back into battle. If people can't buy that, they go play VG. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: stray on January 15, 2007, 07:23:41 AM Uh, by death penalty, do you just mean experience? Because I'll have none of this "non-lootable corpses" nonsense. ;)
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 15, 2007, 08:20:41 AM Uh, by death penalty, do you just mean experience? Because I'll have none of this "non-lootable corpses" nonsense. ;) Full looting is tricky to get right -not only you need to make sure that all gear is easily obtainable, you also need to make sure that good gear does not give too great of an advantage to lock losers into perpetual losing. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: tazelbain on January 15, 2007, 08:48:10 AM Main ‘flaws’ in SB that need to be addressed (and I’m very curious to see how this will play out) is delegation of responsibilities, land control and off-time things to do for unwashed masses of underprivileged grunts. I believe its all symptoms of one main problem. The only part of Shadowbane that wasn't a total screw up was the class system once the respec was in place. I like your ideas but I think you have rebuild the it from the ground up. From the ToL mechanic on up.I’m also curious to see if they attempt to move away from ‘spawn camp’ mentality and instead try something different – NPC nations, NPCs in service of PCs or anything else. I think its time we put idea of magically appearing monster with loot out of nowhere to rest – all loot should be generated in some way from resources that should be extracted and processed by somebody. My SB like idea... ToL, mines, and monster den spawn randomly around the world. A baby ToL would belong to nobody and need to be feed (make it a puzzle, each tree likes different stuff) after a certain amount of time the tree will choose its guild. The guild can build its city, but first it needs to secure mines and/or trade with another to gather the resources needed. These resources are not tangiable. Getting resources from a mine or a trading partner requires npc caravans. You pay the npcs a deposit that is lost if the caravan is destroyed. Caravans are like buffets to monsters (and to players for the deposit) so you'll have to defend your caravans and keep you area clean of monster dens. The bigger your empire is, the more you have to defend. For seiges, ToL will spawn random Mana Founts which feed the tree and provide buffs. Monsters like to bath in them but they don't destroy them. To siege a tree, someone must capture the founts for an extended period and starve the tree. Everything on the map can be destroyed and will respawn elsewhere keeping the map from being static. Basicly people are free to do what they want but there are lots of small objectives to provide structure. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Venkman on January 15, 2007, 09:25:22 AM Uh, by death penalty, do you just mean experience? Because I'll have none of this "non-lootable corpses" nonsense. ;) Good question. I'm not a fan of loot-based games in PvP. PS uses easily-replaceable equipment. However, a primary retention system is loot and the ever-increasing quality of it. We get into a whole world vs game discussion here, but I'd effectively model it around old UO. You can have open PvP with safe ways for users to get in, and then once they're at the soft cap, it's FFA within reason. Equipment can be looted from your enemy because they probably bought it from crafters or have crafter alts themselves. Then the game becomes a bit like SB was in theory: control an area to gain primo access to the resources within. There's a lot that could be done with this. Ultimately, 3D old-world UO with better safety for newbs would be a good experience to model, in my opinion. The game has depth to offer but doesn't force people to bother. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: tazelbain on January 15, 2007, 09:53:11 AM Lootable equip is the most anti-newbie mechanic ever.
The only way it would acceptable to me is if there was something like guild armory that was keeping a stock of solid equipment to use. More as function of my guild's resource management than weather or not I have a pocket crafter or not. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Venkman on January 15, 2007, 10:25:48 AM Every rule in the game does not need to apply to every character in the game at all times.
This is becoming something for the Game Design section, but I like it here better :) Without bothering with too much detail at this point, the key is to bracket players by their relative interest and investment in the game. A newbie should not be having their gear looted unless they got that gear automatically from the game and can do so again (like the static terminals and that big truck thing with portable terminals). They key is to not have users fall too much in love with their gear until later. The early game is about getting them acclimated to the them, UI and motivations. The mid-game is about introducing them to their larger potentials. The late-game is about giving them the epic struggles that made them curious about the game itself. And the end-game is about living there, doing the epic, alts, crafting, everything else. At that point, or if they get into a guild with a microeconomy, THEN they can either go around and be marginally effective with whatever the game itself dispenses for free, or get better gear from other players who craft it. To do the latter you need a system of resources, resource gathering and crafting, a secondary game where characters are specifically doing that. And you probably want walled cities, civic zoning, NPCs making up for things players don't want to do (maybe like SB's crafting), and so on. And the ability to loot cash from players and monsters, or pull resources from the earth to sell to other towns. Basically, to do ANY of this requires a lot more thought that throwing out pockmarked features ;) But the gear can be lootable. Like we all did in early UO: we didn't wear our Sunday Best into dungeons. We wore what we could get more of. It can't be DAoEQWoW though. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: tazelbain on January 15, 2007, 12:56:52 PM WAR be should tell us a bit what it takes to get newbies involved.
I always thought that the newb transition was the weak-link. UO: No transition. Walk outside the city, get smoked. Shadowbane: Put them in a pve safe zone, complete waste of time. They move to a safehold. They learn to flee the bottomfeeders. They move to the zerg guild or neutral guild in the hopes to have a safe level area to level. They never leave the PvE mindset and they have no skills for PvP. EvE same thing but not as bad. A small RvR frontier would be a great newbie area. Make a couple safe cities. Place all the elements one expect to encounter in the main area to fight over in between them. Give them some pvp practice and character who isn't a sitting duck before you force them into the cruel world. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: HaemishM on January 15, 2007, 01:13:49 PM That's a whole lot of words to say "We're developing a game that we can't tell you anything about other than we aren't building our own engine for it."
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: WayAbvPar on January 15, 2007, 01:15:09 PM My only hope is that with a company name like Stray Bullet, it won't be fantasy-themed. Wild West or cyberpunk, kthx.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Signe on January 15, 2007, 01:36:43 PM My only hope is that with a company name like Stray Bullet, it won't be fantasy-themed. Wild West or cyberpunk, kthx. I'm ready for nearly anything else except fantasy, science fiction or fantasy science fiction. Ho hum. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: HaemishM on January 15, 2007, 01:38:23 PM I could take science fiction, as long as it wasn't PVE faux twitch.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Rasix on January 15, 2007, 01:41:43 PM No elves. PLEASE NO MORE ELVES.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 15, 2007, 03:12:10 PM I'm ready for nearly anything else except fantasy, science fiction or fantasy science fiction. Ho hum. Retards on official SBG games demanding Elves to be put into new game. Fucking fruitcakes. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: LC on January 15, 2007, 04:16:28 PM Every lame generic fantasy race you can think of.
An equal number of generic fantasy gods. Each race is loyal to one god. The gods hate each other. The races kill each other to please their gods. I think that was the idea Ashen Temper spoke of. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Triforcer on January 15, 2007, 04:41:26 PM WAR be should tell us a bit what it takes to get newbies involved. I always thought that the newb transition was the weak-link. UO: No transition. Walk outside the city, get smoked. Shadowbane: Put them in a pve safe zone, complete waste of time. They move to a safehold. They learn to flee the bottomfeeders. They move to the zerg guild or neutral guild in the hopes to have a safe level area to level. They never leave the PvE mindset and they have no skills for PvP. EvE same thing but not as bad. A small RvR frontier would be a great newbie area. Make a couple safe cities. Place all the elements one expect to encounter in the main area to fight over in between them. Give them some pvp practice and character who isn't a sitting duck before you force them into the cruel world. Er, I don't think that's a good idea. Falls under the heading of "first impressions determine everything". Its like playing Rallos Zek in EQ year 1-2- when you have a lvl 5 naked wizard pk in Kelethin and kill someone within 10 seconds of their character appearing in the game for the first time ever, they say things like "thanks jerk, I'm never playing a pvp server again". Literally, the first seconds/minutes of someone's experience can't have pvp unpleasantness. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: tazelbain on January 15, 2007, 05:05:24 PM Hmm, I don't think you can learn anything about PvP from PvE reskinned to PvP. I agree about first impressions which why it is crazy to drop newbies into a strictly PvE newbie area in a predominately PvP game. No way wacka fozzle is going to give them accurate impression about SB or prepare them for bleak future in an open PvP enviroment.
Let me choose a class, give basic equipment and skills and point me to the area with enemy noobs. The only reason to kill an npc is because they interfere with you completing a PvP objective. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Merusk on January 15, 2007, 07:39:57 PM No elves. PLEASE NO MORE ELVES. With no Elves, there can be no Elf Boobies. With no Elf boobies, there can be only tears. Yet, in PvP games with Elves as playable characters, sides are horribly imbalanced and the PvP invariably is labeled as "Suxor" Clearly, the elves must be NPC slave women. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Nonentity on January 16, 2007, 08:45:06 AM WAR be should tell us a bit what it takes to get newbies involved. I always thought that the newb transition was the weak-link. UO: No transition. Walk outside the city, get smoked. Shadowbane: Put them in a pve safe zone, complete waste of time. They move to a safehold. They learn to flee the bottomfeeders. They move to the zerg guild or neutral guild in the hopes to have a safe level area to level. They never leave the PvE mindset and they have no skills for PvP. EvE same thing but not as bad. A small RvR frontier would be a great newbie area. Make a couple safe cities. Place all the elements one expect to encounter in the main area to fight over in between them. Give them some pvp practice and character who isn't a sitting duck before you force them into the cruel world. Reminds me of Asheron's Call. Was playing on Darktide again for old times sake, and literally, you don't finish loading out of the portal from the tutorial before you get impaled by some UA guy with a hollow weapon. Er, I don't think that's a good idea. Falls under the heading of "first impressions determine everything". Its like playing Rallos Zek in EQ year 1-2- when you have a lvl 5 naked wizard pk in Kelethin and kill someone within 10 seconds of their character appearing in the game for the first time ever, they say things like "thanks jerk, I'm never playing a pvp server again". Literally, the first seconds/minutes of someone's experience can't have pvp unpleasantness. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: WindupAtheist on January 16, 2007, 12:24:14 PM Retards on official SBG games demanding Elves to be put into new game. Fucking fruitcakes. And dwarves. And vampires. And velociraptors. Jesus Christ. It's like there's no game, so a bunch of retarded kids are making one up. "AN' IT SHOULD HAVE LAZER FIGHTS AND VAMPIRES AND ALL THE VAMPIRES CAN FLY OMG AWESOME!" Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: WayAbvPar on January 16, 2007, 12:29:22 PM If I could play a flying velociraptor vampire I might subscribe for a month.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: HaemishM on January 16, 2007, 01:55:08 PM Said velociraptor vampire must have lasers that go PEW PEW or else I'm not touching it.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Merusk on January 16, 2007, 02:40:39 PM You're still forgetting the elf boobs.
Man, if only we could get a bitchin' Sam Primary drawing of this game. We'd be rolling in teh doh. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: squirrel on January 16, 2007, 07:45:23 PM You're still forgetting the elf boobs. Man, if only we could get a bitchin' Sam Primary drawing of this game. We'd be rolling in teh doh. Yeah hey whatever happened to the Sam Primary drawings? I enjoyed the hell outta those. "Preggers LOL!" Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 16, 2007, 08:20:03 PM And dwarves. And vampires. And velociraptors. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ can go in, as long as they implement crucifixion. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: UnSub on January 16, 2007, 09:33:52 PM And dwarves. And vampires. And velociraptors. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ can go in, as long as they implement crucifixion. No-one likes a perma-hold that also does killer DPS. Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: sinij on January 17, 2007, 12:14:23 AM But you can res, make wine and walk on water. Almost as good as shaman.
Title: Re: What Does This Have To Do With Shadowbane? Post by: Velorath on January 17, 2007, 08:43:01 PM Text in green for sarcasm? Doesn't that defeat half the point of sarcasm? Possibly. But it avoids a lot of fights and misunderstandings. So it defeats the whole point of sarcasm? |