Everything I know about MMOs I learnt from Lum - SB resets the world

[Signe]

Looked at it just for fun.  Nope.  Can't do it.  World too ugly.  UI big and nasty looking.  Character models barfugly.  I want to be pretty.  I don't mind PnC for movement but hate, hate, hate the camera.  Also, the thought of early leveling from spiders and ants, not to mention later frost giant farming, makes me physically ill. 

[DarkSign]

If anyone makes a city please contact me. I need some screenshots of the city-building and vendor gui's. Pretty pretty pretty please?

[Stephen Zepp]

Looked at it just for fun.  Nope.  Can't do it.  World too ugly.  UI big and nasty looking.  Character models barfugly.  I want to be pretty.  I don't mind PnC for movement but hate, hate, hate the camera.  Also, the thought of early leveling from spiders and ants, not to mention later frost giant farming, makes me physically ill. 

Out of curiosity, what do you hate about the camera? From memory, it's the most flexible/user interactive camera I've ever seen in a game.

Personally, I -loved- the camera capabilities in SB, so seriously wondering what drives you batty about it.

[Signe]

I didn't mean the camera, exactly.  It's the edge movement that I can't seem to wrap my head around anymore.  It didn't bother me at all when I used to play SB, back in the Olden Tymes.  In fact, I really liked everything about the movement.  But then, I was playing Lineage before SB.   

[Stephen Zepp]

I didn't mean the camera, exactly.  It's the edge movement that I can't seem to wrap my head around anymore.  It didn't bother me at all when I used to play SB, back in the Olden Tymes.  In fact, I really liked everything about the movement.  But then, I was playing Lineage before SB.   

Bumping (as I call it) can be rough I agree, but I've explored a lot of different user inputs to this type of fully controllable camera myself, and each has advantages and disadvantages.

For me personally, modifier keys (shift-click, alt-movemouse, ctrl-bump, etc) make the process less useful, since it requires two hands--and in a game like this I personally at least like being able to separate my hands for different things, i.e. left hand does attack hotkeys, right hand does (mouse) camera.

You're right though, there isn't a perfect solution at all for this type of thing :(

[Signe]

I think it is Requiem:  Bloodymare, among bajillions of others, have the same sort of bump movement.  Good looking, very grindy game.  I've played a ton of Asian MMOs that use it.  I understand the reasons for using PnC, bump the edge camera movement, etc, but I don't prefer it.  I fiddled with Requiem for a few weeks before ditching it.  I think it's everything with SB, all scrunched up into a ball, that is annoying me.  I wasn't in the game ten minutes when the server crashed or something.  Never got back in.  Still, the big UI, my horrible hair and jawline, and my camera whooshing around uncontrollably because I wasn't used to it yet, had already started to make my temples throb.

[Falconeer]

You *HAVE* to turn off the edgebumping camera option and substitute it with a 3rd mouse button press. A pushable mousewheel does the trick too. These are little things that can really change the first 20 minutes experience for everyone, but alas.. are hidden in the maelstrom of what free games tend to become.

Same thing for the interface: what's better than an UI where you can put buttons and windows anywhere on the screen? To some degree SB interface is incredibly flexible and good. Still, I know players who reached level 50 without knowing you can totally customize it and put the hotbuttons wherever you like. Basically, the whole screen is a hotbar. But no, instead of making that clearer, they decided to squeeze in an actual clunky and oldstyled hotbar.

Camera movement is exactly like any other MMORPG once you turn off the screenedges thing, and the interface is way more flexible and easy to use than most once you know that you have to shift+drag to move things.

[Signe]

I was using the mouse wheel but it made my finger hurt.

[HaemishM]

I was using the mouse wheel but it made my finger hurt.

I'd think your bird finger would have been in good shape from constant use. 

[Falconeer]

I was using the mouse wheel but it made my finger hurt.

Well, this is odd. Didn't noticed before that mouse wheels are usually harder to push than the the other two regular mousebuttons.

[Signe]

Well, they ARE.

[Logik]

So, despite a resounding rally cry from my guild, I managed to abstain from this madness.  However, I hear that the ARAC server (Malog) went down twice after server up--the second time for something like four hours.  I won't comment on the event, except to say that it's nice to see the SB team is so dedicated to keeping it old school.   

[Trippy]

I was using the mouse wheel but it made my finger hurt.

Well, this is odd. Didn't noticed before that mouse wheels are usually harder to push than the the other two regular mousebuttons.

Not only that but you tend to scroll the wheel while pressing down on it which can mess things up as well. This is why I only get mice these days that have a scroll wheel that can "tilt" left and right which requires must less force than pressing it down and can be bound to the middle mouse button function. It's still not as nice as having a real 3 button mouse but I don't do as much Unixy X-Windows stuff anymore so it's not too bad.

[DarkSign]

If anyone makes a city please contact me. I need some screenshots of the city-building and vendor gui's. Pretty pretty pretty please?

*cough*

[Der Helm]

By the way.. what was I thinking with the Lore server? Forget Saedron and let's go ARAC. Malog is the right one!

I thought servers would be down till april 1st ?

*fires up the client*
(Yes, I have it still installed  )

edit: patching now 

edit2: Somehow I missed a whole page of posts ... 

[Xilren's Twin]

Considering i've been reduced to playing WoW again when want some mmorpg, I'm going back to SB for at least a little while.  Stealth classes away!

[Der Helm]

Did they slow down XP-gain or what ? 

[Signe]

That would be a huge mistake.

[WayAbvPar]

That would be a huge mistake.

[tazelbain]

How did this turn out 

[Stephen Zepp]

How did this turn out 

I'm freaking loving it...in fact, I've been playing so much SB every day that I don't think I've even logged in to the forums here in 2 weeks.

There are definitely issues if you aren't in a guild, and there have been some severe Denial of Service attacks (perpetrated it's believed by a guild that's trying to establish a footing on Thurin, but is hated by everyone and therefore insta-baned) that have been causing problems, but the last few hot patches seem to have cleared it all up.

If you could consolidate 6 months of EvE PvP into a week, that might describe the difference between the two games.

[Falconeer]

If you could consolidate 6 months of EvE PvP into a week, that might describe the difference between the two games.

*sigh*

They won't believe you Zepp. Neither the people here, nor the developers out there.
I do, though. I tried it myself. SB took ages to become what it was supposed to be but in the end, obviously too late from a commercial standpoint, it did it.

The above quote says a lot about how good of a PvP MMORPG ShadowBane is.

[Signe]

I think most people here would believe you.  My problem is that I've been there, done that and threw away the t-shirt in a hissy fit.  In any case, I just can't see me investing the sort of time SB demands anymore.  It made me very stressy, too!  SB is probably still my favourite MMO.

[tazelbain]

I am afraid if I go back and I see even one SB.exe error, I'll go on an interstate killing spree.

[Signe]

Yeah, well, that too.

[Stephen Zepp]

I won't in any way say it's a perfect experience:

--graphics still suck
--still have various rendering artifacts (minor to major)
--can still sb.exe (I get about 1 a day on average)
--can be a huge pain to set up with vista
--in game advertising (login/logout commercials, death tunnel commercials)
--player base in the few hundreds
--player base maturity level is definitely on the "gangsta" side of the equation

All that being said, man am I having a blast. Normally takes between 2 and 4 minutes to find someone to fight (open tree hopping), 1 to 3 hours per day of multi-group fights at mines, leveling exp from pvp (from rank 4 on), super-fast exp and gold...the list goes on and on.

[cevik]

I won't in any way say it's a perfect experience:

--graphics still suck
--still have various rendering artifacts (minor to major)
--can still sb.exe (I get about 1 a day on average)
--can be a huge pain to set up with vista
--in game advertising (login/logout commercials, death tunnel commercials)
--player base in the few hundreds
--player base maturity level is definitely on the "gangsta" side of the equation

All that being said, man am I having a blast. Normally takes between 2 and 4 minutes to find someone to fight (open tree hopping), 1 to 3 hours per day of multi-group fights at mines, leveling exp from pvp (from rank 4 on), super-fast exp and gold...the list goes on and on.

Shadowbane, it's the video game equivalent of crystal meth.  Keep us updated on how many teeth you've lost.

[Nonentity]

I didn't mean the camera, exactly.  It's the edge movement that I can't seem to wrap my head around anymore.  It didn't bother me at all when I used to play SB, back in the Olden Tymes.  In fact, I really liked everything about the movement.  But then, I was playing Lineage before SB.   

Wow, this explains so much.

[Signe]

IT EXPLAINS NOTHING!  Don't make me kick your ass.

[Nonentity]

IT EXPLAINS NOTHING!  Don't make me kick your ass.

Do it. DO IT.

I'll jangle concept art of an elf with assless chaps and a rifle made out of crystal in your face for a game with exclamation points in the name and you will be PARALYZED.

[Nija]

Yeah, I'll be honest. I fired this up with the SA Goon guild and sat around in Teamspeak with some old long lost friends.

I made it about a day and a half before I deleted the client.

I had a pet-wizard that hit level 48 in the first 5 or so hours that the server was up, but I gave him away and I'm still trying to erase the memories. It's just too painful to try and play again, and arguably I didn't even play it. I just had my pet attack shit and I sat around BSing in a chatroom.


Client didn't crash the entire time, though.

[HaemishM]

--can still sb.exe (I get about 1 a day on average)

With all the other things you listed, this is absolutely inexcusable. I barely tolerate crashes in modern, sweet looking MMOG's, no matter how good the PVP is in SB, I'm not going to tolerate this crash over and over again. Talk about battered fucking wife syndrome.

[UnSub]

--can still sb.exe (I get about 1 a day on average)

With all the other things you listed, this is absolutely inexcusable. I barely tolerate crashes in modern, sweet looking MMOG's, no matter how good the PVP is in SB, I'm not going to tolerate this crash over and over again. Talk about battered fucking wife syndrome.

I was almost tempted. But Haemish talks sense. I can deal with crappy graphics, in-game ads and playing with retards. I can't get over crashes in a released product, however.

[squirrel]

--can still sb.exe (I get about 1 a day on average)

With all the other things you listed, this is absolutely inexcusable. I barely tolerate crashes in modern, sweet looking MMOG's, no matter how good the PVP is in SB, I'm not going to tolerate this crash over and over again. Talk about battered fucking wife syndrome.

I was almost tempted. But Haemish talks sense. I can deal with crappy graphics, in-game ads and playing with retards. I can't get over crashes in a released product, however.

I know. God. I'm still tempted. It burns so bad, but it does get that itch I can't seem to scratch anywhere else. Argh. Irekei....mage...assassin...must resist...

[stray]

Irekei....mage...assassin...must resist...

Pretty much the coolest mage concept, in any game. Especially before they nerfed procs. That's an assassin who can do his job well!

Boo. Dot, dot, proc, dot, proc, stun, fr....fr...fr...proc...fr...proc...fr..frostbolt. Dead. /stealth

[edit] One thing that was always strange...The game had great spell effects, for such a shitty looking game. Better spell effects than many that have come after it.