"I'll see you in Shadowbane, capitalist running dogs!"

[Stormwaltz]

China-focused game site 178.com reports that Changyou has acquired the intellectual property rights and source code to the Shadowbane name and universe, and is using these resources to create a new title dubbed World of Shadowbane.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/169064/Chinas_Changyou_reviving_onceshuttered_MMO_Shadowbane.php

[Threash]

Ok, i'll admit it.  I miss shadowbane.

[Minvaren]

Acquire 2 cRuSh?

[Falconeer]

How many games did Territory control and an engaging "feudal" system? Just EVE as far as I can think, and it doesn't have swords, magic or flags. Not sure about the IP, but the game has potential for a worldly pvp niche. I loved Shadowbane a few years after they fixed SB.exe and the fact that you could lose your town overnight, but it was already too late to get any kind of attention.

[Nija]

It it existed for *years* after they fixed client crashes?

Did it really? It didn't in my head, but 

[Kageru]

Eve is kept going because it has a very large PvP-free zone with complex enough mechanics special people spend years grinding for the ship of their dreams and to which the defeated can retreat and (before titans) rebuild. I don't believe SB had anything like that?

[Falconeer]

No of course the comparison is a stretch, Shadowbane wasn't nearly as complex as eve. But it had a huge (the whole world) PvP area where guilds competed for resources and territory control through a nice alliances/suballiances system, and defending your cities wasn't that crazy hard when they implemented the system where the attackers had to buy a siege stone and place it in front of your city 24 hours before they could start attacking the gate and walls.

It goes without saying, the whole thing was perfect for very interesting and pleasant (if that is your thing) metagaming. Politics, diplomacy, etc., something that if I am not mistaken can only be found in... eve.

[Simond]

But what does this have to do with...um. Never mind.

[WayAbvPar]

The first 3 weeks after launch was about the most fun I have ever had in a video game. Then I moved and lost internet connection for 2 weeks, and by the time I logged on again, it was all ashes.

[Threash]

For me it was the beta test for the second expansion.  By then most of the horrendous technical difficulties were solved but the population was so low about 80% of it was in beta, the test server became an all out server vs server battle.

[Dark_MadMax]

No one cares anymore.  There are much better  MMO pvp games coming out  (Archeage for example) - without the bugs , lag ,glitches and flawed design. Shadowbane had nice lore  and art direction. But implementation  was horribad

[Falconeer]

Wait a second: Archeage is my last hope for a sandboxy open PvP game. But "without the bugs , lag ,glitches and flawed design"? Where did you get that information? Or are you just a dreamer?

[Dark_MadMax]

Wait a second: Archeage is my last hope for a sandboxy open PvP game. But "without the bugs , lag ,glitches and flawed design"? Where did you get that information? Or are you just a dreamer?

There been 4 cbts and there are tons of information out there, while I am unfortunate to not be in beta I read detailed reports on goha.ru forums and saw plenty of fan made videos to substantiate em.  From technical point of view archeage is a typical asian product - polished, smooth and well running (discounting the minor issues -it is a beta after all). There are some concerns with some design issues but game overall is very promising

[Fabricated]

Wait a second: Archeage is my last hope for a sandboxy open PvP game. But "without the bugs , lag ,glitches and flawed design"? Where did you get that information? Or are you just a dreamer?

There been 4 cbts and there are tons of information out there, while I am unfortunate to not be in beta I read detailed reports on goha.ru forums and saw plenty of fan made videos to substantiate em.  From technical point of view archeage is a typical asian product - polished, smooth and well running (discounting the minor issues -it is a beta after all). There are some concerns with some design issues but game overall is very promising

It's also probably a typical asian product in that it's probably less work to literally build your own fucking castle in real life.

[Xilren's Twin]

Shadowbane for all it's technical faults and questionable design decisions, definately hit on something special that I have yet to see replicated in another game.
The inital land rush to plant cities in the most advantageous spots, the manic initial building phase, the shops with random gear, treating pve basically as resource generation (gold and rune drops), small guilds being useful to larger ones,   plus all the political stuff external to the game did truly make for a unique experience for me.  It did tend to spiral out of control relatively quickly, but i really thing that beyond that techincal issues, much of the other problems could have been resolved with preset short time framces for server resets.  Whether implementing some sort of "win" conditions, or a 6-8 week time frame of something, being able to start over fresh without being at a huge competitive disadvantage would have helped keep people in the game.  Make it more sport like with seasons.  (I think this might also be useful in EVE but i just couldnt get past the game itself to every find the fun.)

That being said, no idea why china wants this now.  Sb.exe FTW!

[Sky]

Or are you just a dreamer?

He had to run away high, so he wouldn't come home low.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Shadowbane with WASD movement would be awesome, if it ever happened.  That was probably my biggest design complaint about the game when I played it.  The PVP related politics is part of what made the game so great (as well as AC DT when it was fresh and new) along with the build-your-city concept.  I spent hours in IMs or on voice chat with my guild leader planning out building placement and design for the best defense.  It hurt like hell losing your city and our naivety was server legend ("open city?  who runs a completely open city in this game?") but hell, it was fun at the same time. 

[tazelbain]

Shadowbane had so many problems it'd have to be gutted.  

I'd love see A.net do a remake of it the same way they are re-doing DAoC RvR.

[HaemishM]

Shadowbane had two things they succeeded at that no one has come close to replicating: character class progression design and the ability to move anything on the UI anywhere on the screen as a button. Their UI, once you fixed it, was just fantastic.

There was so much that could have been good about that game. The first month of trying to be the PVP commander for House Taeryn was a punishing mixture of awesome and infuriating. Nothing like marching an army halfway across a continent, having to stop every 5-10 minutes for SB.EXE!, get back in game and get them moving again, finally arriving at a goddam slideshow of spell effects, clipping path issues and confusion in front of a castle, more SB.EXE ending in something like a resolution based on how many people managed to stay online long enough through the crashes.

Many great ideas absolutely nut-shot by piss poor implementation. So pretty much the story of MMO's.

[Slayerik]

I remember selling runes on ebay for 10-75 dollars each. I would log on at work right when they spawned, kill the mob, port home, list them on ebay. Average rune was 20 bucks. Not sure why so many people bought them but I made around 2500 bucks from it. Had some great fights over runes, including my favorite open pvp story ever!

[brellium]

Shadowbane had two things they succeeded at that no one has come close to replicating: character class progression design and the ability to move anything on the UI anywhere on the screen as a button. Their UI, once you fixed it, was just fantastic.

There was so much that could have been good about that game. The first month of trying to be the PVP commander for House Taeryn was a punishing mixture of awesome and infuriating. Nothing like marching an army halfway across a continent, having to stop every 5-10 minutes for SB.EXE!, get back in game and get them moving again, finally arriving at a goddam slideshow of spell effects, clipping path issues and confusion in front of a castle, more SB.EXE ending in something like a resolution based on how many people managed to stay online long enough through the crashes.

Many great ideas absolutely nut-shot by piss poor implementation. So pretty much the story of MMO's.

You guys marched an army?

We just sent some people who could summon to an isolated area and had the whole army summoned in 5 minutes.

[Rasix]

I remember that.  We did have good logistics.  I also remember playing a class that at the time could only really be annoying and not do any real damage.  So, I scouted, which was kind of interesting.

Then I built some sort of priest nuker and by the time that guy was battle ready we had pacified the entire world.   

[koro]

Shadowbane had two things they succeeded at that no one has come close to replicating: character class progression design and the ability to move anything on the UI anywhere on the screen as a button. Their UI, once you fixed it, was just fantastic.

There was so much that could have been good about that game. The first month of trying to be the PVP commander for House Taeryn was a punishing mixture of awesome and infuriating. Nothing like marching an army halfway across a continent, having to stop every 5-10 minutes for SB.EXE!, get back in game and get them moving again, finally arriving at a goddam slideshow of spell effects, clipping path issues and confusion in front of a castle, more SB.EXE ending in something like a resolution based on how many people managed to stay online long enough through the crashes.

Many great ideas absolutely nut-shot by piss poor implementation. So pretty much the story of MMO's.

You guys marched an army?

We just sent some people who could summon to an isolated area and had the whole army summoned in 5 minutes.

And all those fancy walls the enemy guild spent weeks putting up and a small fortune to pay for were then rendered moot when the same people who just summoned the army then used their group fly abilities to get them to the other side.

At least, I could've sworn they had a group fly.

[HaemishM]

You guys marched an army?

We just sent some people who could summon to an isolated area and had the whole army summoned in 5 minutes.

Not enough summoners if I remember right.

[Threash]

Shadowbane had two things they succeeded at that no one has come close to replicating: character class progression design and the ability to move anything on the UI anywhere on the screen as a button. Their UI, once you fixed it, was just fantastic.

There was so much that could have been good about that game. The first month of trying to be the PVP commander for House Taeryn was a punishing mixture of awesome and infuriating. Nothing like marching an army halfway across a continent, having to stop every 5-10 minutes for SB.EXE!, get back in game and get them moving again, finally arriving at a goddam slideshow of spell effects, clipping path issues and confusion in front of a castle, more SB.EXE ending in something like a resolution based on how many people managed to stay online long enough through the crashes.

Many great ideas absolutely nut-shot by piss poor implementation. So pretty much the story of MMO's.

You guys marched an army?

We just sent some people who could summon to an isolated area and had the whole army summoned in 5 minutes.

And all those fancy walls the enemy guild spent weeks putting up and a small fortune to pay for were then rendered moot when the same people who just summoned the army then used their group fly abilities to get them to the other side.

At least, I could've sworn they had a group fly.

They added anti flight defenses to castles.  They were expensive to run for long but during sieges they shut down flying completely.

[Dark_MadMax]

It's also probably a typical asian product in that it's probably less work to literally build your own fucking castle in real life.

Yeah thats my main concern. Things are setup grindy way - you haul materials on your back. slowly. from slowly respawning nodes. building something slowly . Well you get the point - its SLOWLY!

[WayAbvPar]

Do we have an ArcheAge thread? If not, someone who knows something about it get on it! Daddy needs a good PvP fix, and getting in on the ground floor of a new game (instead of being the perennial noob cannon fodder in DarkFall, for instance) would be perfect.

[BoatApe]

Do we have an ArcheAge thread? If not, someone who knows something about it get on it! Daddy needs a good PvP fix, and getting in on the ground floor of a new game (instead of being the perennial noob cannon fodder in DarkFall, for instance) would be perfect.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19609.0

[Scold]

Shadowbane with WASD movement would be awesome, if it ever happened.  That was probably my biggest design complaint about the game when I played it. 

Yeah, I quit within an hour of downloading late-stage Shadowbane. Low server pops I could roll with, many things I could roll with... but click-to-move is a total dealbreaker.

[brellium]

Shadowbane had two things they succeeded at that no one has come close to replicating: character class progression design and the ability to move anything on the UI anywhere on the screen as a button. Their UI, once you fixed it, was just fantastic.

There was so much that could have been good about that game. The first month of trying to be the PVP commander for House Taeryn was a punishing mixture of awesome and infuriating. Nothing like marching an army halfway across a continent, having to stop every 5-10 minutes for SB.EXE!, get back in game and get them moving again, finally arriving at a goddam slideshow of spell effects, clipping path issues and confusion in front of a castle, more SB.EXE ending in something like a resolution based on how many people managed to stay online long enough through the crashes.

Many great ideas absolutely nut-shot by piss poor implementation. So pretty much the story of MMO's.

You guys marched an army?

We just sent some people who could summon to an isolated area and had the whole army summoned in 5 minutes.

And all those fancy walls the enemy guild spent weeks putting up and a small fortune to pay for were then rendered moot when the same people who just summoned the army then used their group fly abilities to get them to the other side.

At least, I could've sworn they had a group fly.

They added anti flight defenses to castles.  They were expensive to run for long but during sieges they shut down flying completely.

We would just tear a hole in the wall and place siege stone in that hole.