Shadowbane - is it worth $0 for a month?

[Kenrick]

When I interviewed earlier this year at EB Games, the catass manager gave me a free copy of Shadowbane because they were overstocked and not selling.  It's been collecting dust since then.  Well, I just finished building my new PC (finally) and just got broadband installed.  I'm not really playing any games right now, other than trying to beat Dungeon Siege.  My question is, is Shadowbane even worth playing for free for a month?  Drop your opinions below, kthx.

[geldonyetich]

Once burned, twice shy.   Most of us aren't touching Shadowbane with a 10' pole.

I hear they've improved upon it quite a bit since the vast majority of us quit.   I always thought the original game mechanics were pretty impressive, even if the server achetexture wasn't able to pull off the scale of fights they were aiming for.

It's probably a pretty good game if you like PvP.   A lot.

[Kenrick]

It's probably a pretty good game if you like PvP.   A lot.

Feh... not really.  It was fun once in a while in UO but every game since then it's been shite.

I figured the game must be sucking pretty bad if stores were giving away free copies of it.  I might just chunk the piece of shit.  Or maybe I could sell it on Amazon? =P

[Signe]

Sure, it's worth $0 just to fiddle with the skills involved in making a character.  Lot's of fun, that is.  If you are a rich boy and enjoy squandering your money, it might even be worth the $5 or so for the expansion.  After making your character and playing with the skills, however, you need to be a diehard PvPer if you want to enjoy it.  This game doesn't offer much in the way of PvE.  If you are feh, meh or ugh in the PvP department, you will have wasted your hard earned $0.  Of course, you can always download the client, which include the expansion for free, and avoid a trip to your local game store's bargain basement bin.

I just looked at the SB site and there is an empty box next to the Rise of Chaos which is unclickable and just reads, "Coming Soon".  I suppose this means there will be another expansion.  It has me a bit curious.

[kaid]

Honestly I really did enjoy it a good deal for about 3 months. To really enjoy it though you need to get into a good guild or your impression of the game will be horrible. If you are unaffiliated life is rough and not so fun unless you like random gankage.

The big reason I quit playing is I went a couple months where due to technical issues I could not log in. That and I am not a spring chicken anymore and raids at 3 am on a workday were to much for me.


Kaid

[Soukyan]

I just looked at the SB site and there is an empty box next to the Rise of Chaos which is unclickable and just reads, "Coming Soon".  I suppose this means there will be another expansion.  It has me a bit curious.

That's a joke, right?... Right?!

[Alluvian]

You are actually bothering to finish up dungeon siege.  The game my FERRETS could play successfully (true story).  I don't know how to give opinions on good or bad games to those of your kind.  I don't know if bad games are good in your world and good games are bad, or if it just works for some games and not others.  You definately come from a different place than I.  I cannot give you any direction.  Out of curiousity, does everyone in your world have a goatee and a thin mustache?

[schild]

I have a goatee.

But, I bet you can't explain why you own ferrets, freak.

edit: ZING!

[daveNYC]

I just looked at the SB site and there is an empty box next to the Rise of Chaos which is unclickable and just reads, "Coming Soon".  I suppose this means there will be another expansion.  It has me a bit curious.

It's probably the source code.

[Krakrok]

It's probably the source code.

I wouldn't take their source code even if they paid me.

[HaemishM]

Shadowbane - is it worth $0 for a month?

Do you enjoy being anally assaulted by Canadian Martian Space Gypsy Monkeys while the theme song to "Black Metal Hits of the 80's" is played in the background? Is your life so bereft of daily abuse that you sometimes play ping pong with your testicles and a ball peen hammer?

Then yes, Shadowbane is indeed worth $0.

[Kenrick]

You are actually bothering to finish up dungeon siege.  The game my FERRETS could play successfully (true story).  I don't know how to give opinions on good or bad games to those of your kind.  I don't know if bad games are good in your world and good games are bad, or if it just works for some games and not others.  You definately come from a different place than I.  I cannot give you any direction.  Out of curiousity, does everyone in your world have a goatee and a thin mustache?

It's (dungeon siege) the only game I have a copy of (roommate burned it for me in college) that I have yet to beat, so I figured I'd play it until I can afford to start getting into the newer/better stuff that's out there.

Who cares if your ferrets could finish it?  As much as I love seriously difficult, intellectually stimulating, intense computer games, I kind of like to turn my brain off after 8 fucking hours of being raped up the ass on and off the phone every day.  Dungeon Siege has decent graphics and an easy interface.  It's wastes lots of time with minimal energy expended.  It was free.  Lay off kthx.

[Threash]

*checks again to make sure*

Yup, still having fun.  Been over a year, haven't had a crash in hmm six months, lag is for the most part not noticeable in the least, no downtimes other than the daily server resets, still loads of fun to gank jackasses and carebears alike.  If you don't want to play i could certainly use a second account now that they are increasing exp, i offer 0$ dollars.

[Signe]

Are the large scale wars lagless?  Are there large scale wars even going on?  Are there enough people still playing to have more than brief skirmishes?  

I'm not being a smart arse... I'm just curious.

[Threash]

Are the large scale wars lagless?

Yes, with a but.  If you use the performance monitor large scale battles are for the most part lagless (at least for me), BUT most avatars are reduced to floating torsos, or even floating heads only if there is alot of them until you are right on top of them.  That only happens during sieges with hundreds of people on each side though, normal battles are fine.

Are there large scale wars even going on?

Yes, as much as ever.  Servers are about as crowded as they where near launch.  Thats of course because most servers have been shut down and the entire pop is only playing in about 4 servers i think (down from i believe 10 at launch), at least low pops arent a problem.

Are there enough people still playing to have more than brief skirmishes?

 

Most certainly yes.

[stray]

I'm curious too. As far as I'm concerned, Shadowbane wasn't that bad, as far as MMO's go at least (All of them suck). It had a lot of problems, enough to make me quit, but I still don't think it's at the bottom of the list. It had good combat/PvP, fast lvling, flexible char creation, seiges..Things that a lot of games lack. If they could fix the technical issues, put in more interesting ways to make gold, I'd try it again.

[HaemishM]

Are the large scale wars lagless?

Yes, with a but.  If you use the performance monitor large scale battles are for the most part lagless (at least for me), BUT most avatars are reduced to floating torsos, or even floating heads only if there is alot of them until you are right on top of them.  That only happens during sieges with hundreds of people on each side though, normal battles are fine.

The bolded part makes the answer to that question a "No."

[Threash]

I'm curious too. As far as I'm concerned, Shadowbane wasn't that bad, as far as MMO's go (All of them suck). It had a lot of problems, enough to make me quit, but I still don't think it's near the bottom of the list.

I'll never claim SB doesnt have loads of problems, certainly more than other games.  I just know ive been having enough fun playing it to keep my subscription active and me logging in daily for most of the year its been out.  I would have never put up with half the shit thats happened in SB on any other game, because other games just didn't have that "fun" part to mitigate all the suck.

[Threash]

Are the large scale wars lagless?

Yes, with a but.  If you use the performance monitor large scale battles are for the most part lagless (at least for me), BUT most avatars are reduced to floating torsos, or even floating heads only if there is alot of them until you are right on top of them.  That only happens during sieges with hundreds of people on each side though, normal battles are fine.

The bolded part makes the answer to that question a "No."

Well he asked if there was lag, not if they managed to mantain the graphics quality and get rid of the lag :P  There is no lag most of the time, and on the times when there would be lag instead you get shitty (ier) graphics.

[Signe]

Well, I really loved SB.  Beta and a short period after release were good to me.  It would have lasted me a good, long time if not for the myriad of technical issues that resulted in my not being able to log in for weeks at a time.  They even gave me an alternative account and free time but the account had the same issues as the original.  I even went back for a freebie a couple of months or so ago and the first thing I saw was "sb.exe" (ARGH!!) followed by 2 hard crashes.

Oh well.  I guess it was never meant to be.

[stray]

Well, I really loved SB.  Beta and a short period after release were good to me.  It would have lasted me a good, long time if not for the myriad of technical issues that resulted in my not being able to log in for weeks at a time.  They even gave me an alternative account and free time but the account had the same issues as the original.  I even went back for a freebie a couple of months or so ago and the first thing I saw was "sb.exe" (ARGH!!) followed by 2 hard crashes.

Oh well.  I guess it was never meant to be.

Pretty much my experience. I never could get back into that original account either (I wonder if it finally works).

[B-prime]

Well, I really loved SB.  Beta and a short period after release were good to me.  It would have lasted me a good, long time if not for the myriad of technical issues that resulted in my not being able to log in for weeks at a time.  They even gave me an alternative account and free time but the account had the same issues as the original.  I even went back for a freebie a couple of months or so ago and the first thing I saw was "sb.exe" (ARGH!!) followed by 2 hard crashes.

Oh well.  I guess it was never meant to be.

I haven't seen an SB.exe error since December.

[Delf]

The technical issues were only part of what prompted me to give up on SB.

Another issue was the unrelenting nature of the game -- the conflict goes on all day, every day, and pretty much around the clock. Someone else mentioned the 3AM weeknight raids already, and that was going on all the time. The successful alliances were the ones that could put together a bigger skeleton crew at off hours, or organize themselves to make a lightning raid just before the server downtime so that they didn't have to defend their own territory from a counterstrike.

Which I guess was the other thing I didn't enjoy. Too many people were taking advantage of bugs and clear design mistakes or oversights.  I just don't care for that "win at all costs, up to and including your honor, your self respect and the fun of all concerned" attitude that I encountered in far too many of the players.

Worth a free month? It really depends on you and what you're looking for. I was a confirmed carebear before starting SB, and found that PvP was more fun than I'd anticipated. But in the end, the combination of incompetent devs and detestable players made it a pretty easy decision to give it up. Maybe things are different now.

[Kenrick]

Trust me, I never was really considering playing SB, and I just wanted that decision confirmed for me.  It sounds like everything I've never wanted in an MMORPG.  I was considering hawking it on amazon marketplace, but it seems copies of SB are selling there for less than $4.  Anyone who is masochistic enough to be playing this game need another CD-key?  Or (shudder) anyone interesting in starting SB want to have the box?

[Sky]

I just don't care for that "win at all costs, up to and including your honor, your self respect and the fun of all concerned" attitude that I encountered in far too many of the players.

I believe this is because people reason that it's a war, and all is fair in war (well, unless you play by the geneva convention).

But it's not war. It's not win at all costs. It's a game and sportsmanship should apply as it does to all rl games (even UFC these days).

That's always been one of my gripes about pvp, no honor. No respect.

[Signe]

Oh yes... I had nearly forgotten that, Delf.  People's behaviour, especially those on the Scorn server, was appalling.  It almost seemed that it was contagious and infected a large amount of players on every server with some sort of asshole virus.  I began to refer to SB as 'Exploitopia'.  On one hand I was fascinated by the skill sets and concept of the game while being disgusted by the actions of a large part of the community.  I don't know what got into them... maybe the technical issues just made them cranky.

It all made me rather sad.  Besides absolutely loving the people I played with in HD, I had great affection for Ubiq. NOT in a pervy way!

[Threash]

Trust me, I never was really considering playing SB, and I just wanted that decision confirmed for me.  It sounds like everything I've never wanted in an MMORPG.  I was considering hawking it on amazon marketplace, but it seems copies of SB are selling there for less than $4.  Anyone who is masochistic enough to be playing this game need another CD-key?  Or (shudder) anyone interesting in starting SB want to have the box?

I would like the extra CD key if you really are not planning on using it.

[kaid]

Hehe one funny thing to note that during my time in shadowbane it was by far the most polite online environment I have ever seen. People were so afraid your guild may actually get offended and burninate their town everybody was really respectful.

I was so surprised as my only other pvp experiance was from sullon zek.

Kaid

[schild]

People were so afraid your guild may actually get offended and burninate their town everybody was really respectful.

Sounds like Nazi Germany.

[Kenrick]

Trust me, I never was really considering playing SB, and I just wanted that decision confirmed for me.  It sounds like everything I've never wanted in an MMORPG.  I was considering hawking it on amazon marketplace, but it seems copies of SB are selling there for less than $4.  Anyone who is masochistic enough to be playing this game need another CD-key?  Or (shudder) anyone interesting in starting SB want to have the box?

I would like the extra CD key if you really are not planning on using it.

Done and done.

[HaemishM]

Hehe one funny thing to note that during my time in shadowbane it was by far the most polite online environment I have ever seen. People were so afraid your guild may actually get offended and burninate their town everybody was really respectful.

I found it to be the exact opposite. I think Shadowbane was Bratslavian for "release the raging asshole within you."

I miss the folks in HD that made the game fun in late beta and early release, but I don't miss the game. Within 1 month of release, all the design bugaboos we'd continually warned the devs about in beta reared their heads, as well as the complete fucking drooling retard incompetence of the programmers. The game gave me the Internet equivalent of syphilis, and every flirtation I've had with it since, on 2 separate "free trial" occasions have been the penicillin shot in the dick I need to never play this game again.

[RipSnort]

The thing that pissed me off about SB is that I really wanted to like it. Like not giving up on a bad relationship. Where everything sucked except the hot sex you got in between arguments and psychotic episodes.

Resubing for the free time definitely had a "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" thing goin on.

[Signe]

Who the heck do you miss, Haemish?  I'm pretty sure most of us stalk you.

[HaemishM]

I miss the people whose character names I could remember. After release, we had so many characters, I maybe remember 2 that weren't with us in beta.

So, pretty much the HD folks that were in beta the longest. I'm not good with names.