Shadowbane

Rating:
Summary: Shadowbane - Trial
Review: After having experienced some nasty behavior from UBI before, I decided to download the free trial from their website before actually purchasing the full version of this game.

I'm glad I did.

The graphics are old, my computer and drivers are not, and even as a trial this game was a disapointment. Once the avatar was created, the progression was boring. I felt like I was playing the original PS version of Diablo all over again.

No thanks - I've moved beyond that stage.

The premise - the political manouvers that are possible with on-line play, and the interaction of the characters, is fantastic. The reality just isn't.

Rating:
Summary: Not ready for primetime
Review: Been playing the beta for a couple months and the game isn't ready to launch. It has some nice features that are marred by serious technical issues. The servers and client crash regularly, the servers lag badly when more than 1000 people log on at the same time, and core gameplay elements are terribly boring. I could understand some of the lag is the graphics were top notch, but they aren't and I could understand some of the crashing problems if the game was cutting edge, but it's not. You can level quickly, in fact I generally reach the soft cap level in less than a week, but then you spend the vast majority of your time trying to get enough gold to support your town. The PvP/GvG in the game is slanted decidely toward casting classes. In fact melee classes cannot engage other players who run away at all, even when right on top of them. I really liked some features of this game, but there's no way I'd ever recommend it like it is now, less than a week before launch. Maybe in a few months it'll be worth checking out, but not now.

Rating:
Summary: Better ones out there
Review: Hi

I did the free trial for a couple of days..the interface is a nightmare..pretty bad graphics for a newer mmorpg.....tedious game play...I'll pass on this and go back to DOAC.

Rating:
Summary: finally an upgrade to EQ
Review: I gave this game 5 stars for one reason: I love it. Its not totally finished. There are still plenty of issues. But no worse than mmorpg fans are used to.

So why do I love it so much? End game action. Something to do once done leveling besides megaraid uber mobs. politics. alliances. tactical pvp on many levels.

Its a tough world. There are vile, ruthless people around who will cut your throat for your cash. However my beta experience was filled with honest, loyal adventurers. I met 5 good people who went out of their way to show they were dependable for every 1 griefer/whiner/l33t d00d. You see, Shadowbane is all about grouping- not only for protection, but also for faster leveling ( you get full xp per mob no matter how many in group!!) Soloers and small groups make tempting targets. you can of course solo, and I enjoy it occasionally, but it is risky.

character development makes for unique avatars. There are thousands of possible race/class/profession/discipline combinations. Many people search for power templates, and thats fine, but dont be afraid to experiment, you may discover something new. At the same time, it takes awhile to get used to developing characters "correctly". For example I put skill points into medium armor for a tank character only to find out later I got heavy armor at a later level. Wasted skill points suck hehe. Putting skill points in two different weapon types, or into swords if you dont get sword mastery but do get axe mastery at higher levels also "gimps" you in some ways...maybe the strategy guide will explain this..I had to learn thru trial and error.

Gear and Item drops are very similar to diablo/dungeonsiege. Intricate mace of craftmanship, counts bow of the ages, etc...

Shadowbane gives me a rush like no game since EQ way back in the day. I feel my heart pounding while I sit in stealth mode planning my attack on a small exp group. Im outnumbered so I wait for them to finish a big fight. The healer sits down to med and I tag him with an arrow...bam. bam bam..ut oh that pesky dwarf isnt dying very fast...here comes his scout and crusader buddy after me...run away, run away....hehe

btw, I suggest that you pvp at least some at all levels. Its easy to put on 3-4 levels in an xp group, train/bank, then go pvp for awhile. Makes for a very fun night. Dont think you have to be level 50+ to pvp.

Rating:
Summary: From a Newbie at these mmorg games
Review: I kept hearing about the online playing games awhile back ago and had recently got a cable modem so i decided to buy a couple and try them out. I bought Ultima and shadowbane when it first came out. I ended up staying with shadowbane because it seemed to take more thought and detail into what you have to do. Ultima seemd more "kid-like" (i dont mean to offend anyone). I didnt seem to run into hardly any problems as most people for some reason. I also dont have any friends that play it but found it very easy to find help from others and had no trouble joining guilds and getting power leveled by them. Of course there were jerks on there but plenty of those in the real world also.Over all it was and addictive game that i got fully engulfed in and highly recopmmend it. I never did the trial but it doesnt do it justice.

Rating:
Summary: It's fun for about a month
Review: I participated actively in beta, was part of a guild that sieged and did PvP regularly. I must say that this game has interesting elements to it as far as PvP is concerned, but is no where near ready to launch (as of a week before release). The graphics aren't even as good as ancient everquest, and even with my P4 2ghz machine with a gigabyte of ram and a Geforce 4 Ti 4400 the game only pulls 30fps with all the details turned down at 800x600. The client is simply terrible.

As far as gameplay goes, you can max your character's level in less than a month, and from there it's all PvP. This, however, is only mildly interesting, even when engaged in large-scale sieges between hundreds of people.

There is very little variety within the classes. Each race is obviously designed to be a specific class, to the point where other races taking that class are pretty much gimped and worthless. They also have a heavy-handed skill system, that forces you to take specific weapons, etc... or not be effective in combat.

Every character is exactly alike.

Oh! And don't even get me started on the class balance issues... It's usually not too bad in other games, but since this is pure PvP, expect a high level mage to run through your camp and gank your entire team pretty often.

Rating:
Summary: The game is a blast...
Review: I played EQ and DAoC and am now trying SB. My computer is an Athlon 1.7, Gforce2mx and 256 MB Ram and I don't have any problems with lag. Graphics are, unlike many reviews state very nice.

Of course Sb doesn't have as much content as DAoC or EQ yet but it got many very fresh and new ideas. You won't get the feeling that you play another EQ clone!

In SB you won't spend 36 hours for one single level. Already my first evening in the game I made level 16 and after the second day I was 28. In a group you don't share the xp! It means that 30xp for a mob solo gives you 30 xp in a group of 10 people. So your XP will fly in a full group and it means that everyone is welcome to join a group!

There are hundreds of skills and there are many choices how to develop your character. Unlike other MMORPGs most characters are truely different and after 4 weeks of playing I still didn't group with every possible class/profession combination. There are so many interresting classes I still want to try out. No class is overpowered. Of course some are stronger than others but every MMORPG got balancing problems. Shadowbane seems to have the nicest approach. Since you level so fast you can just try another class without loosing much time. You won't spend 40 played days just to find out that you are gimped as in other MMORGPs!

Guilds are able to build cities, they choose the type of buildings, hire guards, trainers and merchants and instruct their merchants how much magic armor they should produce. It's nearly a mix of RTS. Guilds receive money from the income of their merchants and need to decide how to invest it further!

The game is pure PvP but it's not as bad as it sounds. I played EQ since it's release and got used to the additional risks in SB quickly. In opposite, the idea to be able to get rid of enemy guilds by destroying their city is quite refreshing after dealing for years with "ubber guilds". There are enough "good" players to keep control of the PKillers. Someone who randomly kills other people will be quickly on all "Kill On Sight" lists and will have a short live. And I didn't see many of them yet.
There are plans to allow serverwide wars... I'm sure that they will be a hell of fun.

The game is not finished, but which game is it? Everquest had horrible problems many weeks after release too and I waited 6 months for my gimped champion which got nerfed in DAoC after beta to be fixed before I quited. People complaing about such issues probably never played a MMORPG after release.

Shadowbane is the most refreshing game I have played since long time. I tried out Neocron, Eve Online and Earth & Beyond lately and no game was really fun to play compared to Shadowbane.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely fantastic endgame
Review: I see a number of reviewers have attacked the game for lag and problems. I submit that they are using old operating systems and old PC's. Shadowbane has some fairly hefty requirements, but runs smoothly on my machine and my wife's machine.

I beta tested Shadowbane for over a year before it was released, so I have the advantage of knowing what the end-game is like, when everyone has reached the level cap, and the politics come into play.

There is nothing in online computer gaming that compares to the rush of facing another guild in siege warfare. Seeing an army of strangers coming to tear down the town you spent weeks building gives a strong adrenaline rush. There's a real sense of attachment to your guild, and to your city. Players, not the developers, dictate how the game develops. Cities are destroyed and empires fall because of the actions of players, not in monthly events that happen off-screen. Everyone has the chance to change the world. No other game offers this.

That said, you need to join a guild, and have a fair bit of time available to you to enjoy this game to its fullest. The world is not gentle to the solo adventurer, and you can't experience the best parts of the game until you are high level. Fortunately it doesn't take a long time to become high level. I reached lvl 55 (the cap is 60) in a week (and yes, I work full-time).

For people who find the existing online games lacking, Shadowbane is ideal. For novices, Shadowbane can be intimidating.

Rating:
Summary: Playing solo is a joke
Review: I thought this game was going to be fun, but it was not. It was fun in the beginning when you could actually gain level kinda fast by yourself. Soon though, you realize that gaining fast levels by yourself is an impossibility. Instead you need to get in a group and just sit around while high levels kill everything for you. Hurray what a blast. Don't buy this game.

Rating:
Summary: Shadowbane is a waste
Review: I've played Shadowbane since beta. It's a game with great potential, but its developers and programmers strive to fail in every aspect possible.

Shadowbane has been on the open market for over 1 year and it still performs worse than some games that are in beta1. For example, the engine has been running on pure cpu power. The software engineers failed to utilize graphics cards or sound cards.

SB.EXE instant crash errors, line of sight errors, pathing that doesnt even pretend to work properly, severe class balance issues that should've been addressed in beta, siege warfare on player build cities is a joke and only just recently have they implimented any sort of modification to it, constant class changes that keep you continuously rerolling characters because when UBI swings the "nerf bat"... they swing it hard, CCR/CSR's that fly by the seat of their pants without any regard for the players, nearly a complete lack of customer support, map casting, gold duping, blaytont favortism by the "Featured Character" GM's at "FC events" that distributed "phat lewt" to a very small handful of people on multiple occassions.

They released an expansion pack for Shadowbane while the main program itself was filled with bugs. They've opened several new servers and migrated characteres over with promises of "new and exciting adventure"... then executed an expert "cut and paste" job.

The quality of the graphics are very, very sad.

This game, and everything associated with it, is a waste of time and money. I'm never buying anything that involves Ubi Soft or Wolfpack Studios again.