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World of Shadowbane
Cembrye
Member UncommonPosts: 65
From a French language site comes news dated April 13, 2012:
NOTE - forgive the Google Translation - maybe a French speaker can correct this.
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After closing its doors in July 2009, Shadowbane could experience a second youth. The Chinese Changyou has acquired the rights of MMO PvP for a new version called World of Shadowbane. Launched in 2003 before the servers are permanently closed by publisher Ubisoft in July 2009, Shadowbane (that should be in the studio Wolfpack) remained in the memories of MMO players for its gameplay based largely on mechanisms clashes between players ( PvP ) and its sieges. We thought the game permanently closed, but today, the Chinese Changyou (who revealed the Chinese press to future massively multiplayer titles in its catalog) says it has acquired the rights and source code of the ancient Shadowbane. Target acquisition: initiate the development of a new version of MMOG, discount up to date, and renamed World of Shadowbane. It's unclear when the project gets going, or even whether it will be distributed in the West (however easily be imagined that Changyou sees the opportunity to strengthen its positions at least in the U.S.), mas Shadowbane seems anyway to then enjoy a second youth.
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From what I can tell, Changyou is a player in the Chinese online gaming market, a market that is the fastest growing in the world. Does this mean they will make Shadowbane 2 for the Chinese market only or for all markets? Or for none? But one wonders why they would acquire these rights if they didn't plan on using them.
We shall see what this all means I guess. But it seems the old girl still has a heartbeat.
Comments
Nice to hear SB might be resurrected, always felt it was one of the more interesting MMORPG's ever made.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
one can hope I suppose, not overly thrilled that an asian company picked it up, but better that than no one.
Currently bored with MMO's.
SB was an awesome game.
I really loved Shadow Bane but made the horrible mistake of joining Ebonlore in that game. A villainous hive of scum.
Although I was fanatically involved with Shadowbane, to be quite honest, I despised the way it was designed. I played it because I was absolutely in love with the setting—with the lore.
I think it's discouraging that UbiSoft couldn't sell it to anyone better than ChangYou, but I guess I've been surprised in the past.
SB had so much potential. I quit after only about 6 months of playing because of two reasons:
1) SB.exe this was pretty upsetting since huge wars were awesome
2) the gold dupe bug that not only was it still present when i quit I had known about it and reported it for over a month.
note: to refresh some memories. You stole money from yourself just before server maintenance and when the server came up both the thief and your victim would have gold.
SB unfortunately was plagued by bad coding and badly planned out mechanics. There is a surprisingly large market out there for a sandbox PvP mmo, but there has not been a good development team wanting to make one. Shame really.
Eve is really the only MMO to pull it off and part of that is due to the sheer size... SB was definitely fun for what it was, but had the potential to be so much more.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
The classes seemed interesting and I loved that you could play a Centaur, but that wasn't enough for me to try the game. i just cannot stomach FFA PvP, but the setting and lore did seem cool. if only they had offered a consentual server.
The problem is that there was literally nothing to do in the game beyond PvP and spawn grind. PvE only servers would have been useless.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
While all we can do at this point is speculate, being an optimist here is what I hope we see from Changyou:
1. Updated graphics on a solid and stable existing game engine
2. Remain true to the classic Shadowbane ruleset with the following additions
- smarten up and add variety to wildlife and NPCs while keeping it a sandbox
- TEST TEST TEST to make sure no gold duping bugs or exploits make release
- deepen the tools that guilds and guild leaders can use to reduce brain pain on keep upkeep, etc
- make gold earning less burdensome so people can spend more time fighting and less time farming
- if possible have a single world a la Eve Online; this should make it harder for a single huge zerg to close down a server
3. DO NOT SURRENDER to the WOW crowd and add features that make the game less cut throat! Play To Crush (tm)!
4. Personally, I would also like meaningful implementation of game lore, e.g. encouragement of single race guilds/empires
The usual fears when an Asian MMO is ported to the West, e.g. grindy gameplay and cutesy anime graphics, may be mitigated here since this was originally a western game design. I don't think grind will be a problem since fans of original Shadowbane are already OK with hard core sandbox methods. We may not be able to avoid cutesy anime, but if they otherwise stay true to the vision I don't think people will mind that the armor for their Aelfborn looks like a Japanese school girl outfit.
ARAC guilds really took away from SB. Part of the fun was the contest between light and dark guilds...
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Nice!
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Don't forget the longest running pay to play MMORPG, UO... still has it
More than enough, PVE is not needed in Shadowbane
You can have both. Honestly, most people like a change of pace from time to time.
Remember, you need some way for people to earn gold for the keeps, weapons/armor, banes, etc. You could try just doing it with mines, but that will likely end up freezing out soloers and small guilds and feed the tendency for single zergs to form and dominate. And you can't just have people living off robbing the corpses of enemies - someone has to earn that gold in the first place or otherwise you just have the same 100,000 gold traveling around from pocket to pocket!
A no-PVE Shadowbane? I'm all ears as to how the mechanics of that would work.
Addendum from a posting on MMOCulture:
- World of Shadowbane has already been in development for 1 year
- the Changyou VP at the announcement was part of the original Shadowbane team for China and he expressed "regret" over how the original had turned out
- Changyou has the license for both Unreal Engine 3 and CryEngine 3 (not clear if either of these are what is being used for World of Shadowbane). But someone correct me - are these not stable and strong game engines?
http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/changyou-preparing-shadowbane-reboot.html
Reading these tea leaves:
- IF this has been in development already for one year AND
- the company VP was part of the original Shadowbane launch AND
- they plan to use one of the two solid engines they already have
THEN
this may be coming out sooner than we think?
hope so, but I could easily see this game being the ultimate P2W.
1. Agree
2. Agree, though they already did most of the in the later versions of Shadowbane, though PvE was still very bland, but who really cares. Upkeep for cities was significantly lowered, and mines offered a source of revenue that didn't require constant farming to help maintain cities.
A large world would be awesome, though I'm not sure how they would pull it of. The original concept for Shadowbane allowed for people to invade other servers, sort of combining all the worlds in the game, which I wouldn't mind seeing here.
3. Absolutely, 100%.
4. Shadowbane did implement a lore server towards the latter years. It was pretty successful and created some very interesting guild dynamics. I wouldn't mind seeing that ruleset adopted here, I think it made for better politics and wars personally.
And yea, screw Asian style in graphics. There was a Chinese Shadowbane before and it was very similiar to the US version in style and everything, so hopefully this sticks to that course.
Capitulation
www.rerolled.com
The French Website JeuxOnline has screenshots. Again, forgive the Google Translation:
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In 2003, the studio launched Wolfpack Shadowbane , the MMO PvP wars involving the use of seat and struggles of guilds. Without an audience sufficiently, the game was closing in July 2009, Maisl e last week, the Chinese studio Changyou announced the acquisition of rights and source code of the first Shadowbane to initiate the development of World of Shadowbane , a overhaul of the first game given to modern tastes. For the occasion, the Chinese studio unveiled a first look at this graphic overhaul (which displays a real paw graphic, but that contrasts clearly with very dark tones of the first game) and press Chinese in echoes through some pictures. Enough to form a (first) early review of World of Shadowbane.
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http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/35194/premier-apercu-graphismes-world-of-shadowbane
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Since these are obviously shots from someone's camera at the game screen at the presentation event, they are not the greatest to look at. Definitely Alpha stage but I guess they need to do this to show it isn't vaporware.
Some thoughts on the screenies:
- Decent 2012 graphics will be an improvement over circa 2003 graphics so not a high bar to jump over
- colors are much brighter than the original
- ships in the background....hmmm
- anime graphics as predicted; however as with original Shadowbane graphics won't be a killer if the game play is old school Play To Crush
- the last guy is the only close up armor shot - at least he isn't dressed like a emo musketeer!
- can't tell much from the UI setup; looks pretty standard. I hope they make the UI as customizable as old SB
Lets hope they get a website up and running soon so we can know something more definitive.
NOTE: The Google Translation calls the displayed graphics "Paw" graphics which doesn't make sense. Here is the original of the sentence from the article on the graphics. Can a French speaker tell us what this really means?
"Qui affiche un vraie patte graphique, mais qui tranche manifestement avec les tonalités très sombres du premier opus."
That is NOT World of Shadowbane.
It is call God Slayer Online.
http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/god-slayer-cn-chinas-first-ce3-action.html
World of Shadowbane will never be shown this year.
They do look very similar, but then again they are probably using CryEngine3 for both. On what basis do you say the earlier screens were not World of Shadowbane other than a resemblance to this other MMORPG? And we don't really know what the schedule is for any more information releases about World of Shadowbane. On what basis do you say it won't show this year? AFAIK there isn't really any clue to that.
That said, I don't doubt you that we are unlikely to see anything very soon. That's not a bad thing of course, if it means they plan to release a good product.
OMG, Shadowbane is my favourtie mmo thus far, it is a real mmo unlike most modern mmo nowaday.
i am so glad those screenshots were no Shadowbane, it looks nothing like SB