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Shadowbane: Interview with Danielle Vanderlip
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Jon Spofford, of the Undead Lords guild, recently interviewed Danielle Vanderlip, the assistant community manager for Shadowbane. He decided to contribute the article to our site and we thank him for it. The article provides an interesting peek behind the scenes as Danielle gives her thoughts on a range of genre topics.
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Danielle Vanderlip: The Feature Character program was a program in which we had a team of virtual actors that would run characters within the game world and create interactive events for the players. These events were loosely scripted to where we had the basic premise of the event and the backstory of the character we played, however the outcome wasnt always perfectly scripted out. The end of an event was what the players made it. If they succeeded or failed it was on their own merit. If others came in to interrupt or take part, that was also a part of the event. There were no rules saying who could or could not participate and in that the events became different for each server even when the basis was the same. Unfortunately with a program like this, it requires extra funds in order to keep a staff on hand to keep the events going. Eventually the staff was layed off or reshuffled and only a skeleton crew is able to do events relatively infrequently. Support for player events however is still given as often as possible. Weve always encouraged people to change the world they live in and whether for good or ill, that is exactly what weve gotten. |
;)
You can read the Q&A here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
This reads more like and advertisment than an interview.
I guess you didn't read the whole thing. The first part he asked questions that were somewhat related to SB and since I've been a part of the SB community for at least 5 years or so, it was an easy lead-in. But further in, while I touch on SB I also discuss some other ideas and other games briefly such as the former Microsoft project Mythica and the mostly failed Horizons.
Funny enough the idea of players working together to open up something new is being done in World of Warcraft with the An'Qiraj (sp). So I'm sure that if that is successful there will be subsequent additions to that game as well as to the future development of others.
Other than that it's about some general ideas of what needs to be considered and done in order to create the MMOs of the future. I don't go into details so much but more a general look at what I see as the issues facing all developers right now in the infancy of MMOs.
Nice "Fluff" article!
I have been an active SB player since the game went "Live", but lets be honest, Shadowbane is a dying not thriving MMO!! The game's content is stale, they can try all the eye candy tweaks they want, but the overall mechanics and game play are stagnant at best. Secondly, the inclusion of Chinese players into North American Servers has crippled those servers economies, not to mention the duping and selling of game currency on Ebay!!
"Balls!" said the Queen. "If I had two, I would be KING!!"
If you're going to bring Ebay gold into the thread, I'll bring every other mmo with a shred of popularity into it. It's that way with every game, and in shadowbane I'd have to say...GOOD! I WANT that person who's city was just flattened to go spend ten bucks and get a new city up and running immediately. I want them to go buy the top gear that they can get, it's more challange.
Were I not already tied up with 2 other games (one of which I play with my wife, so I can't drop even though I'd like to) I'd be playing SB again. The freedom of the pvp is a heady rush, taking on groups by myself, with my trusty buffbot on 2nd account of course, and coming back again and again, gettin the kills and winning. Yes, I've gone 1v10 many times and won. Is it because I'm leet? Hardly, though I certainly considered myself to be one of the top scouts on my server. It's not because of gear, I never once on any character had a full on complete, end game good-as-it-gets set of equipment. It's because of thought, reason, planning, and build prep. I don't need to have .0001 second reflexes to still win.
The game is remarkably well balanced, though I hold some reservations about Vamps as a race and have since the RoC beta testing. When 1 person can send 10 people packing home, or a group of 10 can send 20 home, based on skill, then that's a good thing. If you're clueless, don't try to get better, just listen to the so called pearls of wisdom that fools are dispensing, you're not going to dominate. If you play wisely, and build your character properly (knowing that a pve build and pvp build are TOTALLY different), then you can take on large groups of fools and win.
LOL! Spoken Like SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT PLAY THE GAME!!
Gold Duping is only the tip of the Iceberg my freind.
Game Mechanics! When a Mino Brab with some 7000+ hit points can hit for 1000+ damage a swing, compare to a Confessor with say 3500+ hit points (with buffs) only able to hit for 500-700 damage a shot (with buffs & offensive stance), YOU do the math bro!! Then we could spend a week discussing PvP & seige exploits!! I support Ashen & staff for being aggressive with regards to Dupers, but Lore is so far down on the game play appeal issues list... it's not even funny! Maybe you should get a free trial account and just look at server populations then take into account those of us in game playing with 2+ accounts, just inorder to level up our toons, AGAIN, do the math Bro!
The interveiw was a nice fluff peice, but thats IT ....Just FLUFF!!
"Balls!" said the Queen. "If I had two, I would be KING!!"
The game's still fun. The only major turn off to most people is population. If people started coming back, and server populations could hit 1000 again, the game would be pretty much the most fun MMO out there.
Capitulation
www.rerolled.com
"Balls!" said the Queen. "If I had two, I would be KING!!"
I was in the beta and the game sucked then. Then I tried a free trial of it some time later and the interface hadn't changed. It was a very undercooked interface. I also like how the shill in the 3rd post is defending the game because he has some sort of financial connection to it. The game was a dog and was destined to fail.
I don't want to talk about SB. It sux'd, should die. But the interview was very good. "We are still in the world of EQ clones" oh so true. I could comment on more, but disagree with the conclusion. She blames lack of money and lack of technology. That's crap, its lack of ideas. And don't expect the "player community" to lead; the player community swarms to empty pasttimes like WoW, always has, always will. Developers need to put down their ideas on code and go get the money for it.
Well, the thing is, the cost of using the technology and then asking people to upgrade their computers is more what I was referring too. I got to see some of the technology being used (from Microsoft) with Mythica back when I got to see the demos of it in a private party for it. But then look at internet connections, latency issues etc etc too. Devs could pack in a lot of technology in a game but there's no guarantee that everyone would be able to get the most benefit from it without upgrading their machines and hopefully having capable bandwidth to transmit the data to where there weren't severe lag issues. I also pointed out that there has been a lack of vision or a lack of implementation of a newer vision. Publishers like to invest in things they know will pay off and companies that have tried to create a vision (like Wish for example) went down the tubes because they were paying out with their own money and that vision wasn't coming to fruition like they had envisioned anyway.
WoW has done some things that people were hoping it would do and that is, introduce a lot more new players to the MMO world. Whether it's really good or bad we can't say. It has done a lot of things right and mostly though, has shown that there can be real polish put into a game to where people aren't having to deal with a ton of bugs in order to play. On the other hand, things are mid-level skill. Meaning, once you get past being a noobie, there isn't much more to look forward to other than obsessive dungeon raids and rinse and repeate PvP. Don't get me wrong. I wrote the guide for it and believe it is a 'good' product. It's even one of the few games I play. But the experience of WoW only goes so far before it stops moving forward. Once you reach a certain skill level there is nothing more to really look forward to. But that's an issue with a lot of games. We're just not going to get that paper gaming sort of flexibility without more human interaction in the back end somehow.
To the other person that thought to refer to me as a shill. I'm not a shill. You can say I am because of my affiliation with SB all you like however, with all its flaws, SB still has some great concepts and innovations others have yet to put in a game and release. I would love to see SB done better of course. I don't know anyone who is a fan of the game that likes it as it is now 100%. There is always room for improvement. I know a lot of others that looked forward to it and were severely dissapointed because it was missing so many things that people wanted at release. There's no way to reconcile them at this point and it's unfortunate. SB is not new player friendly either since it has a very high learning curve and it's very guild oriented which makes it hard for new players to find one and get in the door to play.
But despite it all, the interview wasn't meant as any sort of ad for SB. It was just a q&a in which it came up because of the concepts within and what we had tried to do through the years with it and what I see that I like in other games or would like to see implemented yet.
I didn't go into a lot of detail of my perfect game since it would have filled pages on what I think it is and I don't believe any player truly knows what their perfect game is. I don't think anyone knows until they've played it and I have yet to play my perfect game. Hopefully that all makes more sense.
BTW. I'm glad someone liked it.
Thanks isia.
Originally posted by peod65
Nice "Fluff" article! <?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" />
I have been an active SB player since the game went "Live", but lets be honest, Shadowbane is a dying not thriving MMO!! The game's content is stale, they can try all the eye candy tweaks they want, but the overall mechanics and game play are stagnant at best.
Stale content? Please, if you are going to even try to sound like you know what youre talking about, use more then just baseless claims. The term stale content refers to content that is lacking originality. Please, tell me a single MMO, hell, a single RPG that did not have stale content. You cant, because RPGs by definition have followed the same syntax for decades. World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Star Wars Galaxies, Shadowbane, etc. have all contained bits of stale content. But to say the game in its entirety is stale is just ignorant at best. Shadowbane is one of the most unique MMOs to date, handing the players the reins and saying go wild.
Originally posted by peod65
Secondly, the inclusion of Chinese players into North American Servers has crippled those servers economies, not to mention the duping and selling of game currency on Ebay!!
This has absolutely no baring on the game itself, but was rather a decision you did not agree with. Every MMO, even the almighty WoW, has duping and gold selling. Also gold selling is not rampant with Shadowbane as it is in other games. You will be lucky to get 10 hits on an e-bay search.
Originally posted by peod65
Game Mechanics! When a Mino Brab with some 7000+ hit points can hit for 1000+ damage a swing, compare to a Confessor with say 3500+ hit points (with buffs) only able to hit for 500-700 damage a shot (with buffs & offensive stance), YOU do the math bro!!
I thought I defaced every melee is overpowered argument in the legendary thread on the Shadowbane forums. Cant get them all I guess. Ill give you the short version. Shadowbane is all about diversity. Its about building your character to fit a certain roll; either a solo roll or one that benefits your guilds group the most. There are counters to the counter of counters to any given class in Shadowbane, and it just takes skill to decipher and execute them to perfection. After reading some of WoWs patch notes I can only shake my head in disbelief of how much it fluctuates; at how much they caved in to the whines of the masses, creating flavors of the moth to a greater degree then Shadowbane has ever seen. Shadowbane has perfect class balance, it just appears to have lost the players who knew how to play enough to counter melee.
Originally posted by Nerf09
I tried the Shadowbane free trail. After two days of looking at the undergarmets of a Fury floating above me, killing all the NPC's to power-level me up, and after having someone twink me with equipment, I saw the game as fundamentally flawed.
Its all about the perspective. I believe the huge treadmill grind to 60 in WoW to be fundamentally flawed, whereas you most likely worship it as a demi-god.
Originally posted by wavecutter
I was in the beta and the game sucked then. Then I tried a free trial of it some time later and the interface hadn't changed. It was a very undercooked interface. I also like how the shill in the 3rd post is defending the game because he has some sort of financial connection to it. The game was a dog and was destined to fail.
Fail by what standards? Overall profit? I guess, if youre a money grabbing, sell-out, video game producer. If youre a gamer you would see beyond that; you would see just how dynamic and alive the world was with intriguing politics, alliances. You would see how the risk/reward system was oh so perfectly balanced where if you failed, you felt it, and when you succeeded, you completely forgot about the times you failed. You would have seen how deep the character development system went, and how a simple difference of a few trains could determine the outcome of a battle. You would have seen how one can truly make a name for themselves in Shadowbane to be remembered for years to come, with our without a guild.
But apparently you couldnt see that. Its ok, most people are too jaded to notice such details and instead would rather follow the crowd and mock a game because of that. Let me guess, you own an Xbox and play Halo, but only when youre not at the mall playing DDR or on MySpace?
Originally posted by isia
She blames lack of money and lack of technology. That's crap, its lack of ideas. And don't expect the "player community" to lead; the player community swarms to empty pasttimes like WoW, always has, always will. Developers need to put down their ideas on code and go get the money for it.
The players are the customers. Never forget that. I have said this time and time again: The best of games in the future will be heavily created, designed, and/or influenced by players. Shadowbane has come close to this. The advocate program, the developers actually talking with the players (the sheer thought of that in WoW makes me rofl irl). Its all a step in the right direction. It would blow your mind if you looked at what Shadowbane has had to work with and go through, only to still be sung praises by the people who matter. You obviously arent one of those people.