H
herjulf
Guest
Good day old timers and everyone else too for that matter.
You old timers know me well, for you other people, i have played DAOC for quite some time.
I got a sheetload of work, as i got to be a project leader at my job. so i paused DAOC til i got less to do.
So months passed by and i got more time, however i decided to try out shadowbane, a game i had followed for a long long time.
for years actually.
So here i am wanting to tell you my findings after more then a month of (gold) play in shadowbane. i am semi back to DAOC now btw.
To help you make your choice, in fact i think you should wait before going to shadowbane.. i will come to that.
atleast 6 months.
I have tried all aspects of shadowbane Guildleader city building/maintainance, EXP, PvP and politics.
BUGS:
There are ALOT of bugs ingame atm, i suggest u purchase gigs of ram before playing shadowbane, the memory leaks will cause you and SB.EXE error guaranteed within an hours playtime.
lag.. i have a 100Mbit conn and have a <200ms ping to server at all times, the lag comes from the servers.
Sidefects of lag and or server is that server misscalculates MOB and/or player positions.
So you and/or the monster can teleport around or rubebrband back while trying to escape.
Mobs can hit you but u cant hit back effects, the model of the mobs is 100meters away from youy but the it can stll hit you.
well i could fill out alot of pages with bugs i just told u some very serious ones.
EXP/leveling.
The EXP system is very good, you can TRUELY customise your character.
YOu get to spent you attribute points ( str, con, dex, int, spirit ), and training points to train yourself at a trainer.
And you get to choose from a wide variiety of disciplines.
The sad part is that there are 6-8 actual EXP zones. which has been copied over and over to make more exp spots. EXPING is terribly monontomous.
Infact CAMPING lair in Malmohus/midgard is more fun, cuz the monsters are st00pi, no attempt at AI in shadowbane.
EXPing you character up, well it goes well to level 55 out of 70, but after that it is sloooow, at lvl60 there is no mob that gives decent exp, the highest mobs are conning green to you, after 62 all mobs are white and award you 1 exp point. so to level you need to kill 20.000.000 mobs to gain one level. so i guess 69-70 would be like 80.000.000 mobs.
Equipment
There are a large variety of items alot of items are "randomly" generated by vendors, or monster spawn as drops.
No crafting of items at all.
The only thing i can negate here is that there is a very low variety of armour models.
And weapon models.
Cities:
If you want to enjoy playing shadowbane do not build a city, the city/maintanance will take up ALL your time ingame.
To make a merchant make ONE item you must push 5-6 buttons before he starts making it.
mainentance costs of city is very high. U should consider getting together 200+ to be able to maintain a city without farming money 3/4 of the time.
PvP:
In small scale lets say 1-20 vs 1-20 it is fun, however after that it gets totally unplayable.
The moment you see your enemys your game will crasch, and your toon will stand there and get killed by the fella with the fastest computer and the most RAM.
Solo PvP is very fun though, however the bugs rubebrband effects, lag can be the deatch of you.
Other:
One good thing is DEATH penaltys.
You cannot PERM die, but your armour equipment will get damaged, and all you have in yur backpack/inventory will get dropped into your grave. Free for anyone to loot.
This spices up things making it more exiting and more cause not to die.
There also are THIEFS who can steal what you have in your inventory. sneaking up on ya under cover of stealth, pickpocketing you and runs off.
Characters:
there are many races with different base attributes/abilities. and wit them you can coose paths rogue, fighter, mage, healer... and from that you can choose a class, which of there are tons. for example warrior, gladiator, wizard, warlock, assasain, thief.... and to add to uniqueness you can choose disciplines after lvl20, for example commander, bountyhunter, sundancer...
Graphics/sounds:
Grapics are good, SI like grapics even, but more detailed skins on players/mobs.
Terrain can be changed when building cities.
Spell sounds are very repeating. same old same old... and get stuck in loops sometimes.
Ambient sounds and music are quite nice actually i especially like the desert island music.
Very nice Bhalar/indi like electric guitar sound.
The others are kinda boring.
CONCLUSION:
I urge you to wait before going to shadowbane you will get dissapointed.
It is luring with so many possibilities and PvP.
But bugs, guild issues and lag is to great at the moment.
I will prolly put my acct on hold for a few months to give wolfpack time to iron out the bugs and memory leaks.
And add functionality to the game.
The only part of the game that is appealing at this moment is PvP.
pref small scale PvP.
Sieging cities are just exhausting, and can take 8-48 hours
You old timers know me well, for you other people, i have played DAOC for quite some time.
I got a sheetload of work, as i got to be a project leader at my job. so i paused DAOC til i got less to do.
So months passed by and i got more time, however i decided to try out shadowbane, a game i had followed for a long long time.
for years actually.
So here i am wanting to tell you my findings after more then a month of (gold) play in shadowbane. i am semi back to DAOC now btw.
To help you make your choice, in fact i think you should wait before going to shadowbane.. i will come to that.
atleast 6 months.
I have tried all aspects of shadowbane Guildleader city building/maintainance, EXP, PvP and politics.
BUGS:
There are ALOT of bugs ingame atm, i suggest u purchase gigs of ram before playing shadowbane, the memory leaks will cause you and SB.EXE error guaranteed within an hours playtime.
lag.. i have a 100Mbit conn and have a <200ms ping to server at all times, the lag comes from the servers.
Sidefects of lag and or server is that server misscalculates MOB and/or player positions.
So you and/or the monster can teleport around or rubebrband back while trying to escape.
Mobs can hit you but u cant hit back effects, the model of the mobs is 100meters away from youy but the it can stll hit you.
well i could fill out alot of pages with bugs i just told u some very serious ones.
EXP/leveling.
The EXP system is very good, you can TRUELY customise your character.
YOu get to spent you attribute points ( str, con, dex, int, spirit ), and training points to train yourself at a trainer.
And you get to choose from a wide variiety of disciplines.
The sad part is that there are 6-8 actual EXP zones. which has been copied over and over to make more exp spots. EXPING is terribly monontomous.
Infact CAMPING lair in Malmohus/midgard is more fun, cuz the monsters are st00pi, no attempt at AI in shadowbane.
EXPing you character up, well it goes well to level 55 out of 70, but after that it is sloooow, at lvl60 there is no mob that gives decent exp, the highest mobs are conning green to you, after 62 all mobs are white and award you 1 exp point. so to level you need to kill 20.000.000 mobs to gain one level. so i guess 69-70 would be like 80.000.000 mobs.
Equipment
There are a large variety of items alot of items are "randomly" generated by vendors, or monster spawn as drops.
No crafting of items at all.
The only thing i can negate here is that there is a very low variety of armour models.
And weapon models.
Cities:
If you want to enjoy playing shadowbane do not build a city, the city/maintanance will take up ALL your time ingame.
To make a merchant make ONE item you must push 5-6 buttons before he starts making it.
mainentance costs of city is very high. U should consider getting together 200+ to be able to maintain a city without farming money 3/4 of the time.
PvP:
In small scale lets say 1-20 vs 1-20 it is fun, however after that it gets totally unplayable.
The moment you see your enemys your game will crasch, and your toon will stand there and get killed by the fella with the fastest computer and the most RAM.
Solo PvP is very fun though, however the bugs rubebrband effects, lag can be the deatch of you.
Other:
One good thing is DEATH penaltys.
You cannot PERM die, but your armour equipment will get damaged, and all you have in yur backpack/inventory will get dropped into your grave. Free for anyone to loot.
This spices up things making it more exiting and more cause not to die.
There also are THIEFS who can steal what you have in your inventory. sneaking up on ya under cover of stealth, pickpocketing you and runs off.
Characters:
there are many races with different base attributes/abilities. and wit them you can coose paths rogue, fighter, mage, healer... and from that you can choose a class, which of there are tons. for example warrior, gladiator, wizard, warlock, assasain, thief.... and to add to uniqueness you can choose disciplines after lvl20, for example commander, bountyhunter, sundancer...
Graphics/sounds:
Grapics are good, SI like grapics even, but more detailed skins on players/mobs.
Terrain can be changed when building cities.
Spell sounds are very repeating. same old same old... and get stuck in loops sometimes.
Ambient sounds and music are quite nice actually i especially like the desert island music.
Very nice Bhalar/indi like electric guitar sound.
The others are kinda boring.
CONCLUSION:
I urge you to wait before going to shadowbane you will get dissapointed.
It is luring with so many possibilities and PvP.
But bugs, guild issues and lag is to great at the moment.
I will prolly put my acct on hold for a few months to give wolfpack time to iron out the bugs and memory leaks.
And add functionality to the game.
The only part of the game that is appealing at this moment is PvP.
pref small scale PvP.
Sieging cities are just exhausting, and can take 8-48 hours
