shadowbane, march 25th

[SendaSteel]

Anyone who is waiting for the release of Shadowbane and think the game is going to be "great!" because it has been in Beta since the first coming of Jesus is in for a big ass let down.

If the game is 5 times better than it currently is in beta, it might last a few months......

[Shampy]

The thought of having to go ahead and upgrade my computer to even think of running any of these next gen games makes me want to cry.

[Benren]

Back when I played AC religiously, before the Sword and Archery upgrades completely fucked over all other occupations in the game, I sometimes played on their PvP server. That is a lot like Shadowbane. In EQ, everyone's an EQer. It doesn't matter what server you play on, most people are still more interested in PvE than PvP. Look at Sullon and Hate. But in AC, since you could theoretically level up your character and gear him out doing nothing but PvP, on the PvP servers, that's usually all anyone did, and even on the "blue" servers, you had a fuck-ton of reds. On Frostfell, which is where I played, I could name 35 or so red players that spent more time PKing each other than doing PvE, and they loved every second of it.

When you have that sort of environment, where PvP means something, players tend to start taking it seriously. Griefing was rampant in AC, but for every griefer, there was a carebear. Ay made a very good point - nobody in EQ above a certain level gives a fuck about anyone below a certain level. Because those people are pretty worthless to you, and in a PvP format, a level 65 is a god with full immunity to the piddly offense of a level 5. But in AC PvP, and from what I hear in SB PvP, even the lowest character can help out the highest character in some way. It just wasn't good business to go around griefing noobs - that was a good way to make enemies, and it didn't take long for a newbie that knew what he was doing to get to a point where he could be a threat to you. And the care bears knew it - in PvP, you're only as strong as the people watching your back. That's the entire idea. You take care of the people around you in hopes that one day, when you need it, they'll be there to help you.

So PvP in EQ and PvP in a game better-suited for it are two completely different kinds of fish.

[Vaclav]

Once again, I've had limited experience with the beta, but from my understanding a Level 3 noob still supplies plenty of advantages for you to keep him happy:

1. Joe the Watchboy effect -- If said noob knows that "Guild Y" are an enemy and he sees "Guild Y" lurking around an area or massing for an attack he can easily provide you with cheepy reconnaisance.

1a. The watchboy effect could in theory be extended to directing guards of a player installation around to assist in a defense. Assuming you are allowed to direct guards around a bit wouldn't you rather the Level 3 who can't fight particularly well personally be bossing the Level 30 or whatever guards around instead of some of the high level folks being occupied and unable to concentrate on fighting while bossing them around? (This part is presumption on my part - I have not gotten a chance to be involved in any sort of town siege, etc. thusfar)

2. Future Friends/Future Enemies -- Sure he might be a friendless Level 3 today, but in two months he could be a Level 50 with 100 friends behind him - your actions today could help find you sharing a banner with those 100 men.

3. And... A lack of a fancy name because my brain isn't spitting one out for this one -- The Shadowbane system has eluded to having a 'distraction bonus' or some such in it where a second attacker on a single person(possibly only flank/rear) gets a substantial bonus to attacking them. Combine this with a smokescreen of lower characters mixed in with higher levels and hard fights should become easier.

Sure the average idiot will ignore the cries of the Level 3, but there's plenty of people with a heart or a brain that will offer them a few minutes of their ear.

[Murr]

Wherever you got that flanking thing from, it's wrong..

SB has some nice elements and some bad ones, right now mostly server side lag issues which they better fix by release or it's going to be ugly.

[Scorpvenom]

I just recently started playing Shadowbane beta. Basically, everything on Shadowbane including movement is SERVER side. They can barely keep up their servers with only 800-900 people playing. Logging on is a nightmare. Let me illustrate. I click my mouse from point A to point B which is 300 yards away. I arrive at point B and say that's good. Then suddently I warp back to point A. Why? The server side lag on SB is horrendous. They seriously need to be smart and copy EQ when it comes to making some things client side and others server. I realize client side components can be hacked, but not many people can hack EQ and get away with it. They should police SB like EQ is policed for hacking. Sploiting is an entirely different issue. I think literally everything on SB is serverside which is retarded.

I've only played SB for about 4 days now, but I can make this comment. Unless they fix this lag issue (it can take like 5 minutes to get into a building, let alone get out), the game will die miserably within the first month. I am almost ready to give up on the game after four days. However, I'm willing to play it until the final release to see if they can get this stuff fixed. As of now, SB is in the shitter.

Anyone who says the game does not have bad lag or bad servers is lying to you. I'm hoping that the servers they are using for beta are not running at their full potential. If they are...all I can say is wow. I have to assume they are running at full potential since they need to test their servers before release.

Anyways, nuff said.

Next big game if SB doesn't get their shit together in less than a month is SWG.

[Fogel]

Well, I'd say the common belief is that if some level 50 is running around wacking level 3's for no reason, its obvious that his intentions for the game are for that of grief, and for all you know, one day he may be running past you, while you get slammed by the big ass train on his tail. So in essence, Identify the griefers, and give them some greif. Maybe they'll either straighten up, or ship out.

Like I said earlier, how this all pans out depends alot on the player community.

[Galudan]

Shadowbane is looking pretty good, just some lag issues, and bugs, but overall it isn't bad. Don't worry about high level's wasting every newbie, they saw to it that this wouldn't happen. The game is overall really good IMO.

[Buzze]

what the fuck is wrong with quake? faggot

[shin]

have any of you guys in the SB beta mentioned all these problems to Wolfpack? that's why you're in the beta, after all...

[Murr]

They are quite aware =)

[Nar]

Hate to break it to you all..but there will be no "next great game". If you do not like EQ, chances are you will not like the majority of MMORPG's regardless how flashy or well tested they are. Not trying to say EQ is the end all do all, far from it..but at the base, all these types of games are the exact same. Sit in the same spot, kill something over and over and over until its too weak, and then move on and do the same thing. At some point in time you'll get something sparkly. You may get a house or horse or boat or goat.
Woohoo..still the same thing as every other game.

Point is, if you dislike EQ for what it is..you wont find salvation in another game. If you dislike it for an entirely different reason (poor CS, broken zones and pathing, etc),or infact like EQ but need a change then one of these up and comings may be your salvation.

[SendaSteel]

No of course not shin. We havent said anything to them about it....we just sit there and prance in the lag.....

Of course we say something about it shithead.

But the common response from WP about ANY lag related comments is one of the following.

1 - "It's Beta, it will lag..." -- This is a horse shit excuse, if your TESTING your servers, and they are lagged (imagine the bazaar with 600 people in it, and you get close to SB lag) to all hell with 800 people online....then you have issues.

2 - "We are running diagnostics currently" -- Apparently they run server diagnostics 24-7 for the last month.

3 - This one is the most common. They never answer your Feedback.

And heaven forbid you say anything in a chat channel in SB about the lag, the fucking fanboi's jump your shit like no tomorow.

As it is right now (they let 15000 more testers in recently), there have been 1400+ people on the SB server, and the lag is not playable. I can't count how many times I was running somewhere, and ended up being wrapped back 700 yards, and had to run it again, only to be wrapped back AGAIN.

Imagine it taking 2 hours to run from HHK to FP. That is what its like trying to get places in SB. (Assuming you know the way and have done it before)

[Grord]

They are doing themselves a HUGE disservice by adding more beta testers in when the servers already lag to shit. I am one of the new testers, and before I got the beta I was pumped about shadowbane. Playing in all of this lag has really put a bad taste in my mouth. Add to the fact that everyone is bitching publicly about the game and you have a PR nightmare on your hands. The last thing is point and click movement. That really sucks the life out of the game for me. I can't stand it. It feels like you are moving a puppet around instead of being in the game yourself.

[Platapie]

"Not trying to say EQ is the end all do all, far from it"

Actually, I think you can easily make that statement. EQ came out so long ago that its initial problems have all but been forgotten. I was in the initial .5 test, and trust me, EQ was ASS back then. While the early phases were fun, the game at that point didn't appear to be amassing to anything close to what it is now.

The problem with nexgen games is that with EQ in its current form, there is a benchmark, and as much as people like to bitch, EQ is a friggen excellent game. It also had the fortune of a few years head start on its competition.

Heck, you can even go to the first month or two of final, that were complete ass due to lag etc, but people stuck with it because there was no viable alternative. It's hard to fathom why anyone would stick with a product that is going down every few mins, when a stable alternative is in existence. Therefore the advantages EQ had, a huge player base from the get go, all hell bent on playing the game, is something other companies do not have in their backpockets, and that makes breaking up EQ's monopoly a challenging one.

Hell, even with those advantages, the people at SISA/989/Red Eye/Verant/whatever the fuck they are called now, are damn good at what they do, and could probably dominate without the massive advantages they had.

Plat