aeroch 33 Posted January 8, 2015 GordonWalton's post the other day got me curious about how the people behind Shadowbane felt about the game. idk any of you well enough to ask privately, but i've always wanted to hear your thoughts on SB's shutdown, the state it was in at shutdown, your thoughts & reflections on SB as a whole, what was good and what was bad about the game, any lore that hasn't been released but you would like to release now plz, any plans there might have been for the future of SB, etc. if any of you are in a nostalgic mood i'm sure others in the community would love to read your thoughts as well you all created a terrific world for us to enjoy, and in the process spawned one of the worst internet gaming communities ever, so this is also a post to say thx for the memories and the years of fun. edit: first it was 400x50 sigs, now they can only have one color font? wth 5 Drenath, ghirular x, Conspiracy Theorist and 2 others reacted to this NFC 4 LYFE / KNIGHTS OF SILVERMOON / LEGACY OF BRUTALITY / CULT OF THE HY'PHY / THE REPTILIANS Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Phylor.the.Jester 910 Posted January 8, 2015 This is actually something that would be interesting to see. It was actually fascinating to read Gordon Walton's post about UO. 1 Drenath reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
madro 17 Posted January 9, 2015 one problem with sb is the cognitive dissonance of the population that thinks they're just so hardcore pvpers but actually whiny bitches that couldn't actually handle a game with consequences and freedom Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rixie 59 Posted January 9, 2015 These sig restrictions are awful. 3 Drenath, ghirular x and protonix reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rixie 59 Posted January 9, 2015 P.s. Where is hedge? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
madro 17 Posted January 9, 2015 see: every post complaining about cn despite the chinese playing the game basically entirely how it was designed and meant to be played. zerging is a valid tactic and if you can't win at a numerical disadvantage either get better, get more dudes, or lose your city. also every server war that was started by every guild that 'doesn't care about pixels' but started calling in help hwen the time came 1 cappaspada reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Phylor.the.Jester 910 Posted January 9, 2015 see: every post complaining about cn despite the chinese playing the game basically entirely how it was designed and meant to be played. zerging is a valid tactic and if you can't win at a numerical disadvantage either get better, get more dudes, or lose your city. also every server war that was started by every guild that 'doesn't care about pixels' but started calling in help hwen the time came True but not particularly healthy for a game. The hypocrisy of the SB community is well known though. No one likes to lose/lose repeatedly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
madro 17 Posted January 9, 2015 i played sb since 2007 and if anything mourning had less of a zerg issue because of our commitment to role playing, lore compliant charters, and superior skill (having to compete with lore restrictions that ARAC children [like urself] prob couldn't handle...) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
doc gonzo 3,087 Posted January 9, 2015 i played sb since 2007 and if anything mourning had less of a zerg issue because of our commitment to role playing, lore compliant charters, and superior skill (having to compete with lore restrictions that ARAC children [like urself] prob couldn't handle...) lol... '07... i know you..... rilly? "lore restirctions"???? yeah there were some....and a few who did it well in spite of self imposed restrictions, or playstyle...not me of course, i am terribad and die often...but still you are seriously going with this post, or did my leg just come off in your hand from all the pulling....i just can't tell... /facepalm Excelsior! 1 Anti reacted to this let the Code build the World and it's Laws....let the Players build the rest... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kickit 192 Posted January 9, 2015 i played sb since 2007 and if anything mourning had less of a zerg issue because of our commitment to role playing, lore compliant charters, and superior skill (having to compete with lore restrictions that ARAC children [like urself] prob couldn't handle...) Wait, so you played on a server where CN never had a tree (if they did, not for long) and you're going to tell me that in '07 (lmao) you knew how to handle the CN zerg? If you didn't fight the CN zerg, how can you comment on how easy it is to fight a zerg you never fought? Just because you fought an 18 man "zerg" with your 10 players because you spoke a pretend language with pretend cartoons that you were way into and want to say I'm a child? 1 Anti reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gauis 528 Posted January 9, 2015 Wait, so you played on a server where CN never had a tree (if they did, not for long) and you're going to tell me that in '07 (lmao) you knew how to handle the CN zerg? If you didn't fight the CN zerg, how can you comment on how easy it is to fight a zerg you never fought? Just because you fought an 18 man "zerg" with your 10 players because you spoke a pretend language with pretend cartoons that you were way into and want to say I'm a child? Yeah Kickit I love how people that never fought on the wrong side of 300 v 50 for 3 months, and won most of them, tell us how to do it. 1 Anti reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skoot 67 Posted January 9, 2015 (edited) i played sb since 2007 Take a seat, kid. Edited January 9, 2015 by skoot 6 doc gonzo, silentx, aggravated and 3 others reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
madro 17 Posted January 9, 2015 hmmm it looks like there will be a lot of carebear nkoths (newbs) to cry for dev help to save them when they lack the skill to save themselves 1 Hi. reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hidetade 21 Posted January 9, 2015 I find it laughable that most of you don't know who Madroxide Child is. 1 mal reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jtoddcoleman 8,760 Posted January 9, 2015 GordonWalton's post the other day got me curious about how the people behind Shadowbane felt about the game. idk any of you well enough to ask privately, but i've always wanted to hear your thoughts on SB's shutdown, the state it was in at shutdown, your thoughts & reflections on SB as a whole, what was good and what was bad about the game, any lore that hasn't been released but you would like to release now plz, any plans there might have been for the future of SB, etc. if any of you are in a nostalgic mood i'm sure others in the community would love to read your thoughts as well you all created a terrific world for us to enjoy, and in the process spawned one of the worst internet gaming communities ever, so this is also a post to say thx for the memories and the years of fun. edit: first it was 400x50 sigs, now they can only have one color font? wth Huh. Let's see if I can pull this thread back on-topic. Highly doubtful. but here goes. ... When we started Shadowbane, we had two main inspirations: (1) Braveheart, specifically the cinematic battle sequences which (at the time) were unbelievably cool, and (2) an obscure book series known at Game of Thrones. In fact, the original Carnage.Net website had quotes from the book series all over it, because we didn't know we shouldn't do that, and we thought it was cool. The original idea started on a napkin over lunch at a Mr. Gatti's pizza between me and Josef Hall, and the characters were ALL going to be barbarians. - Our first playable version was called "Carnage" and was 2D. It was horrendously bad. We dropped that quickly, and started working on a 3D engine that looked like Myth: The Fallen Lords. - Josef and I came up with the name "Shadowbane" by going to a book store and looking through the fantasy section for inspiration. We were combining words from different books and we thought SB sounded cool. - Originally, "Shadowbane" wasn't a sword. It was a secret society of heroes fighting evil. Later we ditched that idea, and made it a blade that was sort of a cross between Excaliber and Stormbringer in our mythology. - the actual sword, "Shadowbane", didn't exist in the game. We never even made the 3D object. Our idea was to make it a relic that caused permadeath on everyone who touched it -- you could wield it, and if you killed someone with it, their character was wiped! BUT if you died while wielding it, YOUR character was deleted. and the blade would fall to the ground, for the next guy to pick up. I still think this idea has amazing, untapped griefing potential. Here are some other random inspirations that you can see scattered throughout the narrative and design: - the character creation system was heavily influences by Gurps. Especially the point-driven customization system, and the Talents & Traits, our take on an "advantages and disadvantages" system. - the combat system was heavily influenced by Rolemaster, which was one of James' favorite pen & paper game systems. James is brilliant at this stuff, and his combat still kind of amazes me. He is, IMO, one of the the best systems designer in the world. - The idea of procedurally generating the world/terrain was born partially out of "this is cool" and partially out of the fact that we didn't have enough artists to build the world by hand. We implemented it about the same time as Star Wars Galaxies, and it's interesting that they ended up having a lot of the same benefits and headaches that we did. - This type of world generation has been largely left behind in MMO design, because WoW showed everyone how amazing custom-crafted zones can be, and so everyone lost interest. and then along comes Minecraft. Everything old is new again, right? - The original plan was to use the procedural generation system to make each World unique. That turned out to be a nightmare, so we fell back to one world for launch. and even getting that done was a mess. - We also planned to have dungeons at launch. the system didn't work, so we cut it. on retrospect, "dungeones" is kind of a big feature to leave on the cutting room floor. - The Aracoix (bird men) race was created because we thought the birdmen in Flash Gordon were cool. We gave them bird heads, though, because... I dunno, why not? - The Minotaur race was not particularly important in the lore. Ubi had the right to make the cover art for the game, and they decided to put a minotaur on the cover and have him wielding Shadowbane (the sword), which makes absolutely no sense in the backstory. - Centaurs made the cut, because I think Centaurs are cool. Especially when they are wearing plate or heavy horse barding. Truthfully, I lifted the idea from Shining Force, and I've used it in ... well, every game that I've every done, actually. - The Greymen and the Templars were inspired by the Wheel of Time series. - The idea the World being broken and Heaven being closed was engineered to give a narrative reason for why player characters respawn -- there is no afterlife, and the worlds are basically "limbo", an eternal battle. Cool idea, right? Meh. As it turns out, players don't care at ALL why their avatars respawn. So, I chalk this one up to "cool idea that pretty much only Meridian and I knew or cared about." - I came up with the idea of giving the different realms/shards names like "Mourning" and "Vengeance" because I thought it was cooler than a bunch of random fantasy sounding names like "Teregonia." I still think it absolutely was the right call. The names were cooler, more easy to remember, went a long way to reinforcing the vision and personality of the game. - The Irekei, the desert elves, really took off because the community decided to invest in them. I'm not even sure why we cooked up the idea of desert elves, originally. but it was one of those ideas that you throw out there and it just resonates and before you know it, it's a major part of your game. So we started to cook up more content for them. - Shadowbane had 7 publishers between inception and release. I still think this is a record for major publishing partners held by a single released title. Those companies include: Quasi World, Swing/Conspiracy Games, God Games, Take 2, Ubi, En-Tranz, and E1 media. I'm not including the sub-licensing partners in that list, like KBK in Korea, Matrix in China, etc. - The game debuted at #3 on the Top 10 bestselling PC games list. Not bad! Unfortunately, it feel off quickly thereafter. anyway, I think that's enough for now...? I could fill this forum with posts about SB, and while it's fun to talk about over a beer, it's also a massive time sink. If you guys find this stuff interesting, I'll post more random trivia again some other time... but right now I need to get back to making Crowfall. Todd ACE 51 Frykka, Wogga, icywiz and 48 others reacted to this J Todd Coleman ArtCraft Entertainment, Inc. Follow us on Twitter @CrowfallGame | Like us on Facebook [Rules of Conduct] Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skoot 67 Posted January 9, 2015 Enjoyed reading that background info a lot. Thanks, Todd. 1 balice reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
aggravated 9 Posted January 9, 2015 Great stuff. It would be great if this new game had a ton of community based influencec as well. A lot of us from the SB community have been playing since before release and have tons of input about the nuances and missing pieces that could have made SB better than it ever was. I'm looking forward to CF's evolution. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ashentemper 213 Posted January 9, 2015 Did they just make this subforum area? I swear it wasn't here the other day... Hmmm, I could probably write a book about Shadowbane. Considering the weekend is just around the corner, I just might, lol! Anything in particular you're wondering? 4 fautsin, doc gonzo, bratscankill and 1 other reacted to this Sean aka Ashen Temper | http://www.seandahlberg.com/ Without the Player, there is no Game! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skoot 67 Posted January 9, 2015 Did you give QFT gear too, Ashen? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jah 6,775 Posted January 9, 2015 If you guys find this stuff interesting, I'll post more random trivia again some other time... but right now I need to get back to making Crowfall. Thanks! Yea, I enjoy reading that stuff. I look forward to more random SB trivia in the future! 1 fautsin reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
