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If you loved Meridian 59...or Axis and Allies....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Many current players of Shadowbane will be disappointed in this expansion, as most of the current crop of players player Shadowbane are more of the "Quake" (individual PvP crowd) and have little time for politics, nation building, and economics.

For those who played Shadowbane or followed it from years in Alpha-testing and beta-testing and who quit playing shortly after its release, you may want to give it a HARD second look and read on!

With Shadowbane: Throne of Oblivion the game has gone from achieving about 20% of its original vision to 90% of its original vision. The 'promise' of Shadowbane in the long years of 1999 to 2003 where it was the most eagerly awaited MMORPG was of empire building. On a scale of 1 to 100 Shadowbane rated about a 20 in my book in this regard. Which sounds pathetic, except when compared to anything else (EverQuest, Dark Ages, Asheron's Call , Worlds of Warcraft, etc.) which rate about a
TWO on the 100-point scale. Now I would rate Shadowbane a 90. When it comes to conflicts, politics, economics, and MEANINGFULL PvP/Guild v Guild/Nation v Nation conflict (with serious rewards, and devastating costs), Shadowbane: Throne of Oblivion is literally 10x better than anything else out there, or anything else on the horizon (Darkf and Light, Wish, etc.).

Even for the lone wolf PvPer it is true that once you've played Shadowbane everything else seems tame. The entire world is a PvP zone. No "consensual" duels or "designated" PvP zones here. Despite what its detractors love to whine about, it is **NOT** a griefer-dominated game. In reality it is more like the Wild West: everyone has a gun, so everyone is on their best behavior. Whether you are the shopkeeper of the General Store, the honest Sheriff, the wondering outlaw, or the barkeep you can have a role in this Bleeding-edge MMORPG 'frontier town' of Shadowbane.

But now the world has been divided into realms (or provinces), which was the original vision of Shadowbane from the Alpha-test days. There is a fully operational resource system with mines in geogrphical areas who's resources unlock the keys of producing more advanced weapons, armor, and jewelry. Other games have the tedium of personal crafting, but Shadowbane isn't about the person, its about the guild, the city, the nation, or the empire. If you rule your realm: power, prestige (and not to mention taxes on your neighbor!) are yours.

Graphic-wise Shadowbane is quite dated, and there are no 'quests' if that is what you are looking for. The truth is that Shadowbane is NOT everyman's game. Kudos have to be given to publisher Ubi for funding an expansion pack for a very niche market game. Shadowbane at its heart and soul is designed for the amibtious guild leader who wants to have a meaningful impact on the game they spend so much time on. Any serious guild leader should not be playing anything else, as the accomplishments in a non-PvP "Carebear" game are completely worthless, and disappear and are forgotten into history as soon as the guild falls apart. Guilds, and individual battles, within Shadowbane are capable of becomming elevated to legendary, if not mythical, status. Shadowbane is a game with a disproportionate share of Napoleons, Stalins, and Ceasars. You won't
find too many sensive-liberal-guys playing Shadowbane.

Shadowbane's biggest problem is that it is such a high-stakes game. If you start off as a small punk guild with a few of your real life friends, having to tip-toe around some agressive large guild and enduring their harrassment for weeks or months, and you eventually recruit, become powerful, form a coalition, and eventually take down your enemies in an epic 12-hour long seige, eventually taking their place as the regional power of the world you play on, in turn harrassing other guilds, and are eventually taken down by enemies on the outside or inside, and the city you built lays burning in ruins....well...its usually an easy time to quit at that point. Hence most people only play SB for 3-6 months. Not year, after year, after year, after year, like the tedium of other gamed. It makes an iffy revenue model, but it makes an utterly fantastic game that will teach you a lot about politics and conflict (I am a global politics major, by the way).

Shadowbane is one part Quake, one part Risk, one part Axis & Allies, and one part Monopoly. It is zero-parts "being stuck on the questing & levelling treadmill of eternity in the pit of hades" however. You can choose your role. Some people are simply attracted to the PvP. Thats FINE, SB has the best PvP out there. Some people are attracted to the city-building aspect of the game. Shadowbane is the ONLY MMORPG out, planned, or rumored, where you go out into the forest, and build your city from scratch right down to the walls.

I've spent 4 years waiting desperately for SB, then spent the last 2 years critical of SB, and now I finally have the game I was promised 6 years ago: a game of high stakes, and high rewards, where the ambitious, organized, and brilliant actually have the advantage over everyone else.

I am not a PvPer (as I said....I am into the global politics). If any of the following rank as part of your favorite games of all time you need to try Shadowbane, or return to Shadowbane for Throne of Oblivion:

* Risk
* Axis & Allies
* Chris Crawford's Balance of Power
* Civilization
* Meridian 59

If you only play these games at the base level....the soldier in the trenches, thats great, BUT IF YOUR IDEA OF 'PLAYING ARMY' IS SETTING UP A MAP IN YOUR POP-TENT WITH PLASTIC SOLIDERS ON IT AND MOVING THEM AROUND, then seriously you need to give Shadowbane: Throne of Oblivion a chance.

A blast! From a returning player.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I played this game near release and LOVED it for quite a while. I finally got fed up with the cheats that were going on back then. This game is way too emotionally involving to have cheats like they had at the beginning.

I recently returned to the game and started on the Wrath server. (One of the newer ones) The first thing I noticed was the graphics update. The game looks very nice now. Also the land has changed completely. On the Wrath server nothing is familiar. There are now mines that guilds must fight over too!

If you have never played Shadowbane there are some things you should know. This is a guild only game... meaning you will have to join (or start) a guild at some point. The game is very group based. However, this doesn't mean you stand around waiting for a group. Newbie land is just the introduction to the game and has no reflection on the game itself. This game is about politics, guilds and struggle for power. You *DO* make a difference in this game which is unlike most games out there now. It is *the* PVP game of the decade that's for sure.

PVP in this game isn't about 'ganking'. That isn't to say you won't get ganked, you will... a lot. But it is all part of the game mechanics. You quickly find out who the bad guys are and who you want to be aligned with. You *CAN* get revenge.

You have a list displayed with the names of everyone who has killed you and what guild they are from.

You can record in game movies as you play the game for later playback (within the game screen) The beauty of this in game recorder is that you can actually walk around in the movie! You can record an epic battle and play it back to see what went right... or wrong... Which way the baddies came from, what their strategy was... or wasn't. It is the single most exciting game recorder ever.

My server population during peak hours is 1000+

Note: There is a free trial of this game for US and Canada (minus this expansion pack) available out there at the time I posted this if you really want to be sure before you buy it. Just do a search from google for shadowbane free trial.

If you want some real action this game is for you

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Basically Shadowbane has the best pvp system of any game out there. It is the only MMO on the market today that offers siege warfare on a grand scale. Also it is one of the only games that offers real player freedom. What I mean by that is there are an extremely small number of rules in the system governing shadowbane so you can feasibly do almost anything you want.

This game has everything, an extremely immersive character creation

the most detailed i have ever seen and I have played EQ, EQ2, DAOC, WoW, AC, AC2, Earth and Beyond, AO, EVE, Matrix Online, and a few others

also the player vs player combat is excellent

the only downsides I have seen is poorer graphics than some games but it makes up for it with incredible game play

if you want some hardcore PVP this game is for you

play to crush

They Still have not learned!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

UBI soft still does not get it. Three things are killing this game and not one has been fixed.

Game performance is still bad. After two years lag should be very minimal but its still horrendous when you get a bunch of people on screen. Seeing how there is no content and PvP is what the game is about you will always be looking for other people to kill. Well once you find them expect the lag to be found also.

Content is just not there. You can't sell a game and expect people to buy it if the only content you provide is PvP. In a Role Playing game you have to level so unless you get xp from killing other players, you do not in shadowbane, you will have fight monsters to level. This is the place fun content comes in. Shadowbane only provides one kind of content and that is finding a place with tons of monsters and standing there for hours doing the same thing over and over. It gets boring and you have to do it to level, support a city, and repair your armor and weapons.

The last problem stems from the above two and is the real killer of the game. Hardly anyone plays the game. Its empty as hell and there are almost no new players. So when you start out and your totally new you find almost nobody to level with. most veterans that plat the game have their guild power level them so newbie island is dead.

I recently came back after UBI gave former players some free play time to try and win us back. I was shocked by what I found. Most of the old servers have been shut down because most people long ago left the game. The servers that were left had very low populations. Mourning and Wrath were the bigs ones but mourning only had about 300 people and wrath about 550 people at peak times. This is nothing for a game with a map as large as Shadowbane has.

They could have really used this expansion to fix many of the problems that caused more than 30k people to leave the game in less than a year. They instead used the expansion to fix nothing and created an overpowered race to try and force their remaining customers to fork over more money to compete. Very sad but it seems the way online gaming companies do business these days.

Stay away from this one!

I would avoid this game like the plague.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It was the first MMORPG I had ever played. Suffice to say I was impressed with the Graphics, music, and many of the dynamics of the game. At first it was so horribly crippled by bugs, exploits, and griefers, that unless you were die hard....correction, even IF you were die hard about this game you quit. It had MANY servers when it launched, they had to shutdown MOST of the servers due to the immense number of people who quit the game.
Most of the ones still playing the game fit into 3 categories. Griefers, die hards, pvpers. Most likely they fit into more than one of these groups. If you like pvp sometimes, don't ever buy this game. If you have to go afk for any reason...LOG OFF.

This game is completely devoid of content, the leveling system is hysterical...you can get your level maxed out so fast and be afk the ENTIRE TIME. As I said before, though, afking in this game isn't smart...though if you are part of a huge guild and have the ability to guard your afkers, you are fine...if not, log off.

The PvP in this game seems intense...seems involving, and creative...it comes down to who has less lag, and which cheat they are using...that's it. Anyone who wishes to be a successful pvper in the game will have to be carbon copies of everyone else...its rare that you find a better template than anyone else...and even if you do, in a week EVERYONE has the same template anyways.

This game IS a griefer game...deny it all you want...2 things will be proven,...you are a die hard, you are blind. Most of the guilds in the game don't spend much time farming...what's the point? they can just farm YOU. Give you 2 hours to farm...they come back gank you, then take everything YOU spent time acquiring. In short, this game should be avoided like the plague...the servers should be shutdown, the developers, of this waste of bandwidth, fired.

From what I hear from my friends stubborn enough to still play this trash...its STILL bug ridden, STILL completely exploitable, STIL a griefer's game, and STILL a complete waste of money.

Surprisingly good game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

To be totally honest, I purchased this game only because I found it for a dollar at EB Games. When Ubi announced the game was free(free to d/l AND no monthly fee!!), I decided it was time to give it a shot. First off, the patcher not only patched the core files, but also downloaded and installed BOTH expansion packs! FREE! I was VERY skeptical as it looks like merely another EQ ripoff.

My first impression of the game was the incredible character creation system. Amazing! As I got into the gameplay for the first time, I was quite disturbed by it ... it's a very new interface for a hardcore FPS and FPRPG player. Alas, after one day, I had my second characted up to Level 15 with over $700000gp. As you get into the game and learn how it works, it's incredible. I'm not a big fan of PvP, but that's only because I get wiped all over the screen. Technically though, you can avoid PvP for a loooong time. Build up your character, then go kill everyone :D. Then start a city with your guild, and wage war on opposing cities. I've never seen a blend of RTS and RPG (let along MMORPG) like this before.

The only problem I have with it is the graphics. Alas, seeing as how I'm using a sub-par computer system, it's probably for the best. People talk of massive lag when many players are on your screen - just change your graphics options. The requirements for the latest expansions are actually over a ghz cpu, but I use a PIII 500, 512mb RAM, and a 128mb GeForce4 MX video card, and I have no problems running the game at 1024x768 with high details on (the particle effects rape my cpu - so I disabled them .. as well - my particular card doesn't support Normal Mapping, so that was disabled by default)

If you're looking for a unique gaming experience, very in-depth and very social (servers are never empty), then you should give this a shot.

And don't forget - it's FREE!!! Completely FREE!!! Just cruise over to the shadowbane site and download the "trial version", once installed, you'll notice that it is in fact the full version. Only problem is that since Wolfpack studios is shutting it's doors, there are rumors of SB being shut down around May 15th '06. Only one way to find out!

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