Shadowbane
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| Shadowbane | |
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| Developer(s) | Formerly Wolfpack Studios, Currently Stray Bullet Games |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft |
| Engine | Arcane Engine |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Mac |
| Release date | March 25, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (T) |
| Media | CD |
| System requirements | Pentium III or PowerPC G3 CPU, 128 MB RAM, DirectX 8 / OpenGL, Internet access, 32 MB video card, 950 MB free hard drive space |
| Input methods | Keyboard, mouse |
Shadowbane is a fantasy computer role-playing game (MMORPG) created by Wolfpack Studios and published on March 25, 2003 by Ubisoft for Windows and Mac platforms. Originally commercial and subscription-driven, Shadowbane was launched in March of 2003, and was the creation of text-MUD veterans J. Todd Coleman, James Nance, Josef Hall, Patrick Blanton and Robert Marsa and a team of 45 programmers, designers and artists.
After the sale of Wolfpack Studios to Ubi Soft in March of 2004, the live service was transitioned to a new management and (largely new) development team, led by Frank Lucero and Ala Diaz. This team later splintered off to become Stray Bullet Games in June of 2006, and Mark Nuasha was brought in to run the organization. Since March 15, 2006 the game has been freeware and free-to-play. A system of short ads was introduced on March 6 of 2007 to fund operating costs, which are displayed when the game is opened or closed and when a character dies (with at least 10 minutes between death ads)[1]. On March 19 of 2008 all servers were closed to prepare for the "Shadowbane Reboot", a relaunching of the game to capitalize on stability and performance gains hindered by previously existing data. [2] The relaunch was scheduled for March 25 of 2008, the game's fifth anniversary.
The regular game takes place in a dark fantasy world called Aerynth (the world will sometimes depend on the servers, many of which have unique world maps). Gameplay features many aspects typical of computer role-playing games, such as experience points, character classes, and fantasy races. Character creation is fairly extensive, allowing for detailed, differentiable characters to be created.
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[edit] Gameplay
Shadowbane is notable for emphasizing player-versus-player combat, implementing non-conventional races and specializing in siege warfare (players building cities and trying to raze enemy players' cities) whereas a significant number of MMORPGs released since Ultima Online usually restrict player killing to certain areas of the game or special dedicated PvP servers. The game also features a seamless world map, and makes no use of instancing.
Players are also allowed to own cities and capitals and most of the property and cities in Shadowbane are player owned. In effect, Shadowbane's war status is decided by the players rather than the game company. Whether a guild city goes to war with another guild city is entirely up to the leaders. A government system is also implemented in the game. This ensures players are in total control of the Shadowbane world.
Though there are no quests in the game, Shadowbane features PVP, Nation, and Siege Warfare systems, offering players a wide range of in-game opportunities.
The first expansion, Rise of Chaos, was released on December 9, 2003. On December 7, 2004 the second expansion, Throne of Oblivion, was released.
There were five live servers in operation: Braialla, Mourning, Redemption, Vindication (loreplay), and Wrath. There was also a freely open Test sever which had increased experience and money gains, as well as other benefits, that were used both for players to test new character ideas and for the developers to test possible changes to the game. While it was a test server, it also held a large player base who simply enjoy the increased gains, and thus had all the siege warfare and pvp found on other servers, though it was often "wiped", or reset every few months.
After the relaunch of the game following the Shadowbane Reboot, it was believed there would be two servers: Malog and Saedron, however due to the size of the player base it was decided to add another server like Malog, Thurin. These servers will both use the Vorrangia mapset, however Saedron will use the Loreplay ruleset while Malog will use the unrestricted base ruleset.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Races
There are twelve races available in the game:
- Aelfborn (Half Elves)
- Aracoix (Flying Birdmen)
- Centaurs (Half man, half horse)
- Dwarves (Stonemen)
- Elves
- Half Giants
- Humans (Heirs of the All-Father)
- Irekei (Desert-dwelling Devilmen)
- Minotaurs (The Beast Men, creation of the elves)
- Nephilim (Flying demon-like creatures)
- Shades (The Pale Ones who are linked to the process of death, and have a gaunt, skeletal appearance.)
- Vampires (Powers and spells consume health instead of mana or stamina.)
Several of the races, Aracoix, Centaurs, Minotaurs and Vampires included could only be created by the player after a certain amount of game time had passed, up to 3 months for the more specialist races, Ubisoft and Wolfpack Studios have since released the game free on March 15, 2006.[3] and such restrictions have been removed.
[edit] Classes
There are four basic classes; Fighter, Healer, Mage and Rogue. Not all races may use every class. At 10th level, each character must choose to promote to a specific profession, such as a Ranger or Assassin. Two classes, Fury and Huntress, are for female characters only whilst the Warlock is for male characters only. Which professions are available are dependent on the race, gender and base class of the character.
In addition, each character can take up to four disciplines, from a list of over thirty[4], though like with Professions, access is limited by race, class and current profession. The level hard cap is level 75, and until level 70 the fourth discipline slot is locked.
[edit] World Maps
Shadowbane features a large world map, containing a large number of continents. Shadowbane's world map depends on the server. Most servers have a different map from each other.
Two of the most popular and commonly used maps are Aerynth and Vorringa.
Aerynth 
Vorringa
[edit] Loreplay Servers
While on most servers a player is permitted to enter any city across the world, except ones where the players guild or nation is an enemy, on special servers know as 'loreservers' the player is unable to join the guild or nation controlling the city unless their class or race meets the entry requirements of the guild. These requirements are based on the race, class, and gender(only for the Amazon charter) restrictions of the charter chosen to found a guild.. For example, the elven high court charter is limited only to elves and their magically created soldiers, the minotaurs, where as the holy church charter is for classes such as priests, prelates, and crusaders yet is open to multiple races.
[edit] Transportation
Throughout the Shadowbane world the player can interact with NPCs called runemasters, these NPCs allow the player to teleport him or herself to a number of different cities across the world, also scattered across the world map are runegates which a player can use to the same effect as a runemaster. There is also a fairly unique ability implemented in Shadowbane that healer based classes can access allowing one to summon, or transport, a player character to their location within only a few moments via a spell.
[edit] Revenue
Shadowbane is a free MMORPG, and the player is not required to donate money or buy anything in-game. Ubisoft uses an ad-based revenue generation system for this game consisting of short ad videos at game start, game close and character death. Ads played on character death are limited to no more than one instance in ten minutes.[5]
