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Shadowbane

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Shadowbane
Developer(s)Formerly Wolfpack Studios, Currently Stray Bullet Games
Publisher(s)Ubisoft
EngineArcane Engine
Platform(s)Windows, Mac
ReleaseMarch 25 2003; defunct as of July 1, 2009.
Genre(s)MMORPG
Mode(s)Multiplayer

Shadowbane was a free 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 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. It closed on July 1, 2009.

Shadowbane was a top-10 best selling PC game at launch, and was noted for two things. First, the majority of the game world allowed for open Player-vs-Player combat, making it an early pioneer title in the PvP MMO genre. Second, it was the first major MMO to offer dynamic world content as a primary feature of the game. Most MMOs (such as Everquest) are static, meaning the world itself does not change based on player actions. Dynamic worlds allow player to change the game world itself; morphing terrain, building and destroying buildings and fortifications, and setting up patrol paths for player-hired AI combatants. The game was considered a "cult hit" and continues to sustain a small base of followers, but technical issues plagued the game at launch and failed to retain much of the early fanbase shortly after launch.

After the sale of Wolfpack Studios to Ubi Soft in March 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 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 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 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. [1] All player characters and cities were deleted in this reboot. On March 25 2008, the 5th anniversary of the game's launch, two servers were brought online followed by a third due to overpopulation.[2]

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.

On 17th April 2009, it was announced that Shadowbane would be shutting down its servers as of 1st May 2009, however petitions were started by Shadowbane fans to keep the game from the announced shutdown, and due to support and enthusiasm of the remaining player community, on 29th April 2009, it was announced that Shadowbane shut down would be postponed till 1st July 2009.[3]

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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]

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.

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.

Expansions

These expansions, due to the change from a pay to play revenue scheme to a free revenue system, are free and able to be downloaded from the chronicle website.

  1. Rise of Chaos (December 2003)
  2. Throne of Oblivion (December 2004)

Servers

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, three servers were brought online: Malog, Saedron and Thurin. Saedron will use the Loreplay ruleset while Malog and Thurin will use the ARAC (All Races All Classes) ruleset.[4][5]

Loreplay Servers

Contrary to the ruleset of the "ARAC" servers, where a player's characters are permitted to join any guild regardless of its charter race, class, or gender, a "loreplay" server does not afford the player this same flexibility. Instead, players are only able to join a guild based on that guild charter's race, class, and gender requirements. This is accomplished through the use of game mechanics rather than a community effort as had it had been attempted previously with the official roleplay server, Mourning. The design of the "loreplay" servers were intended to provide a certain segment of the player population with the added challenge that these restrictions presented over that of the "ARAC" servers.[citation needed]

World Maps

Shadowbane features a large world map, containing a large number of continents. Shadowbane's world map varies by server. Initially Aerynth was the map for all the servers which were created at the games release. A few months after release the Dalgoth map was released on two servers, Corruption and Vengeance. The final map to be added to the game was the Vorringia map. After the reboot, Vorringia is used on all servers exclusively.

File:Aerynth.jpg File:Dalgoth.jpg File:ShadowbaneVorringia.jpg
Aerynth Dalgoth Vorringia

Characters

Races

There are twelve races available in the game:

Several of the races, including Aracoix, Centaurs, Minotaurs and Vampires, 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.[6] and such restrictions have been removed.

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[2], 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.

Revenue

Shadowbane is now a free MMORPG. 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.[1]

Closure

ShadowBane was set to close its servers on May 1 2009.[3] Shadowbane is now closed.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b http://chronicle.ubi.com/newspost.php?id=17756
  2. ^ http://chronicle.ubi.com/newspost.php?id=18503
  3. ^ http://chronicle.ubi.com/newspost.php?id=18535
  4. ^ http://chronicle.ubi.com/newspost.php?id=18500
  5. ^ http://chronicle.ubi.com/newspost.php?id=18503
  6. ^ http://chronicle.ubi.com/newspost.php?id=15088
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