The game's Lore while encouraging at first is very much a non-entity. Recently there have been Lore events happening, but generally there is little encouragement to stick to the Lore or role-play in the game. As with much of the game, there was so much promise that has not been fulfilled.
This is a game for only the most patient of computers users. If you can deal with frequent crashes, no access to the game, immature bored pkers and little content then this is the game for you. Ubi-soft's customer service is atrocious and very French. In game reports of bugs, cheating and abuse are frequently totally ignored. Some players have lost their characters for weeks on end with little or no feedback. There is little or no communication between the developers and the players, although this has been getting a bit better of late.
I have to admit there were times when SB was lots of fun but this was probably less than 50% of the time. The rest was made up of frustration, anger and angst. The way the game stands now, I cannot see anyone playing it for more than 2 months (initial purchase month + one subscription month). Shadowbane may be a great game in by the time it hits the six month mark. Of course, there is also a possibility (and some hints that) Ubi has cut their losses with the game and won't support it much longer.
In short, Shadowbane had so much promise but has failed to deliver on oh so many levels. It is a great shame to see this happen to such a neat concept. No matter how you look at it, its ?pay to play? beta.
My thanks to Snood, Dabo and Savah for their help along the way. Savah help me join not one but two guilds. The female centaur included me in a small number of characters that she took with her to her new home.
Rating: 2.5
Article comments
1 - Bailey
I agree 100% with this. Sadly a sucide bomber has a better chance of living than one of ubi/wp customers getting decent let alone good customer service. The game is o should still be in beta, I guess thats why the asian market is still not charging their customers.
2 - jazz
Sorry you had a bad experience. You should have taken your own advice and gotten yourself on an interesting server then writing this review. As it stands, your review just sounds like a whine. You obviously haven't had a chance to play on a "competitive" server.
3 - Marty Dodge
And you comment jazz just sounds like a fanboi response. I played mostly on one of the better servers in fact: Chaos.
I notice you attack me personally and ignore all my comments about the technical problems with the game. Do you deny they exist? Or is the unreliability and bug-fest acceptable to you?
BTW I never said I had a bad experience. A decent amount of my time playing SB (when I could get on) was jolly good fun. I based this review on my experience and those of others who I have talked to, playing on a variety of servers on both Mac and PC.
4 - Chris W
I am in, or was in, an uber guild. I was on the side that almost always won. However, I totally agree with EVERYTHING mentioned in this article especially the part about quiting after 2 months. I subscribed for 3 months and still have 2 months left but already cancelled. I'm just sick of the errors, shitty support, lag, server downtime, and lack of customer support. Bye Shadowbane.
5 - Marty Dodge
Its amusing to see the fanbois and some of the moderators on the SB boards do amazing machinations to defend the poor product that is Shadowbane. BTW it will shock no one to hear the servers are acting up again this weekend. No access, several servers have crashed during prime time...etc.
6 - Tim Hall
Has anyone ever succeeded in producing a MMORPG without the hordes of PKing munchkins? Until that day, I'm sticking to human-moderated text-based games.
7 - Austin
well, first I have to say this comment is entirely arbitrary and based on my own experience on just one server.
The bugs, lag, server problems, etc can't be denied.. generally (if you can get in) you don't have many problems.. but the massive seiges are a joke. especially in a game where the heart of it is supposed to large guild vs. guild battles, it's frustrating to not even be able to play through such a seige without getting booted three or four times. as far as PK griefers, I have to say I never had much of a problem with them.. they were annoying when I was a newbie, but as soon as I joined a guild, the griefers disappeared and PK'ing in the game turned into something akin to organized warfare.. which was for the most part enjoyable, and would've been 10x more so if it hadn't been for the lag and sb.exe errors. you can't say that seiges are unbalanced.. the attacking force always wins? not when the defenders outnumber them... I've been on plenty of raids that got wiped out by a larger force of defenders. I have to admit walls and guards are pointless.. guards need a much better AI and serve only to slow down attackers while the defenders organize their forces; walls are a joke, thanks to group flight. beyond that, what it comes down to is who has more people and, to a smaller extent, how well organized and how good at PK'ing each force is. the guards and walls at least give the defender a little time to gather together anyone they have available to fight.. once the attackers get within the walls and confront them, it's only a question of who has more people.
Overall, I had a fun time; it was a good couple months, and I don't regret buying the game.. but then there are games I've stayed with for a year or more, and this one just doesn't compare.
8 - Abirab
Yep, totally in agreement. All the hopes I had of some interesting politics and siege warfare... PFFT. I'll leave the technical issues out of it, there's too many to count. Politics turned out to be about as efficacious as trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic; siege warfare was only amusing up until most of the forces went "poof". Even until then, unless you're at *least* R4, you're either a summon bot in my chosen profession or the groups are so poorly organized (i.e., there's no truly efficient way for leaders to communicate in game) that there's often a billion healers in a single group not healing anyone except those lucky enough to sprint back to the Tree and yell "HEAL!".
In short the game and its players really need to grow up before this is going to be what it promised to be.
9 - lplimac
Thank you for saving me the $37 on a game that would frustrate me to no end. *sigh* guess I'll wait for WoW.