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Special Sections: Gen Con '02 While at the GenCon GameFair in Milwaukee Wisconsin, we were able to steal Chris "Vosx" Mancil from Ubi Soft away from the Shadowbane booth for a short time to ask questions that have been on everyone's mind. Shoving a tape recorder in his face with the threats of Klingon Jail he relented and spilled to us.
Div: We want to ask some really hard questions to you regarding Shadowbane and what seems to be general topics on everyone's mind. So, how many beers does it take to get you drunk? Vosx: (laughing) I'd say about four beers and I get a pretty good start. Div: Shadowbane is currently in closed beta with new players being added weekly? Vosx: Yes. Div: One of the major updates that the fans that who have been following Shadowbane enjoy reading the War Journals that highlights significant events that occur during the beta. Will we see an increase in the number of reports in the future? Vosx: Yes we will, and not just from the battles. Div: Will we see an increase in the number of writers providing coverage with alternative views to the community? Vosx: Alternative views? Well we cover different parts of the game. Everything we release comes through me. All views are submitted as raw material to me, which is formatted and edited by me. I try to keep it in my viewpoint as unbiased as we can. We are going to start covering role-players, the economy, architecture, religions and a lot of different parts of the game such as buildings, management and all those other different areas of the game. That is hopefully going to go on until release. It's not just war, war is the cool part right now but we are going to start filling it out with other stuff. Div: What have been some significant obstacles during beta or the design process that have been overcome or what types of milestones in the development process have been reached? Vosx: Wow, good question that I can't answer, I'll have to find out and get back on that one. Div: A recent article on another game related site, reported that in Shadowbane players can gain experience through PvP much like Star Wars: Galaxies has planned. This subject seems to have vanished from discussions as of late. Will players gain experience through PvP in Shadowbane? Vosx: Right now, if you kill another player in Shadowbane, it gives you an experience point listing but it's a zero. But because the experience gain was so exploitable for fast leveling. That's a big issue we have to deal with and more than likely it will not be in final release. The other side to the question - is experience loss in PvP. It's all part of the death penalty balancing phase; a couple issues with the death penalty, which is one of the most important things we have to consider; is how much can you lose? Is it a lot or is it a little? Do you have full looting, do you not have full looting. How much of a hit, experience wise, do you have? Is it a lot or is it a little? Whether you have experience loss for PvP or not, is part of the death penalty. There is always a winner or a loser in PvP. So, how much downtime should you have? You want to have a system that makes death meaningful, but also not so restrictive that it can promote conflict because that's what Shadowbane is about. So, it has to be part of a bigger strategy to make people want to engage in conflict and yet, not be so hurtful that players become afraid to engage in those wars, causes and activities. That's a major part of what we are doing right now in the beta. Div: That's a big issue that we as players have had to deal with in all the other games of the past which has turned us off from PvP. Just because of the loopholes, the balancing, rebalancing and changing the rules. You are looking at all of that? Vosx: Right, PvP is always going to be a part of Shadowbane. It's a major part of why people want to play Shadowbane. It's why Wolfpack designed the game. You cannot have role-play without PvP. You cannot have a competitive environment without PvP, but it's not always one vs. one PvP. It is also group vs. group, it's also guild vs. guild, and empire vs. empire. How do we scale all that together to make it an effective system? Experience loss or gain is one of the issues we are going to deal with in the whole death penalty issue during balancing. Is it something that's necessary? Do we really want to have a player sit someplace where he can level all the way to fifty by killing other players? Dunno. [Bystander: "Yeah! Do it baby! Play to Crush!"] Div: Comparing the Arcane engine to other titles that are out or coming out, how easy is it to modify the game world with new titles sets, avatars, buildings? Will you be able to just drop new items into the game world at anytime? Vosx: Yes, we do that now in beta as a matter fact. We were about to drop an Elven city with new architectures and so forth into the beta world. I've seen it and it looks gorgeous. That's always been part of the game, as that will be a part of the feature characters program as well. A lot of things will make unique appearances in the game world over time. We do have that functionality. Tiles, like redesigning zones we will probably be able to do as well, I'm not sure on that specifically. On a scalable engine as far as adding new content to the world, that's what an MMO is about. We have to be able to do that. Our competitors now all have zones that never change. We will have things that possibly undead can take over, or zones will turn into Ice Worlds all of a sudden. That's part of Wolfpack's strategy. We've talked about taking entire worlds offline if they get conquered or destroyed. That's always a possibility. Wolfpack wants to do that. They are not afraid to alter the world in major ways, and we allow our players to change the world to by building cities or redesigning areas by placing buildings. That's something we want to be a big part in Shadowbane. The world is always evolving and changing. Sometimes we will do it and sometimes players will do it. Div: On play balance, it's often been said that leveling to the soft cap will not make a difference. During beta testing how has levels, items, organizations, or tactics played out during guild vs. guild and player vs. player combat? Is there an emphasis on specific classes uber class right now? Vosx: No, that's a good thing. Right now there are some classes that are a little powerful, like our Templar's kick ass with their melee and spellcaster's. But the nice thing about Shadowbane, which is what we are working on next, is that every class has really strong points. If you get a class to the soft cap you are going to have a pretty kick ass character. You do not want to face any forty of fiftieth level character from any class. If you are a Prelate your main focus is healing so you will never be a great combat character, but you will rarely die. Right now every class is pretty cool. I've asked this of Wolfpack, "which class I should play", or I've asked other players in the beta which class I should or not should play and they all say, "We really don't know as they are all kind of good." As to the other part of your question on the soft cap, of course levels make a difference. If you have a guild that's 70 or 80 percent high level at the soft cap there is not only a difference in combat power which is noticeable, but also what kind of gold they can bring in. If you have a group of ten 50th levels they are going to bring in a lot of gold, equipment and items from big powerful monsters that a group of 20 or 30's can't do. But in combat, we have seen 20 and 30th levels beat the hell out of 50th levels. It can happen. So, it's not as important in PvP as it is in the other parts of the game, which is resource gathering and management. Gold is a very important part of the game. Gold farming is important. We are seeing that getting to the soft cap is not the end all, but yes if you have a lot more people at a much higher level you will have a lot of advantages. It won't end the game for those at lower levels. They can compete. You don't have to be level fifty to compete. You can compete at 30 or 35. A level 35 against a two 50's it depends on what class but its going to be hairy. There are no sure wins in Shadowbane. A level 50 against a level 20 or a level15, yeah it's a sure win fight. It's not as big in Shadowbane as other games, if you're a level 35 or 40 character you always have a fighting chance if you do it smart. Next: Even more Questions and Answers! Discuss: That Bane thing continued!
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