 Mail List
|
Now you can get the news in your email, join today!
|
|
Flashbacks
|
|
On This Day In Gaming History...
| 2001, GameRifts.com (Hey that's us!) launches! |
| 2001, Vivendi Universal announces they will publish Dark Age of Camelot. |
| 2003, Another hit to the Shadowbane game by Ubi when "The Covenant of Swords" guild announces they are departing the game due to numerous game issues. |
|
|
Donation Fund
|
Show your support for this site, donate to the cause! Learn more.
|
|
|
Special Sections: Shadowbane Related
|
Shadowbane Divided - Deyth of The Combine (04-06-02)
|
Note: This Article originally appeared on The Combine guild site and is reprinted with permission from the author.
Today it was announced that the 3 publishers, Ubisoft, Swing, and Entranz, will be enforcing their region's residents to play in only that region. That means if you live in Europe, you can only play on Swing's servers. Unless you have a credit card with a billing address in North America you can't play in North America, and so on.
Why you might ask? It's pretty obvious. The majority of MMOG gamers are in the United States, the North American servers will certainly be the most active. If someone in Europe could buy the game and open up an account with Swing yet choose to play on Ubisoft's servers, Ubi would be paying the hardware and bandwidth costs for someone who isn't providing them with monthly revenues. On the other hand, if someone in Europe could buy the North American version and open an account directly with Ubisoft, Swing and Entranz would lose a large amount of money because that's what almost everyone would do.
Whose fault is it? I don't blame the publishers, they're looking out for their own interests as is proper. Wolfpack made 3 separate deals with three separate publishers, they brought this upon themselves. Their very first game is going to be a flop because of it. Did they do this on purpose? Not likely, but it doesn't change the end result. In striving to keep their future game alive they've ended up dooming it.
Why is this such a big deal? Shadowbane is a guild-based game, most MMOG's are. A very strong majority (I'd guess 90%) of all guilds have a global mix of members. Splitting up a game by regions would divide the guilds and in some cases shatter them. We play MMOG's not just for the competition but for the community. These worlds we play in expose us to people we'd probably never meet in the normal course of our lives. They are our friends, our rivals. The internet is supposed to bring people together, not drive them apart.
Is there a solution? Drop two publishers and leave just one that can handle everything globally. Too many hands in the pot ruin the soup. Have no doubts, it's ruined. Shadowbane didn't even have to be the best game ever to be a success, its hype and the dedication of the fans would've insured that. Yet in one day it has all changed. Will it get resolved? I hope so. If not then we will go elsewhere, Asheron's Call 2, Star Wars Galaxies, and World of Warcraft are coming out around the same time, we will be alright. We've waited this long.
Combine and I will never play a game that separates us, no matter how good the game might end up to be. I know we're not alone.
To discuss this article, go here.
|
|
Contests
|
Name The Game
Join us every Thursday night as we play, "Name The Game" on RadioGameRifts, where we play a music track from or for an MMO game.
|
Hosting Services
|
|
|
Advertise
Back
Top
