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Special Sections: Shadowbane Related
Note: This Article originally appeared on our Shadowbane Affiliate Site, Aerynth Atheneaum
So whatever happened to Shadowbane? I mean seriously, do you remember back about 16-18 months ago? Neither do I, but I am being told that there was quite the media blitz put on by WolfPack and the crazy kids who have never played an MMOG regarding this very game. In the past four months I have heard exactly jack and shit about Shadowbane. I think they came out with some screenshots or something about a month ago, but you know what? Even I can make a screenshot these days, and I am a moron. So lets speculate and dribble out opinions on what is happening with Shadowbane. Why? Because fact-finding is hard and tedious, and I have neither the time, nor the inclination to care enough to actually search for facts. So I am going to make stuff up. Cool? Yes.He does exactly that. I’ve been a reader of The Chosen for too long. Watts is a damn good writer, but his rant cover’s items that are, two years late! He goes over all the same stuff which we have all read about. It’s not even worth reading. If you’re going to Rant about Shadowbane, Rant about items that the Shadowbane Players are concerned about. It’s really not hard. I’ve taken it upon myself to write a real rant about Shadowbane. I’ve done little to no research nor do I follow an outline and most important I’m not a Ranter, and look forward to Shadowbane! Read The Chosen’s Rant. Read My Rant. Thanks. Have a Nice Day. Beginning of the end? The year is drawing to a close with a month to go, and still we wait for Shadowbane. I've recently been scaring the hell out of folks who know me with my moments of lucidity as I have thoughts of real possibilities. I have to ask, "Are we seeing the end of Shadowbane?" For most of us with a New Year coming, we have been waiting for Shadowbane for four years now. Sure we had a year set back with the whole GOD Games thing and were expecting to be paying monthly charges for the game by now. Then UbiSoft became our savior, and we are looking forward to seeing and playing Shadowbane beta soon (how many times have we heard this), and owning our very own copies in the first half of the New Year. But, are we seeing the end to all that we hoped and expected. Many of us have been here before and have seen it all unfold before us, is it about to unfold before our eyes yet again? Is UbiSoft going to be the evil mega-corp that will dictate how the game will be played? Balancing, nerfs, issues that "Will be addressed by the WolfPack Team in the Next Update?" The Ultima Dragons had followed Richard Garriot religiously with the Ultima name. Ultima Online was to be, the be all end all, for many fans of the genre. Upon it's release it created a new market in computer gaming unseen in the mainstream. Sure, gaming was around but it was niche crowd of adults who would pay per hour to play. Electronic Arts destroyed Origin and everything that was originally promised in Ultima. Eventually Origin ceased to exist; Garriot had a nice buy out, and took a year off during which the most noted escapade was his diving off the Titanic, with a non-compete agreement for a year. Everyone knows the story of Ultima. Been there and done that. We moved on to EverQuest, Asheron's Call, etc et al. and watch many a Venture Capitalist, Mega-Corps and Entrepreneurs entering into the scene of what is and has been said many a time as the next big cash cow Online Gaming. Currently there are close to 27 Massively Multi-Player Online Games in Development, that I am aware of off the top of my head. Now we come to Shadowbane. It gives us the promise of true Guild vs. Guild Warfare. It tells us that we will be able to solo to a soft cap, that we will be able to pvp. It originally was catered to those who were banned from other games for what they enjoy. PvP. It was hailed by PK's who were told they could play to crush, instead of spending hours baking bread. It catered to a crowd that wanted to role-play whom would be able to without interruption by those who wanted to fight. Then we saw the changes. We see that those who don't role-play would be excluded from Featured Character Events in game. 
We were told the (I paraphrase here) playing to crush logo was retracted and should not have been used. To become: 
We have followed the changes from what was originally described as: Similar in style to "Diablo," the blockbuster game released last year by Blizzard Entertainment, Carnage.Net is a graphical adventure game in which players can explore, adventure, and have a good time humiliating people they have never met.To becoming: The game of Shadowbane takes place in a fantasy world known as "Aerynth." In crafting this world, Wolfpack Studios has created over five thousand years of recorded history, abounding with legends, epics, and tragedies.Which is a good thing, and gives us a rich gaming world thanks to the writings of Meridian in which to explore and interact with others, and we continue to salivate for more. We've seen it go from a few hundred followers to 5,000 registered fans on the official message boards. We now see the game under UbiSoft. We await UbiSoft to say, ok here are the NDA's, here are the CD's, come play the game we are hosting. We have yet to see rules to abide by. Costs. Customer Service Implementation. We have yet to know anyone from the Original C Beta List in game. Not to mention all the folks who have been awarded Beta Accounts over the past. The Shadowbane site was absorbed into the UbiSoft website, as a portal to play the game. A website, that right now takes longer to load then PlayNet. What does the future hold? Will we need to log into the UbiSoft Website to load the game and get patches? Will we see the Official boards by WolfPack eventually get killed, as Customer Service and the boards are taken over by UbiSoft turning into a "WhinePlay?" We've already seen Ashen post to us apologizing for the quiet time as they test the game; blaming Vosx for not keeping us updated on events. I've asked this question before publicly: "Why do we have three Community Relation Managers?" Who do we talk to about game issues? Is Billing and Customer Service strictly Vosx and UbiSoft, is Ashen from WolfPack only for game play Balance and Bugs? No clear answer has been given. What role does Zelnick actually do? Mails and messages to him, from me go unanswered (probably because of UbiSoft getting caught with its pants down at GenCon last year)? What started out as four guys who sold a company (Reliant Data) to make a game they wanted to play while the market is hot, because they were gamers, is slowly but surely turning into a business based on the root of all evil, money. They invested the money they had for selling their previous company to create a game they wanted to play. They catered to a niche market of gamers who wanted to play the same style of game they enjoyed. After four years of development that bottom line of dollar signs is no doubt hurting. Who are we to know, or question what type of licensing agreements they have? As long as they make a profit, gaining back their original investment and then some, do they care what the gamers think? In a year, or two years will we see a repeat of events? Will WolfPack with a game that is a smashing success sell out completely to UbiSoft as Origin did with UO, as Shadowbane competes head to head with World of WarCraft as Ultima and EverQuest did? We've watched the changes from the beginning, with some really great additions to the game we have been following the development of with religious zeal, but in the end upon commercial release, are we already seeing the Beginning of the End? So, next time you want to Rant, Rant about some Real Issues relating to Shadowbane, and not stuff two years old. K.Thnx.DrvThr. Discuss: In this handy thread provided by The Chosen.
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