[h1] System Message of the Day 2001081101
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Welcome To Shadowbane
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[b] If you are playing on windows 10, please take a moment to navigate to the install directory, right clicking "Shadowbane_C", switching to the compatability tab and setting it to windows 7 and enable Override DPI settings. It will save you a headache when configuring the game. [/b]
[spoiler] In the same folder run "SBConfig.exe" click the display tab. Set resolution drop down to custom and fill in the height x width with your monitors resolution. Some may cause crashing due to the fact that this is an ancient game that requires esoteric knowledge to comprehend and the UI absolutely hates anything above 900p. [/spoiler]
[b] In the Shadowbane folder open up the folder called "Skins" follow this link https://seandahlberg.com/shadowbane-vault/shadowbane-minimal-skin/ download the file and drop the zip into the skins folder. DO NOT UNZIP! Once in game after character creation, hit escape, click settings, click skins, activate meekskin. Hold Shift while right clicking windows to drag the UI elements to desired areas. [/b]
With all that info out of the way. Shadowbane is a PVPVE MMORPG tab target walking simulator. Did you play it in 2005-2009? Then you'll probably like it. If you didn't then you won't. A game like this is hard to review. There are 12 races, 4 basic classes, 22 prestige/advancement classes and about 40 disciplines to tweak and customize those builds. There are no quests, so gameplay is simple. Click the thing, kill it, repeat until you have enough gold to make a guild and start a nation, or be absorbed into one. This rerelease has no roleplay server so you won't have players running around giving you quests or hiring you for a tracker while they farm. This release is pure exploration and hoping you don't run into one of the 40 bot squads you'll see. It also doesn't suffer from the absolutely stupid additions of the emulator. Changyou Shadowbane, or Steambane as the community calls it, has the default XP values of the pre Throne of Oblivion expansion servers (Prior to Redemption, Mourning, Braialla, and Vengeance) instead of higher than test server XP. There is also no noob island PVP zones, or bounties added by the emulator, which were okay. The other benefit of Steambane is there isn't some guy who's friends with a mod looming over you constantly to "discipline" your account if you gank them in a fair 1v1. So that's the major positive.
Under normal circumstances I would without a doubt recommend this release, especially if you're interested in a piece of MMO history. However Changyou has added a cash shop which is albeit harmless outside of locking a single quality of life item behind a paywall. Everything else is earnable by farming, but that brings up the second problem. The Keycloning and swarms of bots. On the first server, Gungnir I took a few screenshots of at least 70 bots all formed up in one of the starter cities. Now on the Gram server its interesting, there are bots that are always in squads of 2. You can spot them pretty easily by their guild and nation. Its a red crest with a lion. Here's where it gets interesting. These bots have a unique behavior of traveling to and from several discipline farming spots at their exact respawn times. How do I know this? Well while farming Vesset Fens I observed this behavior 3 times. At the exact moment while I was farming nearby waiting for gladiator disc to respawn. 3 times, 3 different teams of the same nation, of similar 4 letter names showed up at the exact same time. Now one might say that's a coincidence but its not because one of their members was using an AOE hitting their own team mates. They didn't go after me. They took the drop and left and I have observed this behavior in at least 2 other areas. These bots exist due to Changyou inventing an invitation system. See you get gifts when you invite friends to play the game and when they reach certain levels. The other issue is guild seeds being purchasable with cash. Due to that, 2 of the 3 servers(Gungnir, Mjolnir) are on complete lockdown as it seems in Steambane there is no hard limit on total controlled cities due to the 90 USD guild seed. So with those things I can't recommend it. Especially at 10.99.
It's crazy. Shadowbane went from a subscription, to buy once, to Ads on death. It came out in 2003, its last expansion december 2004. It shut down may 1st 2009 and players were only given 2 weeks notice. It revived in the form of an emulator with some of the most oppresive moderation I've ever seen in 2011 which shut down twice, Magicbane came out, allowed seasons but had rampant cheating, and now there's Changyou Shadowbane. I applaud them for letting me re-experience one of the most important games of my childhood, but don't play this. please.
I am convinced steambane is a money laundering scheme. Because there's no way those bots are the same players just buying the game and using such advanced macros. Since the average person can't multibox due to them changing the exe in a way that it won't launch if the main folder is open or if SB is already running. Every player that does not have a second set up to recruit themselves and customize a macro is at a severe disadvantage, making the game ultimately pointless to play. It is another example of pay for advantage in the PC landscape of gaming.
I rate this game Why are we still here? Just to suffer? Out of 10
