Review of free MMORPG: Shadowbane

[phatj]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to encourage people to check out shadowbane. I've never reviewed a game before, so here's an amateur attempt.

Cost: Download is free from shadowbane official website. Its about 1gb. You get shadowbane and all the expansions. There is no monthly fee, and no items to purchase using real money. Its as free as it gets.

Fun: I've really enjoyed playing this game for the past week. It's your basic fantasy-based MMORPG with, in my opinion, some cooler features.

--Character creation: You get to choose between like 8 races and I think 12 classes to play. The standard warrior or wizard, barbarians, the stealthers like scout/ranger/assassin/nightstalker, other neat casters, hybrid fighters, healers... One thing I really like is that there is a HUGE variety of things to be and things to do. And, after you pick one of your 12 classses (which you choose after lvl 10), you can choose different 'disciplines' within your class which opens even more skills/abilities.

Gameplay: The game is your basic kill, get xp, kill, xp, etc. Leveling is much faster than it is in WoW or DAoC. If you are good you can get to the highest lvl, 75, in about a week (or faster if you play constantly). It's a lot of fun. At the higher levels, perhaps after lvl 40, PVP is a huge aspect, as more than half of the world is PVP zone (as well as PoE zone; they are one and the same in many areas). You can build a town with your guild, siege cities, or just level ur guy up to 75 in the peace of PoE. Did I mention its free?


Anyways, there are 4 different servers I think. Each server has a slightly different mapset. This is a real fun game, I got my 2 roommates and 2 of their friends to play after they saw me playing. DID I MENTION THIS IS COMPLETELY FREE?




LINK FOR LAZY

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If you are looking for a place to download the Shadowbane client, you can get the PC version from FilePlanet, and the Mac version from FilePlanet! While these version may be labeled "Free Trial", they are full versions of the game client and any active accounts can be used to play using them.

2nd edit No credit card is even required for installation or playing. Reigstration with ubisoft is much the same as registration with AT. No credit card, just email/username/password, then start playing.

Like i said, completely free, give it a chance at least eh?
And it seems the hacks/cheats were fixed.

 

[zerocool84]

You review it but no link for the lazy??? Also I see the free trial but not the game as free, it shows $14.99

 

[mb]

All I see is a 15 day free trial... whoop-dee-doo..

http://www.shadowbane.com/us/FreeTrial.php

 

[phatj]

linkified -- may state free trial, but it is completely free.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Best graphics of any MMORPG, IMO. They're more realistic than cartoony.

Some really cool features that can add a lot of interest to gameplay like flight (built in for some races and a spell for some classes) and city building/sieging. Severe bugs early on mostly sank it though......crashes during big fights, exploits around downtime maintenance, etc. I loved that there were no quests or raids. But this is probably the most one dimension of the MMORPGs and is almost entirely populated by PvP guilds so it's very much a blender of dysfunctional nerd loners.

When it first started, almost everyone I knew from UO was playing it and we were all bumping into each other. Within a few months we were mostly gone. UO had the same open PvP, but 9x more content besides it to engage in.

 

[Bateluer]

I played Shadowbane a while back, technically, it was the first MMO that I played. I had a lot of fun with it, but that was in part because I didn't know what other fish were in the pond, as it were.

All there is to do in SB is kill monsters to level and engage in PvP, though there are a lot of aspects to PvP that they added. There's no quests, no raids, no crafting. While the world itself has a very indepth and interesting lore, none of it comes out in the game because the only NPCs are vendors and trainers, which don't really talk.

As HeroOfPellinor says, there were a lot of bugs and issues, as well as crippling lag. Siege battles entailed both 'armies' massing near the target city until the lag spike hit, then whomever was left standing was the victor. Had they fixed these issues, Shadowbane would have been a lot better game.

The visuals were solid for its time, 4 years ago, but today, they are fairly pathetic.

 

[Malladine]

so it's fun or no?

 

[skace]

Fun for a month . Not sure about the freeware environment though, I played at retail.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Malladine
so it's fun or no?

Group fighting is a lot like UO, where you are all throwing the kitchen sink at whatever mobs threaten you or the group.....as opposed to the rigid tank/healer/nuker routine in most other MMORPGs where you're just a cog in a machine. Sure the melee classes are in closer and the spellcasters are off a bit, but everybody gets to lay some smack down.

It was a lot of fun at release, but, as I said, people wanting more than PvP soon filtered out of the player base and it ended up just hardcore PvPers who mostly have the personality of rancid grapefruits. As far as a PvP game, it may still be the best out as it's the one that requires the most player skill to be successful. The diversity you have with the combination of very distinct races and classes and specializations means you can really define a character.

 

[Malladine]

well alright, sounds like it might be worth a shot.

again, it's permanently free now??
must be tons of adds or something
mcdonalds and walmart in the cities ingame?

 

[Mem]

I played it last year up to level 20,was fun grouping and working up to that level,however once you go to PVP areas after became boring to me,not played it since then.

 

[Zolty]

I used to play in the top pvp guild on the deception server (from release). We had the entire server against us and held off of attach after attack. The one thing that broke our back? Duping. We were able to succeed because we could hit our enemies in the pocket book. When this strategy was no longer viable because of game glitches the numbers finally won out over strategy. I played expansion a little but it lacked a lot of the magic. I am hopful for the sequal though.

 

[gamepad]

hmm i guess it is free.. good find

 

[Frodolives]

Would someone please verify for me that "free" in this case also means no need for credit card registration? I'm assuming that's the case, but I became very wary of Ubisoft for what I consider deceptive practices in the early marketing of the game.

Like a lot of others I wasn't selected for the "real" beta, but once they were on the verge of launching the game, it seemed like everyone that had applied magically got the "congratulations (blah blah blah) you've been selected for the beta!" It was nothing but a means of requiring a bunch more potential customers to register accounts, including credit info.

I didn't bite, but an online friend signed onto this, and although he withdrew from the "beta" he still wound up being coerced into paying for an initial period that he never wanted, used nor intended to accept. We can only speculate whose fault that was, but in either case, for the phoney beta scheme Ubisoft has forever earned my mistrust.

 

[phatj]

No credit card is even required for installation or playing. Reigstration with ubisoft is much the same as registration with AT. No credit card, just email/username/password, then start playing.

Like i said, completely free, give it a chance at least eh?
And it seems the hacks/cheats were fixed.

 

[AbAbber2k]

I play regularly. Use to play back when it was P2P. Left, came back, left again... now it's free... balance is better, more stable client. If you aren't looking for PvP don't bother. That's all there is to do after you've leveled (if you know what you're doing you can hit the max level in a day or two) besides gather resources for your guild (one way of which is through PvP). Anyway, I think it's great, but it certainly isn't for everyone. I'll give it up like THAT when Darkfall or Warhammer come out though.