A free MMO that's actually good? No fucking way!

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Shadowbane (http://chronicle.ubi.com/)

Edit: How could I forget to include that?

AVAILABLE FOR MAC TOO!

For all my fellow Mac-users, you need to download Safari Enhancer and set "Safari should identify itself to websites as" to "IE 6 for Windows" and Fileplanet should load correctly (I tried it with Firefox and it didn't work either).
Downloading it now:boink:

Safari Enhancer: http://www.celestialfrontiers.com/safari_enhancer.php

Thanks ahaga!

IMPORTANT
Also, I should mention that once you've created an account on the site, you also have to subscribe to the game. There's no fee unless you upgrade the account, but you won't be able to play the game until you've added it in your profile.

I'm sure some of you will have bad things to say about this game, such as the graphics or how you simply didn't like it. Well, I'll tell you right now, Fuck off. This thread isn't for you.

This is my little treat to you guys this month. Shadowbane is a pretty great game. It gives the player a large selection of races and classes to choose from, the grind can hardly be called a grind, and the PVP system appears to be fairly polished.

I'll warn you now, you WILL get ganked in this game, and it WILL suck. That's what I love about it. There's actually a reason why you want to avoid dying instead of a small xp loss. Everything you're holding that isn't equipped is dropped where you died, your equipment takes a hit to durability, and you also lose some of your xp (you can't delevel, don't worry). But, even at a low level, there's a few skills you can utilize to help you survive.

As for the various abilities you can gain... You're able to hide as a rogue, which is REALLY nice. While hidden, you can't be targeted, but some classes are able to expose you. As a thief, you can steal from other players, which I totally intend to do. Some races are able to fly, while the vampire race can drain hp from his enemy.

I mentioned the leveling, and it is FAST. There's no real "max level" in the game, but there is a soft cap (level 75). I've read that it's quite possible to go from level 1, all the way to 75 within a couple days. Or, if you're like me, you could simply enjoy the game. I'm level 27 now, and I've been playing for just a few days.

The game definitely focuses around PVP and the community. You're able to build towns, and even lay siege to towns. You can play the role of a damage dealer, or a buffer/debuffer in group pvp. Already, I'm seeing a few possible tactics for killing players, such as laying an ambush with several invisible players, or simply using a rogue (who can run quickly) to lure another player into an ambush. Alternatively, you could use a flying character to rain arrows on a fighter.

We're on the Wrath server. Let me know if this game ends up being your kind of thing. We could group up sometime.

If you've decided to download the game, read on!

Things can get a bit confusing in this game, but all of the basic things you need to know will pop up in the form of buttons on your screen. Click those, and read it. The information is very useful.

The interface, as someone mentioned, was a bit clunky at first. Luckily, about everything on your screen can be changed and moved around. You can choose the windows you want on screen under escape -> windows, I highly suggest trying the status bar in place of the health and mana borders. To move around the windows on screen, simply hold shift, and click them.

If you're like me, you prefer a higher resolution than the default. Let's face it, having the interface being smaller and more streamlined really helps. When you first start the game, at the update screen, you can choose the game options. Increase the resolution a bit, it helps a ton. Also, turn off the player lights and dynamic lighting (you can change this in game if you prefer), it helps frame rate a ton.

As you start to get the hang of things, you might want to change the hot keys, which you can do from the escape menu. But there's a much simpler way to do this, simply click on the proper button for the action you're trying to bind while holding the ctrl key. You can bind a key from there. I changed attack from ctrl-a to just A for example. I also have my retreat skill set to the tilde key.

As for the rest, leveling up and avoiding PKers:

Level up in a party WHENEVER possible. The experience isn't split between players, everyone gets the maximum amount. The only exception to this is when you first start off. The first couple levels are best played alone. The main downside to leveling in a party is the fact that drops are simply first come first serve, money is split equally though.

Experience gain is based on two things: Your level, and the enemy's level. Every level has a maximum amount of experience you can gain, so that you can't join a party killing level fifty enemies while you're still level ten, and get 200k experience from each mob. (On the other hand, if said party is efficient, it should still be faster gain than leveling by yourself). If an enemy's level is much lower than yours, you gain less experience, but it never drops below 1 point (whoopty doo! I need about 5 million xp to level now).

When it comes to PKers, it's quite simple, strength in numbers. Having a scout with you is invaluable, since they can track players AND detect invisible players. Scouts are a popular class because of this. If you're playing as a rogue, you can use sneak to travel around and avoid PKers, but you move slower. If you're facing a PKer, then they're most likely going to win since they focus on killing other players, while you're focused on doing whatever (My thief is focused on stealing instead of killing). The best thing to do, is avoid PKers in general. Hotzones (you'll find out what I mean) are common PK grounds, as are places close to cities and high level areas. Traveling to a zone far away takes time, but you're less likely to see other players.

[navid]

im downloading it now, well im waiting in gameplanets big ass waiting line, hopefully its good :)

[Slick37c]

I'm interested, will be downloading this tonight... I'll create a character on Wrath and maybe you guys can show me the ropes. (cough give me money.. cough.) lol

[ahaga]

and its for macs!:D

[Entropy]

hmmm, looks pretty good. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before though. Did it open recently or has it been a free mmo for a while? And is the community friendly and thriving?

[Fungus Amungus]

When the game first released it had MAJOR bugs both technically and graphically. The game lose customers from day one. Now over the years it probably has changed, but the game never recovered. Ubisoft has been talking about pulling the plug on the game since they're not getting much profit from it.

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Which would suck, since it's awesome.

I'm not sure about the community. I could see how many of the bigger aspects of the game (siege, player towns, and pvp) would require an organized effort, so I'd assume the community is pretty decent. But, with the open PVP, you're gonna find players that just enjoy the gankage for the sake of ganking. At the same time, getting to the point where you can pick on the level 20's shouldn't take long anyways.

[PsiRedEye22]

It's impossible to get a leg up in Shadowbane. It went the way of Everquest, and simply isn't new-player friendly enough to spark much interest at all.

Anarchy Online is still probably the best free MMO for new players.

[Zero-Man]

Il dl it, wanna make a Ebaums guild : D totaly pwn the other ones... or just have a bunch of shadowbane noobs :(

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

It's impossible to get a leg up in Shadowbane. It went the way of Everquest, and simply isn't new-player friendly enough to spark much interest at all.

Anarchy Online is still probably the best free MMO for new players.

Impossible? I haven't had a problem yet. Of course, I'm still fairly low in level.

It might also be the class I chose along with my style of play. I'm hidden 95% of the time when hunting. I'll find a spawn of a monster that's alone and spawns fairly quickly. Sneak, backstab, finish off, repeat. And I'm going to try to get the bounty hunter discipline for the tracking ability, so I can see if anyone's close.

So far, I've been ganked twice. Both times were yesterday, and it was over a period of five hours or so. Not too bad.

[PsiRedEye22]

Don't get me wrong. If you guys can stick it out to level enough to a decent level, I will totally reactivate my account. Until then though, it'll be on the back burner, anxiously awaiting Age of Conan and Huxley.

[faith]

I tried it before, it looked like a decent game but it was very glitchy. When ever I moved the camra or moved the char part of the screen would turn black.

[PattyWackit]

he said it was glitchy before and they fixed alot of the bugs
its at 57% for me, i'll try it out. I have only played wow for maybe 2 hours this whole week, soon i'll be done for good i think

EDIT: god damnit i accidentally closed it at 67% ill refucking download it later i guess... unless someone can send me the files instead of using horrible fileplanet

[ahaga]

goddamn looks like fileplanet is the only place to download the mac version

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Yeah, my room mate had some trouble getting it from fileplanet. He had to use some add-on for safari to get it to work properly.

Also, I should mention that once you've created an account on the site, you also have to subscribe to the game. There's no fee unless you upgrade the account, but you won't be able to play the game until you've added it in your profile.

[PsiRedEye22]

Ever since the upgrade to Throne, you have the game free forever without subscribing to anything. Did you have to subscribe? I just made an ubi clone account, and got Shadowbane for free without anything.

[Zero-Man]

Fileplanet is too slow, anyone know of any other sites to download this?

[ahaga]

try www.gamershell.com

[DrGyro]

now only if world of warcraft was free...

[Zuken]

i've played it before. it was ok i thought. Sword of the New World is way better imo. about the same gameplay, but with better graphics

[Daucus Karota]

Sword of the New World

New World:err:

can you play as an Aztec?


meh I looked it up
I hate the Japanese anime style Imagery

[Al Paccioli]

I've been looking for a good MMO, I'll check this out then.

[ahaga]

For all my fellow Mac-users, you need to download Safari Enhancer and set "Safari should identify itself to websites as" to "IE 6 for Windows" and Fileplanet should load correctly (I tried it with Firefox and it didn't work either).
Downloading it now:boink:

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Hey, can you provide a link for that? I'll update the first post.

[ahaga]

Safari Enhancer: http://www.celestialfrontiers.com/safari_enhancer.php

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Sweet, OP updated, thanks!

I've discovered something: If you've been out in the wilderness for awhile, and accumulated a nice sum of gold, it REALLY sucks to lose it all to someone killing you. If you can manage to log off before they attack, but long enough after you've last fought, you won't have to wait 60 seconds. Just play with a different character for awhile. If you log right back in, they might be waiting for you.

[Zero-Man]

I discovered this game isnt that fun... not fun at all

[Ado]

MMORPGs have stolen my early teenage life (12-13-14-15 years old). Never going to play one again, ever.

[bamboopro]

Anytime I try to patch, I get this error: ERROR: Server timed out! Does anybody know what the fuck is going on?

[n00b_rocket]

I clicked "Add Subscription" and it added one which included all the expansions, etc. However, it says I have an invalid username/password when I try to log into the game itself.

[n00b_rocket]

LOL I tried it again just now, turns out I forgot to capitalize a letter in my SN, so I'm the idiot.

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

I discovered this game isnt that fun... not fun at all

Not fun? I guess I could understand that. When I first tried it, I played for about 20 minutes, and turned it off, unimpressed.

After reading up on it a bit, I decided to give it another go. Things started to get a bit more interesting around level ten, and really exploded when I hit the mainland.

Just yesterday, I wanted to grab a skydancer rune for my room mate. I found out where I had to go, and what I had to fight for it, but when I got there, a level 53 aracouix (bird man) warrior was camping the spot. I knew I couldn't take the warrior, and if I killed the enemy before him, he'd simply ninja the item, or kill me for it. So I figured, well, I'm a thief, I can simply hide until the mob is dead and see if I can ninja the item from him, but he got the item first. So I resorted to my final plan, I simply stole it from his inventory. He didn't know I was there, and I was able to hide again quickly (you come out of sneak when you steal). He didn't even catch my name. Just said stuff like, "You're dead!", and "Give it back!". If he knew who I was, he would have sent a /tell. I just walked away in sneak mode.

A guy and I decided to create our own guild, and we have five people in it already. We're the Kleptos, and our motto is "Finder, Keepers." If you've joined the wrath server, send a /tell to Torl (TORL, that's me) or Vidura (the guy that co-founded the guild) when you hit the mainland. You'll get a group of decent guys that like to have fun, and we'll be able to level you up quicker. Our guild isn't exactly pvp, we simply encourage PK's for the purpose of personal gain. We're allied under Sea Dog's Rest right now, but intend to build our own little place later on.

[n00b_rocket]

We should make an EBWF guild.

[PsiRedEye22]

I was on Wrath, and seriously watch out if your guild gets too big. I was leader of a huge Aracoix-only fighter's guild. I had maybe 20 assassination attempts a day on my friggin' head.

[n00b_rocket]

lulz, I ain't gonna start the guild. I'm a level 7

[sKin]

This game wasn't very good...

The interface was really cluttered and confusing. There's no real tutorial in the beginning, no quest to start you off, they just drop you in a sandbox like a chicken with its head chopped off. The graphics are okay, but the combat and the combat system are just plain mediocre. I don't know, this game just had nothing special to it, although I did like the CG intro.

Meh game.

[n00b_rocket]

I'm withholding judgment until I get into the big PvP battles.

[PattyWackit]

i'm downloading now, i think im going with a rogue, i played one in WoW for a year so what the hell

[PattyWackit]

ok im level 7, i cant find the rogue trainer anywhere, where the fuck is he.. so far this game is annoying and confusing as hell, but the concepts sound awesome, hopefully shit gets better soon, in the "mainland" or whatever

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

This game wasn't very good...

The interface was really cluttered and confusing. There's no real tutorial in the beginning, no quest to start you off, they just drop you in a sandbox like a chicken with its head chopped off. The graphics are okay, but the combat and the combat system are just plain mediocre. I don't know, this game just had nothing special to it, although I did like the CG intro.

Meh game.


The interface is fully customizable. You can resize the majority of the windows, and move them around as you please.

There are buttons that pop on the screen to tell you what you're doing, and how to do it.

This game doesn't have quests. It's completely free form. Everything you do, you do for your own reason, or to help somebody else. I've done several "fetch missions" myself, for myself and other players. If a player tells you they're looking for a specific rune, you've got yourself a quest. The reward is a more powerful guild mate. If you prefer a quest that involves collecting a hundred stalker's skins, fifty bird talons, and twenty steel bars, than this game probably isn't for you (even though, you could do something exactly like that to improve your own town if you're building one.)

The combat improves with level. At level 1 as a warrior, you get to do pretty much what every level 1 warrior gets to do, click on an enemy and wait for them to die. Later on, the combat becomes reminiscent of Guild Wars. It takes a very short time to get to level 40, just a few days.

I'm not trying to be offensive, I'm just saying, give the game a chance. Get off of noob island, and find yourself a group to level up with. The beginning isn't very entertaining at all, but the game gets really deep later on. It allows you to play pretty much any way you want. Heck, the only thing blocking you from getting back to noob island after you leave it is a large stretch of open sea, you can actually swim back if you want, but it takes awhile, and you want to have an inventory full of stamina potions.

--------------------------

I did a bit of math, I estimate the entire game world to be somewhere between 25x18 miles and 30x22 miles. That's including the open sea though, about a fifth to a sixth of the world is actually land. So, the entire land mass of the game world on the Wrath server is roughly (at least) 75 square miles of open terrain, or 450 square miles for the entire world. For comparison, San Andreas had a game world size of about 17 square miles (not taking the water into consideration).

Pattywackit-

You don't specifically NEED a rogue trainer, depending on what you want to level up. All trainers will train you in the use of basic weapons and armor. If you intend to be a thief, a thief trainer will also be able to train you in everything a rogue learns, same goes for any class that has rogue as a possible sub class (ranger, scout, assassin, night stalker, etc.)

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

OP updated again, with useful information for newer players. If you're having trouble with the interface, you might want to read everything I added under "If you've decided to play this game, read on!"

[kazuri]

Any way to get this without subscribing to file planet?

scratch that, just saw the bittorrent post on their site.

[PattyWackit]

ok, i figured maybe since im level 7 and still clicking on things waiting for them to die, rogue trainers might have skills for me to use so i can kill shit faster, I'll try the game out more later tonight

[kazuri]

How the fuck do you change what controls movement? Ideally I'd like to be able to control movement with numpad and camera with arrows... but if I can get movement on EITHER it'd be much better than this mouse shit.

[JesusTheJedi]

Hm, maybe I'll try it later... I'm downloading Archlord right now, it's free too, so thought I'd give it a chance. I tend to trust your judgment though.

[PattyWackit]

now im starting to fucking hate this game, died 3 times in a row and have to fucking run so god damn far back, the controls suck ass... im giving this game like one more chance or im uninstalling it, It BETTER get good after level 10.. having a hard enough time getting to 8

[JesusTheJedi]

Alright, gave it a go tonight... Holy crap I see what you mean about the interface, pretty bad... The game is also incredibly difficult to get into, I have no idea what to do or where to go, so I just started killing stuff outside of town... The difficult start actually makes me want to go play WoW lol... But with all those little things I've noticed, I think that once you really get into it, it probably will be a ton of fun... It just seems so hard to get to that point.

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Yeah, the interface is the thing that hurts it most. Like I said, I put it down after twenty minutes too. But I came back, and played again. Having a friend to play with helped me get all the way to the mainland. It's definitely my favorite MMO I've played, which says alot since I generally hate the genre.

Adjusting the HUD to your liking will help, and the ease to set quick keys helps a lot as well. But you're going to be using the mouse to get around everywhere whether you like it or not.

Pattywackit's complaints strike me as odd, even with the first character I made didn't have that much trouble, and I played a rogue as well. Just find a couple players to group with, and you'll be off noob island within an hour.

-------------------

Last night, a guildmate and I went around the forest above Erkand and hunted the guys that were picking on lowbies. Kinda funny having a level 70 player that's targeting guys in their twenties talking about how we're cowards since it took two of us to kill him. :D

[PattyWackit]

well now im 12 and i guess i have to kill snow orcs or something til level 20? or higher, i was trying to solo things and then like 3 things would come attack me and i died, because 1) no health potions and 2) couldnt fly up or sprint away

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

I've been thinking about doing a dwarven healer/crusader. I'll roll one up when I get home, and try to catch up to help you out some more.

As for potions, keep in mind that this isn't a potion quaffing simulator. You can't drink them during combat. Instead, drink one between fights, and sit down to improve their effect.

You're a thief right? You probably aren't using throwing daggers yet. Try pumping backstab up a few notches, and BSing a few mobs. If you can get one away from a group, you shouldn't have a problem, and might be able to one-hit them. You won't need backstab for throwing daggers, which is probably the route you should take as a bird thief, but you can always buy the trainer points back later.

[Slick37c]

I just created a character on Wrath, very hard to get used to but I can see how it can be cool with the player cities and all. If anyone's gonna be on tonight let me know. AIM: Slick37c

[PattyWackit]

im level 27 now, i gotta go to the thief trainer and add some points and maybe i can actually kill shit, also can i buy like new daggers so i can possibly hit harder? and whats the deal with armor, just buy it from the merchant?

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

If you head to sea dog's rest, they sell some pretty great stuff there. But the majority of it requires your aptitude be at 100%.

If you have some spare trainer points, you can head to a player town called "1 scurvy trainers", and max whatever you want. It'll most likely be a wise idea to level up a bit first though, since if your level isn't high enough, the training can become expensive, fast.

Enemies also will drop gear on occasion, but when there's so many different weapon and armor types, it's pretty rare it'll be something useful for you. Still, you'll find something on occasion. Sea Dog's Rest has some pretty great gear to start off with though, just start pumping up daggers and light armor.

Finally, as a thief, be sure you're not spending points in strength or spirit, you won't need those at all. Max out your dex and con first, than finish off with int. You'll probably end up having a few spare points left over in the end, just save those. Heck, you'll know what to spend them on by then anyways.

[PattyWackit]

oh man i made a noob mistake lol. some dude in our guild was helping me kill trolls or something and a level 72 killed him and i flew away, i didnt know how to get back so i tried to purposely die but the mobs werent strong enough, so i took off my gear so i would die faster....... i didnt know that when you died you lose everything in your inventory :( haha oh well.. its a learning process

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Oh man, bummer. Yeah, you die, you drop everything in your inventory. If you want to suicide quickly, just sit down. You're extremely vulnerable when sitting (and as a thief, it's a good opportunity to gank another player). When you die, all of the equipment you're wearing takes a hit to durability, if the durability drops to 0, the equipment is destroyed, permanently. Make it a habit to check your equipment every time you get back to town. Just hit "E" and hover your mouse over the stuff you're wearing, if it's been damaged, repair it. Some stuff is damaged easier than other stuff, like my glass dagger, only has 16 durability, and I've seen it all the way down to 2 points.

Glad to see you're finally enjoying the game though. Just wait til you start hunting other players, or going on runs for runes. Good stuff. Having a guild there to answer questions and lend a helping hand really does wonders.

If I'm on tonight, I'll see if you're around. If I have some free time in game (no parties to level with, which is often at my level :(), I'll see about hunting down a skydancer rune for you. Also, avoid placing any runes you happen to find on your character (since I'm pretty sure they stick), until you know whether you really want it or not. The skydancer rune has a stamina recovery buff, which will do wonders for your flight abilities.

[Trenaur]

Shadowbane is a huge piece of shit. If you want to play a quality MMO, buck up and pay for it.

Well I guess if you like wasting your time on a piece of shit though, go right ahead and listen to what the OP says...

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

It's usually wise to back up a statement with evidence or information. I've tried several MMO's, paid for two of them myself, and played WoW on someone else's account; in my own opinion, Shadowbane is more enjoyable.

[GALLIENVS AVG]

Where can I download this? I can't find a link on the site, but I was in a rush. A link or help on how to dl would be helpful.:) And do I need to make an account somewhere, or something like that?

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

The link on the site goes to fileplanet, you can download it from there. All the pertinant information is in the OP (I tried to cover the basics, including registering).

If you're running on a Mac, definitely read the OP for help in downloading.

[PattyWackit]

I have WoW but I want to stop playing, so Im trying out other things in my free time, so im gonna keep playing this and see what its like once i am a high level

[kazuri]

dont use fileplanet, not only do you have to join them, its slow as fuk. There is a link on the page the OP posted that has the bittorrent file.

[sKin]

I used this link:

http://www.gamershell.com/download_12979.shtml

Much faster with no line.

[Quick_Draw21]

Ok its patching it right now. I'm going to make a human fighter on the wrath server named Percival, add me if there's a friends list.

Ok vista officially sucks. I cant't even play this fucking game, wtf?!?!

[sKin]

Okay, after giving this game another shot, I am safe to say it is made of FAIL.

The character creation is TERRIBLE. It's unintuitive, the races suck, there's only 4 classes, there's a horrible point system, and everything else about it is just plain ugly. The game itself isn't any better. The camera absolutely blows, the game's animation runs choppy even when the FPS is smooth, the mini-map is HORRIBLE, the community sucks, controlling sucks, leveling up is boring, and everything else is just plain terrible and done way better in other MMORPG's. Since there isn't any quests or storyline there isn't anything to keep you motivated and moving along, the skill system was executed poorly, the combat is boring to watch, you are frequently lost, and in the end it's sooooo plain and generic.

This game blows. I've played a ton of Free MMORPG's, I absolutely love the genre, but I can not recommend this game. Go check RF Online, it just went F2P, and it is miles better than this game.

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Okay, after giving this game another shot, I am safe to say it is made of FAIL.

The character creation is TERRIBLE. It's unintuitive, the races suck, there's only 4 classes, there's a horrible point system, and everything else about it is just plain ugly. The game itself isn't any better. The camera absolutely blows, the game's animation runs choppy even when the FPS is smooth, the mini-map is HORRIBLE, the community sucks, controlling sucks, leveling up is boring, and everything else is just plain terrible and done way better in other MMORPG's. Since there isn't any quests or storyline there isn't anything to keep you motivated and moving along, the skill system was executed poorly, the combat is boring to watch, you are frequently lost, and in the end it's sooooo plain and generic.

This game blows. I've played a ton of Free MMORPG's, I absolutely love the genre, but I can not recommend this game. Go check RF Online, it just went F2P, and it is miles better than this game.

There's only four classes, and there's twenty-two disciplines. There's a total of thirty-one possible class/discipline combinations. What's the difference between a class and a discipline? The class you choose (healer, rogue, fighter, mage) only lasts up to level ten, the discipline will determine the actual role of your character.

The character creation is unintuitive, I can agree with that. Hell, most of the game is unintuitive, it's simply difficult to learn. But the character creation system is also extremely extensive and flexible. You have MUCH more freedom with how you want to build your character than you do in many other MMO's, including WoW.

As for the races sucking, I couldn't say how. I mean, most of them are pretty standard, while a few others are unique. Some of them look pretty crappy, that I can agree with. The races are more varied than games like, I don't know, Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, and SWG to name a few.

Even if two characters are the same race, class, and discipline, they can be built in many completely different ways. A crusader could be built as a fighter, a tank, a buffer, or a healer, or a combination of any of those. I have a dwarf that I'm building to tank and group heal.

The animation does drop in quality at times. When the camera gets farther away from something, it's model quality and the frames in the animation both drop to improve framerate. Also, the framerate was never a problem on my PC once I had the mind to turn off heavy framerate hitters that don't improve visuals much, like dynamic lighting.

The camera is also pretty much like any camera in any game. You can move it around by holding the middle mouse button, and you can zoom it in and out, You can also increase or decrease the FOV. Anything blocking your view to your character also becomes transparent, but that can also become a problem if the object is also blocking your path in some situations.

Minimap? It's a minimap. What else do you want from a minimap? It shows you stuff. The game even provides you with a complete, and extensive, overworld map.

The community is, again, like many other MMO's. You have players that are completely uninterested in everyone else, and you have players that are more than willing to lend a hand. I find the latter more common.

The controls suck. Change them. Problem solved. There's an entire option in your menu for the controls. You must use the mouse to move around, no choice in that, but again, also something common in many MMO's out there, it's becoming less common nowadays, I'd prefer to be able to use the wasd keys to move though.

The leveling is the worst part of every MMO I've played. I hate grinding. If you want to kill desert crabs, or snow lizards, or angry chickens, or whatever, for twenty hours before you can move on. Sorry, this isn't your game. I'm sure you could easily find a Korean MMO out there that allows you to slaughter millions of slimes before you can use phoenix strike. If you're telling me you're having trouble leveling, I got from level 1 to level 27 in the matter of a couple hours. If you want to avoid the majority of the grind, and have loads of end-game content, than Shadowbane might interest you if you continue on.

There's plenty of quests, just no NPC's giving them. Hell, your first "quest" is actually given by an NPC, reach level 10. And, yet once again, I've played more MMO's that don't have a real story to them than ones that do.

Much of what you've said is from a person that has yet to experience the game. You can't plug in Morrowind, travel to Balmora, than quit and say it sucks. You haven't even experienced the game yet. You might not enjoy games that give the players the power over how your character and the world develops, and prefer the game to hold your hand the entire way. I don't. I prefer Zelda over Prince of Persia or God of War because Zelda allows you to decide where you want to go, both PoP and GoW are basically one dimensional in how you progress through the game, forward.

If you can't handle the appearance of the game, quit now. The graphics and animation won't get any better. If you can't handle having to spend time to learn the mechanics, you should also just give up and quit now. But if you're the kind of person that enjoys a deep game with a steep learning curve, such as Tribes 2 or Eve Online (you would probably hate both), then seriously, take your time and give it a chance.

Edit:

Ah, RF online. An incessant grind. Yeah, Shadowbane isn't for you. Try out progress quest. It takes out all of the tedium in an RPG. Or, if the pure tedium of RPG's is what you enjoy, there's also RRRRPG, which is the pure tedium without any pretty graphics to get into the way. Or, if you enjoy tedium and graphics, Flyff is also available.

[sKin]

There's only four classes, and there's twenty-two disciplines. There's a total of thirty-one possible class/discipline combinations. What's the difference between a class and a discipline? The class you choose (healer, rogue, fighter, mage) only lasts up to level ten, the discipline will determine the actual role of your character.

I'm not talking about the "disciplines", my gripe is with the core classes. They are generic, and are done far better in other MMORPGS.

The character creation is unintuitive, I can agree with that. Hell, most of the game is unintuitive, it's simply difficult to learn. But the character creation system is also extremely extensive and flexible. You have MUCH more freedom with how you want to build your character than you do in many other MMO's, including WoW.

I disagree. The game never explains what runes do for you and why you need them, why certain races cost points over other ones, what advantage certain "kits" have over others, what stats do for your character, etc. It's more trial and error then anything, and it turned me off from the get-go. And don't get me started at how ugly Dwarves looked. They absolutely KILLED the race.

As for the races sucking, I couldn't say how. I mean, most of them are pretty standard, while a few others are unique. Some of them look pretty crappy, that I can agree with. The races are more varied than games like, I don't know, Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, and SWG to name a few. Even if two characters are the same race, class, and discipline, they can be built in many completely different ways. A crusader could be built as a fighter, a tank, a buffer, or a healer, or a combination of any of those. I have a dwarf that I'm building to tank and group heal.

All of which have been done better in other games. There is just no reason to play this one.

The animation does drop in quality at times. When the camera gets farther away from something, it's model quality and the frames in the animation both drop to improve framerate. Also, the framerate was never a problem on my PC once I had the mind to turn off heavy framerate hitters that don't improve visuals much, like dynamic lighting.

I get smooth FPS, and the game is still UGLY as hell. It just seems... cheaply made. Good concept on paper, bad execution.

The camera is also pretty much like any camera in any game. You can move it around by holding the middle mouse button, and you can zoom it in and out, You can also increase or decrease the FOV. Anything blocking your view to your character also becomes transparent, but that can also become a problem if the object is also blocking your path in some situations.

The camera was really touchy/sensitive when I was trying to level. It was also horrid when you go indoors to by something.

Minimap? It's a minimap. What else do you want from a minimap? It shows you stuff. The game even provides you with a complete, and extensive, overworld map.

The mini-map in games such as WoW, FlyFF, RO, etc. are all very intuitive and allow for a head-ache free experience. Shadowbane's is poorly designed and looks like a tiny cluster of pixels on screen. And to make it worse it takes up like 10% of the top right of your screen. It's just downright ugly and doesn't help.

The community is, again, like many other MMO's. You have players that are completely uninterested in everyone else, and you have players that are more than willing to lend a hand. I find the latter more common. The controls suck. Change them. Problem solved. There's an entire option in your menu for the controls. You must use the mouse to move around, no choice in that, but again, also something common in many MMO's out there, it's becoming less common nowadays, I'd prefer to be able to use the wasd keys to move though.

Like I said, there are other MMORPG's better than Shadowbane. I'm not gonna make compromise after compromise trying to get into it. I asked repeatedly for help, for a group, anything (I was on wrath), and nothing came out of it. A french girl ran up to me and asked "do u america?" I quit soon after.

The leveling is the worst part of every MMO I've played. I hate grinding. If you want to kill desert crabs, or snow lizards, or angry chickens, or whatever, for twenty hours before you can move on. Sorry, this isn't your game. I'm sure you could easily find a Korean MMO out there that allows you to slaughter millions of slimes before you can use phoenix strike. If you're telling me you're having trouble leveling, I got from level 1 to level 27 in the matter of a couple hours. If you want to avoid the majority of the grind, and have loads of end-game content, than Shadowbane might interest you if you continue on.

I hate grinding as well - I hate it with a passion. I like games that not necessarily level you fast (whats the point of that?), but a game (like WoW) that progresses you through the game with quests as you continue leveling up. They give you a reason to play and motivation to do so. That is not found in this game.

If you can't handle the appearance of the game, quit now. The graphics and animation won't get any better. If you can't handle having to spend time to learn the mechanics, you should also just give up and quit now. But if you're the kind of person that enjoys a deep game with a steep learning curve, such as Tribes 2 or Eve Online (you would probably hate both), then seriously, take your time and give it a chance.

As I said before, I found nothing associating with goodness in the game, thus I had no motivation to continue on, so I quit. I don't like wasting time on something that doesn't deserve it - and when there are other better games to play. I was looking for another good MMORPG, was excited to play this game, and in the end it just failed for me. It just seems out-dated and... bad.

Ah, RF online. An incessant grind. Yeah, Shadowbane isn't for you. Try out progress quest. It takes out all of the tedium in an RPG. Or, if the pure tedium of RPG's is what you enjoy, there's also RRRRPG, which is the pure tedium without any pretty graphics to get into the way. Or, if you enjoy tedium and graphics, Flyff is also available.

Have you even played RF? I just hit level 10 doing nothing but quests. As I said before I hate grinding - and this game was nothing but that. Shadowbane was just another generic MMORPG getting an uninstall after a day of playing.

[Mr.SelfDestruct]

Well, instead of going through everything: I'll just nail a few points.

This game is seven years old, that's first and foremost. The graphics look dated, because they are.

The core classes are generic, that's the point. The disciplines you can choose from are what you actually become, and are what determine your class. The core classes simply point you in the direction. I'm a thief, not a rogue. Calling my character a rogue would leave it too wide open, am I a rogue assassin, barbarian, nighstalker? They all do different things.

What do dwarves look like? They didn't kill the race, they interpreted it on their own, you didn't like it. I hated how the elves looked in FFXI, but I don't think Square killed the race, I just didn't like their interpretation of it.

The runes tell you exactly what they do. Hover your mouse over them for a second or two. And if you hover the mouse cursor over the race rune, it will tell you what most of the bonuses to that race are. There are race specific classes, and powers. The classes are told to you before you even create the character, some of the powers and abilities you have to read about online or discover, and if that's a problem, it's yet another common aspect of video games. Hidden aspects that the player has to discover, or read about.

The minimap is large on the default screen, yes. Increase your resolution, problem solved. You can also increase the transparency on it if you want, and mouse over it when you want to look at it, another solution.

--------------------------

I'm sorry I wasted your time with this game. I love it. I think it does many things right with the genre. You don't like it. That's fine. It doesn't make the game bad, it just means you don't like it.

Of course, now that I think about it, this might have been a bad community to introduce to the game. I'm willing to ignore the horrific exterior and fight through the rock hard shell of an interface to get to the delicious fruits within. Try out Dwarf Fortress, really easy to Google. If you can't get passed the ASCII graphics and the difficult interface, than you'll simply miss out on the most ingenious rogue-like ever created.

[pinoyazn]

Rappelz is a pretty good game, free and it's probably the best mmorpg I ever played.

[Ginnas]

Wow fileplanet doesn't work with my firefox.

[dysphunktion]

For being a free MMO, props. It has some issues but coughplaneshiftcough they aren't all that bad.

[pinoyazn]

planetshift

That game looks amazing, do you know when its able to be played?

[kazuri]

So what time you guys on wrath play? I leveld up a theif too 22 but its kinda slow and nerve racking soloing. So far Ive been pk'd twice and keep dien trying to solo until I found this kodiac bear that spawns pretty fast and was giving about 20k exp.

[emoisgay]

and its for macs!:D

macs = total failure

[Dayve]

Just stick with WoW... You know it's never going to end. The next expansion is almost here, the world's going to be even bigger with more new features, everytime you think you're done with WoW just wait 2 months and then play for 5 minutes and that's it, you're hooked again. It's like crack, or some other insanely addictive drug.