Game, The: Vision of Shadowbane

Shadowbane, the vision of

Original: (no, this isn't a post about the Beta... sorry)

First, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm one of the refugees you got when EA.com (may their grandchildren be cursed unto the tenth generation!) suddenly decided that they didn't want our business anymore, and canceled their project, Ultima Worlds Online: Origin (UO2 to most people).

Needless to say, I've been busy trying to bring myself up to date on Shadowbane, and I was pleased to see that there's a lot more info out there than I was aware of, having only read the official, Stratics, and XRgaming FAQs.

Before the death of UO2, my knowlege of Shadowbane can be summed up in this way: a dynamic player-driven political system and the infamous "We don't play games to break bread, we play to CRUSH!" statement. The first is always a plus in my book, the second, as well as other comments, I interpreted to mean that it would lack a player-driven economic system, which is a major minus in my book.
But more about that later...

Anyhow, there are four elements that I consider essential to an MMpRPG, elements that greatly enhance gameplay once you get past the "newbie" stage of game playing (i.e. enjoying the "kill monster, loot monster, rinse, repeat" cycle common to most games):

Fiction, a player-driven Political System, a player-driven Justice System, and a player-driven Economic System.

The more of these elements a game includes, the greater the feel that you're within a world, as opposed to merely playing a game. Here's how Shadowbane stacks up:

Fiction
More than anything else, the Fiction of a game helps define its character, and gives players (assuming they bother reading it) a foundation upon which to build their characters. Without Fiction, players' imaginations will shoot in all directions, creating chaos (which type of fantasy "elf" is valid? Tolkien's Elves? standard D&D Elves? Forgotten Realm Elves? mythological Elves?).

With a well defined Fiction, some players will still shoot off in all directions, but it will at least give direction to others, and give "purists" an reason to ignore, or alter, other people's "roleplay" ("That fellow over there claims to be something called a 'Klingon.'" "I know that chap. He's a total loon, but relatively harmless if you humor him.") Many games spend at least some time on the Fiction setting: i.e. the history and shape of the world. Most really need to go into it in greater depths.

Not only does Fiction define the setting ("what has gone on before"), but it also helps give direction for the future. This is where most games fall down IMO. Most developers get the idea that Fiction = plot. This should not be the case. Fiction should only guide, not drive, players actions. Fiction should say "Here is what has gone on before, and here's what's likely to happen in the future. Can you stop this from happening? Do you even want to?" rather than "Here's what's going to happen next. There isn't anything you can do about it."

Most developers get so wrapped up in creating their world, they forget that when it goes "live", that it ceases to be their world entirely, and also becomes the player's world.

Both should get a say in the future of the world, and IMO, the player's voice should be the louder one.

I was pleasantly surprised by both the quantity and quality of the setting Fiction. It’s a testament to your Fiction that an idea for a character has already popped into my head. The more information there is about the world and it's people, the easier it is to imagine what that world (and it's inhabitants) may be like. I'm also glad to see that the races aren't "D&D clones".
Names and faces may be familiar, but the cultures aren't. Which is a good thing, since most traditional D&D races wouldn't fit the "tone" of the world well.

Another plus in my book is that rather than staging "events" like most games currently on the market and in development, you'll instead be using "Feature Characters" who'll interact with the world just like players, and basically to stir up trouble. If you decide there should be a war between Humans and Elves, you've got to convince the players that such a War is desirable, rather than spawning hundreds of Humans (or elves) in Elven (or Human) cities and say "Look, there's a war going on!" Instead, Feature Characters will interact with primarily Human or Elven towns, make speeches, recruit warriors, and (with any luck), go to War. Or they could be driven out of town for being racist bastards, which could then spark a civil war ("That city won't help us defend our homeland! First we deal with them, then we'll deal with the Humans!")

Sounds like a lot more fun to me than some fiction team thinking "OK, we'll put in a spawn inside the city for two weeks, gradually increasing the spawn rate. Then the Elves will win and the city will become Elven. Huh? What if the players win? Well... they won’t.
Because. Just because. Because that’s the way I want it, dammit!" Why participate in something if the outcome can't be changed?

My first burning question, though, is what will the monthly fee for Shadowbane be, considering that you must pay the people that will be running your Feature Characters? The current crop can't even maintain a good customer service staff at the current $10 a month, let alone pay people to play NPCs in the game.

Player-Driven Economic System This was an area where my pre-conceptions turned out to be wrong, for which I am thankful. I had believed that the only economy in the game would be the trading of magic items. Fortunately, the economy of Shadowbane seems to be a bit more advanced than that. From the discipline fiction I've read, there appears to be armor and weapon smithing, bowyering, alchemy, and the creation of magic items. Key word being appears. Such "role-playing" skills such as carpentry (what, the ability to build fortresses and seige equipment wouldn't be useful in the game?), baking, and other "non-combat" skills aren't a part of the game, unfortunately.

Another thing that isn't in the game is resource gathering, much to my disappointment. Not only because, for some crazy reason, I actually enjoy that kind of thing and would actually be willing to play such a character in Shadowbane, but also because it would add a whole other variable to Warfare in the game.

Historically, wars have been fought for three reasons: resources, capitol (such as cities), and ideology.

You really can't force people to fight for the third. While role-players will look at the fiction and say "Hmm... the Elves are at the top of the Temple of the Cleansing Flame's 'hate list'. Therefore, as a Templar of the Cleansing Flame, I should hate elves," most players (IMHO of course) aren't good role-players, and will ignore this fact if it doesn't suit them.

The second is already in the game. With the limited number of Trees of Life, and the with the apparent advantages of owning one (especially a well-managed one), there will be wars over controlling them.

The first, however, is a bit lacking in the game. Right now, the only resource I percieve in the game would be spawning grounds: places to get loot and XP. While definately useful, a guild really successful at PvP needs neither, since PvP combat gives them both.

The inclusion of more resources (at a minimum, wood, stone (for building fortifications), and iron) would not only add a strategic level to inter-guild conflict (guilds would not only have to protect their Tree of Life, but valuable resource areas as well) as well as to sieges (the besieged guild would need stores, the besieging guild would need to protect their supply lines).

For a game like Shadowbane, which emphasizes inter-guild warfare, gathering resources shouldn't be a requirement. It would, however, attract more people who would like to play the game, but prefer to contribute to a guild in ways other than PvP combat. And it would be an added benefit for guilds to attract less aggressive players. Remember, with UO2 out of the picture, there's tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of ex- and dissatisfied- UO players out there waiting for the "next big thing", and Shadowbane appears to be one of the better ones out there.

Player-Driven Justice SystemThis is another feature that I consider essential to an MMpRPG.
I dislike the "all or nothing" approach to PvP combat that most games take. I fall somewhere between the two extremes. I pretty much consider PvP combat a tool for character expression, just as much as killing monsters, skills, stats, clothing, equipment, and conversation. I find constant PvP combat frustrating, because there are other aspects of the game that I'd like to explore as well. On the flip side, I find no PvP combat boring. Once I've learned the game, and gotten the feel of monster AI to the point that I could probably read a magazine while killing groups of monsters more powerful than I was (I actually did this in The Realm, while waiting for UO to go gold and shake the initial bugs out), there isn't much left. Adding the threat of PKs makes what would otherwise be a chore into an adventure, and a test of my skills against theirs.

So far, the only Justice System I can sense in Shadowbane is the fact that problem characters can be exiled from their home city, and barred from other cities. Given the fact that cities provide a place to spawn after death, places to buy equipment and supplies, and training for characters, this would put the character at a disadvantage. The chances are good that problem characters will gravitate to a few "outlaw" cities, putting all the bad eggs in one basket, so to speak.

Since cities can be destroyed, outlaw cities that make nuisances of themselves could be placed under siege and destroyed by an alliance of their victims, and thus forced to find a new home.

Some questions remain, however:
-Will there be some kind of tracking system, so that guilt can be proven, as opposed to "my word against his"? The problem with "word of mouth" is that accusation often becomes guilt, even if the accused is actually innocent.
-Will there be some form of flagging of "enemies of the state", so that known criminals (andguilds you are at war with) can be seen immediately for what they are?

Player-Driven Political SystemThis has always been the feature that put Shadowbane at the #2 spot on my list (after UO2 of course). The other two of the “next generation” (Dark Ages of Camelot and Anarchy Online) offer little more than static factions. Want to form a “Preservation of the Native Ecology Of Rubi-Ka” faction (PNERORK officially, NERO for short)? Sorry, but you can only be Omni-Tek or the Rebels.

The ability to form cities and nations, to rule them, and to go to war, has always been at the top of my feature list, even if I probably won't actually participate in it. Without this ability, players can never be anything but peasants and grunts, forbidden by the game mechanics to be anything more.

From what I've seen, players running towns have the following abilities:
-The ability to exile characters from a town
-The ability to "ban" a character (i.e. set the guards to KOS)
-The ability to declare war on a guild (i.e. set the guards to KOS a member of a guild)

From the general impression I've got, owning a town will also give you some additional abilities (of course, I could be wrong on this):
-The ability to get taxes from the town
-The ability to choose what shops will be in the town
-The ability to choose what training halls will be in the town
-The ability to construct outposts to extend the "range" of the town guards

Hopefully, the following abilities will also be given to players running towns:
-The ability to set "tax levels" (i.e. what the prices are in NPC run shops)
-The ability to set the "laws" of a town (i.e. what actions will the guards react to)

Overall, I'm much more impressed by Shadowbane than I was two weeks ago. If I'd known then what I know know, I'dve put the game on par with UWO: Origin (aka UO2), as opposed to second, the infamous "play to crush" comment having done most of the damage. Some unanswered questions remain:
-Where do characters without a "home" respawn upon death. Do they default to a GM-run town? The nearest Tree of Life they aren't barred from? Respawn randomly nearby?
-Do characters need to train before getting any benefits of a new level?
Or you get some benefits right away, like improved Hit Points, and some benefits later, like a new or improved skill?
-Is the number of characters an account can create limited to each world (“server”), or for the whole game? Is there a limit on how many characters an account can have on a single world?
Given the fact that characters can move between worlds, I can see players moving characters made on other worlds to their home world, once the locations of the gates become common knowledge.

Anaera

Answer: Welcome aboard! We've been trying to get our vision for Shadowbane out for quite some time now, and it's good to see people picking it up and running with it. It's a great post, and believe me, we share many of your concerns and are hard at work cooking up answers to your questions.

Me, I'm here to write the fiction, and I couldn't agree with you more about how important it is to a game. There are many liberal hints as to what Aerynth's future holds (or might hold - beware, some of them are wrong!) mixed with accounts of the past. When Warden brought me into the project, our main goal was to create a world with its own flavor, to give prospective players an idea of what people in our world are like. I can only hope we've been successful.

It's gratifying to get such kudos from such a discriminating customer.

As for crushing, well... one of our other goals in creating our world was to set up a place where mindless savages who kill everything they see wouldn't necessarily be out of place. But, for those who want to roleplay, you'll find plenty of in-character reasons to crush your enemies as well.

Thanks again!

PS - Shadowbane IS coming!