GZInterview
7/12/02

Get ready to take on the political and city-building side of MMORPGs with Shadowbane
by Michael Lafferty

The world of Massively-Multiplayer Role-Playing Games is expanding by leaps and bounds. While most tend to propel players into a character class and set them loss to battle whatever monsters they find, collect as much loot as possible, while venturing out on any one of numerous pro-offered quests, few games have truly incorporated all of that with a persistent, every-changing political and civilization climate.

Ubi Soft is about to change that with Shadowbane. This game, which will be available to PC and Macintosh players, is set in a world in which players can literally change the landscape, lay siege to cities, or simply change the history and/or politics of the cyber realm. The game combines elements of role-playing with guilds and real-time strategy.

Other features include city management, army creation, economic development and a variety of tools (grief log, bounty hunters, no anonymity and player locator) will ease players experience with others in this dynamic world.

Throw in a variety of unique avatars, and you have the makings of a solid, unique online game.

Louis Lamarche, associate producer and MMO service manager for Shadowbane, took time to talk with GameZone about his product.

Question: Shadowbane is tossing its glove into the ring of MMORPGs, and with Asheron's Call 2, World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies, this could well be a stellar year for that aspect of gaming. What will set Shadowbane apart from the group?

Louis: “Well, Shadowbane will launch this year, while it’s doubtful that World of Warcraft, Galaxies and Asheron’s Call 2 will launch in 2002. So, we have the advantage of getting out to gamers’ hands first. Shadowbane is very unique to most MMOs currently on the market. The game has been built from the ground up with a player-versus-player, Guild-vs-Guild and Empire-vs-Empire gameplay focus. But that is not all. Shadowbane is an incredibly deep RPG with a strong RTS system that will take players into political, economical and military competition never before seen in the online world.

“Our players will not only be able to build and customize their characters to incredible levels – Shadowbane’s deep multi-classing system creates unique combinations of professions, classes, skill, and fighting styles – but they will also have the ability to build entire cities. City management is a key feature to Shadowbane, where players can train and manage their NPC merchants, trainers, guards and guard leaders. In addition, leaders can manage tariffs and taxations on commerce, and can directly control security forces.

“The game system not only promotes conflict, but for the first time will foster true political maneuvering between player communities.”

Q: Does this program bring any new technology to the genre?

Louis: “Shadowbane’s technology provides a fully dynamic world model where players have the ability to change the landscape of the world by building massive cities. Shadowbane’s Dynamic World Model is a FIRST for any MMO, and players can control the environments around them by physically affecting the terrain, buildings, politics, and history of the game. This means that cities and other structures created and run by players will become a permanent part of the world. Likewise destruction of structures will also change the world.

“Shadowbane will also be outputting real-time world information to its Web site which will provide players with ongoing updates on political changes and city ownership.”

Q:  What kind of characters will players be able to use as avatars and are the missions based on character type? Will there be any distinction, aside from appearance, between male and female characters?

Louis: “Players will be able to play one of seven character races which include Aelfborn, Human, Elf, Half-Giant, Dwarf, Irekei, and Shade. In addition there will be three ‘restricted races,’ which can be unlocked by the players. These unique races include the Aracoix, which is a half man, half bird race that can fly; a Minotaur, a race with tremendous strength; and a Centaur, a race with incredible stamina.

“Players will be able to further customize their characters with more than 20 promotion classes and up to three additional Disciplines from a list of dozens available, such as, Archery, Blademastery, etc. We call this multiclassing.

“At Shadowbane’s release, there will not be any distinction, other than appearance, between male or female characters.

“While Shadowbane does not have a computer run ‘mission system,’ there will be various tasks and missions assigned by our live ‘feature characters’ in addition to missions given out by player-run guilds.

Q: Developers of upcoming games within the genre were talking about using a higher bandwidth, which will enable players with older, slower modems to compete well without suffering destruction at their expense because of their connection speed. How is Shadowbane addressing that issue?

Louis: “Shadowbane uses less bandwidth then most MMO games on the market today. The game’s engine design makes this possible. Players with analog modems will not suffer at all.”

Q: What kind of honor system (as in PvP) is in place? What kind of combat system does the game use?

Louis: “Shadowbane has been designed primarily as a PvP game but this design also promotes player grouping for those who want to achieve specific goals - building or destroying a city for instance. At this point, one can easily imagine what comes next, combat at a player-vs-player level but also combat at a level we like to call, ‘city sieges.’ At this level, groups of players will collide in huge confrontations that will include huge siege engines all for one goal, destroying or defending player built and owned assets.

“In addition Shadowbane will make the PvP experience much better than other MMOs by providing a number of player accountability tools such as the ‘kill on site list,’ which will provide serious consequences and limit the grief playing found in other games.”

Q: The screenshots of this game look graphically intense. Is this game going to require a higher-end computer system?

Louis: “Actually, Shadowbane isn’t as much of a power monger as you may think. The minimum system requirements are well below the average PC game. A classic TNT2 card, a 500 Mhz processor and a minimum of 128 MB of RAM will get you going in the world of Shadowbane.”

Q: Demographically speaking, whom will this game appeal to?

Louis: “Shadowbane will appeal to all MMO players because it provides the traditional game play elements of ‘leveling up’ and acquiring new skills, traits and loot. However this traditional MMO game play is only a sub-set of the full Shadowbane game experience. For those current MMOs players who are looking for a gameplay experience beyond mere leveling, Shadowbane provides features such as city management and politics, which takes MMO gameplay beyond anything experienced before.

“We believe Shadowbane will also appeal to players who have not played an online role-playing game, especially real-time strategy gamers who enjoy epic-scale world building, strategy and conquest, and competition (e.g. Age of Empires fans). Shadowbane will also appeal to action gamers interested in experiencing a dynamic online game in a fantasy setting.

“The game offers up a true role-playing dynamic that promotes player involvement and interaction, while also promising dramatic and epic conflicts.”

Q: How are you addressing the potential for server overload and massive lag?

Louis: “Since a MMO’s launch is the game’s make-or-break, we have taken many precautions to ensure Shadowbane has the necessary technical support at launch. Ubi.com is partnered with the largest and highest quality network providers to provide a seamless experience that will minimize lag. We have built a network infrastructure which will be able to handle the server loads of Shadowbane.”

Q: When will Shadowbane release and what will it cost to play?

Louis: “Shadowbane will hit the shelves this year. The subscription cost has not yet been announced, but will remain competitive to similar online titles currently on the market.”

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