Shadowbane Gold

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We can't this one slide by without some kind of post can we? Ubi Soft sends word that the long long long awaited Shadowbane has gone gold and should be launching March 25th. My time in the beta was spent lagging around and CLICKING ON THE GROUND to move my avatar so as you can imagine, I wasn't very impressed. Maybe it's time I load that sucker back up and see if anything has changed!

For now, you can read more for the full PR spin.

Shadowbane Goes Gold
The Age of Strife Begins March 25

San Francisco - March 5, 2003 - Ubi Soft Entertainment, one of the top ten video game publishers in the world, announced today that Shadowbane, the ground breaking massively-multiplayer online (MMO) game for both PC and Macintosh, has gone gold. Shadowbane has been designed and developed by Wolfpack Studios, based in Austin, Texas, and will be hosted and operated by ubi.com. Shadowbane makes its triumphant journey to retail shelves on March 25.

Shadowbane has been meticulously developed over the last four years - cultivating a worldwide fan base of several hundred thousand - in an effort to create what Computer Gaming World has called "The Next Great Online RPG." IGN.com has rated Shadowbane as one of their most anticipated MMOs of 2003, while Wired magazine says "Shadowbane redefines the massively multiplayer online role-playing genre."

Set in a dark fantasy world burning with strife and unrest, Shadowbane takes the MMO genre to new heights of possibility by offering gamers an unparalleled challenge. It combines immersive role-playing with deep strategic elements such as city management, army creation, siege warfare and economic development. Shadowbane is also the first MMO to offer a Dynamic World Model, in which players' actions and decisions permanently change the history, politics and landscape of the game.

Limited edition pre-order boxes are available at select retailers which will provide customers with exclusive early access to three select races: Minotaur, Aracoix, and Centaur.

More information about Shadowbane can be found on Shadowbane.com and on the official community site, The Chronicle of Strife: chronicle.ubi.com.

Shadowbane Features:

  • Assume the role of a common citizen or become a hero. Raise and lead armies against rival and opposing empires. Become an accomplished diplomat or negotiator and lend your support to compelling struggles or causes. Recruit and train a tough crew of mercenaries and sell your skills to the richest kingdom. All of these choices evolve this epic game that combines true RPG elements with large scale RTS.

  • Follow an incredible story arc covering more than five thousand years of recorded history abound with legends, epics, and tragedies. Players can alter the story with their every action.

  • Interact with the Gods, Archons, and Heroes from legend, played by hired actors from Wolfpack Studios, who manipulate and interact within the existing framework of player established communities.

  • True social and political maneuvering through a guild system which features probationary member voting, a ranking system and assassinations for political intrigue.

  • Seek revenge on enemies with a "Justice System" that enables players to identify and track opposing players, criminals, spies and guilds.

  • Hundreds of combinations of playable characters including 10 races, over 20 character classes and dozens of multi-classing disciplines which you can train and specialize in.

  • Revolutionary movie capture technology allows players to record historical events and battles in Shadowbane to share with other players.

  • Real time in-game reporting system communicates vital statistics and game progress instantaneously to shadowbane.com and officially certified fan sites.

  • Fully customizable and easy to use interface.

    Minimum PC system requirements:
    Pentium® III Processor 700 MHz. or higher
    128 MB RAM
    1 GB free hard drive space
    Microsoft® Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
    CD-ROM drive
    56 kbps modem + Internet connection
    32 MB TNT2 (or better) OpenGL-compliant graphics accelerator
    DirectX® 8.1 or higher

    Minimum Mac system requirements:
    G3 350 MHz. or higher
    128 MB RAM
    1 GB free hard drive space
    OS X version 10.2
    CD-ROM drive
    56 kbps modem + Internet connection
    ATI Rage 128 32 MB
  • Comments

    It hasn't changed much. The server they just put up was very lag free (200 people on it last night), but you still have to contend with jerky data loads and low frame rates. The movement system didn't really bother me. I just play lit like a slow placed diablo, the mine map works pretty well for longer travel. One thing I think they have done pretty well is how group formations work, for travel that can be a god send. Over all though it's still a buggy POS that is utterly dated.