Shadowbane...

edited March 2003 in Gaming

Comments

  • edited December 1969
    Just wondering, is anyone else planning on playing Shadowbane come release? I just put in my preorder today... At first I thought I'd pass, but it really started getting its claws hooked into me right at the end of beta. I wasn't all that impressed with previous versions, but I think it's really come together a lot in just the past month or so.

    Any plans for which servers to play on or guild allegiances? I'm trying to decide where to focus my efforts, since I didn't get seriously tied in with any guilds.

    I'm probably going to reincarnate my dwarven fighter/crusader (Unrik Groat) that I had for the beta grand finale... I wound up having a lot of fun with him, even though I never was quite able to get him properly equipped. :)

    -Eye
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Shadowbane...

    well i know storm has preordered. but ill let him speak for himself anyhow:)

    yeah im like you eye, it hooked me at the end. i found a fun guild to join in Virakar Kurada'al (irekei only guild which i found while trying to escape the dwarf helm bug)
    and we are moving to the death server.
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Shadowbane...

    I could go for an irekei character as an alternate... I do still like the ol' Mage/Assassin template, which fits Irekei quite well. Or maybe I could do some manner of rogue... Hmm. Daggers really can do a helluva lot of damage.

    I should be getting my copy tomorrow, if shipping schedules are to be believed.
  • edited December 1969
    [b]Re: Shadowbane...[/b]

    [quote]
    Just wondering, is anyone else planning on playing Shadowbane
    come release? I just put in my preorder today... At first I
    thought I'd pass, but it really started getting its claws hooked
    into me right at the end of beta. I wasn't all that impressed
    with previous versions, but I think it's really come together a
    lot in just the past month or so.

    Any plans for which servers to play on or guild allegiances? I'm
    trying to decide where to focus my efforts, since I didn't get
    seriously tied in with any guilds.

    I'm probably going to reincarnate my dwarven fighter/crusader
    (Unrik Groat) that I had for the beta grand finale... I wound up
    having a lot of fun with him, even though I never was quite able
    to get him properly equipped. :)

    -Eye

    [/quote]
    I know that the MMPG's are going to be the way of things soon, with pay-per-month servers taking over and very few if any game servers being free...I'm just trying to get my brain around the math that they are using when they figure the prices for server time...Maybe I am figuring it wrong...But here goes...

    I started out just figuring the 1 year/30% off plan...Okay they want to charge $12.99/month for server time to play shadowbane.

    $12.99/month x 12mo. = $155.88/year.

    If you pay for it a year at a time, the they will only charge $119.99. They say this is a savings of 30%.

    Now 30% of $12.99 = $3.897/off (say $3.90) so that gives you your discounted rate of $9.09/month.

    $9.09 x 12 = $109.88 This is 30% off the yearly price...Hmmm...doesn't quite add up.

    They are charging $119.99...After running this through the trusty Casio HS-4D supercomputer, that works out to only 23.09% off of the yearll price of $155.88, or $2.99 off the per/month price of $12.99

    Now I thought,"Maybe my math skills are rusty." (it's been a while since high school)...So I refigured again...taking the total and subtracting 30% from that instead of the per month charge...

    $155.88/yr x .3 = $46.764 dollars/year off, which gives you $109.14, a difference of .74 cents from the $109.88 a year computed the other way, or 8.8 cents per month.

    $155.88/yr - $119.99/yr = $35.89/yr off... Whip out Ol' HAL, and that works out to 23.03% off the price...or .06% difference from the 23.09% stated above.

    Hmmm...23% versus 30%...that is 7% difference...7% of MY 30% off.

    Okay...Now I wanted to know the difference on the others...

    After much cyphering, 3 brain cramps and 27 calculators later...

    $64.99/6 mo. = 16.62% off the original monthly price of $12.99

    $34.99/3 mo. = 10.22% off the original price. (this is the only one that is actually CLOSE to the real stated discount of 10%)

    So I guess my question is...How can they get away with saying that they are offering a stated discount of a certain percentage, when in actuallity, they are nowhere NEAR close to the discount except for the 3 month plan?

    Is this legal?? I know that it is Their server, so they can set what ever price they want to. But if they are saying that they are offering a 30% discount, and it is in acutality not even close, isn't that considered false advertising? Is there a legal loophole that allows them to say they offer one discount but actually give you a smaller one?

    Yes I know, I am stirring up trouble...I think that it would be a most excellent game (along with Star Wars Galaxies when it comes out), but I am not made of money and if they are offering a 30% discount on a 1 year fee, they better damn well give you 30% off!

    Always Tossing the Rats Back into the Maze...

    McGyver



    [url=http://care.ubi.com/support/ubisoft.cfg/php.exe/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=5nhhP5Fg&p_lva=&p_faqid=285&p_created=1043193600&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTcwMSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPTMmcF9wcm9kX2x2bDE9MSZwX2NhdF9sdmwxPX]FAQ at the Shadowbane site[/url]
  • edited December 1969
    Doesn't really matter, because...

    ...ain't no game worth a monthly fee. ;-)

    I still remember when AOL started charging to play their games, before I met Myth. I quit that day, and never looked back. When a game like NWNs has free servers, many of which pump out new content on a weekly basis, it just seems nuts to me to pay that kind of price.

    Ramses II
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Doesn't really matter, because...
    ...ain't no game worth a monthly fee. ;-)

    I still remember when AOL started charging to play their games,
    before I met Myth. I quit that day, and never looked back. When
    a game like NWNs has free servers, many of which pump out new
    content on a weekly basis, it just seems nuts to me to pay that
    kind of price.
    There's a difference.

    NWN: a server hosts a handful of players, with not a lot of downloading. Server horsepower for player calculations and bandwidth for data downloads is minimal.

    Shadowbane: a server hosts thousands of players, who not only are continuously engaging in actions that require server-side math, but also have to download new data from the server every time they move around or objects enter their loaded area. This translates into massive server CPU and bandwidth usage.

    That usage, combined with continual staff costs, means they couldn't possibly afford to make it free. That's not to say that they won't be making a good-sized profit off of the monthly fees, but it's still very much necessary for them to charge something. If you want to play a game with thousands of other people simultaneously (and have a crack at whupping them all) it's going to cost you... plain and simple.

    I personally am willing to give Ubi/Wolfpack some of my money to use their servers, at least as long as I keep finding Shadowbane fun enough to justify the cost. I like the idea that maintaining long-term player interest is in their best interests financially.

    -Eye
  • edited December 1969
    I figured it out.

    Yeah, their math's bunk. But I can see where they got their numbers.

    155.88 / 119.99 = 1.299108

    119.99 * 1.30 = 155.98

    Some brainless marketing troll was in charge of coming up with the numbers, and couldn't figure out that just because $155.88 is about 30% more than $119.99 doesn't mean that $119.99 is 30% less than $155.88.

    I should heckle someone at Ubi about this.

    -Eye
  • edited December 1969
    Re: I figured it out.
    Yeah, their math's bunk. But I can see where they got their
    numbers.

    155.88 / 119.99 = 1.299108

    119.99 * 1.30 = 155.98

    Some brainless marketing troll was in charge of coming up with
    the numbers, and couldn't figure out that just because $155.88
    is about 30% more than $119.99 doesn't mean that $119.99 is 30%
    less than $155.88.

    I should heckle someone at Ubi about this.

    -Eye
    I was planning on posting my message on the forum page at shadowbane and see who bites...I want to see if they use the "Fuzzy Logic" method to explain the mathmatics, or the "Area 51" method of denying any knowledge of what I am talking about even though it is in Plain Sight.

    McGyver
  • edited December 1969
    MMORPGs are the devil [nt]


  • edited December 1969
    Yup.

    That they are... but they give me something to fill time with when my girlfriend is out of town or otherwise unavailable. She's the devil too, as far as time consumption goes, but I don't complain much about either one. :)

    Suddenly I'm thinking that I shouldn't have even attempted to make that mental parallel. Ow.

    -Eye
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Yup.
    Suddenly I'm thinking that I shouldn't have even attempted to
    make that mental parallel. Ow.
    But you still posted it!

    Spit



    ispiton.jpg
  • edited December 1969
    but they're so much fuuuuuun!!!!! [nt]


  • edited December 1969
    Just call me Mr. Inscrutable. [nt]


  • edited December 1969
    Re: Yup.
    But you still posted it!

    Spit
    And on a public board where someone really evil could show it to her without betraying any confidences...
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Yup.
    And on a public board where someone really evil could show it to
    her without betraying any confidences...
    Egad! Don't do it!

    Uh, wait... I didn't say anything incriminating. Phew. My dark secret is still safe.
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Yup.

    Comparing your girlfriend as an equal time waster to a MMORPG and you are not a little shaken, gee she must be a mellow type :)

  • edited December 1969
    Re: Yup.
    Comparing your girlfriend as an equal time waster to a MMORPG
    and you are not a little shaken, gee she must be a mellow type
    :)
    Ouch. Your words, not mine, bub.

    No, if I actually were to say something like that, I'm sure she would take offense. That's just cold.
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Shadowbane...
    Just wondering, is anyone else planning on playing Shadowbane
    come release? I just put in my preorder today.
    Heh, they accepted me to the beat test, I tried to play it for two nights, and then immediately yanked my pre-order. If that's a finished game then I'm Jack Pustule, King of the Boils.

    Another MMONRPG ttragedy averted.
  • edited December 1969
    Re: Shadowbane...

    Yep. I'm in. Having a blast, too. Found a really good group of people that Ven and me hang with. Buncha good folks, they don't mind my sense of humor (and they've heard all my worst puns, too) and good players overall.

    Stormtalon
  • edited December 1969
    I'm playing it
    Yep. I'm in. Having a blast, too. Found a really good group of
    people that Ven and me hang with. Buncha good folks, they don't
    mind my sense of humor (and they've heard all my worst puns,
    too) and good players overall.

    Stormtalon
    Hey Storm,

    I'd love to get in with you & Ven and some good people. I'm totally new to this in general, but have been playing pretty steady since my retail. I'm a level 30 dwarf warrior tank and the War server, pledged to Kings Cross. I'd love to get involved with a Guild thingy, and learn more about that.

    Let me know, and I hope to see more plaid in Shadowbane.

    --Black Cat
  • edited December 1969
    does anyone have....????

    hey i was wondering if anyone would let me share there username or if they dont use it yet cuz it bullshit to pay for this crap?
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