Shadowbane Reboot

Shadowbane, the best MMO concept in the history of MMORPGS. Yeah, you heard me. Shadow FUCKING bane! Now, while this may pale in comparison to what the outside world has come to expect from mmos, SB at its purest was always the finest at it's core. No, i'm not talking about the PvP aspect of the game, but the immersiveness of it's world.

Lets face it, these days, MMOs are a dime a dozen. But, while the purists would want you to believe a fantasy mmo's sucess is based upon it's graphics, treadmill and quest number; the truth of the matter is that it is far from that. It is the immersiveness that truely defines a great mmo. This is why UO is still held, to this day, as the standard all mmo's a judged upon. To be fair however, UO's world was only big because of the lack of competition at the time, but that still doesn't detract from it's main selling point. It delved deep into your subconsious, creating a world you've never seen before and skills you've never touched. It was truely amazing to see the hand-held dice be replaced instead with buttons and characters that moved. Like Meridian 59, the world seemed limitless becuase you did not know what to expect and have not seen what had come before.

In leiu of this, Shadowbane was the next step. The world changed, as all great fantasy stories have done. It is not enough to put elves and trolls into a landscape, and hope one falls in love with the world, but one must capture one's mind.

Why is Shadowbane the greatest? Because of the human-player interactions that evolved out of a ruleset that, at it's heart, was limitless. Great kings were formed, holding rule over ENTIRE servers. (Server War) Rebellions formed within their own cadre of members, while factions fought to preserve what little they'd gained over the enormous empire. In other servers, greed populated some men's minds, creating towns who's sole purpose was money. (Money Tree) And still other servers seeded reigns of hope (KgB), desperatly trying to dicatate the rules of war against guilds who would have none of that.

This is the heart of why Shadowbane was the greatest, the fact that players were able to fall into the roles they've only dreamed of. While other games claimed, "You could be the hero", in Shadowbane you really could be. Hell, some guilds like Skyfang fell apart when their leader left for real life personal issues. THAT is a measure of power that other games could never acheive.

But, at the same time, this is also why Shadowbane failed. Faliure was too hard. Defeat was too big. In Shadowbane, if you said the wrong thing, to the wrong person, at the wrong time; (i.e. flaming on the fourms) you could find yourself at the end of a 100 character guild and blacklisted from any guild you tried to join. When you destroyed your enemies, your enemies were so decimated they tended to quit the game.

So, in retrospect, while Shadowbane was the greatest MMO, it was also a one time deal. It could have never survived at it's peak, even if it had fixed it's server-side and tower guard latency issues, it still would have died a premature death because of the toll inflicted on the losers.

Perhaps the Shadowbane Restart is a good thing, and while we may dream of a day when Darkfall becomes a reality, the truth is, whatever they do, it will be a shadow of what we experienced playing Shadowbane. Who know's how long it'll last this time? Is this a true reboot? No. Losses are still huge, and if a guild dominates the server, it's game over. But will that stop me from logging on? Probably not.

So, I guess, the time has come to log in once again, read up on those templates, and grease my axe.

I play to crush, let's hope that's enough for now.

10,000 B.C. and Fake Love

So one might chance upon this blog and say, "What does 10,000 B.C. the movie have to do with fantasy?" Well, my hapless friend, you are mistaken, because 10,000 B.C. IS fantasy. For one, it has no connection to reality. Two, it is hopelessly based on wish-fulfillment. And three, the hero saves the "princess" at the end.

For those of you that aren't aware, 10,000 B.C. is Ronald E's latest creation since movies like Id4, The Day after Tommorow and Stargate. I don't care what anyone says, ID4 was a very good movie. Not only did it have cool aliens, it also upheld that epic feel that's necessary for his type of movies. And, while some people may gawk at me saying this, the speech in the middle of the movie was great. I can't tell you how many times i would go over that, memorizing the words. (Yes, girls, I'm a geek) So what, may you ask, is the outcome of 10,000 B.C. ?

This movie was about 2 minutes away from being a good movie. HORRIBLE ENDING! I mean i know the american public won't readily accept a sad ending as, say the Asian market would, but COME ON! This may be a spoiler, but to kill off the female lead at the very end of the movie then bring her back to life FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN TO HAVE A KISS AT THE END is just plain crap.

Not only is 10,000 B.C. a corney wishfullfillment movie, it's a perfect representation of what's inherantly wrong with the fantasy genra. I mean what kind of 5 year old falls in love with the first chick he sees? I'm all for the, "we belong together" type storyline, but at least set it up. This movie has us believe that these two putzes are sooo destined to be together that they fall in love with each other for no other reason than they locked eyes when they were not even in puberty yet.

Sure, this worked during the infancy stages of speculative fiction but does it really still work? I mean come on. People aren't blown away by action comics number 1's storyline at first glance (unless they're comic fans) and they won't be amazed by such a lackluster storyline such as this. L.E. Modisett, Angus Wells, J.V. Jones and Mercedes Lackey are all victums of this type of storyline.

It's as if we dont even try anymore in these love stories. I may be blind, but trashy love novels should stay in their section. Is love so powerful if it's put on a platter then shoveled into our mouths in droves? Gahhh! 2 Minutes! That's all that it would of taken for it to be a decent fantasy flick.

From D&D to Fantasy Author

So a couple of months ago, I caught a podcast on the web, "The Secrets of Writing Podcast" which was a GREAT find for an aspiring speculative fiction writer like myself. He's a topselling NY Best Seller and he's a fantasy author, which are two things i can really admire in an author. While I really do care about the insight this man has for novice writers, I can't help but notice the trend when I did look into the man's history. Not unlike Ed Greenwood and R. A. Salvadore, Stackpole's inital thrust into the biz was through dungeons and dragons. He, no doubt, played it and eventually got around to designing it. From what i've read of his biography, it became a natural instinct to transfer his worlds onto paper. Thus I stumbled upon the aforementioned "trend". Fantasy authors whose only main thrust into the genra was through the table-top board game.

It got me to thinking. In a couple of years from now will there be a boost in the number of great fantasy authors out there? (besides me *blush*) The similarities are unmistable. D&D had heroic stories of saving the world and defeating the monsters. Diablo 2 had that. D&D had limitless worlds one could explores and live you could lose yourself in. MMORPGs have that. And while some may argue that it is not the same, graphic designers tell you otherwise. How many of us read through that World of Warcraft booklet? How many of us sifted through those game-inspired novelizations in the bookstore?

If you read through Stackpole's work, there's an undenyable feeling of the table-top board game. There's a quest, there's an exploration and there's confrontation. He's more of a plot-centric author, or so he says. His stories are based more on worlds than characters. (although he has great characterization) But does this really translate?


Unlike D&D, MMORPGs are not based on the imaginations of the player. Sure, games like Ultima Online were essentially D&D on the computer, but games have far surpassed that these days. These days, you can see the riffles of the leaves on the tree, every scale on that dragon and you can hear the foosteps of the incoming orge from the comfort of your own home. There's no dungeon master that's speaking in tongues, making the world alive, but RAM converting data into images. One could even say, epic fantasy is dead; that fantasy is left to Harry Potter and Eragon. The naysayers will tell you a plain and simple fact, that video games do not entice the player to interact with the world as much as D&D did.

I never did play the table-top game, despite numerous attempts to join a game. It felt too bland to me. And, in some ways, so does it feel to the reading public. There has to be a reason why G.R.R. Martain does so well or how authors tend to suceed more when writing outside the Forgotten Realms and so forth. Fantasy is still in its inception. Sure, LOTR's myths in itself, can define the genra, but even still ... there has to be more to it. The market is still there for great heroes with swords, of mages who cast spells and of monsters lurking in the darkness. I see it every time I logged (past tense HINT HINT) on World of Warcraft, I see it whenever I hear about the excitement around a new fantasy game and I feel it every time I discover that new author who breaks the boundries of what is and what is not fantasy.

I am not the D&D fantasy generation. I can only hope that I am the next.

-Longbow


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R.I.P Gary Gygax

July 27, 1938 - March 4, 2008

American Idol. What?

Ok, i'll admit that American Idol isn't the first thing you think about when you're trying to corral a blog about Fantasy, but hear me out here. I've always been compelled by the emotions that people have about songs that, to be frank, HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE BETTER! Not that i'm truely clueless, but really, what's the point?

Take, for example, the fine performance of Jason Castro. Albeit a fine performance, but not Jeff Buckley for sure. Although, to be fair, no one can top what Buckley did. My whole point about that is the pain invovled with the song. Now i'm not going to claim to be an pseudo-typical white kid with a guitar, but even i've seen that legendary vid of Johnny Cash doing nine-inch nail's hurt. If you've seen that vid (hint, it's on youtube, hint) you know what i'm talking about. It's not the fact that the guy's singing about pain that brings people to tears, it's the fact that the guy lived through the damn thing. It's his hard voice, that old man pouring his heart out. Hell, when i first heard the song, i didn't even know it was johnny cash (cause i heard it through the radio) but i thought it was a BRILLANT piece of music.

Tieing this in, (this is the fantasy part of the blog, keep up!) this reminds me of series like Robin Hobb's The Farseers and even George R. R. Martin's current series, The Game of Thrones. There's pain there, especially in Hobb's work. If you've ever read those books, starting with the assasin's quest, you know what i'm talking about. I kept reading the book in teh vain hope that something, just something, might save the poor main character from painful after painful experience, but, as i didn't know, that point would never come. That's the thing about pain, it's more interesting than happy-go-lucky storylines *cough* Anne M *cough*

Ok, I lied about that last part. By the time Robin Hobb got to the last book, it had become so depressing that the pain she inflicted on the last character wasn't as driven as the earlier books. Not to mention her next novels blew ass, being as interesting as water evaporating.

Yet, more and more, I come to think about the translation of the feeling you achieve from a musical medium, and its translation to the page, especially fantasy. I've been on a tangent recently, picking book after book of new writers hopping that i'll find the next George R.R. M. and get swept up in a tale that i'll look forward to. (At least until GRRM releases his next book)Gail Z. Martain, One of the new L.E. Modiesett books and even picked up one of the earlier R. Jordan books i've never heard, and still it feels like the same old stuff. Not only that, its predictable.

I can remember the last time i read a book and was genuinely surprised, and that was GRRM's books. You'd be reading along, entranced by GRRM's sweeping landscapes and orantly flawed characters, then get caught up in the fantasy of it all and then start to think that the hero will defeat the villan ... then BOOM GRRM would kill off the very character you were rooting for. Caught off guard the first time, I honestly said, "Well that can't happen again, well done Mr. Martain" Then BOOM the next three chapters are of all of main characters dying, until "literally" one is left.

Does it have to be that drastic? Still, i'd settle for more emotion and less wishfulfillment authors in the market. Damn J.K. Damn Harry Potter. And damn the lemming publishers.