Your soul will perish.
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:44 am
I've finished my review of Shadowbane, and it's current state.
Competitive player vs. player is lots of fun when your winning, and aggravating when your loosing and of both I did quite a bit. It was a place where petty vengeance was mandatory, and where your own allies steal from you or use you as bait. This lack of warmth, this cold dying place reminded me far too much of what real life is like. Our world of blue skies and gray concrete is stressful enough; why should I play in a realm where such pain and lackluster joys are common? It wasn't the lag and buggy game play where exploits were mandatory in order to succeed. What turned me off in the end was what it was doing to me, and the people who still clung to their virtual empires, their ashen dreams.
I had become quite effective. Mostly my prey of choice was a gold-farmer, especially high level mages. I'd reign death down upon my foes in a storm of daggers of magical steel, and chase their low-level PCs back to their towns to cower, slaughtering those who dared not run. Sure I died, many times, but I dealt far more misery than what was returned. It got to the point that when I'd go to arena environments to kill for the pure joy, and people would come out of the woodwork to get a piece of me. Within time, I'd found the dark seeds in my soul were nourished in this place, and my more hostile and predatory traits were starting to show. I'd started to grow colder, more tarnished than I already was. This was a dying place, and I didn't want to go down with it.
I left in time, and realized early what the place was. It was yet another place for fools to make war on each other. To fight needlessly for an unloving and un-living thing that does little but consume. Life is better spent in the sun.
Competitive player vs. player is lots of fun when your winning, and aggravating when your loosing and of both I did quite a bit. It was a place where petty vengeance was mandatory, and where your own allies steal from you or use you as bait. This lack of warmth, this cold dying place reminded me far too much of what real life is like. Our world of blue skies and gray concrete is stressful enough; why should I play in a realm where such pain and lackluster joys are common? It wasn't the lag and buggy game play where exploits were mandatory in order to succeed. What turned me off in the end was what it was doing to me, and the people who still clung to their virtual empires, their ashen dreams.
I had become quite effective. Mostly my prey of choice was a gold-farmer, especially high level mages. I'd reign death down upon my foes in a storm of daggers of magical steel, and chase their low-level PCs back to their towns to cower, slaughtering those who dared not run. Sure I died, many times, but I dealt far more misery than what was returned. It got to the point that when I'd go to arena environments to kill for the pure joy, and people would come out of the woodwork to get a piece of me. Within time, I'd found the dark seeds in my soul were nourished in this place, and my more hostile and predatory traits were starting to show. I'd started to grow colder, more tarnished than I already was. This was a dying place, and I didn't want to go down with it.
I left in time, and realized early what the place was. It was yet another place for fools to make war on each other. To fight needlessly for an unloving and un-living thing that does little but consume. Life is better spent in the sun.