Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Shadowbane World Closure Due To Counterfeiting?

Posted by simoniker on from the all-out-to-get-me dept.

Thanks to Terra Nova for their posting discussing world deletions/consolidations in the PC MMORPG Shadowbane, analyzing rumors that the measures are "a fairly sophisticated attempt to clean the bad gold out of the economy." The piece informs: "The official reason [for closure] seems to be the fact that populations are too low", but it's pointed out that "...those being booted from SB's Scorn and Treachery servers are leaving with nothing but the clothes on their back: no bank items, no coins, no property", a drastic step which some say is down to the fact that "...much of the gold in [Shadowbane's] worlds is duped rather than earned." Is this a simple world consolidation, or desperate economy-balancing measures?

4 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Similarities by daeley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sounds similiar to the battle.net Diablo II life cycle where even the rarest of items became basically worthless due to duping. Kinda sad, in a virtual kind of way. Where's the fun in cheating like that? Sure, maybe it's thrilling for like a second or two, but then what?

    --
    I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
    1. Re:Similarities by Babbster · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Then what? Well, then you get to tell all your friends what you did and how you did it, taking perverse pleasure in the trouble it causes not only the players, but the companies themselves when they try to fix things.

      I'm sure that in Diablo 2, the first person who duped Stones of Jordan (uber rings for the uninitiated) on the Realm servers was quite pleased that people started using them as basic currency ([x] item equals [y] number of incredibly rare rings which suddenly aren't as rare anymore).

      In short, the cheating is a goal in and of itself. People who enjoy cheating in multiplayer environments (as opposed to people who enjoy finding and then reporting cheats without taking advantage of them) have little interest in the rest of the game, and thus don't care how it ruins the game for anyone else - except in the sense that they have a twisted notoriety in the community. Any attention is good attention.

  2. Part of the normal plan by Drakino · · Score: 3, Informative

    The SB developers were pretty clear at launch that they didn't intend to have 10 indentical worlds, but had to due to time constraints. They did plan on destroying many, and forcing people to move long before these cheats happened.

    I do have a feeling the rampant gold duping might be a reason those two are going first, but, gold duping is a problem on every server.

  3. I don't think they would lie about low population by @madeus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't think they would lie about having low population on the servers.

    I think the last thing they would want would to admit was that the user figures were falling - I'm sure they'd much rather admit to a number of bugs that need addressing. This is probably just a convienent time to help remove some of the duped money/items.

    It amazing though, so many of these titles have obviously been designed very badly indeed, or in some cases not at all - the developers have just sat down and started churning out code without any thought as to how to write it efficently and securely. I am still stunned by this, and I think impatiant unprofessional developers and poor managers are to blame. Some developers don't see why /they/ need to play anything, and they know that managers like 'results', and managers typically push for visible results right away.

    In my experience, you should sit down and discuss plan this sort of software for about 3-6 months before you even write any code (and after that have regular meetings to dicuss tweaks to the design that become apparent once you start putting the basic API's in place). To be effective, it should be a proper discussion, between the developers, with no domination by any one developer and no large egos involved (apart from by the 'lead developer', where firm decisions need to be made one way or another).

    I know it can seem wasteful to have people sitting around talking and making charts for 6 months, and it might not /look/ productive, but I've found it can pay dividends back in a year and a half, because you'll don't end up having to spend another year re-writing the game to fix all the bugs in the second year.

    I've found, with 6 months planning and a year of development you can achive the same as in 2 years worth of simple 'plunge in head first' development, because you don't have to waste lots of time bug fixing and traking down problems and re-writing significant bits of code.

    The only disadvantage with the planning stage is that it you are 6 months later to market, but I think having a product that is twice as 'mature' is much better in the long haul (and if your in it to build a stable product, which you should be - as even if you plan on a quick sale, you can't always count on one right away - then it just makes much more sense to be later to market in many instances, even if you have competitors hot on your heels, customers will soon get tired of them if they have a poor quality product).

    I'd be interested to hear other developers/project managers experiences...