Customer Reviews

Shadowbane Official Strategy Guide

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

There is usable information in this book, but be advised it is a mess of typos and inaccuaracies. The Worlockry skill required to gain the Danger Sense power is 23 (not 45 as listed in the guide). And that is just one example. Page after page there are typos, column shifts, and omissions. My guess is they didn't have an editor. Still worthwhile if you can sift through it, but I wish someone had cared enough to do a better job.

I bought the First Edition of this book not too long after I started playing Shadowbane, and back then it was a handy reference, even thought it had a lot of mistakes and omissions. I was pleased to see that they'd finally released an updated edition, but it is not even close to current. It doesn't have any mention of the Rise of Chaos expansion pack that has been out for quite some time, and is about to go even further out of date with the upcoming release of the "Throne of Oblivion" expansion pack.

To be honest, you'll find just as much information with at least the same level of timeliness and accuracy for free online. And if you are playing the game, and not sure how to develop a good character, don't be afraid to ask for advice from higher level players in your race/class/discipline.

It's been said that the worst kind of ignorance isn't not knowing things, it's knowing things that aren't so. In that context, the Shadowbane strat guide spreads ignorance. It is riddled with errors. Some are cut-and-paste errors, like spells with the wrong description or the trainers' spell lists that duplicate the Bard spells for the Channeler trainer. Others are factual errors, like the discipline runes, levels for spells, etc. While the numerous typos and editing errors (didn't these people have a proofreader?) are fairly obvious, the factual errors are stealthy but dangerous. You think you know something, but what you "know", what the official strategy guide told you, turns out to be dead wrong. Most of the useful material should have been in the manual. Nearly all of it is available on the Web. I bought it for the maps, but they turned out to be nearly worthless; there are player-made maps online that are enormously better.

The strategy guide is a case of the publisher trying to sell you the manual that should have come with the game for an additional twenty bucks. If it was accurate that might even be worth it, but as the mess it is, you'll find one of its flaws when you least expect it and the resulting "gotcha" can put a major damper on any fun you manage to wrest out of Shadowbane. Don't waste your money on this book.

There is usable information in this book, but be advised it is a mess of typos and inaccuaracies. The Warlockry skill required to gain the Danger Sense power is 23 (not 45 as listed in the guide). And that is just one example. Page after page there are typos, column shifts, and omissions. My guess is they didn't have an editor. Still worthwhile if you can sift through it, but I wish someone had cared enough to do a better job.

At first glance, the guide looks terrific. Then you start noticing all the incorrect information on the spell lists and disciplines.

*Class and race combinations are mostly wrong.
*Disciplines: who can use are mostly wrong.

The author's put "filler" information in the spell list were they did not have information for it. It looks like the editor didn't proof read that section at all. Luckily, all the spells are there. The rest of the book is just fine.

But my reason for a 1 star is that:
You make a mistake in what building you bought and it cost you a few hours and gold. Make a character, spend months leveling him and then find out that he can't use that discipline the book said you could and you're going to be REALLY upset. You'll have no choice but to start over.

Class/race/discipline combos and the spell information changed very little if at all from beta. There is no excuse for poor quality control in those MOST important sections.

Granted, this book has a few typos, but nothing extraordinary. Some of the information is obsoleted by changes made after the release of the game (including recent patches). Overall, the information in the book is still very valuable.

Each section has a few pages with a lot of background on the Shadowbane lore. There is a section in-depth detail on every race, class, profession and discipline. There are tables full of information on spells, powers, runes, discs, monsters. There are maps of regions and lists of trainers and their locations.

There is no way to publish a dead-tree version of a book and expect some or all of it to be obsoleted over the life of an MMORPG. Especially an MMORPG with a five year story arc planned. However, if you're spending the money on the game and the monthly subscription, the cost of the book is minute for the informative return you'll get.

This guide is as up to date and current as the authors could make it. Information was current as of release 1.0 and even additions for version 1.1 were put in. While there are some editing mistakes here and there, the book offers all the powers, spells, disciplines, city building information and more all packed into 369 pages! It's a bargain for all the information that is inside. Many prominent beta testers also put their two cents and new and original lore was also added in by the loremaster Sam "Meridian" Johnson. It's worth it for that alone!

Within 24 hours of purchasing this guide I had found no fewer than 3 major errors. In particular when listing what races and classes could obtain certain disciplines.

It severely lacks in details about the interactions between attributes and skills. (Such as how much Dexterity can affect your parry skill, and if dual wielding allows for dual parry.)

I have found all the information in this book on the web through searches, and was hoping for a solid reference to the games mechanics and operations as to help me build better and more viable characters. I got neither of these from this book.

When I first got ahold of this book it was an incredible resource for the Shadowbane game. The more I played, the more began to notice small errors in the book. These happen, and I was still satisfied.

As time went on, the errors were getting numerous and confusing - I began to highlight each error so I would remember what info is wrong.

It's been almost a year since I've had the book now, and every single page has at least one highlighter mark. A few pages are completely highlighted out as they are completely erroneous. The errors include:

-Blatant typos
-Copy/Paste errors (The book has a section that discribes spell attributes. You can tell that the writer used one spell as a template, as it appears almost six times in the list with different names.
-Statistical errors
-Credit errors (A portion of the book is a part where people submitted their character's template. One of them was wrongly credited [wrong name given] even though the accompanying picture has his name right on it!)

The worst part about the book is that in the past few months Shadowbane has gone through such a tremendous change that 90% of the book's correct information (Which applies to just over half of it's total information) is now unaplicable because it's been changed by the game developers.

The book was good, but the more I got used to the game the more I noticed the book was wrong. Now that the game has matured so much, the book is essentially useless.

Shadowbane has a rather steep learning curve, and pitifully few in game guides to push you in the right direction. I gave the game a shot at first for a week or so without the book and had rather a rough time of it.

Once I picked up the book though, it became kind of a guide to learning Shadowbane. Despite the heavy amount of typo's and out and out mistakes, it does make a good teaching tool if you're considering dumping your time and cash into the game. I found myself referencing it continually, even after I'd been playing 5 months for certain statistics. Once you learn how to spot the mistakes, it's not really bad.

I think some one else's review said it best in that this book should have been included with the game as the manual because life without it would have been very difficult.

I don't reccomend buying Shadowbane at all, but if you're going to, I reccomend picking this book up. As a little bonus, beyond listing the statistics, they continue the short story of Gareth for several more chapters, which actually made a good read. Not worth the 20 by itself, but still a nice bonus.

I gave this book 2 stars because the game itself isn't that good, the book has a way-beyond-acceptable amount of problems with it, and the writer/editor should have been fired. But having seen how the actual game is run, the book stands at about par with it for errors and problems.