The massively multiplayer scene is hot. And while the fantasy-oriented roleplaying game fans have had plenty of offerings to sate their hunger, fans of other genres have had to sit idly by, playing their games of choice online with just a few other players. Sure, there have been a few exceptions -- flight sims mostly -- but there hasn't been anything nearly as compelling for the RTS or action player as for the RPG player.

Shadowbane hopes to change all that while still keeping true to the fantasy RPG setting that so many of us are familiar with. On top of this RPG framework is an intriguing system of openly competitive player-run guilds and an interesting city-building model. The players will, through Guild alliances, begin to take an active role in shaping the world of Shadowbane. One of the primary avenues of player participation (at least on the grander scales) is the creation and maintenance of guild-owned cities. With this issue in mind, we contacted the development team behind Shadowbane to see what they could tell us about the concept and how it works in practice. They were more than glad to answer us as thoroughly as they could (the game's not done yet, of course) and readily agreed to supply us with the content we needed for our proposed 800-part feature covering nearly every aspect of Shadowbane in detail.