For this discussion, the Half-Life mod Dystopia is worth mentioning. It actually has the simultaneous Matrix/Physical thing down - decking is an important role on the team, and you need it to capture objectives, flip turrets, and occasionally help out the meat team by opening locked doors and hatches for them.

See, I don't want to go the co-op route that Borderlands had for one very good reason:

I wanted to play that game with friends.

And I could not. One group of friends didn't have a job, so were playing the game ~8 hours a day (to my 2) and so I was never of the right level to play with them. The other group consisted of 5 people (you can see where this went).

This is I believe players should have multiple characters so they can play alone or they could play some characters with different people.

Yeah, I mean, I see people do this for SR Missions, make multiple characters so they can (eventually) have an appropriate karma character for any given table they might play at.



-k

"By multiple characters" do you mean it in the way Borderlands means it, in that I have two characters each of which is their own distance through the story, or do you mean having a group of them you play by yourself?

Because if you're going the Borderlands route, I'm still going to disagree with you, because I still wouldn't get the option to play with other people, which would be the whole point.

More in the 15 to 20 range. If you want to run in single player you could use 8. If you want to run with friends you could use 1,2, or 4 characters. If a mission goes poorly you could still play, while the other characters are recovering. Makes death hurt, but players don't sit around for their guys to come back. Also as shadowrun is skill based the trick to have a specialist who fills a void rather than one who is well rounded if in a large team. Small teams need diversity to handle everything, large teams don't need everyone to be diverse if all roles are covered by a specialist.

Alright, now we're getting into the realm of:

How do you play more than one character at a time?

Double post

See the original ghost recon on how they did it with 6 characters. There has to be some AI, but it is mostly stand and hold for characters not being actively played. Again I am thinking more along an FPS style rather than an isometric view.

Now you're introducing an AI factor into it.

Have you played any games recently with AI controlled Player Characters? Any? At all?

The AI is a retard. In all of them. Especially in environments where there are multiple different solutions.

I think the idea is that your friends make characters that they play with you, and have other characters they play when you're not available.




-k

And how, exactly, is that different than Borderlands?

I assume you never played the original ghost recon. You could jump from character to character effortlessly. You tended to put the rest on overwatch. You could set way points and generally get guys to where you needed. This was 10 years ago. Your skills and weapon narrowed the target reticle when you fired.

Of course multiple players are always better than trying to do everything yourself, but it is doable. I have played games that make it feasible. The problem is most games want graphics for the hardcore gamer with the best hardware rather than a graphically decent game with fantastic gameplay.

The problem I see with that is how runs can end up.

Even if you and one other person are splitting 4 characters, say a Gunbunny, Hacker, Generic Mage (Combat, Healing, some more support, etc), and.. uhh.. I dunno, a Face? What happens when you get into a firefight of some kind, or the Spider starts coming after you with less-than-pleasant security options? Someone has to play the Hacker to stop the Spider/override him, and if there's any magical defenses such as spirits it would be best for the other person to start playing the Mage. Then you have a gunbunny and a face on AI 'roids... and the AI of almost every game tends to be retarded, and that's being generous.

To create an AI that knows how to creatively find new and/or different ways to complete a run is not only time-consuming, but would just be one step closer to making a true AI. Which is hard.

I'm totally against any form of AI for player character teams. I've played Ghost Recon before, and I'll admit it's a handy feature, but I just don't see it as viable for a Shadowrun game, where potentially one minor screw-up is all it takes to wipe the team.

Exactly.

I also don't want to "play with friend when they're available" because they never are when I am, and even when they are, we're of different "power levels."

Then you have not addressed how players are supposed to play with few people or a lot of people. And you are right in some instances you will have to let the AI go on defense. That or you have very small groups. The point is to have people who want to play alone the ability to do so and those who want to play friends do to do so. As the missions can vary in difficulty and scope then you can determine your party.

You cannot control other people's availability. In any game. Ever.

They only thing you CAN control is your power levels in the game.

Now, aside from "having a set of characters you only play when you're together", there is another alternative - if the SR MMO has an auto-leveling function like City of Heroes.

In CoH, in a group you can choose to have everyone auto-level to match the current team leader. Lower level players don't get new powers, but their existing powers will get boosted in strength to be on par with the leader, and their stats (health, endurance, etc) are similarly increased. Higher level characters get pulled down to the stats they were when they were the level of the team leader.

After the team disbands, everyone goes back to their normal power levels.

Now, how to do this in a purely character skill-based game would take some extra thinking, but it should be doable.



-k

Interesting concept Karma, interesting but not sure if I'd like it, personally.

What would be the point for an SR MMO? I can understand that it would possibly allow for lower ''level'' characters to join up on higher ''level'' runs, but then, theoretically, a newly created character could go out and destroy corporate servers with more established runners, since his skills go up in level.. he would have ridiculous stats in, say Hacking, despite being newly created. It would be thoroughly abused, in my opinion, to just go from your high-level hacker, start a mage, team up with your old buddies, and watch ridiculous amounts of nuyen just flow right in.

The best thing about an MMO, in my opinion, is that there's almost always someone to play with. Even if your friends are offline, just hit up your local fixer for ''LFG (LFR?)'' runners and do a run before you go to bed or go to work in the morning. I used to play Planetside all the time (Best FPS evar, in my opinion of course), and even though it has only roughly half of the members it used to.. I have no problem finding a squad or anything, and if I don't feel like grouping up.. shit.. just go solo.



And it is perfectly possible to create scaling missions based on number of runners in the group. One of the MMOs already does this (I think it's either SWG, LOTRO, or WoW, can't remember). The same mission can be modified for a single-runner (barring things such as.. a mission requiring hacking, and you're just a tank/gunbunny), and then be scaled appropriately based on how many other runners are in your ''group''

Very true, but in an MMO setting it is trivial to find other people at the same "level" that you are. They might not be my friends, but they're available.

On the other hand, a game like Borderlands, has no match-making feature. You either play with your friends or you do not.

City of Heroes/Villains/Rogues is the only game I know that deals with this well. The sidekicking mechanism (which was tweaked a while ago) is now awesome. The person who owns the mission you are doing is the primary person. People above him get reduced to his level (but keep quite a lot of their powers and "equipment"). People below him get raised to one level less than him (and their powers and "equipment" are buffed).

Nett effect: as long as your characters are within say 20 levels of each other it just works.

So I've heard. But I haven't played City of Heroes (or City of Villains).

Well, your stats are only boosted for so long as you are with the higher level character. And you don't get ALL the benefits of the higher level - for example, in City of Heroes as you level you gain dozens of powers and abilities. But you start with only one or two. If you sidekick up with a high level character, your one or two powers are indeed boosted to high levels, but you still only have the one or two powers.

Also the rewards system gives you XP and loot based on your real level, not the boosted level.

And in most MMOs, you can have some existing player just GIVE you ridiculous amounts of money, so how is that different? Heck, if you want to, you can go to certain websites and just BUY game money - slot your credit card or PayPal, and in a couple hours you get a guy in the game handing you a fat stack of game currency.

The usual response to "twinking" these days is to level-lock the loot and equipment. So it doesn't matter if you have the gold to buy that +infinity Sword of Uber, it can only be equipped and used by Uber level characters.


-k

Huh, this topic really does keep popping up despite its lack of viability as a Massively Multiplayer Online. Its almost like the term 'MMO' is a bit of a meme, eh?

IMHO, Shadowrun would be just as cheapened if it was turned into a MMO - a WoW / EVE clone with a twist on a smaller budget - as when it was turned into a FPS - a Counter-Strike / Unreal Tournament clone with a twist.

It would really need its own unique solution and the closest things to what IMHO would be satisfactory was (the now classic) Deus Ex, Alpha Protocol, Neverwinter Nights 2: Platinum, Fallout 3: New Vegas, and Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City. All of those are single player games, only a few of them even have the option for multiple players and even then the MP is very much a different experience than one can find in the single player, as varied as all the possible mods to spring forth from the generosity of the talented PC gamer communities. Can't help but notice that for a number of the games that scratch the my SR PC game itch are done by Obsidian Entertainment - so, if there was any developer I would want to touch our fantasy Shadowrun PC Game it would Obsidian, Bioware second, and Rockstar pulling up third place.

But really, I haven't seen or been able to get a response from Smith & Tinker other than a vague dismissal years ago now and we all know the amount of good will Microsoft's go at the Shadowrun setting generated. Add on that PC gamer community start ups have been issued cease & desists and this notion is pretty much dead in the water - the 'water' being the middle of the Atlantic during a "perfect" storm.

Between lack of any movement on in the PC gaming sphere and the direction the print/pdf's have taken, I am rapidly losing interest in what future Shadowrun has other than what the online community fan fiction produces.

Oh well, to lift it up from that sad note and have life go on, I would like to say I found a Indie developed PC game that looks to come out this year that is about a expert team of specialists who form a team to pull off a bunch of runs in the shadows, only no magic or metahumanity. Close enough to what attracts me to Shadowrun for my interests:
http://www.pocketwatchgames.com/Monaco/

Peace.

Meme? MMO means what it says... Massively Multiplayer Online. It doesn't really apply to anything other than an MMO.. I don't quite understand what you mean by that.

As I see it, a Shadowrun MMO in concept is perfectly viable. All the programming stints and what have you exist to make one that would be, virtually a tabletop game with no centralized GM and some graphics. The only thing really not viable about an MMO SR is resources in development, how much money a company is willing to spend on making an idealized Shadowrun MMO that breaks the mould of the conventional MMO clone. On one hand, big companies like to produce things that make a lot of money... hence many ''WoW Clones'' generated off said company jumping on the bandwagon for some extra cash. In contrast, some smaller companies may actually prefer to be as true to the series and as innovative as possible, under the thought process that doing so will generate more money in than long run than simply cloning EQ or WoW.


When I played the SNES/Genesis versions of Shadowrun, I thought they were both great. Now, having books on the tabletop and having dabbled in a small game myself.. I can safely say that I would never like to see a single-player Shadowrun game again. Ever. Everytime I play the console games, I keep thinking to myself ''This would be so much more boss with multiplayer''. To me, it's like trying to play D&D with just myself and a DM. Yeah, I've done it before, and it can get kinda interesting sometimes, but I always prefer more players.

MMOs have tons of players.

A Shadowrun MMO?

EVE Online + Guild Wars/City of Heroes + Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

At the highest levels that governs what a player can do, you have the EVE Online style. Completely open sandbox, not requiring players to just be runners. They could be corp sec, they could be aspiring corp CEOs. Almost everything is possible while leaving certain corps untouched as per canon.

You bring in guild wars for jobs from the Johnson. Players can interact in the cities, but for the job it's instanced. Either within a canon corp's holdings or a player corp environment (all of which are randomly generated).

Bloodlines, has in my opinion done one of the better P&P -> PC Game conversions of the system and to top it off, VtM doesn't have too dissimilar of a mechanics system compared to Shadowrun 4th.